Great Way To Waste Money!

I’m at that age where I’m getting invited to dinners from retirement planners. Good dinners, too, at places like Texas Land & Cattle, Pappadeaux’s, Jr’s Steak & Grill and more.  Wow FREE meals for me and my wife.

In fact last week I got 2 invitations on the same day; one was for dinner either today (May 12) or the 17th. The other was for May 17 or 19. Wow, we could have 2 free dinners next week. As I was looking at the invitations, I noticed that they were just like ones I had previously received, the only differences were the place and the date. Upon closer examination, I saw they were all produced by the same company out of Florida and they all used the same call-in phone number (just different RSVP code numbers).

I wonder if the people and companies who paid for the mailing, phone center and everything else knew that the company that they had contracted to promote their seminar was also promoting their competition’s seminar to the same group of people at the same time.

Shoot, if they were doing that to me I’d be hopping mad. It’s hard enough to get people to come to free dinner seminars as it is. You don’t need the marketing company you’re paying lots of money to also be working for your competition at the same time.

I think what the company is doing is unethical! They could restrict it to one client per area, but all they want is to make as much money as possible and damn the client.

I don’t know if the clients realize that the company they are using is also selling to their competition. But if they do and they are still using the company, then they get what they deserve: marketing pieces that look the same as everyone else’s with the same information (so why should I go to your seminar vs. someone else’s), which give them low turnout and high costs.

There are alternatives, but I guess the retirement planners are too lazy to find out what they are and like to waste money. Is your marketing/advertising consulate/coach/company also working for your nearby competition?

Until next week,