The Problem With Online Business Courses (And A Proposed Solution)

There are some clear problems with most (not all) of the courses that teach various business models on the Internet…

 

1. There is only 1 ‘sales event’ where the student pays full-price for the course, before knowing if it will work for them, or even seeing the content.

2. The course seller often has more interest in updating the sales funnel for the course than the course material, meaning the information is out of date.

3. Some course teachers actually have very little experience running the business model they teach. Their business is selling courses. If all you see is their courses, how would you know any better?

4. The  lost-time and financial risks are taken on completely by the students. If the business doesn’t work out, it’s the student’s problem.

5. Students are looking to get into a new business, which means they’re usually not making a ton of money now, so the $1,999 course is paid for from small savings, or a credit card. Then, they need capital to start the business.

 

It doesn’t make sense that a ‘business guru’ with a highly-profitable business is asking for $1,999 course signups, selling his highly profitable business model.

 

Entrepreneurs with highly-profitable businesses don’t sell the secrets. They hire people to work in their company, scaling up their business based on those systems as much as possible. They don’t start a new business selling courses, gutting their current business in order to start a new career as a teacher.

 

One solution for people who want to learn about Internet business is to find someone who is actually running a profitable company and go work in the company. Becoming an employee is a great way to learn (and earn some money, instead of paying for a course) but it has one drawback.

 

Most people looking at these Internet business courses don’t want to be employees. They want to be their own business owner. This means that they either play ‘good employee’ for six months and then quit (bad for the company) or they remain an employee, which was never their goal.

 

This is why I am trying out a new business model.

 

Apprenticeship… With Follow-On Investment

 

 

1. Apprenticeship

 

The ‘apprentice’ comes to learn while working in the company. Unlike a student, they don’t pay anything. They don’t need to because their hands-on work helps the company. They can either work for free, for a small salary, or perhaps earn a commission on generated sales.

 

Working in a real, ongoing business they will learn real processes, SOP’s and strategies.

 

Because there will be only 1-10 ‘apprentices’, they actually get to talk to and learn from the business owner. In a course with 1,000 students, this is impossible.

 

The business owner shares the business processes and is not secretive about how the business works. Whereas an employee is meant to learn one specific portion of the business and stay there, an apprentice learns all aspects of the business in preparation for becoming their own business owner.

 

2. Follow-On Investment

Knowledgeable about how the business works, the ‘apprentice’ feels confident enough to start their own company. If they were an employee, this would set the stage for conflict between the business owner and student, but for the apprentice, this is expected from the beginning.

 

The business owner, having trained the apprentice to be ready start their own business, becomes the 1st investor in that business. Rather than the apprentice hustling freelance to earn $5,000 to start an e-commerce shop, like I did, the business owner gives the apprentice a $20,000 investment, on reasonable terms that will generate a return, but that give the apprentice majority ownership in a company they now own.

 

If the original business owner actually has a profitable business (doesn’t just sell online courses) then there will be money available to invest in this new business, and if the apprentice has been performing well there won’t be any doubts about their competency.

 

Improvements In This Model Over The ‘Business Courses’ Model

 

Apprentices are never asked to pay huge sums of money, either to learn the business or to provide the capital to start their own business. The apprentice brings their time, focus, and energy (of which they have plenty) and the business owner brings the cash. (which they are looking to re-invest to generate a return)

 

The original business owner, the ‘teacher’, has no interest in selling someone who will not do well after joining their company. The original entrepreneur doesn’t just want the apprentice to learn… he will lose or make money based on how well he or she learns!

 

For the ‘teacher’, the largest divergence between this business model and ‘selling courses’, is that the teacher is no longer inclined to blast Facebook ads to 10,000,000 people, hoping for a 3% conversion rate of ‘whoever’ will buy the course. They are bringing someone into their company. This is more like a hiring process, looking for A-players, perhaps more suitable for LinkedIn, and requiring individual interviews.

 

Finally, this system is win-win or lose-lose every step of the way. If the apprentice leaves after 3 months, then they have learned something and they have done some work for the company. For the student, there is no high-pressure moment, where they need to decide if they will pay $1,999 to ‘change their life’. The business owner also gets a sense of the capabilities of the apprentice before investing in them.

 

This system keeps everyone honest. Apprentices will smell a rat if the business doesn’t really exist, and the business owner will know if the apprentice is an A-player or not.

 

Having paid apprentices instead of paying students gives everyone what they need and allows them to give what they have. Students don’t have a lot of money and they want to hustle while walking down a clear path to business ownership. Business owners want to expand their operation with A-players, and invest their money where it is likely to generate a high ROI.

 

Before buying an online course teaching you about Google Adwords, Amazon FBA, or Facebook Marketing, consider if the apprenticeship model, with follow-on funding provided by the business owner, might not be the better option.