I've just written a post in a thread about (among other milion things) downloading NLP stuff from the internet. I agree with all the theory about the right of the owner to be paid for his work.

But at the same time I'm amazed with the prices of some NLP products recorded directly in courses. I could understand a high cost for a product with a lot of hours of work on it.

But in a recorded course theoretically, students have already paid for the time spent.

So, from where comes the high price of the material?

Maybe it would be better to lower the prices and maybe people would be able to buy them instead of downloading them? At least, a part of these people.

I think you'll be popular with that argument Xavi.

On the other hand - why would someone go to a course that costs, say, £1,000 if they knew a DVD of it would later be released for much less?

I know there are many added benefits of being there live. You can ask questions and get direct feedback from the trainer, you experience more of what's going on, you are involved in the demonstrations and practice sessions, and you also get to meet other people with similar interests and goals. There's a lot of value in those things.

But there are also some big advantages with a DVD. You can watch it as often as you like, transcribe it and study it in more detail. You get to show your friends and have discussions about it. You also save money since you won't need to travel or stay in a hotel. And if you happen to be ill one day, you won't miss a chunk of anything - you can just watch the DVD later.

I think both options offer similar value, so there's certainly a case to be made that they should have a similar cost.

Of course that's only true if the DVDs are well produced and you can see and hear everything that goes on, ideally from different positions.

Yes Chris, I agree with you. I just want to add that a DVD is not a course, it's a DVD. Images can't replace the full experience of a course, specially in DVDs which don't have the full content of the course, I'm sure you know what I mean....

You can't give feedback of your experience to your trainer so the trainer can't adjust his/her message to you. Also you can't practice and receive feedback/help.

One of the most important points in NLP training is the added value that NLP technology can give you through your trainer.

I think I understand your way of thinking and your values system but unfortunately I think that too many people seem to have too clear goals about money and less clear goals about teaching.

Anyway, by offering cheaper products they would be able to allow more people to know them and to reach to more potential students.

Anyway, from my point of view NLP should be something affordable to more people.

I do agree with you but I also think disagreeing with you is more fun.

So... why should the people who turn up subsidise the learning of people who don't turn up?

By turning up, we are the ones who make it all possible. We take a risk by paying often weeks in advance so the trainer can book their plane ticket and take time out of their schedule. We travel to unfamiliar places, we try new things, we go outside our comfort zones and we contribute our energy to making it a successful event. The trainer does well in part because he or she refines his or her message based on our responses - we are part of making it work.

Then you get the whole thing sent to you on disc, so you don't even have to leave the house. You can watch it whenever you want - as many times as you want - show as many people as you want. When you're done with it, you can sell it on and get at least half your investment back, probably more.

You have it easy, my friend. It's you who should be paying more!

I think this choice we can leave it on an individual to decide.
As mentioned earlier by you there are pros and cons of both DVD's and real experience.
The question i would ask is "What is the outcome of investing in the DVD's or attending the program ?"

Also i believe in the fact that If people wants to learn something and appreciates its value, he/she will find a way to get the investment for it.

For me, i think the investments are high and that is ok. At the same time it may not reach a whole lot of people. So, again question goes back " What is the outcome of the trainer to charge his program ?"
Is it value for the program which he or she thinks it is ? Or Is it the number of people he/she wants to reach out to ? Or Is it Both ?

Depending on the answer Price of the programs or Dvd's can be decided.

So whatever are the investment are, I think they are very much well settled.

Well, obviously I'm talking from my own values system. In this system, I always prefer to reach to more people and to spread NLP stuff rather than to earn money.

I think that this world would be a better world with more people knowing about NLP (although I don't have any prove of it), maybe that's why I'm astonished by some prices of stuff just recorded with one or two cameras and poorly edited.

Also maybe because of this I'm doing Practs and Master Practs with a price more than a 30% lower than the rest.

Anyway, I was just expressing my own point of view about this topic and I'll do my best to spread NLP following my own values.

Hey Xavi,

I totally agree with you on the point that World would be a better place with more people knowing about NLP.

By the way i dont thnk you can beat me Prac and mast Prac price ... lol . In India its very low price because its still evolving here. That is why i am putting all my energy on inviting a whole lot of trainers to India so people can experience new and different trainings .

You know, I would be very pleased to travel to India even for a very little amount of money.

Believe it or not, some of my courses are not very profitable, not because of the amount of students, just because of the price of the course.

I'm happy teaching and I'm happy looking at my students growing and becoming more skilled.

This is my passion and not to have money or to travel in biz class.

that's great we can work things out. Have pmed you (want the thread to be flowing) ...

Again, NLP can't be a property of rich people (I mean this 10% of the population).

To be honest there are better ways to earn a lot of money rather than to charge a lot in a set of DVD's. It's just a matter of creativity, especially now with internet.

I think is better to sell 1 million files at 10€ rather than 100 at 1000€ even economically, but specially spiritually.

Hi All

I look at it from the perspective that a DVD is only a portion of the actual course. So, in my mind, you will not get the same level of information and experience from a DVD or CD. Personally, I would attend the training regardless of the fact that it was available on CD or DVD.

Attending the live training, for some and especially for those living on the other side of the planet it is unpractical and very expensive, therefore a practical compromise is getting the information is via electronic media.

I agree Xavi, if the material was more affordable I think that piracy would decrease and people would be more willing to purchase it legitimately and from the author or their authorised agents.

I was recently looking at purchasing the Bandler DHE CD's, these were reduced from $500 to $350, I thought Great but after calculating the exchange rate it was going to cost me approximately $700 AUD. For me, that is a significant investment. $700 dollars also equals 50% of the fee for me to re-experience a prac / master prac course or hypnosis training. In this instance, the live training for me is preferable option.

Another point that is often forgotten is that people can also legitimately purchase the material second hand. I recently was given some exercise equipment without the instruction booklet. I found the manufacturer’s web page and downloaded an electronic copy of the booklet. So it’s not always piracy, sometimes items just change hands, does the new owner have any less rights than the previous owner?

Perhaps having the material available in an MP3 or MP4 format (I Tunes type set up) where people can legitimately download the stuff instead of CD’s and DVD’s might bring down the price and make it more affordable.

Technology is changing and downloading for some, is now the preferred option. I have not brought a music CD from a shop in nearly two years, for me downloading the specific songs I like from Itunes makes more sense.

I load music, movies, pod casts, TV shows, U tube clips onto my Ipod and watch them at my leisure wherever I choose.

MP3 and MP4 players are the current flavour, perhaps upgrading the media to cater for this new market is something to consider.


It definately makes travelling to attend the live training more enjoyable.

Have a great day

Frederic

100% Agree Frederic!

I think what is happening with music and iTunes should be a good guide for NLP business men.

NLP should be global!

All very well to say NLP 'should' become global to make it cheaper for you to get materials, but how many people out there really have the interest and commitment necessary to make NLP part of their lives? You're looking at a small percentage of people. And an even smaller percentage who want to invest in NLP material beyond the basics. I happen to know the figures involved in one trainer's DVD prices: the guy's reputation and material is world class, and it's taken him years to go into profit onto the DVD stuff he's released. Not because people don't like what he's done -- far from it -- but because the market
for material beyond the introductory level is so small.

Hey Adrian, I'm not so sure about the amount of people that you are talking about. I can imagine that it comes from your own experience.

I can't see any reason for people not wanting to go beyond basics.

The 80% of my students wants to go further but they can't pay the prices of the material because even they have to ask money to the bank to come to my courses and I know very well that they are leaving behind a lot of important things for them in order to come.

Also, they can't travel to the USA or to UK, so they just have me and because of this I'm lowering a lot the prices to help them.

There are a lot of people without money and they can't reach even a basic course.

From my point of view, now NLP (as many things) is just for a very reduced elite in the world that can spend more than 1000 in a course or to buy CDs or DVDs of 200, 300, 400,...

NLP is a wonderful gift to the humanity, but also it became from the begining a wonderful way to earn money.

How money trainers do you think that are ready to live a more simple way just in order to help the rest to have a better access to NLP?

I know this is just a mental exercise, but we have in our hands a wonderful tool to make people happier and let me tell you this: there a lot of people in the world that are willing for some help.

There's plenty of NLP-stuff being sold on ebay so that you can buy it cheap AND legally.

Another alternative is to buy books, apart from the early NLP-litterature (which seems to cost an arm and a leg), books are fairly cheap compared to other media.

Enough people are contributing to this thread now so I'll stop being childish for a while and say what I think rather than just trying to tease Xavi. He'll be here in London next month so I can tease him in person then.

I think there are two broad groups of NLP products - one is for people who want to improve their life using NLP (what I call 'consumer products') and one is for people who want to learn to use and develop NLP in some professional capacity (what I call 'professional products'). There's an almost unlimited market for the consumer products - Paul McKenna became the UK's best-selling non-fiction author of all time by selling those kind of products. Michael Neill's Effortless Success CDs are another wonderful example - six CDs for £10 - and they fly off the shelves. If you become popular in that consumer marketplace, you can make good money even if you only make a couple of pounds profit from each unit sold. You can spread your ideas to the masses and do a lot of good in the world as well as running a very successful business.

There's no shortage of people following that path and offering good products at what I consider to be really low prices. We've been talking about the Jeffrey Thompson CDs on another thread - these are less than a tenner for two CDs, with two programs on each CD. I started listening to the Gamma CD again last week and it has completely opened me up to a new way of thinking, for less than the price of a pizza. The trance downloads on Hypnosis Downloads are also really good value and one of their guys now has his own site where you can download and listen to trances before you decide whether you want to pay - and if you do pay, it's still only a fiver.

Remember though - some people will download his tracks, enjoy them and still not pay him anything. Having cheap products doesn't stop people ripping you off. In fact, the vast majority of people who download material illegally can comfortably afford to buy what they're downloading - they just choose not to. You can download most songs from iTunes for 79p these days but millions of songs are still downloaded illegally each month. Thousands of people download Paul McKenna's CDs from bit torrent even though you can buy them second hand for only a couple of pounds. This is mostly about people's values and not what they can afford.

When it comes to offering professional products, like a DVD explaining details about the meta model, it may be a bitter pill to swallow but most people won't be interested in that, whatever you charge. It's like selling the key to a door. If someone doesn't want to open the door, the key is worthless to them and they won't buy it even if it's only £1. Advanced and technical information has a limited market. Unless you don't mind losing money (as a loss leader to promote your events), you have to do a break even analysis and then decide how much profit you want to make. This is too important to be idealistic about because it's people's livlihood at stake. I don't think many trainers are actually greedy with their products but if they want to make a living and continue in this field, they have to make wise business choices and not chase rainbows. By the time you work out the costs of the filming process, editing process, production, marketing, etc. - it all adds up. Selling a set of DVDs for £100 might sound a lot but what if you only sell five a year because these are very niche DVDs - it could take a couple of years to break even, and after that it'll only be small profits.

The risk of saying everything should be cheap is that everything then has to be mainstream and popular, and I think that's a good way to get everyone standing still. The people who develop ideas and teach them to small groups will always sell fewer copies than the celebrity who comes along five years later and packages those ideas in a glossy and friendly way. Maybe it's the celebrity who ultimately helps to change the world, but he couldn't do it without the developer who tried and tested and refined the ideas. The celebrity can sell things cheap because he'll sell lots. The developer relies on a small group who are interested in finding out the latest things before other people and having a more thorough understanding of them than other people will eventually get. Realistically, those people have to be prepared to pay a bit more.

So, I'm a raimbow chaser who don't need to have big houses,to fly in biz class, and who still think that there are a lot more ways of earning money while giving a quality product affordable.

High prices for a course is equal to a limited amount of NLP people, limited amount of NLP people is equal to few people interested in upgrading, few people interested in upgrading is equal to high prices in stuff. It seems a perfect closed circle for people in the business....

I know people in poor countries teaching NLP for almost nothing because their students simply can't afford it, and I think that the necessary amount of money to live can be very different for them (trainers)....

We have a bunch of examples in how is possible to gather a lot of people. But in these examples the prices are not low, and we can see quite clearly the life style of the trainers involved....

Imagine these people ending the month using the same amount of money than any average guy...it would be necessary to charge so much?

Ok, let's imagine that for you is more important people than money: Would you charge so much in a course if instead of having a big house or flat you had a small one with a small car?

Come on, let's be honest for a while. I could see the face of a lot of people in Neill's "Mastery coaching" when he was talking about thousands of $....