Twenty-three years and out?
That’s the question this year’s Greater Kansas City Day co-chair Adam Bold poses about the annual
Hearne: Greater Kansas City Day Chair Questions Promotion’s Safety, Viability
Twenty-three years and out?
That’s the question this year’s Greater Kansas City Day co-chair Adam Bold poses about the annual
Tracy Thomas
So let me get this straight: A proud NON-advertiser in the Star pays $15 grand one time to snag the sole Pay-for-Play sponsorship of the Star’s 23 year marquee fundraiser. (That’s if the Royals didn’t pay $15 grand for George Brett to also be a sponsor.) And the promotion is so messed up, he is billed as VP of Cerner!
And now Mister Know It All wants to re-up as Mr. Save the Children, BUT only if he gets to tell the Star to abandon what they have done for 23 years, and move those 1500 suits indoors and off the streets? And onto where? The phones? Like a Channel 19 fundraiser? Can you hear those cowbells ringin?!
Granted, the Star is in its waning days. Yesterday someone filed for the 2nd highest elected office in the metro, forcing an August primary for Chairman of the Johnson County Commission. But Mike Fannin and the Star didn’t bother to put a story in today’s real paper–just online???!!!
And granted, one could raise $71,000 far easier than making 1500 suits stand on the street corners in horrible weather hawking said 24 page KC Star. One could accomplish the FINANCIAL goal with–let’s say: five phone calls max.
But this is the Star’s branding/charity project. Not Adam Bold’s. It’s sweet, old-fashioned. It’s Meredith Willson and The Music Man. Sing it with me now: Kids are in trouble. Right Here in River City. And that’s trouble with a capital T…
So in marches Adam Bold, whose shenanigans trying to corrupt Channel 19, trying to bamboozle Victor ‘The Hog’ Hogstrom to convince every public television station in the country to air Adam Bold’s Mutual Fund Store advertorial TV show–may have been the real reason that The Hog was fired.
Yeah, THAT Adam Bold, the former used-car salesman, who really lives in Vegas, as he says, “down the street from Celine Dion”, now he has a plan to get the Star and the Rotary 13 and the Leawood Rotary Club–to start marching to HIS tune???
Oh, Brother. Newspaper buyers beware. Rotary: beware. Do not buy any trombones just yet.
Of course there are ways to “raise more money.” But that is not the sole purpose of this promotion.
Disclosure:
Adam Bold and The Mutual Fund Store abandoned managing my personal money and in fact, fired me as their advertising manager while I was disabled, after I made Adam Bold rich by launching his nationwide radio network in its first seven cities.
Note: I urge someone to investigate Bold’s brash claim that he donates “hundreds of thousands of dollars every year” to aid children with his Foundation. Every year?? He might be off by a zero or two.
smartman
ROAR! CATFIGHT! C’MON ADAM FIGHT BACK OR MAYBE YOU ARE TRACY’S BITCH?
rick
u go girl
Adam Bold
There is a reason I fired TT 10 years ago. Enough said.
jojo
Is adam a good money manager?
Tracy Thomas
In a word: No.
Just ask/research the many many people who got secret settlements. And you can ask other money managers in town, who reviewed portfolios from fleeing Mutual Fund Store investors who were VERY dissatisfied: they discovered Adam had five basic cookie-cutter plans–it wasn’t customized like advertised. And don’t even get me started on Adam’s coziness and over-investment with the Oak boys, red, white, black oak. 20,000 mutual funds out there, and what percentage of investor money did he pour into those boys’ outstretched hands?
But Adam IS a committed gambler. During the first meltdown in 2000/2001, he could be found virtually every Friday afternoon at Ameristar Casino.
MandDShagger
Thanks for the brutal honesty Tracy!
Adam’s a bigger hack then the guy that Stigall pimps for that talks about the “business cycle”. Real money managers don’t need to pimp themselves on local radio.
rick
Adam…it sounds like whatever that reason is….and obviously she states it was due to health reasons….you should attempt to rectify things and make peace.
Tracy Thomas
Rick, I wasn’t fired DUE to health reasons. Just during a time when I was disabled for 6 months with a crushed knee, broken arm and broken leg, living on a hospital bed in my living room, and yet, out of loyalty to Adam Bold I would forego my pain meds to drive to the radio station to cut new spots for him. Or make calls to radio stations in cities where he wanted to bump a 30 year garden show on Saturday mornings to BUY his Mutual Fund Store show, and pretend it was real programming instead of paid block programming.
But Adam had no loyalty, and fired me on New Year’s Eve with a 2 minute phone call. The reason I was fired was, he had a new and naive investor (j.a.) who decided “I had made enough money off of Adam” from my radio commissions and should “do PR for FREE–getting Adam on those cable news interview shows.”
But what they didn’t realize, until later, was, those interviews are all advertorial. From a rate card, you can BUY being interviewed by Maria Bartiromo. (Who I bet you like, Rick, more than Sarah Jessica Parker!)
So when Adam Bold or, at another shop, Dean Barber–when they send out emails to their investors, “I will be interviewed next Tuesday on CNN/MSNBC/Bloomberg/etc,” that is all a con. They’re not experts, they just PAID to be interviewed! There is a rate card and a PR firm hawking those fake news interviews. It’s even commissionable! Hey, 24/7/365–the producers don’t have time to screen, so they sell their slots. For example, Dean Barber used to “invest” $10,000 a month buying those fake news interviews to promote himself.
Adam Bold’s investor wanted to be Henry Higgins, and take Adam national. He thought Adam was such hot shit he “deserved” to be interviewed for free: in order to promote the sale of more Mutual Fund Store franchises in new cities.
Well, trust me: Adam Bold is no Warren Buffett. And that investor dumped his ownership of the Mutual Fund Store years ago.
Enough said?
rick
WOW!!! Enough said? Not really. Sounds like this is a fascinating story from beginning to a unfortunate end.
With your crushed knee, broken arm, and broken leg…did Adam try to run you over prior to terminating you.
Though I have no idea what it would mean for future business, Tracy you ought to write a book. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the downright bizarre. I’m sure you have many stories to tell.
Tracy Thomas
Rick, thanks for the thought. I already wrote one book, Right Here in River City by Tracy Thomas and Walt Bodine, 1976. Being a Doubleday author when I was under 25 was thrilling. Walt and I headlined the Book & Author Dinner that year as well, plus booksignings all over town, including The Jones Store. Nowadays, I’d have to self-publish, and there are no media outlets that interview authors any more. Tom Leathers is dead, and every local bookstore but Rainy Day has been driven into bankruptcy by predatory two-tier pricing by publishing houses. It’s cheaper for a small bookstore to buy books at retail at Costco or Sam’s than to order wholesale!! Preposterous. And needless to say, the Star and Steve Rose have been kicked so hard by me for so many years, I doubt I’d get a good review! So I will decline. And just dribble out my stories here on kcconfidential. After all, now people’s attention spans are shorter.
rick
Tracy no one took over Tom Leathers publishing arm?
Tracy Thomas
Oh, the gals who did will still coordinate printing of your self-published book, but the whole deal was given value by the puff stories that Tom wrote ABOUT your book, in his newspaper, which died with him.
I’m headed to Cathy Murphy Hervey’s funeral today–so many GREAT people who really promoted reading–have left us. after being taken off the radio or TV.
Back in the day, Mike Murphy did more, singlehandedly, to promote authors with interviews on the radio, than anyone else in the midwest.
Ba