Why I never promote B-School

I woke up this morning to our first REAL snow of this winter.  All the schools are closed, it’s not almost 4 and it’s still snowing!

The first thought I had this morning was not “How much snow are we going to get?” or “Great, kids are off school another day.”

My first thought was “Thank God B-School is closed for another year.”

Disclaimer:  I know lots of people that have gone through B-School and have had amazing success following Marie’s program, so this post is not intended to diminish the value of the program, just to give you my opinion on this whole “guru” launch model and whether it will work for you.

I was looking back through my old emails to May of 2011, which is when I launched Health Coach Weekly.

I signed up for 2 online programs that month.  The first was “Total Product Blueprint” by Brendon Burchard.  The sales funnel was very well done and effective, I got super excited about the prospect of just creating all these different forms of online trainings and making 6 figures by the end of the year.  It sounded so simple, yet didn’t quite tell the whole story.  In order to sell all of these digital products, I really needed to have an audience of people who knew, liked, and trusted me.  At this point I had an email list of exactly ZERO, a website that I had gotten from my school and a website I had setup about Juice Detoxing that I had built while taking a WordPress course the year before.

In 2010 and 2011, I was deep into what I have heard described as the “bright shiny object” syndrome.  I have no idea how many courses I bought, went through, and then failed to implement.  I learned a lot along the way, and all of this knowledge became the foundation for the idea behind Health Coach Weekly, so I don’t consider it wasted, but I did learn a few things.

The big “guru” courses are not for everyone.

 

These are courses like Marie Forleo’s B-School, among MANY others.  The only reason I am singling out this course is I imagine you have gotten at least 100 emails over the past month from a variety of people telling you how great the course is and how they have the best bonus out there.

I don’t necessarily disagree with any of that.  If your business goal is to create a business like Marie’s, a high profile online business, then at some point you should probably take her course, or another one similar to it.

If, however, you are like a lot of health coaches I talk to, and are more interested in developing more of a “lifestyle” business where your primary focus is on building a nice, small business that centers around coaching a handful of clients, having a small online program or 2, and maybe a network marketing aspect of your business, then maybe you should look for someone more in line with these goals.

Personally, knowing what I now do, I have no desire to have a business like Brendon or Marie’s.  Doesn’t make their model wrong, just not right for me.  That is one of the things I love about having an online business.  There are a whole bunch of different ways it can look according to what your goals are.

Here is the key to my success.

 

I told you about the first course I took in May of 2011.  I didn’t really follow through on much of what was taught and obviously was not “successful” with that approach.

The next course I invested in way called “Inbox Empire” and I think at the time I invested  $197.  This was 1/10 the cost of the previous course I took (I was in the first class, it has since gone up to a higher cost), but I have gotten 1,000 times more value from it.  I followed along with every step of the course and did everything they suggested to do (almost).  I started to share valuable content and 4 years later I have a very nice business that I am proud of and is in alignment with the lifestyle I want to lead.

The moral of the story is not to say you shouldn’t be buying online courses.  There are definitely quite a few skills you will need to learn and master in order to have a successful business.  The key is to find programs that you trust will move you towards your goal and then 1 – pointedly focus on following the steps laid out.  I promote several different programs every year with business coaches that I personally know, like and trust to bring you the goods and move you towards your goals.  If I don’t think it’s worthy of your time, I will not share it with you.

Since I was in the “charter membership” class of Inbox Empire, there are still weekly calls that I can get on and have my questions answered.  I think with the other “Big Box Course”, there were 6 big group calls, but I never had any personal interaction for my $2 K.

Be sure to go “Bonus Shopping.”

 

Another reason I never promote B-School, besides the fact that I have never taken the course, is that I don’t feel like creating a $1000+ bonus package in order to entice you to buy it through my link.  So if I were to signup, I would search around to see who had the most valuable bonus package for me.  As a health coach, I imagine this would be something from Cathy Sykora from The Health Coach Group.  She is someone who has gone through the program, had amazing success, and knows what sort of bonuses would help a health coach.

There you have it.  If you are enrolled in B-School this year, my suggestion is to really focus 110% of your energy on it, so that you get all the value you can.

If not, and you are like me, you can be relieved that for at least 11 more months, you will not have to wade though a daily deluge to your inbox.