(An old post [from 2009], but if you never read it before, it’s new to you, right?)

My company paid/acquired tickets for me to go to the “Get Motivated!” seminar yesterday. What a disjointed bunch of speakers. Alone, the speakers would have been good to listen to and informative. Instead, they were jam-packed into a 8 hour day. On the ticket, there were 9 speakers listed, but three mystery speakers showed up as well. They were there to motivate you to buy their products and/or sign up for their seminars. After hearing from Joe Montana and Colin Powell (probably 20 minutes each at most) we heard a 45 minute overly energetic diatribe about what basically amounted to day-trading. “All you have to do is buy at 3 green arrows and sell at 3 red arrows. It’s that simple.” I’m sure it really could be, but where am I supposed to come up with the $10k to play with your website? And where is the (what amounts to) $50/month to subscribe?

Then came lunch — nothing like unleashing thousands of people on Bricktown when they are summer staffed and apparently unaware that a large event is going on. We ended up missing Zig Ziglar and lost our seats. The ushers apparently decided that my stuff sitting on my seat wasn’t good enough to hold it. That’s fine, really it is, but then when I ask for my stuff back, people look at me like an ass? Really? So, we moved up to the nose bleed seats, and I sit next to a cliché. No problems though until the next salesman comes out. This guy comes out all religious-like and pseudo-preaching. Then the Cliché starts with the “mmmmmm-hmmmmm” and “You preach it!” Then she tries to (loudly) complete his sentences and fails miserably making it very hard to pay attention. This guy is pitching real estate as a good investment and if you aren’t buying property you are a damn idiot and “should be run over by a bus”. Yes, that’s still the pseudo-preacher. He starts off “You should not buy foreclosures because you will be taking advantage of people when they are in the most need.” Wow, sounds admirable — let’s give this guy a shot. and he completes the circle of WTF by saying “I live in a foreclosure” and “I hope [someone leaving early] dies so I can buy [their] house cheaply out of probate.” To top that off he says “renting provides you no benefit and is a complete waste of money” Well, I’m sure he says that to his tenants. That is where I turned off my brain to this guy. Sure, renting doesn’t build any equity or provide any tax benefits, but it puts a roof over your head! That is a tangible benefit! Urgh, — I’ll just leave this one alone. This is the guy that also said if he couldn’t make $50,000 on a deal, “he’d rather pick corn out of vomit and put it back in the can.” (At least I’ll be able to use that quote somewhere…)

More speakers and then the last sales pitch of making money on the internet. Oh son of a … Well, OK, let’s hear what he has to say. Well, there’s no content here. Basically “my seminar will teach you how to get on Google’s first page” and “you need an online storefront.” To sell what? Who knows? Wait for it, wait for it, DROPSHIPPING!

And the sheep in the crowd bought all of this. “Hurry to the guys waving their lights and sign up for more seminars.” And if you hurry right now I’ll give you my seminar that’s normally priced at $3,200 for $100. Or $49 or $29 depending on how late in the day it got. I hate to break it to you, but if you can offer something that steeply discounted, it’s not a $3,200 value. Just like the infomercials that can keep “throw in a second tube for free” — the product isn’t originally priced correctly to give an impression of discounted value. But only if you act NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!!!11111

I understand the need for these sales pitches in this thing, you don’t make money on letting entire companies of people in the door for $19, but good grief people. The worst part was the constant preaching. Now, I’m a Christian and, yes, I think everyone should be given the opportunity to hear the “good news” but to have everything just short of an open altar at a MANAGEMENT SEMINAR is offensive.

Anyway, if the speakers could have just built on each other and had some sort of continuity it would have been worth missing the day of work. As it is, I’m just further behind at work on a short week anyway.