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The Elephant in the Online Education Room

September 7, 2012 By 20 Comments

You’ve probably noticed it, too.

In fact, you might run across one every single day.

It’s a BIG problem and not too many folks will talk about it publicly.

With your help, we can change all that.

What am I hinting at?

The fact that we’ve got too many programs promising to teach us how to build a successful online business that don’t really work. Too many courses that are woefully overhyped, overpriced and undereffective.

It’s kind of like the Emperor’s New Clothes. All hyperbole, nothing real.

And — probably worse — these courses are giving everyone who teaches online business practices a bad reputation.

Internet marketer? (Sleaze ball!) Affiliate sales? (Slime bucket!)

Deliver real outcomes? (What the heck are those?)

All this nonsense has me hot under the collar.

And it’s the reason that I started Prosperity’s Kitchen in the first place.

I wanted to create something that…

  • Didn’t use the words ”blueprint” or “6 figures” as the main attraction
  • Was engaging, imaginative, and – most importantly – effective
  • Taught best practices so that students could continue to grow as they learned
  • Was completely transparent in how it worked and who was involved as an affiliate
  • Created realistic expectations for the students so they weren’t easily discouraged
  • Offered an effective mix of both inspiration AND down-to-earth education
  • Helped facilitate community interaction and relationship building for all involved
  • Taught up-to-date methods and critical thinking to encourage innovation and long-term success
  • Facilitated accountability and follow-through so that progress happened

There are many awesome, authentic and effective programs and teachers out there. (Our guest mentors, advisory board members, amBUZZadors and other friends fall into this camp).

But you know what? There’s still room for improvement.

Right now, the really good stuff usually costs a lot more than the average start-up or solopreneur can afford.

And even when someone is able to pay the hefty price tag, they often don’t follow through or fully implement what they learn.

The Internet has made it easier than ever to be an entrepreneur.

The investment to start a business has never been lower.

But there’s still a steep learning curve for newbies. And I believe it’s time we take a new tact at helping online entrepreneurs learn what works, what doesn’t, and how to best pull it off.

Collectively, we need to start more conversations about the inherent challenges of making it happen.

And we need to spread the word that you can’t game the system and build something valuable at the same time.

Our mission is simple:

We will build something authentic that shares the good and the bad — and focuses on real outcomes that can be measured.

We will offer something truly fun, entertaining and high quality that keeps our students (and us) accountable to our goals.

We will nurture and grow a supportive community, so we can learn from and collaborate with one another.

We will make quality online business education accessible to everyone with an internet connection — because you can be a serious entrepreneur and still have a budget that doesn’t include things like arms and legs.

The truth is: too many new business builders give up way too soon.

You may have considered giving up, too. (I know I’ve had my own doubts from time to time.)

There’s no shortage of folks out there ready to inspire you to change the world. And we need them to be inspiring!

But we also need real-world solutions that we can implement over and over again. We need real-world advice and mentoring so we know how to tell the difference between a mirage and a miracle.

We need teachers and instructors that are trained in the methods of teaching and who understand things like instructional design.

And most of all, we need to figure out how to take our ideas and inspiration and turn them into money in the bank.

But to make this happen, we’ve got to rethink how online business education happens.

And we need to start talking about the elephant in the online education room.

Are you with us?

If so, please share a comment below. (Consider it a signing of the Prosperity’s Kitchen Manifesto.)

And then, help us spread the word! Let’s flip this online business education thing on its big ugly ear!

photo credit: VinothChandar via photo pin cc

Filed Under: Blog
About Tea Silvestre

Executive Producer of Prosperity's Kitchen, author and marketing coach to solopreneurs.

  • http://www.devacoaching.com/ Sandi Amorim

    Amen to no more ”blueprint” or “6 figures” promises. There is no magic pill (or blueprint), there are just strategies that work. And like anything, they only work if you work them!

  • Erin Howard

    Hi Tea – you make some really good points. Don’t forget that some responsibility lays with the students too. If you’re going to commit to taking a class you have to commit to implementing, and a lot of people don’t. But we as teachers also have to be ethical about not giving the impression that you can get results without hard work, even if people don’t always want to hear it.

    • http://www.thewordchef.com/ Tea Silvestre, aka Word Chef

      Yes! SO important it deserves a blog post all its own. Keeping our commitments (to ourselves, our businesses, and to others) is what helps create the biggest success.

  • BizStartupCoach

    Tea,

    Your mission is very clear and I support it.

    We definitely need new tactics and strategies for “helping
    online entrepreneurs learn what works, what doesn’t, and how best to pull it
    off. Collectively, we need to start more conversations about the inherent
    challenges of making it happen.”

    To me, one of the paradoxes of building an online business
    is that the fast-moving, quickly-changing, feature-laden technology that makes
    it easier for solopreneurs to begin their journey to prosperity also makes it
    harder to sustain.

    The solutions that are “best practices” today can easily become obsolete only
    several months down the road.

    That doesn’t mean we can’t teach the “how-to.” We have to start somewhere or
    nothing will get done. But we need to
    emphasize another critical piece.

    In addition to giving answers, we must teach entrepreneurs
    what questions to ask (now and in the future) so they can revise, replace, and
    re-invent when necessary.

    We can be certain that things will change and today’s solutions will be out of
    date in a relatively short time, so we have a responsibility to demonstrate how
    to deal with that effectively.

    Knowing your style, I’m sure you’ll be able to help folks
    deal with today’s elephant as well as tomorrow’s as yet undefined beast!

    • http://www.thewordchef.com/ Tea Silvestre, aka Word Chef

      I love that, Sheryl! Yes – we need to learn to ask better questions. Part of that comes with critical thinking (something not taught in our current education system) and part of that is just our propensity to adapt.
      It’s amazing to me that many best practices in marketing have come full circle. (If you think about that circle starting way back before the invention of television, radio, etc.).
      I learned how to do marketing before the internet, so many of the foundational pieces of marketing (I think) are still valid today: What’s your product? How are you pricing it? Who/Where/How are you delivering it? And how do you get the word out about it? (That last piece is what seems to be what most people focus on learning.)
      Before TV, radio and internet, businesses grew and thrived when they created strong relationships with their customers. The small town helped facilitate word of mouth (now, we’ve got social media).
      So the foundations are the same, it’s the technology that’s changed — and you’re right, it’s the thing that trips up most new start-ups. Let’s fix that!

  • http://www.anencouragingbird.com BirdyD – Roving Robin Reporter

    Absolutely! :>

    For the record, I did learn a lot from my course that had the word ‘Blueprint’ in its name.
    I also take responsibility for not coming back once I’d absorbed that initial learning to come back for the next bits.

    However, yes. We are highly individual people running highly individual businesses, otherwise we wouldn’t bother with all the… stuff… involved.

    So, we need highly individual solutions to our marketing Qs & approaches.

    I admit, I personally am one of the inspirirers. If you don’t have people like me, shouting out that yes, it CAN be different, people don’t necessarily even see that as a possibility for them, so definitely do nothing.

    Are there other ways to get started, to get that initial push?
    Absolutely.
    I don’t believe that anyone has a monopoly on anything.
    Any Path that works. :>

    And yes, having that solid background to MAINTAIN the forward momentum is also huge. :>

    That is why I’m so happy to see places like ‘Prosperity’s Kitchen’ and a few others, chime in on the subject.

    Even our Guides say that sometimes, the easiest, most efficient way to get the information you are looking for is through another human being.

    They also point out that ‘allowing things to be easy’ is more about the flow of a thing, than the work-or-not required. (I’ve noticed a lot of people, including myself, have gotten confuzzled about that. :>)

    Short form, yes, I’m absolutely with you! :-) :>

    Signed,
    One of your Purrr-oud AmBUZZadors,
    Birdy Diamond :>

    • http://www.thewordchef.com/ Tea Silvestre, aka Word Chef

      Yay, for inspiration, Birdy! (And thanks for chiming in.) For the record, I’m not against the word “blueprint” per se — just when it sits next to “six figures” or some other over-used promise. After all, recipes DO help us learn things. We can’t create new dishes without learning how particular ingredients work together — and recipes are great for that. They’re also very helpful when you need to keep things flowing smoothly in the office (e.g., giving your staff a recipe or checklist could be very important). I’m just fed up with everyone touting blueprints, roadmaps and formulas that guarantee a particular outcome. Some of those things really need to have a “your mileage may vary” kind of statement attached.

      • http://www.anencouragingbird.com BirdyD – Roving Robin Reporter

        Most welcome! :-) :>

        Re: recipes.
        Oh, I hear you there!!! :>
        And the other thing is that, as you get experienced with those ingredients, you ideally start to find your OWN mixes & recipes to make it truly your own.

        Some people get freaked out by this.
        Probably not the best peeps to be teachers. :>

        Yes, ‘your mileage WILL vary’ is a thing that needs to be seen as a good thing.

        We say it on the Brigade all the time.
        Sometimes I worry that this hurts us.
        But it’s the truth, and I’m not going to change my stance for peeps who aren’t our Best Peeps anyway. :>

        Thank you for opening up the ‘Kitchen’!
        I suspect it’s going to become one of the most popular places in town. :-) :>

  • Sarah Yost

    Yes! Hell yes! You are preaching to the choir with me.

    A lot of the online business hopefuls are entrepreneurs by necessity. It’s the only way to make a living doing what they love. We/they need solid business advice for how to run a biz, how to manage ones self, time, doubts, how to use tools, which ones you really frickin need and which you don’t. It’s a solid need. Blueprints and 6 figure promises are so compelling. If someone would just TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!! I totally get it. I understand the fear that drives it. But that’s not the answer. Without supportive community for implementation none of it will happen. This shit is too scary and isolating.

    • http://www.thewordchef.com/ Tea Silvestre, aka Word Chef

      Thanks for chiming in, Sarah! You’ve just hit the nail on the head where all this is concerned. It IS overwhelming, frustrating and just plain scary to tackle all of this yourself. AND it feels good to have someone say, “Here. Just do this and you’ll be golden.”

  • http://pajamaproductivity.com Annie Sisk

    WORD to the transparency thing. I know you and I BOTH, Tea, have had personal experiences with online classes and books and programs that were hyped to the high heavens by all the big names we trusted, who promised the world – then the actual product was so pathetic that we looked askance at those folks who convinced us it was a good deal – how could they get snowed so badly? Of course, now we know about the backroom deals and the affiliate commissions and how all that works. But that leaves *true* business owners out in the cold. I am really looking forward to this little (ha!) experiment of yours – I have a feeling it has the potential to change the game (hee!) profoundly.

    • http://www.thewordchef.com/ Tea Silvestre, aka Word Chef

      Thanks for your support, Annie! Yes, let’s change this mutha up!

  • http://twitter.com/SwanBizCentre Julia Hayes

    Prosperity’s Kitchen will fill a real need in the marketplace – congratulations to Tea and the team of mentor-advisors for committing to helping entrepreneurs strengthen their businesses on-line.

    There’s been a huge proliferation of expensive seminars promising to reveal the secrets to instant internet fortunes in the past 5 years. The hype is huge and the unethical use of NLP techniques to get the audience to buy recordings, books and subscriptions to on line courses makes me mad.

    Three years ago, that was my introduction to internet marketing and the feelings of inadequacy quickly followed because significant pieces of the puzzle were withheld.

    Working in a Tea Test Kitchen course was my best source of integrated learning. Anyone joining the PK project will benefit in every way from detailed, practical and best practice workshops.

    • http://www.thewordchef.com/ Tea Silvestre, aka Word Chef

      And you were a fabulous student, Julia. It takes BOTH to make the experience truly worthwhile. Students who are committed to their own success and willing (and able) to implement is the final key to the equation. I’m SO sorry that you got “taken” by the NLP-wielding hypesters. It’s my hope that together we can help spread the word about what’s real.

  • http://twitter.com/CarolLynnRivera Carol Lynn Rivera

    What, no “get rich now in 2 easy steps while you sleep” selling point?? That’s just crazy. I want to use this post as a sledgehammer to knock down all the nonsense I hear every day.

    • http://www.thewordchef.com/ Tea Silvestre, aka Word Chef

      You go, girlfriend! I would love to see that. (Maybe we could get one of our talented friends to draw a cartoon of you with a sledgehammer, knocking down all the internet’s nonsense).

  • http://citizenzeus.com/ Zeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D.

    You don’t sprint the first 4 miles of a marathon. Warm up, get in a good rhythm, find a good running partner or partners, relax but remain focused, learn as you go. I think one of the main problems with hyped programs is that they almost promise that good business is something that can be “done TO you” rather than something you develop and do FROM you. That means connecting with your questions rather than giving all the so-called answers. Great summary, Tea!

  • Colleen

    Love it! You’ve said so many good things, Tea. Yes, it would be great to utilize instructional design in online business courses to maximize results. Thank you!

  • Christy

    A HUGE thank you Tea! You’ve most definitely summed it up perfectly & said it much more eloquently than I ever could have!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Brandi-Harrigan/826540647 Brandi Harrigan

    Tea, you’ve put into words my somewhat confused heart-thought where starting any sort of online brand/presence is concerned. Every day I look at my current reality and consciously choose to have faith in the process otherwise be bowled over and give up.

    There’s also this subtle (sometimes blatant snobbery that comes hand in hand with being the newbie where we are basically mocked for asking questions and told “If you have to ask this question you have no business operating website.”. Its like people quickly just forget how it was to not be able to code in their sleep. Thanks for this, its very reassuring to know Prosperity Kitchen has our backs :)

    Love + Light, lovely
    Brandi

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