Investools Seminar Review. Part I

A few posts below, I wrote about my experience at the "Get Motivated" seminar that came to Huntsville, AL on Jan 28, 2009. Some developments have happened since attending just a few weeks ago.

First, let me say that this is a totally unbiased review, meaning, I have not spent a single dollar on any of this -training-. Our office bought the tickets to the original "Get Motivated" show and they were free to us. And second...

On the day of the show, I did not 'fall for' the $99 Investools seminar price because I figured I could just read about it on my own and learn these strategies. (Which I contend to still be true, but I have not done yet.)**

Back into the regular work schedule, and talking to my boss about the event,I learned he had bought into this and was allowed to bring a guest. His wife had no interest (other than him making more $$ lol) so he asked if I wanted to go. I had definately had been intrigued by what I had heard, and decided to go.*

So, still I have spent $0.00 on any of this.

Like any normal person who works hard for their money, I was 100% skeptical about all this pie in the sky make 300% on your money business. I did a ton of googling on the company and it's stuff the week before, and found it to be about 70% against and 30% for it. Most said it didn't work and the classes were a rip off. So, all that did was reinforce my thoughts.

Cut to day one. At the beginning there was a bit of "motivational speaking" going on. Then they started introducing the "team members/coaches" who each got up on stage and told their life story. I noticed they had a staff member for just about every age/background. And speaking in broad generalizations, I bet their "life stories" resonated with someone in the audience. A tactic to "get us on their side" and feeling like "we have been in their situation and connect with them on some level" which develops trust.

- The main speaker in his 50s worked in a grocery store all his life
- Another lady, for the women, had bad experience in real estate
- Another guy had grown up with a hoodlum father and moved to away at 18
- Another guy hadn't done well in school, but was able to pick this up
- An older couple who were like "granny and gramps"
- and a couple others I forget.

Of course, they all alluded to losing a ton of $$$ after 2000, which of course is why they got into Investools. So they could make some money back.

After all that and a quick get to know your neighbor session, the teaching began. Honestly, I was thoroughly impressed with our presenter. He did an excellent job and seemed to be 100% into this and had a good knowledge about the subject matter. Of course, he could have said anything really and we would have believed it, because no one (there were 650 people at this event) knew any of this jargon.

Now, the seminar went from 8:30 AM to 4:30PM. Of that, maybe about 4-5 hours was actually spent teaching us stuff. I've been -investing for the long term- since 2000 so I had heard of some of the things they were talking about, but not many. Also, they continually bashed mutual funds, but did give some pointers on how to pick out good ones since that's what most 401K plans are in.

Over the course of the day, it was like information overload. There was so much thrown at us, in such a herky-jerk manner (turn to page 23, jot notes... ok turn to page 8 and jot notes... now to page 34) that it was probably a technique to make one think, "Holy crap I need to spend this thousands of dollars on this training because this is confusing."

Nonetheless, I did learn a lot about technical analysis that I never knew. In life that is half the battle. Finding out what you don't know. Ultimately that is what separates the successful from the unsuccessful. That's why we go to college. That's why we do continuing education as adults.

The fact is, we live in a KNOWLEDGE BASED economy in AMERICA. What that means is:

(1) You get paid for what you know
(2) Those who know more are either (a) less likely to get laid off or (b) will be able to more quickly find another job or (c) start your own business

As it relates to this seminar, what i gathered is, a person who is truly interested, motivated, serious, about changing their financial situation will do a lot of work but the payoff is worth it.

I am about to go to Day 2. I will post more later after we see how this goes.

Thoughts in my head. These are all over the map:
(*) I was not thrilled at the idea off spending my weekend at a seminar. Especially when this was the first warm weather weekend in a long time. There were a lot of things I wanted to do with my family. But, I also recognize that this -could- be an insight into achieving financial independence, or at least helping achieve that goal.

(**) The prices they ask you to pay are for "convenience" of their tool set. I was able to log onto Yahoo Finance last night and find everything (even though I still did not 100% understand it, I recognized the terms) they discussed except "Group Movement" and their "Insider Trading" information. So, what they were teaching us is accurate. However, to do it on your own, seems to take considerably more time.

(3) The thousands of dollars they expect you to spend on their education methods still do not gurantee a return on your investment. But, I totally understand you have to spend money to make money. Even going to college and graduating doesn't mean you will get a job. There is risk in everything you do.

(4) As of 2009, our family's highest priority is getting our mortgage paid off. That should happen in about 2 more years. I will be 36 and still have about 20 years until retirement, age 55. As of Feb, all the "pros" and "people in the know" are predicting that the DJIA is going to fall to between 3000-5000. Some of this is based on the fact that the American government is doing the exact same thing the Japanese government did in the 90s and their recession lasted 15-17 years. Our "recession" started in about 2000. It is 2009 meaning we are about 1/2 way through and should be on the way back up by 2017. Saying that, I believe we will have ample time to play these stock games in the coming years.