A few weeks ago, my colleague gave me 5 CDs worth of a seminar titled “Hypnotic Selling” by a man named Marshall Sylver.
Knowing that I would soon have to start doing a sales job for my little dotcom, I decided to listen to the audio while working (whoever said men can’t multi-task).
I always fear two things when buying books or going for seminars.
1) That the book/seminar author/speaker turns out to be the Master of the Obvious. For example, books in MPH with titles like “How to be a millionaire?” end up telling you things like
“To make money… you have to buy low and sell high”
In which upon reading such material you think to yourself:
WOAAAAHH.. THAT IS DEEP… Thank you for telling me something I couldn’t possibly have figured out myself.
Why don’t you tell me more things that I can’t possibly figure out myself… that “fingernails grow” or “ice cubes are cold”.
2) That the book/seminar tells you to things that are good in concept but not specific enough to apply in real life.
For example,
“If you want to be a good salesman, every time before you do a sales pitch, visualise in your mind that you do a flawless presentation and believe that the client will say YES. You can only do it if you believe you can do it!“
I don’t know about everyone else but when I read/hear things like that, I feel like not only have I not learned anything from that sentence but that I’ve actually grown dummer just by listening to it.
Ok back to Marshall Slyver.
By the time I had reached halfway into his seminar (after forwarding a lot of rubbish), I began to doubt this guy. I looked for him on Wikipedia but I didn’t find anything there.
Then I got suspicious.
I Googled “Marshall Slyver” and there it was.
His website saying how he was one of the most sought-after speakers in the world.
Sure.. it was HIS website.
If I ever had a TimothyTiah.com, I would have it say that I have a penis the size of a whale.
So then I Googled “Marshall Slyver Fraud” and the truth came out.
The man was hardly a sales man.
In fact, he was just a hypnotist performer at Las Vegas. 
Now would you take lessons on “How To Sell” from a “Stage Performer” ?
(And NO, eventhough his seminar was called “Hypnotic Selling”, it had nothing to do with how to hypnotise an eskimo to get him to buy ice from you).
That’s like taking flying lessons from an elephant.
Now only was he never a salesman, he is a fraudster who wound up in court for “Obtaining money under false pretenses.”
(The story goes that he gave a course that teached everyone to be a millionaire with a money back guarantee. When people went for his course and realised that it was bullshit, they demanded they money back but he didn’t keep up to his word).
This reminds me of Robert Kiyosaki.
We all remember Robert the Man for his book “Rich Dad Poor Dad“.
I remember reading his book ages ago after everybody kept telling me how good his book was.
I read his book with excitement. By the time I had finished his book I felt like a genius.
It was the best book I had ever read (at the time).
He gave me brilliant advice like
“the reason you want to have rich friends” is to get inside stock market information that you can make low-risk profits.
Sounds like a plan!
But after I finished the book I started thinking… ok … how exactly do I apply it to my life?
For example, I know that I’m supposed to have rich friends but how do I get to know them?
(Another good example of telling you something so vague that it’s hardly specific enough to be applicable at all in life)
So I did some research on who he really is and found out that he wasn’t that multi-millionaire that he claimed to be before he wrote the book.
And even after writing so many books, one which was very successful, he is still no where near as rich as he claims to be.
But that’s not all, most of the things that were written in the book about his experiences and even the characters… were all fiction!
“Rich Dad” in the book is as real as “Harry Potter”.
(But I won’t bore you with the details of the Robert Kiyosaki’s fraud, read them here if you want).
At the end of the day, I took the CDs of Marshall Sylver’s seminar back to my colleague and said
“Thanks so much for the CDs dude. I have some bad news for you though… the man is a fraud… and has probably never even sold food to a starving rich man before in his life”.
If my colleague was shocked he didn’t show it.
I then went on to say
“Next time before we decide to listen to anyone else’s advice… try to find out who you’re taking the advice from.”
Then to illustrate my point I said
“If Timothy Tiah gave you advice… you’ll tell him to go dildo himself right?”
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space