Train the Trainer, with trainers Rob Riopel and Larry Gilman.

I was a starving artist when I first went to a Peak Potentials Millionaire Mind Intensive(MMI) in Montreal back in 2005.  But somehow my wife and I scraped enough money together to pay the fuel from Toronto and a cheap motel to accomodate us for 4 nights.  The entire 3 days was a production that would be hard to match, even by music industry standards.

The 3 day MMI intensive was filled with inspirational stories, personal development, and the ra-ra spirit that would light up even the most depressed.  I witnessed T Harv Eker keep people on the edge of their seats for an entire three days just by speaking.  Imagine if he had musical instrument.

I remember the exact day I made a choice to become a jazz pianist.  I saw Oscar Peterson play and I just said “I want to do that.”.  By all means a successful artist (even though I was broke), I toured 21 countries, launched 8 albums, DVD’s, etc.  I had a press kit most people would envy.  Yet, the last thing I thought was that I would have a second light bulb moment.  At the age of 40, I saw T Harv Eker in action and I turned to my wife and said “I want to learn how to do that.”  When the opportunity came to learn more about Train the trainer 1, I showed up.

I was more than broke.  Very in debt.  When the offer came to buy a 4 thousand dollar course, plus travel expenses, I more than hesitated.  It hurt to spend money I didn’t have.  We were already behind in bills, and collection companies were calling.  Still, I jumped in for the deal.

I flew to BC and was trained by Rob Riopel.  Among 300 other trainees, we went through 5 days of reprogramming.  I mean it. Re-Programming.  Some people call it brain washing, but that would be too harsh.  Train the Trainer 1 gives you a hard skill set that can change your life, but what is life-chaning is the personal development aspect of this course.  I never wanted to be a public speaker.  I just wanted to learn how to entertain the same way T Harv Eker kept people on the edge of their seats. That charisma, that persona, that power of speech, I thought, could maybe help me sell more tickets and CD’s. 

I learned everything, and applied it right away.  I came home and self-produced a concert within  3 weeks.  There were about 600+ people in the audience, and I sold over 300 CD’s.  I made my money back from the course in just one night.  They were right, learning to make an offer from the stage changed everything.. Not only did I quadrouple my back of room sales, I got standing ovation!

So I thought, why not train other artists how to improve their concert sales? I started giving trainings charging as little as $125/day.  Within a year, I had grown by speaking business offering 3-day trainings for $3997.00.  Last year, I trained more than 3000 businesses, and maybe only 2% were artists.  I learned quickly that artists don’t have money to pay for training, and they are not too much interested in money anyway.  They are still lulled into the illusion that it’s honourable to starve for your art.  I understand, I was there too once, before I was introduced to Rob Riopel.

At Train the Trainer 1, they told me that I could learn to make 25 thousand a weekend.  I said “yeah, right”. Besides, I just wanted to learn how to improve my stage presence when I gave piano concerts.  But I ended up training!

After one year and a half, not only was I making 25K per day (not per weekend), I realized I had reach a cieling..so to speak.  I couldn’t break the 25k per day.  I wanted to figure out how to increase my sales.  So it was time to go back to Train the Trainer II for more valuable information. 

Please see next post!

Paul Tobey