I'm unsubscribing to this list. Apparently, I'm too old to hang out with men my own age.... What's up with this mentality?

Thursday - May 1st, 2008

FR: Rick Raddatz
RE: Singles-only marketing workshop

If you are single and a business owner, keep reading!!

-----------------------
BACKGROUND
-----------------------
Our new Video-Marketing Workshops have been well-received
in the market-place. We clearly struck a chord here...

http://EntrepreneursRetreatNetwork.com/VideoWorkshop

To build on that success I've decided to specialize each

Video Marketing Workshop around a THEME.

I got the idea because the June 23rd-27th workshop ended
up (by accident) being all women -- and the last women to
join knew that, and were really excited about that.

So... I say, let's have some fun with this idea!

-------------------------------------------------
NEW: SINGLES-ONLY VIDEO-MARKETING WORKSHOP
-------------------------------------------------


Our June 16th-20th workshop is going to be SINGLES ONLY.
Six women. Six men. All of them business owners.

Why? Just for fun!

To tighten the group a bit, we're going to focus this first
singles-only video-marketing-workshop on women in their 30's
and men between 30 and 45. Why? Because we have to pick
something, and that's as good a range as any. If this concept
is a success, we'll do more variations on this theme.

For details about the workshop, click this link:
http://EntrepreneursRetreatNetwork.com/VideoWorkshop


Enjoy!

- Rick Raddatz, Founder, Entrepreneurs Retreat Network

That's interesting. I stopped reading that particular email at the word "single." I wonder if he'll lose significant subscriptions. Rick's a smart guy, but that doesn't seem to be thought through very well, especially when the "reason why" seems so arbitrary.

Deb...Guess he is an old fuddy dud stuck in the wrong century. Women make up 50% (or more) of entrepreneurs--so his treatment of women as a commodity for men is blatently stupid.


Who the hell mixes business and dating anyway? Yuck!

How in the world did you come to the above conclusion based on that e-mail. Sounds like a heavy dose of assumption.

it's a singles event and the assumption is that men want to hang with women younger than themselves (or at least women who are not 40 or older). That is why there is an age discrepancy.

The subtext is quite obvious (and not unique to this instance) and I believe that is partly what Deb was referring to.

Deb?

What other rationale could there be anyway?

It's an assumption, but one that easily could have been anticipated. Sounds to me like the idea wasn't vetted very well.

No doubt you're jumping to the "obvious" conclusion here.

Perhaps Rick has knows the demographics of his list. And perhaps he has more women on his list than men and in order to fill the 6 male spots, he needed to include a larger age group.

Without knowing the demographics of his list and the specifics of the campaign, a conclusion such as the one you made is no more than an assumption. Regardless of whether it appears to be "obvious" or not.

Making an assumption based on the available data doesn't make it right. It only makes it the best possible decision given the circumstances. Some people would ask for more information in order to make the most informed decision.

That sounds very lame to me. You can raise the age on women too and still limit it to 3 and 3.

In any case, if his list is mostly women, I'm sure he offended many of them regardless of his motive. I'm sure I'm not singular in my interpretation.

Maybe he doesn't have any women over 40 on his list and he used 30s as a minimum so it didn't look like he was trying to hook 40 year old dudes up with 20 somethings.

Maybe he's a pig looking to hook dudes up with younger chicks.

Maybe he's had ladies express an interest in meeting older men. In which case, who's objectifying who?

Point is, you don't know.

Personally, if there is room for interpretation, I try not to make assumptions that will lead me to have a negative emotional reaction.

When it comes right down to it, someone else's words aren't worth it. Especially when there's still a possibility I'm making something out of nothing. In which case I'd have to ask myself if I were just looking for an excuse to be offended and feel resentment toward others.