Andy Shaw’s book “Money for Nothing and Your Property for Free” was a big hit in the business opportunity world when it was launched back in early 2007. The book was relatively cheap at £20 or so and it described, with great excitement and optimism, how anyone could make money through buying residential property.

Many people, including myself, thought the ideas were wonderful and that Andy was an extremely successful property investor who was willing to share his secrets for a small fee via the book.

Of course, there was more expense. The book only gave a general overview of the methods. For detailed instructions you would need to spend more with Andy and Greg.

Buying the book automatically enrolled you in a monthly membership site for which subscription rates were £40 per month. Then there were seminars which came with a ticket price of £5,000+ (allegedly) and also a scheme, costing £35,000+ which promised to set buyers up with 6 properties over 5 years.

In reality the book was just the top of the funnel and Greg and Andy’s main aim seemed to be getting people onto the program costing £35k.

I met both of these property investing experts at a seminar in Birmingham in April 2007. Andy insisted on drinking Bellinis all weekend, which cost a fortune and therefore I imagine made him look rich. Greg spoke loudly about the problems he and Andy had faced in driving “the Bentley” up the motorway.

They were nice people, friendly to all the attendees and willing to share tips and advice to anybody who asked. I wasn’t surprised when they spoke on the Saturday and wooed the 100 or so people in the room. At the end of their presentation they simply stated that if anyone wanted to know more they should just buy the book. Every other speaker that weekend went to great lengths to sell some expensive special offer but these two didn’t, they just mentioned in passing that everyone should buy the book.

Several months later I learned that they had held a small seminar with 30+ people attending and providing video testimonials as to how great the material was. I recognised several faces from the Birmingham seminar. I guess they had gone ahead and bought the book then gone through the funnel to the £5,000 seminar part.

Next was the £35,000 part of the funnel – which brings us up to the present day.

According to reports, things have soured a little…

“Greg Ballard is in Brighton bankruptcy court on 14 December and Andy Shaw on 21 December“

To learn more, check out Maria Davies’ blog:

Passive Investments – Greg Ballard & Andy Shaw Latest…

On reading more it struck me that some of the people I recognised from the testimonial videos may well be contemplating a huge loss at the moment.

One I remember had been sat with Greg in the smoking area as Greg suggested he remortgage his mother-in-law’s house to release funds to start investing in property.

I just hope he had second thoughts after the seminar and stopped short of taking Greg’s advice and using the money to fund the 5 figure investment with Passive Investments.

It’s short notice, I know, but this weekend Steve Foley is holding an internet marketing and property related seminar in Manchester – the “Entrepreneur Weekend”.

I’m booked into the hotel from Friday and looking forward to the line-up on Saturday – the “Money Maker Boot Camp”. The Sunday event is called the “Women Entrepreneur Summit” and I am assured by Steve that everyone is welcome, not just the ladies.

Here’s what Steve had to say about the two days in a recent email:

“Right now many people are stretched financially, while others remain liquid financially. There is always great crossover at our events.

What do I mean by that?

Well, the people who are primarily involved in property are drawn to the internet experts who are cashflow-rich.

The Internet players are drawn to the property experts for investment & capital growth.

The smart players are already playing both camps and the most successful property players are very ‘savvy’ about internet marketing.

eConfex events focus on Wealth Creation and ways to create passive and multiple income streams using little or none of your own cash.

Is this of Interest? – if so

You may want to check out our forthcoming Entrepreneur Weekend in Manchester.”

I must admit I am turning up early to try and get a chance to mingle with the speakers before the seminar. I managed to do so successfully at the hotel last year.

The ticket price of the Entrepreneur Weekend in Birmingham last year was £348.97. This year it is even more of a bargain!

Anyway, I will be at Steve’s event this weekend, staying over on the Friday night and attending on the Saturday.

I highly recommend you try and get there too.

These seminars are superb for renewing enthusiasm, generating ideas and making valuable contacts.

Come and find me on the Friday night or Saturday so we can have a chat over a few drinks.

[Link removed – site no longer online]

If you want to know more, check out my review of last year’s event:

Entrepreneur Weekend Seminar – Birmingham – April 2007

I’ve just put a load of business opportunities on eBay starting at just 99p each.

There’s a huge 2 day seminar featuring 5 different financial trading masters. It’s is presented over 12 video tapes and includes 2 huge ring binders full of notes from the event.

Then there’s another Vince Stanzione seminar which includes everything filmed ‘live’ on one of Vince’s Financial Trading Days where the ticket prices are £2,000+.

The Streetwise Property Entrepreneurs Home Study course is also available. This course is huge – over 400 pages showing you exactly how to profit from property.

Also, there is an excellent investing course which I got from the US – it’s full of information on how to make your money grow and retire with a massive nest egg behind you.

Anyway, there are loads of biz opps bargains to have so please check it out:

http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZben_catt

All the auction start at just 99p so you could well get one of these excellent packages for less than one pound.

Best of luck!

http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZben_catt

Oh, and I nearly forgot, any questions, please let me know!

Very recently I completed the purchase of my first property. It’s only a small house but it’s on a nice estate and in the area that I wanted to live in. I have to admit that I only bought the house after reading Andy Shaw’s book “Money For Nothing and Your Property for Free”.

For a couple of years I was convinced that there was an impending house price crash and was subconciously “waiting” for it to occur. After a while though I decided just to jump in.

Now that I have my name on the deeds and a hefty mortgage to pay, I have had a look around to see what others are saying about this so-called “crash”.

It has been quite enlightening.

On one particular forum, several extremely bearish individuals called the housing market top towards the middle of 2002 and they are still desperately waiting for this alleged crash to occur. Many of them sold up in 2002 and are renting, praying for a crash so they can buy back their properties.

What has actually happened is that they have missed triple digit growth in many areas. Must be a really bitter pill to swallow.

A friend mentioned that they were selling up as they thought that the crash was coming very soon.

I don’t think there will be a crash – I can’t see it happening due to several factors:

• If the price was to fall by 20-30% (a massive crash by any standard), many investors including myself would jump right in as soon as the market started to increase again after the fall. This would speed up the market rise back to the price before the fall
• No-one is creating any more land. This country is very small and starting to get over-crowded but people will always need somewhere to live. There is very little land left to build on so existing properties will become more expensive. It’s all down to supply and demand. No supply, the price will rise. No demand, the price will fall. In the UK the demand is always increasing yet the supply of housing cannot keep up.
• Interest rates may have risen a little since the all-time low a few years ago but they are nowhere near the 16% they got to at one point. Could they get there again? I doubt it, but I am no economist 🙂

So, as you can see I am bullish on house prices and I am looking to invest in some buy-to-lets in the very near future. I realise that I have only just bought my first property but the process was pretty straightforward and nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be.

And if I don’t take the chance I don’t want to be kicking myself in 10 years thinking about what “could’ve been”…

My confirmation of attendance for the Entrepreneur Weekend in Birmingham arrived in the mail yesterday and I am really looking forward to attending.

The organiser of this event is Steve Foley, the man who ran a very successful seminar in London last year called the UK Internet Entrepreneur Conference.

Steve has changed the format a little this year so it isn’t just internet marketing that is covered but also property investment.

According to the site (http://www.UKIECSeminar.co.uk) he has lined up a whole load of experts to speak over the two days, concentrating on property investment on the Saturday and then internet marketing on the Sunday.

If you are free on the 28th and 29th of April then I highly recommend you take a look at the site for more details.

Steve has fixed it so that you do not have to attend both days, you can choose one or the other and pay a reduced attendance fee.

I’ll be there both days so let me know if you are going and we can meet up for a drink and a chat!

http://www.UKIECSeminar.co.uk

Make sure to check out the Entrepreneur Weekend Seminar, I can’t stress enough how beneficial it is to get out from behind your PC and meet fellow marketers!