A review of Ultimate Technique for Success by Ken Roberts:
The UTS marketing brochure is very similar to his Rich Man’s Secret course that he offered beginning in perhaps, 1997, but now he’s changing the terminology to add three words to his marketing:
1. LifeStar
2. Dream Tickets
3. Recontextualize
On the surface there’s nothing different about his RMS offering versus UTS – but the delivery has changed because Ken has probably figured out that he never fully accounted for the “learning gap.” So it appears you get the same kind of information he was selling in 1997 but now packaged with CDs instead of audio tapes, and now a DVD when you renew your membership, and online coaches and online club meetings, along with placing a premium of giving us an experience with the Dream Tickets marketing angle and perhaps letting club members teach each other for a more powerful learning experience. [edit: club members do not directly interact with each other, they simply can read comments and comment during the once a month text chat with Ken. Ken does not understand the flow and structure of online learning practices.]
This last point of training and then teaching others is common practice is corporate training and some education programs – it is known as train the trainer.
I’ve looked at some of his RMS/ATS marketing material from 2002 to 2004 and while he does talk a good game about changing your thinking – he originally pinned his approach for teaching us a better life to a reprint of a book about visualization techniques/practices. The book was probably from the 1960s, I don’t recall the original publishing date, but I know the entire RMS course was often sold on Ebay so I contacted a few of the individual sellers to ask about their learning experiences and it seems it didn’t emotionally rock their world, or offer any kind of financial success. I was able to obtain the RMS material for review purposes and looked at what Ken had put together, bear in mind that did not include any of his ongoing newsletter or phone hotline updates that members were encouraged to buy separately to stay active.
But the material itself, a workbook, the pictography book, another older book, a paperback originally published in the 1970s about meditation, and two audio cassettes made up the course.
The audio tapes made mention of Ken’s amazing success not so much from trading but on operating an information empire of memberships… Ken said this point was raised by a gentlemen in the bathroom during one of the breaks at a workshop or lecture, and then Ken said something like multiply $200 by the number of memberships we have and you’ll have some idea of the business we do, which at the time the rough estimate number he gave was about $25 million. His new marketing material shows a graphic of a check for $55 million representing the aggregate personal income taxes he’s paid over the years. [edit: However, there’s no letter of reference from an accounting firm confirming it has audited that claim.]
Ken’s marketing material is generally straightforward – his earlier two page marketing brochure from 2002 to 2004 said that nothing is going to work, all the talk we hear is hype in the media, and people acting as false gurus in the financial and self-help areas. No dispute there.
What gets me looking closer now is that although Ken’s marketing has honed in on this concept of “love what you do, but you probably don’t know what it is, my course will tell you how to find it” – is that because his original course never really delivered on the more modest claims? Yet, he’s really going for it this time in his claim that this will change your life because he’s going to assign you tasks as part of this course. I see the potential application of game dynamics at work here which can be effective in learning methodologies, however, there’s nothing to say Ken himself is a better man or had some breakthrough compared to when he originally developed version one, RMS, so he relies on introducing three new vocabulary words that were completely absent in all his prior marketing.
Dream Tickets, LifeStar, and recontextualized didn’t account for Ken’s success – and to top it off, on page 76 of his marketing brochure he has a question: “Well if you’re so rich (and ‘retired’), why do you do this?”
But he never answers the question, the question is immediately followed by six quotes, staring with a proverb, and the last quote “When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.” -Jacques Cousteau. And that’s how the brochure ends with the next page being the summary of how we learn but he doesn’t clearly illustrate the products that are for sale, the next and final page being the order form.
I’m wondering about that question he never answered, wouldn’t it make more sense to offer people a way to volunteer in their communities for x number of hours and receive the course as a gift? Especially when his marketing brochure makes the point that we are not after money itself, but what we think it represents for us to accomplish or to live a certain lifestyle.
Ken doesn’t show any accomplishments himself, nothing lofty he’s trying to accomplish in a humanitarian sense, so I don’t see any application to his own experience before or after his financial success toward something more meaningful.
Notes:
If you feel Ken’s RMS or the newer UTS course was helpful please share your experiences. And if you are interested in more detailed information on the finding what you love to do concept that is part of UTS, purchasing UTS at a discount, or even getting the course for free – let me know.
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