You Get Weight Re-Gain — Diet CEO Gets Rewarded.

The CEO of the Grandaddy Diet Company Opens Up about Profiting from Your Diet Failures.

Sky Harbor Airport was a lot smaller in those days. The central waiting lounge was usually flooded with light from the tall glass panes that opened to the tarmac and the Phoenix sky beyond.

On that late Summer afternoon, darkness poured in through the windows as a rare severe thunderstorm was dropping lightning bolts like bright jagged stilts holding up the black roiling clouds. Flash flood warnings were everywhere as the airport plunged into darkness for a wink until the emergency power re-lit the room. 

The runways closed, as it turned out for well over an hour. We all had nothing to do but sit around and talk. Coming prior to the iPhone era, if you weren’t prepared for the wait with a newspaper or paperback, you either stared into space, closed your eyes, or talked to nearby strangers.

As it happened, I was with a soon-to-be-retired CEO of the granddaddy diet company. After 20+ years on the job, he was retiring with a nice nest egg to the golf links of Florida.

“What was your biggest mistake,” I asked him, well into our conversation. 

“Strip malls,” he answered. 

“We got into a lot of long term leases in strip malls all over the country. It saved a lot of money, at first. But our customers moved to other neighborhoods and it was difficult to get our offices where the new customers were.” 

“With so many years at the helm, what was your proudest achievement building such a big and successful diet company?” I asked him.

He closed his eyes, as the answer played across his mind like a bright panorama. A smile formed in the corners of his mouth, his face brightened as he opened his eyes and looked directly at me with pride dripping from his countenance. “Repeat customers! Over 83% of our customers are repeat customers.” Then he added, “No one has such a high retention rate.” Beaming broadly, “Part of my benefits were tied to repeat rates.”

I queried. “What was your proudest achievement?”

“Over 83% of our customers are repeat customers,” he beamed with pride. 

At that point my mind went off in a totally different direction. I don’t remember much else that we said to each other. It was to be the last time I was to see him. But, as I boarded my delayed flight that evening, a couple hours late, I was still steamed. “Repeat customers?” Wow.

How can you be proud that the overwhelming majority of your customers came back repeatedly — to lose weight again — and again — and again?

I got it, really understood it from a business point…why find new customers when its cheaper to re-cycle the old ones? But, as I settled into my window seat and saw the last drops of rain streak down the dark window, I fumed. 

People go to diet companies to lose weight. Their expectations are that…once it’s gone, it’s gone. Many can’t really afford the costs, but do it for their health, for their self-esteem, and to look better for a special occasion. Truth be told, many of them do succeed at losing weight. 

What was troubling me on that long flight into the dark night, was that his diet company’s definition of “success,” his retirement package, was in reality massive repeated failures on the part of their unsuspecting customers — customers who trusted that company as an expert at weight LOSS. Not business experts being rewarded for re-gain. 

If their diet had really worked, why would customers need to come back repeatedly? 

He was retiring on their lost dreams of healthier, slimmer bodies. As I stared into the featureless night sky and the engines droned on, it just didn’t seem right. 

Does it to you?   

? 2019 Boyd Jentzsch. All Rights Reserved.