A few days ago my mailbox was graced with the postcard you see at the top of this post. In case the print is too small it’s essentially an offering for a free dinner at a local restaurant while the dinner’s hosts plan to offer a seminar on achieving more retirement income.
My initial reaction was to laugh at the card, and then my laughter changed to concern. How many individuals were sent this malarkey? Here are some of the “finer” bullet points from the list of discussion topics:
- Avoid the long delays and costs of probate
- Opportunities and solutions to help protect your assets for the future
- Avoid significant tax losses when passing on your assets
It became apparent that this free dinner seminar was nothing more than a sales pitch for a company to sell life insurance and annuities to unsuspecting individuals. A search on the Internet provided more detail on the company (whose name has been removed from the postcard) and it was apparent they are in the business of selling insurance products. The interesting thing was that I could find not one individual contact name or person for the company. This is scary.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Be cautious of companies that try to lure individuals in with the goodwill of a free meal only to try to catch you in their trap of high-commissioned, surrender charge-heavy products and promises of retirement security. Almost always, these types of bait and switch tactics are a sham – and you should avoid them.
If you can see the fine print at the bottom you’ll notice two striking phrases:
- NO AGENTS, BROKERS, OR DEALERS PERMITTED IN THIS SEMINAR!
- Nothing will be sold at this seminar. Topics covered may require the purchase of insurance products.
Why wouldn’t I be allowed in? And of course, no free lunch would be complete without a helping of the second phrase. In other words, “We’re hoping you’ll feel obligated to us for the free meal by buying insurance products which just makes sense based on our biased and subjective informational seminar.”
This postcard got added to our wall of shame.
Sterling Raskie, MSFS, CFP®, ChFC®
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Great article, Sterling! You make such good points – these seminars are so tempting for attendees. People think they will be able to go and withstand the sales pitch – and some can like the commenter named Dave above! – but it is really hard to say no when nice people buy you a delicious dinner. Certainly there are plenty of legitmate presenters like John above, but the high-pressure sales outfits make it hard for those who are really trying to educate and help people. Please continue to keep people aware!! Kathy
Thanks for your comments, Kathy!
We go these seminars, have dinner, then say “no thanks”. They invited us, we didn’t ask for the invitation so no guilt. I will say, however, that we have learned a few things there.
Nice post! Seminar selling is a part of business growth 101 for agents/advisers to tell a great story, get leads, and grow their business. In addition, what many attendees don’t understand (not that it would matter all that much) is that the insurance and investment companies will many times use marketing dollars to help the “independent” agent or adviser pay for the event. Buyer beware.
Interesting post and yes there is merit to many of the assumptions- “catch you in their trap of high-commissioned, surrender charge-heavy products and promises of retirement security” “sell life insurance and annuities to unsuspecting individuals” I have to preface the rest of my comment by stating that I agree with you in some regard – yet to assume that “dinner seminars” are simply a design to lure unsuspecting individuals to purchase products lends itself to believing that everyone who attends is completely ignorant. In a day an age of of wide spread media bashing to purveyors of products and scams abound of retirement dreams destroyed, the public is much more wary of sales tactics and pitches as you state. By this time you have probably concluded that I too do these events -However we do not design dinner plates on our postcards and we do use our name which has a long standing reputation. We are also joined with an attorney as well to cover all of the legal questions that at times besiege these individuals. Simply stated I look at these events -which make up a small percentage of our practice as a way to disseminate knowledge; products are never discussed yet our planning methodologies are. As planners we use these to reach the masses for meetings that cover comprehensive planning. I truly do respect your posts, nonetheless. I do think that generalities could misconstrue an opinion on a true practitioner. Look forward to future topics.
Couldn’t agree with you more. Sounds like you run a professional seminar. As you know, the post wasn’t against seminars in general. It was warning folks of what to be on the lookout for. Thanks for your comments!