Tom Antion talks to Jason on some of the common seminar scams out there. He talks about the mentality of a sociopath and how they do not have a conscience. The bad apples that run these seminars are more intelligent than the average person and they know the exact tactics, like increasing your credit card limit, to rob you of all your money and get you in debt.
Key Takeaways:
[1:50] We need to use God’s power and wisdom to protect ourselves from people trying to deceive us.
[6:10] Under the Anti-Slapp Motion, companies have to prove what the person is saying isn’t true, before they can effectively sue them.
[10:30] One of the seminar scams is people signing up to what they think is an application process, but it’s really a contract and then they’re being charged for it.
[15:30] Seminar people test the susceptibility of the crowd and see who they can bring to ‘the next level’.
[23:35] Do your due diligence on the internet and see someone’s track record first.
[29:40] $40 million dollars disappeared from a charity and that’s only from just one charity.
[33:50] Tom talks about this three prong attack approach to internet marketing.
Mentioned In This Episode:
SeminarScammers.com
ScamBrigade.com
Antion.com
Tweetables:
“The seminars guys have it down, because they know they’re there to rob you, period.”
“These people don’t care, they have no conscience, and they are grooming you for the financial kill.”
“The scammer’s point of view is I’m going to rob you no matter what it takes.”
Transcript
Jason Hartman:
Hi there, it’s Jason Hartman your host and thank you for joining me for another episode of the Solomon Success show with Biblical wisdom for business and investing. Let’s go to today’s lesson and then I’ll come back on and then we’ll have our main portion with our guest relating to that lesson.
Announcer:
An unfortunate fact of our modern world is con-artists and scams. One of the most insidious scams is the success seminar industry, since it profits from preying upon people’s desire for achievement to fleece their financial resources. The thing that we must be especially weary of is the heart sell tactics that many seminar proprietors use to hook and reel customers. The broad promise of education is used to luring people into making large financial commitments that the seminar sales staff knows are very unlikely to be recovered based on the content that is being provided to the attendees.
In the book of Psalms, King David writes, “Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me!” What King David is teaching us through this passage is how we much turn to God’s power and wisdom to protect us from the many people who seek to financial profit by deceiving us.
It is through godly wisdom and understanding that we retain our sense of perspective and moral compass that guides us away from the get rich promises of scam artists. The power of scam artists come from their ability to appeal to people’s sense of vanity and greed by making them believe unrealistic things about what can be achieved to both personally and financially. People become suckers that are ripe for fleecing.
The standard trick of seminar operators is to show testimonials of people who have achieved tremendous results with what seems to be little effort. What is frequently left unsaid is the throngs of people who have paid large amounts of money to the seminar operators and achieved exactly zero results.
Of course, the natural response to this from the seminar industry is that these people didn’t really have what it takes to be successful. This begs the natural question of why the seminar people were so eager to take the money of someone who doesn’t have what it takes.
Jason has interviewed Tom Antion on this topic to deliver useful information to his listeners. Tom has thoroughly researched the seminar industry and provides a perspective that many people can benefit from. Avoiding the scams of these success seminar industry begins with understand how they hook their marks and reel them in for a fleecing. This knowledge is your best defense against being victimized by the industry.
Jason:
That was today’s lesson. Let’s get to our guest, but before we do that. Please regardless of what platform you’re listening to us on, whether it’ll be iTunes, Stitcher Radio or SoundCloud. Please go write us a review, we’d really appreciate that and check out the free resources at our website SolomonSuccess.com. Here’s today main segment.
It’s my pleasure to welcome Tom Antion to the show and that is the name you may well be familiar with. He’s been around for a long, long time. I first became familiar with his work many years ago through the National Speakers Association and now he is the creator of two exciting new shows. They are very topical. One of them is entitled Seminar Scammers and the other one is Scam Brigade and he’s trying to clean up the industry. Tom, welcome, how are you?
Tom Antion:
Hey Jason, I’m great. I’m in Los Angeles now working on the show.
Jason:
Yeah, where are you based actually, are you in Virginia?
Tom:
I’m Virginia Beach, right.
Jason:
Virginia Beach, okay, but you’re dealing with the Hollywood people today working on these two reality shows and from the video clip on your website, I just think it looks awesome, so congratulations.
Tom:
Well, thanks, I’m learning the ropes out here and I have qualms with – I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just following my agent’s lead and I’ve got a good solid concept. I’m out here because they’re trying to actually pick a couple of different production companies – who wants to show the worse. So, it’s almost like a little auction, but I must preface that with that doesn’t mean anything ever makes it to air. This is just the beginning parts of this, but they seem to like it a lot.
Jason:
Of course, of course. Well, Tom, you know, the history of public speaking is rife with scams. I mean, in the old days, we used to have snake oil salesman that would roll into town and sell their snake oil and then leave. Someone actually – I think it was Mark Twain who created the saying, “What do you call an expert?” The answer is, “Someone who is from out of town.”
Tom:
What’s difference now, Jason, that sounded exactly like today.
Jason:
It is like today and in this industry is just – it makes me so mad because I look at some of my competitors in my business and I’m thinking, I would love to just expose the lies they’re telling. You just gotta bite your tongue, I don’t know, maybe not.
Tom:
No, I don’t have to bite my tongue and when you tell the truth that’s the ultimate defense of defamation. Now, that is one of the ploys that the bad people use is they want to sue you and scare you to death.
Jason:
Right.
Tom:
In fact, one of the bad apples had the nastiest, scummiest law firm in Los Angeles. In fact, the Wall Street Law Journal said about them that their who celebrities go to when they throw up on themselves. So, they sent me a cease and desist order and I promptly published it online and made fun of it and dared them to sue me because there’s a thing in; I think it’s in every state, but I’m not sure; it’s called an anti-SLAPP motion.
So, they got to prove that what I am saying is not true and if not, they’ve got enormous, they have to all their own legal fees and so they went and crawled back under the rock they came out of when I exposed them.
Jason:
Very interesting. Well, thank God for free speech, but it’s not totally free, is it? I mean, they are reporter shield laws. There are different things, but tell us of some of the intricacies of that, if you would?
Tom:
Well, the thing is even though the truth is the ultimate defense, you still have to be able to defend yourself and some of these bad people it’s standard procedure immediately if anybody says anything negative about them, they have their lawyers after them and threatening lawsuits. I had a thing in San Diego. I was walking by with my Seminar Scammers jacket one of these house flipping guys, very famous, their whole organization was designed to pounce on me and I wasn’t even part of the event. I happened to Hotwire and stay at the same hotel. They chased me in the parking lo and were trying to intimidate me and they had it down, then I got a form letter, which looked like it was photocopied, they’re so used to it, and it wasn’t even from an attorney where they sent me a cease and desist that I’m not allowed at any of their events.
Jason:
Unbelievable.
Tom:
They have it down, because they know they’re there to rob you, period. So, they’ve got all the machines ready to protect themselves.
Jason:
Yeah, it’s really amazing. Well, 60 minutes did an exposé on Robert Kiyosaki, who by the way, I should say I had Kiyosaki on my show. I love his books, but his coaching program really insanely expensive and kind of a hard sell and I can say this from personal experience because I listen to their pitch. They wanted to coach me. You know, I’ve got lots of experience in real estate investing and I did not feel good about it at all after I heard that several years ago.
Tom:
I don’t know this for sure, but I think he may have sued the Canadian broadcasting corporation, because they did an undercover investigation and it was on their site for over a year and now it’s somehow missing, but they showed the guy doing a coaching just lying through his teeth and screaming at people and quit the seminar early when no body would buy his story and they – he said they made something like $32 million dollars on —
Jason:
Mobile home park.
Tom:
Mobile home park and then CBC cuts the address and it’s a vacant lot. So, he just lie, lie, lie and then one of the things the real estate people do is they teach you how to raise your credit limits on your credit card in the first day so they can take all the money on your credit card limit by the end of the seminar. So, they’ve got their act together and then Kiyosaki was just weaseling, trying to weasel out of it when they had him on camera. It was a beautiful sight, I thought.
Jason:
That’s amazing and Donald Trump, of course, he’s into this huge lawsuit and it’s over his coaching his program as well, right?
Tom:
Absolutely. It’s a $40 million dollar law suit by Attorney General New York and I don’t really care about the politics of this stuff. They are all arguing back and forth and he’s calling the Attorney General lightweight, but when you look at it, the same exact things. I wrote an article called The Top 20 Seminar Scams. The same exact scams were used on these people and, well, the big thing that people are laughing up is they thought – they spent like $35,000, they were going to get to meet Donald Trump. They got to stand next to a cardboard cut out. Get their picture taken.
Jason:
Gosh.
Tom:
So, yeah, Trump is yapping, yapping, yapping how he’s never going to settle this and all that, but these people. I mean, exact same things. I was talking to CNN three times that day about this, because it’s exactly what I had written in my Top 20 Seminars article.
Jason:
Well, Tom, take us through some of those Top 20 Seminar Scams. Take some of your favorites and tell us about them.
Tom:
Well, one of them is a fake application process and what is – in most state there’s what a three day right of rescission, which means that no matter what you get into, you’re suppose to be able to break the contract for any reason, no reason at all, within three days to try and avoid high pressure. Sales tactics.
Jason:
The cooling off period.
Tom:
Exactly. So, these guys have an application, supposed application that you’re applying for your coaching program and they’re going to let you know just conveniently pass the three day right of rescission and if you read the fine print, it’s a contract, and they’ve already charged your credit card and there’s no refunds right in there. So, that’s a typical thing that’s designed to circumvent the laws that are there to protect the consumer. It’s specifically designed for that. So..
Jason:
I don’t know if I really understand that. So, there’s the three day right of rescission, in many states they have a law like this to protect consumers from high pressure sales tactics, so that’s great, but how does the application interplay with the right of recession?
Tom:
Well, people are told that they’re apply for a program when actually they are signing a contract right there for that program and then they’re told that they are not going to be chosen or not chosen until past the three day right of rescission, so the person has no reason to negate what they didn’t even know was a contract. They thought they were going to be told if they were allowed in after three days, but after three days, the people ran the credit card. Well, actually, they ran the credit card right away and they said no refunds. You passed the three day right of rescission, so there was no application process. It was a fake – it was a contract designed to look like an application so that people wouldn’t complain for three days and now they can take your and no refunds.
Jason:
Right, so, yeah, that’s amazing. So, basically the application makes them think they’re not really in the program yet.
Tom:
Exactly.
Jason:
They let the three days pass and then they find out when they want to cancel, they can’t get out.
Tom:
Exactly.
Jason:
Unbelievable. Disgusting. Okay, what else?
Tom:
Well, there’s, what I call, a fake mastermind groups. See, masterminding is suppose to be like a small group, maybe ten at the most of equal quality people and so these people have bastardized this to sell “masterminds” for 100 people and get them in a room and you might get a couple of minutes on the hot seat with other people supposedly helping your business out. Well, all this is is designed to grab your money, it also shields the fact that they the seminar leader may not have any depth of knowledge at all, because in a couple of minutes you can only scratch the surface for each person and then some of them aren’t even showing up to lead the mastermind or are leaving in the middle of it. You know? So, they are leading people to believe they’re going to get all this heavy duty coaching, but then it never appears. So, that’s just another one that’s clearly designed to take your money with no service.
Jason:
One thing those do too is they exploit peer pressure, because once they get you in that group with those other people, especially if they have an ongoing, like, they charge you many thousands of dollars per year, they – you don’t want to quit, because then you look like a loser if you leave the group, you know what I mean? So..
Tom:
Yeah and not only that, some of the people in the group are what we call ‘shills’. They are people that are paid to be there to push this attitude that you don’t want to quit. This is great and telling you. So, it’s the social, supposed social proof, but it’s fake, which again, is illegal; not only unethical, but clearly illegal.
Jason:
So, they got the shills there, okay. Wow, unbelievable. Okay, give us some more.
Tom:
Well, let’s see. I told you about the one where they get you to raise your credit card limit. That’s a terrible one.
Jason:
I mean, these people operate like casino in Las Vegas, you know, where these casinos have just totally figured out how to impoverish and take advantage of lower-end people who don’t have financial education; who come in and they sign their house away, gambling at the roulette table. It’s unbelievable.
Tom:
Well, it’s just that people get into that mentality. Another thing that happens, this is highly choreographed. For instance, I won’t speak for this one major, major player anymore, because I can see what was happening. What happen would be they would – I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a magic show where they would test the susceptibility of the people in the crowd before they bring them on stage for the magic show.
So, what they do, they’re playing music and having people up on stage jumping around and clapping and screaming and dancing. So, they have their shills, not their shills, but they’re helpers watching for the people that dance and scream and clap the most and deem them the most susceptible. Take them off to the side and tell them what great leaders they are and that they need to go to the next level for $15,000. If they say they don’t have it, they say, well, what do you mean you don’t have it? Then the pressure comes on. You a loser or are you a leader? You got a home, you got credit cards, don’t you? And then they get them to do that and then at the next level it’s $40,000 to go to the next level. They do the same thing over again until you’re either bankrupt or you lose your home or something and then it’s, oh, well, I guess you were a loser.
Jason:
Unbelievable. And by the end of that, that person feels so bad and they feel like such a loser that a lot of times they don’t complain.
Tom:
Well, that’s it. Whitecollarcrime.org claims that less than – around 11% of white collar crime is reported and I contend that it’s even less in the seminar industry, because of the intimidation factor that these people put on you. These are powerful figures and they scare you. In fact, one has been seen telling people, we’ll blackball you in the industry if you ask for a refund and scares the heck out of people trying to build their careers.
Jason:
Unbelievable. So, say for example they go to a seminar to learn how to be a seminar guy, for example, and they get taken advantage and then that guru says, look, I know all the other gurus, I will blackball you in the industry. You’ll never get a job if you complain about me. If you write a blog post about me, right? That’s what they say?
Tom:
That’s part of their MO.
Jason:
Disgusting. Unbelievable.
Tom:
The minute something negative comes out they immediately sue, immediately, that’s part of their deal. They want to try to squash you before other people hear about what they’ve been doing.
Jason:
Unbelievable.
Tom:
Another really bad one is called thief by conversion. When I showed my evidence file to this. I have a retired FBI agent on my team and he showed it to a federal prosecutor, a retired federal prosecutor buddy of his, and he immediately said, RICO Act, which is racketeering corrupt organization, but then he also said something I hadn’t heard of. It’s called thief by conversion and thief by conversion means you’re in a fiduciary relationship, like an attorney is suppose to work on your best interests and so forth, or a coach.
So, this is where a coach takes your idea and blows you off and then uses that idea for his or her own benefit. That’s thief by conversion, where basically it’s like if you lead somebody a car, they got it legally, because you lent it to them, but if they never give it back, they have converted that into a thief. That’s the same thing with these coaches. You give them the information because they are suppose to coach you, so you gave it to them legally, but then they steal it and that’s when it coverts to a thief. So, that’s just another one of the many things they do to you.
Jason:
They steal your great ideas. You’re suppose to be your fiduciary, they’re suppose to be your counselor taking care of you and so they get this sort of intimidate relationship with you and they can really wreak havoc once you get close to them. Give us some others.
Tom:
Another one would be celebrity hype. Now, frequently they will hire celebrities, usually B list celebrities to come in and be at the event and do a some pitiful speech or appearance or question and answer session and they use this. This implied endorsement from the celebrity that people know against you like, oh, I’m so important, these celebrities like me. Well, the big fallacy here is, I mean, it’s basically a sales technique. I can’t say that’s unethical. People do that all the time, but what people have to be aware of is that celebrity has no idea of the service you’re going to get as a nobody. They’re going to have – the celebrities have had their butt kissed the whole time with this person that’s going to rob you, so they think, oh, must be a nice guy or a nice girl, but you get influenced to think that same thing, but then you do not get the some kind of service. In fact, it’s clearly the opposite, just like these big arena seminars. They use the big celebrities to suck you in.
Jason:
Right.
Tom:
And then the no name people come in and cleaning your back accounts.
Jason:
Yeah, they all have Colin Powell and maybe Steve Forbes. Steve Forbes has been on the show before. I am a huge fan of his. These are like reputable characters, right, but then underneath it they’ll put in all these sort of disreputable people and you’ll buy stuff, because it’s like by association, right.
Tom:
Exactly and of course they, it’s $2 to the thing, so they fill up these big arenas, they have a big machine to get companies to buy tickets and give you all this training, but then it all designed for those no-name people to rob you blind, that’s the whole..
Jason:
It seems like, Tom, these scammers have really learned that there is a format and a scheme and a way to exploit the human psyche so efficiently. I mean, some of these guys are making multi, multi, mutil millions of dollars a year. I don’t mean two million. I mean, many, many millions of dollars a year and they are not people that are really in the sort of public domain, if you will. You don’t see them on too many news programs or things like that. They almost underground, but then they’re not. They’re famous at the same time within certain arena, but then again, a lot of them come from reality shows. I mean, a lot of these house flipping scammers are, you can mention names if you like.
Tom:
Even the movie The Secret, you know, most people on there are just scum bags.
Jason:
A fortune, yeah.
Tom:
There’s only one that I know of that I really even respect at all and the one guy killed four people. James Ray killed four people in Sedona. I’ve spoken with him lots of times and he’s always been arrogant, but he’s never – I never thought he’d kill anybody, but he got this God complex and boom and he, I mean, he’s suppose to be Mr. Wealth and Prosperity, he couldn’t even make his bail, you know, so there’s a lot of, you know, I have a couple of Harvard psychiatrists on my team and a couple of psychologists and they say that clearly this is the sociopathic mind.
These people don’t have consciences and it doesn’t mean they’re not smart people, but they are chameleon like and they can see your weakness and they take whatever personality is necessary to exploit that and the one, I think it is the one psychologist told me – no it was a psychiatrist. He said they are grooming you for the financial kill. So, they can be funny, charismatic, attractive, but in their mind, you’re an idiot and they’re going to take your money, period.
Jason:
So, how do we distinguish though, Tom, because certainty there are people in this business who are ethical and legitimate. How do you know the difference?
Tom:
Well, with the internet you have a lot better chance now. I mean, most of these things, you know who the speakers are going to be before you attend. You really need to dig deep on the internet and search and see the quality and the legitimacy of complaints against them and really look at that rather than just show up all excited to a thing that is designed to get you so excited you can’t think straight. So, you really need to check track records over long period of time. There was one guy in Vegas that, I mean, Vegas seems to be a hot bed for this, but there’s one guy that was famous guy, he was federal trade commission, I believe, he had federal lawsuits against for, oh, what do they call it, for fraud. I mean, look at this Kevin Trudeau guy.
Jason:
Oh my gosh. He is – that guy had guts. He had, for what I understand, he had a cease and desist order from the FTC or the FDA, one or the other and he just kept, he was on the air, he just said forget it. I’m just going to be on the air talking my wears.
Tom:
I’m not sure exactly that’s correct, because he – he was the only guy ever in history to be banned from doing health related commercials, but he was protected by the constitution if he wrote his own book and talked about it. So, that’s when he came out at that cures..
Jason:
Natural Cures book.
Tom:
Yeah, Natural Cures, but he was a convicted felon from a long time ago. I mean, I knew a guy that was in prison with him back in, I think it was Arizona years ago over fraud.
Jason:
Oh my God!
Tom:
Yeah, he’s a convicted felon. He was just thrown in jail in Chicago for a day. This multilevel marketing thing he had, I think there was a thing where he, everybody was working towards this big $10,000 bonus and then when they got it, they were suppose to get it, he changed the compensation system to get $100. That’s rumor. I don’t know the details exactly. I kind of stay away from that field too.
Jason:
Right.
Tom:
Yeah, he’s hiding out in Switzerland, I think smoking $400 cigars and one of the news channels tracked him down. He’s just all happy go-lucky, but see these people have no, they just don’t care. They don’t care, they have no conscience and they are grooming you for the financial kill.
Jason:
Okay, so let me play devil’s advocate with you for just a moment. I mean, even the government side of it, right. I did a couple of shows where I interviewed a fantastic constitutional attorney named Johnathan Emord and he’s won some landmark cases against the FDA, for example. So, when we look at in the food and the claims business, right, and he says, and I kind of see his point too and this is where it’s hard for people to figure out what’s legit and what’s not. He says, look it, everybody on the planet knows what prune juice does to you, right, it’s a diuretic.
So, if you put that on the label of prune juice, you’re going to jail and that’s because the FDA doesn’t allow you to make claims and these herbal things, a lot of critics of the FDA. I’m just using them as one government agency as an example say that the pharmaceutical companies basically have bought the FDA and that’s why nobody gets to make claims for herbal things. I mean, I’m sure there are herbal things that are legitimate and natural things that are legitimate. Listen, I’m not sticking up for Kevin Trudeau. I think he probably is a sleazy guy, but there are two sides to it, right?
Tom:
Well, the thing is that is part of the MO of every scammer I ever covered is they have legitimate. Like I said, they’re not all stupid people, sometimes smarter than average, but they chose to aim their things at various things.
Jason:
Purposes, yeah.
Tom:
Purposes, but yeah, that doesn’t surprise me at all. They all have something that is good, because that way they can suck you in. Oh, that was a good idea and I can’t say that every scammer, you know, people haven’t really done well stuff that they’ve learned from the scammer. It’s just that the overall picture is most people don’t and the scammer’s point of view is I’m going to rob you no matter what it takes.
Jason:
Right.
Tom:
Just because a few people – it kind of reminds me when some biker gang that sold guns and heroin and killed people then has a Toys for Tots program at the end of the day.
Jason:
Yes and they’re all doing great things for charity and all these kind of stuff.
Tom:
See, that’s another one. Jeremy Johnson from Utah, which Utah a hot bed.
Jason:
Oh, they’re a hot bed. Utah, Florida, certainty LA, San Diego.
Tom:
Yeah, so, he was always flying his helicopter and helping people in Haiti and all this stuff, but he got the money from robbing people in a boiler room for $250 million dollars according, you know, what they got against him. So, I can’t live with that. I called up this one head of a charity one time. It was a dentist and when I got done with him, his teeth – good thing he was a dentist, his teeth were chatters, because I said, look, you’ve taken blood money. I don’t care what you’re using it for, but you should pay attention to who you’re talking money from. He went running.
Jason:
A lot of these charities are total scams. I mean, they’re just abject scams.
Tom:
Oh my god, CNN just did a think last week on this. This one charity supposedly sent $40 million dollars of medicine to Guatemala and CNN was all over this. They went to Guatemala, they went to all the importers, they went everyone. There’s no evidence that this $40 million – they said, if $40 million dollars worth of medicine would have come into Guatemala, it would have been a national holiday. I mean, no body can find any evidence at all that this stuff. So, $40 million dollars disappeared and that was just one charity. Very common.
Jason:
Unbelievable. On your shows, let’s talk about the shows a minute before you go. I mean, watching the video tape on your website, give out the website so you want people to know, by the way.
Tom:
It’s SeminarScammers.com. These are the theatrical trailers of what the shows are about and Scam Brigade, you know, I started, once I started getting into this and seeing how people are getting taken all over the place. I’m talking senior citizens charities, disabled people. I just, I said, you know what, somebody’s got be strong and stand up to this.
So, I created a broad base show to go after all kinds of scammers, from the local car repair place to the people that threaten you that your grandchild, you know the grand parents scam where they pretend your grandchild is in trouble and make you wire the money and it’s all fake. I mean, even if you use Google Earth to look at your house and then pretend they’re outside watching you to scare you. So, that’s Scam Brigade and Seminar Scammers is all specifically on the seminar.
Jason:
Well, in the Seminar Scammers, you’ve got a great clip on there and you’re at someone’s seminar and outing them in front of their whole audience saying, you’re a scammer. Who was that by the way?
Tom:
Well, by the way, like I said, those are theatrical trailers. So, that was staged.
Jason:
Oh, okay, okay. Got it.
Tom:
Those trailers are designed to sell the show to the networks of what we’re going to be doing, so that was not real.
Jason:
Alright, good, good disclosure there.
Tom:
It’s not even suppose to be for public consumption. It’s basically to give an idea..
Jason:
As to what the show will be. It’s a demo reel.
Tom:
Yeah, so it’s a demo reel for the network.
Jason:
I got it, I got it. Well, what’s next? So, is the show airing yet?
Tom:
No, the air is in development and I’m in Los Angeles talking to you right now, because a couple of different production companies are interested in it, so my agent is, you know, I think she’s trying to get them kind of bidding against me or for me, but again, I don’t really understand the Hollywood process. I just go where they tell me and they said keep your mouth shut about particulars of what production companies we’re talking to, but we’ve got a well known Hollywood agent and a lot of interest in this, because we’re just surrounded by scams all the time and this is a highly timely topic and it’ll help a lot of people.
Jason:
Yeah, sure it. Well, that’s fantastic. Well, keep up the good work. I’m really looking forward to hearing more. So, what is your plan for airing or you don’t know yet where it all airs?
Tom:
Well, I don’t believe that’s in my hands so much. Basically the idea is the production company. See, production companies have deals with the networks. They have to come up with so many shows a year. So, if the production company takes on the show, then it’s their job to sell it to a network and so, I’m kind of out of the loop at that point. I’m just whatever network buys it, that’s where I go and I am probably will get producer credit on the show, but again, I don’t really know the Hollywood process, but that’s how it works. We sell it to production companies. They sell it to a network and who knows which that might be. There’s some obvious choices out there, but that’s far more my pay grade.
Jason:
Yeah, fantastic. Tom, before you go, tell us about the three prong attack on internet marketing, if you would.
Tom:
Oh, wow. That’s a switcheroo there.
Jason:
Well, I just wanted to get an idea for that.
Tom:
No problem. I developed that back around 1997. I was making so much money on the internet and this was only a couple years after the commercial internet started that people started begging me to teach it. I didn’t really know anything technical. I’m more of a marketing person. So, I broke things down into three prongs to make it easy for people, for business people, to understand.
So, the first prong is your website, your ecommerce system, and all that entails. Your second prong is your database and that’s your email, your, now, your social media, even text database for local businesses use a lot of text marketing, and then the third prong is product development like information products are the highest profit ones, least risk ones. So, it’s your website, your database, and your products, those are the three prongs.
Jason:
Yeah, the new idea, a lot of these scammers are operating in is those membership programs and those insanely expensive coaching programs and you know what’s interesting? This can be used for good or ill, obviously, like everything can. You know, everything can be used for good or evil, but what’s interesting is that the way this stuff is sold under the guys – how can you deny the importance of education? I mean, education is critical in the modern era. You know, it always has been and that’s like the pitch they give you, but it doesn’t hold up across the concept, which is true versus what they’re selling you, which is a lot of hype.
I remember when Kiyosaki’s person was pitching me on their coaching program for an hour and a half I endured this high pressure sales pitch from, what seemed to me, my impression was a boiler room operator in Utah, which is where a lot of these scams are based, as we know. She kept telling me about how to invest in real estate and here at the time, I already had experience with many, many properties with hundreds of tenants for many years and I said, well, tell me about your investing experience and she said, what comeback was, well, does Tiger Woods have a coach? Is his coach better than he is at golf?
Tom:
The coach at least played golf.
Jason:
Yeah, right.
Tom:
He has a set of clubs.
Jason:
Good point.
Tom:
What you left out there, Jason, was the word legitimate. Education is critically important. Legitimate education is the key and even the law schools are getting sued. There’s a guy going around with class action suits against all these law schools for lying about the prospects of getting a job.
Jason:
Oh, lawyers are terribly – college, frankly, is largely a scam nowadays, but that’s such a whole another industry, but..
Tom:
Yeah. I own a vocational school and it’s the only one, I guess, in the world. It’s, you know, an alternative now. You need to get something that’ll make you a living, not just keep you off the market for four or five years. So, legitimate education, critical. Education itself, not so much.
Jason
Yeah, yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Well, Tom, this is very interesting. I can’t wait to see how the show develops and it’s good that someone like you is out there doing this. I know you’re not going to win a popularity contest with this, but I’m looking forward to seeing more. Any closing thoughts you want to mention?
Tom:
Well, just thanks for you being welling to air stuff like this, because a lot of people just don’t have the guts and they don’t want any confrontation. One of my people on my team, the psychiatrist said, Tom, the population is getting weaker. They just can’t take this kind of stuff. So, I thought, well, I got to stand up, because I can.
Jason:
Yeah, good. Well, the way I look at it, some of these guys get out of the business where they’re exposed, it leaves more business for the legitimate ones. So, that’s fine with me. Okay, so the website are SeminarScammers.com and ScamBrigade.com and TomAntion.com as well and I’ll spell that last name for you..
Tom:
Just Antion.com.
Jason:
Oh, Antion.com. Spell your last name, Tom.
Tom:
It’s ANTION and people that would like to get involved and maybe don’t have the guts to confront people, we’re looking for all kinds of people for Antion’s army and they can apply over at ScamBrigade.com and we need all kinds of people. Researchers and surveillance experts and all kinds of people.
Jason:
Tipsters and things like that, kind of like Wikileaks, so good. Yeah, fantastic. Good stuff. Tom Antion, thank you so much for joining us today.
Tom:
My pleasure.
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