By now you have probably been hammered with emails from your fav blogging babes with the deets about Marie Forleo’s online business training program called B-School. You may have even gotten emails about it from people that you would least expect to see share this. In fact last year when I started getting promo emails for B-School from Hay House I was a little surprised! But hey, that’s cool!
So what’s the deal with this B-School stuff?
If you’ve Googled about B-School around the web you’ve no doubt found tons of glowing reviews. If you’ve done your digging into the darker corners of the web you probably found not only some negative reviews but some pretty nasty character assassinations on Marie herself. She’s been called a godsend by some and the biggest charlatan to haunt the web by others.
I wanted to share my thoughts on B-School for a couple reasons.
I took B-School in March 2013 and have been working with the material ever since. I’m actually planning to do the full program again this year. Having worked with it and put it to use in my business for the last few years I definitely have some thoughts on what I’ve gained from the experience.
I also wanted to share my thoughts as someone who is not an affiliate and who isn’t set to make a hefty commission if you sign up. Whether or not you sign up doesn’t effect me personally, so simply see this as an unbiased view.
Honestly, I loved B-School and I’m very glad I made the investment.
Yes, it’s pricey. At $2000 it’s not the kind of program you sign up for on a whim. When I was trying to decide if I was going to do B-School I looked at where I was in my business at the time and how the things I would learn would benefit me within a year. Would I make back my investment in a year?
One thing I can tell you is I earned my investment back within a few months of completing the program. I had just made a massive change with my business and I was basically starting from scratch. I decided to put everything on hold so I could just focus on B-School and using what I learned on my newly re-launched business.
Another thing that was important in my choice was that I didn’t know much of the technical side of having a business online. I also didn’t feel like spending months reading books and Goggling all around the web for info.
One thing you’ll hear a lot from the people that are anti-B-School is that all the info that you get from B-School you could get for free by looking around the web. I’m not going to say that isn’t entirely true, because a lot of the info could be found online. But not in the clear, concise and well organized and presented way as you get in B-School.
I guess you could say it’s the difference between DIYing your way through learning how to have an online biz or having someone hand you a road map? You can DIY it and stop a lot to ask for directions or you can follow the map.
That really leads to the big question. Is this the journey you need right now? When do you know you’re ready for B-School?
If you look at the website for the program you’ll see a very in-depth list of all the things covered in the course. It really does span the gamut from figuring out what you do and who you do it for to how to create offers they’ll love and how to get the word out about it. Some parts you’ll need right now and some parts you’ll likely not touch until a year later.
This was the case for me. I used the material from the first few lessons immediately, putting what I did into place on my website and in my biz straight away but it wasn’t until a year later that I even really looked at the lessons on marketing. Plus you get a bunch of bonus lessons that you won’t need until you have your offers out there and you’re spending more time growing your reach.
Because of the size of the investment I personally think B-School is ideal for someone who is ready to put more time, energy and effort into their biz this year. If you’re ready to turn your biz into your second job or you’re ready to put in the time so you can quit your day job, then B-School is probably for you. But if you’re not quite that committed then I don’t feel the investment is right for you just yet.
There is also a community aspect to B-School but it’s kind of hit or miss.
B-School has a whole host of Facebook groups that you can be part of to connect with others who are current and previous students. But I have to tell you they are crazy busy and it’s really either to get sucked into either an endless Facebook email loop or find yourself in constant comparison mode as you watch others do more and advance farther than you. But the option to connect is there, which is great. Just know that your posts will be buried fast!
One of the complaints I see a lot is that people say B-School just churns out Marie Forleo clones.
OK, maybe kinda sorta yes at times that’s true, but not always. I think it’s the difference between people who are willing to really follow their authentic instincts to do what they want to do verse the people who see Marie doing what’s working for her and thinking “If it’s good enough for it’s good enough for me!”
I also see a lot of people suddenly offering B-School-like programs after a handful of months when B-School ends each year. {Come on, nobody is really fooled by your 8-week program that carries a $2000 price tag :unamused: } Or suddenly offering biz coaching that sure sounds like it offers a lot of the same stuff B-School offers.
Just become someone else wasn’t willing to take a risk and following their gut and do what they really want to do, doesn’t mean you have to stop short and clone someone else’s business. There is nothing in B-School that says you have to do it this way or it won’t work. There are definitely a number of things that are presented as tried and true, but what you decide to do with your business is, well, your business!
But let me make this clear. Despite how awesome I personally found B-School don’t think for a minute that B-School is the be all end all of biz training!
If you attend B-School you’ll learn about defining your ideal clients but you might not really learn enough about how to really talk to your ideal clients before they are your clients. You might learn how to come up with ideas for product and services but you won’t learn enough about how to package them and do all that technical stuff that comes with teaching a course or creating an ebook. You’ll learn about list building but you might not get enough on what the best type of opt-in is for your list or how to create a solid autoresponder sequence to keep your list alive.
It’s 8 weeks. There’s only so much you’re going to fit in 8 week! Any not every aspect of every topic is appropriate for the B-School setting. Some stuff is better down the road.
I say if you’re feeling the pull and it’s undeniable, then it’s time to do it. Take the leap and get into B-School. But if you’re no the fence just ask yourself this…
- Can I afford to invest $2000 right now in this program?
- Do I have at least a few hours a week to work with the material during the 8 week life class? {Keep in mind you get lifetime access to the material but if you want to see it have an effect on your biz you have to actually use it.}
- Do I want to DIY it or do I work better with a structured plan handed to me?
- Am I ready to really take my biz to the next level? Am I ready to work toward creating a full time job out of my biz idea?
In the end…
I’m glad I did B-School when I did and I’m excited to follow along with the program again this year. I feel like I did B-School at just the right time. I was pivoting my business, I was turning my work into a full scale online business and I was ready to take it from a hobby business to a real business. I learned things that, sure, I could have learned from a bunch of books and from reading a bunch of blogs, but I didn’t know where to start! I wanted to just have it in a structure that I could follow week by week and that had benchmarks for me to follow.
It was without a doubt the right move for me at the time, just like I’m sure it will be right for some of you. Whether you do it this year or next year or 5 years from now {because I don’t see B-School going anywhere}, then that’s fine. Follow your gut and do what your heart is calling you to do.
