Peeling Back the Layers: Exploring Affinity Marketing Sales Scams plus the Business Risks of Doxing!

Selling with Sabine

Welcome to "Selling with Sabine"! Your host, Sabine Taylor, is ready to guide you through the captivating world of affinity marketing and its potential misuse in scams, particularly in the real estate sector. This episode is perfect for small businesses aiming to keep their sales reps compliant and individuals trying to avoid scams. Sabine shares her personal experiences, offers practical advice, and even discusses cybersecurity issues like doxing. This episode is a treasure trove of insights that listeners won't want to miss. Join Sabine on this enlightening journey!

Sabine, the host and producer of the "Selling with Sabine" podcast, is a consumer to business sales expert with a wealth of experience work for tech companies, including telecommunications and cybersecurity. She holds an Adult Learning Graduate certificate and utilizes her Instructional Design Graduate program knowledge to design and develop sales training assets such as job aids, micro e-learning courses for her clients.

Transcript:

Welcome to "Selling with Sabine." I am your host, Sabine Taylor. Today, I will be discussing affinity marketing and how to protect yourself from affinity marketing scams. Disclaimer: Throughout my career, I have gained experience in various roles within the tech industry, which has shaped my opinions on certain topics. However, it is important to note that the information I present today is solely based on my personal opinions, and I do not represent any organization or company.

I want to clarify that I am not an attorney, nor am I providing legal or financial advice specific to your situation. Additionally, I am not acting as a forensic accountant for you or your business, and I am not your consultant. If you require assistance with legal or financial matters, I strongly recommend seeking the expertise of a reputable licensed attorney and accountant who can help you navigate and resolve your specific issues.

With that being said, let's now return to the subject at hand. Affinity marketing is a type of marketing that targets people based on their shared interests, such as their profession, religion, or ethnicity, to make you feel like you're part of a group or a movement, with the ultimate goal of generating sales.

If you follow celebrities and social media personalities, you might have come across some influencers who support real estate gurus who engage in deceptive practices on their platforms. These gurus use sneaky sales tactics, like appealing to your cultural identity through affinity marketing catch phrases, to entice you to make a purchase. They may even incorporate assumptive selling techniques, assuming that you have already been sold on their product without giving you a chance to decline. For example, if a real estate fake guru is speaking, it may sound something like this: "You want to set up a legacy for your children's children’s, children, right? So, since you want to secure a future for your legacy, it makes sense for you to partner with us on this real estate deal, where you can become a part owner of this investment, right? So, to make this happen, let's sign this contract now, get that generational wealth. Let's do it for the culture, baby. Started from the bottom, now the whole team here!"

Now that we have a better understanding of affinity marketing, this week several real estate gurus, influencers, and celebrities were called out by their victims for using affinity marketing catch phrases and assumptive selling techniques to influence their massive audience to give up between $100,000 to ¾ million dollars to purchase a stake in a real estate venture that never materialized for many investors in the way it was sold to them.

As a sales trainer, when I listen to these gurus, I can easily identify the sales tactics they are using. With that said, I have worked with Fortune 150 companies and their sales teams where I have listened and observed conversations between a customer and a sales rep. If I heard anything like what these gurus are saying, then an emergency town hall meeting would be scheduled for all employees, leaders, complaince directors to hear that these selling techniques are not allowed. End of story, period. Also, as someone with a real estate license, I can tell you that some of these things that are being said by the gurus would not fly in front of a real estate or governance board in any state. But in fact, it would be grounds for them to lose their license.

When making high-stakes purchases, it's essential to focus on how the product or service meets your needs, then ask relevant questions and don't hesitate to seek detailed explanations to make an informed decision. Doing this is better than getting caught up in a catch phrase tied to affinity marketing tactics.

To avoid getting scammed, consider investing in your education by enrolling in courses or seeking certifications from reputable schools that offer reasonably priced continuing education programs in real estate. However, if you choose non-university options like coaching programs or courses, ensure that the instructors have no direct or indirect financial stake in the business you're getting into.

Additionally, it's advisable to maintain an arms-length transaction approach and not rely solely on recommendations from realtors for vendors or contractors. Some individuals in the industry might hesitate to provide you advice that could potentially affect their referral business. For instance, I once followed a realtor's recommendation for a mortgage broker, but I sensed both of them were pressuring me into purchasing a home. However, when I sought advice from a different mortgage broker, they advised against proceeding with the deal. As a result, I decided to cancel my contract with the real estate agent, and unfortunately, the realtor never returned my earnest money. So, I had to cancel the check with my bank. Nonetheless, since my new mortgage broker had no conflict of interest with the realtor, I found peace of mind knowing that I made the right decision by walking away from that deal.

Additionally, during open enrollment periods, many companies offer benefit selections include prepaid legal benefit plans. These plans provide access to licensed attorneys who can offer valuable expertise they can advise you on legal and customary practices within various areas of the law, including real estate, to help you identify deals that you should avoid. In a previous position, my employer offered a prepaid legal benefit that covered services like mortgage reviews, consultation calls, and attorneys' fees associated with real estate closing. So, having on-demand access to attorneys provided me peace of mind about my real estate transactions without incurring the high hourly fees typically charged by attorneys, which can range from three hundred fifty to five hundred dollars. With my plan, I just played $9 every two weeks.

Shifting my focus to cybersecurity, I've noticed that influencers and celebrities are discussing and arguing about the real estate fake gurus and their scams. Some even resort to doxing the scammers. However, it's important to understand the potential legal consequences if you're a business owner and publicly exposing alleged scammers. So doxing individuals by revealing personal information like the address, date of birth, or social security number on social media can lead to legal trouble and significant fines for your business. The alleged scammers also have the option to hire a privacy attorney and take you to court for doxing and exposing their private and sensitive information to the public. Therefore, it is advisable to address the matter through legal channels with the assistance of an attorney who can represent you in court and initiate the discovery process. This process involves obtaining a court order subpoena to access financial credit reports, tax records, and detailed phone records. Your lawyer can then use these records to present their findings to the courts.

Now, for the scammers, it's important to note that the discovery process can be very expensive, especially in class action situations. The petitioners or parties involved in the case may request reimbursement of attorneys' fees plus applicable interest for the costs associated with obtaining legal counsel. Considering this, legal fees can be much higher than the damages you owe from scamming. Additionally, the longer you delay addressing the situation, the more you will have to pay in legal fees.

In highly regulated industries like finance and real estate, keep in mind that government involvement is common. Also, governments have liaisons assigned to them at major companies who can run various types of reports and utilize AI tools, also known as artificial intelligence, to synthesize information about your financial and communication activities within seconds. Therefore, it is advisable to work with a lawyer to find a way to compensate your victims.

To sum it up, if you are a company, it is important to follow standard industry practices to ensure that you and your sales staff sell your products and services in a compliant manner. If you need assistance in sales training and enablement, you can find me on LinkedIn by typing in my name, Sabine Taylor, where my name is spelled out as 'S' like success, 'a' like achievement, 'B' like beautiful, 'I' like intelligent, 'N' like nice, and 'E' like excellence. In the search results you should find Sabine Taylor, "The Sales Training Architect." Once on my profile page, scroll down to the featured section to access free resources like videos on sales tips and my 5-Step ChatGPT prompt generator template in a PDF format. So that way, you can coach your sales reps and keep them compliant when selling your products and services.

With that being said, I am known for helping sales reps use legally approved language to help them pitch complicated products and services in a way that helps the customer understand how it would help them solve a problem.

So, I appreciate the time we spent together, and I hope you found value in this episode. If you can share this episode with your friends or family members who are pitched by various people to buy products and services, it may help them avoid scammers.

One last thing, if you could support this podcast by subscribing to it, then that would help me grow this channel and if you make your way to my LinkedIn profile, consider following me there as well.

With that said, have a wonderful day, everyone, and catch you on the next episode.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thesalestrainingarchitect/