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Anyone who has watched any late night TV recently cannot have failed to have noticed the many comercials trying to sell you on a series of trading seminars which promise will change your life and make you rich.

There are several questions that need to answered for anyone who is even remotely thinking of attending one of these seminars, in this article I’m going to attempt to at least point out a few of the pitfalls and help guide you to making a more informed buying decision.

The volitile market of the last few years has taught people that making money in the market on a consistent basis is not so easy, and requires a good financial education. The market crash during 2001-2003 showed that profits can disappear as fast as they come if you do not know what you are doing.

There are a lot of companies that advertize on late night TV but the ones that come to mind the most are Optionetics, Investools, Better Trades and Star Trader. I live in a city where these companies visit on a regular basis so I’ve attended all of their free warm up seminars. I’ve also bought a number of seminars from these companies.

The usual sales cycle is as follows, the infomercial is designed to get you to attend what I call the FREE warm up selling seminar. This seminar is usually in a local hotel and can last anything from 30 minutes to 3 hours. From my experience the free Investools seminar lasted about 3 hours and was actually very informative and educational. The others were much shorter and really nothing more than sales pitch’s to get you to sign up for a starter seminar which could cost anything from $199 to $4K!.

At the free seminar you will be encouraged to sign up on the spot using your credit card, this is usually after you are offered a large discount over the retail price for being a “discision maker”. Most come with a set of DVD’s and manual allowing you to study before the live seminar.

If you do sign up at one of these free seminars here are a few points to consider:

1. Don’t be shy about asking what the refund policy is up front. Understand how long you have to evaluate the training materials because this can very a lot between different companies. It could be only until noon on the 1st day or you may be allowed to stay the whole 1st day before having to ask for a refund.

2. Ask what the policy is regarding bringing another family member or business partner to the seminar. Usually you are allowed to bring 1 person, take this opportunity as it is better to have the opinion of another trusted person when trying to evalute if the seminar is good value and right for you.

3. Check that you are paying the lowest price possible for the seminar. You don’t want to end up in the seminar and find that the person next to paid a lot less for the same seat, just like on airlines!

4. Be very sure that the seminar you have signed up for is going to cover what you want to learn. Sometimes the agender is vague and the speaker goes off on their own favourite topics. If you want specific training on stocks, options or Forex make sure that they will be covered in detail in the seminar.

Here is something that you need to know, this is very important. All these seminar companies are not going to teach you everything you need to know about trading at one seminar, even if it cost $4K. They all have follow on seminars and courses, and they pretty quickly start to tell you that the seminar you have just attended and paid for is just the basic course and if you really want to be a trader you must buy the other more advanced seminars.

During your beginner seminar expect the presenters to consistently tell you that you have just begun your educational journey and that if you really want to make the big money you need much more education. I know it sucks but it’s not illegal, it’s how corpoate America works!.

If you are very satisfied with the quality of the education that you have received, and you think the company will be around for the next few years then by all means buy additional seminars. But remember this point, usually you will not get an extended amount of time to evaluate the follow on seminars, only the legal minimum 3 days cooling off period in some states. This could be important if you are buying a series of seminars that run over a couple of years.

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