Having consistently used seminars as my primary prospecting method for many years, I've developed a peace about the quality of leads generated by one event vs. another.  One topic will produce well for 6 months, then interest will wane.  Another topic will pull for a session or two, then headlines shift and attention is distracted.  All in all, I keep doing what works and trust that the Law of Averages will continue to tilt the tables in my favor.   The numbers support my decisions thus far.

However, no matter how many (I'm estimating close to 100 so far) seminars on various topics I've done through the years, it's always with a certain degree of excitement/loathing/dread/fear/lust/anger/love/concern that I stand by the doors of my venue of choice starting about 20 minutes before the stated event is to begin, and meet the potential new prospects, clients, friends, etc. as they file in.

To say it's been a cross section of humanity is understating it, but I had a new experience last week.

My assistant and I have developed our own mailing list and direct mail pieces over the years, and we have a pretty good idea of what kind of results we'll get based on the first couple of days after the piece hits the mailboxes.   We're using a nice, middle of the road restaurant we've used dozens of times in the past, and folks are usually responsive.  This last one was pulling well, and RSVPs were solid, when she got a call in a day or so before the event.  According to my assistant, the woman on the other end of the phone said to put them down for two, then there was a bunch of yelling and commotion in the background, and she came back on the line and said to change that to reservations for six.  Hmmm, ok.  That was a bit odd, but maybe they're just a very demonstrative family with rapidly changing investment concerns...

The day of, I'm all set up and people are arriving.  I get distracted talking with some of them, kind of warming up the group, so I don't see the last bunch of six drive up, which disappoints me because I wanted to track them closely out of curiousity, but in they come.  It's Mammy, looking early 70ish, pushing Pappy in his wheelchair, looking mid 80ish.  Mammy has apparently applied her makeup using a combination of fiberglass resin and high pressure hoses, and her hair is danger close to being a navigational hazard to air traffic.  Pappy appears to be highly medicated, and seldom responds to outside stimuli throughout the event.   Along with them, are two mid 30's nieces (their own words), both equally made up, tall hair, Wonder Bras in full Mt. St. Helen's mode.  I'm immediately struck by their likeness to every interpretation of the Ugly Stepsisters from every Cinderalla story ever filmed.  The final addition to the group is another couple, woman easily the equal of Mammy in age and appearance, and the man early 40's, looking amazingly like Arte Johnson.  They are, come to find out, "engaged."  As a group, these six are easily the oddest bunch I've ever had together, and there's a dynamic I can't quite classify yet.

I start the meeting, and everything is running along nicely, even with the McWeirdsters.  No one is misbehaving, good questions all around, and decent interaction.  Wrapping up, we start into the Q&A, and Mammy and the nieces take the lead, asking some interesting questions about cash management.  I mean CASH management, like they're asking how to invest bags of money so "They" won't be able to trace it.  I take the high road and don't get real specific, then Arte Johnson jumps in and he wants to know how he can start collecting SSI on his "fiance's" benefits.  That's not my specialty, I tactfully inform him, and he's ok with that, but now he starts a discussion with one of the nieces, who had made a comment, sotto voce, in response to his question. 

Then it starts.  The other niece is standing now screaming at Arte, Mammy is pulling the first niece out the door by her lacquered up hair, the female 70 year old "fiance" (who is in a full external back brace from chin to abdomen, I forgot to add earlier),  is weeping and leaning over against Pappy's wheelchair, which now begins to roll backward.  She can't stop it because she's limited by the aluminum truss she's strapped into, and Pappy thinks he's back on a ride in his first Radio Flyer in 1925, so she's now on the floor spinning like a stunned turtle.  I hear more screaming outside where Mammy had taken the niece by the hair, and now Mammy's back inside thankfully grabbing Pappy's chair and rolling him out before he exits the building backwards.  Arte is turned away from the other screaming niece, who is now yelling at one of the waitresses for a TO-GO BOX, and he's now rolling his intended bride over by grabbing the girders of her aluminum superstructure and levering her over so she can scrabble up to her knees and then stand.  Arte escorts her out, so now it's just the one niece, and she sits back down and WAITS FOR HER TO-GO BOX.  I regain whatever composure I can, and the remaining normal folks and I shake it off and finish out with a little more Q&A, and a unique bond which passing through the Crucible will do for you.

For the future, I think I'm going to scrub that mailing list a little harder around their neighborhood.

PS.  I had a hunch and checked around with some friends in local law enforcement afterwards, and was informed that there is a small community of "Irish Travelers" in the neighborhood they came from, the kind that pull the roofing, house painting and driveway scams across the country.  That explains a lot.  I wonder if I can leverage these wonderful new relationships and develop a new niche.....