How a Site Member Is Being Sold a Bill of Goods at College, and How He Can Recoup His Losses
Jan. 17, 2011
A site member has a problem. He is in college. He is a business major.
Last week Dr. North posted an article saying that there is an opportunity for anyone who is interested in doing web design and maintaining company websites. I will be graduating in May 2012 with a degree in business and a concentration in accounting, and I am very interested in the possibility of making some money on the side doing web design and website maintenance. My question is how and where should I start? I have almost all of my necessary business courses completed already, so much of my senior year will be open for taking electives. Are there any classes that I should take during my last year? Also, how would I go about making myself known to companies? What kinds of marketing tactics would be most useful? I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who has any experience in these areas. Thank you.
Had he decided to go to college my way, he would out already. He could have majored in business. Total cost: $15,000. Time elapsed: 3 years. Maybe 2. Maybe none. I am working with an 18-year-old young man who just earned his B.A. in business from an accredited college. He did it my way.
The accounting specialization will be useful if he is being taught to use the numbers as forecasting tools. If not, he could simply have gotten a job at H&R Block. Probably, he is not learning forecasting skills. My former lawyer/CPA tells me that few CPAs possess it. That is his niche.
I asked the site member to list the books on advertising he had read. Here is his answer.
I have not read any books on advertising yet. I have taken an introductory marketing course and I am seriously thinking about taking some more next year, but as yet my knowledge is very limited in that area. If there are any books out there that you would recommend I am very interested in hearing your recommendations.
I told him to read all on them in the Members' Free Materials department and then ask questions.
Here is the real problem. Another member posted this.
What did you think of your introductory marketing class? I'm an accounting major so I've taken the intro class too. I've found that most/all of the business classes assume that you're going to go work for someone who has reams of sales and demographic data to work with and a long history to boot. Is that what you've encountered?I'm new at this too, but the materials that Gary offers and the input from members are a much greater value than almost any class I've taken at college. In the books he recommends you won't find any formulas to find the right "mix" or regressions to the mean. Just the plain straight facts of how to write advertising for direct marketing (i.e. effective marketing)
I find it interesting/odd that the business school doesn't actually show students how to start their own business. It seems more like basic job training.
At least here you can learn how to start your own side business.
This is universal. Why? Because his teachers knew nothing -- I mean NOTHING -- about starting and running a successful business.
Business schools are staffed by bureaucrats who have been granted a Ph.D. in business by salaried bureaucrats. These bureaucrats got jobs at tax-funded universities. They mostly attended tax-funded universities.
A successful businessman cannot afford to switch careers. The low pay that 80% of professors get will not entice him. He is a self-made millionaire. He is the person described in The Millionaire Next Door and The Millionaire Mind. He got out of college 20 years ago. He owns one or more businesses. He cannot afford to spend five to six years earning a Ph.D. Here is the rule: You forfeit income earning a Ph.D. in order to forfeit income after you earn a Ph.D.
So, he is not eligible to teach a course for credit at an accredited university.
A great scene on this is when Rodney Dangerfield's character, a businessman, goes into a course on business.
The textbooks on marketing are written by Ph.D.s who never ran a marketing campaign. The books on advertising are just like the books on marketing. These people do not have any experience writing ad copy or putting together a catalogue. They know nothing about the Web.
The textbooks are not written for entrepreneurs who want to start a business. They are written for students who plan to be hired by large corporations.
Problem: large corporations do not create most of the jobs. Small businesses do.
Problem #2: For the best jobs, they hire graduates of the high-prestige MBA programs: Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Chicago.
Problem #3: the same applies to the lowly B.A. Here is how the system works:
They are buying personal connections. Brains are cheap.
Why don't universities hire retired businessmen who built successful companies? Because the accrediting agencies require the schools to hire mostly Ph.D.-holding people. Why do they do this? In order to restrict the supply of eligible candidates, thereby keeping salaries higher.
These are bureaucracies, not businesses. They train students to become bureaucrats. But profit-seeking businessmen do not want to hire 22-year-old bureaucrats. They hire them only because that is how they get a chance to test fairly bright people on the job at low pay. Their performance on the job sorts them out.
I am teaching the 18-year-old the basics of advertising. If he does what I say, in a year or two, he will be able to earn a good living for the rest of his life as a copywriter. If he writes for his own business, he will bet rich if he can find the niche. I will teach him how to do this.
People on this site can do this, too. It's a question of basic communications skills, which most people have, reading the right books, and then putting in 1,000 hours practicing. That lets you stay in the field: 5,000 hours, then 10,000 hours. That makes you a master.
College the conventional way takes five years, or 7,000 hours, plus low-level summer school jobs for five summers. College my way takes three years: 5,000 to 6,000 hours, no summer school, and lets you pay your own way by working part-time. You graduate debt-free.
The Ph.D.s who teach business at college never tell you this. It is not in their self-interest that students find out.