Invitations to retirement planning meals

[Markola]

Hard not to jab your friend in the ribs when the presenter tells a real whopper. Maybe we need to turn it into a drinking game... with $50 tequila shots perhaps!

That's how I'd be. Like the guys in the pews:

 

[sengsational]

Wow, we've never heard a guest be rude to the presenter, although I have been known to politely ask a pointed question or two, when something really struck me as "off."

We go if it's a nice restaurant we might go. If so we and are polite and listen. But I have asked maybe one question formulated to clarify an undisclosed risk, or something like that. I did go see one guy after the meal. He is a fiduciary, who offered a full assessment of my current finances, beneficiaries, wills, and stuff (not a variable annuity one-trick pony). This gave me an excuse to put together a "snapshot" of all of that stuff in one place. I went in, shared the snapshot and learned a little bit, which lead to a few actions on my part, but of course didn't hire him since I'm a DIY guy.

The benefits, besides free food include having DW hear financial terms (she doesn't have one iota of interest if it's just me talking). On the way home, she actually asks questions about finances! She might say part of the deal sounded good, and I explain why it's not as rosy as they said. She gets it if she takes the time, but is just totally uninterested. But the presentation, at a minimum, trains DW not to trust guys like that. So if I go first, she's at least got her guard up.

 

[Fedup]

They used to send us invitations but lately I haven't seen one. The best restaurant I've seen so far is Ruth's Chris steak house, I mean expensive, but we don't really care for this restaurant, so we never go.


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[Amethyst]

Especially since they insist on saying Mass during your meal.

They used to send us invitations but lately I haven't seen one. The best restaurant I've seen so far is Ruth's Christ steak house, I mean expensive, but we don't really care for this restaurant, so we never go.


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[Bestwifeever]

Never gone to one of these but we do get invited at least once a week. Any meal that I have to share with strangers listening to a sales presentation for a product I know I will never buy would taste like sawdust to me no matter how expensive it is.

Although we are looking for a new car--I wonder why car dealers and others don't use this sales model. We could all sit in new cars in the showrooms and use the cupholders etc. while we eat car-friendly fastfood and listen to the schtick.

 

[Fedup]

Especially since they insist on saying Mass during your meal.

Haha, I fixed the extra t. Too early.


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[imoldernu]

I guess we're a little more laid back about seminars, here in central Illinois. One of our local financial advisers has a coffee club going on Tuesdays in our local mall. Averages about 40 attendees. Pretty smart, I'd say, as he doesn't counsel on investment in the meetings, but has a varied schedule of presenters from different businesses. He invites town leaders, businessmen, doctors, real estate assessors, insurance men, funeral homes, fitness guru's etc, etc...

We even had a Police Sergeant who gave a presentation on concealed weapons carry, and last week, the owner of an 80 acre greenhouse that employs 250 people.

Even though the clientele varies by week, I notice that most of the people who attend, are on excellent terms with the FA...

Like... catching more flies with honey?

 

[kcowan]

Although we are looking for a new car--I wonder why car dealers and others don't use this sales model.

I think it is reserved for selling products with no tangible benefit. IOW the hosts get all the benefits from success while the audience gets very little.

 

[ChrisC]

We go if it's a nice restaurant we might go. If so we and are polite and listen. But I have asked maybe one question formulated to clarify an undisclosed risk, or something like that. I did go see one guy after the meal. He is a fiduciary, who offered a full assessment of my current finances, beneficiaries, wills, and stuff (not a variable annuity one-trick pony). This gave me an excuse to put together a "snapshot" of all of that stuff in one place. I went in, shared the snapshot and learned a little bit, which lead to a few actions on my part, but of course didn't hire him since I'm a DIY guy.

The benefits, besides free food include having DW hear financial terms (she doesn't have one iota of interest if it's just me talking). On the way home, she actually asks questions about finances! She might say part of the deal sounded good, and I explain why it's not as rosy as they said. She gets it if she takes the time, but is just totally uninterested. But the presentation, at a minimum, trains DW not to trust guys like that. So if I go first, she's at least got her guard up.

I take the same approach, especially with taking the opportunity to educate my wife over some basic financial concepts, such as sequence of return risks, which many of these seminars cover. We just moved into our area so we've been to several of these seminars, and they provide us the opportunity to learn about our area from some of the other guests attending the seminars.

Rarely have we learned something new or enlightening about the financial information conveyed, though occasionally we have learned something new to apply to our plans.

We had our friends, a husband and wife couple, visit and stay a few days with us a few weeks ago and we had already scheduled going to one of these seminars during their visit. We invited our friends to attend and they declined as they didn't want to dine with us in this setting and they professed to know everything they need to know about their planning in retirement. My wife and I kinda laughed at their self-assessment because we knew they had made rather bonehead decisions on Social Security (probably costing them $xx,xxx), their legacy and tax management plans were hardly optimal in our opinion, and they were 100 percent in equities because "equities in the stock market always do better over the long run." They are financially set for retirement but are clueless over tax and legacy planning. It seems to us they had some financial blinders that impeded them from seeing things clearly. We didn't press them to attend the seminar with us at Ruth Chris, but we thought if they had attended one seminar about Social Security or estate planning they would have been less likely to make some of their past and current bonehead mistakes.

I happen to think there are many folks who could benefit from the general information conveyed in some of these seminars: there are many folks who don't know what they don't know. I like to take the opportunity to ensure I'm not missing anything either.

 

[fritz]

We've received more than a few dinner seminar invitations over the years from financial firms, but today in the mail we received a dinner seminar invitation from a medical group (a first for us). They are offering treatment of knee, shoulder, back, and nerve pain without surgery or medication (insurance and Medicare approved treatment options). Even throwing in a free medical consultation and 15 minute massage. Wonder if the financial folks will step up their game and start offering a free 15 minute massage with the dinner seminar (might improve turnout)

We live in a 55+ community. Over the years, our community has been sponsoring luncheon seminars from just about every financial firm out there (guess they pay us to schedule seminars and we use the money for the community). We do a lot of expos and fairs for various things for community funds (health, home improvement, etc), but sponsoring financial people for community funds worries me....