What is a Real Estate Seminar?

This is the first of a series of posts for the first time seminar attendee.

I will talk about what to expect at the different types of seminar and how to get the most out of the seminars.

The first topic is:

What Types of Real Estate Seminars are There?

There are several attributes to most seminars, I'll go through some of them.

The first attribute that most people see is cost. Cost can tell you something about the seminar but it can also be deceptive. I'll break them down into what usually goes into each cost caragory and then give some of the exceptions.

For single topic seminars:

• Free: Expect tthat they have something to sell. No one does these seminars to lose money (if nothing else, they have to pay for the hotel space). If you go to a free seminar, you will hear a sales pitch. This isn't a bad thing as long as you know that's what you're going to get. Unless you have enough time to spend 2-8 hours listening to a sales pitch (or multiple sales pitches by different presenters, in the case of the longer ones), only go if you think that you might be interested enough in the topic to spend $500-$5000. You will generally hear a lot of "what" and "why" answers but no "how" answers (i.e. they will say what you need to learn and why you need to learn it but they won't teach it for free).
• $100-$200: Just like a free seminar but they got you to pay for it.
• $400-$700: Expect either a product that has a monthly membership fee (like web hosting or a data service) or some minor information with an upsell to a $1000-$3000 seminar. At this level, they should be telling you enough to get started in the field but you will be reinventing the wheel a lot. You will have to do a great deal of research or trial and error on your own.
• $1000-$5000: Expect to get enough information that you can actually do business. You might not get the best stuff they have to offer but you should get enough info and tools (like books and CDs with forms or other info) to function well. They will offer more services, usually software packages that will do the stuff they tought and they will usually offer mentorships. If that is the field that you are going in and you want to start right away, a good mentor is the way to go.
• $10,000 - $20,000: this is usually packaged with a mentorship program. They usually go all out on these since they will use the success of these programs to promote themselves. Expect to be able to perform well if you can follow the directions they give you.

For multi topic seminars, expect to get the information from the next lower price point.

Note that just because the seminar is expensive it's no guarantee that they will give the right amount of information. However, most of the worst ones got taken down a few years ago.

Next topic: How to get the most out of a seminar.