Happened to be near one of those "free" Donald Trump Seminars, so went to check it out for a joke. Too much to go into, but they (badly) use many LGAT techniques, as well as lots of old-school sales techniques.

Its basically a tool to upsell you to other expensive seminars, coaching, and products, and get your personal info in their database, they ask for income levels, etc, on a card. (always put nonsense info on those types of cards, of course).

I left early, as I could not stand the sleazy seminar leader anymore, made my skin crawl.
But right from the time you enter they start ENFORCING COMPLIANCE. They FORCE you to sit where they tell you to sit. If you move, some guy will come up and try to make you sit where he TOLD you to. If you leave to go to the bathroom, they might not let you back in. This is all about COMPLIANCE. They are trained to do this from the LGAT world, to start controlling the sales Prospects. (your credit card).

Also, the sleazeball seminar salesman guy was constanly saying in a stern voice...WRITE THIS DOWN.
Why does he do that?
Because he is building authority and compliance for you to SIGN YOUR NAME to an expensive seminar later in the day. He was pitching the seminar in the thousands, but of course would "reduce it" to probably $499 after a few hours of selling you. (special deal, lucky you).

They basically tell you, they will teach you how to find multi-million dollar companies, that you can buy with none of your own money, and then split-up, and resell using non-disclosure agreements, for a huge profit...etc. Also, how to buy real estate with no money down, then add some paint to the walls, and flip it for a $100,000 profit. (they are very careful and sleazy in how they say this, so you could not sue them).

Its shocking and depressing how people buy into the outrageous sales-pitch so easily.
Sadly, there really does appear to be a sucker born every minute, and these guys are skimming off the cream. No wonder there are so many LGAT seminars out there, there is so much easy money to be made. All you have to be is willing to stand up and twist, distort and legally "lie" to the public, and upsell them to expensive rip-off seminars, until their credit cards are at maximum.

there are some interesting posts in here.

TRUMP INSTITUTE SEMINARS
[www.epinions.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2007 06:30AM by The Anticult.

Let me guess - Was this at the Learning Annex? If so, this is LGAT central. Anyone who's anyone in LGATs, The Secret, new age pseudo-guru-land, eventually ends up pushing their crap there.

I attended a Learning Annex event in Dallas back in Feb '06. At that time it was mainly devoted to Real Estate and Investment Guru's hawking their crap for thousands of dollars. There were thousands of people at the event. That's where I signed up for the Raymond Aaron BS. I quit his program when I realized he was connected to one of EST's founders.

When I was there Donald didn't have anything to sell. He did a great presentation and wasn't pushing anything. I guess it just goes to show that even someone like Donald can fall under the LGAT spell.

When I look back and recall the Learning Annex event I get a sick feeling. I remember all of the hoards of people carrying around bags full of get rich quick schemes that they had spent a ton of money on. I didn't buy a get rich quick scheme, but I did unfortunately buy a self improvement scheme that ended up costing me more than I would have spent on some "no down buy a bunch of delapidated real estate scheme." That's how I met a person that got me in the Landmark LGAT.

I'm interested in attending another Learning Annex event to see if it has degenerted even further.

The one I went to was not part of the Learning Annex, but I think its similar to what they have been pitching recently as those massive Learning Annex orgies of "get rich quick no money down" schemes.
Trump seems to have his own company now selling that stuff.
www.trumpinstitute.com/

Trump did a book with Robert Kiyosaki.
[www.trumpuniversity.com]

My guess is that some of those independent "real estate" seminar salesmen, (like Robert Kiyosaki and Rober Allen) approached Trump to license his name-brand, and then they just rebrand all their stuff, and Trump takes most of the money as a royalty, and those guys get the commissions, or whatever they can squeeze out of people. Its probably some type of deal where Trump just gets lump sum for his brand.
Like for the Learning Annex, I recall him saying they payed him a million bucks or something to come and give one speech, and use his name, something like that. The promoters pay Trump to get his name on the brochure, and then they divide up the spoils on-site.

For The Trump Seminar, they offer a "free seminar" in various hotels, and hundreds of people go to each event. They use some basic LGAT stuff to start, to try to get people to pay some $ to go to the next seminar, then lure them into Coaching, books, CD's, etc, until their credit cards max-out.
So its the same pitch as all the other LGATS, upsell, and cross-sell, and enroll you in more Coaching, etc.
Upsell, upsell, upsell.

I JUST saw an ad on tv for Trump doing something at the Learning Annex in NYC. It was all common sense stuff, though - love what you do, keep your focus, work hard, etc.

He was just on MSNBC with Erin whats-her-name, and the night before, there was some panel she facilitated, with Kiyosaki and others. They all had hit bottom (which they said was a requirement to getting rich).

Quote
Hope
and the night before, there was some panel she facilitated, with Kiyosaki and others. They all had hit bottom (which they said was a requirement to getting rich).

My view is that they KNOW that most of their customers who buy their products are AT rock bottom, broke, in debt, no job or poor job with no skills or degree, etc. They know that these "rock bottom" types are desperate enough to borrow $1000 bucks on their credit card in dreams of becoming rich next week with no money down.
That Kiyosaki is a real piece of work.
[www.johntreed.com]

But from seeing the crowds at these things, and the fact these guys can go up there and say ANYTHING and make a bunch of money, it is quite depressing.
Like the really really blatant TV evangelists like Peter Popoff who is back at it, you wonder who believes them, but vulnerable people out there in lonely TV-land fall for it.

(swear-word warning at this link)
Peter Popoff is a ...
[mikey.wordpress.com]