In the recent podcast interview I did with Daryl Grant she mentioned that she spends, combined with her husband, about $50,000 a year on attending seminars, mentoring, courses, workshops, books and other educational activities. That’s a lot of money to spend on self development, although I believe it’s worthwhile.
Of course not everyone is at a point where they have $50K to spend on education but we all have some time and money to be spent on improving ourselves as human beings and business owners.
Just recently I attended a Jay Abraham seminar which was part of a lead-in program for a more intensive and expensive Jay Abraham mentoring bootcamp and resources package. There are varying levels of products and courses that can be purchased, starting at about $3000, where you learn from Jay, who is well known as one of the most prominent marketing geniuses in the world today. You can attend the bootcamp for hands on help, buy the “home study” materials, become a VIP (almost $10K for that) and various combinations of different courses and resources. In case you were interested, I didn’t buy any.
I tend to do most of my learning via putting into practice things and testing. To be honest I’m quite slow at digesting books and more passive learning tools, but I do value them and learn from them. I’m just a lot more motivated when I get to put something into practice on-the-fly to learn, for example right now I’m learning a lot about launching an online course because I want to do a great job launching BlogTrafficSchool.com.
Certainly ideas, tips and tricks for greater efficiency, more results for less effort and best practice techniques can be learnt from people who have been there and done that. For example without Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide To Google AdWords I doubt I would have learnt how to manipulate the AdWords PPC system to the degree I can now. However I am still very discerning when it comes to actually purchasing education – I’m not quite spending 50K a year, but I don’t have a problem with spending $1000 if what is offered clearly matches my needs.
How about you?
Do you have a budget for education? Do you buy information products and regularly invest in education? What sort of materials do you study more often – things you can directly apply to your business immediately or more passive, general self improvement?
Leave a comment and let me know.
A few years ago, I paid around 10k to pump up my design skills in courses in typography, print design, flash design, etc. I would say it was mostly money well spent, but perhaps a bit less outlay would have made it worthwhile. A lot of what I do I learned on my own.
Each year, I spend $500-$1000 on books. Books have helped my growth a lot and I feel there’s a direct correlation between the books I buy and my skills improving. I haven’t paid for a seminar or workshop yet, but I may do so in 2007 and attend South by Southwest, if I have the cash and time.
I may look into some more passive opportunities (e.g. an adsense program that you recommended or some ebay-related investments that could bring me passive income) but it’s hard to find the time 🙂
I spend about $110 a month, for the next three years.
Up to this point I’ve set paid education aside for financial reasons and used most of whatever I can get for free on the net and have gotten some results with the info I’ve collected so far but I am becoming aware that I will have to start budgeting some money for educational material if I want to have better results with my internet efforts.
I plan on spending about $100 US dollars on a blog traffic course I read about…somewhere.
Dominic – I’ve got a podcast coming out with Michael Cheney soon.
Damon – Great to have your support already 😉
Bruce – yes quite right – you do need filters to find the best information and it’s hard to know what to trust. I’m quite selective in what I buy because I’m only in the right place mentally at any one given time to learn a very specific set of skills. There’s no point in buying an educational product unless I’m prepared to spend the time studying it and putting it into practice.
Since buying Michael Cheyneys Adsense Videos, my online income has seen a considerable growth. This was my first venture into buying an online teaching material, and now I probably spend about $100 a month on educating myself.
As I earn more I may end up spending more. I see it as re-investing.
I have had to do medical continueong education for over thirty years. I spend about 150 usd per hour for seminars and 1/3 that amount for self study. I have bought a number of e-books for internet related marketing and am learning that you get what you pay for. I know that Tom Antion charges $50,000, 5K up front and the rest from the profits he helps you create. It seems that much of the industry is like many multi levels I have investigated. Much of the material they sell makes them money and benefits you minimally. Some of what I see on the internet appears to be similar. I am unable to sort it out and depend on people like you Yaro to be in the know. I am looking for a couple more similar peopleto listen to so the money I spend is well spent and not wasted. The expense isn’t so much as the quality is important.
There is tons of free information out there, whether it be from websites, podcasts, or just talking to other people who do what you do. I read lots information and listen to all the podcasts I can get my hands on. It’s important to know what others are doing but you have to be innovative and just try new things to see if they work too. There is no substitute for experience!
Too many people spend their time and resources seeking information, both paid for and free, but not doing anything with all that data they have gathered.
Their approach seems to be ready, aim, ready, aim, ready aim, but no fire. When starting out in the world of selling on the Internet, I admit, I was a member of that club.
Of course information is critical, but what is more important is what you do with that information.
I am sure the $50,000 they spent is not only on self development, but also on research of what other entrepreneurs in their space are doing.
It’s their way of spending on R&D for their business.
Way to invest!
http://www.billbaren.com/blog/
Hmmm, probably 3-4K a year. Mostly well worth it.
Who has the time to spend $50K US ?
That’s just obscene. I can’t help but be reminded of something a 30 year veteran of Parramatta Road (THE car sales Mecca of Australia) said No one gets sold too more easily than a salesman I’d like to see the breakdown actually listed as well as their perceived effectiveness of each item. In the last week I’ve been doing end of year taxes stuff and know I spent less than $2k on education (10 books, 3 ebooks, 2 conferences as well as a few magazine/newspaper subscriptions) and know how difficult it was just keeping up with and applying that amount of info.
I attend conferences and read a lot of books.
Staying up to date with happening via my personal network also keep me in the loop.
The real question is who did they pay and what benefit did they get?? I suggest that the fees were paid to be part of an Inner Circle that gets them on the seminar stage and the return was 20 times their investment…
Just supposing…
A good topic to discusse about. In the modern society,more people pay more on the education. I think we should pay the money to the most helpful education system.