Ups, downs, and sideways movements in investing

Mark Broberg, the primary presenter, was dynamic and informative, at the same time he used every opportunity to make sure we understood the value of continued education. He stressed the fact that people who didn’t choose to continue the programs were historically unlikely to continue improving their investing skills or even to do their own investing despite attending this two day seminar. In other words, he was selling their additional investor education courses. Where Mark Broberg and the other event directors, especially Tim Walter, impressed us was that they demonstrated a soft sell approach to promoting their seminars.

Our previous experience with a hard sell real estate training company

About two to three years ago, we went to a three day real estate training seminar by a major real estate investor’s training company. The presenter and his team put us through a hard sell for three days. Participants were intimidated into meeting with their salespeople. They stressed that if we wanted to get rich we had to do everything possible to pay for additional training with them even to the extent of telling us how to apply for additional credit cards so that we could take their classes.

Investools’ different approach

In contrast, at the Investools seminar, Broberg split the audience into three groups based on available funds for investing because their investing strategies would be different: those with six figure investment and savings accounts, those from $20,000 to $100,000, and those under $20,000. Tim Walter pointed out that, as important as additional training is to successfully apply the investing techniques they’d been presenting, they did not want anyone spending grocery money for the classes nor going into debt for the courses. In fact, they didn’t even want you to spend half of your cash and investment accounts. The rule of thumb he suggested was 25% of your available funds.

The difference between hard sell and soft sell lies in your priorities. When your primary consideration is your commission and profits, you are operating from a hard sell mentality. When your primary consideration is considering your prospects’ best interests and then, when it is right for them, helping them buy, you are demonstrating a soft sell mentality. Heart-centered salespeople know that they stand a better chance of getting the sale when customers and clients trust them and their advice.

Heart-centered, soft sell sales care about the long term sales relationship

Heart-centered, soft sell seminar companies do exist – TD Ameritrade’s Wealth Magazine and Investools Investor Education proved it. As the speakers pointed out, they want the participants to succeed in their investing goals. Additional training is important to mastering advanced skills for success in any market, up, down or sideways. Nevertheless, they want us also speaking highly of their training, not that they wanted their sales so much that we get hurt paying for the next level. So yes, heart-centered, soft sell is a self-centered viewpoint, but it’s one where they look to the long term knowing when we are ready they’ll be there to help us. The other company cared mostly about their sales. TD Ameritrade’s people worked for their sales but with a heart-centered, soft sell sales approach. We look forward to many years investing with them and using their training to constantly improve.

For further information on Investools seminars, visit their site, Wealth Magazine Investor Education.