Beware Thrive Learning Institute Guarantee

So many people are looking for a way to earn money these days. If you are curious about on-line opportunities and do internet research, you may be contacted by Thrive Learning Institute, which offers training to become an internet entrepreneur. Thrive comes on with a high pressure pitch that makes it sound like success is guaranteed for anyone lucky enough to make contact with Thrive Learning Institute. Included in the pitch is a guarantee to earn back the training fees, which are sizable, by the end of one year or get your money back. It is not actually easy or even possible to get Thrive to give the money back. Instead of offering the money back, they offer to give more training until the training fees have been recouped.
There is a major flaw in the offer of further training from Thrive. The problem occurred so far back in the process of creating a business that I would have to go back to the very beginning in order to have a chance of correcting it. In my case, the suppliers available do not offer a wide enough or high enough quality product to base a company on. Thrive did nothing to help assess this situation. They noted that I had completed the steps set out in their process and told me to go forward.
In my instance I was sold a package that trained a person to set up an on line marketplace using drop shippers to fulfill the orders. This means that the new business person does not have to carry an inventory, thus saving large amounts of capital. Thrive instructs the student to research a niche in the internet market where they can begin to earn money. In my case, I located the desk lamp market, showed my research to the Thrive learning Institute coaches. The Thrive coaches supposedly checked my work and gave me the go ahead to begin work in this area. In retrospect I realized that this was the point where I needed to stop and do further work. The desk lamps available for drop shipping were not enough to support a business and no one at Thrive spotted the problem. I am not sure that there really is such a thing as a lucrative drop shipping market at all.
After the Thrive coaches approved my choice, I proceeded to buy a domain name, build the site and market it. The approval of desk lamps as an appropriate niche was a mistake. The Thrive coaches did very little, if anything to verify that I was actually stepping off into a market where I could be successful. The salesman who sold me the training program made it sound like the coaches were dedicated to my success. In reality, I was one of many, probably too many, students that the coaches had to ram through the training program.
Here are the flaws with the desk lamp niche: Even though there were not too many competitors, the competition is made up of very large companies. These companies can offer a very large inventory, their internet sites are obviously professionally constructed, and they have ample advertising budgets. The lamps available for drop shipping cannot compete with the inventory of a large company.
If you are ever approached by Thrive Learning Institute, it would pay to be very skeptical of their claims. Their main goal is to get your training money. Their coaches can lead you through a series of steps, but no one is dedicated to making sure that you succeed.

Consumer Beware

Desk Lamp Daddy was a business that began with a phone call from Thrive Learning Institute of Utah. The call came as I was earnestly searching for a way to earn money from home, to become more entrepreneurial, and to be able to live my dream of eventually living at the Church of Shambhala Vajradhara Maitreya Sangha Monastery. While sure of the goal, I was growing impatient to make it a reality. My plans included a move to Arizona to begin working at the meditation center associated with this monastery, and there were no teaching jobs available for the next year in that area. Some kind of life preserver, like the promises Thrive Learning Institute offered, sounded very inviting.
So my vulnerability to the call from thrive Learning Institute was quite high. The initial phone call from ended up costing me $8,900.00 in training fees to Thrive Learning Institute. I was promised a refund if I did not earn that money back within a year (March 3, 2010). But the salesman assured me that most people earn the initial investment back within 4-6 months. I was to be developing an on-line store front with goods procured from dropshippers.
I eagerly launched into the development of Desk Lamp Daddy under the tutelage of Thrive's coaches. For the next three months I spent every spare minute doing research and using Thrive’s web building program. This amounted to 100’s of hours. I skipped exercise and sleep in a push to get the business under way quickly so that I could begin earning back that $8,900 that was now sitting on my previously empty credit card.
Unfortunately, all the effort and money did not pay off. Nearly one year later, Desk Lamp Daddy has yet to turn a sale. I am in Arizona living my dream of working at the meditation center, paying the bills working for the rather low hourly wages available in the community. And very glad to have a job! Thrive Learning Institute will have a chance come March 3, 2010 to live up to their promise to refund training fees.