Yes, it's true! Unfortunately, you cannot invest in every legitimate and the not-so-legitimate Millionaires million dollar blueprints and home-study-course...
In the interest of full disclosure: Understand, I'm a both a HUGE believer and supporter of GURU style education. This is the vehicle that I've personally used to become a millionaire and as well, currently, teach and share my closely-guarded system with my prospects and students.
For the sake of laying my cards on the table, I am not a fan, of Johnny come-lately's and "Me Too" style of wanna-be gurus, that tend to promote the BUZZ word of the month, with absolutely no accountability to their students or clients.
That's why this article is so very important! Most so-called guru's sole priority is separating you from your cold-hard cash.
I've shared some of my perspectives, let's move forward...
First, let's be frank, if you're 110% committed to becoming a Millionaire Real Estate Investor, your chances of success without either a teacher (i.e. boot camp style) or a 1st class mentor in your hometown or area, who is successful in your desired field of investing (i.e. wholesaling for quick paydays or being a foreclosure consultant/investor) are slim to none or as good a chance of someone with talent winning American Idol.
Not many people, can buy a book from Amazon.com, read it and then go out and become a superstar investor, because there's just too much information that cannot be covered in a book.
From my own personal experience, I can tell you the individuals whom have invested their time and money into a legitimate Boot Camp, have had both the quickest and greatest success.
My personal definition for "success" is based on how quick they went out and created their paydays, using what they've learned from the boot camp.
For this article, I'm going to assume you've attended at least 1 paid for seminar or boot camp focused exclusively on investing in real estate. Also, you have some basic knowledge of "How the business works and how you can get paid".
#1 Criteria...
Will the Guru's boot camp or product, specifically add a key component to my business and success in real estate...right now?
This is one of the most important criteria, because it's commonly violated by new investors. You see them attending a boot camps on pre-foreclosures, rental properties and becoming their own hard money lender.
That's brilliant, they've done nothing other than confuse themselves, not knowing which direction to start on. Sure, they are all attractive wealth vehicles. The REALITY is that they'll never start making any money because their running in circles.
If you do invest in the Guru's product, you must be sure that it will immediately be the missing link for your business. For example, you are strictly focusing on
pre-foreclosures, and until now, you have moderate success.
You find a guru's boot camp focusing on "How To Become a Champion Visiting Owners In Distress". This boot camp specifically ties directly into your success in Pre-foreclosures, because the stronger you are at building rapport at the sellers doorstep, the more deals your going to close, therefore your income will explode through the roof.
Criteria #2
If you're going to invest in a seminar... You must be sure that it is in fact a true seminar. Many of these events tend to be a "sale-a-thon, multi-speaker event" disguised as a seminar.
This has become a huge problem in our business. Many investors have become burnt out on sale-a-thon type events. You know what I'm talking about. The one's where they herd everyone into a room and the speaker gets everyone extremely excited, explaining what to do, but not HOW TO DO IT. But if you buy their $999.00 course, you'll learn that step. The worst experience is thinking that you signed up for a real boot camp, only to find out that there's a new bonus speaker every 2 hours, who only wants to pitch you for their flavor of the month, home study course. Especially when you paid to go to the event!
I've been to great multi-speaker events, and I understand what's being offered to me. They're usually weekend events, with 5 to 8 speakers each day, who present their info for 90 minutes and then offer you a "today only" special price, if you invest in their system...right now.
If I am attending a event like this, my intentions are to get some really good ideas from both the speakers and the other attendees through networking. Usually, I'll leave the event with a page or two of immediate action items or changes I want to implement into my business, which I'll then give to my team members (I don't like calling my people employees) to execute the items, as soon as I return from the event.
It's important to realize that a multi speaker event should not cost you more than $500 for the conference. If you're investing $2000 just for admission to an event like this...I've also got some swamp land I'd like you to take a look at...
Criteria #3
Have you researched the Guru behind the products that you are considering investing in?
This frustrates me so much, because there's no freaking excuse in today's world. You can find out information on almost anybody using the internet.
I hear the same story from so many of my students. "Before they found me, they invested a ton of money with some big name guru who taught them next to nothing, while sticking the student with an outrageous credit card bill for some joke product, that only sits and collects dust on their office shelf."
I'll share a story about a very good friend of mine. I'm confident that this will show you two very important points that you must consider...
My friend had gotten the real estate bug and because he wanted to figure the real estate game out on his own, he attended a free weekend seminar by a very well known guru. Long story short, he bought the pretty dream they painted for him, while they bamboozled him to the tune of $7,000.00 big ones, for a weekly telephone coaching program that turned out to be the biggest nightmare of his life.
Of course, you don't get the guru on the phone. He got some lady out of a Utah call center. For the record, I personally have nothing against Utah, but they are known as the real estate scam capital of the world. It's a fact that 90% of all the boiler rooms are set up in Utah...I don't know why, that is the case, but it just is. His new phone coach was supposed to lead him to the holy grail of real estate riches.
Unfortunately, that was not the case, for my friend.
He was more than half way through the program, when he couldn't take it anymore. He finally broke down to me, terribly embarrassed that he'd been taken to the cleaner by this snake-oil salesman guru. He needed to spill the beans and it came out like the Niagara Falls, he told me, that he'd been following her advice and their curriculum...BUT, it was all stuff he could've gotten out of a "Real Estate For Idiots" Book. They told him to look into the Classifieds, call Realtors. Basically, they we're not sharing closely guarded secrets, they we're sharing common sense with him.
After 2 hours of listening to his frustrations, I was able to calm him down by promising him that I would personally get involved, and help him too turn this disaster into a winner. IF he was willing to do what I said, I basically guaranteed his success.
When his weekly coaching call appointment was scheduled for that afternoon, I decided I'd be involved with the call by saying that I was a concerned friend.
The best part was after talking to his coach for only 5 minutes, I had busted her in 5 to 7 lies and had come to the conclusion that this woman had about as much real estate investing knowledge as my Cousin Dave, who is 37 years old and never even rented a home, let alone purchased real estate investments..
To be frank, it was almost comical at times. When I was asking her questions about investing in real estate and what kind of strategies she had personally been successful with in her real estate career.
I now realized that I was going to have a lot more work to do if I was going to help my friend crack the real estate code and make some serious money, in spite of him most likely losing his $7,000.00, I was going to have to invest a lot of my own time.
First, my friend could've saved us both a lot of trouble and his $7,000.00, by simply utilizing the internet and doing a simple search about the un-named guru. What he would've found online, would've been a crystal ball of important information, because so many other individuals had taken the time to share their nightmare stories with the guru.
My second point is that any guru who must resort to high pressured sales tactics by telling you this special price is only good for today, is full of BS, and should probably be treated like the flu, get away as fast as you can.
Be very careful of guru's who use high pressure sales presentations and aren't willing to give you a night or two to digest the info and the program, to make sure this is the right investment for your money.
I've bought many expensive programs on the spot, but I'm also at a different level than most investors. I have a real estate investing business that is very successful and profitable each and every month. If I choose to invest in a program, there's a much greater chance that I will get a return on my investment.
I'll share one last important point with you (because I'm such a wonderful person)...
When creating a lifestyle of abundance , the most important ingredient to your success is your ability to kick butts and take action with all the money making info you've learned.
You can learn How to be the best salesman or closer in the world (not better than me, but close) and there's an old cliché that hits it right on the head...
Nothing Happens until somebody Sells something!
