The cost of unwanted offers.

• Author: Hall, Robert
• Position: Marketing Solutions

I recently made the mistake of purchasing a business credit card by responding to a direct mail solicitation from one of the top credit card providers. Boy! Was I unprepared for the onslaught of offers that started coming my way from them. I got loan offers, my wife and daughter (who is away at college) received a deluge of credit card offers, and I continued to receive offers for the very business credit card I had purchased from them. Now anyone who has been through an episode of identity theft knows how averse it is to receive copious card offers in your mail box that invite a replay of the crime. I thought nay purchase might buy some protection from future "unsolicited" offers--at least from them. What part of "yes" did they not understand?

Over the ages we have had this ongoing struggle over how to show interest, how to make an advance or overture toward another. There are a litany of terms that shed light on the dance of initiating or attempting to initiate a relationship--flirting, making eyes, being solicited, being propositioned, making an offer, initiating a hostile takeover, soliciting offers, responding to unsolicited offers. The context can vary from romantic interests to mergers/acquisitions and can range from situations where both parties are very excited about the potential to those where one strenuously objects to being pursued by the other. In the extreme, we use terms like hostile takeovers, unwanted advances and scorched earth to describe those situations where force or other severe tactics are used against the will of the pursued. The power to assert does battle with the power to resist.

Have we reached a crisis point?

From time to time a certain tipping point is reached that changes the context of this age-old dance. In the world of selling financial services products and, especially selling credit cards through direct channels, perhaps we are reaching such a point.

Isn't it ironic that as the cost to sell through direct channels has decreased to the seller, the cost has increased to the prospective buyer--interested or not. How much time do you spend a week carefully sorting through unwanted credit card or related offers? Once it only took a couple of minutes to pull unwanted offers and toss them in the trash. No more. It is no coincidence that Costco, Sam's and many other retailers have put paper shredders on their end aisle displays. It is because virtually the whole country has had to invest in WSD (weapons of...