There’s a woman in San Francisco who charges $30,000 to name your baby.

You read that right.

Not to raise your baby. Not to educate your baby.
To name your baby.

She started at $100. Then one day, someone told her, “You’re going to dinners with venture capitalists. You should charge more.”
So she did.
And nobody blinked.

Today, she’s a mini celebrity. The Wall Street Journal wrote about her. Her website talks about “genealogical consulting” and “brand strategy for your child.”
Clients are mostly from Silicon Valley, where money flows faster than reason.

And as Shaan Puri humorously wrote, “San Francisco is a cool place because the billionaires dress like they are homeless, and the rich geniuses spend money like idiots.”

It’s easy to laugh at this.
But there’s a powerful lesson here for every financial professional and advisor.

Most financial professionals spend their lives saying, “I work with everyone.”

Everyone who earns. Everyone who saves. Everyone who invests.

And in doing that, they become no one’s first choice.

The woman naming babies for $30,000 didn’t try to serve everyone.
She found a strange, specific, emotionally charged niche, parents who want to feel their baby’s name has legacy, meaning, and status.

She didn’t sell a name.
She sold identity and significance.

That’s what every great brand does. It doesn’t sell a thing. It sells a story.

Now think about financial professionals.
You say you help people invest. So do a million others.
You say you help with insurance or planning. So do thousands.
You say you help them retire rich. So do all your competitors.

But what if you said:
“I help doctors retire without losing their identity.”
“I help business owners build a wealth engine beyond their business.”
“I help families pass wisdom before they pass wealth.”
“I help women professionals design their financial independence.”

That’s when people start listening.
Because now, you’re not generic.
You’re not another Taylor Humphrey of finance.
You’re someone who understands them.

Let’s return to our $30,000 name consultant.

Did her skills change when she raised her price from $100 to $30,000?
Probably not.
What changed was her positioning.

People weren’t paying for her creativity.
They were paying for what that price signified: exclusivity, attention, depth, and status.

In our world, it’s the same.
Financial professionals often underprice themselves because they think clients are buying financial products.
They’re not.
They’re buying peace of mind.
They’re buying trust.
They’re buying competence and confidence.

And they pay more when they believe you see the world the way they do.

A $30,000 baby name is not about value. It’s about fit.
The right clients don’t want the cheapest. They want the one who “gets them.”

Here’s the irony.

The woman who names babies for a living is named Taylor Humphrey.

It doesn’t get more generic than that.
And yet, her business thrives because she understood the psychology of her clients.

Meanwhile, most financial professionals, despite deep expertise, remain invisible because they are generic.

They talk in numbers, not emotions.
They talk about returns, not relevance.
They sell products, not peace.

It’s not that people don’t want advice.
It’s that they don’t want generic advice.

The world doesn’t reward those who are “good at everything.”
It rewards those who are exceptional for someone.

Think about it.

People pay thousands for luxury handbags, not because of leather quality but because of identity.
They buy Teslas not because it’s a car, but because it’s a statement.
They pay $30,000 for a baby name because it makes them feel like their child’s life has a head start.

In each case, the product is a vessel.
The emotion is the engine.

That’s the business you’re in too, the business of emotion.

When you design a plan that helps a couple send their daughter to college without debt, that’s not finance.
That’s love, turned into numbers.

When you help a retiree structure income with confidence, that’s not a product.
That’s peace, translated into cash flow.

When you guide a family to plan for the future of a special-needs child, that’s not wealth management.
That’s meaning, wrapped in structure.

Money is the medium.
Emotion is the message.

The woman in San Francisco doesn’t have thousands of clients.
She has a handful.
But those few pay her more than others earn in a year.

Her business doesn’t scale horizontally. It scales vertically in value, not volume.

As financial professionals, that’s your game too.
You don’t need everyone.
You need the right ones, the ones who see value in what you do, who trust you to guide their lives, not just their money.

Stop chasing everyone.
Start serving someone deeply.

Design your entire client experience for that someone, their fears, their dreams, their emotional triggers.
Speak their language.
Solve their hidden pain points.
Be irreplaceable in their story.

Because the future belongs to the specialist, not the generalist.

From Naming Babies to Building Legacies

Here’s the real punchline.

The woman who names babies for $30,000 might be ridiculed by some.
But she understood something many professionals never will; value is not what you charge, it’s what they feel.

You can’t charge a premium by doing what everyone does.
You charge a premium by doing what few can, and fewer dare.

In a world obsessed with scale, courage is the real niche.
Courage to pick a lane.
Courage to say no.
Courage to stand for something specific.

If you want to charge more, stop being generic.
If you want to grow faster, stop chasing everyone.
If you want to be remembered, stop blending in.

You are not selling mutual funds or SIPs.
You are selling clarity in chaos.
You are selling peace amid noise.
You are selling trust when the world sells tricks.

And that’s priceless.