Thread: Rich Dad Seminar Exposed (FINALLY!)

Originally Posted by Jonleehacker

You're missing the point of charging for information. It isn't the information that is being charged for, everyone knows it is available for free SOMEWHERE else.

What's being charged for is the time savings of gathering, organising and presenting the information.

By your logic, houses should sell for the cost of the building materials, since theoretically I could build my own house if I own a hammer and a wheelbarrow.

By that logic then, commissioning someone to gather the information in a cohesive format would probably cost at max $1000 - he charges $5000 for almost NO information - he says the $45.000 is where the meat is - do you think he alone gathered the information? No someone else did it for him. Hmmm, $1000 versus $45.000 - hard to choose, really, really hard

I went to a Dave Ramsey seminar and dropped $300 for the 'basic' package at the end of the seminar. This guy is even more swarmy because he uses religion and faith to hock his wares, and then you go to his seminar and he reveals his special secrets for hundreds of dollars in the back of the room. And he has his radio show, his message is basically painful slowlane, even though I do agree with him about abolishing debt.

I took my wife and bought the stupid thing. Looking back, our relationship would have been much better off if I would have spent that money on a nice dinner with her.

Hey guys -

Not a bad thread going here, a bit of a flame war in the middle but that's to be expected on public forums.

I think there is a little bit of misinformation in this thread also but over all it is on track.

My wife and I have been through the Kiyosaki sales funnel up to and including purchasing and attending several classes and going to the 2009 Annual Forum in Orlando.

The seminar presented in the video was a great "bad" example so I can see why it was featured. It was really not too different from what we went through. The presenter in the video was more of a jerk, but it is what it is: a sales funnel.

Initial hook: Free 1 day seminar. Go to a hotel room in a nearby city. Listen to someone talk about real estate for a couple hours. Gift: a book or CD. Upsell: three day seminar for $500.

Three day seminar: a lot of hard sell, a lot of impressive numbers, and an upsell for the $12K-$45K "packages" of classes as mentioned in the video.

Once you buy the classes there are no more upsells. Each class is tailored to a specific topic and the ones we attended were more or less informative and useful.

Those of us who went through these classes jokingly referred to the 3 day seminar as "Credit Card U."

What they showed in the video was accurate where they tell you to increase your credit card limit. The 3 day that we attended was a little bit different. The 2nd day is where they tell you to increase your limit for a "significant purchase" where in the video they were using the pretense that you need the credit card for legitimate real estate expenses. The evening of the 2nd day is where they revealed to us the pricing and sent us home with order forms so we could pick the classes we wanted.

Even though the guy in the video was a jerk, you have to give him points for revealing the upsell on Day 1. Anything after that no one can claim they didn't know what they were in for.

They also have a money back guarantee in these seminars. As long as you request a refund by the evening of the first day they will refund you. We noticed a trend that even in the advanced classes most of the "meat" information was held back until day 2. In reference to the people who were in a 3 day seminar with a jerk who told them on day 1 they were in for a $12k - $45K upsell - what did they expect day 2 and day 3 would be like?!

In retrospect we don't regret taking the classes. We learned a lot, met some good people, and gained "high pressure sales" seminar experience.

Unfortunately, most people who attend the Rich Dad 3 day seminar will never see this thread until its too late.

James Hagarty
Dover, DE USA

People in Missouri said they were not able to get theri refunds and reported it to the news and the atty general . Sad

PrincessK

I don't know what to say.


I'm 10 minutes in, but it's not different from any other success / sales seminars out there.

Not only the "Rich Dad" is doing this. Almost everyone is doing this.

The important lesson here is that people like to have others hold their hands for them and guide them to safety. That is why they pay a lot for seminars which a book can cover. Robert's book is top notch in delivering basic financial lessons and motivating people to step up but the instant he started giving seminars without him attending, he put his brand in danger. I guess he could go down the same path as his friend Donald Trump where any publicity is good publicity.

What pisses me off the most is the whole "Buy our stuff or we'll sabotage your beliefs" bs. Some of those people will never get over that.

what a &(§! move to do...

Originally Posted by cashflow3000

Hey guys -

Not a bad thread going here, a bit of a flame war in the middle but that's to be expected on public forums.

I think there is a little bit of misinformation in this thread also but over all it is on track.

My wife and I have been through the Kiyosaki sales funnel up to and including purchasing and attending several classes and going to the 2009 Annual Forum in Orlando.

The seminar presented in the video was a great "bad" example so I can see why it was featured. It was really not too different from what we went through. The presenter in the video was more of a jerk, but it is what it is: a sales funnel.

Initial hook: Free 1 day seminar. Go to a hotel room in a nearby city. Listen to someone talk about real estate for a couple hours. Gift: a book or CD. Upsell: three day seminar for $500.

Three day seminar: a lot of hard sell, a lot of impressive numbers, and an upsell for the $12K-$45K "packages" of classes as mentioned in the video.

Once you buy the classes there are no more upsells. Each class is tailored to a specific topic and the ones we attended were more or less informative and useful.

Those of us who went through these classes jokingly referred to the 3 day seminar as "Credit Card U."

What they showed in the video was accurate where they tell you to increase your credit card limit. The 3 day that we attended was a little bit different. The 2nd day is where they tell you to increase your limit for a "significant purchase" where in the video they were using the pretense that you need the credit card for legitimate real estate expenses. The evening of the 2nd day is where they revealed to us the pricing and sent us home with order forms so we could pick the classes we wanted.

Even though the guy in the video was a jerk, you have to give him points for revealing the upsell on Day 1. Anything after that no one can claim they didn't know what they were in for.

They also have a money back guarantee in these seminars. As long as you request a refund by the evening of the first day they will refund you. We noticed a trend that even in the advanced classes most of the "meat" information was held back until day 2. In reference to the people who were in a 3 day seminar with a jerk who told them on day 1 they were in for a $12k - $45K upsell - what did they expect day 2 and day 3 would be like?!

In retrospect we don't regret taking the classes. We learned a lot, met some good people, and gained "high pressure sales" seminar experience.

Unfortunately, most people who attend the Rich Dad 3 day seminar will never see this thread until its too late.

James Hagarty
Dover, DE USA

This is pretty random, but you're from my hometown! That's very strange.

Anyway, I would never go to a RK seminar. Not all seminars are a waste of money, but it's not that hard to see which ones are. The way I see it is if a seminar requires a 4 day process of upsells, then it is probably not worth the huge amount of money that is spent.

The best seminars I went to, I went to for extremely low cost. I entered a business plan contest recently ($75,000 grand prize) and I got to hear multiple people speak; successful entrepreneurs, marketing and economics professors, founders and CEOs. There was a boot camp situation (9a-2p) and a couple of presentations afterward. The contest cost $75 to enter. Trick is, you have to be affiliated with my university ($53,000/year ) to enter. So $75 taught me how to not only write a business plan but to analyze one.

The only problem was that the professors who spoke thought the business plan was the end-all-be-all of business, but the entrepreneurs thought business plans were stupid. In fact, one of the speakers directly said that the business plan competition was a waste of time. I kind of agree with him; but all those seminars and presentations for $75? I think that's worth it in itself.

I appreciate this thread as someone just emailed me a link to the Rich Dad blog literally this morning and now I have something to respond with!