Doug Clark Real Estate Training by Response
I wanted to share my two cents regarding the popular RESPONSE Real Estate Education/Workshops for anyone who may be researching reviews for it just as I once did just a few months back. (skip to the bottom for cliff notes)
I caught wind of this through the National Achievers Conference with Tony Robbins, Robert Herjavec and Gary Vaynerchuk. These are some awe inspiring guys, so this must be good right? That seminar was 60% motivating and 40% HARD sale. I was a sucker though and my friend and I bought the $1000 Dollar 3 day real-estate Seminar with DOUG CLARK...Because of course if we bought RIGHT NOW we got a BOGO (buy one get an extra seat for free).
Now the Doug Clark Real Estate Training 3-day was disappointing but yet highly intriguing. They gave us enough tid bits and motivational speaking to think "wow I could really make a fortune if I put my mind to this!" . The 1st day or so everyone was jittery with excitement after Doug mentioned things like the secret software we will get access to that shows us exactly what houses to pursue, or when he would coyly mention the technique to chase the money AFTER the foreclosure already happened without flipping. But then the BOMB dropped. And it was SO sad. We were told if we want to learn all these things we must sign up and BUY the complete training. either $20k, $36k, or $50,000 THOUSAND dollars for a luxury week in UTAH learning side by side with the masters in Real Estate, plus the software, and a help line we can call anytime. A team from RESPONSE would sequester us individually and sell sell sell as though their lives depended on it. Imagine an enormous conference room of people, dreamers, hungry with desire to have more money in their lives...these did not look like a lot of rich people.
They immediately began with asking if they could run our credit. And what our credit/money situation was...could we get the money for the training? Could we leverage our homes for it maybe? Or take out our 401K (yes i DID hear this asked). Is there a family member we could ask for the money? etc etc. Many people found a way and paid.
This was about the point I was furiously searching online for peoples opinions and reviews. Was it worth it? Thats a lot of money. Will I make it back quickly? Does the software work?.... I found very little.
Sooooo again a sucker, I agreed to pay half of the cheapest package and share with my friend who was eager to borrow money and give it a go. We were assured so many times that we will succeed and start making money fast if we put the work in.
IT GETS GOOD HERE-----> The first thing promised is BOOTS on THE GROUND. another 3 day, learning how to wholesale and flip. NOTE: if you are already working in Real estate, an agent, or have knowledge in Real Estate this is a HUGE waste of time. A good portion of it is learning how to wholesale and get MAYBE $1000-$5000 dollars every once in a while IF you find the right property and IF the owner takes an incredibly lower price for it and IF you find a buyer....which leads me to the second day: LEARN HOW TO MARKET ONLINE IE: CRAIGSLIST, FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM. If you do not know how to post an ad on Craigslist or have been hiding in a hole the past decade and haven't heard of Facebook, then this seminar is for you. The last day, and only one I found worth a damn, Compare the costs for renovations, look at possible properties locally, and work out the math so you can find a good deal.
After that weekend which has been a month since we ponied up our life savings or 401k's, we still have not made a dime. And no surprise nobody in our Boots on The Ground Class had either. But we stayed hopeful and many students attempted every which way to use the RESPONSE strategy to get to work. We all kept in touch and a few from our class begin pursuing the wholesale method. RESPONSE says you will offer 25 times before you get an accepted offer doing it their way. Well a couple in the class did just that (i know as I made offers for them multiple times) and its been a few months. NO accepted offers, and even if they did, do not forget the money they would earn is less than $10k...closer to $1-$5k. Worth it?
FINALLY it's the UTAH week of learning the good stuff. WRONG. Our particular package included something called DAY WITH DOUG. Ironically, this was actually only 3 hours with this "Real Estate Master Mind". And he also was WAY less energetic or forthcoming as he was when trying to sell us the entire package. He seemed spent or ready for it to be over. He left immediately after his 3 hour dialogue, leaving us bewildered and with many questions.
The next couple days ended up approximately half the time spent going over what we already covered in Boots On the Ground: Including, Wholesale, How to use social media, What is a hashtag?!, Property walk throughs and Finding comps. The rest of the time was spent being SOLD MORE.... a ridiculously good salesman for Veil Corp comes in and spends HALF a day to finally end with, "you too can achieve this type of service for $10,000 dollars if you sign up RIGHT NOW". and If you do not sign up, they have the gall to have someone come attempt to draw you out of class or whisper loudly why you would not want to, putting you on the spot.... I am waiting for them to ask for my unborn child at this point.
....This is when I find out the enormous amount we paid does not get us FULL access to the software but we can upgrade our package if we want it. Oh also, that $20,000 you just laid down does NOT include the personal Trainers to help you achieve your goals either.
The last day I started listening to the other people in the room and asking them how they felt about the class. The consensus was an enormous amount of people who do not know a thing about real estate but put blind faith and a ton of money into a program that really does not give them the proper knowledge to get out there and do it. Majority were going to pursue wholesaling or attempt to flip a house but yet seemed clueless about really moving forward.
CLIFF NOTES:
-HUGE Selling techniques. They will tell you ANYTHING. BEWARE. This includes "well the people that didn't succeed (or reviewed poorly) probably didn't really try" or "you would pay this much for a tuition to an accredited school would't you? It's like a degree"
-the first package at a hefty price tag of $20,000 does NOT give you any of the items that guarantee your success. This one is a waste altogether.
-EVERYTHING, I mean EVERYTHING I sat through between all those weekends and weeks I could have read here on this site or picked up a book. HUGE waste of money to buy into them unless you want an expensive babysitter and tutor.
-If you are currently working in REAL ESTATE, DO NOT BUY INTO THIS. Its beyond a waste of your time as they teach at a kindergarten level like "how to make signs to put on the street" "and this is why foreclosures happen".
-I don't know how Doug Clark looks into all those peoples faces and can sleep at night.
-Lastly- my friend and I are both Real estate agents. We teamed up with two other people we met in Utah and have PUT all of our efforts together into this and not one of us has made a dollar.