A few weeks ago, I attended a 2-hour seminar on real estate investing by Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Education team. It was a free event with a lot of push on selling the 3-day workshop course on real estate investing, which was on March 4-5-6 and March 11-12-13. I figured since this was an area of knowledge I wanted to know more about, I decided to spend the 500$ and go for it. Alongside me that day was my real estate friend and business partner Thomas (not his real name). One of the perks of the training class was that you can bring a guest of your choice for no cost. Thomas and I decided to split the bill and go together, in hopes of learning more about flipping, rental property, tax strategies and asset protection. Basically, we wanted to have some passive income in the near future.
The following day, Thomas and I did some searching online, and came across several dozen negative reviews on the 3-day training seminar. We even came across a highly negative CBC video/article that detailed the entire process. What we found out made us cringe a little: the team at the 3-day seminar were up-selling an even more expensive training course, which costs anywhere from 12 to 45 grand. To repeat again: 12,000$ to 45,000$ to learn more!
So what was this 500$ course for anyway? What were they going to teach us?
After Thomas and I discussed whether we should still attend or not, we came up to the conclusion that the people complaining probably did not understand any of the teachings, and that the media is always biased. We decided to get our own opinion and see for ourselves whether the 3-day seminar would be worth it or not.
Come March 4th, I woke up at 6 AM on a Friday to hit downtown and have a good seat. Once arriving there, they served us coffee to make sure we were all awake and ready to absorb some knowledge. Our primary trainer, Michael “Pip” Stehlik, was a very charismatic man with plenty of energy. The secondary trainer was Rae, but I don’t recall his last name. He seemed very knowledgeable regardless. Then there were the other team members: Sam, Tammy, Katy, Mercedes, Baz and John (not sure about the last one).
Day 1 – Friday
The first day was… slow. We didn’t learn as much as we were hoping. In fact, the trainers and team members wasted valuable time telling us their biographies, when the whole motto of the day was “this day is about you, not us”. Some of the team members were pretty sketchy, where one was highly emotional about his success, where it came off to be a bit… fake. Regardless, topics that we briefly covered were Wholesale and Assignments, Portfolio Income, different types of financing, Hard Money lending and as a special bonus of the evening, credit cards. I’ll cover these in a minute.
Wholesaling is basically assigning a contract to buy a certain property onto someone else, where you make your profit by selling the contract (or the “rights” to BUY the property). When this topic came up, an argument was readily apparent. Real estate agents in the room were quick to point out that this was illegal. According to the agents, you cannot assign a contract to someone else in Quebec when it comes to buying and selling property. I will have to confirm this with a bit of research. Thomas, who is an agent with over 4 years of experience, simply said “it is illegal, no questions asked.” I will take his advice for the time being.
We skimmed over portfolio income, creative financing and hard money lending. Plenty of ideas ran through my mind, but the information presented to us was not sufficient.
Now, the topic of the day was credit cards. This topic was introduced with the following, and I quote: “How would you guys like to raise 10,000$ in 1 hour?”. Everyone’s eyes lit up in the room, and Pip proceeded to remove his tie, since he was so excited to share this information with us. He basically told us to call our credit card companies that night and ask for a credit limit raise. “Ask anything. Ask for double the limit. As long as you ask.” He also said you can easily decrease your interest and wave your yearly fees if you negotiate. You can supposedly do this every 6 months, and it will only affect less than 10 points on your credit score. In the back of my mind, this topic was definitely fishy, but I didn’t question it. I was wondering: why your credit card and not your personal line of credit? Surely you will get a better rate and increase with a line of credit, not to mention that the interest is not compounded unlike a credit card. But hey, what do I know?
Once our course of the day was over, Thomas and I discussed our day over some shisha at Café Hookah lounge. What we both recognized was that the trainers and team members were using NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming. This is basically a way to make people conform to varying situations. In English, they’re very good at manipulating people by talking. They are very, very efficient to change people’s patterns when it comes to mental and emotional bahaviour. I quickly ran Sam’s introduction speech through my mind: he was definitely using NLP. More of this will be apparent later. Thomas and I picked it up right away because, well, we’re both good at it.
Day 2 – Saturday
The second day started off with us playing the Cashflow game by Robert Kiyosaki. It was actually quite fun as it tends to make you realize that, to get rich, you must get into (good) debt. I won’t cover too much concerning the game, but it made up for waking up at 6 AM again. If it didn’t cost 200$, I would have happily bought it, but I’m just going to borrow my neighbour’s board to play instead (he got it for a lot less). If you check on eBay, you can purchase the game for about 100$.
This is where the trainers wasted more time, as it had nothing to do with real estate investing. Rae began to discuss about the financial markets (stocks, options and futures) by mentioning how scary the markets are when you don’t know what’s going on (or what to do). The trainer had a chart up on the projected screens. Since I’m an active day trader, it was comical to watch the indicators that Rae was using on the screen. They were put there to confuse the audience even more. I was just wondering why he was using shitty technicals. The rest of the people in the room were impressed with Rae’s analytical approach to equity trading, when all he did was put up the S&P index with unnecessary and useless studies. If he were actually following those charts with those technicals (which I doubt) then he’d be losing out on better buy and sell signals. Rae’s out-of-the-blue financial markets presentation was basically a nicely formed sales pitch into cross-selling their technical trading courses.
Next topic we went over was Lease Options, which was an area of interest to me. We followed an example or two on how it works, but besides that, there was not much to it. At about this time, Thomas had to leave the workshop and give his prospective client a house visit. I stayed for the remainder of the course, which I now regret.
The last hour of Saturday was the most intense sales pitch delivery ever. Pip, now very direct, made us write down notes in the Advanced Training Course Catalogue, alongside the table of content entries. I am sure this is the part where most people started to realize what the 3-day seminar was: a 3-day sales pitch to get you comfortable into purchasing the extended courses. Once he started making us write down the prices on a separate sheet of paper that was handed out, I started laughing to myself. Since there was no way the trainers or team members could hand these sheets out with the prices on them, he made us write them down because it would lessen the blow of the surprise. If the sheets already had the prices on them, people wouldn’t have bothered to look at them, especially since the minimum price for 2 courses was 12,000$.
Day 3 – Sunday
Here we are, day 3, and I’m at home writing this review. I decided to sleep in and not go in, since it would be a complete waste of time. Topics that we were supposed to go over today was the Financial Markets (again), a rehash of Lease Options, Taxation and Asset Protection. Fortunately for me, I know a real estate lawyer, several Chartered Accountants, business-men who can teach me about holding corporations and people who are well-connected with the real estate industry.
We were also going to play the Cashflow game again this morning, which would be the only reason why I would go.
Based on the previous two days, I knew very well that day 3 was going to be the same crap, with a priority on the sales pitch.
Why I took this 3-day seminar
Now, this is the part of the review where most people will ask me: “if you know real estate so well, why did you go?”
While I do know that real estate is a great vehicle to get “rich and wealthy”, I know very little about financing options, or how to get started in general. I wasn’t expecting this course to make me a professional in 3 days. I took this 3-day course to bring me up to speed with real estate investing so I could be ready to discuss with my existing partners (my investors, lawyer, accountant and agent). I didn’t want to waste their time with questions on how to finance or what kind of cool things we can do when it comes to property. I was expecting a “balls to the walls” school-type education class, where most of the time you’ll be taking down notes and asking questions on “how & why it works”. Instead, what we went through was a “shut up and write this down” type of workshop.
My day trading course two years ago was 350$, and it was a 1 day seminar. It was the only course I have taken in my life when it comes to my day trading background. Comparing the Rich Dad Education seminar to Charles Langford’s 1 day class, the experience was significant. Langford, the sole trainer, was such an amazing teacher that I made my money back within a month by using his methods. Kiyosaki’s supposed “Real Estate Investing” seminar was nothing more than an expensive, glorified book read out loud. Seriously, I could have just picked up any book from Amazon and read it, then applied the knowledge to the real life. Whether I would be successful or not is another matter, but you can see where I’m getting at.
Why I am complaining
The reason why I am complaining or “being negative” is because nowhere in the course agreement was there a mention of selling advance training courses. If I had known that there would be an up-sell and a waste of time, I would have never went.
The ethical way to market this system would have to be more upfront from the beginning. I very well knew that the free 2-hour seminar was going to be an up-sell for a paid course. When they were pushing the 3-day seminar, they should have mentioned that Advanced Training Courses were available. Of course, this wouldn’t have worked, since no one would have gone to the paid courses. This is why I am not in marketing and profiting millions of dollars every year.
In reality, what they were doing was fishing for leads through social networking (Facebook ads) buttering us up for the 3-day seminar and then priming us in 3 days to pay for the advanced courses. I feel abused to have gone through that whole process, only to be conditioned to shell out more dollars to actually go through the classroom-style training.
The Credit Card Trick(s)
Friday night’s credit card limit increase tips had a purpose after all. When Pip told us to call our credit card companies and ask for a credit increase and decrease in interest, there were ulterior motives to this exercise. It’s quite funny when I recall his words: “tell the credit card company that the reason why you are increasing your limit is to make a large purchase in the future. Specifically, tell them it is for eduction.” of course, over 40 people called their banks and asked for a limit increase. One woman was able to jack up her 25,000 limit to 100,000 overnight.
At the time, Pip had somehow directed the action of raising our credit limit in hopes of using it for down payments, or for buying property. To be fair, Pip never said we could use the credit card for a down payment on a property, as this would lead to some difficulties. One of the team members, Sam, hopped out to say specifically: “you can’t just swipe your credit card to buy a house, it doesn’t work that way.” This is true. What he omitted to say, however, was that you can use the convenience cheques most credit card companies send to make purchases.
Did I call my credit card company? Nope. What I did was send an email to my financial advisor and asked her to raise my personal line of credit instead for investing purposes. No way in hell would I use a credit card, out of all types of available credit, to purchase property. It boggles my mind as to why people would make a large purchase on their credit card when a line of credit offers a lower interest rate, no compounding of interest and in general, larger credit. As long as you pay the minimum every month, you can use the line of credit indefinitely. Thomas then explained to me that most people can’t quality for a standard line of credit, as it’s easier to get a credit card. I slammed my palm onto my face.
Saturday night, when Pip was delivering his ultimate sales pitch, it all struct down on me then and there: they made us raise our credit, specifically by a few thousand, to purchase the advanced courses. If I watched the CBC marketplace video before, I would have known this.
Nice one, Pippy.
Sales Tactics and Neuro-Linguistic Programming
Since the beginning of the 3-day seminar, Pip was very proficient at remembering names. This was done to make the sales pitch more friendly and comfortable. He was very charismatic and presented as a “religious family man”. In fact, he was very honest and transparent throughout the weekend, I’ll hand him that. However, certain tactics were used to influence the whole event.
First, at the beginning of the seminar, Pip mentioned that the entire presentation we were going to be taught this weekend was regulated by the S.E.C. (Securities and Exchanges Commission). This means that all the numbers, laws and documents were screen by the SEC to make sure that there was nothing “foul” being taught. This is great news, but useless to the audience, since the S.E.C. has nothing to do with Canadians.
Second, Pip coincidentally received a phone call during Saturday’s program by one of his students in Niagara falls, who just landed their fourth Lease Option this year. Is that perfect timing or what? The audience began to clap, for no apparent reason, on this successful story. Thomas and I, perplexed at the coincidence of this news, just shrugged it off during lunch. I then brought up the follow question to my friend: “Thomas, are we just too smart or overly negative at this whole course?”
Which brings up the third sales tactic: handling objections. On the first day, Pip started discussing about negativity, people who bring others down and general “hate” towards successful people. He mentioned that there was a CBC marketplace article that tainted Kiyosaki’s name and the reputation of the courses. In fact, Pip brought this up several times during the seminar. At the time, I had no idea this existed, but I was now curious to find out what it was.
The reason why Pip brought this article up was to make the topic comfortable and apparent. In other words, if the team were to hide the fact that such a review was released by the CBC, then the audience members who do know about it would use it as an excuse to leave the seminar. Now that Pip brought it up, it was out on the table, and no secrets were being kept. This was part of Pip’s “transparent” persona, that he was always going to tell you the truth no matter what.
This leads on to the whole aspect of “negativity”. Pip mentioned that a course he had taught in Edmonton was a disaster once the CBC article was out. The people in the room were so negative, that he contemplated leaving his mentor job after that. Regardless of the fact whether Stehlik was affected from this outcome, it brings up the topic of NLP. What the trainer did he was attribute the word “negativity” to the class of 40 students out West. Now, the people who were against this seminar would be labeled negative, and we certainly don’t want that in this class. The people who would question the content of the weekend would be simply considered negative and close-minded people, when in fact, they are the smart ones who are questioning and trying to understand the system.
I kept my mouth shut the entire weekend because there was no point. If I were to question anything with the content, the audience would nail me to a cross and call me a witch. The mindset of the rest of the students were all about accepting the current curriculum and not question anything else. In their minds, Stehlik was a saviour, and he was going to lead them onto the path of success.
Even more Sales Tactics and Enforcement of Belief
Oh, this is a good one. In fact, I pat myself on the back for figuring this one out. Stehlik is a genius.
During the first day, there were two slides that did not belong in the presentation. Remembering correctly, there were two pictures of a Dodge Charger, painted black with bull-bars in front, which was actually a police car for the city of Nebraska City. How do I know this? Well, a quick Google search of “pip stehlik” will return an article from the JournalStar on how the Stehlik family donated a police car to their home city. I only did this search while I was writing this review to see if there were others like me. Thinking ahead, what if I did this search on the same night of knowing the name of my trainer?
Imagine that. On the first day of the course, Pip Stehlik accidentally shows you two slides of a police car. “Oops” he says, “those don’t belong there”. But he knows people out there are smart enough to do a search on the net, and lo and behold, the fifth result is an article on his family’s good will. Reading the article, it mentions that Stehlik did in fact operate his family’s IGA store. It also mentions that they did donate the Charger to the local police force. This ties in with the fact that one of Pip’s mottos is to “give back to the community”. Basically, his persona has been enforced, and he is definitely not lying.
I actually commend Pip and his family’s donations to the city, even though I’m not from Nebraska. It shows that he is a good-hearted person, but also a very clever salesman.
Handling of Objections, and Why You Should Shut the F*ck Up
I have to admit, I love the trainers’ methods on selling. I have learned quite a bit on how these guys operate, and I plan to apply some of their strategies to my business.
Practically every type of objection or negativity was dealt with beforehand. Married couples were a hot one, as a significant other might resist dumping up to 45,000$ of their life savings into a bogus real estate investing course. Egos were brushed out of the way, as said by Pip: “leave them behind, give this a chance, it could change your life.” The money issue was dealt with what we learned on the first day: “use other people’s money, that means the newly raised credit card limit.” My favourite tactic was the whole “don’t listen to the people around you who are questioning all this. They are trying to be negative.”
Basically, people like me, only I am not questioning anything. I am pointing out the obvious.
It’s quite the opposite to be honest: I am never negative. In fact, I have left a group of friends who were overly negative. They basically wanted me to fail to their level. I am now friends with people who are highly successful, and not just with money. My surrounding’s views are extremely positive. Together, we are a group of friends with the same mindset: we always strive for the best, and look out for each other.
But a sucker is born every minute. The audience members who are told to obey a certain way will never question or open up to opinion until it’s too late.
Kiyosaki, who firmly believes that people should learn more about “financial intelligence”, is ironically copying the school system. In school, you are taught a certain way, and everything they say is right. You cannot question the topic at hand, because you don’t know any better. The same system applies here: Pip and his team wanted to squelch the rebels in the group who knew better. Questions were only to be asked at the end of class, with a team member only. Socializing and networking was prohibited. You basically had to keep your mouth shut, write down whatever was on the wall (or repeated several times by Pip or Rae) and never question the system.
To make things slightly interesting, Thomas and I are University drop-outs.
Why a Paid Mentor is not Really a True Mentor
You know what a mentor is? I can tell you, as I’ve had one for about 9 years. He was the person who got me into search engine optimization and day trading. He is the most successful person I know, and he doesn’t have an expensive car outside to show his wealth. I now consider him a friend and a mentor.
Stehlik’s attempt to explain what a mentor is can be summarized as follows, and I quote: “A mentor collapses time frames.” This is actually a nice way to summarize what a mentor is, as they are known to do that. Mentors basically show you how to do things right from the beginning, minimizing rookie mistakes.
A true mentor, however, would help you achieve your goals, help you get off your feet, push you to succeed, have a beer with you, help you move your couch and generally just help you out in life… for free. They want to see you do well in life, and money does not mean a thing for them.
I have never paid a single dollar to my mentor. In fact, he’s given me a valuable asset (that generates income), paid for my work when it comes to fixing his computers (and I always reject his payments) and basically helped me become successful in my life… all this for free. A paid mentor is basically an individual who is getting money for his time. Whether he wants to help you or not is irrelevant. You are paying for his time, simple as that. That is not a true mentor.
Conclusion
In the end, I lost 250$ (plus taxes) out of my pocket, but most importantly, I wasted my time. When “time is everything” (a slogan of the weekend) it really hurts, especially when I could have been making money at the office Friday and Saturday. That is not “left quadrant thinking”, it is real life. I know that real estate is where I want to be in the end, but wasting my time with shitty programs was not on my to-do list.
Another thing I lost was my trust in Robert Kiyosaki. I’ll continue reading his books, but he won’t get a single dollar out of me. I’ll borrow his books from friends and from the library if I have to. Kiyosaki is a businessman at the end of the day, and I look up to his success. However, buying into his services, solutions and products will not be on my list anymore. In my mind, the Kiyosaki name has been tainted for good.
I don’t want my money back, because there is no point. I read the terms of my agreement, so I will accept my stupidities. Kiyosaki can call me up now and offer me my money back, but I won’t accept it. I know that once this review is out there, coupled with some search engine optimization, I will help the public understand what they are giving their time and money into. For that, I will mentor people into not throwing their money away into disappointing workshops.
Anyway, that’s my review. I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide and make up their own minds.
I too have attended these sessions. Mine were Jan 20, 21, 2012. I did not attend the 3rd or last session as I was fed up with the Up-Sell. Pip Stehlik was our course leader.
My impressions are virtually verbatum to Saro’s.
The net is; I learned some things new and discovered that to take the advance courses would cost me a bundle, and with what outcome?
Perhaps I will find other courses elsewhere. BTW, I did not call my credit card providers.
Best,
laurie
I just took the 3 day course Feb 24-25-26…
It blows me away because I could have written the exact same review word for word.
The sad thing is I was one of the youngest people in the room of 65 participants. I was lucky enough to have an older brother that taught me many things when growing up and NLP was one of them.
I have been aware of Bandler’s NLP since I was a small child…I had even mentioned it during the class to many of the older people that were sitting at my table. They took down Richard Bandlers name and I urged them to read up on NLP…
I just find it funny that you noticed the exact same thing Saro…and it just proves to me that only those that are very familiar with those type of tactics will notice them…Which apparently is a very small % of people because just like you said…It seemed like the entire room was put under his spell, besides my friend and I two of the youngest guys in the room…
We did learn a few things, as you said, to basically get us up to speed with the reality of real estate…Was that worth the $200+? I’d say probably…That amount of money isn’t much nowadays…We would have spent that drinking over the weekend anyways…But is $65,000 worth moving forward? Definitely not…and it saddens me that 50+, 60+ year olds fell into this and spent $70,000 on these courses…
I have watched from the outside, the change in my spouse come home from this weekend seminar, an intelligent and good person, quickly transform into something slightly off. And so I had to pray and do research, kept trying to put it down and say, I am just exagerating. But as I research, I know the words I was looking for and it is he/she acts as if under the spell of something. Why do I say this, well, they are using lingo like “I’ve never seen anything like this. This is so new. It’s great. Yet when asked what was learnt, nothing intelligble or rather concrete would come out. Other phrases like “Oh they warned us not to talk about it because you would be negative about it”….”don’t talk about it with anyone, yet we are of those who believe in the counsel of those we respect….yet a mentor yet to be hired as part of the 40-65$k is trusted above your close and trusted ones. Another phrase was: Now I have enough “knowledge” to really screw myself (hinting, that without the 65$k course you will indeed screw yourself)”…..I pray in my faith (Jesus) that my spouse and all the others that went, will be shown the mind control that happened in this place. In fact, I also pray for those that are teaching this, forgive them Abba, for they know not what they are doing.
Amen
I just took the course March.16,17,18. The course is not for everyone. To Be rich you have to be willing to take risk, and to do things against most people. Because only 1% of North America is Rich. Everyone here talking about spells and Pip being a scam artist or whatever your excuse is, is part of the 99%. I wish you all good luck in the future.
Hi, when you go through with the full-blown 12,000$ courses, let me know how it works out for you. 🙂
Hi,
I have just returned from a 3-day course with Pip and team at Toronto.
I concur with Saro’s comments. In fact I was spurred on to look for this blog because Pip specifically mentioned that he was upset by recent comments which suggested that a ‘prank’ caller was introduced during the class. The difference we had was that Pip invited his ‘students’ and they talked about how this course changed their lives — hats off to Pip and team for that.
I spent a better part of the 3 days quite and observing the effect on the audience. While the content was dynamic and new to a rank outsider like me many of the experienced realtor’s and mortgage agents in the audience privately were all of the opinion that in the real world these strategies would be difficult to implement by new comers.
My impressions:
1. The presentation is slick and very, very well rehearsed right from the timing of every event such as the Day 1 pitch to increase your card limit right down to the close.
2. The sales job to buy the courses repeats every 30 minutes. While Pip makes it abundantly clear that he is there to sell advanced courses — had they told us clearly that we would have to invest between CD 13,000 to CD 65,000 most of us would have never made it to this sales pitch.
3. I did not appreciate the fact that questions in public were discouraged and anyone who is not falling for pip-spell was a negative influence. In fact Pip at multiple times was very vocal that he found the body language of many participants disrespectful and they should leave the room immediately. He was as Saro states silencing all criticism.
4. For all the talk about helping people it pains me that kids who earn less than 30K a year where encouraged to raise their credit card limits so that now they had a means to pay for their course. A point to consider none of the experienced realtor’s and mortgage agents — the guys who know the real estate business signed up for the advanced classes.
5. Saro — you missed day 3 — so you missed another gem. Prospective students were told on Day 2 that the fees they paid was tax deductible. I spoke with my CA friend during the night on Day 2 and he told me that it was not likely. On Day 3 Pip provided the solution — when you take advanced training and the right course — they will teach you how to form a 3-tier company structure which will be used to do what — surprise – surprise — make your previous investment in ‘education’ tax free !
I agree with Saro, the real loser is Robert Kiyosaki. The rich dad is not going to getter rich with my or my friend’s money. He just lost something more important than money — good will and reputation.
Thank you for your review, Larry. Much appreciated with the info regarding day 3.
I’m curious: you mention that a blog with negative comments was mentioned by Pip. In other words, Stehlik is fully aware of this site, and is now bringing it up in his classes like the CBC video? Great. 🙂
Saro,
I just endured 2 days of the 3 days of Pip’s pitch this last weekend in Brampton, ON.
Heart breaking to watch how he hooked and worked a few people for a “chance” to become wealthy.
I hope this passes on to searchs results
STAY AWAY FROM RICH DAD, POOR DAD EDUCATION
STAY AWAY FROM PIP STEHLIK, (aka MIKE)
STAY AWAY FROM TIGRENT INC. (tigrent.com)
-pauly
Saro,
Latest update — I got a call from a ‘consultant’ at Rich Dad last week asking me if I was impressed by the course and interested in exploring further.
When I mentioned that I was put off by the fee’s, he suggested that they have very ‘attractive pricing incentives’ in place and I should swing by to meet them.
And in the class you had Pip repeating multiple times that you cannot get a better deal then what is on offer and we had to sign up NOW !!
Tigrent sure believes in ABC – Always Be Closing !!
Well, well…
I just came from Calgary’s session April 20,21,22.
Same story… Word to word….
Stay away
Steve
EVERYONE HERE IS MISSING THE POINT! The reason this education is so ‘expensive’ is because it is designed for you to take immediate action on. They have boiled everything down into action steps. As soon as you begin to apply it, you can make your money back from a few deals.
Obviously if you spend $10K on a course and do NOTHING, you should NOT spend that kind of money at all.
I did go to the 3 day seminar (the $500 one), and I did not take them up on the 10k+ courses simply because real estate is not my passion. If it was, I would have!
IF YOU THINK THE PRICE OF EDUCATION IS HIGH, WAIT UNTIL YOU GET THE BILL FOR IGNORANCE.
We had recently just recently attended this 3-day workshop in Winnipeg, June 1-3rd. And should last you, our intentions were to check it out and see if we there was any value involved into what was being taught, or the few principles of the Real estate that was being discussed…It seems pretty much the same story to the article which was written, except they seemed to have modified a few tactics since last year. One of my questions out there and I had also asked this to one of the other team members that were helping out this weekend – “Is there any information, or anything out there that verifies that there are actually people or students for that matter, that have taken these advanced courses, applying these teachings (with the assistance of their mentors) and becoming successful at it?” Their only response to me was that there is nothing really out there that you can find, or success stories of others saying this actually has been succesful other than the team members in the seminar that tell you this works (verbally) and its up to you, the individual to believe in the system and follow it correctly…. However, furthermore, do we know anything about people who have actually taken their advanced courses??
We had just recently attended this 3-day workshop in Winnipeg, June 1-3rd. And should last you, our intentions were to check it out and see if we there was any value involved into what was being taught, or the few principles of the Real estate that was being discussed…It seems pretty much the same story to the article which was written, except they seemed to have modified a few tactics since last year. One of my questions out there and I had also asked this to one of the other team members that were helping out this weekend – “Is there any information, or anything out there that verifies that there are actually people or students for that matter, that have taken these advanced courses, applying these teachings (with the assistance of their mentors) and becoming successful at it?” Their only response to me was that there is nothing really out there that you can find, or success stories of others saying this actually has been succesful other than the team members in the seminar that tell you this works (verbally) and its up to you, the individual to believe in the system and follow it correctly…. However, furthermore, do we know anything about people who have actually taken their advanced courses??
We had just recently attended this 3-day workshop in Winnipeg, June 1-3rd. Our intentions was to check it out and see if we there was any value involved into what was being taught, or the few principles of the Real estate that was being discussed…It seems pretty much the same story to the article which was written, except they seemed to have modified a few tactics since last year. One of my questions out there and I had also asked this to one of the other team members that were helping out this weekend – “Is there any information, or anything out there that verifies that there are actually people or students for that matter, that have taken these advanced courses, applying these teachings (with the assistance of their mentors) and becoming successful at it?” Their only response to me was that there is nothing really out there that you can find, or success stories of others saying this actually has been succesful other than the team members in the seminar that tell you this works (verbally) and its up to you, the individual to believe in the system and follow it correctly…. However, furthermore, do we know anything about people who have actually taken their advanced courses??
I attended the June 1-3 session in Winnipeg. It was my second time through so I was aware of the upsell.I also knew that they would have a very good speaker. Thanks for enlightening me on NLP. Saturday night I was talking to some friends about the seminar. Here are my comments: I told them Pip was like a preacher. Everything he said was gospel. He had the majority of the people eating right out of his hand.
Now most of the people attending had either no or absolutely little real estate or investing experience(same type of group as last time). The examples shown made it look very easy to make nice profits. They were also very confusing to most people. This puts you in a mindset that the advanced training is needed to do these easy deals. When we started to play Cashflow they had us remove the small deal pile and use only the big deals. This confused me because I have read many of Robert’s books and he states that you should do a minimum of 10 small deals before tackling a big deal. Pip and one of his team also told me that you can’t make it with single family dwellings. You need to do big deals. Pip was teaching contrarian to Robert’s philosophies. He made it seem like everyone was playing baseball for the first time and we were all going to hit a home run on our first pitch.
I have also attended Steve Martel seminars. It is similiar to the Rich Dad seminars with one exception. They do not charge for the 3 day workshop and there is free booze and dinner. I also went a second time to try to figure out their marketing strategy. They told us that they have students with so many deals that they sell them to other students because they can’t do them all. it seemed to me like a MLM strategy as you would need an influx of new students to sell deals to. I do know some people who signed up for the 30k courses. I asked them if it was worthwhile. They told me that they got the most value out of meeting new people (networking).
Having said all that I belive in Robert’s philosophies. I really enjoy investing in real estate. I have found value in all the seminars that I have attended.I will continue to expand my financial education through seminars, books, people and my own mistakes. Are the courses worth it? I am not sure.
I attended this workshop this past weekend in Winnipeg. Due to a Thurs night fire in the hotel Friday was cancelled due to poor air quality so three days was condensed into two. Also, I only paid $200…apparently they’ve cut the price due to the bad press?!
My two days with Pip were very uncomfortable, to say the least. I have a MA in counselling psychology, have some knowledge of the history NLP, and found many of the tactics employed to be borderline cohersive. I felt like I was “getting in trouble back in grade two” on a couple of occasions when Pip bellowed at us to write information down because it was disrepspectful not to. He also mentioned that if we were sitting with our arms crossed that was a sign of disrespect/ disinterest. As a counsellor I am well aware of body language and was crossing my arms because the room was cold despite my wearing 3 layers. I figure when I pay hundreds of dollars to attend something I can sit in whatever position I like.
The mind f*ck was never ending as Pip took us through page after page of mathematically complicated “deals” of wholesaling and lease options on the wall. Again…memories of first-year calculus or stats class danced through my head. It was not only clear to me that few people in that room could remotely follow what was going but also that that was Pip’s entire MO (i.e. make it so complicated the only possible resolution to understanding what is going on is to fork over a minimum of 13 grand so a mentor can “personally fly to your house” and explain it to you.)
On the final day I left with three hours remaining because if I had to hear Pip say, “guys, it is what is is”, and this is “real world” anymore I was literally going to be sick. And I felt bad seeing the money hungry looks on those sitting around me; such as an elementary school teacher, a 19 year old student, and a 45 year old unemployed lady. Pip also kept saying, “guys, time isn’t money, times is (in unison everyone) EVERYTHING!” I realized I agreed fully… and so I went home to spend some valuable time with my wife and kids on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.
In the end, my conclusion is this. Maybe these courses have helped some people get to the point where they have enough passive income they can “get out of the rat race” but my question is, “at what cost?” I echo what someone above has said, I have no passion for real estate and recognize I am not business savvy so this is likely something I wouldn’t excel at…even with a mentor I’d be paying tens of thousands for. The amount of stress and possible strife with loved ones this could create is far more costly in my mind than anything else. This is slick, this is polished, and that’s what makes it dangerous. Pip and company kept talking about the sense of urgency we should feel and act on. In my opinion, that advice alone is a reason to run in the other direction…if only to spend some time thinking about what the consequences of spending so much money on something we may not be any good at could be. And how good life is currently. The grass is always greener…Pip made sure of that.
Has anyone come across feedback from anyone who took the Advanced Training sessions that costs 10-110K?
Has anyone a recommendation on earning passive income by spending 2-8 hours in a week?
I tried posting something good but the people running this site won’t post it.
Well that was word for word everything that happed for me this weekend. Right down to the call from his daughter on his brand new computer. If they have so many successful students doing this. Why is there not a positive mention anywhere. They said there is a monthly class with at least 25 students. You would think there would be something positive. Someone saying ‘hey, it worked for me I am out of the rat race.’ But nothing. Hummm.
Wow there was a lot of interesting reading here. I took the ‘PIP’ class back in Jan 2012 in Ottawa, (I guess same as Laurie above), I have some good things to say about the course, but I cannot say too many positive things about PIP.
Yes you are right about the NLP, they do know how to work it. Saro I agree with so many of the things you wrote. I did not like their tactics, the pressure or the shut up and listen I’m better than you attitude. I went there because I read Roberts Books and thought he (Robert) was right on the money so to speak. I agree with Robert that financial education is lacking in our education system. Even business is better learned at Hard Knocks than at most Universities.
3 years ago I bought my first house, I had no idea what I was doing, I relied on information from friends who have bought a home before. I bought it as an investment, in six months, after I did some repairs I sold it and made $47,000, a 90% return on my investment (my investment being out of pocket cost). I immediately did it again on the next house and 8 months later made $32,000 or 41.5% return. This was nice, but I realized I could do better, but how. That’s why I attended the course. So when PIP started talking , I knew it was a sales pitch and I was not going to learn what I needed to know here, but I did learn some things I did not know before. I also realized , there’s a lot I don’t know.
MOST of the knowledge I have gained over the years, I learned from books I decided to read, I dropped out of school in grade 9 because I was bored. I continued to educate myself on subjects that interested me. I spent hours at the library and on the net. I questioned people who were successful in areas I wanted to succeed in. I continue to learn and scrutinize what I am learning. Before making a comment here I read everyone’s comments first. Al and Joel, Right On; Disciple of Christ, you spelled Disciple wrong, (just saying) Jesus is the LORD of my life so I know He that is in me is Greater than he that is in the world. Spells don’t work on the children of God!, Nick I am living proof that the advanced courses, WHEN APPLIED does work.
I took the advanced courses, not because PIP sold them to me, it was because I myself decided I wanted to learn more. I spent $19,000 last year and took the four courses. No I did not increase my Credit card limit, I did not agree with that, I told PIP and he even chastised me in the class because I told him during break that I did not agree with him on this.
Putting the four courses to work, a year later I own 11 That’s right Eleven Houses, I have a positive cash flow, and I longer have a job, I have no bosses, I work my business now. (and I’m just getting started)Because of the things I learned and APPLIED, I spent three weeks in Africa drilling wells and not worrying how I will pay my bills. I am able to serve my God and King with more time and money available to me now because of what I learned from these courses.
I suppose it is also important to note that I bought all these houses last year, using NONE of my own money. I didn’t know how to do this before.
I had a friend that attended the same courses, and he is now $19,000 at loss because he did not apply the knowledge. I tried to encourage him but…
In conclusion, I would like to say. This is not for everyone, but it’s not the system that is wrong, it just may not be right for you. PIP and others like him need to make adjustments to their pressure sales tactics obviously. As a matter of fact, I almost walked out of the 3 day in the first day because of PIP. Also since the information is powerful, there should not be a need to say buy it now or lose the opportunity. This is self condemning. Judge the information for the content, not the deliverer.
Saro, I’d be interested in learning about Search Engine Optimization, I am getting a website designed and will be launching soon. Thanks.
Hi Guys,
I just want to let you know that I took the advance training a couple of years ago and no I am not out of the rat race, but I bought a few small apartment building, did a 3 wholesale and 1 lease option. I invested 40,000$ on my education and I almost pay it off with my real estate investments so far. At the 3 day training, Pip told me that it was a 3-5 years plan ( not a get rich quick) and that it wouldn’t be easy but if I keep going I would be successful. Now part of my income is coming from my properties and I am able to work part-time starting in June 2013… It is awesome!!!!
That will allow me to be more consistent with my real estate. I think that the reason why I am not out of the rat race is that I haven’t been regular on the time spent on real estate.
One thing that I have to share with you about Pip is that he always been there to support me. Even 3 years down the road, I have my personal mentor and I reach to Pip and he is there for me.
If you consider the training, you won’t be disappointed by the advance training, there is no more selling it is just a detailed way to the business. If I can give you one word of advice, if you want to be successful using their teaching, you have to make sure that you are committed to work on this 10 hours a week.