Splashy ads all over town have been heralding the arrival of next Wednesday’s Get Motivated seminar at Quicken Loans Arena. It’s billed as a day of very famous rich people telling you how to stop living like a schmuck.
For the everyday low price of $1.95 — or $9.95 for your whole office, seriously — you’ll get to bask in the wisdom of Bill Cosby, Colin Powell, Goldie Hawn, Terry Bradshaw, and others.
Also on the agenda: maddening traffic jams, wallet-busting parking costs, infomercial-style sales pitches, and a good measure of Christian revivalism and rap. And that’s if you get there in time to actually score one of the promised bargain seats. The speakers will be appearing live at the Q, with satellite viewing down the street at Music Hall.
This article appears in May 4-10, 2011.
I smelled a rat when I saw the line-up. What a shame Cosby allowed himself to get involved in this.
I saw the ad on a billboard going into downtown Grand Rapids MI and new it was to good to be true–nothing ever plays at that venue that cheap.Mr.Cosby would do good to stay away from those kind of projects–makes you devalue his star power when you think he is scamming people.
Been to several of these. Never seen more than three products offered. Most expensive offer less than $100 cost. Less than 10 minuites o religion. Lots of encouragement, vision-casting, biz instruction, inspiration and motivation. Motivation, not manulation. Vince, I’d expect a little more research from you before you address a matter. And had no idea you were so “thin “skinned.” Poor baby!
Thank you edsmith. I have read the comments from a couple of these articles online today and of approximately 40 comments, you are one of 3 that have something to say other than griping and complaining. A person can find the negative in ANYTHING if you look but that also goes for the positive.
I attended the seminar and was completed appalled by all the shameless promotion they did for their “investment” tools. I hate being lied to, several times the MC pointed to how so many past attendies wish they had presented more on the topic of investment. Give me a break!!! Plus the speaker came out again at lunch and answered “questions” that people had written in, again a complete lie. I just wish they had written “SUCKER” on those little red bags that they sold. I did like the speakers but really to what cost? A three hour drive home and being preached to about the power of Jesus?
dpruth’s comment is absolutely correct. A person can find negative in ANYTHING and those are the people who will continue to be negative, stay broke and live their lives thinking everything is a “scam”; while those who learn from these seminars, take action on some of the information from some of the “scams” will move on to become successful and live more fulfilling lives.
So sad that some people are so close-minded…
@mk: … and so sad that some people are so open-minded as to put a collander to shame.
There are two things you can take away from negative comments: either the commenter is negative and his/her attitude is coloring what happened. Or they are reporting things as they saw them, and what happened was really that bad.
Have you considered that your ‘affirmative’ attitude might be coloring what happened? And possibly covering up nefarious goings on? There is a cliche going around: ‘if it seems too good to be true, it is”. It is a cliche for a reason…
There is no scam I have attending several of these seminars over the years they are truly inspiring and fun. There is no high pressure sales pitch what so ever, and there is an optional 10 minutereligious segment which you can get up and take a break if you are not interested in listening. I hate it when people form opinions based on someone elses negativety when they know nothing about it they just assume that person is correct. Why don’t you attend an event and then form your own opinion.
Barbara, here’s my take on the Greenville Seminar that I attended yesterday. It was indeed high sell, especially the speaker (name unknown) in the morning who ended by selling the Wealth Magazine class, and then again after the very odd James Smith – a presentation part Christian, part profane, and fully dismissive of education. The oversold/overpacked arena violated fire code, and so the fire marshall locked people out of the building after lunch for as long as 3 hours. After I had stood in line 40 minutes to purchase food, we were told that all of the venue concessions had run out of food. I could continue to wait, as more food was expected in 20 minutes or so, but that would have taken longer than the lunch break. I decided to skip lunch and go back to my seat to hear Bill Cosby. An empty stomach doesn’t help one’s spirit as the day goes downhill. I heard some good things from the big name speakers, so the seminar wasn’t a total wash, but Get Motivated should follow their own mantra and take proactive steps to address crowd issues that will result from the mega-marketing. I would guess they would say, “Those issues are for the BiLo Center to solve. We have no control over that.” But if that is their response, they aren’t hearing their own message. Don’t say impossible; assess the problems and come up with a solution – especially when your own corporate image is on the line.