seminar length? What's right?

Question

I would like some input on what the right length of an initial real estate training seminar is. Is it 2hrs - 2 days or somewhere in between?  Is it better to do a 2 hr free event and then a longer paid event or should there just be one?  Also do you make the people register to attend, or do you just advertise and market the seminar and see who shows up?  I look forward to your input.

Rich Weese · Answer

Shawn,
    If you're interested in another speaker that has NOTHING to pump or sell, let me know. I'm pretty experienced in this real estate stuff---AND I'd be glad to present for FREE. Good luck whatever you decide. Rich

p.s. There is background on me here on BP at Meet The Investor section and various blogson multiple subjects.

Bill Gulley · Answer

Shawn, newspapers are written at about a 6th grade reading level, there is a reason for that. Consider the average educational level of your group, and dumb it down without it appearing to be dumbed down. With this, consider the attention span of such a group, for someone who is not use to classroom studies, who may have been out of school for 10 or 15 years, may well have difficulty in comprehending the third and fourth hour of information having received two hours prior. In other words, 4 hours for some renters may be too long....an indication might be the level of rent paid, if you would know that, there will be a bid difference between those paying $450 and $900.

And if I may ask, what is your level of expertise in the information you plan on putting out? What strategy(ies) do you propose? All seminars lead to a marketing angle, one way or another, to sell something, so what's the agenda?

Vikram C. · Answer

It all depends on a lot of things, Shawn.  I conducted seminars about 20 years back when prices were very different.  In addition, my seminars were on a certain type of tax shelter and the clientele was generally wealthy people, so I could not have charged them $10 for attending without looking cheap.  The price had to be high enough to make it seem like it was very valuable information, or I would have had to make it free and massively overbook with the assumption of a high percent of no-shows.

Who is your target audience?  What are their resources?  How much do you expect them to gain from the seminar itself, as opposed to using it as a means towards promoting future business with you?

Regarding a handout vs notes, you need both.  You need to provide them with a handout that they can take back with them.  It will also make them feel that they received something tangible in return for their fee.  Your seminar should not be a regurgitation of the materials in the hand-out and should instead expand on some key points, provide some examples, insights, etc.  They can take notes during the seminar and take their notes back with them along with the hand-outs.

Regarding marketing your seminars, it is going to require a little bit of practice on your part to figure it out.  The one thing you do not want is a room that looks empty.  So do not mention a specific number of seats.  (It gives you flexibility with determining the room size based on response rates.)  Once you have done a few and understand your response rates, you can tighten things a bit and make your marketing and planning better.

Shawn Parsh · Answer

It is great to get so much feedback on my question, I really do appreciate it.  Jon I understand your questioning of my intentionsâ€¦but rest assured I have no hidden agenda.  The capitalization of some of the words is to identify the areas I think are of added importance or significance.  I believe you highlighted Action-Fear-Passion.  In my opinion one of the many reasons people do not reach a goal is that they never take any Action.  As many others have said on this siteâ€¦.talking about doing something and doing it are two different things.  As such I consider Action to be a key ingredient to success.  I would rather see someone take Action and fail than to never take Action at all.  Lord knows Iâ€™ve made a lot of mistakes in my day, buy no one who knows me would say I donâ€™t take Action.  As I stated in another post the BP site is great, but there is something to be said for meeting in person.  Having never met, you will have to either find someone who has dealt with me directly or wait to see my progress and true intentions.  As far as Fear, we all know that it stops a lot of people from going after the life they really want.  I will try to mitigate Fear by educating people on ways to protect themselves so When they make a mistake they can learn from it and drive on.  Finally Passion, there are two reasons for Passion being given extra attention.  First, if you have ever listened to someone talk about something they obviously had no passion for you would probably agree it is like watching paint dry.  I want my seminars to be fun, and educational.  I believe the Passion I have for the business will help make that happen.  Secondly, in order to be successful in anything that takes time and commitment you need Passion.  Things go wrong no matter what the business so if you arenâ€™t passionate about what youâ€™re doing you will likely not last long.  I hope that helps clarify my meaning Jon. On a side note I appreciate the pricing examples you gave me.
    Vikram, you are 100% correct that most seminars are marketing tools used to sell other products or services.  I donâ€™t mind seminars that try to sell you somethingâ€¦provided I know thatâ€™s what they are going to do.  Iâ€™m a pretty direct guy, another side affect of my military time I would guess, and I appreciate people who are straight to the point with me as well.  After saying that I have paid tens of thousands of dollars on real estate seminars over the last several years and I donâ€™t regret any of them.  Yes some of them were not very good, but I have always been able to take at least one new concept or idea from a seminar that will make or save me enough money to cover the cost of the event.  Of course I think in many cases you get out of something what you put in.  I agree with you that marketing is going to be the key to my success or failure.  I have posted another question on BP about marketing but have not yet received any comments.  As I said earlier I have a meeting scheduled with a marketing company so hopefully I will get some insight there.  I donâ€™t want to be the only one at my Seminar. : -) Of course if I was I guess I could book a smaller room. 
     Douglas I also agree with your comments on a free market.  I have no problem with people charging large amounts to teach seminars as long as there is a clear understanding of what is being taught.  Integrity, honesty, and service are important traits for any business and they should be part of any seminar.  If my seminars are successful I will be compensated for my time.  If I can keep marketing cost low and attract enough attention to fill a reasonable number of seats there should be at least a small profit from the event.  What I will not do is tease the participants with a little information about the subject and then try to sell them an advanced seminar where they will learn what they need to know to be successful.  On the flip side I will not hold their hands and skip with them to their first deal.  
     Rich I really appreciate the offer to be a presenter at the event(s). I have written down your name and will research your back ground here on BP as you suggested.  As you know I am still trying to work out all the details as far as length of the seminar, target audience and so on but when I get things more ironed out I will contact you.  I do plan on using some of my power team members for the longer seminar, but I think having some other investors at the event would be great.  It would be great if we could get a few investors to present different aspects of the business.
  Once again I would like to thank everyone for their input. I will continue to watch for updates and suggestions. shawn

Marc Freislinger · Answer

I tend to agree with the previous posters. If you are doing it just to educate others, that's great. The better the information you give out, the more people you'll see in the future.

I would gladly attend a seminar given by Vikram or Rich. From what I've seen, they are two of the most informative people around. Definitely in the top 5. (Not trying to hurt anyone elses feelings :) )

I can always see a sales pitch for what it is, so I'd be pretty upset if I was told it wasn't going to be one, and it was. I've actually walked out mid-seminar before for that exact reason.

Good luck! Keep us updated.

Douglas Peterson · Answer

I am a firm believer in the free market.  Let the market decide whether or not we need to have real estate gurus.  Let the market decide whether or not it's a good thing to charge $3000 for a 3 or 4 day bootcamp.

If I were you, I would build a reputation of providing good service at a fair price.  Meet people's needs.  Give a lot away.  Get people asking for more.  Become a true expert that people want to learn from.

Think about the best movies.  Do they make money by ads for by word of mouth.  The good ones really make it by word of mouth.  Good news spreads.  And so does bad.

You want good news to spread about your teaching.  You want to build a good reputation.  It will take time.

Think of your long-term plan and be patient.

Jon Holdman · Answer

I'm with Vikram that most real estate seminars are nothing but sales pitches for the next phase of the guru's "education".  If you're trying to do something truly educational, I salute you.

The first, and by far most useful, seminar I ever took was at our local rec center.   They have lots of classes on a huge variety of topics.  Typically about two hours, though some are longer.  IIRC, it was $20.  The same guy puts on the seminar at other locations and at some of the community colleges.  I'm sure there's some organization he's hooked up with that organizes these classes.

One of the local ones is Colorado Free University.  Not sure that's the same organization, but one of the names for the investing classes does look familiar.  I also just checked the guy's business web site, and they list classes, too.  Looking at CFU's listings, they run $50-75 for 3-4 hour seminars.

This seminar was just information.  The laws, the calculations, what to watch out for, etc.  Sample leases and spreadsheets.  He wasn't selling anything, but he was (is, really) an agent and has a agency, and so was happy to work with me later to try to buy some properties.  His prospective properties were crummy, though, and fortunately I found BiggerPockets before I actually jumped in.

I did end up taking a similar seminar (about two hours, $20 or so, and at the same rec center) on property management.  It was also very useful, though very localized to our area.

A first time home buyers seminar might be useful, too, and would work pretty well in the same setting.

One of our local investment lenders ("squishy money", she calls it) also runs a seminar about once a month on fix-and-flipping.  She, or one of her people, with a real estate agent, do the class on a Saturday.  IIRC, its about a half a day.  I see their ads in the paper.  I believe its free, though its pretty clear its intended to generate brokerage and lending business.

Most of the "real estate seminars" I've attended have been nothing but a sales pitch.  They all seem to follow the same formula.  An hour to hook you into buying a home study course or weekend boot camp, followed by numerous hounding phone calls and e-mails trying to get you to sign up for "mentoring".  If that's what you're trying to do, I'd certainly stick with their formula. It must work.  I hope that's not what you mean, but the capitalized "Action" and "Fear" and "Passion" make me wonder.  That seems a little guru-ish for my taste.

Vikram C. · Answer

I like what you are planning to do, Shawn.  Most seminars are just marketing tools used by people to sell the audience on other things.  If you are genuinely trying to educate and help people, you will find that you are going to be quite successful getting people to attend your seminars - provided you market it well and make it very clear that you have no ulterior motive other than to educate the audience.

You may even find that other people like yourself may wish to be presenters at your seminars.

Bill Gulley · Answer

Shawn, thanks for the explanation and your service. While the military offers unique motivational opportunities not available to civilian motivational speakers, you can use greed and ego as many of the gurus do....lol.

I think telling others how you did something to raise yourself up is great, selling techniques or strategies becomes very difficult, especially crossing state lines, as the degree of expertise required can be daunting. Good luck!

Shawn Parsh · Answer

Great point about the amount of rent paid being a good indicator.  In the registration process I will try to gather important details so I know who Iâ€™m speaking to.  As far as my back ground in real estate, Iâ€™ve done a lot of things.  For the most part I have been a buy and hold guy, but I have done some flips. I have bought everything from single family houses to apartment buildings to abandoned schools to commercial buildings and done some land development.  I usually buy properties that are distressed in some way, rehab them and rent them out.  I use both bank financing, seller financing, and private investors.  Of course like most of us now I think Iâ€™m using banks less and less.  When I started investing I had no money or credit so I have used many creative methods for buying.   I also did all my own rehab work and over time I had a crew that worked with me.  I no longer do any of the work myself as I have built a pretty good team to handle things for me.  I have also coached several people who have gone on to buy investment properties.  
     What I know is that when I started I was renting and was a single parent making $8.00 an hour barely getting by.  I canâ€™t remember which infomercial I saw at that time, but it got me interested in real estate.  I then began to educate myself and started to figure out that there were ways to invest in real estateâ€¦.even for me.  Having this back ground I understand there are thousands of people out there that are probably in the same boat right now.  If I can help them by telling them how I did it, and how they can too, and make a few bucks for my time it seems like we both win.  Iâ€™m hoping that my back ground in the Army (in my 25th year of Army Reserve) and what Iâ€™ve learned about motivating people to take Action will help.  I understand Fear is a big obstacle, but I figure if I can lead men and women through the streets of Baghdad I may be able to motivate a few here in the states.  I have a real Passion for real estate investing and what it has given me so Iâ€™m hoping that will come out in my seminars. I thank God everyday for my life and how much time I can now spend with my wife and kids.  
     As far as my angle, it is just the seminar.  I will trade my time for their fee.  They get the information that I have spent the last 10 plus years learning and I get whatâ€™s left of their fee for attendance after expenses are covered.  Thatâ€™s as complicated as my plan gets.  I look forward to further input or questions. Thanks

seminar length? What's right?

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