Many have already written of their disappointments.
Bottom line is that people are free to find all they can and to then voluntarily pay for the IIB accreditation. However, I would not encourage a consultant to spend the time or money on this organization.
The "sell" sugests a rigourous selection process, which was not easily verified by attendees at the "Residential Business School" and appeared unlikely to be factual, unless one accepts that a need to spend equivalent of over $20000 counts as self selection. A claim was made that the mean closing of the 10 appointments included in the package was 20% (2). Real facts appear to be closely guarded in Waford but sample statistical evidence suggests this is unlikely to be true and a much lower figure is likely to be the case. The School strongly ststes and repeats that the appointment seters raise few or no expectations. If this is factual, then a very large quantity of the appointment "clients" are dishonest, since there are scores, possibly hundreds, of reports of clents with very specific expectations, allegedly given to them by the appointment setters.
The School presses the case that failure can only be blamed on oneself, even though samples suggest that "failure", if measured by failure to make a middle class income, is the result for an estimated 80-90%. Clearly some succeed, but most appear to be unable to make the 1990s style script work for them, partly because many find the script in itself less than fully truthful. The school is almost exclusively devoted to a single sales method. Self assessment forms and other detailed answers are filled out, but no-one in my school group was able to work out the purpose of these.
A minimum invoicing "guarantee" is offered as enticement to pay and be accreditred. I have met several who took this up. Some were very process-driven types who paid great attention to detail in general. However, I met no-one who was able to stay on this track since, they said, a single missed box or line on a single report resulted in disqualifiation with no chance to recover.
The selling script, which associates are urged to memorize, pushes a line of implication that there is a vibrant network of over 5000 associates, even though it has now been established that the number of active associates is around half that.
After the big cost of accreditation, ongoing costs are equivalent to less than $300 annually, so many associates stay affiliated, since the marginal cost to be in contact with a generally good group of people is quite low.
The alleged IP of the organization is closely guarded and groups are prohibited from using open forums for discussions for fear of potential clients seeing the sales script or hearing of the methods and approaches. Some of the so-called IP is likely to be very debatable in terms of how much it can be protected. A significant number of asociates regard the IP protection as being partly motivated by a fear of word getting out regarding the "failure rate" of associates' businesses, or the unflattering remarks made at the school regarding alternative consulting organizations.
Generally criticism and open debate do not appear to be happily tolerated by the officers of the organization. Associates have been urged in a mass email from the Principal to post rebuttals on this site to protect "their Institute" and (presmaly) their incomes. The undertanding is that failure to do so will possibly result in a failure to continue IIB operations in North America. It is not clear to me why this would be limited to North America and not apply equally here in Europe.
Tigersfan
Leicester
United Kingdom
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