What's Bigger Pocket's view on IG Gurus like Thach and Jake....
New to Real Estate · Whittier, CA · Member since 2021 · 25 posts · 21 votes
What's Bigger Pocket's view on IG Gurus like Thach and Jake....
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Jim KalishPro Member
Real Estate Investor · Matthews, NC · Member since 2017 · 219 posts · 173 votesLike you I've attended a few free seminars, which are merely thinly disguised sales pitches. Quite often things open up with everyone telling the room about themselves. One of the first things I noticed is that most of the people there have little if any experience or understanding of what real estate investors do. And secondly it seems most of the people would be hard pressed to pay for the lunch if it weren't free. But by the end of the hard sales pitch at least 2/3 of the people stand in line to shell out big bucks for a week end boot camp to hear what the so called gurus have to say. These folks, although well intentioned, do not offer any local networking. And as you pointed out all of the information is readily available for free or nearly free as long as you are willing to put in the effort. Your local REIA association is a much better option for local networking. And forums like this on BP have provided me with all kinds of advice and insights. So my recommendation is to dig in and do your research, attend your local REIA meetings and try to find a mentor, and put that 5k towards your first flip.
55 Replies
- 2yShiloh LundahlPro MemberRental Property Investor · Gilbert, AZ · Member since 2016 · 3k+ posts · 4k+ votes
This is the forever debate... are gurus worth the money or not? A guru is just a coach that wants to scale. And isn't that what we are encouraged to do by tons of business books and courses created by the wealthy? They tell us that rather than trading time for money, figure out a way to multiply yourself so you can do more with less. Gurus do this. They take the success that have had (and I am only referring to people who have actually had success, I am not referring to scam artists that pretend to have had success but who have never actually had success) and they figure out a way to present the information in a way where they themselves don't need to teach it on a one on one basis. They do this through books, programs, videos, audios, employees that do the fulfillment of the programs, etc.
Using leverage such as the things described above help coaches scale their business. The problem, however, is that the further that the coach gets from the student, the more the program gets diluted or watered down. This lessens the success of the whole group. Whereas if a great coach were to work with 100 highly motivated students one on one and was able to help them learn how to do deals in a very personal way, the student's success rate may be in the 90's. But that type of coaching and hand holding may take a ton of time and the number of students would be limited to the amount of time that the coach was able to provide to them. If the coach wanted to provide the coaching to 1000 or 10,000 people the one on one coaching model would not work. Other people would need to be employed to help the coach scale the coaching business.
So let's say 90 out of 100 highly motivated people could be successful with one on one coaching. Lets say that their coaching was for a year and it cost them $10,000 and the average student bought 2 homes in the year and gained an increase in equity by $80,000 and they felt that they were confident in finding and purchasing good deals after the year was over. Would that be an example of a "guru" taking advantage of people? I think most people would agree that the results would lead people to say "no." Well, what if the program was dropped from $10,000 to $2,000 but the entire guru coarse was through videos and online learning and it dropped the overall success rate to only 50% of the people buying only 1 house gaining only $40,000 in equity on that one house and after the course they felt somewhat confident that they could duplicate the process after the year was over. Which situation is better?
The $10,000 course helped 90% of the students feel more confident and they gained $80,000 in equity by the time the year was over while the $2000 course only helped 50% gain $40,000 in equity but limited the loss to only $2000 if they didn't do anything with it. The coach would have made $1,000,000 that year through coaching by helping 90 students buy 180 properties gaining a total of $7,200,000 collectively through one on one coaching. And it probably took him 25 hours a week (100 half hour phone calls every 2 weeks) for one coaching and another 5-10 hours a week in preparation and content creation and 10 to 20 weekends throughout the year presenting at conferences to get students to coach. That is a lot of money but it is also a lot of time.
Now let's say that rather than providing one on one coaching, the coach becomes a guru and try to leverage his time by producing content. The content takes him 4 months to write, edit, record, edit again, and then to produce and it costs the guru $200,000 to create and make accessible. So now the guru is able to sell the course for $2000 a person and sells it to 1000 the first year. The one on one coaching has gone away but the the guru still needs to create content and go to conferences, etc. The total the students gain from the guru switching to the guru model is $20,000,000 collectively and the guru nets $1,800,000 for the year and gains a lot of time back.
So tell me which of the 2 models, the coaching model or the guru model is better? You could also say none of them because to pay for learning is beneath you and you are too good for any of this nonsense. And you learned that in college, which cost you $50,000 - $100,000 which helped you get a job making $50,000 to $100,000 a year after 4 years.
I wish people could pause and listen to how foolish they sound sometimes when they have strong opinions about how somethings are so wrong on the one hand, but then on the other hand, they do the same thing only in a slightly different way.
- 2yGino BarbaroPro MemberRental Property Investor · St Augustine, FL · Member since 2014 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
In my opinion, you would join a group like this to get access to their community of members, and they shouldn't only be educating, but helping you implement what you're learning, which can be challenging when you're watching videos, but unsure of what the next step is.
They should also have a vast network of resources, docs, vendors, that you can leverage. And I think, most importantly, they should be used to hold you accountable to complete the work and set up a plan for you to follow. Free rarely works because there is nothing for a person to lose, and most don't act on free advice. I know, from decades of experience, my own, and from others.
- 2yJay HinrichsBusiness MemberReal Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:
This is the forever debate... are gurus worth the money or not? A guru is just a coach that wants to scale. And isn't that what we are encouraged to do by tons of business books and courses created by the wealthy? They tell us that rather than trading time for money, figure out a way to multiply yourself so you can do more with less. Gurus do this. They take the success that have had (and I am only referring to people who have actually had success, I am not referring to scam artists that pretend to have had success but who have never actually had success) and they figure out a way to present the information in a way where they themselves don't need to teach it on a one on one basis. They do this through books, programs, videos, audios, employees that do the fulfillment of the programs, etc.
Using leverage such as the things described above help coaches scale their business. The problem, however, is that the further that the coach gets from the student, the more the program gets diluted or watered down. This lessens the success of the whole group. Whereas if a great coach were to work with 100 highly motivated students one on one and was able to help them learn how to do deals in a very personal way, the student's success rate may be in the 90's. But that type of coaching and hand holding may take a ton of time and the number of students would be limited to the amount of time that the coach was able to provide to them. If the coach wanted to provide the coaching to 1000 or 10,000 people the one on one coaching model would not work. Other people would need to be employed to help the coach scale the coaching business.
So let's say 90 out of 100 highly motivated people could be successful with one on one coaching. Lets say that their coaching was for a year and it cost them $10,000 and the average student bought 2 homes in the year and gained an increase in equity by $80,000 and they felt that they were confident in finding and purchasing good deals after the year was over. Would that be an example of a "guru" taking advantage of people? I think most people would agree that the results would lead people to say "no." Well, what if the program was dropped from $10,000 to $2,000 but the entire guru coarse was through videos and online learning and it dropped the overall success rate to only 50% of the people buying only 1 house gaining only $40,000 in equity on that one house and after the course they felt somewhat confident that they could duplicate the process after the year was over. Which situation is better?
The $10,000 course helped 90% of the students feel more confident and they gained $80,000 in equity by the time the year was over while the $2000 course only helped 50% gain $40,000 in equity but limited the loss to only $2000 if they didn't do anything with it. The coach would have made $1,000,000 that year through coaching by helping 90 students buy 180 properties gaining a total of $7,200,000 collectively through one on one coaching. And it probably took him 25 hours a week (100 half hour phone calls every 2 weeks) for one coaching and another 5-10 hours a week in preparation and content creation and 10 to 20 weekends throughout the year presenting at conferences to get students to coach. That is a lot of money but it is also a lot of time.
Now let's say that rather than providing one on one coaching, the coach becomes a guru and try to leverage his time by producing content. The content takes him 4 months to write, edit, record, edit again, and then to produce and it costs the guru $200,000 to create and make accessible. So now the guru is able to sell the course for $2000 a person and sells it to 1000 the first year. The one on one coaching has gone away but the the guru still needs to create content and go to conferences, etc. The total the students gain from the guru switching to the guru model is $20,000,000 collectively and the guru nets $1,800,000 for the year and gains a lot of time back.
So tell me which of the 2 models, the coaching model or the guru model is better? You could also say none of them because to pay for learning is beneath you and you are too good for any of this nonsense. And you learned that in college, which cost you $50,000 - $100,000 which helped you get a job making $50,000 to $100,000 a year after 4 years.
I wish people could pause and listen to how foolish they sound sometimes when they have strong opinions about how somethings are so wrong on the one hand, but then on the other hand, they do the same thing only in a slightly different way.
if every student of every counselor guru trainer was successful there would be no real estate to buy :) it would all be scooped up and or the values would rise like crazy.
I did have a client of mine that went through a training.. He spent 100k the trainer only took on 10 clients and it was a year long in person training.. That person is now a licensed broker and has done fairly well but I dont think the training worked long term for him.
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