RICHARD BAKER
Club: Tower Club, Dallas.
Occupation: CEO, Premium Knowledge Group. CEO, Luxury Marketing Council, Dallas-Fort Worth.
Residence: Dallas.
Web sites: www.lmcdfw.com; www.premiumknowledge.net

What was your first job?
After college and the Navy, I was a writer at the Bloom Agency in Dallas. I worked on several accounts, including Zales.

What was your biggest career breakthrough?
After establishing my own management consulting firm, I signed General Motors as a client. They were my biggest client for almost a decade. My firm worked with Cadillac, Pontiac, and most of the divisions that made components for GM cars.

Who had (or has) the most influence over your career decisions?
My first real mentor was David Berlew, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a partner in my first consulting efforts. Dave helped me see the important connection between personal motivation and career choice. The only way to be truly successful is to love what you do.

What are your current career goals?
I am passionately committed to making both the Luxury Marketing Council DFW and Premium Knowledge Group successful. My current, and perhaps last, career goal is these two businesses.

What’s the best piece of business or investment advice you have ever received and who was it from?
"Invest in yourself" from Dave Berlew.

What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?
There have been two and they are related. One was selling my management consulting firm to J.D. Power and Associates. The second has been the subsequent starting of Premium Knowledge Group.

Did the risks pay off?
The risk is, as they say, a work in process. It is paying out, but in ways that are surprising.

You’re involved in luxury marketing. Are the rich really different?
Our research at Premium Knowledge Group shows that the rich are just like you and me except, as Hemingway said, "they have more money." Rich people choose different lifestyles from each other, just as the rest of the population does. For example, two of the richest people in this country, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, live two totally different lifestyles. One has a new 40,000-square-foot house. The other has lived in the same modest ranch home for decades.

Please elaborate.
The rich have both the time and means to educate themselves about opportunities and then experience them, if they so choose. What is interesting is that the differences in underlying values — we call them "personal drivers" — lead them in different directions and to different brands, experiences, etc.

How is marketing luxury brands a challenge?
There are several challenges. First is the challenge of recognizing the truly affluent are different from each other — for example, the different lifestyles. A marketer must define which lifestyle or lifestyles they are marketing to. Second, in most cases the people marketing luxury brands are not as well-heeled — an interesting phrase — as the people to whom they are marketing. They probably have not experienced the same things. So they must develop relationships with clients based on shared sensibility. The challenge is identifying, hiring, training, and retaining such people.

What are the keys to success in the luxury market?
The product or service must be superior in meaningful ways. It must be properly positioned, promoted, and made available. The combination of these elements differentiates a luxury brand from an ordinary brand. Managing the brand is the overall key to success.

What is the role of the Luxury Marketing Council?
To bring together the best minds in marketing to the truly affluent and create new opportunities for them to work together providing the best to the people with the means to enjoy the best. At the current time, we are working with several members to increase the visibility of Dallas-Fort Worth as a luxury destination. This will create more business for all members.

Where do you see the group in five years?
The Luxury Marketing Council is completing its first year in Dallas-Fort Worth. We have more than 30 members, including major arts organizations and sophisticated luxury providers of various sizes. We would like membership to reach 100 qualified members.

Briefly explain your concept of "co-opetition."
Merchants of luxury often share the same customers. Providers have more to gain from collaborating to serve their common customers than they do from thinking they are competing.

What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out in business?
Invest in yourself.

Where do you source most of your investment information/research?
Forbes and Forbes.com are clients. I recommend these sources for provocative insights.

How do you relieve the stress of business?
My wife and I find our home a wonderfully relaxing place. On the inside, we have collected artwork we love to appreciate and, on the outside — on our pond — we have ducks we love to feed.

What’s your favorite city for business travel, other than your hometown?
In the United States, I love New York.

What book are you currently reading, for business and/or pleasure?
Understanding Cultural Differences: Germans, French, and Americans by Edward Hall and Mildred Hall. I have been reading many books on culture recently as part of our work to understand the role of luxury in culture.

What’s the best business book you’ve ever read?
The books I find most useful are biographies, not autobiographies, of entrepreneurs. The good ones tend to be long on facts and short on hype. Here is an example: For many years the automotive division of Bosch (Robert Bosch, GmbH) was a client. The division’s revenues are in excess of $15 billion a year worldwide. I found it fascinating to read the biography of Robert Bosch and see how such a great organization could start from one person’s vision and principles approximately 100 years ago. It is very useful to see how successful businesses adapt to circumstances yet stay aligned in their core values.

You deal with luxury — do you have an ultimate dream "toy"?
I travel a lot. A private jet is the ultimate "toy-tool." Short of that, I act like John Madden and travel in my motor home when possible.