It’s never a free lunch
August 31st, 2006 by KenricA co-worker put his business card in one of those “Win a free lunch” fish bowls at a restaurant. He won a free lunch for 10 people. However, there is always a catch. We have to listen to a 5-10 minute presentation at lunch from a financial advisor who is apparently picking up the bill for our lunch.
This is an ingenious marketing tactic. I’ve never come across it before. Here is a financial advisor who is basically paying $200 for talk to 10 potential clients all of whom he will have some background on. The restaurant also wins because they get 10 customers for lunch! It’s a win-win for them.
I’m sure that this person has gone through all the business cards and has targeted industries and occupations that would potentially need his service. I doubt that this is a randomly picked winner.
I’m going to the lunch now. I’ll let you all know what his presentation is like.
Update: The lunch was paid for by Ameriprise Financials. There was a disclaimer on the fishbowl that this was not a random drawing. The financial planner sat down for 5 minutes and really didn’t give much of a presentation. He asked if we had any questions, which we didn’t and then was very vague on what they can do for you.
The kicker was that he said that Ameriprise reimburses him for the lunch and for legal or audit purposes (I can’t remember which) we had to fill out a form so the corporate office had a record and headcount of how many lunches they paid for.
Of course the form asked for name, address, phone number and then had a bunch of questions about what topics you’d like more information on. I know that they are going to call you and give you a hard sell based on this form. So of course I put down all fake info.
Posted in General | 
Stumble it!
Yes, but was the food good?
By prlinkbiz on Sep 1, 2006
You have to hand it to the guy though. I imagine that Ameriprise tells them to do that or has fishbowls at select restaurants. It is odd he didn’t make a strong presentation on the services since he has your attention.
By Captain America on Sep 17, 2006
hehe, i got a call from them last week and i “won” too. two weeks before that, my co-worker “won”. we both put our cards in at the same time about a month earlier. not a bad deal for a free lunch, but i plan to ask him “why in hell would i let you invest my money when i know you’re going to be taking people out to dinner with the fees?”
By Soggy on Sep 25, 2006