BiggerPockets

[I wrote this rant to a friend of mine some time ago, and it seems that some people here might agree with me...]

Lies They Tell You In Real Estate Seminars

Don't Listen To The Poor People Like many effective lies, this has a grain of truth in it. But in the way a grain of sand may feel larger than it is when it's caught in your shoe, a grain of truth can be made to 'feel' larger than it is in the confines of the sales pitch.

Listening to someone who knows nothing at all about real estate when you're looking for advice on whether or not you should get into real estate is, by all accounts, kind of pointless. This is true. And if you have a circle of friends who only seem to want to keep you at their level and get resentful if you dare to advance beyond your station, you might do well to keep your bright ideas to yourself around them.

HOWEVER. Ever so subtly implied in that sentence is an unspoken conclusion. You should listen to ME, the millionaire. So if your friends balk at you spending thousands of dollars on courses and boot camps, well, what do they know? They're poor, remember?

Don't fall for that trick. Listen to the poor people, the rich people, listen to everyone. Weigh what you know against what you learn and draw your own conclusions.

Work Sucks Real Estate Investing apparently offers a dream life of uncharted bliss, where you don't have to answer to bosses or timeclocks. Spending forty hours a week for a salary is a colossal waste of your time and energy, to hear them say it. You'll never get RICH working a JOB, you moron.

Maybe you won't. And here's a concept--maybe it doesn't matter. Despite what they try to pound into your heads, it is actually possible to work a regular job and enjoy your life. If you're working towards your dreams and goals, why should you care how you make your money while you're doing it? There's also a concept that they kind of avoid mentioning--that there are other ways to make money beyond salaried employment and real estate. It's not an either/or proposition.

College Degrees Aren't Worth Anything Many people wind up getting a degree in one discipline and wind up making their living through a different one. This is presented as some kind of punchline to a bad joke instead of evidence that human beings have this funny habit of changing their minds and adapting to circumstances instead of plotting rigid irreversible courses with their lives. Learning how to think, how to present ideas and how to research are never wasted lessons. You may not remember much from Physics class, but how on earth would you have learned that science wasn't ideal for you without actually learning something about it first? And for that matter, how are you supposed to learn new information without a grounded base of knowledge to build on? Knowledge is not always called upon consciously--you don't have to remember every detail of the day you learned a new word to retain its meaning. College is the one time in your life that you are allowed to submerge yourself in the world of the mind. It is an honor and a privilege and small wonder that people pay so much for it. Complaining that a degree didn't magically get you a job is like complaining that a Faberge egg doesn't have any chocolate in it.

You Must Act Now! This advice messes up more beginning investors than anything. And in a way, it's just collateral damage.

The reason you have to Act Right Away Or Rot Away In Loserville is because if you took the time to think about it, you might wind up not buying their crap. It's good advice to sell you courses, but incredibly crummy advice for, oh, actually investing. It's the reasons investors wind up in over their heads, because they buy houses in the same impulsive blinded rush that they bought the how-to course with. There will always be houses. There will always be people to buy them from and sell them to. Taking the time to make sure you know what you're doing will make you more money in the long run than rushing to make your first Big Ass Check ever will.

(Then again, what do I know? I'm just one of the poor people, right?) :wink:

It all boils down to:

Work as hard as you can. Place your efforts into a market that works.

Spend less money than you make.

If you are investing in real estate because you burn more than you make. There is no cure for that.

Those that can Do
those that cant GURU

Most people are looking for a financial fix. Till they realize that they must fix themselves, it is the same cycle.

In business there are 3 types:

Lemmings
Looters
Business People

My all time fav with the GURU's

Stop listening to the "dream stealers", ( what that really means, if you listen to them, his/her dream will be stolen, the dream of course is getting your money )that is your friends and family. You should listen to the slick talking salesman with a credit card machine at the back of the room. He has your best interests at heart. :)

WOW, it looks like you got burned and burned BAD!

I agree with a lot you mention, but I don't think that you are given a fair shake to the trainers that are truly looking to better your life. Now I will say that there are a lot of "gurus" out there that has the mindset of sell, sell, sell... I should know I have invested in many of them, and that is why I started my own training business. (Now I am NOT trying to solicit, just trying to make a point.)

I have spent a lot more than what I care to realize on real estate training, and I have found some trainers gave good sound training, while most were in the market to sell, and then to sell the next level of training, yet never really giving anyone any real information. My training is different, again not trying to sell you anything, just trying to say that "pigeon-holing" all real estate gurus is not fair.

I will tell you that RE investing is hard work, it sure is, and you might work more than 40 hours at it, for a few years, until your passive income exceeds your expenses. But if it is something you enjoy, the hours will pass by like minutes. If you hate RE investing, then it is a JOB as well.

Essentially, do what you love, and you will make money at it.

I just wanted to raise my hand on this thread, as I don't want to have a stereotyping of all RE trainers as BAD people.

Thanks for listening.

Michael Suess
The REI Training Warehouse, LLC

Oh so true! There are more get rich quick Guru's today, then when I went to all those boot camps $$$. Some of the old guys have just hired a new face to sell the same old stuff. For me, I was fortunate to find a Mentor who taught me alot for free I might add. He was an estate Attorney/RE Investor who specialized in lease options. I encouraged him to start his own newsletter(before the web) which he did for a while. $20.00 for a year membership. He passed away a few years back. Sorry to see him go. He was a great teacher. One more thing about Guru's. Go to this site if you don't already know about it. John T. Reed.com Great Post!
Matt Mathews
Mathews Associates LLC
Real Estate Investment Services. Agent/Investor

Great post! I almost bought into the "every successful investor has a mentor" bit too. After you get all excited during the 2 days of free "training," stars are shining in your eyes, and you really start to feel like maybe you really can do it after all, they lead all the "serious" people into the back room and proceed to tell you what a privelage it would be to spend..wait for it...$15000 on a "mentorship" that basically boils down to their email address and MAYBE their cell phone number if you're lucky. And you get to thinking to yourself, "maybe if I had that $15000 to begin with, I wouldn't be here at your free training." And you feel that sinking feeling in your stomach that if this guy is telling the truth, I'm gonna miss this boat after all. Thank goodness for the real trainers that actually do care about your success (though they charge too,) and a pox on the snake oil salesmen, killers of dreams in this, the most exciting path to financiall freedom ever.

You guys are right that Guru's are expert marketers. The main ones I have came across came straight from the Dan Kennedy school of marketing.

They utilize ALL psychological hot buttons and any maneuvers (including scarcity mentioned above) they can to call you to action. Most have trained in NLP, and are well read in the art of persuasion.

People love to buy things that they want, they just have a problem with being sold. So I can understand why some folks don't appreciate the Guru stuff out there.

I just see it for what it is, another advertisement. I will opt in with a throw away email address, and watch in wonder as they pull out every stop to try and sell their list the new product or service. It's quite entertaining in my opinion.

That being said, I have learned new things that I applied in my business, just from the free stuff some Guru's give away.

I agree 100% that we need personal responsibility in this country! That would not only help 'deprogramme the guru mindset', but also solve most of our other problems.

One more thing that we need in the US is COMMON SENSE! I don't know what happened to common sense, but IT IS ALL BUT GONE! People have become SO GULLIBLE that they are easily taken by anyone who claims to have the secret to success without work. It's gotten so ridiculous that there are radio commercials in our area claiming that a work-at-home scheme will make money while you're sleeping even if you don't know anything about the business.

People seem incapable of thinking for themselves anymore. They watch Dr. Phil or listen to Dr. Laura to hear common sense answers to their problems. They pay big money to listen to the latest motivational guru hoping to be inspired. They pay big money to gurus who say ABSOLUTELY NOTHING MORE than "I've got a SECRET". It's RIDICULOUS!

WAKE UP AMERICA!

Mike

Originally posted by Matt Mathews

Oh so true! There are more get rich quick Guru's today, then when I went to all those boot camps $$$. Some of the old guys have just hired a new face to sell the same old stuff. For me, I was fortunate to find a Mentor who taught me alot for free I might add. He was an estate Attorney/RE Investor who specialized in lease options. I encouraged him to start his own newsletter(before the web) which he did for a while. $20.00 for a year membership. He passed away a few years back. Sorry to see him go. He was a great teacher. One more thing about Guru's. Go to this site if you don't already know about it. John T. Reed.com Great Post!
Matt Mathews
Mathews Associates LLC
Real Estate Investment Services. Agent/Investor

John T. Reed has some good info, but don't take everything he says too seriously. He has some very close-minded ideas. To get an idea of what I mean, take a look at the review he does of David Lindahl.

Jeff, I gave you a vote just for using the word "mountebank" :)

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Originally posted by Eddie Ziv

If you ask most rich people how they became rich, the answer is rarely the pursue of money. Most of them just love what they do.

Sort of - but honestly, I don't know one person of first generation wealth that didn't have a goal in mind at the beginning. I used to think my dad got into real estate just out of love of it and didn't really have that end goal in mind until I heard him speaking at a real estate club that had asked him there and he said he managed his first few properties as if he was managing 200. I never really knew he was a goal setter like that until that point.

I have only paid for one "guru's" training and it was the Las Vegas hypnotist Marshall Sylver and I knew exactly what I was buying. There are a few key reasons why. I was amazed at the way he could tell a room he was going to sell them something...and then did it. I wanted to learn that skill. Plus I wanted to identify when a pro was trying to sell me something subconsciously. Finally, when he did his hypnosis show a drop dead gorgeous woman fell into my lap and then ended up putting her arms around my neck during the show. I knew at that point I had to learn what this voodoo was all about. Make no mistake - Marshall gives some of the worst investing advice I've ever heard. However, he gives some of the best sales advice I've ever heard in my life. But, it's like learning kung fu. Use your kung fu for good, not evil.

Tim