Friday, February 16, 2007

Top 10 Problems with Donald Trumps Wealth Expo

I'm up late product developing, TV's on in the background. IT was 30 minutes of banter and fake testimonials, here is one snip from DT himself. Being too lazy to flip the channel, after hearing for about 20 minutes people saying how easy it is to become a millionaire and that they are now living care free and working less, I decided to rant...

While the concept of a learning to make money expo is great, these guys are trying to make it out like they have the secret formula that can easily be learned. Sorry, people, but all of these guys who built wealth did it with unique creativity, luck, skill and yes, knowledge. Here is my beef with the deceptive Wealth Expo marketing:

  1. Truth. Are these actors for real, "ANYONE" can do this? Even if that were true, the implication would then be that tens-of-thousands who attend would then be in competition with Trump, et al., afterall, they all just shelled out $100 to follow after him.
  2. Catch. True, knowledge based trade secrets are never given away. Indeed, the presenters do get paid well I'm sure, but the amount is still minor as compared to their wealth. No, they're not going to give away a coveted secret to repeatable income. The fact is, they're selling you well established, old knowledge.
  3. RISK. Unless Trump cosigns your loan, there is a risk in getting into real estate. Real Estate investors that were around 30 years ago are not doing the same things now as they did then. Trump has changed his investment portfolio significantly over the years and continues to. Is he able to teach you how to constantly adjust your investment portfolio.
  4. Help Needed. "I now have 2 or 3 investment properties and making a passive income", was a quick testimonial from a prior attendee. Do you really believe Trump is buying "a" condo these days or even 2 or 3? No, he's building and maybe managing them! And guess what, you're buying them! It sustains an artificial demand where there wasn't before and raises the price. We are still in a real estate bubble, they are of course interested in seeing new recruits to keep it going.
  5. Expensive Movie. Cost is shown $499 then reduced to $99 "if you act quickly". Who are they kidding? Only nationwide conference charge that level of pricing. These are metro conferences for 10,000's persons should cost a fraction of that... clearly the profit margin is huge.
  6. Lazy Americans. One of the presenters said: "I don't work anymore and I can tell you how to do the same thing..." If that we're even theoretically true; wouldn't that mean that all of America would become a lazy bunch of people, with nobody actually doing the work.
  7. Hire Immigrants. (With all the lazy Americans, we might need to). If these real estate professional think that can easily teach their methods, why wouldn't they reduce the ticket price and hire the best attendees!
  8. Apprentice. Trump hangs out for 60 minutes afterward. It would be really cool if he visited the exhibition hall, talking to the emerging companies; in fact I would have my company be a sponsor! In reality, he patronizes the audience for an hour (remember they shelled $100 for a ticket) and probably half the questions are "How do I get on The Apprentice"... Here's a hint; if you're at this conference, your probably not his ideal candidate!
  9. Scale. Are we going to see tens-of-thousands of new people in Real Estate every year these guys come to town... opps, I forgot, we already do! But probably a fraction of the new agents, loan officers, etc. got their credential after attending this.
  10. Learn Real Estate and Ebay. Wow; quite the diversity in wealth formulas. I didn't hear about it in the 30 minute TV ad, but the Wealth Expo website said "Become an eBay entrepreneur"

Anyway all that being said, I'd like to jump in and speak at the event. I have a great product for stay-at-homers to sell! Coincidentally, we're waiting to hear back from LearningAnnex if there are any sponsorship opportunities available.