Good Financial Products to Sell

Well I at least thought so...

Phwew!

At least you give credit where its due.

I mean high return on investment, meaning not necessarily a high profit per unit sold, but it can be a high profit due to the increased volume of units sold..which together add up to a higher profit for the business as a total...

You don't seem to be able to grasp this basic point.

By offering lower prices, does not necessarily mean you are lowering your overall profits, because you are lower priced than your competitors you will then sell more, resulting in an overall higher profit.

When are you going to send me those tickets to your commedy act...

Tonight ladies and germs we have here our favorite guest, one of Scotlands own: The irrepresible Ronnyyyy Macdoogle...

Large round of applaus as everybody claps and cheers.

Scotland.

The trouble is we can sometimes see several meanings and can't decide which one you meant. For some reason one is always tempted to pick the one which shows you in an uncharitable light.

He doesn't know that.

No, they're the genuine article.

That's what children say when somebody else is winning.

Irrelevant. Use the same story, only this time replace designer jeans with Tesco's own-brnad "Value" jeans at £7 a pair. Get them at the car boot for £1.50.

Exactly. Were it not so, there would be no thieves.

Not true. Not if unknowingly.

Businessmen honest? Next thing you'll be telling us salemen are honest.

What are you on about? That's the way their booking works. The price changes as the plane fills up. First it rises (thus it pays to book early), but then it falls as sales get slow due to the seats getting too expensivem because they want to fill the plane if they can, so you get last-minute discounts. What is the best strategy for getting a cheap seat?

You speak and repeat words with your "eyes"?

Freudian slip? They do grate sometimes, don't they?

Yes and they have Indians too. Don't know how good they are at programming, though.

Who? The only helicopter in advertising I remember involves the Barratt man.

Not a chance now. Wee cottages in South Uist are advertised at the same prices as Edinburgh flats. It's uncanny.

You don't need loft insulation in a flat (unless it's top floor). The trick is to make sure your neighbours above below and on both sides keep their homes warmer than yours, so any heat loss will benefit you, and all you need to worry about is two external surfaces.

And you can't cavity-insulate stone-built Victorian flats.

No.

Of course, but there are some things which are impossible to sell without deliberately misleading. Double glazing is one. Websites too, probably, and insurance gets close. Endowments? Not a word.

Well, silence is golden, but you are obviously deluding yourself. The essence of gambling is that you form a view on the likelihood of some outcome, and you bet a stake at agreed odds which you lose if the outcome goes one way, and you win if it goes the other.

So when you pay your car insurance premium, you are betting the insurance company that you will have an expensive accident. They say no you won't, and we're so sure you won't, we'll pay you to have it fixed if you do. But if you don't we'll keep your stake.

And you think the bookies don't do their research to make sure the odds are stackied in their favour?

Well ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law! If it was so cheap he would know it is stolen.

True., but it does count, because you can't count it as part of the proper economy..It is part of the illegal economy.....so we have to have the same ground rules for all businesses...otherwise it is not a level playing field....we have to make basic assumptions..we are not talking about the illegal economy.

People will not allways go for the cheaper brand, in reality it does nto work like that.

If this was the case, everybody would buy "tescos" own brand baked beans, or their own brand "wheat a bix" which is quite often identical anyway....and that clearly does not happen. Branding is alot to do with trust.

Well ok. you can look it like that if you wish.

Yes, they are still breaking the law, I don't think that "ignorance" is allways an excuse..although sometimes it is.

Buy in advance.

You can speak with your eyes...as your not a marketing person you would not understand these things.

Haaaa good pun.

Yes they do have indians, the red ones are not the programmers.

Henry Cooper, and his helicopter to proove that the double glazing is "soundproof".

Gafaawww! (Hoots with Laughter) This is living proof of the canniness of a Scottish Businessmen....haha..thats brilliant...

Websites? What is wrong with websites..they are good things..everybody needs or wants a website...

Free Advetising.

You allways bring up points which are interesting, and relevant. As allways Ronald, I see into the root of a problem, the root of a situation, I get to the fundamentals of it.

I thus see the distinct difference between "RISK" and a "GAMBLE".

Without needing to go into the two forms of activities, I think it is more appropriate and more focused to differentiate between these two meanings.

Gamble: This is something that is having "unforseen consequences, or an unknown outcome" That is what I mean by a gamble......

Risk, is something that is calculated, and measured, and the outcome although by no means guaranteed, it is having degrees, of calculated outcome attached to it. their is calculated input, measured against a calculated return in exchange for that measured and quantifiable risk!

Therefore I would use the words "calculated risk" in associated with business...and I would use the word "gambling" with general gambling activities.

However, as there are elements of both containted within each other, you can get some instances of "risky businesses" which may be viewed as having the hallmarks of a "gamble"...such as high speculation on the stockmarket or futures for example...

There also are some forms of gambling, which perhaps have some elements of a high risk "business" such as spread betting, although still gambling, it is similar to a high risk/business.

That is how I define the difference between risk in business and gambling.

That is a load of old twaddle, often repeated, seldom understood, and only sometimes true.

Perhaps, but not necessarily. He might simply believe the C*ck and Bull story the seller gives him, failed quality control, wrong batch of colour, or bankrupt stock. It happens.

Pah! There's a lot of illegality in your so-called "proper" economy.

We have. Supply and demand. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Caveat emptor. Devil take the hindmost. Early closing Mondays.

That is indeed where many car boot sales are held.

We are talking about THE economy. It has legal and illegal bits in it.

Agreed. Trust the salesman. Trust the advertising. Believe that you get what you pay for. Don't believe you're a mug. I can do without that kind of trust.

And how would you?

It is here.

Well, they don't let you buy in arrears. The question is how much in advance? Before you know whether and when you will definitely be going, or after that, when all the seats are too expensive, or later when they might have all gone?

Oh yes, was he the one with the feather too?

But they don't want to pay through the nose for them.

In article , Stephen GoldenGun writes

And what about life insurance and pensions etc, you are gambling on life expectancy.

To me it's as simple as Gambling being the Taking of Risk.

Usually a gamble does not have unforeseen consequences, because all the outcomes are known, the only unknown is which of the known outcomes will happen, and all you have to go on are probabilities.

Insurance companies gamble. They don't know how many people are going to have car accidents or how expensive they will be, they don't know how many houses are going to burn down or be flooded.

But "general gambling" activities *also* involve calculated risk, it's just that the expected return for the punters is negative in the long run. But the same is the case for buyers of insurance.

On the other hand, buying shares is also a gamble, but here the expected return is positive in the long run, but one can hit a rocky patch just as one can hit a winning streak at the casino.

Exactly. All business is like that, it's just the probabilities which vary.

You have not shown any fundamental difference.

Yes, but they are just relying upon "chance". I mean the outcome is governed by "chance" gambling involves games of "chance".

Not at all, businesses, plan, research, experiment, and after they predict the results then only do they cautiously start trading.

I have now shown the difference between gambling and business.

It depends which side of the fence you're on. Bookies offer punters the opportunity to take a chance, but they adjust the odds offered in such a way that the bookies themselves are not taking a chance. Whichever horse wins the race, the bookies will always win a little. The losing punters basically pay for both the winning punters' payouts and for the bookies' cut.

In insurance business, the outcome also involves games of chance, only this time the odds are not rigged against the punter in quite the same way, though in the long run the punter still loses out.

In general business, you always take risks, you invest at the risk of it being money down the drain because the public loses interest and would rather buy from your competitor because there's a rumour that your company is going to go bust because your Polish wood is infected by a rare cross-breed of foot-and-mouth and rabies.

Yes. The planning, research, experimenting and forecasting *is* the claculating part of taling the calculated risk. But at the end of the day taking the risk is still a gamble. The calculating does nothing more than to make the gambler (sorry, the investor) more confident that the odds are acceptable for the return expected.

No. Where? You talk and talk but say nothing.

Live expectancy is a foregone conclusion, it is taking out cover against the eventuality, in case something happens, thats very different than throwing caution to the wind!

Timonthy old bean, insurance is based on the laws of probability and the risks are calculated and managed, therefore it is not just a game of chance. That is the big difference. It is a business, based on analysing the statistical probabilities. Its not the same thing at all. I'm sure the shareholders of Norwich Union would not be pleased to have their business being referred to as a "lottery"? Nor would they agree with you. What do you say old boy?

In article , Stephen GoldenGun writes

The insurance companies pay actuaries to work out the odds for them and charge accordingly, the betting companies do much the same thing. If anything, in the current climate, one would be inclined to say the gambling companies are more secure since the outcome of their bets is more controlled, the horse wins the race or it doesn't, whereas in the insurance industry, the horse loses the race but then the punter complains to the regulator and gets their stake back anyway!

You can sell non regualted or "pure protection" policies such as Term assurance, critical illness, PHI and Mortgage payment protection, so long as there is no investment element. You can also sell general branch insurance, such as home, motor, pet and travel insurance.

The pure protection policies are being brought under the umbrella of the FSA soon anyway and they will in my opinion make qualification of some sort mandatory, to try and avoid the industry getting it's name dragged through the mud again.

Whislt you can recommend a term assurance to a client, how would you know whether they may be better suited with a whole of life policy or some other form of investment linked contract? You could be adding to the poor reputation this industry has at present if you sell without the knowledge of not just your products, but the other options available in the market.

If you are any good as a marketeer, you would be better served getting leads for somebody who is qualified to deal with them (like me ;-)) I recently enquired with mortgage lead generation companies and they charge around 50

• VAT each lead.

Arfie

"Norwich Union" doesn't have any shareholders. ;-)

The "simple range of products" is irrelevant. You need to know about all products and people's possible aspirations - spoken and unspoken - before you can decide what is best for them.

Peter Saxton from London snipped-for-privacy@petersaxton.co.uk

I'm sure double glazing is "good" but I wouldn't advise buying it from a cowboy.

Is this dreaming? Please give an indication of any basis of reality in that statement.

Peter Saxton from London snipped-for-privacy@petersaxton.co.uk