Does business training make you more successful?

[mjohns]

Does business training make you more successful?

Something has been brought to me attention, people say that if you go and do a business management coarse and other related training that you will be more successful in business. Now please answer this truthfully i know that some members will not, but i would like an accurate representaion here so please answer as truthfully as possible.

The four options are:

Option 1 - I have been on a business training coarse and have been in business for 2 years(or more) and i have made 1,000,000 U$D

Option 2 - I have been on a business training coarse and have been in business for 2 years(or more) and i have NOT made 1,000,000 U$D

Option 3 - I have NOT been on a business training coarse and have been in business for 2 years(or more) and i have made 1,000,000 U$D

Option 4 - I have NOT been on a business training coarse and have been in business for 2 years(or more) and i have NOT made 1,000,000 U$D

[mjohns]

Its sort of proving my point so far but i dont want to speak to soon so lets see how things turn out.

[tekmoney]

So 1 mil is what makes you successful? Are you talking profits? Revenue?

[mjohns]

by made 1,000,000 i mean had a turnover of that amount, and the only reason i have put the question like that is because in other topics people where basicly saying 'you will not make any money because you havent done any business training/coarses'

[mjohns]

the point isnt the amount its the fact that doing the training DOES NOT boost an entrepreneurs chance of hitting it big.

[akula]

michael, because you already have a bias, you've failed to correctly structure your study

you've set questions prone to selection bias and you've limited your study to a misrepresentative demographic

now...for your own benefit, try this:

say to your self "I'm wrong"

why is this better than saying "I'm right"?

because if you assume that you're right in your opinion on the role of training in entrepreneurship, it's gonna give you an excuse to be a bum

don't be a bum

knowledge is more important in it's normative rather than instrumental sense

the way things ought to be is more practical than the way things really are

there needs do be more entrepreneurs. therefore universities ought be able to teach and train entrepreneurs. therefore training ought to be important.

if this normality is discredited, the situation will create problems rather than solutions

[mjohns]

I will give it up if people on this forum stop trying to put these start-ups that are at university age down because they havent got a degree just lay off them ok, because half of the people on this forum havent done anything "great" enough to warent it, it is unfair you are encouraging people to give there dreams up not tell me why thats fair, akula?

[akula]

look, as far young people and entrepreneurship goes...there's 2 schools of thought

1. the first one is if we (as educators/society) want more people to be more entrepreneurial - then we should just leave them alone and they can sort them selves out

2. the second school of thought is that if we want more young people to do entrepreneurship, then we need to do the opposite of leaving them alone and create programs for them

I subscribe to the 2nd school of thought, so when I get a young person who wants to do a startup, I tell them to get their ass in the classroom

if I told them to get their ass in the marketplace instead, I would not be following a coherent theory for how to support entrepreneurs

[mjohns]

And there is a third option but your to narrow minded for it, it is to give them guidence so that were not sitting them down in classed we are helping them not controling them.

[jasaunders]

First of all, it is really bothering me that you keep saying coarse instead of course. And you don't really define what a business course is. Is it a seminar from an infomercial, a bachelors or masters degree in business ?

And second of all, this should be posted under the current thread for education vs. experience.

And third of all, I also subscribe to the second school of thought and would love to continue debating it in the appropriate thread.

[mjohns]

well i am sorry of coarse i will make sure i spell it course.

[mjohns]

Its funny how the people who are going against what im saying wont actually wont complete the vote? Why would that be then... if your so convinced im wrong go ahead and prove it.

[akula]

And there is a third option but your to narrow minded for it, it is to give them guidence so that were not sitting them down in classed we are helping them not controling them.

very good point

the credo in entrepreneurship education is experiential learning

for me, I went through workplace/hands on programs like junior achievement and other kinds of competitions

i'm a believer that entrepreneurship education works best when it's a mix of threory and practice based programs

[mjohns]

see, i beleive that entrepreneur education shouldnt have to be sat round copying a board at most it should be a small company that a student works on and then a mentor gives comments on the good and the bad points.

[akula]

that's right, and the question of education is not one of what you or I might or might not believe. it's a question of what actually works.

the fact is, untrained entrepreneurs have a horrific track record in business. failure rates for small business are not improving. if all of the nation's entrepreneurs were likened to a baseball team, their strike-out rate would make them the worst team in the league.

this is a problem that needs correction. it doesn't matter if we correct it with uni courses, tax cuts or space aliens as long as we solve the problem.