Ryan is a twenty something attending graduate school in Texas. He fancies himself an entrepreneur and writes about relationship marketing, eCommerce, and other elements of business as it relates to Generation Y, on his blog, Ryan Stephens Marketing.
Most of the MBA students I know think they are absolutely brilliant. Because of the piece of paper they get when the graduate they will probably get to start out at about $100K a year. Evidently this notion, coupled with their narcissism, entitles them to think they are better than you and me. And that is okay with me because I am confident I can attain that status (provided I want to) in the amount of time they spent in the ‘real world’ and coming back to get their MBA.
The rest of this post outlines 3 reasons why you should skip obtaining your MBA.
Reason #1: It’s about PEOPLE — not rules, theorems, and formulas.
Being a great business person, or a great marketer is about connecting with people; it’s about building and solidifying relationships, and it is about making your brand a Lovemark. Managerial Cost Accounting doesn’t help you do that. I do not want to spend my life tucked away in a cubicle (or an office), but out on the streets interacting with and learning from consumers. What do they really want? How can I facilitate our relationship by providing them with the solution they are looking for?
What theorem teaches me how to do that? When you start seeing your business as a business of margins you are in danger of becoming a commodity. You can learn all the strategies in the world to get attention for your business, but what do you do when you get it? Is it sustainable? Learning about the people, your consumers and what they want enables you to thrive and consistently answer these questions. A piece of paper that dictates how well you ran regressions does not.
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A Look at the Benefits
We can all remember the days as a kid where we wanted to be a cowboy or an astronaut when we grew up (I still think being a cowboy would be kind of cool). Then the year after that, maybe you’d have the desire to be a pro hockey player or an movie star. Eventually, we’d all grow up and some of us would go to college while others entered the work force. With that, our childhood dreams evolved as well. For some of us, they evolved into running their own company, the desire to work for yourself as opposed to working for someone else. Now, a lot of you here are already in the driver’s seat cruising down that path, you own your own business and somewhere along the line the thought of buying an existing business has strolled through your mind. If you’ve ever found yourself in that position, you’ve probably asked yourself questions like “Is it right for me? If so, where do I start?” There are a lot of things to think about and the choices you make can greatly impact the outcome. In a series of upcoming articles, I’m going to touch up on some details of buying a business.
You Don’t Exactly Need a DeLorean…
Alright, so you may not be able to tell the future (…yet. Great business idea here, folks.), but there are ways around that, which can prove equally as beneficial. When you’re looking to purchase an existing business that is up and running smoothly, you get the chance to know what you’re getting into before you actually get into it. The opportunity to look at all of a company’s bookwork allows you learn a lot about the company besides just the numbers. The more organized the bookwork is, the better the chance that the company itself is well organized and properly structured. Just like buying vegetables at the supermarket, you get to look for what you want without having to spend the time growing it and not knowing how it will turn out.
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There’s not a career choice out there that doesn’t allow you to advance by pitching your most marketable asset, which just happens to be… yourself. You’ll never end up in a situation where you can say to somebody “I can’t do that, because I don’t have the resources or tools that I need” without looking like a total fool to anybody who is worth their salt. You have yourself. The rest is just stuff and comes just as easily as you being, if you know how to get what you want in life. And let’s face it, if you can’t market yourself as a valuable asset, you’re not worth the time to anybody worth selling yourself to anyhow.
There’s a phrase you’ve all probably heard that reads “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Oh so right, yet oh so misinterpreted. You ‘re not going to get anywhere in your chosen field if you don’t know your stuff, but one of the most forward thinking things you can do is make sure others know who you are, what you do, and how well you do it. Never underestimate the power of a positive reputation (or a negative one, for that matter). The bigger your network, the bigger your potential to secure resources, find talented people, receive referrals and recommendations, and the list goes on.
I’m not one to devalue good, honest, hard work. It’s not likely you’ll often find loyal, determined teammates who will value your dreams as much as you do, and you’ll not go a step in any direction unless you’re willing to work your ass off and make those dreams come true on your own. With that said, when tapping into a powerful network, the question is no longer “How in the world…” It becomes “Who in the world…” which can be an infinitely more powerful question to have the opportunity to ask yourself when the chips are down and you’re faced with issues beyond your means.
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Monica O’Brien is a guest writer from Twenty Set, a blog about personal and professional development for millennials.
One of my friends graduated in June 2007 and was headhunted for a startup after posting his resume on CareerBuilder. He was 20 years-old and had a choice: do the startup or take the other, much safer offer at a larger company. He chose the startup and joined a team of nine employees who built robots for large firms - in the CEO’s father’s basement.
What I failed to mention is how I met my friend - we’ve been coworkers for the past four months. The startup company was doing great business by building the top robots in the industry - but went bankrupt five months after my friend started due to lawsuits from the CEO’s old company.
But my friend survived his first affair with a startup, and you can too - because startups aren’t that risky. Here are three reasons why…
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A recent graduate of Harvard University, Lauren currently works full-time as a Marketing Associate in the Consumer Products Division at L’Oreal USA. Having spent 4 years as a Social Anthropology major (no, she didn’t study bones and fossils; it’s the study of people and cultures) and a lifetime as someone with entrepreneurial tendencies (at age 7, Lauren was selling her parents possessions, unbeknownst to them, for $1 a piece out in front of her driveway), Lauren decided it was time to put her knowledge of people, her ability to quickly build a rapport with others and her knack for business to good use.
We’ve all been there…
Maybe you forgot to set your clock. Maybe you set it, but you weren’t paying close enough attention and that wretched little dot was in the PM position. Maybe it actually went off… and in your sleepy stupor, desperate and wincing, all you could think about was clicking it back off.
Being late – particularly, being late AND looking like you’re late because you just woke up – is one of the worst impressions you can make with customers, clients, interviewers, and the like. If you’re armed with some quick tricks of the trade, oversleeping doesn’t necessarily mean you actually have to BE late or look like you just got out of bed…
Taking the following actions will get you out of the door in 15 minutes (or less) and, more importantly, could save you from personal and professional embarrassment.
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None of us are ignorant here, and I think it’s safe to say that we all realize how stale the YGG blog and forum have been lately. Extended periods of time between posts, not much commentary, little interaction from site owners, and so on.
Firstly, thank you to all of you who have stuck around long enough to be reading this post.
Secondly, as I’m sure most of you already know I’ve taken over as Technical Director over here at YGG. I’m sure even more of you have heard rumors floating around about some new features and maybe even a new design that we’ve got in the works. If you’re anything like the majority of the folks we’ve spoken with, you’re more than excited to hear about them. I know I am!
These factors have contributed to our decision to unveil some details to our readers as to what we’re working on, and why the hell we’re so quiet right now. We can’t give away too much right now, but you can expect to see more posts like this one in the following months with more sneak peeks and surprises.
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