- I know my college diploma is somewhere.
I just have no idea where.
Gosh, I'm so horrible at keeping things organized,
but you know who is organized, is my wife.
Maybe she knows where it is.
Hey, babe, do you know where my college diploma is?
- I have no idea.
I mean, I know where my MBA one is though.
- Oh, you do have--
- That's when I got my master's, you know, that one.
- I forgot you have your MBA.
You're so much smarter than me, but you don't--
- I know it's hard to take in.
I actually have no idea where it is.
It's probably in your office in your pile
of clutter underneath your cabinet stuff.
(upbeat music)
- Is that it?
Oh, nope, that's my Certified Financial Planner Designation.
You know what I just realized?
I actually don't even need my diploma for this video,
and I don't need my government money shooting gun either,
but you know what?
I kinda like it, so I thought I would go ahead and use it,
and the reason we don't need my college diploma is
because I just have a bachelor's degree,
and we're not talking about a bachelor's degree,
we're talking about an MBA.
Side note, before I actually started recording this video,
I actually forgot that my wife had her MBA.
How fitting?
So why are we talking about MBAs?
Well, you may have recalled whenever we started
doing online school, homeschool, Harvard announced
that their MBA program was going completely online.
Now, that has since changed, but what hasn't changed
is how much Harvard's MBA program costs.
So how much does the MBA program at Harvard cost?
Well, we've got a long list of fees.
We're starting off with tuition at $73,000.
We have a student health fee at $1,200,
a student health insurance plan at $3,900,
course and program materials, roughly $2,500,
room and utilities if you're going to be there
for about nine months, estimated about $14,000,
and then living expenses for those nine months at $16,500.
So what is the total cost?
- Drum roll, please?
- So when we add up all the costs to attend the MBA program
at Harvard, we are looking at $111,000 for one year.
- Oh, my God.
- But here's the kicker, it doesn't take one year
to get your MBA at Harvard,
it's going to take you two years.
So we've got two years at $111,000 for each year.
- Oh, my God.
- So to get your MBA at Harvard,
it's going to equal a lot of money.
Whew, that is a lot of money for an MBA.
So the MBA at Harvard is going to cost you over $220,000.
So that begs to ask the question, is there something better?
Well, I think that there is, but first,
I feel like I need to share a disclaimer.
So the disclaimer is that I actually dropped out
of the MBA program.
I know, I'm an MBA dropout.
I actually dropped out of college twice,
but see, there is a bit of a backstory.
I had just started my career as a financial advisor.
I was growing my business, working 60 hours a week,
trying to get my MBA at the same time,
and I finally hit a point, a breaking point, where I had
to ask the question, what's more important right now,
growing the business, making some money or getting the MBA?
I decided that growing the business was the better decision,
and I'm glad that I stuck with it.
- Good job.
- So just felt like I needed to share
that little piece of information.
I did drop out of the MBA program.
So sorry, but I'm really not sorry.
So what do I think is better than an MBA program
from the prestigious Harvard?
Well, that's what I'm gonna share right now.
I believe that starting a blog is better than an MBA.
- Say what?
- No, you don't need to adjust your earbuds.
That's what I said.
Starting a blog is better than an MBA,
but before I share the reasons why,
let me share some other stats with you.
Now, obviously, if I am suggesting to bypass the Harvard MBA
and pursue blogging, then you've gotta make a lot of money.
Now, obviously blogging has worked out well for me,
but even in the beginning, I had to survive
what I call the BMW stage, and that doesn't mean
that I was rolling up in a brand new Beamer
because of all the money I was making blogging.
No, the BMW stage means I was working $0.16 per hour
whenever I first started blogging, like for the first year.
So yeah, I wasn't making a lot of money.
Actually, I wasn't making any money.
So obviously, other people were making a lot
of money blogging.
Actually, not quite because according to Glassdoor,
they shared that the average salary
that a blogger makes is just over $33,000 per year,
and then Darren Rowse from ProBlogger, he did a survey
of his audience, which are predominantly bloggers,
but he found out that 63% of his blogging community
were making, check it, less than $100 per month blogging.
You know, I'm actually beginning to think I am crazy
about this whole blogging thing.
All right, obviously there are some huge factors
comparing a blog versus an MBA.
I mean, the big one is time.
It's gonna take you two years to get your MBA.
As far as working on your blog,
you can do this in your spare time.
Whether it's after work, on the weekends, before work,
you get to control when you work and when get don't work
on your blog, and that is huge.
- Huge.
- And the other big factor is cost.
We already talked about it's $111,000 per year
to get the MBA at Harvard, but starting a blog,
we're looking at a very minimal investment.
You're looking at about $12 for the domain,
a hosting account for BlueHost that's gonna run you
about $60 per year, and if you sign up through them,
they'll actually give you a free domain,
and what if you need the actual website or a website theme?
Well, that is WordPress.
WordPress is, check it, free unless you want some sort
of special theme, and even a specialized theme is going
to run you about $50.
So all in, just to get started,
you're looking at around 100 to $150.
That is a little cheaper than $111,000 for the MBA.
- Shut up and take my money.
- Now, if this still sounds very overwhelming,
and if you have the voice that says,
I am never gonna be able to start a blog,
I have no idea how to do it.
- Shit, I don't even know.
Like I couldn't even tell you that, like.
- I get it, because I was there when I started,
and because of that, I created a free email challenge.
- It's free.
- That shows you step by step how not to only set up
and create your first blog, but also how
to make your first $1,000,
and this is a free email challenge.
You can sign up for that challenge at make1kchallenge.com.
I'll have a link in the description.
All you have to do is sign up, get the emails,
follow the steps, and get going.
The thing that you have to remember about starting a blog is
that it is not a get rich quick overnight scheme.
I don't care who says it.
It takes everybody some time
before you finally make money, me included.
So why am I such a huge advocate
of starting the blog over the MBA?
Well, I want to share some of my key principles
of why I believe this.
So let's go ahead and get started with number one.
Now, a lot of the principles of why I believe this
are shared with Josh Kaufman, who is the author
of an amazing book called "The Personal MBA"
and basically in the gist of his book,
he shares a common principle that most entrepreneurs agree
with is that you don't learn from reading a textbook,
you don't learn from sitting in a class, you learn by doing,
and for me starting a blog, I learned so much.
So the very first thing that I learned
from the get-go was how to start a business.
I've listened to a ton of business podcasts.
I've read a ton of business books.
I've talked to a ton of business leaders,
but it wasn't until I actually started a business
that I learned how to run a business.
So over the course of time of having my blog,
I learned how to track my expenses, how to start an LLC,
how to hire and manage employees,
how to hire and fire independent contractors.
I learned firsthand what were the best retirement accounts
to set up for my situation as opposed
to setting up for my clients.
The second principle that I learned was how
to build a thriving network.
Now, for whatever reason, I just never considered myself
to be a very good networker.
Yes, being a former financial planner, I knew that I had
to network with key leaders in the community.
I was networking with CPAs and attorneys
and anybody that I thought would be a good
referral partner for my business.
In regards to running an online business,
networking is entirely different.
You're not going to happy hour social functions,
trying to network with key employees or trying to network
with other professionals in your area.
You're not going to some golf scramble
and hoping you get paired up with somebody
that you think's gonna give you a ton of new clients.
What I learned about networking online is that it's just
as strategic as networking offline.
You just have to go about it a different way.
One of the ways that I didn't realize I was networking
until I started to get referrals
and started making key contacts was through social media.
I was using Twitter to network with other journalists,
other PR representatives, other bloggers,
other personal finance influencers, and just getting
to know them, engaging with them, sharing their content,
and then they would share my content,
and then next thing you know, I'm setting up phone calls
and getting to know these people even more.
I learned how to send a cold email.
- Oh man, that's cold.
- It's freezing.
- To somebody that I've never talked to before in my life,
and actually get them to open this email and reply,
and trust me, this is a very specific skillset
that you need, whether you're trying
to run an online business or not 'cause I get tons of emails
from people that don't know me that don't get a response
because they don't know what to say, how to say it,
and actually get me or other key people to respond.
You know, something that I did in the beginning
that was really one of the coolest things I ever pulled off,
and this was, I mean, this was networking 101.
Actually, this was more like networking at the MBA level,
but I was able to put on this thing called
the Roth IRA Movement, and I was able to get
over 140 different bloggers to participate,
and because of my networking and because I was willing
to help out others, I had all these bloggers contributing,
all mentioning me, writing about me, talking about me,
and I got some major press coverage because of it.
Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, Reuters.
I mean, it was insane.
This was at the beginning of my blogging career
where I didn't really know anybody yet,
but because I learned how to build a network
and do it the right way, it just was a tremendous success.
All right, so the other thing that running
an online business has taught me that I think, gosh,
it's such a valuable lesson is how
to be a better communicator.
Before I started my blog, like I was a, not a great writer,
actually, no, I sucked as a writer.
I had to learn how to craft better blog posts.
I had to learn how to compose better emails.
I had to learn how to communicate via YouTube.
Ultimately, this led to me writing my first book.
This led to me communicating to different journalists,
getting published in Forbes, Business Insider,
all these different publications,
all because I learned how to be a better communicator.
In case you missed that, I did say
that I have a book available on amazon.com.
At the end of the day, you can have all the amazing ideas.
You can have ideas that will change the world,
but if you don't have the ability to communicate those ideas
to others and lead others, then you're never going
to get anywhere, and that is one crucial skill
that I learned running an online business.
Okay, so one of my most favorite movies is Field of Dreams,
and in that movie, there's the classic line.
- If you build it, they will come.
- And with blogging, that's how easy it is.
Once you build a blog, all the visitors,
all the traffic just comes.
Jeff, you are a liar, and I think you're crazy.
So yeah, that is totally not the case.
Once you start a blog, you don't get a flood
of new traffic and new visitors.
You have to learn how to market yourself,
and that is like any other business.
Without marketing, without awareness
that your business exists, you will not make it.
So you're probably wondering how
in the world did I market my blog?
How did I actually get my name out there?
Well, initially it was a lot of guest writing.
So I was writing articles for other personal finance sites,
any other website that had more traffic than mine,
and getting those visitors to come over
to my site and check it out.
♪ Check me out, check me out ♪
- Typed into Google certified financial planner Illinois,
found my site, filled out the contact form,
ended up coming in for a meeting,
and the coolest thing was they were the biggest client.
It was a $2 million client that I got all because I learned
how to optimize my website for conversion.
This was all the stuff that I didn't learn in school,
and I'm pretty sure you would not learn in an MBA program,
but man, these are some amazing skills
that have made me a ton of money.
All right, speaking of high-income skills,
learning website conversions, how to optimize
for website conversion, like that was an amazing,
high-income skill that I learned but it wasn't the only one.
I mentioned how I was able to rank
for financial planner Illinois.
Ultimately, what I was learning was how
to do SEO, search engine optimization.
That wasn't the only term that I ranked for.
I was ranking for terms such as 401k rollover,
best life insurance, if you're in your 20s
how to invest your 401k.
I started to rank for some very competitive keywords.
Many of these keywords helped me get new clients,
but it also helped me to earn extra money
through affiliate revenue, display ads, Google ads.
Other high-income skills that I learned was copywriting,
how to build sales funnels, how to construct sales funnels
that actually make money.
Because I had a website that was getting a lot of traffic
and I had the YouTube channel, I had a podcast,
I was also getting offers to speak, getting paid
to speak several $1,000 to either go on-stage
or even speak to smaller groups.
So with that, I learned how to become a better speaker.
All right, the sixth and final key lesson that I learned,
and this is a big one, I learned how to scale a business,
and that phrase doesn't give justice
to what I have truly learned from growing
and scaling my business because I've been able
to make so much more money by working less,
by being more efficient with my time,
but also focusing my efforts
on the things that I love to do.
Many of you are familiar with the book
"The Four-Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferris.
If you're not familiar with it, you need to read it.
So in Tim's book is when I first learned about
how to delegate, how to outsource,
especially to virtual assistants overseas,
and that was just the beginning, and this opened a door
where I eventually learned about a concept called
your unique ability, and your unique ability is defined
as this is the God-given talents and skills that you have,
the way that you are wired that allow you to perform
at what you do best, and if we said
that a little bit more succinctly, we would say,
doing what you love and getting paid a lot to do it.
Ultimately, this allowed me to take a look at my business.
What were all the things that I was doing
that I was wasting my time with?
All the things that were on my schedule
that were bogging down my time,
eating away at my creativity.
When I was able to recognize what were these tasks,
I was able to then delegate, outsource,
begin the hiring process to where I was bringing
on new team members that would take all
of these tasks off my plate.
Don't get me wrong, these are tasks that were crucial
and essential to my business, but these weren't the tasks
that were paying me a lot to do it, and for anyone
that has your own business, you know how hard it is
to give up tasks that you feel are your sole responsibility,
and it was hard to let go.
♪ Let it go ♪
- But when I finally did, I started to see how important
it was to free up my time to focus on doing things
like strategic vision, meeting with clients,
doing strategic partnerships, having important meetings
with people I knew could take my business to the next level.
I suddenly had all this time to focus on my business the way
that I wanted to, and it was so much fun, and guess what?
I also made a lot more money.
That's how you scale up, but check this out.
So yes, blogging is definitely my preference over the MBA,
but as I mentioned, you don't make a lot of money
in the beginning, and I don't know if you've seen this yet
on the channel, but this is actually a picture
of the very first check that I made from Google.
So after blogging for nine months, I made $152.91.
Ooh, that is so much money, but getting this check,
that showed me that this was possible,
and I was able to grow with this $152 check
to where I ended up getting a $10 million offer for my site,
but that is a whole other video that you'll learn more about
but only if you are a subscriber
to the Wealth Hacker YouTube channel.
All right, y'all, it's time to get your online MBA,
but I'm not talking about the University of Phoenix
or any other online MBA program.
I mean you need to register a domain, start a website.
It doesn't even have to be a blog.
Maybe it ends up becoming a Shopify store
or an Amazon store or your own online e-commerce store.
Whatever it is, until you actually begin the process,
that's when you start learning.
All right, y'all, hope you enjoyed this video.
Until next time, this is Jeff Rose reminding you
that it's your money, it's your life,
and only you can make it awesome.
So go ahead and skip that MBA, peace.