I got a letter in the mail telling me about a Rich Dad seminar that was going to be in the area. I love these get rich seminars. They are always entertaining. I have read a couple of the Rich Dad books by Robert Kiyosaki, and they were okay. I am not really big on the writing style. But I have picked up a few ideas from them. The theme of the seminar was “Learn To Be Rich Training”. So I signed up.
I arrived at 5:30 for the 6pm seminar. The only people around were the seminar people. I quickly checked in, and got my name tag which read “I Invest In My Future”. The signs said “What the rich teach their kids about money that the poor & middle class don’t”. The guy said the doors would open at 6pm, so I left to get some food.
I got back at about 5:45, and now there were now lots of people waiting to register, or waiting to get in. Most of the people were informally dressed in t-shirts and jeans or even shirts.
The doors opened at about 6:05pm. I took a seat towards the front. The were projecting motivational success quotes on the screen while playing music. People flowed in. I am guess there were between 125 and 150 people there. There was a package of stuff on display titled “You Can Choose To Be Rich”.
The seminar got started about 6:15, and was all about real estate. I don’t remember it saying that in the flyer that I got in the mail, but it might have. But when they called on the phone to remind me, they kept mentioning the real estate seminar.
The trainer guy came out. He was a very good presenter. He would get the audience involved without making it look as forced, or mechanical as some other presenters I have seen.
I am not going to go over everything that was covered in the seminar. But a large chunk of it was success stories of people who used the training. He talked a lot about the deals he has done. During a small chunk of the seminar he talked about his personal life, about running a foster care home, and adopting a young boy. A relatively small part was informational.
He talked a lot about the Cash Flow 101 game. I was intrigued, and considered buying it. There is also a Cash Flow 202 game as well. But then I looked it up this morning on the net, and see that it sells for hundreds of dollars. Hundreds of dollars for a board game? Give me a break! Maybe I will check out eBay.
Overall, the teaching to sales pitch ratio seemed pretty low. They were mostly trying to sell you on the $495 Rich Dad Academy (regularly $995, but $495 if you sign up at the seminar). I wonder what they would do if you called up the 800 number, and held out for the $495 price. They would probably make an exception…oh!!! you were at the seminar…I talked to my manager and he said I could give you the $495 price…yadda yadda yadda.
The seminar got a little slow towards the end. I considered leaving, but figured that this close to the end, I might as well stay and get my free audio CD. The seminar ended about 8:30pm. I grabbed my free audio CD, and went home.
I also attended a seminar like this one in Lansing Michigan. I was please with the presentation and I opted to take the next step and purchase the 495.00 seminar. I knew this would be about real estate and that is what I am interested in. The amount of training information I received and the fact that I can bring a person with me to the seminar seems fair. It is less the cost of a college class and my college classes don’t teach me everything I will learn about real estate and I look forward to what this seminar has in store.
Comment by David — September 13, 2007 @ 3:26 pm
The 3-day $495 seminar is really just a 3 day pitch for their Advanced Training Courses which are offered through Rich Dad Academy, and which START at $12,000.
I have never owned property before, so i decided to check out a Kiyosaki Seminar put on by one of his disciples
It was an informative seminar for a newbie such as myself, but it was really just a big plug for a 3 day seminar a month away (which I knew) . The speaker spent over an hour, over the course of the 3 daysAnyway, I decided to plop down the 500 bucks to check it out, as I was given a huge handbook for real estate with it, and it seemed to be of big value and somewhat legitimate
The 3 day seminar just ended this weekend , and i did feel like i learned alot of techniques that I didn’t know before in that it was an overview of many possible streams of income involved in Real Estate. However, this 3 day seminar was a HUUUGE plug for their “Advanced Training Courses”, which START at $12,000 for ONE course.
They are now selling a software package which is alleged to dig up foreclosures before all of the other services do, and it costs 1500 PLUS a 40 per month fee, and is only available if one takes the “Advanced Training”
I definitely didn’t want any part of it after that, because i felt that there was enough of an overview to where i could start asking the right questions to the right people, with the right materials in order to succeed.
The thing I am curious about is what they are going to plug next after one is in the advanced training
Comment by Anonymous 1 — October 29, 2007 @ 3:09 pm
Been hearing this so-called Rich Dad. But I still don’t know the details of this yet. I hope this would be discussed further here.
Comment by Cyprus Apartments — November 29, 2007 @ 11:19 am
My wife & I attended the 2hr sales pitch & the 3 day Learn to be Rich Seminar/sales pitch for $495.00. It was a huuuuge sales pitch but also had a few gems of information. (Probably just teasers to get you into the advanced training.
I have tried to research the advanced courses to see if they are true education or mostly sales pitch.
For an investment of this magnitude I want to know the advanced courses will really teach something useful without all the sales pitch.
Has anyone used the R.E. Software that is sold with the advanced course packages? It seems pretty impressive but is it really?
Comment by Chris — December 11, 2007 @ 1:54 pm
Hi guys, I have also read the Rich Dad Poor Dad book by R. Kiyosaki. However, I just thinking, is it still applicable to this day? considering the interest rate is sky rocketing?
Comment by g00db0y — February 13, 2008 @ 7:05 am
Hey people, I am a sophomore in high school in Knoxville, Tennessee and I will be attending this 3-day seminar with my dad this Friday, Saturday, Sunday. As I expected the seminar to be great, after reading the comments above I found it kind of flattering to some people who said that it would be a rip off paying K’s amount of money for more advanced training. Well as I high school student, I foresee the world that the people who are limited in as a high schooler. Way before in my life I thought I wanted to be an orthodontist or medical field area job. I had completely ignored the idea of businesses and real estate. I thought it was boring. After reading the first series “Rich Dad Poor Dad” it had changed the paradigm concept in my brain thought that was very enticing to me. I really before hand thought of being someone in the medical field like an orthodontist would be fun but not as money making, but to real estate I had found the ideas of becoming rich instantly. I had got more interested and had continued to read the series of rich dad poor dad and read the book “why you want to be rich” by both the biggest real estate developer and investor Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki. I had definitly got more interested and that is why I had attended that seminar that held in my city, which lead to me to attend the $495 3-day seminar with my dad. My dad is also an open minded person, he seeks new ideas to live life too which is great having him with me for support on this subject.
I also besides real estate investing thought of other ways to make “big” money. Investing into the “Iraqi Dinar” is a big one also. I have recently bought dinar for a relatively cheap price. The dinar that I bought now would be worth 3X the American Dollar about 10-20 years ago. Since then, it fluctuated to a real cheap price $1USD=1206IQD currently. But researches say that the dinar will probably not reach that mark again but it will definitely someday reach up to the 1/1 mark.
Well that is all I got to say for right now. I will post again how the experience goes during this 3-day seminar this friday and please leave comments for me and questions! Thanks!
D Hu
Comment by D Hu — March 26, 2008 @ 5:51 pm
I took the 3-day class and signed up for coaching and advanced training. My personal situation changed after signing up and they offered no refunds for unused classes/services.
Based on their refund policy (three days to think about it or no refund is available), I will never use Rich Dad Education again.
Personally, with the terrible refund policy, the rude responses from my inquiries, the hours on hold to evaluate my options (or lack of options), and no resolution other than them keeping my money — NEVER SIGN UP FOR A SERVICE THAT THE UNUSED PORTION CAN NOT BE REFUNDED.
PERSUE OTHER OPTIONS, Not Rich Dad Education!
Comment by SH — April 26, 2008 @ 8:51 am
The way these greedy piranhas get rich is by getting folks to attend their “free” seminars or (or “sellinars” to be more accurate)and signing up suckers for information one can basically get for free through the Internet or library. Do yourself a favor and read as many books on real estate investing as you can, and find a good local real estate investor who can be a mentor. You won’t have to go broke listening to platitudes and fluff, and you might actually learn something.
Comment by Anya — May 1, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
Hello everyone, I hope that you can take a min to share your experiences with Rich Dad Education with our site to help others. Also look for help on how to get your concern addressed. http://WWW.RICHDADREFORM.COM
Comment by Rich Dad Reform — May 1, 2008 @ 7:19 pm
I attended today and loved it! I decided not to attend or buy the 3 day seminar, but the free seminar had great info. I went to look for industrious, hardworking partners wanting to help me with global expansion. I met great people and we will see. If you know anyone that wants to work hard for 1-3 years in order to have finanacial and time freedom , let me know. The best! But, I loved today! I love RK!!!
Comment by kelly — May 7, 2008 @ 9:13 pm
I went to the $495 Rich Dad Stock Success System 3 day seminar last week. It was well worth the $495. Now, it was a plug for their school that starts out at $4K per class, but there is alot of info that you can learn (depending on the teacher) just from attending this seminar. I visited a few of these sites and have read mostly negative reviews. This is a POSITIVE one. Some of the negative reviews had truths in them, but I feel the people were expecting something for nothing. We had one gentleman at our table during the seminar who was very negative, and hence he seemed to not like the seminar. However, everyone else that came with an open mind enjoyed it. If I had the money I would invest in their school, but the $495 seminar is all I can afford now.
Comment by N Landis — May 28, 2008 @ 11:33 am
HEY STUPID!!!
IF you just paid $1000’s and $1000’s for rich dad training you are an idiot!
Yep they know how to get rich, but you can learn everything they teach you in those seminars and more from “real estate investing for dummies” and you can borrow it from the library for free.
Rich dad total package
$61 000
Library card
$2
The sense of relief for not becoming another idiot that blew their life savings on free information.
Priceless!
Comment by Adam J — June 25, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
STAY AWAY. RIPOFF….
I paid $495.00 for a 3 day “Stock Success System” seminar. What a joke. Most of the class time was spent selling their next series of classes, which cost $$$ tens of thousands $$$. That’s the “SYSTEM” - charge a lot of money to attend the seminar, teasse the captive audience with a few little tidbits of information, and sell, sell, sell them the next course(s). Very little useful information - a lot of fluff. A BIG WASTE of TIME and MONEY. Don’t become another VICTIM!
Comment by Ive Ben Had — July 9, 2008 @ 12:53 am
I initially discovered the RDPD phenomenon about 6 months ago when I found a copy of the first book and read it. The book was inspiring for me for several reasons but I immediately recognized it’s double use as an advertising tool for other products, notably the Cashflow games. I continued to explore by reading most of the other published works by Kiyosaki and his RDPD collaborators including “Why we want you
to be rich” written with Donald Trump. After reading several of the books I ordered Cashflow 101 and admit that it is a challenging and very fun board game to play - where as I despise the boredom of Monopoly, Cashflow delivers on it’s promise of excitement coupled with an educational experience.
Several weeks ago I attended a free 3 hour training expecting a sales pitch but curious to hear about the RDPD education and also anxious to get some idea of the real effort involved in applying the RDPD principals and strategies. The entire 3 hours is a hard sales pitch, but it was enjoyable enough to sit through. Needless to say I ponied up the 490 dollars to attend the 3 day training understanding that I knew very little about real estate and knew that I needed a look behind the curtain so to speak. After signing up and charging the 490 dollar “doodad” I was presented with my “free” guide to real estate investing and the 3 step guide to financial freedom book, as well as some other reading and CD / DVD products. The materials are well presented and very informative. The information in them is not ground breaking for anyone with personal finance savvy, and can be substituted through other regularly priced publications.
Before attending the 3 day seminar I set a limit for myself, knowing that it too would involve a sales pitch, that I would not impulsively purchase any thing else if the cost was ridiculous or the product was not measurably tangible from the outset.
Having just attended the 3 day event I must say the introductory level training was worth every penny of my 490 dollars with my only caveat that I have only a very basic understanding of Real Estate. For someone at my level the course was most likely valuable. But a real estate agent that was at the same seminar admitted to me openly that they already knew everything we had learned up to that point of the program. The age and experience level of the class varied and nobody seemed overtly unsatisfied.
One who attends this 3 day seminar should expect a broad stroke introduction to several real estate investing subjects, including financing methods, wholesale tactics, foreclosure process, due diligence, etc… However it is emphasized over and over that to be successful one needs intensive training in each of these subjects. This of course is where the sales pitch for more advanced training comes in. In addition to the training that you do receive, and I re-iterate that you do receive good training at this seminar, you get to play Cashflow 101, meet new people with similar interests, and receive more literature and information to study on your own.
Anyone who has read the RDPD books is very aware of and familiar with the concept of the “rich” mentality vs the “poor and middle class” one. During the sales pitches, which are a continuous part of the 3 days, this “mentality” becomes a tactic. This is where I began to detach from the experience and hastily put down my glass of “kool-aid”. I felt it was a tad insulting to use the validity of the RDPD message in it’s inspiring context as a subtle manipulation to get one to do such things as consider credit cards as “investor cards” and then attempt to convince one that investing in education means incurring enormous charges on their credit cards to purchase more RDPD products. Once you are presented with the price tag of the advanced training the ploy becomes blatantly obvious. The advanced training packages, consisting of more weekend seminars, vary from 2 to 8 training events for prices ranging from 9K to 65K. I am not exaggerating when I say that the speaker / salesman suggested that people could take money out of their retirement savings to “invest” in these classes. It quickly becomes evident that it is ridiculous to expect to learn the complex advanced subjects at a 2 or 3 day weekend seminar with a price tag in the neighborhood of 3K to 5K each. In addition to the audacity of the inflated prices the speaker made several claims regarding the company owner (which is not Robert Kiyosaki) as well as themselves which were easily refuted with some online research. It is worth mentioning that on the first day the class was encouraged not to use Google to look up unreliable internet information. My unreliable Google search netted a NY Times article about the Wealth Intelligence Acadamey’s owner - Russ Whitney - which was far from an unreliable Google search. There was other information and claims that I disproved and/or could not substantiate that I wont waste time on - by now you should get the point.
As I had agreed I walked away at the end of the three days without “investing” in my future - But I did it with no credit card balances and still have my life savings in it’s account where it belongs. The WIA / RDPD crowd may now accuse me of “thinking on the wrong side of the quadrant”… however I was confident that I could afford to pass up their generous opportunity because while I was using the internet to look for unreliable information I found several alternative sources for RE investing classes, mentors, and opportunities with much more realistic price tags. One of these is the Non-Profit organization the NREIA - I am not currently affiliated - but I do recommend one look at the website if they are interested in RE investing in any capacity.
I’ll part by saying that my overall experience was very positive and that I am pleased with the service I received for my 3 day introductory seminar. I came away with a wealth of information about Real Estate and investing that I didn’t know existed, and with the motivation and plan to seek out more training. The experience was life enhancing and horizon expanding.
I have taken Rich Dads lessons to heart and recognize their value in learning how to think progressively about financial security. But I learned some lessons from my Poor Mother that are just as valuable - and that is that some elbow grease is what it takes to get things done. AKA - apply yourself. If you can afford to pay premium prices and feel that a few days will get you where you want to be then the Russ Whitney / Kiyosaki team is a good choice. If you’re realistic, use some sense and shop around for something less manipulative and more reasonable.
Best of luck.
Comment by Krbt — July 15, 2008 @ 10:11 pm
I went to the free sellinar a few days ago. It was an entertaining sales pitch. There was not much valuable information presented. Considering it was free, I do feel I got my money’s worth. In the end I signed up for the three-day $495 seminar on the promise that there were classes being held in the city I was moving to. I should have been wary when the snake oil salesman could not tell me when those dates were. When I got home and called Rich Dad education I found out that indeed there were no classes scheduled in the city I was moving to. They gave me the option of calling back every 45 days to see if they had scheduled a seminar. I opted to take advantage of the 3-day opt out period. I am going to cancel the contract and get my money back. Come to find out I have to spend my time and money faxing in a cancelation form and sending the free material back. What a waste of my time. The whole thing is a sham. Never trust get rich quick scams. If getting rich off real estate is so easy and Rich Dad Education knows all the secrets, why are they wasting their time teaching seminars instead of investing in real estate. Save your time and money. Go to the library and read a book.
Comment by KBC — July 18, 2008 @ 1:49 pm