Peter Harris, for those that don't know, is the co-author of Commercial Real estate for Dummies book. I have read it multiple times and I even watched all his videos on YouTube. One day I finally went to his website and it talked about his coaching program. So I inquired about it. By the next day I was contacted by someone to get more information on me and what I have done so far in real estate investing. That interview lasted about an hour. I was contacted a couple other times in between the first and second interview and was told many times that the only way they get paid is from splitting your deals that you work on together. Which was fine with me. I was happy about this cause some coaching programs wanted $10k - $30k up front which I don't have. I even mentioned this to them and they said, "we work differently than other coaching programs".
Then the second interview came a few days later. And they ran through how their coaching program works. They talked a lot about working under fire. Meaning they don't just sit you down to teach you, they teach you by you actually going out and working on live deals which they help you with. They pretty much take you by the hand and walk you through the deal. They teach you how to look for deals, analyze markets, how to structure the deal and present the offers, how to do due diligence, and how to manage the properties. And every other aspect of commercial investing. You get 2 coaching calls (apparently with Peter himself) per week, which has a few students on the call, and a one on one call as well (not sure how often). They also talked about some deal assessment review board that helps you run the numbers of your deals.
Then the disappointment came. They told me that I would need to put up $10k - $20k up front for the training. And on top of that, I would also have to pay $197/month for "tool fees". I assume this means paying for their software that they use (e-partner software). I was like WTF? They had told me that they only take the split of the deal and that "they were a different type of coaching program" to find out that they are just the same as everyone else.
I was so disappointed. Looking for a good mentor that will help you through deals for only a split of the deals is very hard to find. I had one when I started doing residential back in 2001. And finding one for commercial now is nearly impossible. So when I found Mr. Harris's coaching I was excited, only to be let down.
I hate when people / companies mislead people. If they would have told me up front what their real fees were, I would have said thank you and been on my way. I could have respected that. But they (Peter Harris and his company) quickly lost any respect I had for them. Instead I wasted a bunch of time on phone calls for them to hype up their program only to be let down.
Just thought I would post my thoughts here for anyone considering their coaching program so they are not get misled like I was.
Karma
