What are the "secrets" and "strategies"?

[Sharad M.]

So today while flipping channels, I came across a infomercial for Than Merrill. I guess he is in Chicago, so I watched it for a few minutes. He talked a lot about some "secrets" to RE success.

I have never taken a guru course, but what are these "secrets"?

I had zero real estate experience when I started out, but I had an accounting background, so everything boiled down to numbers for me. I invested in rental properties, so I started with how much rental income I wanted to make, how much it would take to fix a house and the purchase price was the plug. Starting out I found all these properties right on MLS that everyone else could bid on. That's pretty much all I did and I learned it right here at BP.

His student testimonials talked about some "strategies". Anyone who has attended a guru course, what "secrets" and "strategies" did you learn from these courses that you weren't able to from BP and other online resources?