The Learning Annex with Trump & Kiyosaki
A couple of years ago, I saw a billboard w/ Donald Trump promoting the Learning Annex in Atlanta, Georgia. This was during the height of the Apprentice and I thought it would be a good way to see Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki in person.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with The Learning Annex, it is a well organized program that includes many of the top “self help” gurus. They promote everything from real estate investing to “How to be a Better Person” seminars. The programs are high energy level and push strongly toward selling products. The prices for the products generally range from $500 to $5,000.
After my dad and I purchased our tickets separately for about $150 a piece, we were each sent a package with a couple extra tickets enclosed. I thought this was a little unusual since they had just charged us $300 for two tickets, that they would accidentally enclose an extra $600 of tickets. What was really a coincidence was that my dad got extra tickets when his package arrived the next day. A day or two later we each got a pre-recorded phone call from the Learning Annex saying they had accidentally included the tickets, but since it was an honest mistake we could go ahead and bring a couple friends for free. (This is when I started to get a feeling this wasn’t going to a learning seminar, but a “hold onto your wallet” marketing free for all.)
Anyway, dad and I still wanted to see Trump so we started looking through the itinerary to determine what time on the weekend he would be speaking. We live two hours from Atlanta and were going to drive down that day and see him speak and not go to both days of the seminar. My dad called the Learning Annex to get the time and day of his speech. This is when the “Bologna” got real good. They informed us due to security reasons, they could not disclose when the main speakers would be speaking over the weekend. Not even, which day. WTF! These guys have some serious brass to use that line. Can you imagine if you bought tickets to Game 7 of the World Series and they would only narrow down the time of the game to a 48 hour time period in the fall. As a consolation, there will be plenty of minor league games playing that weekend for you to watch while you are waiting. People would storm the Major League baseball office in protest.
My opinion as to why they did this was to make people show up and sit through all the extra high pressure sales gurus. I would guess the Learning Annex gets some sort of commission off sales and they knew no one would want to listen a “no name” sale his product.
After this incident, we decided this was probably not a learning event, but a marketing event and therefore did not go the actual event. I am interested if anyone has been to these events and had a similar experience. If you have a similar story, feel free to post a comment.
Tags: gurus, hoax, kiyosaki, learning annex, real estate, rip off, scam, trump
December 22nd, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.
Allen Taylor
December 23rd, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Thanks Allen! I checked out your site, too. Good article on the mini warehouses.
Michael Rogers
December 31st, 2008 at 11:12 pm
It is interesting to read what you said about the Learning Annex. I’ve had a similar experience and the whole thing gives it a bad “brand” that leads me to think the entire center is a scam.
I have had friends go to speakers there that they have learned from and it went as they thought it would.
But I dont think it will be the first place I look to for real learning.
January 1st, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Nate,
Thanks for the comments! Most of the people that I’ve talked to have come away with the same impression as you of the Learning Annex.
The best real estate learning I’ve come across is just reading and talking to successful investors that I don’t have to pay. Just the free networking and learning vicariously from others’ experiences has really helped me.
Michael
January 1st, 2009 at 8:45 pm
You were right. This show was a rip off. I was one of the vendors that worked for Learning Annex until they didnt pay me. I felt very greasey everytime I worked on that show. It was sad to see the people attending the show wasting their money on that crap hoping for a dream. The people working the booths were instructed to grap your credit card from you so they could charge it asap.
STAY away from the Learning Annex. Bill Zanker is a clueless president..
I can’t believe Trump was part of this snake oil show but he got 1.2 million everytime he talked “live”.
January 2nd, 2009 at 12:00 am
Harry,
Thanks for the comments. It was good to get insight from a vendor. I haven’t heard many stories of satisfied Learning Annex customers that went on to be successful after attending the conference. The high pressure sales atmosphere and management not honoring promises will probably eventually cause the Learning Annex to flame out.
Thanks again for your insight.
Michael