Burn Finance (ID: chaintruth) original
Author | Cao Yang
Edit | Rao Xiafei
"It only costs $9.90 to change your life." This seductive-sounding discourse is hunting the financial white group through various social platforms.
"You're poor not because you're underpaid, but because you don't have a financial advantage", "How to increase your income from 0", "Easily become the next Buffett"... The above words have become the standard for major self-proclaimed financial and business education communities.
Zhen Ni is a college student who has participated in the 9.9 yuan financial management class, she told Burning Finance and Economics that she studied investment and financial management related majors, but she did not learn very well, so she hoped to try to see if she could learn some related skills by applying for this class.
Like Zhen Ni, there are many people who are closed by the 9.9 yuan financial management class.
Recently, the article "9.9 Yuan Wealth Management Harvester: Half-year Flow of 1.2 Billion" (hereinafter referred to as the "Article") has almost brushed the screen. The article pointed out that the epidemic has made financial management more important, and a group of financial whites have completely ignited the track of financial and business education. The article pointed out that among the many financial and business education enterprises, some enterprises increased their new paid students by 600% year-on-year. In the first half of the year, a head company achieved 1.2 billion yuan in turnover.
According to data from the China Internet Network Information Center, as of June 2019, the number of Internet users who purchased Internet wealth management products in China has reached 169 million, accounting for 19.9% of the country's Internet netizens, and the market size of Internet wealth management among the sinking population is expected to reach 4.7 trillion yuan (excluding bank wealth management).
Some experts predict that in the future direction of financial and business education, the capital market or will give birth to listed enterprises with a market value of tens of billions of yuan.
However, behind the tens of billions of listed companies, it is worth pondering more, can these financial business courses really teach you to manage money?
Zhen Ni told Burning Finance that after 7 days of study, she not only did not learn any skills, but also almost paid nearly 7,000 yuan in tuition, "fortunately, there was not so much money in my hand at that time, otherwise I was 'cut leeks'." ”
This is also the basic "routine" of financial and business education - through low-cost forms such as 12 yuan, 9.9 yuan, 1 yuan, and even 0 yuan, it attracts xiaobai who do not understand investment and financial management, and then sells thousands of yuan of financial management courses through various chicken soup, brainwashing, anxiety sales and other methods.
On the official website of a business school that sells financial and business courses, Burning Finance saw that it was under the slogans of "3.5 million small partners work together to improve financial quotient and achieve financial freedom", "let 100 million people pass the financial quotient, help the financial whites establish a correct view of money, financial management, and master the correct financial management methods", "1 yuan a day, 12 days to help you improve financial quotients, master the necessary skills of financial management" and so on.
However, after entering the financial business course, it was found that it was nothing more than a "chicken soup" sales group with the slogan of improving financial business. And those so-called professional financial trainers, even after only 7 days of accelerated training to become "teachers", whether they really have professional skills, it is not yet known.
"The 9.9 yuan financial management class will certainly not help the little white students get rich, but it can help the people who sell the course to get rich." Cha Tai, an industry insider who has been focusing on the field of financial investment for many years, told Burning Finance that this is the real purpose behind the low-cost financial management class.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > fancy brainwashing low-cost financial management class</h1>
"I learned about 7 or 8 days, and if I use one sentence to describe the learning effect of those days, it is 'pure chicken soup, no other'." Masti, who has just joined the work, saw a financial management class recommendation called Weimiao Business School (hereinafter referred to as "Weimiao") on the Internet, and applied for the 9.9 yuan Xiaobai financial management course of the business school with the psychology of trying it. After a period of study, Masti's real experience is that "this kind of low-cost small white financial management course cannot play any role." ”
Masti is a "north drifter" whose hometown is in the northeast and works in Beijing. Like many "North Drifters", Masti has not returned to Beijing until June this year because of the epidemic, which has seriously affected his income.
For a "social white" who has just entered the workplace and has been paid less than 2 years, the epidemic has brought a lot of anxiety to Masti. Masti told Burning Finance that although the company also issued the minimum guarantee wage during the time at home, the gap with the previous one was still very large, coupled with not much savings, life was stretched, so it germinated the idea of learning financial management, hoping that through financial management, you can get some income.
Masti first searched for some related articles such as "financial management class" and "stock learning" on the Internet, and then, whether it was vibrato, or social platforms such as today's headlines, began to recommend financial-related courses to him, and even in the articles on the WeChat public account, the recommended advertisements were also "9.9 yuan financial management class".
At first, Masti questioned the true extent of these courses, but then he thought that as long as 9.9 yuan anyway, even if he could not learn the content, he would lose 9.9 yuan at most, and the loss would not be very large.
Finally, through the advertisement recommended by an institution's WeChat public account, Masti purchased Weimiao's "9.9 financial management class".
Masti told Burning Finance that during the study period, Wei Miao's teacher would appear in the group at about 8:24 every day to urge the students to sign in. After that, we started the day's lessons, watching the video first and then reviewing the previous lessons.
The lectures are held in WeChat groups, and the teaching forms are mainly WeChat pictures and voices. In the view of Wei Miao's teachers, this form is not limited to the learning time of students, flexible and free, and extremely convenient. "Each course is about an hour or so, but in this hour, there are only a few words that are really related to financial skills, that is, only a dozen sentences, and the rest are instilled and emphasized to the students 'how important financial management is', 'when to start investing' and so on."
In the chat records obtained by Burning Finance, the financial teacher who called himself "Xiao Su" mentioned the most: "Time cannot be changed, the sooner it starts, the better", "The principal depends on the assets of raw money, and the yield comes from the ability to manage money", "The ability to manage money is the key to determining the final value of compound interest"... And so on, but with different meanings.
Masti told Burning Finance that in the last day or two from the end of the course, the lecturer began to introduce the course on how to buy stocks and funds in the group, and the price ranged from a few hundred yuan to several thousand yuan. At the same time, the teacher will also emphasize that these courses are limited to special prices, and the number of places is one less to stimulate the purchase of students in the group.
In addition, in order to improve everyone's enthusiasm for purchasing courses, the teachers in the group said that if they can complete the high-priced financial management courses recommended by them with excellent results, they can recommend students to serve as "part-time lecturers" of Weimiao. However, for the standard of "excellent", Masti said that there seems to be no hard indicator, only the internal identification of Weimiao.
Masti said that he was also attracted to "part-time lecturers" at that time, but before confirming the registration, he still went to Zhihu and other social platforms to search for the high-priced courses recommended by these teachers, "And found that many people complained and stopped." ”
According to the information provided by Masti, Burning Finance found the course it originally purchased, which has now become 12 yuan, but the official account of the institution that recommended the course offered a "5 yuan red packet" discount, and Burning Finance bought a 12-day "Little White Financial Management Training Camp Course" at a price of 7 yuan.
After purchasing the class, the public account prompts the link of "successful registration, go and add the class teacher's WeChat", after successfully adding the teacher's friends, you need to wait for the teacher to pull the group and enter the WeChat group before you can start learning.
In this link called "Teacher's Business Card", there are not many introductions to teachers, basically the course introduction and recommendation of "Xiaobai Financial Training Camp", which is essentially a high recommendation for the financial management course.
According to the link, "Little White Financial Training Camp" can "let you master the necessary skills for financial management in 12 days, and use 12 days to help you solve the problem of 'how to increase non-salary income from 0'" and so on.
The small white group of small whites entered by Burning Finance is roughly the same as that of Masti. After successfully adding WeChat to The Micro Miao staff for 2 days, Burning Finance entered their "2927 Class Micro Miao Little White Training Camp". In a course of about an hour and a half, the core is: to have a rich man's thinking, to manage money is important, to manage money early, and so on. At the end of the course, the teacher collected the basic financial situation of each student on the grounds of homework.
Source / Screenshot of Burning Finance
Zhihu ID for the bully Duck feels the same as Masti, who wrote in Zhihu, "The content is like micro-business playing chicken blood, feeling that I am about to get rich, almost resigned." ”
In the black cat complaint search "Weimiao", a total of 194 related complaints appeared, including "course content is not applicable", "false publicity, the actual learning effect and publicity content is very different", "induce consumption, brainwashing", etc., and the amount of refund applications is 6998 yuan.
Source / Black Cat Complaint Screenshot of Burning Finance
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > 7 days of express financial training instructors</h1>
Students with "excellent" grades can be recommended to become part-time instructors. So, how high is the gold content of Wei Miao's lecturers?
In response to the question of the "part-time lecturer", Burning Finance consulted the homeroom teacher. When Burning Finance said, "I am not from a professional field, in addition to studying in Weimiao, I have no other relevant financial employment experience, whether I can pass the class as a part-time lecturer", the teacher said, "Yes".
On Weimiao's official website, Ran Finance found that Weimiao is recruiting "full-time online instructors", and the requirements for job responsibilities are responsible for the course learning and management of WeChat group students and solving students' problems in learning. However, in the column of job requirements, it is described as a bachelor's degree or above, strong academic ability, and no relevant financial experience requirements. At the same time, the job requirements also make it clear that learning ability is very important, and professional knowledge companies will conduct systematic training.
For Weimiao's so-called "professional skills of financial management class trainers", a financial trainer who once worked in Weimiao revealed the real details to Burning Finance.
"The so-called 'professional knowledge training' is actually watching the lecturer live online, and then watching the video, preparing the teaching materials, doing the questions, and taking the exam, after almost 7 days, you can start to take the class, and there is no strict professional standard and related experience requirements." Si Qi, who had been working as a financial trainer in Weimiao for half a year, told Burning Finance.
Si Qi, who has just graduated from college for two years, has been living in the south. At the beginning of this year, SiQi germinated the idea of coming to Beijing to break in, so she used "investment consultant" as a keyword to browse relevant positions on a recruitment platform.
At the beginning, Siqi did not see Wei Miao's recruitment information, and the company's HR took the initiative to find her, and after a simple communication, she began an online interview.
During the interview process, the HR in charge of the interview asked Siqi simple questions, such as graduation time, career planning, etc., and even the most basic "whether you have relevant financial experience" was not mentioned, but told Siqi, "The course materials are ready, please don't worry." ”
After passing the interview, Siqi began a 7-day online training.
Si Qi told Burning Finance that the so-called training is actually very simple. Every morning, there will be more senior trainers to give YY live lectures, the main content is the focus of the day of the lecture. After that, the trainer will distribute some learning materials and related courseware, etc., and the rest is to learn by themselves. In the evening, the teacher will organize the day's study summary and examination, and those who fail the examination will be directly eliminated. "After passing the 7-day training, you can directly go to work and lead the class."
"Every night someone will be eliminated, but in fact, as long as you are diligent enough to memorize the content, you don't need to really understand the so-called financial knowledge." Si Qi told Burning Finance that according to her understanding, during the time of her interview, Wei Miao was recruiting a large number of teachers like her.
Si Qi told Burning Finance that Wei Miao's teachers are roughly divided into three types: one is responsible for community operations, that is, the "sales" teacher of the 12 yuan Xiaobai course; the second is the practical teacher responsible for the first 10 weeks of the course after the students successfully register; and the third is the financial report teacher who is responsible for the last 14 weeks of the course.
"The teacher in charge of the 12 yuan Xiaobai course is actually sales, and there is no need to have financial knowledge at all, and it is possible to have sales skills." SiQi's main task is to let Xiaobai complete the course in 12 days, solve the problems of Xiaobai students, and dispel their concerns about the next class registration, and guide students to sign up for courses with higher tuition fees.
"Later teachers may need some relevant certificates." Siqi guessed. But like her, as a practical teacher for the first 10 weeks, there is no need for relevant experience, no need to obtain relevant certificates, and only need to successfully pass the 7-day crash training.
After taking the class, in the process of taking the class, if there are private messages about some questions about financial management, the answers to these questions raised by the students are all previously trained words. "If you have some problems outside of the training course, consult an experienced teacher."
In Si Qi's view, Wei Miao's so-called "financial management course" is not pure teaching, and the completion rate of students is more important than the content taught. Therefore, in addition to the lessons, they also need to help the trainees solve various problems to better guide them through the course. "Only when the completion rate is high, the conversion rate can be high." Si Qi told Burning Finance that the completion rate has also become the assessment standard for financial management lecturers.
As Si Qi said, this situation also appeared in the Xiaobai training camp where Burning Finance was located. On the introduction of the training camp course, Wei Miao made it clear that it could be refunded without responsibility within 3 days of the start of the course. However, when Burning Finance wanted to apply for a refund on the grounds that "due to personal reasons can no longer study", the teacher of the group said that Weimiao adopted the "WeChat picture + text" teaching mode, and students could look through the chat records in the group when they had time, and repeatedly suggested that Burning Finance and Economics seriously consider and not miss the opportunity.
The teacher also stressed that each person in the course of the Little White Camp only has one chance to participate, through the identification of the ID number, after the refund can not be purchased again, trying to prevent the refund application of Burning Finance in this way.
When Burning Finance questioned that he did not enter the ID card number when purchasing the course, the teacher said that when the students paid the fee, Weimiao automatically recognized the students' ID numbers, that is, automatically obtained information through the alipay payment method bound to the real name.
It is understood that in the teaching system of Weimiao, students will be tested for a topic every week, but the score of the student's test is not of much substantive significance, and it has little to do with the ability of financial trainers. "But whether or not a student takes the exam is an important assessment criterion for financial trainers." In addition, there are students who rate teachers. Si Qi said that if the score can reach 99 points, you can get 2,000 yuan of performance pay for the month.
It is reported that in addition to the students' ratings and completion rates, practical teachers like Siqi who are responsible for the first 10 weeks of teaching also have to undertake part of the sales work.
Si Qi told Burning Finance that after completing the 12 yuan small white class, it will recommend students to continue to study the next stage of the course, and the tuition fee of this course is as high as 6998 yuan. Therefore, some students choose to buy only the first 10 weeks of courses because of the high price or questioning the quality of teaching, so they are responsible for selling the last 14 weeks of courses. "After successfully selling the course, you can also get the corresponding commission."
What is the conversion rate of the '12 yuan small white lesson' to nearly 7,000 yuan in Burning Finance? When Siqi asked, Siqi said, "She doesn't know much about the specific conversion rate, but the conversion rate should not be low." It is reported that in the first 3 months of Siqi's tenure as a practical teacher, she has already brought 5 classes (communities), each class has 300 people, and the number of conversions is between 90 and 100 people, and the conversion rate is about 30%.
"In fact, this kind of so-called financial management course routine is very simple, that is, to convince the teacher first, and then let the teacher convince the students, in order to achieve the purpose of finally selling high-priced courses." Si Qi said that at present, Weimiao's various advertisements are doing very fiercely, especially on mainstream social platforms such as Douyin, which have basically been fully rolled out.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > "micro miao" hunting financial whites</h1>
As Si Qi said, a friend of Burning Finance who is engaged in media work has recently received frequent demand for advertising cooperation from Wei Miao. In just one and a half months, I received three requests for cooperation from the same person. And open Baidu search, vibrato, Weibo, B station and other platforms, "Wei Miao" advertising is even more overwhelming.
Source / Courtesy of respondent
In Douyin, user searches with "financial management classroom" as the keyword, and the first place is Weimiao Academy. As of press time, the account has nearly 2.2 million fans, has received more than 7 million likes, and its introduction to itself is "only doing pure financial skills improvement". In the commodity window, what is being sold is the course of "12 Days Of Little White Training Camp", according to the display of the window, the course has sold 5407 copies.
A total of 300 people joined the "Xiaobai Training Camp" group with Burning Finance, and after asking the teachers of the group, Burning Finance learned that the group is the 2927th group of Xiaobai Training Camp, and roughly calculated, nearly one million people have participated in the current Xiaobai Camp Training Camp in Weimiao.
According to the information of the "Article", most of the students of the small white class come from cities below the third and fourth lines, mainly students, mothers, and no fixed staff, women account for more than 60%, 51.45% of users are high school and below, nearly 70% of users are under 35 years old, and 69.69% of users have a monthly income of less than 5,000 yuan.
According to the "Research Report on Internet Wealth Management and Consumption Upgrading", after preliminary calculations, the scale of investable financial assets of China's sinking population is expected to reach 101.7 trillion yuan in 2022, and the market size of Internet wealth management in the sinking population is expected to reach 4.7 trillion yuan (excluding bank wealth management). Among them, the young people and the sinking crowd have become the "stars of tomorrow" of Internet financial management, and the financial management concepts of the agriculture-related people and people in third-tier cities and below have changed even more, and the proportion of financial management populations has gradually increased. In particular, the proportion of small-town youth with financial management behavior in the financial management population has increased even more, which further verifies that the Internet financial management platform is actually conducive to driving the sinking population to participate in the financial management market.
Burning Finance and Economics learned that Weimiao is a brand of Holgos Finance and Business Information Technology Co., Ltd., which mainly does financial and business education. The courses include "12 Days Little White Financial Management Training Camp", "Financial Freedom Operating System Course", "Financial Freedom Financial Report analysis skills course", "Financial Freedom Business Operation Method Course".
According to the data of Tianyancha, Khorgos Caishang Information Technology Co., Ltd. was established on April 14, 2017, the legal representative Wang Loulou, wholly owned by Caishang International Education Group Co., Ltd. (Hong Kong), whose introduction to himself is committed to helping financial whites establish a correct view of money, financial management, and master the correct financial management methods.
It is worth noting that on the official website of Weimiao, the introduction of its "about us" is "Weimiao Caishang Technology Co., Ltd." In addition to Huoerguosi Caishang Information Technology Co., Ltd., there are also "Tianjin Weimiao Caishang Technology Co., Ltd." (hereinafter referred to as "Tianjin Weimiao") and "Beijing Weimiao Caishang Technology Co., Ltd." (hereinafter referred to as "Beijing Weimiao"). Among them, Beijing Weimiao is the wholly-owned controlling shareholder of Tianjin Weimiao, while Fenghe is the major shareholder of Beijing Weimiao, accounting for 75% of the shares.
According to public information, Feng He is the founder of Weimiao Business School, born in 1985, at the age of 36. According to Weimiao's official website, "Financial Freedom Operating System Course", "Financial Freedom Financial Report Analysis Skills Course" and "Financial Freedom Business Methods Course" are all written by Feng He.
In the introduction of Wei Miao's official website, Feng He is the course designer. According to reports, Feng He is a bachelor of economics from Fudan University, with "10 years of investment experience, good at A-shares, Hong Kong stocks, US stocks, Hong Kong REITs, US REITs, commercial housing, graded funds, index funds and other core investment tools investment.
However, in terms of knowledge, many users have said that Fenghe is studying the Fudan degree of the adult college entrance examination, and its gold content is worth pondering. At the same time, Burning Finance also noted that the "national financial planner" of Fenghe did not give a qualification number, and it was impossible to distinguish the authenticity of the qualification.
It is particularly noteworthy that as early as 2016, in the "Decision on The Cancellation of a Number of Vocational Qualification Permits and Accreditation Matters" issued by the State Council, Guo Fa [2016] No. 68, the national financial planner had been abolished, relevant examinations were no longer organized, and relevant certificates were no longer issued.
In the introduction of the "Famous Teacher Team" on Wei Miao's official website, in addition to several partners, there is no other "Famous Teacher" introduction.
Source / Weimiao Business School official website Burn Finance screenshot
Burning Finance further searched for relevant information in Tianyancha and found that Wang Loulou worked in a total of 14 enterprises, of which 11 enterprises served as legal representatives. On November 24, 2020, the Haidian Branch of Beijing Weimiao Caishang Technology Co., Ltd., of which it is a legal person, was also included in the list of abnormal enterprise operations by the Beijing Haidian District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau because its registered domicile or business premises could not be contacted.
Burn Finance also noted that Caishang International Education Group Co., Ltd., as the actual holding company of Khorgos Caishang Information Technology Co., Ltd., has no other information to inquire except for the date of establishment of February 21, 2017, because its registered address is Hong Kong, China.
In order to create an "atmosphere" of "Weimiao changing life", on Weimiao's official website, Burning Finance also found a large number of "student stories", the core of which is nothing more than a point, that is, through Weimiao to the peak of life.
In fact, Wei Miao is just the tip of the iceberg in many financial and business education.
Luo Yun, a student who also signed up for the Xiaobai financial management course, told Burning Finance that he had paid 1 yuan a few months ago to apply for a "Xiaobai 7-day financial management course" called "Dandelion Financial Business Education", after entering the so-called learning group, the first 2 days were basically instilled in the concept of "financial management should be early", and then it was to induce the purchase of more expensive courses, known as "to better learn stock knowledge".
Search for "Financial and Business Education" in Baidu, the top financial business schools are "Huibo Business School", "Wu Ai Pattern Financial Business Training", "Zifengtang Financial and Business Education and Training", "Zhongda Internet Online" and so on, and they are all advertisements.
Source / Baidu Search Burn Finance Screenshot
When communicating with the customer service staff of "Zhongda Internet Online", when Burning Finance asked if it could first tell the name of its organization, the other party's reply was "first leave the mobile phone number, send the latest policies of financial businessmen later, as well as the relevant content such as registration requirements", and did not directly answer the questions of Burning Finance.
In the Tianyancha search, which contains keywords such as "financial and business education" and "financial education", a total of 7283 companies were searched, of which 1710 were deregistered and revoked, and a total of 22 had obtained financing. Among them, there are 1483 companies founded in 2019, and as of now, there are 1202 companies established in 2020.
As Cha Tai said, the Article pointed out that among the many financial and business education enterprises, some enterprises increased the number of new paid students by 600% year-on-year in 1 month, and a head company achieved 1.2 billion yuan in the first half of the year. More insiders pointed out that by 2020, the scale of Internet wealth management will reach 15.5 trillion yuan, and the future capital market may give birth to listed companies with a market value of tens of billions of yuan.
In ChaTai's view, the most important thing in financial management is practice, and the real money and silver in financial management, whether it is lost or earned, is the best tuition. "Even if you make a lot of money in the simulated stock speculation, it is still far from the real investment level." In the process of practice, mentality is very important, if your ability to bear risks is relatively low, I think it is better to do some basic financial management with fixed income. ”
At the same time, Cha Tai analysis said that the reason why these courses can attract a large number of users to sign up, the logic is very simple. First of all, through the low price and the slogan of "wealth has shortcuts", it attracts small white users. After that, it began to sell anxiety in the group, and at the same time threw out cases, most of these cases are mainly themselves, such as xiaobai before, who know nothing about financial management, and have now bought their own cars through 3 months of study, how much to save, etc., arousing the desire of small white users. Finally, it is to give some limited-time special courses, and then find a few "childcare" to buy, creating an illusion that others "buy you don't buy, then the only one who can achieve wealth freedom is someone else".
As early as the beginning of this year, the Securities Times published an article titled "1 yuan lying to earn 1 million? Watch out! Your anxiety has become someone else's business" reveals this phenomenon and points out that this is "in the name of financial management, but in fact sells anxiety in the muddy waters." ”
As Siqi said at the end of the dialogue, in fact, whether you will manage money is not whether you have learned these courses, but mainly about your own foundation.
*The title image is from unsplash. At the request of the interviewees, Zhen Ni, Masti, Si Qi, Luo Yun, and Cha Tai are pseudonyms in the text.
*Disclaimer: In no event shall the information herein or the opinions expressed herein constitute investment advice to any person.