Justin, over at the Treasure Valley Consultants blog asks:
“Do consultants and entrepreneurs need these advanced degrees (MBA’s) to be in business for themselves?”
The answer is obviously; No
Should a consultant or entrepreneur have an MBA? It depends. What your goals are? Who are your clients? Experience is obviously much more important. I am working on my MBA and have found the information invaluable. I have found it even more valuable because of my experience.
Will my clients care once I have my MBA? Maybe, maybe not. Will my clients benefit from me having my MBA? Yes.
Great; another MBA Graduate? Last year I would have told you that the world does not need another MBA graduate. I still don’t think that the world needs another MBA graduate. I would say that there are business people (especially consultants) who could benefit greatly from receiving an MBA (as could their clients).
Don’t want to go back to school? If you don’t want to do the formal education route you get this information on your own. You can read the books and get the case studies from HBR and MIT. You could even gather your smartest friends together and have monthly “classes” to go over the topics. You can even check out the Personal MBA project. But if you’re not financially committed to the structure that an MBA offers would you do it? Maybe, maybe not.
We don’t need no stinking paper? While I don’t put much value in the piece of paper you get at the end of the program, there are plenty of clients, potential investors or future/current employers that do. It is already proven that people with an MBA make more money than someone with equal experience who does not have an MBA (in many cases significantly more).
Wanna be a rock star consultant? If you’re a consultant I advocate constant education. Read everything you can get your hands (or aggregator) on. Take some type of continuing education classes; you can’t learn everything there is on your own, get help. Start a blog. Besides being a great platform for self promotion, any blogger will testify that their blog is a part of their learning process. If you are not interested in a lifetime of continual learning, go get a “job”, being a consultant (or any type of entrepreneur) will not be a good fit.
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