Kurt Shaver

HE IS A RIPOFF!

My friend had a painful experience with Kurt Shaver and his company Vangreso. That guy is a horrible human being and a dangerous scammer, that’s why I think everyone should stay away from him and his services. My buddy made a big mistake when he hired him to speak at our event. Kurt tries to market himself as an expert through lies and my friend fell for it. He didn’t think Kurt would be a scammer. There are a ton of keynote speakers out there. They each have different fields of expertise and because of their huge quantity, it’s easy for someone to get confused. But just because you’re in a hurry to hire a keynote speaker for your event, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t conduct proper research on the guy. This is where Jim (my friend, I’ve changed the name for security reasons) and it cost him a lot. He had to face humiliation and a loss of several thousand dollars. 

Kurt is one of the worst speakers out there. He takes your money, promises you that he’ll give a great speech and just turns your event into a disaster. If you’re thinking of hiring that lunatic, I suggest reading this Kurt Shaver review. It will help you open your eyes and see his true self, which he desperately tries to hide from the internet.

Who is Kurt Shaver?

Kurt Shaver is the co-founder of Vangreso. He is also the chief sales officer at this company. Before Vangreso, he used to run salesfoundry.com which is now closed. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Kurt used to work with companies and help them with their sales. He worked with a number of startups in the start of his career. He started his entrepreneurial journey with a Salesforce consulting business in 2008. Since 2011, he has been teaching people about the benefits of LinkedIn as well. He also speaks at events. He speaks about digital sales, social media, etc. 

By looking at his experience, one might think that he is some sort of expert who doesn’t need an introduction. After all, he has years of experience in sales and as an entrepreneur, so why would someone question his expertise, right? Well, there’s the problem. His story makes him seem like an expert which he is not. I know this because my friend’s company has already made the mistake of hiring Kurt for speaking at their event. He is a waste of money for any company. Hiring him is expensive and yields no benefits for anyone except him. If this post can save any one from wasting their hard-earned money on this jerk, then it would be worth all the effort it took to put it together.

Kurt Shaver's LinkedIn
Kurt Shaver’s LinkedIn About Us

Kurt speaks a lot about using LinkedIn for sales. He uses LinkedIn himself to promote Vangreso and his speaking business. He also uses Twitter for his brand promotion. Using these platforms helps him in reaching more people and spreading his message. He has around 11k followers on his Twitter page, and his LinkedIn profile has more than 500 connections. He is active on both of these platforms because he wants to get as many customers as possible. I wouldn’t care whether his business gets any customers or not but the problem is, his services aren’t valuable. He is cheating people through his social media profiles. He makes it seem like he is a thought leader of the industry and his products are amazing while that’s clearly not the truth. There aren’t any reviews of his services online. That’s because he doesn’t want anyone to find out what kind of services he really offers. And let me tell you, they are very bad. You’d feel like you could’ve done a lot better once you’ve wasted your money on this guy. 

Kurt Shaver's Twitter page
Kurt Shaver’s Twitter page

The guilt sets in quickly because you realize that you didn’t get the product you had bought. I didn’t have any knowledge of Kurt’s reality, if I did, I would’ve stopped my friend from buying Kurt’s services. 

My Friend’s Experience with Kurt Shaver and Vangreso 

The section below is the email I received from Jim himself. I haven’t edited anything so there might be some errors, but this is to ensure that you really understand how devastated he felt when he found out Kurt Shaver’s reality.

I regret the decision of hiring Kurt till this day. I hated the experience entirely. One of our guys had warned us that hiring Kurt might turn out to be a mistake, but we didn’t listen to him. Kurt’s website and his social media profiles can deceive anyone. He maintains these pages so you wouldn’t question his expertise. I got fooled by his website and social media profile. When I was hiring Kurt, I had no idea he’d turn out to be a disaster. He wasted our time, he wasted our money, and most importantly, he turned our event into a disaster. 

My company was holding a prestigious event and we were looking for a highly experienced keynote speaker. Now, one of my guys has been a follower of Kurt for some months. So he recommended Kurt and told us all about his expertise and experience. Because of that guy’s recommendation, I considered Kurt first and to my surprise, Kurt was available to speak on that day. They replied very promptly to our messages and we were delighted. They demanded that we pay him the whole amount in advance, and I got a little sceptical at that stage. You don’t demand this much money in the beginning of your deal, when you both don’t even know each other. That’s when another guy in my group told me that it would be a bad idea to pay these guys anything. But I didn’t listen to him and paid Kurt’s company some few thousand dollars. Looking back, I realize it was the worst expenditure I’ve ever made. 

Kurt’s team was very glad with my payment and they told me that Kurt would arrive and give the required presentation without any worries. Kurt offers a bunch of presentations on his website. I had chosen the one called ‘3 Steps to Creating a Social Selling Culture’, which was supposed to last for an hour at least and help my sales managers use social media better for generating sales. I was looking forward to it. What I didn’t know was that Kurt isn’t really an expert on anything related to social selling. He is just some guy who has spent a few years in the market and has gathered enough experience to know how he can dupe other executives. That’s how he is making his living, which is one of the saddest ways to make money if you ask me. 

When Kurt didn’t arrive a day before the event, I got a little worried. He arrived on the day of the event. He seemed like a nice guy when I met him. I didn’t know that he was planning to scam me at that time. He was supposed to be the main highlight of our event too, so I was really excited to hear him speak. But things changed when he got on the stage. He just gave a general overview of Twitter and LinkedIn and then, started saying how he has helped different companies in boosting their sales through them. His speech lasted for 15 minutes, which is way less than an hour. And in this short speech, he didn’t mention any of those ‘3 Steps’ he was paid to talk about. 

The entire time, I kept waiting for him to say something useful which my managers could apply in their daily practices. But no, he didn’t have anything to share. When he got off the stage so early, I got a little confused. I asked him, “Weren’t you supposed to give a longer speech, that lasted for around an hour?” and he just told me, “Don’t worry mister, I think I’ve done enough work here”. Then he started leaving the place. I stopped him and asked him what the hell was going on, because it certainly wasn’t the speech I had paid him for. He just shrugged it off like that’s all he could do. I went with him to the lobby and demanded an explanation for his unprofessional behaviour. He tried to walk away but I wanted to get an explanation. He kept making excuses like ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’, ‘The audience isn’t worth his time’, etc. Then he started saying that he was getting late for some work so he had to leave early. I couldn’t comprehend his incompetence at that moment. I was furious because the keynote speaker of my event had just walked out and there was nothing I could do about it. We had to wrap up the event and face considerable embarrassment because of this. 

I contacted Kurt’s company, Vangreso, later on to complain about this incident. I gave them a call, and the customer service rep gave me the same reply Kurt was giving me in the event, ‘He can’t do anything’. I asked him if he can issue me a refund because Kurt had done a lot of damage by leaving the event in the middle and giving a lame speech. But this moron on the other end of the phone must be reading from a script because he kept giving me the same reply. He transferred his call to a superior but she was saying the same thing. I got really mad at myself later. I realized that I had just got scammed by Kurt and his staff. He took a few thousand dollars from me to teach my staff about something but didn’t deliver what was promised. He embarrassed me in front of all my employees and made me look like a fool. It was my initiative, I just didn’t think I’d get scammed by a bastard like Kurt. He didn’t apologize for his incompetence. He just left the event and didn’t reply to any of my complaints. It just goes to show how big of a scum he really is. 

I wouldn’t have hired Kurt for speaking at my event, if I had any hint of his unprofessional and unethical behavior. That guy cost me thousands of dollars. He is a thief and I’d be happy to see him get locked up or get broke. The mere fact that he didn’t even consider apologizing to me for his terrible behavior is enough reason for me to understand that he is a fraudster. Kurt doesn’t know anything about social media or marketing. He just knows how he can use people to fill his pockets. He is an unethical professional who has no morals and you’d be safer if you stayed away from him. I don’t even believe the stuff he says on his profiles and website. I’m certain that most of the credentials he has shared on his website like past clients or projects are fake. I don’t think he has worked with multiple Fortune 500 companies or startup leaderships. I just think he is lying about all this so small businessmen like you and me will trust him and pay him our hard-earned money so he can afford his luxury lifestyle. 

Other Negative Reviews

Trust Pilot Review of Kurt Shaver

There isn’t much information about Kurt available online. I don’t know what is the reason behind that. It could be because he isn’t some big shot like he claims to be. Or, it could be because his company spends a lot of money hiding the reviews of his services as they are terrible and wouldn’t let him get anymore customers. I’m sure most of his business is dependent on his lying profiles and website. 

This is the main reason you wouldn’t find any reviews of Kurt Shaver or Vangreso online. However, even after all that, the internet has several negative reviews about Kurt and his sham company. 

In fact, I found a couple of critical reviews on Glassdoor, where some distraught employees had shared their frustrations with Vangreso. One person said that the CEO of the company is a horrible person and the company sends emails to the employees even on weekends. Over and above, the person also mentioned how the company lacks leadership and has no direction. It also lacks proper organization, which means there’s total chaos. The review highlighted a bunch of harsh truths about Kurt’s company and if I had read this review earlier, I would not have hired the guy. Think of it, if a guy can’t even run his company properly, how do you expect him to teach you about running yours? It doesn’t make sense. 

Kurt is scamming Businesses

Kurt Shaver is a liar who is using social media and the internet to promote his sham business. His sole purpose is to make money for himself. He won’t teach your staff a thing. He will just take all your money, waste your time, and then dash. There isn’t anything praiseworthy about that guy. He doesn’t know how to deal with customers, he doesn’t know how to run a company and he surely doesn’t know about business ethics. This guy can get locked up for decades if he keeps this up. 

I am hoping my friend’s experience will help some of you in making a better informed decision about Kurt and his services. I know how hard it is for anyone to recover from a substantial financial loss. I just thought it’s my duty as a responsible citizen to make others aware of a scammer present in our midst. 

2.6 Total Score
NOT COMPETENT AT ALL!!!

Kurt Shaver is lying about his competence! From manipulating social media pages, to absolute crappy services, Kurt has it all. My friend got fooled by Kurt's grandiosity, but don't have to.

2Expert Score
Trust
2
Support
3
Reputation
2.5
Experience
0.5
3.2User's score
Trust
2.7
Support
2.7
Reputation
3.5
Experience
4
PROS
  • Substantial social media followers
CONS
  • False claims of competence
  • Narcissism
  • Overpriced
  • Doesn't know what he is talking about
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4 Comments
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  1. 0.85
    Trust
    10
    Support
    10
    Reputation
    20
    Experience
    30

    Vangresso’s services are probably the most overpriced LinkedIn marketing services out there. They are ripping off their customers by charging a fortune for something that shouldn’t cost this much. Their LinkedIn Profile Makeover service is totally trash. They make numerous claims and provide a ton of testimonials to make it seem like it’s a worth it investment when it’s clearly not.

    I don’t even trust those testimonials anymore. After all, you can’t contact Amir K and ask him if he really enjoyed Vangresso’s services or not. The people at Vangresso claim that their LinkedIn Profile Makeover service will boost your profile views, make it easier for people to find you online, and help you use it as a social media marketing tool. All of these claims sound amazing and you’d start to think that if you don’t buy his services, you’ll miss out on a lot of benefits.

    And it’s true to an extent. If you don’t optimise your LinkedIn profile properly, you will be missing out on a lot of things. But that doesn’t mean that you have to hire an overpriced company like Vangresso. Such companies charge you a ton for something that can be done for a much lower price. These people are charging so much for their services because they don’t care about their customers. All they care about is how much they can upsell you, that’s it.

    Once you’ll buy the LinkedIn profile makeover service, Kurt’s salesmen will start contacting you to buy their additional products. After all, one service can never be enough can it? Unless you learn how to hire them to teach you to how to sell through video and how to sell through LinkedIn, taking their LinkedIn profile makeover program would be useless. I’m not the person saying this. One of their salespeople had told me that if I don’t buy another one of their products, I’d be “missing out” on many prospective LinkedIn sales.

    I believe they use this scare tactic on every customer they have. It’s annoying and shows how less they actually care about their client’s benefit. Buying their LinkedIn profile makeover was a total waste of my money and time.

    To be fair, buying a service like Resume Worded, where an AI reviews your LinkedIn profile and helps you with your issues, is much affordable and effective than buying a course from Vangresso. Also, once you buy something from these guys, you’re done. They will come after you like hyenas. The salespeople at Kurt Shaver’s company don’t care about you or your financial position. They only want to make you realise just how much you are missing out on your prospective sales.

    + PROS: None
    - CONS: Sleazy sales tactics Overpriced services
    Helpful(2) Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
  2. 1.5
    Trust
    20
    Support
    30
    Reputation
    60
    Experience
    10

    Thanks for this! My boss is a big fan of hiring speakers to speak at our annual engagements, he was going to hire Kurt as a Virtual Speaker (yeah that’s a thing now). I sent him this article and his jaw dropped lol.

    - CONS: Useless Overhyped BSes a lot
    Helpful(3) Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
  3. 2
    Trust
    30
    Support
    30
    Reputation
    40
    Experience
    60

    An interesting read for sure. I have heard stuff about Kurt at my office. My company hired him many years back when I was just an intern and they had a similar experience as yours. The guy might know a thing or two, he obviously is rich, but the ego just kills his credibility. He doesn’t like to share the real tips and yeah, he does speak a lot of BS and doesn’t get to the point. We have called many other speakers too as our company hires a new speaker every fiscal year to motivate the staff, but Kurt was the worst of them all.

    + PROS: Confident
    - CONS: Ego Narcissim Lots of BS
    Helpful(1) Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
  4. 2.1
    Trust
    50
    Support
    40
    Reputation
    20
    Experience
    60

    I used to work at a place where Kurt Shaver was once came to speak. In my experience his speech wasn’t that bad, but he treated us like absolute cr@p. I was in college and working two jobs, one of them was of being an assistant to this small-time event manager. My boss (the event manager) was responsible for making the arrangements for the stage, equipment, etc.
    A benefit of working at an event management agency was that I could be at many such events which were kind of expensive without paying a dime. Although I had to sit through some really trashy events too, like the Kurt Shaver’s one. Even though the guy showed a ton of confidence, there wasn’t any kind of “value” in his speech. All the time he was trying to hype up the small crowd and basically repeated the same stuff. Not only that, when I got a chance to meet him, he literally “shooed” me away by gesturing with his hand. I know I wasn’t any big shot entrepreneur or a lawyer, I was a small-time employee, but the way he treated me and my colleagues was too cruel. Kurt shaver doesn’t actually care about people, from what I saw, he had ready-made scripts which he uses everywhere and once the time is up, he goes away. Kurt is definitely not a good person, if I was to hire a speaker, I would 100% NOT hire him.

    + PROS: Confidence
    - CONS: Speaks fluff Heartless No value in the speech Looks down on people
    Helpful(4) Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this

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