Those retirement planning seminars with free dinner..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Geez, these guys have $5.8 billion under management with 50-120bps per year fees?

Even that 0.75% average fee that's north of $40 million a year in revenue with only 86 employees. Good job if you can get it but it's crazy to me that a firm with 86 employees total is servicing over 3,000 families.

The employees are either educated salesmen or admin. They outsource the thinking (i.e. models) to research firms to whom they pay a fee. The salesmen meet with clients, interview them, profile them, get them to agree to their profile and map them to one of their existing models. That's it. Beyond that, they focus on touch - making sure the customers don't get scared away when the market jumps around, see if they have additional funds to invest, etc. essentially making sure they have no reason to leave. For someone with limited or no expertise in this area or no time, this is not a bad thing.

No need to outsource the thinking (models) to research firms. They do not know anything that the market doesn't know. Too bad the ill informed have no idea what this means. You can explain it 10X over and they still believe in the BS of these firms.

Customers would never be scared of market movements if they were properly educated and were in appropriate portfolio. Two tasks that are lacking for many firms.

[Anonymous]

One of them had a guaranteed 20% annual return, the catch being you had to keep your funds with them for 10 years (or something like that). That seemed pretty good to me. I made an appointment with the presentation guy. Once I met him one on one, he seemed very much on the defensive. That seemed rather strange to me, so chose not to invest my inheritance with his company. Pretty sure it was FDIC guaranteed, or something like that, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered with the meeting. I've tried to get DH to go with me to these presentations, but he's not interested.

[Anonymous]

My parents went to a few of these in a different state. My parents were in it for the meal for sure but that being said, my dad was very interested in financial stuff and did keep an open mind though never made the jump. My parents weren't super high net worth. Maybe 1 million (this was 15 years ago).

I attended a cord blood banking free meal (at least 9 years ago) and it was lovely. No pressure. I didn't sign up but I saw many couples doing it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of them had a guaranteed 20% annual return, the catch being you had to keep your funds with them for 10 years (or something like that). That seemed pretty good to me. I made an appointment with the presentation guy. Once I met him one on one, he seemed very much on the defensive. That seemed rather strange to me, so chose not to invest my inheritance with his company. Pretty sure it was FDIC guaranteed, or something like that, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered with the meeting. I've tried to get DH to go with me to these presentations, but he's not interested.

Ha ha ha yeah right. Was the name of the company Madoff?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of them had a guaranteed 20% annual return, the catch being you had to keep your funds with them for 10 years (or something like that). That seemed pretty good to me. I made an appointment with the presentation guy. Once I met him one on one, he seemed very much on the defensive. That seemed rather strange to me, so chose not to invest my inheritance with his company. Pretty sure it was FDIC guaranteed, or something like that, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered with the meeting. I've tried to get DH to go with me to these presentations, but he's not interested.

If there's a FDIC guaranteed investment that returns 20% a year, this company would be managing trillions of dollars. If they actually said that, they lied.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of them had a guaranteed 20% annual return, the catch being you had to keep your funds with them for 10 years (or something like that). That seemed pretty good to me. I made an appointment with the presentation guy. Once I met him one on one, he seemed very much on the defensive. That seemed rather strange to me, so chose not to invest my inheritance with his company. Pretty sure it was FDIC guaranteed, or something like that, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered with the meeting. I've tried to get DH to go with me to these presentations, but he's not interested.

Ha ha ha yeah right. Was the name of the company Madoff?

Yes. It is insane that pp thinks this is somehow possible…

[Anonymous]

Guess we are "plate-lickers," because we've attended about half a dozen over the past few years, with no intention of signing up for their services.

[Anonymous]

We are high net worth and get these invitations all the time especially in the winter when we are in Florida. We are not newbies when it comes to financial or estate planning and I’m not a steak house person. I always hated lunch meetings because I never enjoyed the food while in a meeting. If the mailing had something that was really unique and caught my attention I might go but it’s mostly the same stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Guess we are "plate-lickers," because we've attended about half a dozen over the past few years, with no intention of signing up for their services.

Any memorable stories? best restaurant? worst?

I'd love to do these but nobody knows to invite me

[Anonymous]

We get those all the time and toss them. Although I have to admit we might consider it if it were at LAuberge Chez Francois. You couldn't pay me to go to Ruth Chris - I hate steakhouses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We get those all the time and toss them. Although I have to admit we might consider it if it were at LAuberge Chez Francois. You couldn't pay me to go to Ruth Chris - I hate steakhouses.

Why do you hate steakhouses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get these too but have never gone. For those who have, was it worth a nice dinner?

There is no free lunch comes to mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get these too but have never gone. For those who have, was it worth a nice dinner?

There is no free lunch comes to mind.

That's a very simplistic view. A typical dinner may set them back, what, $5K? $10K? Do that 3-4 times a year, that's $50K max. Even if they get 2 customers from each session (I bet they get more), they've more than made their money back. They also have every incentive to treat all the guests with respect in terms of privacy expectations, not nagging after the dinner, etc because each of them is a potential future customer. They could always cut you off if they think you are a freeloader but I don't think there's any other cost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get these too but have never gone. For those who have, was it worth a nice dinner?

There is no free lunch comes to mind.

That's a very simplistic view. A typical dinner may set them back, what, $5K? $10K? Do that 3-4 times a year, that's $50K max. Even if they get 2 customers from each session (I bet they get more), they've more than made their money back. They also have every incentive to treat all the guests with respect in terms of privacy expectations, not nagging after the dinner, etc because each of them is a potential future customer. They could always cut you off if they think you are a freeloader but I don't think there's any other cost.

Yeah the free lunch is paid by existing clients through the high fees. Also of course your time/attention. I wouldn't much enjoy sitting at a table with people I don't know and have no reasonable connection with. Nor would I enjoy being pitched on services I know a good amount about already, and have zero interest in buying. So that's a big cost for some people.

[Anonymous]

I absolutely hate having anyone try to sell me anything. No dinner is going to be enjoyable if that is part of it.

So it's a big "no thanks" for me.