I’m always open to learning financial gain, so I’m constantly reading investments books. Whether it be real estate, paper investments, or just learning to control finances to for wealth, I’m usually pretty open to new sources of knowledge. I’ve read a few Rich Dad, Poor Dad series of books. All of them an easy read, but always filled with mostly the same common knowledge and cliches repeated over and over durning the book with a few new nuggets of knowledge with each book. The books are always vague and never give any details on how to obtain this wealth. I just figured that more education and experience were needed and the book was just an overview.

I signed up for a Rich Dad Real Estate Investing 3 day Seminar which I had to postpone due to re-locating which had to happen that weekend. This is how they got my phone number. After I missed the seminar, a month later I receive a phone call from a Rich Dad employee. Now pay attention because this is what is good. The way they design the selling process makes it feel selective.

1. A Rich Dad employee calls me and asks me a few preliminary questions. Using phrases like, “very selective”, “not everyone qualifies”, “see if it’s the right time in your life”, “time is of the essense, limited availability”. She even asked me to write down some questions to help prepare for a coaching director’s interview. This was all smart because it makes me feel special should I be selected by them because I’m ready to be financially successful. I asked directly, “Is this another service that you would like to offer or sell to me?”. The response was, “No”.
2. The follow up interview. The rich dad coaching director calls and says that she needs to interview and verify it’s a good fit (as if). She asks about current financial well being. Asks about our current savings and investments. We (me and my wife) ignorantly answer these questions thinking the concern is actually our financial readiness. She asks about our credit cards and the limits on them and the debt on them. Again my wife and I think it’s about helping our financial well-being.
3. She asks about our area of interest for investing, real estate or paper. She asks about whether we would like to know more about leveraging credit to work for us. We answer yes. She touches on using credit cards to our advantage. At this moment I stopped her, and asked, “I was led to believe that it was unwise to use credit cards at such a high interest rate. Aren’t there better forms of leverage to use?”. The answer was, “credit cards are a fantastic way to leverage other people’s money. This is what Robert Kyosaki talks about. Using other people’s money”.
4. The saleswoman, I mean coaching director, starts asking sales questions like are you ready to commit. Would you be able to dedicate 7-10 hours per week? We in turn answer an un-enthusiastic, “yes”. At this point I’m waiting for a price and want to know.
5. She asks us to write down some commitments. Some they have for us, and some that we must make for them. One was the hours required. I forget two at the moment, because three is where we stopped. The third commitment required from us was the tuition. $5K. She asked if we could afford to pay, upfront, today, before we hung up. Without hesitation it we both replied, “No”. Of course we were met with, “why”, and she brought up repeating my own words, “Now Buck, when talking about your savings you said you had enough $x numbers of dollars. WHAM!!! It all came rushing toward me. This women was in no way interested in my financial ability to be compatible or my financial thinking to be successful for this program, but only feeling me out for the ability to pay. I made mention of this and immediately she went on the deffensive, and quickly the offensive. She started to passive-aggressively insult us. Saying things like, “You’re just procrastinating”. You’ll never be successful with that attitude.

I told her I would never pay $5k for something that I have only heard about for 15 minutes. “That wouldn’t be doing my due diligence”, I told her. My wife repeated that Robert Kyosaki wouldn’t make a deal like that. The saleswoman (she no longer needs the title of “coaching director” at this point) asks if the kind of help and teaching would be worth it, comparing tuition to college. I said of course, but like choosing a college, research is put in before dropping any cash. She asked, “You don’t trust Rich Dad”? My wife and I quickly replied, “NO!”. She asked, “Why not?”. I said,  “Trust is earned”.

She was starting to get insulting and I had enough. I told her It doesn’t matter, I would not invest that much cash without research from an unbiased party. She continued on and told us that we were not at the right place in our life for this commitment. This from a woman that had repeatedly told us that we were ready (until she found out we were unwilling to pay). She even tried a slight bit of pressure in the end when I said I would reconsider after some research. She told me the whole interview process would start over. Yea right, if I called and said I’m ready to sign up and here is my credit card number, that would be all that it takes.

This whole process was a bit annoying and could have been avoided had they not lied about my initial question, “Is this another service you are offering or selling?”. All in all very sneaky. Trying to convince me that credit cards were a good way to leverage credit. Finding our credit card limits to find out if we could pay. These were great ways to feel out a potential customer.

Some helpful links

• http://www.realestatecoursereviews.com/review/index2.php?item_id=18
• http://richdad.tribe.net/thread/ef29e444-27fc-4e10-9391-d42c94de9670

I had to relocate for a job recently. Which means I had to find a new gym to join. After looking around, I was a little displeased with the lack of choices in the area where I just moved. I found a gym that was relatively close to my house and had enough amenities. I was really disappointed by the price. My first bill was $57. This is a little steep for the area I moved to. I just came from a more expensive area (South Florida) and my membership was only $35 for the same stuff.

My 30 day trial period

Luckily, Lifestyle Family Fitness offers a 30 day money back guarantee trial. I decided to use the gym and see if I liked it. To be honest, the gym has all the equipment needed. Which is to say the dumbbells go over 110lbs, they have a squat rack, and a bench press. The biggest drawback is they’re crowded, everyday. I decided to exercise my 30 day out. Mostly in hopes they would counter like every other gym I have ever belonged to. Most of the time they want to know the problem, and then offer a solution to fix it. When they asked me why I wanted to quit, and I responded with, “price and too crowded”. Here is where their in-ability to problem solve came in. They were looking for some loop hole to keep me from getting a refund, instead of fixing the problem. Most places would come down in price.

They have plenty of margin to work with…

I came from an area with higher cost of living, much higher taxes, much higher rent and real estate costs. The gym I to which I used to belong has a larger footprint and offers more locations, yet still manages to charge $21 less per month than Lifestyles. Either the gym manager is unable to sell or the business is run so badly that the margins are slim, even at the extremely high prices charged. I’m a little saddened that Lifestyles seemed to have a sales prevention team working the day I quit. Another person may have been able to save a sale by lowering the price to the same level that others are grandfathered in at.