AP 0507: Which Course Would You Recommend For Getting A Business Started?

AskPat 507 Episode Transcript

[Editor's note: In addition to the great resources Pat recommends below, SPI has its own courses geared toward starting a business that we've developed since this episode first aired. If you're not sure how to get started, check out our free Build Your Own Brand course. When you're ready to find a winning business idea and land your first customer, Smart From Scratch is what you want.]

Pat Flynn: What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 507 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business question, five days a week.

All right, here's today's question from Glen.

Glen: Hi Pat. My name is Glen from Saskatchewan, Canada. I have a question about online courses. I'm very new to online, the make money online industry, the passive income ideas. I've been listening to you for about a year now, but I've yet to pull the trigger on any real idea.

I've been looking around lately at a lot of courses that are being offered. Ramit Sethi's offering his “Zero to Launch” course, Jeff Walker has a product launch course going. There's a few other guys who's courses I've been looking at lately. The trouble is most of them go for thousands of dollars, which is quite honestly just out of my budget. I can't afford to pay $2000 for a course, and I'm not even sure if it will work or not.

So my question for you is, since you build pretty strong relationships with a lot of high-up guys within the industry, a lot of really successful people, and a lot of people who offer courses. What course would you recommend to take someone from newbie, totally inexperienced, no business and very little in a way of ideas, to profitable business? I mean, obviously it depends on the student, as much as it does on the course, but what course would you recommend that gives you the most bang for your buck, the most value for the dollar?

Yes, that's my question. Thank you very much.

Pat Flynn: Hey Glen, what's up? Thank you so much for the question. I think that it's really cool you're looking at courses, because I know when I started I was doing a lot of things on my own, figuring things out on my own, but it was when I got into a course that actually things started to take off.

Even though you say yes, you can't afford to get into a course right now, I totally understand what you're talking about. A lot of these courses do go for thousands of dollars, although some of them don't. And there are other great ones out there, and I'm actually not going to recommend one for you, because I don't know who you are, what you're like and who you resonate with. I think that plays a role in who you choose to work with, when building your thing. So I'm not gonna give you a recommendation. I'm gonna go over a number of different courses, and people that I respect and I've learned from, and I follow, that I could share and offer.

But the truth is, one may be good for you and the other may not be good for you, and they might have completely the same exact information. It just depends on what environment you would be best learning in, who you would be best getting motivated by, what community in those courses, if available, would help push you forward. Again, like you said, there's a lot of factors involved.

But I will say, and going back to what you said earlier, that you can't afford to buy courses. Well, I would also—and I'm not saying this is the case, but, well, I'm kind of saying it's the case. You said that you've been waiting over a year and you haven't pulled the trigger yet. I mean, that's a long time, and is money more important or is time more important? I mean, that's the thing about these courses, is that they will speed up that learning process. And because there's skin in the game, you will actually put things to action. Or that's mostly what people would do when they put that much money in it.

A lot of times, these pro internet marketers, they do charge high prices, because they know how much value they have in those particular courses. Now, I will say that there are other people who charge a ridiculously high price and don't give that kind of value too. So again, you have to be careful.

And that's why I think it takes a little bit of vetting upfront, to know who these people are, what their style is, talking to people who have been in those courses before, and just getting a feel for what those were like. And of course, most of them have money-back guarantee. So if you're in there, and you're not learning and nothing's happening, then you could get your money back too. So that's another thing that could help make you feel a little bit more comfortable moving forward here.

But again, the whole point of what I was just saying, is that time is valuable too. So you said you can't afford to buy courses. Well, can you afford not to buy courses because of the time that you'll save, or the time that you could potentially just waste if you don't. And again, I'm not trying to force you, I'm not trying to pitch you into any course. I do recommend a few on my “Resource” page. Ramit is one of them. There's also another course by Noah Kagan, and there's a few others. There's also Fizzle.co, which is a great community. There's Youpreneur.com, which is a great community. There's TheFoundation.com, with Dane Maxwell from Episode 46, if you're into software.

Again, each of these people have different ways and styles of teaching and, well, provide an outcome for you if you do the work. But it will be different, depending on who you work with, and what's inside, and also how you fell that day. I mean, there's a lot that goes into this, of course.

But I am very encouraged that you are asking this question, because you're not just buying a course on the whim. You're not going to just be swayed by the amazing copywriting that they have. You're going to put in the time to do the research first, and I think that's really, really important.

Like I was saying earlier—apologize for my cold by the way—you wanna make sure that you do the research, you find out what these courses are like, see if you can get a peek on the inside if possible, if not, talk to people who are in those courses already. Those should be easily accessible in some way, shape or form, so that you can vet and discover whether or not those are the right people for you.

Now, will there be a guarantee that it will work? No. There will never be a guarantee that it will work. The only guarantee you can get in this space is if you download software and it says it's gonna do something for you, and it does, I think, for you. And that's something you would learn quite quickly, usually within the guarantee time period, and then you could get your money back if it doesn't work.

But, in terms of information and executing, and getting a particular result, there's never a guarantee, because there are so many factors. There is time, there's the market you choose to get into, there's the product that you create, there's the target audience that you're targeting, there's the price points, there's the execution, there's all kinds of things. But the only guarantee is that if you don't do anything, whether you buy a course or not, that you're not going to get any results.

Do you have to buy a course? No. Did I buy a course when I got started? No. But I eventually did, and I saw the benefit of it. You could also get “Coursework” on places like YouTube, Udemy for a little bit cheaper. Although you're not gonna get the kind of high quality, very focused result oriented type of stuff that you would get in a high-end course. And again, the more skin you have in the game, the more likely it is that you are going to do the work required.

But anyway, Glen, I wish you all the best, and I hope this gives you a little bit of insights and thoughts as you discover who else might be out there, to help you moving forward. I will have some stuff coming out later this year, that may or may not be suited for you too, so I hope you guys can all check that out when it comes out, in maybe April or May. But I do have a book coming out, which might help you even further. WillItFlyBook.com is coming out in February, and it should help all us who are getting started. And even those who have businesses, who are kind of stuck in wanting to get to the next level in their income, in traffic building, or in product creation, all that stuff. It will help everybody actually. You wanna check it out, go to WillItFlyBook.com.

And Glen, thank you so much for the question today. Very good question actually, one of the best that I've had in a while, because I just feel it's really important. Again, it shows that you're thinking about this in the right way. We're gonna send you and “AskPat” t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show, like I do for everybody who has a question that gets featured here on the show. And if you have a question, and you'd like to get featured on the show, and potentially win a t-shirt, head on over to AskPat.com and you could ask it right there on that page.

Thanks so much, I appreciate you, and here's a quote to finish off the day by Dave Grohl. He said, “No one is you and that is your power.”

Cheers. Take care and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.