It’s been over a year since I took part in an Armando Montelongo bus tour and OMG-They have managed their growing pains very well.
I was on the 2nd ever bus tour put on by Armando – there were 2 buses at that time. We went on a few more bus tours, and by last December there was some growth, but they really hadn’t gained the traction I saw this past weekend.
In the last year, they have grown to exceed the capacity of the local charter bus market (they ordered 10 buses but only 9 showed up), been thrown out of the local Convention Center (they worked out their issues and are now welcomed back, with scrutiny), and have motivated thousands of people to extend beyond their comfort zone and take advantage of a market where historically, has proven to facilitate the largest transfer of wealth. Armando has again, inspired over 475 people to reach deeper within themselves to take the steps required to leverage real estate as a wealth building strategy in these challenging times.
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One thing we all have to remember, and Armando himself speaks this from the stage, this is a business. There will be challenges, there will be surprises. Can you do this with no money down? Yes. Can you accelerate significant growth in your IRA? Yes. Can you identify the most profitable deals? Yes. Can you achieve massive wealth? Yes. Will your hard money lender back out right before closing sometimes? Yes. Will your contractor not pay their subs sometimes? Yes. Will there be surprises on the condition of the property you just bought? Yes. Will there be others trying to take advantage of you sometimes? Yes. Is this business easy? No. Can you become wealthy? Yes.
As you’ve read in this blog, we have encountered many challenges. I call it a learning experience and move on. Some, unfortunately call it a road block and give up. Armando knows this and uses that weekend to extend you past your comfort zone so you know not to give up. It was a crazy weekend with long hours – but some people have walked out of their with their lives changed forever.
I am not paid to write this report – so I give you a critical review of the the Armando Montelongo Seminar – the differences between last year and this.
The Good:
- Great use of media clips and visualization techniques to show people how to push past their fears.
- Excellent positioning for everyone to feel as if they were accepted and respected by each other, strangers and all.
- Critical learnings and strategies to move past those that put up road blocks are priceless. (RE agents, family, friends, doubters.)
- Excellent budgeting basics in construction costs.
- Solid strategies for making offers on foreclosed properties while staying safe, and quickly identifying profits.
- Continued encouragement for the audience to be independent.
- Improved consistency of messaging and position regarding real estate. THIS IS HUGE! (Can you believe right after my first bus tour the RE agent he recommended told me my offers on properties weren’t high enough even though I used Armando’s numbers, and his construction guy said the prices are higher in California than in Texas, and Armando taught Texas prices?) They now ALL have the same message and students won’t get hit by conflicting messages from his partners.
Areas for Improvement:
- In the old days, Armando would stay up to 1AM to teach real estate – Now it’s up to 3AM. Too late for me anyway.
- Sundays used to break early enough for some good networking with other investors – now the seminar pushes people to exhaustion – I used to get a lot out of those times we could network after the seminar in the past.
- Remove (or severely limit the time) all sales pitches from partnering companies such as. A 10 minute session on Nick Vertucci’s Indiana properties, asset protection, self-directed IRA’s or any other complementary offerings should be enough to entice the audience to visit the vendor area for those that are interested – and reduce the total seminar hours.
All in all, there were great improvements and excellent adaptation to their accelerated growth. They have recruited some of the best talent to streamline and improve their teachings, solidify their messaging and arm the audience to go forth and prosper. That’s my plan anyway!
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Glad to hear that they are working on consistency of message. I was on the April bus tour and I experienced a lot of inconsistency in messaging. It’s very confusing to a newbie and does not give one faith in one’s leader. My husband was also there (he’s the poker guy) and seems really pumped up! Thanks for the report, Jean.
Guys, you’re blog is fantastic. I’ve read all of your posts, and gone back to read them again. So very helpful. THANK YOU.
My husband and I have not yet mustered the money for the bus tour, but really want to. We’re hoping to do it early after the new year.
I’ve got a couple of questions:
1. Have you earned back your investment in the seminars and bus tours?
2. Does the bus tour have the same price tag each time you take it?
A thousand more thank yous for being so hope with your experience. You keep me inspired.
Jennifer
Yes, we earned our investment back on our first rehab.
There is a reduced price for subsequent bus tours.
Thanks so much for your feedback! Best of luck to you!
My boyfriend and I just attented the first three day seminar and signed up for the bus tour at the end of March. We are both very excited and confident that this is the right thing to do and that we are on our way to becoming financially independent. However, searching the web for reviews can be very discouraging as you are about the only positive blog and post bus tour review I have encoutered. Everything else is either from Armando’s own marketing/websites or are blogs focused accusing Armando of running a SCAM with his seminars and bus tour. I felt really comfortable with the mentors and the instructor at my three day seminar, and would really hate to find out I was the victim of a SCAM. So, thank you for blogging about your experience. More people with success stories should post so newbies can feel more confident about signing up. 🙂
Sabrina,
Check some of the Facebook comments on Armando Montelongo’s Fan page: http://www.facebook.com/armandomontelongo. There are a lot of supporters posting there. And congratulations for making this positive change in your life!
Jean
P.S. It’s taken longer than we would have liked, but we have 6 deals in the works with $190k in gross profit projected. Nobody says it’s easy, not even Armando. But he speaks the truth: be safe, move quickly, make money.
Jean, thank you so much for the post. All the negativity can really bring you down in a hurry if you don’t ignore it. In this day and age, it is hard not to turn to internet blogs, posts, reviews for information before you make a decision on a product. I will look at the fan page on Facebook! Thanks again and congratulations on your deals!
Sabrina
Hi thank you for the insight on the Bus tour, I will be finishing up the third day of my local seminar tomorrow and am torn by the decision to attend the bus tour. This is good to read some positive input after reading quite a bit of negitivity on the internet.
I do however have a few questions;
In what city does the bus tour take place?
I read here that you were able to get a return on your investment of attending, which is great, but I do wonder if you were able to benifit from networking with hard money lenders while on the tour? or did this come from what you learned at the tour?
Thank you and please feel free to email me as I will be making this decision in the morning.
The location varies. Regarding your success: It’s up to you. He teaches you how to find all the resources you need for your success and he teaches you to be independent. It’s not easy, but it can, and most likely will have profits. If you feared college, then you aren’t strong enough for this. I have a Masters degree and Real Estate Investing is the most challenging career I’ve faced.
Thank you Jean, I have overcome the fear and have found that the area for the next tour is Bakersfield which I am familiar with. My ultimate goal is to network with lenders or potential money partners, and wonder if this tour is benificial to my goal.
Mike – I’m hosting a field trip to Bakersfield http://budurl.com/bq6r – but it’s not an Armando Montelongo bus tour – don’t get them confused. His bus tour is very comprehensive and 10 times more astonishing than the one I’m hosting. If his next bus tour is in Bakersfield, then I need to make sure I don’t conflict with his. Please confirm.
Thank you for your blog! I have signed up for the 3 day bus tour and have also been discouraged by how many negative posts there are! However, I feel like I have already gained enough knowledge for what I have paid for. I honestly feel that I already have enough to actually do a deal, and I havent even been on the bus tour yet! Id love to stay in touch with others who are also doing the bus tour so we can keep each other positive!
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I still love and thank Armando Montelongo personally for leveraging my ability to expand beyond my comfort zone. It worked for me, but doesn’t work for everyone – therefore I wrote this post about common business models in the seminar industry:
http://www.jeannortoninvestor.com/2011/06/seminar-business-and-hard-sell-up-sell.html
Hi Jean! Thanks for having this blog! It’s nice to hear your journey! It’s very encouraging!
I’m currently on my 2nd day in the Armando 3 day Seminar. I think the prices for all the programs have since gone up. This now costs a whopping $1997, quite a financial strain for a recent college graduate. It’s been quite interesting so far though, I must admit. I’ve been educating myself by reading online materials, reading books from the library, and reading blogs like yours. What I lacked are concrete examples and some real number crunching examples, which they do in the seminar. It’s also really nice to surround oneself with driven and aspiring real investors like myself.
I knew they were going to try to sell the bus tour to us. They offer two packages now… one at 31k and another at 41k. They offer a year of mentoring + a bus tour in Vegas + some software. Looking at the prices I was a bit blown away. I just got out of student loans and I’m finally debt free. The fees for the tour are twice what I owed on my student loans [for 4.5 years]. The median age of our class is probably 46 and the majority of the class are business owners or already investing in real estate.
I’m quite interested but I would have to severely strain myself financially and go into debt again to make the jump. Do you think that there are other ways to have the same end result? In retrospect, would you have chosen to educate yourself a different way?
The Armando system is nice because he has a network of HML’s, gap funders, contractors, RL agents, and much more. The bus tour seems to be aiming more at acquiring turn key properties.
Also, are you coming back to host anything in California anytime soon? 😀
That is a very expensive seminar. I don’t recommend anybody go into debt, borrow money, charge up your credit cards, or drain a retirement account for ANY seminar. This is my personal opinion.
I hope to come to California again soon – thanks!
Hi Jean,
Thanks for your advice! I really appreciate it. I was negotiating with the staff today and managed to get a deal for $6,000 for a bus tour only without all the other benefits. After chatting with others in the class, it seems that I got the best deal in the class. Although this price is still REALLY expensive, it’s much more reasonable than the previous price. I charged it today with the intention of going home and doing lots of research to see if I made the right decision. I am still in the 3 day refund period. Do you think the cost is justified based on what you learned?
I’m trying to compare good and bad reviews to make sure I have a good balanced view on the situation. Blogs of others who also have went on the tour seem to imply that the HML lenders prefer to work with Armando students who choose to buy more education after the bus tour (http://www.scambook.com/report/view/98627/Armando-Montelongo-Seminars-Individual—Personal-for-30000.00-on-01-26-2012). Was this your experience?
Thanks for your input!
cwin,
The bus tour I went on in June of 2009 is very different than now, so I cannot comment on the current offerings.
Jean
HI jean.
Your posting has been extremely helpful, however i do have a few questions if you wouldn’t mind helping me out. My father and i just attended the 3 day seminar in Philadelphia. We enjoyed it very much and are seriously considering attending a bus tour. It has a price of about $40,000, seems high, but seems to have alot of other perks. Including: 3 day bus your in CA for property buying- 2 year phone+ email mentorship-2 days of mentor working with you in your area-real estate software buying program-2 day property buying + holding bus tour-access to his “network” (agents, builders, investors, etc- corp/l.l.c. setup including fees-asset protection class, etc.
It seems like a good deal but is it real? Is it some sort of scam where they will keep asking us for more money if we go on tour? Do we really have access to buyers and investors without some sort of catch? Does it work?
The reason i ask all this is because I’ve found a lot of bad reviews on tour, stating they’ll ask for another $25,000 at end of tour for access to investors. So we have a concern if this is the right move. We are not loaded by any means, coming up with the money can be done, but isn’t easy so im skeptical on losing such a big chunk of money on some sort of scam, or scheme to get more out of us. Work ethic is a non issue to me. If it works I’ll strive for it. The reason i am asking you is because all other positive reviews are from Armando sponsored sites which makes me skeptical.
Thank you very much for your time and i look forward to hearing back from you.
Sincerely,
Michael
Michael,
I can’t personally comment on this program as it is very different from the time I went into the program. I do hear from people that have attended recently with varied results, from total successes to extreme devastation. Do your own research and decide for yourself if it’s right for you. Feel free to connect with me on Facebook: http://facebook.com/jeannortonaustin.
Jean
hello Jean will you be doing any more field trips in california any time soon? i would like to attend
Great Blog Jean – I am interested in seeing for myself in Orlando. His infomercial is in town and a lot of foreclosures in Orlando.