Thursday, October 06, 2005

Cruising

I went on a cruise to Alaska the third week of September, which was terrific except that I seem to be having a hard time catching up on everything. So the blog has been pushed to the back burner.

But I was thinking about it, even during the cruise. Although it's probably true that the cruise industry was invented for affluent retirees, my impression was that the customers are not quite as affluent as I expected. Most would not qualify as traditional trust prospects, certainly not at larger institutions. But they are part of the "mass affluent," which trusts departments and divisions are courting more and more. Princess was able to deliver a very high quality, "individualized" vacation experience to a heterogeneous group of 3,000. It wasn't cheap, yet my sense was that we got very good value for the money.

Except the day of the storm, when we all got seasick, but that's the risk one takes.

Lessons here for the trust and private bankers?
Posted by Jim Gust at 2:01 PM

1 comment:

JLM said...

You probably met more HNW folks on your cruise than you realize. Take a new look at Tom Stanley’s book, which begins like this:

“‘These people cannot be millionaires? They don't look like millionaires, they don't dress like millionaires, they don't eat like millionaires, they don't act like millionaires—they don't even have millionaire names. Where are the millionaires who look like millionaires?’

“The person who said this was a vice president of a trust department. He made these comments following a focus group interview and dinner that we hosted for ten first-generation millionaires. His view of millionaires is shared by most people who are not wealthy. They think millionaires own expensive clothes, watches, and other status artifacts. We have found this is not the case.

“As a matter of fact, our trust officer friend spends significantly more for his suits than the typical American millionaire. He also wears a $5,000 watch. We know from our surveys that the majority of millionaires never spent even one-tenth of $5,000 for a watch. Our friend also drives a current model imported luxury car. Most millionaires are not driving this year's model. Only a minority drive a foreign motor vehicle. An even smaller minority drive foreign luxury cars. Our trust officer leases, while only a minority of millionaires ever lease their motor vehicles.

“But ask the typical American adult this question: Who looks more like a millionaire? Would it be our friend, the trust officer, or one of the people who participated in our interview? we would wager that most people by a wide margin would pick the trust officer. But looks can be deceiving.”

9:49 AM

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