BiggerPockets

Yes sir,

I went to a boot camp in Orlando. Than is a high energy guy and he was a good one for a first time boot camper, but if you have been to them in the past, you can order his books online at ebay and get out of them nothing new and exciting. His mentor is Robin ? out of Orlando and she learned all she knows from Ron Legrand, so you sort of see where this is headed?

Than has some good ideas, signs are a big thing for him, says 40% of your sales come from the use of signs in the area. Another great idea is a truck or vehicle to leave at big intersections to advertise. The rehabber, Paul, is a better sale, because he knows what he is doing. I think Than needs Paul more than Paul needs Than. If you are an investor, I would look online on ebay and see what you can pickup at a discount.

I am quite interested in purchasing his course but would like to know if anyone out there has tried it and if so how has it worked for you.

So, Richard, did you go to this presentation yet? He's going to be at ours on Wednesday, and I'm curious if its worth the time (and gas) to go.

I did end up going to this meeting. It was just him. He's a pretty good speaker, so it was fairly entertaining, if quite long. Usually pitches are only an hour, or an hour and fifteen minutes. His was almost two hours.

Of course he's selling a course. Combination of home study, materials, boot camp and software. After all the suspense, it was $1500 for the package.

His focus is on systems and marketing. The marketing and buying system tie together. Seemed like mostly direct mail with a little bandit signs, but there may be other approaches in his material. He included a bunch of letters for different target groups. And about six-eight letters per group to use over time. The software, realeflow, handled leads and info about the properties.

He's big into outsourcing the work. Taking the calls, for instance. Looks like his approach is to outsource getting the lists (from various list vendors or agencies), sending the letters (no details given), and having people to answer the calls and input the data into realeflow. Then, you would look at what's coming in, eliminate the bad deals and start calling people back. Also discussed various ways to generate a buyers list.

The realeflow software is from a separate company. I can't tell if its software you buy or a service you use. The charges are pretty steep and include both a one time charge (thousands) and a monthly charge (hundreds). He included it " free" for 15 people, but I suspect that may mean just the one time charge.

I am sold on the Fortune Builders system. These guy's are a great success story and have built a very successful business in a very short amount of time.

If you invest in their courses and take the time to implement what they teach you, it's almost like buying a franchise.

I love their attitudes and they way they approach everything with a positive attitude.

I know that studying under them has really helped us in setting up our business.

Well I guess one obvious example would be our website...

We also use a ton of the forms that they supply as they really break down processes and make sure you do everything efficiently. This is especially helpful when doing extensive rehabs...

I am also in the process of transforming some of the marketing material they provide into our business. It is taking me a little time, but only a fraction of what it would take to make this material from scratch.

Last Night I attended my first local REI meeting and Paul Esajian was the speaker.
He is one of the guys on " Flip this house" ( the New Haven team ) I stopped watching
The show a few years back , It was so fake and set up , maybe its changed ill have to watch a few and see for myself, hears a link to some of the Controversy behind this program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_This_House_(TV_series)

For the most part it was interesting, learned a thing or two, the ONE thing I really was interested in was in his rehab break down in cost , ( like mentioned above ) That really looked good and I would love to have that, for the price ,$1200 im still considering it.
He also had an option on the 4 day workshop along with 2 of the courses for I think it was $2600 ? something like that , where you can spend 4 days with them and look at 3 of the properties they are doing on the tv show, one will be before work has begun ,another is in the process and the last is complete , all 3 would air in the series and you would get updates on how he or the team thought they did, mistakes , how it would be done different ETC. He is doing a 1 day seminar on Saturday that I would like to attend , just not sure if I will be in town, let ya know if I go ,how it went.

hey guys,
I just stumbled on this forum and I feel like i can be of some help. I bought Paul and Than's products & bootcamps in October of 2007. It was by far the best decision i have ever made.

I was working the 9-5 job making a solid income as a web developer, but i was miserable. I saw these guys speak one time at a REIA event and made the decision that i was gonna have to take a chance if i wanted to change the direction my life was heading. So i shelled out the money for the courses and bootcamps (which wasn't bad at all because they have a financing program). 1 week after that event, i had marketing campaigns in place, the phone ringing, and deals coming in. Wholesaled 2 properties the first month and started my first rehab the second month. After 1 year, i have completed 18 real estate transactions with all of them netting over 20K and i have created multiple streams of income for my business that give me monthly profits of over 5K a month.

Bottom line, i would have paid MUCH more for the courses and opportunity to learn from them. They have it figured out and laid it out in such a way that if you can't make it work, then, in all honesty, you're an idiot and you shouldn't be in this business.

I have 4 college interns as of right now, and i am hiring 2 of them on full time. The first thing i am doing after i hire them is signing them up for Paul and Than's Mastery program. This program is $10K a person.

hey mark,

I just reread my post and i can understand your questioning of an affiliation. I would think the same if i saw what i wrote.

But, to answer your question, i am not affiliated with their company. I have my own real estate entity. That being said, I do converse with Paul, JD, and Than from time to time. I have bought 1 property from them and i have wholesaled 2 properties to them. Outside of that, I call them if I have questions about certain aspects of the real estate business or if I run into a situation I can't get straightened out myself. That's part of the reason why i hold them in such high regard: their accessibility. They have always been just a phone call away and they were always willing to give advice, answer questions, or push me in the right direction when i've needed it. they showed an interest to my success.

Now i have a question for you:

is that your car in your profile pic?

Originally posted by Jorene Santiago

People are interested in learning more of Than Merrill here huh? I don't know if you guys know their website but I'm actually a regular on their forum their before I signed up here.

That's great, Jorene. It seems that every post you've made here on BiggerPockets has been some kind of promotion for their site, so I'm just going to assume that your purpose here is to promote their website.

Am I correct, or are you here to participate?