As an aspiring successful business entrepreneur, you dare to tread a different path to 97% of society. You seek to become rich so you can design your own life independent of your paycheck. Instead of a J.O.B. you prefer to work for yourself and be your own boss, maybe work from home or anywhere you like, and to become financially free to live out your dream lifestyle.
Whether you start a traditional business, a home based business or an internet business, Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad and The Business School) talks about three different types of education that are required for the successful business entrepreneur. If you want to achieve this financial freedom to live your own life, you need scholastic education, professional education and financial education.
Let’s unpack those three first.
Scholastic education basically is what you get at school. In the main part, it’s about basic literacy. You are taught how to read, write and do maths, very important for survival in today’s information age. Throughout our childhood we are taught the importance of getting a good education. As adults, we are encouraged to become lifelong learners and invest in our personal development. It is pretty much indoctrinated in us that getting good grades at school, even going to university, is the best way to get a high paying job.
Professional education is what teaches you how to work for money. This type of education you can get from apprenticeship and training as well as through to your work experience. This type of education can range from apprenticeships in a trade or service to higher level training to become a doctor, lawyer, accountant, pilot, and so forth.
Financial education is rarely taught at school or at home or anywhere else for that matter! This is where you learn how to make money work for you (as distinct to you working for money as above). Most people don’t even realise that scholastic and professional education will only get you so far.
Without financial or wealth education, you may not appreciate the ‘different path’ available to you and will end up always working for the rich, not becoming rich. This is how Robert Kiyosaki’s distinguishes the two with his Rich Dad, Poor Dad concept.
However, these days if you are doing business mostly on the internet, there is, in my opinion, a really crucial fourth type of education and that is social education. So I’ll add this one into the mix.
Social education is important in any business where you are making sales and dealing with customers. But online, it’s even more important since you cannot ‘meet’ in person and much of our social behaviour relies on body language and visual and auditory cues.
Social education is about developing “emotional intelligence” towards others. It is learning to communicate effectively with people with regard to their situation, needs and feelings. It’s about active listening and empathy. It’s about connecting with a person’s highest hopes and worst fears.
Some would say that you develop the ‘sales’ skills to manipulate people. I advocate you develop social skills to match what you can offer to what people are looking for! (In that scenario, there is no need for a hard sell.)
On the internet, social education is critical to every part of your marketing, sales and support. This is because buying decisions depend so much more heavily on people’s sense of trust. Being seen as an authority and a leader builds your online credibility.
This is evident in the growing trend towards social networking and personal branding – what is termed “attraction marketing”, which is nowadays the business model of all successful internet marketers. People need to know you, like you and trust you before they will do business with you, become a customer or partner with you.
Social education is therefore one of the cornerstones of effective marketing. It teaches you aspects the psychology behind different personality types, how people make decisions, how to attract others to you, how to reach win-win outcomes, and so on.
If you spend time learning how to translate that knowledge and understanding into your personal branding, your copy writing, your presentations and your conversations, it will skyrocket your business success.
