James Wise turns down $500,000 TV deal.

[James Wise]

A couple years ago we turned down a deal to do a TV show with the producers of the show Ice Road Truckers on the History Channel. That was a tough decision because the typical pay for a deal like this is $500,000.

At 1st glance this sounds like a ton of money but that's over the course of 10 years, if the show hits. This also includes you signing over exclusive rights to your media content & likeness to the production company & TV network. What that means is if they want to shelve you, there isn't a damn thing you can do for the rest of the decade. In addition, the majority of that $500k comes on the backend of that deal, if and only if the show hits. 

So with all of that in mind we made the choice to turn it down and continue on our own with our own TV brand. We have complete control of our brand, likeness & media content. Last night marks the 1st time one of our videos broke 1 Million views...As I write this it's at 1,000,259 views. 

- We own 100% of the media content.

- We make 100% of the decisions.

- We sell 100% of the sponsorships

- We retain 100% of the media revenue.

- We retain 100% of the merchandise (shirts, hoodies...etc) revenue.

- We are 100% satisfied with our choice.

Just goes to show you guys that taking the money isn't always the right choice. If you truly believe in what you are doing sometimes it's best to stick to your guns and ride things out.

[James Wise]

Originally posted by @Jay Hinrichs:

YUP.. Armando lives on the ocean front in Newport Beach.. or somewhere like that.. just the cost of doing business

 To  be fair and balanced like fox news.. I did a ton of business with Armando students over the years.. funding their purchases in Indy  Vegas and Orlando many of them who followed his advice coming out of the GFC have over doubled their money on appreciation..  the high priced training as we know most wash out but there are many success stories as well just never hear about those.  Same thing your doing now for your folks that advertise on your station.  Of course the buyers coming to your station are not paying for advanced training its just a marketing method.. 

Regulators are coming down hard on the Utah based fulfillment companies right now including the FCC and the state attorney generals..  Zurrix  and Nudge to name a few.. I have been to these companies offices in Utah.. these are big operations 300 to 600 employees.. and they rep more than just real estate guys.. they run the shows for Tony Robbins and other motivational speakers etc.  

Be interesting to see where the how to high priced real estate training companies end up in the next few years and high priced is relative .. 20 to 50k for training to some is probably astronomical to others its cheap its a matter of perspective.

you now have the how to MF trainers and pert near every niche in real estate has a how to trainer.. be it wholesaling.. or like Tom Ferry for agents or Floyd Wickman ( my wife was a trainer for Floyd back in the day) you have the land geeks. the how to wholesale .. the astro flippers the tax overages , how to buy notes  (Eddie Speed) and many others in this industry. 

Its a natural progression for many and many just move from training one subject to another. There will always be folks in the US and world that are willing to pay for what they perceive is a fast track to real estate richs' or  the idea that buying a few rentals and you can retire.. Ala your great friend Clayton Morris. 

 In all seriousness I've got really mixed feelings about high priced real estate training. The longer I am in the business and the more investors / would be investors who reach out to me the more I am coming around to it.

On one hand I don't think $40,000 worth of value is received by the students. In fact, pretty much everything taught is available for free all over the internet. The rub is people are lazy. People want immediate gratification and they aren't willing to do the research on their own and they want it all wrapped up in a bow for them. Does that make it wrong for the guru to sell a product that the market demands? No probably not. However, I feel a lot of them misrepresent how easy, or not so easy the business really is though.