Monday, September 28, 2009

How not to sell financial services

OK, so I know that it is a complete waste of time meeting with so-called independent financial advisers but I make a point of meeting with one every year or two as a means of seeing if anything new and/or worthwhile is on offer.

Recently, I met with what has to rank as the worst sales pitch I have ever come across:

1. the adviser reeked of cigarette smoke

2. the adviser had a lot of visible dandruff on his suit

3. the adviser droned on and on and on about how happy his very wealthy clients were with the products he had sold them

4. he mentioned one client by position with sufficient detail that I could probably work out the client's identity. This raises serious concerns about confidentiality and professionalism (or the lack thereof)

5. when the adviser eventually got around to talking about me, he made a number of unwarranted assumptions -at least three of which were wrong

6. even after I said I had all the life insurance I needed (not quite true, but I was not going to do business with this person anyway), he spent a few minutes talking about the benefits of whole of life policies

7. apparently actively managed funds with an unspecified front end load were preferable to low cost no load ETFs "because people can trade the ETFs too easily"

Not even worth the entertainment value.

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