I went on an ‘educational’ course the other day, as I sometimes do, usually for the benefit of my clients. On this occasion it was to do with property investment and development.
Maybe not the most appropriate timing in view of the world’s worsening economies and credit difficulties, but I have a number of clients who have become heavily involved in property investment and development and I felt I really did need to get to understand a bit more about what was driving them forward. I understood what they did in broad terms, but not in detail, and clearly I was in need of some deeper knowledge so that I could help my clients as and when necessary.
The two hour introductory ‘freebie’ was held at a local hotel, which I attended, knowing full well that it was the funnel to the ‘actual course’ itself, to be sold at some stage during the evening. When finally revealed, the ‘property investment course wasn’t too expensive and, willingly, I allowed myself to be signed up.
I had a mission - to discover more
So the day arrived, the start of a three-day course into property investment - I was actually looking forward to this. The morning trickled along with lots of interesting facts and information, and then there was a period, just prior to lunch, on ways of extracting maximum benefit from the use of credit cards. The speaker, using Lucy as a metaphor for the call centre operatives, suggested that Lucy would be only ‘too willing’ to accommodate any request we might put to her – she would advance us additional credit, zero the annual fees, and reduce the interest rate, etc – all for the asking. After all, no one likes upsetting their customer do they? It sounded all too easy. And this was our task for the lunch break.
I can’t say that I had time to try the exercise during the lunch break (too busy talking to others), but a show of hands following lunch indicated that many of the participants (in total 100 attendees) had diligently made their phone calls, and of those approximately 10% had achieved varying degrees of success with Lucy. Good on them, and much applause.
The afternoon continued with some exceedingly good content and the evening homework was set - part of which was to
persevere with Lucy
The morning of day two commenced with a discussion about who had scored any success with Lucy. The results were varied and fairly mediocre in that being a Friday night many of the call centres had minimised operational staff, and certainly those with any level of responsibility had understandably gone home for the weekend.
There were several cursory references during the rest of the day’s proceedings about follow-on courses. And yes, I thought they might well try to ‘up-sell’ allied material or courses. However, what I was not prepared for was the speaker’s revelations and insistence that to achieve success in our property investment we needed more than this course on which we now sat. In other words, our current three-day course was not, contrary to what I’d been led to believe, sufficient to educate us in art of property investing – we would need additional tuition!
The final hours of the day concentrated on the six or seven add-on courses definitely needed to secure our success
and guess what
you had to attend the ‘university’ course before you could continue with the next ‘property specialisation’ course. Each 3 day course, at its “heavily discounted price provided you bought it during this course” cost in excess of £4,000 – i.e. a minimum of £8,000 - with the sky as the limit (as there were lots more ‘new’ courses coming over from America during the year they told us excitedly)!
Suddenly, it dawned on me!
Why had there been so much emphasis on wooing young Lucy? The additional facilities on our credit cards was not for the ‘seed capital’ to our future property ventures as had been heavily inferred many many times during the course, but to cover the cost of booking these additional courses.
How deceptively clever!
And there was considerable pressure to sign up. The main speaker, clearly a master of NLP, used huge swings of emotion, from joyous rescues ‘from the brink of disaster’ to even stooping to shed crocodile tears on several occasions, and all endorsed by a parade of ‘successful’ past attendees of these courses. Unfortunately (maybe) many fell into the trap, some parting with nigh on £30,000 (that possibly they couldn’t afford) - but I wish them well and hope they manage to recover their ‘investment’ over time.
Now I fully understand ‘up-selling’ – lots of organisations do it, some better than others – but I’m not sure how you feel about this one. To me, these guys seem to have crossed the boarder into the ‘unethical’. And I don’t like, or tolerate, unethical selling (hence this blog post).
You know, as well as I, the best way to build loyal customers
be honest and up front – always
Your customers then know precisely what they have to gain or otherwise; they feel informed and in control. And that is when they begin to trust you and will buy more from you.
In this instance, perhaps the initial course should have been sold as an ‘introductory’ course. The fact participants would be ‘encouraged’ to follow on with further ‘specialised’ courses should, I believe, have been disclosed right at the start, together with the content and costs of these additional courses. That way the customer can make an educated and informed decision about what and how far they wish to, and can afford to, go. Being bullied (otherwise ‘doomed to failure’) into parting with precious funds (to ‘ensure success’) during a charged and emotional appeal is, in my book, absolutely not ethical.
I believed, stupidly as it transpires, that the company involved (Rich Dad Education Ltd), working under what I thought was the reputable brand name (I read all the books several years back - they are good, and highly acclaimed), might have been above this sort of deceptive behaviour. But it seems not. Perhaps greed (do the calculations) has taken over.
Shame on you Robert Kiyosaki for ‘lending’ your name to these people.
Now go, be smart, make money, but be ethical - always
Richard C
When everyone else is pulling their heads back down, stick your head up and out. Get yourself noticed - big time. Rise above that cringing pack of frightened business owners and tell the world, and especially your customers, that YOU, at least, are still there for them!