TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

24 Apr 2015 · 3 min

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2:52

TJ Walker and several interlocutors discuss the practice of asset-management firms hosting complimentary dinner presentations as marketing tools. The transcript recounts an anecdote about attending a free steak dinner where presenters were abstract and unengaging, yet the firm used incentives (appointment-date cards attached to large chocolate bars) to sign attendees for follow-up meetings. A firm in the story reportedly manages $2 billion; at a cited 1% fee that implies about $20 million in annual revenue, illustrating why such marketing—even if cheesy—can be lucrative.

Questions this video answers

$2 billion

1% per year

$20 million per year

Chapters

Do you have to bribe people to.
Listen to you speak?
Now, the other evening I was invited.
To one of these so called free.
Evening free dinners to hear a financial.
Presentation from an asset management company. These happen all over the country. There's nothing wrong with them. They are used as marketing tools for.
Getting leads for new clients.
And typically asset managers simply advertise in certain zip codes or they do direct mail to certain affluent zip codes and.
That'S how they get people in the seats. So I went to this with my.
Wife and had fairly low expectations, I have to tell you, but my expectations were met. The two financial presenters were as boring and as dry and as awful as you could be. And it started off with, I, I.
I, me, me, me, me.
I know a lot about this.
I know this. Everything was abstract.
Neither speaker ever once talked about helping.
An actual real client.
Now, I'm not asking them to divulge names, that's violating a confidence.
But even describing a type of client and how they help them meet their.
Financial needs or their estate planning needs.
And does this mean these speakers were worse than normal? No, they were probably better than most.
People who do this. But let's look at what happened.
They had to pay a lot of.
Money for advertising, direct mail to get.
Enough people to come to hear this presentation.
They had to pay a nice restaurant.
For a fancy steak dinner to sort.
Of bribe people to listen.
Then at the end, I saw something I'd never seen.
They had appointment dates on big cards attached to giant chocolate bars.
So they would give you a big.
Chocolate bar if you agree to sign.
Up for an appointment so they could.
Give you a more detailed sales pitch.
Which I thought was one of the.
Cheesiest things I've ever seen in my life.
But you know what?
It worked.
These sorts of presentations do work.
Now, this firm manages $2 billion. So with a standard 1% fee they.
Charge per year, they're generating $20 million.
And this is just for a dozen partners or so.
So that's a lot of money.
They're making serious money doing this.
But it still begs the question, if.
You'Re going to spend a lot of.
Money on advertising to get a crowd.
And a lot of money on food to bribe them to get them there.
Why not spend some money actually making.
Sure you have an interesting presentation, a memorable presentation.
For whatever reason, people don't.
Seem to think that's important.
But my question to you is, are.
You spending more money bribing people to listen to you than actually trying to create a speech that's interesting to listen to. If so, I think your priorities are backward.