BiggerPockets

Where do gurus come up with these real estate investing tools they use to do all the work an investor would do themselves? I get emails all the time from gurus inviting me to come to some webinar talking about an awesome new tool that will find you deals from motivated sellers, locate active cash buyers in your area, provide accurate market value on the property, etc. For example, whichever guru came up with the idea to create Freedomsoft. This tool is supposedly the best thing any real estate investor would come up on. I never used it so I wouldn't know, but I get gurus pitching how great this software is and how it takes care everything with the push of button. I may be alone in this, but I see at least two things a guru need to make lots of money. 1) They need marketing strategy aimed at investors who want to make lots of money in real estate with less time and effort to make that happen. 2) They need to create something that will eliminate all the work an investor would normally do themselves.

What I want to know is who do gurus get to invent these tools and how do they build these inventions to do all the work like they say it will do? Let's say someone come up with an idea they want to build something that will eliminate all the leg work needed to do find motivated sellers and find cash buyers who will close on all your deals fast. First of all where does one find these techno wizards to build these tools?

If there was a tool that could do it all, don't you think the guru would keep it to themselves and use it to close thousands of deals a year?

@Joshua Dorkin Hey, I'm just telling you what I heard.
@Joel Owens My guess is they don't tell you about the specific deals they did with the program because they have all those paid testimonials oops I mean I testimonials.

@James Hiddle You got that right.

The basic "guru" pitch is that by buying training or resources from the guru, an inexperienced, uneducated (in real estate), and unknowledgeable investor lacking sufficient capital can become very successful in a certain area of real estate investing/business.

The problem with most of these programs center around the following

(1) The program taught doesn't actually work
(2) The program does not provide the person purchasing the program with the knowledge, experience or education neccessary to successfully implement the program
(3) The program contains very basic information that can be obtained far less expensively by other means
(4) The trainers and consultants provided are inexperienced and/or incompetent
(5) The program accepts anyone who can pay although many accepted don't have the neccessary personal tools to be successful
(6) The program makes false and/or misleading promises
(7) The program understates the amount of capital neccessary for success
(8) The program understates the amount of time and effort neccessary for success
(9) The program overstates the size of the target market
(10) the program assumes that because of success in one market it will be successful everywhere all the time.

There are legitimate real estate consultants/trainers out there with a track record of success. You won't find them promoting national seminars, providing free one hour introductory seminars at 6 local hotels, or promising that anyone who can come up with $5000 can be successful. They also tend to provide the training personally, not thru hired hands.

There are tools available to make a real estate investor more successful, more efficient, more knowledgeable. They are not silver bullets, and are not promoted as such. They especially are not sold via multi level or network marketing.

Originally posted by Antonio Bodley:
I see at least two things a guru need to make lots of money. 1) They need marketing strategy aimed at investors who want to make lots of money in real estate with less time and effort to make that happen. 2) They need to create something that will eliminate all the work an investor would normally do themselves.

The above quote is where you are incorrect. They only need #1. #2 is completely unnecessary.

Does anyone else find it ironic that the term guru is also a religious term (Hinduism and Buddhism)?

Originally posted by Antonio Bodley:

... Where do they find they find people to give testimonies about the programs? They always seem to locate tesimonials mostly written comments from these peole giving a lot of praise and glory about how great the program is and how you should try it. ...

Other gurus - a reciprocal arrangement is common - you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. The other method is to have somebody totally new (and clueless) provide a testimonial to get some reimbursement of their money paid originally to that guru.

It's the same reason we see the new pitch on tv for the new and improved "knife set that cuts everything" or the "cloth that picks up everything" marketing if done correctly can make you thousands, and even millions of dollars. A value is not necessary in product, but in the pitch.

These gurus see this and take advantage of the idea of people can make easy money. On top of this they value real estate as an expensive product and then value their "expertise" as $10,000+ product. Wow, who needs to sell 1,000,000 knife sets, when people are willing to fork over 10,000...That is after they higher that credit card to allow them to do this...haha

@Will Barnard I am glad you mentioned over inflated. If you don't know these two gurus, you should look up Kent Clothier and Peter Conti. I got emails from these two inviting me to join their webinar, I went to and listened in on this webinar. I usually go just to just to see how much they will charge for the crap they are selling. I always assume right that they are charging an arm and a leg for their programs. Kent Clothier had this program he calls reverse wholesaling. You should see how much these programs cost thanks to these two gurus.