I attended the three day training to Learn to be Rich after attending the two hour sales pitch that got me suckered in. It cost $495 or $995 if you bought it later. We were supposed to learn many ways to get rich in real estate, including: reducing consumer debt, multiple sources of cash flow in real estate investing, finding cash or OPM (other people's money), wholesaling, hard money lenders, seller financing, foreclosure and pre-foreclosure, asset protection, tax strategies, and much, much more.
I talked to one of my co-workers before going to this training a month later and had an inkling of what it was going to be about. I wish I had paid more attention to what he was telling me and cancelled before the three day window was closed!
Our presenter's name was Alan Swails and was very likable, as salesmen usually are. He was called out of an early retirement to teach us what we needed to know to make money in real estate. The first hour was to get in us in the mindset and lay the ground rules: no recording (the material is copyrighted), no cell phones, no questions or comments until the end, no networking or class lists, and the kicker: no hazardous waste which meant no talking amongst ourselves in a negative manner about the material being presented to us.
After the ground rules were laid he went into his motivational pitch and story to get us into the mind set of making money and buying into paying for more advanced courses. At one time he said I can't believe people think they can learn everything they need to know about making money in real estate in three days. Well, we were supposed to be able to, according to the two hour seminar $495 pitch a month earlier!
A red flag went up fairly early, about an hour into the first day. He started out saying the major cause of death is stress. The major cause of stress is money worries. Sure, sounds logical enough. He then goes on to say that back in biblical times people had no money stress and lived to be 900 YEARS OLD! What? Did I just hear that correctly? I am a Christian and have nothing against the Bible, but I don't take all of it literally. If you do, so be it and good for you. No one seemed to be phased by this, but of course we were not allowed to spread toxic waste.
It took another hour of sitting through more stories and pitches and vague references to how we can make money in real estate before the real purpose of why we were here became evident: to buy more expensive courses at a price of $9,000 to $43,000! According to Mr. Swails, if you are rich, this is not a lot of money. Well, if I were rich, I would not be sitting in a $495 three day course on how to Learn to Be Rich (name of course). Why would they be pricing these courses (which are all three days a piece) out of our price range?
Before lunch, we had homework. He walked us through a scenario to talk to our credit card companies so we could: 1) lower our APR; 2) raise our limits; 3) get rid of any yearly fee. Raise our limits? Yes, because by the end of our three day course we were supposed to have $50,000 in spending availability through credit cards, HELOC, and cash. RED FLAG! I left at lunch and never went back. I hate credit cards and would never take out a HELOC as I do not want to put my home at risk. He asked us to raise our hands if we were going to do our homework at lunch, because God was watching.
Now, if you follow all of his advice to the letter and buy every course and follow those to the letter, you will make money. He did it, so anyone can. I personally do not like to be taken for a ride. I do not like the fact that I paid almost $500 to be motivationally spoken to and pitched at when I was supposed to be learning in the first place. I would much rather stick to something that makes sense, like Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, where cash is king and debt is dumb.
Buyer beware, the Rich Dad education is a classic bait and switch scheme cloaked in Education.
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