What happens if I attend the Gourmet Dinner but skip out on the sales presentation lecture?

I’m assuming you have to pay for the meal. In which case, yeh, just skip out.

Its a pretty common gimmick. And the meal isn’t complimentary for nothing. You attend a long sales pitch. The only one I ever attended was when I was twenty, and I actually did buy airspace for cell phones where a $400 investment eventually was worth $20,000 But most were just multi-hour attendance schemes to get your money.

Just leave. Mouth off a sarcastic “BYYYYYEEE!” if you want to.
Not unethical at all.
They try to scam you, you scam them.
No honour among thieves, as they say.

I think it’s kind of rude personally, to take the free meal and skip out. It’s pretty straight-forward, either be in or out. Just my opinion.

You won’t. You can’t. I used to do sales, and was so good at it that I ended up running my own marketing company. (Eventually I became soul-sick from swallowing so much evil and darkness and had to spend an entire year homeless to sick it all up and save myself.) But one of the things we were taught in sales is that the vast majority of people can’t force themselves to deny you.

An example of this is phone sales. We were trained never to give up, ever. No matter how many times they said no, no matter how many times they said good-bye or not interested, we had to simply continue as if they’d said nothing. It’s called “assume the sale” in marketing, and is a very traditional high-pressure tactic. It relies on the fact that most people have been so conditioned to surface politeness that they just cannot bring themselves to rudely hang up or slam the door in your face while you’re talking at them. I had occasions where people wept after being on the phone for 30 minutes or more, begging to go, but just could not hang up the phone. They’d eventually break down and buy something just to escape.

They’re relying on the same effect happening with you, and with good reason. Sure, a small handful of sociopaths and narcissists will be able to laugh it off, pocket their dinner, and walk away whistling without a second thought. Those are anticipated losses and already baked into their estimated costs. The vast majority of people simply won’t be able to screw them over and walk away, no matter how much they’d like to or want to or even plan to.

The limbic brain is a bitch sometimes.

If I break down and attend one, I see it as I’m agreeing to a verbal contract that I will attend their boring meeting in exchange for a free meal. I’ve only ever been to one and the friend that I went with was pushing to leave. I told her that I was staying and would get a ride home if her conscience allowed her to break her contract. I was close to falling for their sales pitch when my better judgement kicked in and I left my checkbook in my purse.

I’ve been to several. If you learn to say no, its fine.

@SmashTheState I have never had problems hanging up phones when someone won’t take no for an answer.

The way I remember it, you get the meal AFTER the pitch, not before.

@stanley Or during, yes.

I go to fancy restaurants often but even so, I look at it as I’m not that desperate for a meal that I want to deal with a sales pitch for hours and this type of dilemma. Screw that. If time is worth money and you spend a total of three hours, that’s three hours of your life for a meal? No thank you.

Yeah that’s the other one & is the worst possible option in my opinion. “Gourmet” dining with commercials? That’s a huge contradiction in concepts.