Anatomy of a Seminar - National Achievers Conference - Part 5

Peng Joon was actually not selling his training program. He was selling aspiration. He was selling people the dream to become rich! To be an online entrepreneur. To make tones of money easily! He persuaded people that they need not be computer wizards to build a website. He told them that they need not know great English to write a book. Everything could be outsourced! He said, even if you have zero experience, even if you have been a complete failure in life, you can still be a successful entrepreneur.

He also told something good. He said, do not build a service on the internet. Because for a service, you have to be there all the time to provide it. So, build a product. Like a eBook. Once written, you can keep getting sales royalty! Take something that you are good at, say you are good at playing piano. Then create a 3 hour video of how to play the piano. Chunk it 18 lessons of 10 minutes each. Get a subscriber base and publish it to the subscribers on a weekly basis! Of course, I got some idea from this!

After the session by Peng Joon, there was a break for 20 minutes. The attendees were asked to go and have some refreshments, obviously by buying them. The vip folks were taken for a meeting with Peng Joon. Refreshments were organized for the gold ticket holders. So, I was wondering what to do when I saw another Toastmasters friend who is into training and has his own training Institute, sitting alone. I ambled up to him and started a conversation. Since he was already a part of the training industry, I asked him directly, would there be people who take these training? He said, yes, of course. But agreed in course of discussion that, some of them sign up thinking that they will set up online business. Others are clear that they just want the training and materials. The folks who take the training as a train-the-trainer, immediately get down to business by offering the same training and the same materials in smaller cities of Andhra and Telangana. They typically offer it for Rs15000. Thus, if they get 5 clients, they are able to recover the investment. Subsequently, they make money. The folks who spend money for online business quickly realize that they cannot make money so easily and they start offering the same training to others at a lower rate.

The guys who get the training at Rs 15000, offer it again in a small town for as low as Rs 3000. Again, with just 5 more people, they recover their investment. The cycle thus continues...

I thought this was a remarkable network marketing concept. The person at the top of the chain keeps churning new training and the business keeps running.

I asked my friend, is this not some kind of fraud? The person is saying he will help setup online business, but finally every one is into training. My friend said, most people know it is training business only. Some folks are lured by promise of online business. But, they somehow believe that they can make it. And the trainers believe that they are helping them genuinely!! If both parties are happy, what is the issue?

The 20 minutes break was over and announcement was made for the next Speaker. I returned to my own seat.