Originally posted by Cory Smith:
This is why they sell "Education"
This is copied from inc's 500
The Armando Montelongo Company's business model
Provides instruction on real estate "flipping"purchasing properties on the cheap, rehabbing them, and reselling them for profit. Armando Montelongo is the star of A&E's Flip This House.
Statistics
3-year growth:8161%
2010 Revenue:$47.1 million
2007 Revenue:$570,338
Employees:125
Employee growth:121
Founded:2006
Industry:? Education
Industry rank:#1
So they went from making around $500K between the two couples (him and his brother and their wives) to making close to $40 million a year? If the 121 persons they hired (probably mostly low level associates) are making $50-$100K on average, that's like $10 million, add a bit for rent, printing, and offices and such, then the Montelongos are probably pocketing close to $35 million a year. That's where the real money is made, how many flips will he have to do to generate that kind of income? It's like franchising, once you develop a successful formula for a business, most of the money is generated by selling or licensing that formula.
Only the "extremely" motivated can benefit from these programs and use the resources to get a good ROI, most people might as well throw the money down the toilet. But then again, this can be also said about those spending over $100K to get a worthless college education. It's what you make of what you're trying to achieve and accomplish and how hard you're willing to work. The problem with these "GURU" programs, and I believe it's intentional, is they try to make it seem easy and that the only missing piece is the information they're providing, they don't mention anything about the type of work ethic you need to have, the type of personality you need to be in this business, the type of interpersonal skills you must have, etc...If you get the information in that book/DVD/seminar then you're golden, and that's the biggest fallacy. I don't blame these GURU's for offering knowledge or a product, it's just dishonest and disingenuous when they make people believe that all that's needed is the missing "knowledge" or "product" piece that they're offering.
To relate a personal story, I went to a workshop (not in real estate) and the person giving the workshop would personally interview the attendees who expressed interest in joining his network. He would reject people that he didn't feel have the aptitude or traits he was looking for, he cared about his "brand" and he knew it wasn't for everyone. When I see Armando or others doing the same thing, I'll know they're legit...