Robert Kiyosaki, who happens to be a conman less spectacular than Trump, used to host seminars. Those seminars were free.
Follow up sessions used to cost $300-500 dollars. I would estimate 7-10% of attendees paid for the follow up.
Then his protégés (employee salesmen) would apply high pressure sales tactics to get people to sign up for $30K to $50K mentoring, 1 on 1 sessions. Maybe 2-3% of people who paid for round 2 would make a go for round 3.
But hey, sales is just a numbers game..or a “customer funnel” to maximize ROI (to use marketing jargon)
Desperate people make for easy prey. There’s no doubt in my mind desperation runs rampant and only grows with each decade.