a.k.a. “Ka$hflow King”, “Kashflow King”
Troy Mann is interesting to me because I’ve seen him around the Rich Dad and Mastermind forums ever since I started looking at them, over 6 years ago. He seems to have gone to every seminar and purchased every course out there, making him the quintessential acolyte. Any criticism of his gurus is dismissed with a wave of the hand and an ad hominem (See, for example, here. It’s easy to find many more Troy Mann posts like that).
He’s also interesting because of the review found on this page:
…I had an experience recently that soured me on [Burley’s] organization. After investing with a individual whose testimonial is posted on his website (Troy Mann from Tulsa, Oklahoma) and having the investment go bad, I posted a message to John's forum asking if anyone else was having the same problem. Within 24 hours, the Burley group had the message pulled. I haven't heard anything from the Burley group since. It was as if they wanted to stick their head in the sand and make believe a problem doesn't exist. In the mean time, they still have Troy's testimonial posted on their website stating that his annual income for 2005 was $108K as of August 2005. The following month, I received an e-mail from Troy stating that he couldn't pay the interest and three months later, was claiming any payments of principle would force bankruptcy.With a little focused Googling, you find, among other things, his now defunct web page for his atrociously named company: http://www.cashflowrealty.net/. That link doesn’t work, but thanks to Google’s cache of the site, we can read what was on their “About Us” page:
Troy D. Mann began investing in real estate October 10, 2001. With no job, his life savings, and a burning desire to create a profitable business he became a full-time real estate investor. Starting out with four properties, Troy has increased the real estate portfolio of Mann & Associates dramatically. Due to hard work and financial competence Troy found himself in a position to retire at age 32.Note that the Burley Boot Camp testimonial mentioned by the reviewer above is not the one that I've linked to (which, curiously, doesn't actually have Troy's last name associated with it, unlike the majority of the other testimonials on the page!). It turns out that the review in question was removed from Burley’s web page. Sadly, I can’t find it in Google’s cache any more, either. However, I did manage to save it. Here it is:
Troy is the former vice president of Vision Investment Properties Real Estate Investment Association, the first nationally recognized real estate investment club in Oklahoma.
Before his investment career started Troy was a web developer. He worked for a dot com company, an electric company, a healthcare organization, and Dollar Rent A Car.
Troy has many friends from John Burley's real estate boot camp and is an active member on its popular discussion forum. He is a returning boot camp student instructor and has an honorable mention in the book “Powerful Changes”.
September 2005I leave it to you to decide whether Troy Mann is a successful real estate investor or not.
Anyone who is even thinking about Boot Camp should carefully consider the consequences of taking control of their career. After all the jobs in my degree field left the area due to globalization I was forced to work in the IT field for 50k and 60k a year. Getting laid off three times in a row, always during Christmas made me look for something better. Lets see what that looks like:
BS degree in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
Cost: $40,000
Time to complete: 6 years (including graduate courses for an unfinished MS)
Entry Level Yearly Income: $50,000
Yearly Income with 5 years of experience: $85,000
Hours worked per week: 50
Wage per hour: approx $35.42
Return on investment: 50,000/40,000 = 125%
Burley Boot Camp
Cost: $5,000
Time to complete: 5 days
2005 Aug YTD retained earnings: $108,000
Hours worked per week: 20 to 50 at my choice
Wage per hour: approx $96.43
Return on investment = 108,000/5,000 = 2160%
The idea is to leverage your income by learning new skills. Although I am working less and making more than those lousy IT jobs paid there is a lot of improvement to be made. I am now redesigning my "job" to triple the income while working fewer hours. Getting leverage on your income is a fantastic skill. They dont teach this in the university environment. Without John Burley I would still be looking for another crummy position involving ridiculous schedules for some jerk who demanded me to put work before family.
Burley Boot Camp, just go.
Troy and Lori Mann
Tulsa, Oklahoma
3 comments:
Troy Mann has disappeared. He is no longer in the real estate business. I'm sure he is around, but if you are an investor with him, it's likely you have lost quite a bit of money (as I and several other I know have).
I find it rather unfortunate that you're making this claim anonymously. It would carry quite a bit more weight if you were willing to provide a name and email address, at a minimum.
Who are you? Who are the "several" other people who have lost money investing with Troy? Are any of them willing to come forward with (preferably verifiable) specifics?
Here is an update (of sorts) on Troy Mann.
I was going through the archives of the mastermind forums and happened upon this thread.
In case they decide to take it down, I've copied the entire thing here:
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Author: Bob (---.nwrk.east.verizon.net)
Date: 01-10-06 18:27
I hate to post this on this forum but I don’t know where else to turn to.
We invested with Troy Mann in April of 2004. Based on character references from people we respected and his involvement as an instructor, we felt this was a person we could trust with our funds.
In March 2005, we changed a portion of our investment to a loan so Troy could use the money where he felt he could generate the best return. The agreement was that since the money was borrowed, we needed to be able to get the remaining funds in Feb 2006 so we could repay our investor.
In September 2005, Troy notified us that he was having cash flow problems and could not pay the interest on the loan. He assured us that he had a plan and would be able to work things out. We believed that this was a short-term situation and decided to wait.
After not receiving any payments for Sept, Oct or Nov and not receiving any statements on our jointly owned mobile home for Oct or Nov, we sent a letter asking for repayment of the loan since it was in default and we were paying our investor from our own funds. On 4 Dec, we received a reply stating that if we wanted our money immediately, he would have to declare bankruptcy and we would probably only get back "pennies on the dollar" and that the "fate of this company lies in (our) hands". We asked him what his plan was to resolve the situation and. although it has been 5 weeks since we asked; we have not received a reply.
While we would like to give Troy the benefit of the doubt, the lack of communication makes us VERY CONCERNED about the future of our investments.
I would appreciate finding out if anyone else is having problems with their investments with Troy or what may be an appropriate course of action. If you would prefer to send me a personal reply, my address is moro_inc@juno.com.
Thank you for your assistance,
Bob
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Author: TNguyen (---.189.86.162.Dial1.Dallas1.Level3.net)
Date: 03-01-06 23:53
I would like to tell my story so other passive investors can learn from my mistakes. I have trusted Troy Mann and have lost a lot of money. Besides every month I still have to pay out the money my family does not have. It's killing my family, it's killing me. I am unemployed and have been sick for over 6 months. My wife is the only one working to support our family.
I made so many mistakes. I put my wife's name and my name, our credits out and let Troy buy houses far from where I live and far from where Troy lived. We did not check at all. I trusted Troy completely. I even loaned him a lot more money later from my wife's IRA.
Now the money he borrowed from us, we have not seen a penny for the last 7 months. The houses he did not manage well and he did not pay, I do not know about the conditions. It must be bad. One house has been vacant for over 9 months. Every month there are the mortgages to pay.
It's so sick to think about these bad things happened to us. I hope just to get out of these houses and stop bleeding. If anyone can help me, I need your help badly. I just want to get rid these houses, stop bleeding the money we do not have every month. I need your help. Thank you.
T. Nguyen
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Author: MatthewC (Host) (---.knology.net)
Date: 03-02-06 00:09
This is a tough situation but there is a way out. It will require you to make some tough decisions. No one will take responsibility for the decisions you need to make. It will likely cost more money to get yourself out but it can be done. Getting out will not be "free".
The problem here is there is a lack of strong management and leadership to do what it takes and turn things around or make the hard choices.
A window of opportunity was presented to some parties to help solve the problem but it would appear that fear, uncertainty, and doubt took the day as no cohesion or unity occurred.
I fear some lessons must be learned the hard way.
MatthewC
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