Hi, it’s Helen Collier-Kogtevs here.
Over the past 11 years, my team and I at Real Wealth Australia, have educated over 1040 mentoring clients.
These are everyday Aussies striving to build a better life for themselves through property investing.
And, for that I am really proud.
What we teach our clients are NOT theories. We teach them exactly what I did to become financially independent in my 30s.
And as the Managing Director of Real Wealth Australia, I am accountable for everything that is published under our banner.
So I take a recent ‘slap on the wrist’ from Consumer Affairs Victoria about some material published on our website very seriously.
That’s why I wanted to take a moment to explain to you what happened.
There were 5 points Consumer Affairs raised, and I’ll address them all for you now.
The first thing that Consumer Affairs Victoria brought to our attention was a headline on our website was a little bit too ambitious.
It announced to website visitors:
‘You’ll be in the top two per cent of property investors who will be able to retire financially free with ten properties in ten years’. 
What I should have said is…
If you implement my proven property education system, it’s possible to buy multiple properties because I know what’s possible when you follow my system…and take massive action.
I personally have bought well over 10 properties in 10 years ®. In fact, I personally bought 6 properties in 6 weeks at one stage.
And, one of my Property Mentors owns over 10 properties –even though she’s a single woman on a low income.
In fact, recently a client of ours bought 5 properties in one year!
So it’s definitely possible to get extraordinary results when you’ve got a solid property investing education and take massive action.
However, I shouldn’t have made such a general claim on my website.
That’s because not everyone will get results like these – as different people have different levels of motivation, education and financial capacity etc.
We got carried away with our marketing there – and I take full responsibility for that.
However, one thing I believe with all my heart, is that people who are educated by us, and follow our Property Mentoring Program they can outperform the average investor.
That’s because they have a proven system to follow, that’s been finessed over my 14 years as a property investor.
The next 2 points Consumer Affairs Victoria raised were about some statistics published on our website, which were out of date.
It’s true, these stats were a little out of date.
The statistics were from the 2011 Census, and related to how many properties Australians own.
There wasn’t any more recent data in this area as the next census isn’t until 2016.
While the data was sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and RP Data, which are reputable sources – that doesn’t change the fact we should have put a date on them.
I take full responsibility for that. I screwed up.
So my commitment to Consumers Affairs Victoria – and to you – is that I will ensure all our statistics and figures published in our materials will be dated where possible.
To help with this, I have also hired a compliance manager to help ensure we stay on top of consumer laws and regulations.
The final 2 claims Consumer Affairs raised were around some stats relating to our client’s success.
Here’s what happened.
In 2012 we investigated our mentoring clients’ success rates.
After 6 years of mentoring property investors, we knew we were helping people because of all our success stories and ‘rave reviews’.
However, we wanted to know specifically by how much. We wanted real numbers to quantify the results.
We have all heard about ‘shelf help’ training and programs – you know the ones that people buy and then don’t do anything with them?
This is not what we’re about.
We measure our success by our clients’ success in property investing.
So we got an external audit done in 2012.
It was found that out of 205 active clients 165 purchased a property during our program – this is 80.49%.
83 of those clients went on to purchase 2 or more properties –a resounding 50.30%.
I just had to share this great result with the world, because I was so proud of my company and my clients.
So I published these results on our website, and in other places online.
What I didn’t do was put a date on these results, so people knew what year they were measured in.
I am glad Consumer Affairs Victoria brought this to my attention and I now realise I should have done this.
That’s because in following years, we promoted a new lower priced program designed to introduce people to property investing.
It did not include personal mentoring, and the same high level of personal support our current clients receive.
So our student success rates changed in 2013.
That’s why in August 2014, Consumer Affairs Victoria rightly gave us a slap on the wrist because the student success statistics we had on our website were now outdated.
I am grateful for this, as this incident has ‘reinspired’ me to not only get our student success rate back up to 80% – but to smash that record for all the new members that join us.
It’s also made us much more diligent about dating the student results on our website!
And if you look now at the “Success Stories” section on our website you’ll see that they are all dated.
So, that’s the story behind the Consumer Affairs undertaking.
You may see it on Google when researching our company.
Its main purpose is and was to simply remind us to make sure the statistics etc. we provide are up to date and dated.
With all that said…
Now, more than ever we are focused on helping our clients build large portfolios of GREAT properties.
And if you’re an action taker who wants to get personal support and guidance in building your real estate investing portfolio…I invite you to join our community.
Regards,
Helen Collier-Kogtevs