Why A Freelancer Must Have An Education Budget

How Mentoring Benefits Your Freelance Business

 

Let’s face it - you are perfectly capable of figuring it all out on your own.  The web offers a wealth of information on virtually any subject you want to learn.  Why would you want to think about paying for education or mentoring?  

Below are several possibilities.  Do any of these fit your situation?

You are serious about your business

You want to be effective. Find someone who has achieved the level of success you seek.  You avoid the pitfalls they point out.

You want to achieve results as quickly as possible

Instead of taking the scenic route, you want to find out what others discovered the hard way. Find someone who has done it.  You learn how to advance quickly.

You want accountability

Walking this road alone is hard.  A mentor who provides accountability will call you out on time wasters like too much email or social media – or your lack of focus on one main thing until the process is performing solidly.  You stay on target.

You are stuck

This is probably the biggest reason people seek a mentor.  Businesses at all levels experience plateaus.  Getting  someone who isn’t personally involved is valuable to gain perspective and ideas.  You save valuable time and resources and move forward again.

What are your mentoring options?

There are quite a few options to get direction in running your business.  There’s something to fit all budgets.

Books are the easiest form of mentoring you can engage.  If your budget permits, you can find almost any book online. 

You may also find relevant books at the library, depending upon the size of your library.  Some are available free online, if you know how to find them.  

You can study on your own time.  On the other hand, authors are rarely available for questions. 

Classes require availability at a certain time.  You can ask the teacher questions.  You can get feedback by doing assignments.  Accountability is available at differing levels. 

If you must drive a long way, it disrupts your schedule for several weeks.   

Class costs vary by length, frequency,  and quality.

Conferences can be great for focused learning in a short time.  Being in a room (or arena) with a lot of people who want the same thing is powerful.  You come away enthusiastic and ready to take on the world.

You may or may not be able to get questions answered depending upon the size of the event. 

Be prepared for conference let-down, because that high doesn’t last forever.  Costs can be prohibitive because it’s not just the event but often the additional costs of meals, lodging, and transportation.

Workshops are like mini-conferences.  Smaller in nature, there can be time to practice the concepts, and you should be able to get questions answered. 

These also vary in cost with the possible added burden of food, lodging, and transportation to factor in.

Webinars are the online version of a conference or workshop.  Often a shorter, focused event, it may feature a question and answer session at the end.  

Price varies, but is more affordable without transportation time and costs to factor in, nor lodging. 

Some webinars are available the next day if the time isn’t convenient for you.  You often lose the opportunity to interact with the teacher, but it's better than missing out entirely.   

Online conferences usually are a series of webinars.

Online courses vary in length, value, and price.  From free to many thousands of dollars, many successful people offer their knowledge through videos and other content through a private section on their website.  

Often the most convenient, you also usually have a way to get questions answered.  Some courses provide assignments to practice.  

Some provide a coach or mentor to go over your results or create an action plan with you, with some level of accountability.  The ones with accountability are more expensive, especially if they’ve been around for a while.

Direct mentoring costs the most.  One-on-one mentoring means getting expert advice directed to your situation.  If you have selected wisely, this is the most beneficial mentoring.  You don’t have to waste time getting bases covered all over again unless you have a weakness to be addressed. 

Depending upon the mentor's level of expertise, you could be talking $50,000 or more for a single session.  Cost could be considered a downside.

Return on Investment

When looking at your mentor investment options, look at the return on investment.  When you are starting out, the idea of paying for a $10,000 business conference feels crazy.  Struggling to break $100,000 is a big deal.   

Could your investment in that conference show you how to get to $500,000 this year?  Could you return with a roadmap to scale to a million?  At that point, you’ll be looking at the $10k price tag and asking, “Is that all?”

Set Your Budget

Tai Lopez, entrepreneur, offers this practical recommendation.  Set aside 3% of your income for education.  As your income goes up, so does the quality of education you can afford.  

If you can afford  a high-powered business seminar like Tony Robbins’ Business Mastery when you are just starting out.  If you implement what you learn, you will have a huge jump ahead of others just starting out.  The return on investment will  likely shock you.

Never stop being hungry to learn.  Mentors wisely chosen will be worth so much more than you pay.

Weekly Challenge

This past week was about finishing as much of my homework as possible for the Joshua Boswell workshop last week.  I finished all but 30 pages of the reading.  Now I’ve been assigned two more books to read!

I signed up for his 12-week mentoring program.  Yes, I could do it on my own, working with the workshop materials.  However, he has a process to make it faster PLUS accountability.  I need my feet kept to the fire at this point.  This will help me focus.  The 12 weeks start next Monday.  

In the meantime, I will be developing my information packet.  Some people call it a credibility packet.

The logo process is resuming.  I didn’t have time to work with the edits last week.  I want to get that finished this week so I can use it in my packet.  I want to do the writing for my webpage as well.

I have two questions for you:

What are you doing to move your business forward this week?

Is this blog useful to you?  Please comment below and let me know what topics you’d like me to cover.