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The Ultimate Guide On What Courses To Take

abogdan88

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There's a list of great books in the The Ultimate Guide On What Books To Read thread. What're the must-take courses?
 
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abogdan88

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Consumer behavior
Copywriting
Entrepreneurship
Marketing
Mindset
Sales
Branding
Management & Leadership

There are too many fake gurus in courses. But, I feel like a course works better than a book for me.
 

JAJT

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Courses are great ways to waste a lot of money and time for no reason.

Start a business you can afford and solve one problem after the other - best education there is.

If you were to take a course for each of those subjects that dived "sufficiently" into all of those subjects you'd basically be buying yourself an MBA without having to go to college and you'd spend tens of thousands of dollars and a few years doing it only to end up with nothing to show for it.

Pick a business model you think you'll enjoy, and just start. When your writing sucks - google up some basic copy-writing techniques or buy a recommended book on it. When your mindset is in the gutter, grab a podcast or book on self improvement. When you bring on an employee, talk to others about leadership and management. Etc....

The best thing to focus your learning on is whatever it is you're currently stuck on.

If you tried to take all those courses, you'd just find out how much you don't know on each of those subjects and get stuck in serious analysis paralysis. Just learn enough to start, however you can, and start. You'll be your own best educator.

Check this out as well: GOLD! - A physicist's guide to learning hard things
 
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Process

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Solving Pain
Consumer behavior > hey we want less pain and frustration please but have no idea how to solve it
Copywriting > wow you're speaking to my frustration and deepest greeds! Sales in written form. It lets you contact thousands of people at once.
Entrepreneurship > doing more with less. Focusing on sales.


Marketing > keep trying new angles on communicating how you solve problems... lot's of effort with no feedback until you strike to the heart of the market.
Branding > What position do you have that other companies don't?
Sales > Ask open ended questions. What went wrong? What is bothering you? How would this change things? Interesting question, why do you ask?



Mindset > Stop letting fear of pain and failure hold you back. You're gonna go way above and beyond your comfort zone.
Management & Leadership > People are timid creatures that want to be comfortable. They follow the person who gives them the most comfort. But, they also want a challenge if they have a confident leader to follow and emulate. Set firm expectations and fire those who don't cut it. They're meant to extend your time, not waste it.
 

lejus

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I mean you can't go bankrupt investing in yourself. But my main concern about courses is their price/value ratio. So ideal are books/audiobooks right? You get them for pennies and they offer tons of value on every subject.

Then there is university education, mostly prepares you to be an employee and you pay for really big blocks over a number of years which adds to big sum but you can get out of it what you need and it's price/value is decent if you think in terms of per hours value. Anything that cost more in terms of $/hour than higher education? Be skeptical.

Courses that are organized in your hometown or nearest city are often.... free. Because they want you to get to their funnel. They pack a room full of wannabes, then they offer some good information mixed with BS how more information will make you successful at whatever you want to do and offer the following paid course for few hundred $$$, reasonable price, but if you think you go for that and get recipe for success you are wrong. What you will get is a little bit more information and a lot more BS and... next level course for an unreasonable price. My problems with this is: most people won't use this information, the same information can be found free or at a much cheaper price and its not foolproof way to succeed its guidelines and information like any other sometimes worst actually with more BS.

As for courses that offer good value:
youtube - you can find video on everything, downside is it all being chaotic, bits of pieces here and there, mixed with entertainment to attract more likes/views/subscriptions to monetize
udemy.com - my favored plain and simple, on sales courses are $10-20 per course (which is all you should pay for a course anyway imo) where you have all in one place and organized, it usually covers just basics which is enough to get you started. Those are with reviews, updated and in terms of IT things change so quickly that it is probably best way, this or online blogs to learn, in terms of other things, like guys said, learn by doing or from books. I learned wordpress and HTML/CSS from there. I tried to improve linux from there but courses that I paid for were too basic for me and free one were actually more advanced but more chaotic.
lynda.com - like above but paid monthly and you have access to all courses at once, which with wide range you mention might be an option
khan academy, ted, treehouse, solo learn, codeacademy, hackerrank, CBT nuggets - there is a number of alternatives some free some paid, some focus on IT some on other things. Just be sure that you actually not procrastinating on taking action by watching video courses or participating in some instead of taking action and doing things. This is ultimately how you learn.
 
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Zarar

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Courses are great ways to waste a lot of money and time for no reason.

Start a business you can afford and solve one problem after the other - best education there is.

If you were to take a course for each of those subjects that dived "sufficiently" into all of those subjects you'd basically be buying yourself an MBA without having to go to college and you'd spend tens of thousands of dollars and a few years doing it only to end up with nothing to show for it.

Pick a business model you think you'll enjoy, and just start. When your writing sucks - google up some basic copy-writing techniques or buy a recommended book on it. When your mindset is in the gutter, grab a podcast or book on self improvement. When you bring on an employee, talk to others about leadership and management. Etc....

The best thing to focus your learning on is whatever it is you're currently stuck on.

If you tried to take all those courses, you'd just find out how much you don't know on each of those subjects and get stuck in serious analysis paralysis. Just learn enough to start, however you can, and start. You'll be your own best educator.

Check this out as well: GOLD! - A physicist's guide to learning hard things


Very true. I also think that it's better to focus on the problem at the hand than learning everything you could possibly face in the future.
 

Envision

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The best course is building your own business/company and learning each process along the way.

Not paying into someone elses.
 
D

Deleted50669

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The best course is building your own business/company and learning each process along the way.

Not paying into someone elses.
Yep. I have never googled so much in my life until I started doing real market research / building my app. And since I started I've learned more in 5 months than my entire time in college, without the bullshit bloat of a standard curriculum.
 
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Niptuck MD

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Instead of taking bs courses, hire top consultants on subjects you know nothing about. You will salve more time and money and you wont burn holes in your pocket. If you are adament on coursetaking then pick up a new language....
 

Walter Hay

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There are too many fake gurus in courses. But, I feel like a course works better than a book for me.

Some prefer to learn by watching videos, others like to have many hour-long sessions at expensive group seminars. In either case, if they don't take notes they are probably wasting both time and money, because the spoken word rapidly passes in and out of the brain.

In effect, by taking notes they are writing their own small version of a book. The purpose? To be able to go over it again, give it more than a passing thought, and help it become a part of their memory bank.

Courses are great ways to waste a lot of money and time for no reason.

The teaching method that I have used for years is:
  • Provide the essential knowledge in a book.
  • Support the book readers with answers when needed for better understanding of what will often be previously unknown ideas and facts.
In a way, I suppose that amounts to a course. The big differences being:
  • The learner gains all the knowledge that he/she needs.
  • They save thousands of dollars, and many hours of time.
Walter
 

ZF Lee

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Instead of taking bs courses, hire top consultants on subjects you know nothing about. You will salve more time and money and you wont burn holes in your pocket. If you are adament on coursetaking then pick up a new language....
Yup, new language never hurts.

My top picks would be Mandarin, a Chinese dialect (you'd be surprised that 70% of Chinese folks around me speak only dialects, my focus is on Cantonese), Spanish or whatever country's language whom you might rely on for labour, supply and services. For the latter, I will have to perfect my country's national language, Bahasa Melayu...that's for dealing with government, law and utilities.

Yup, where I come from, nearly everyone is multi-lingual. If I could put an equation of the average Malaysian, it might be this:

National language+English+Mother tongue+dialect

They even offer pay raises for civil servants who have an additional language up their sleeves. But I've only seen the folks at the electric and water departments speak Malay and a little English, so I dunno if the incentive really works at all.
 
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Walter Hay

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Here's my take on it, if you can get them for free wink* wink*, they are worth it and often more entertaining than watching TV and the like..

I'd like help find more good ones also, but that depends on what interests you, what kind of teachers you like and what would be useful to you.
I frequently find stolen copies of my importing book being sold online. Sometimes I see them for download free. In many cases they are obsolete.

Every year I put in weeks of work to revise the book, which I see as essential because the importing scene changes continually.

Those with pirated copies are using out of date information, and just one little piece of that new information in the revised edition could save them from losing or wasting thousands of dollars.

Oh yes, it's great to get something for free!

Those willing to benefit from using stolen property also lose the benefit of unlimited, lifetime support from my paid support team, and also they lose the benefit of free downloads of every new revised edition.

Walter
P.S. The 2019 revision should be available within 2 or three weeks.
 

Fassina

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I frequently find stolen copies of my importing book being sold online. Sometimes I see them for download free. In many cases they are obsolete.

Every year I put in weeks of work to revise the book, which I see as essential because the importing scene changes continually.

Those with pirated copies are using out of date information, and just one little piece of that new information in the revised edition could save them from losing or wasting thousands of dollars.

Oh yes, it's great to get something for free!

Those willing to benefit from using stolen property also lose the benefit of unlimited, lifetime support from my paid support team, and also they lose the benefit of free downloads of every new revised edition.

Walter
P.S. The 2019 revision should be available within 2 or three weeks.
Why are you targeting me with an ad?

Besides wouldn't it make more sense to make a subscription newsletter with monthly / weekly emails for recurring income ? Maybe use the book as an entry level, put them in the funnel and upsell them a newsletter, courses, seminars etc.

But again I don't know you so you might already be doing it. If so, that's great =D

PS. You can't stop piracy mate, movie industry can't do it, music industry can't do it, US gov can't do it, what makes you think you can? You may temporarily stop some re-sellers true but that's about it.. If that's worth doing at all, which is questionable.

It's one of the cons of digital products, but you have lower distribution, manufacture and shipping costs which more than makes up for it.
 

MitchM

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I frequently find stolen copies of my importing book being sold online. Sometimes I see them for download free. In many cases they are obsolete.

Every year I put in weeks of work to revise the book, which I see as essential because the importing scene changes continually.

Those with pirated copies are using out of date information, and just one little piece of that new information in the revised edition could save them from losing or wasting thousands of dollars.

Oh yes, it's great to get something for free!

Those willing to benefit from using stolen property also lose the benefit of unlimited, lifetime support from my paid support team, and also they lose the benefit of free downloads of every new revised edition.

Walter
P.S. The 2019 revision should be available within 2 or three weeks.
Speaking of your importing book, I purchased it back in 2017 and it was a huge help!

Have you updated since then? If so, how can I access it?
 
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NewManRising

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Nevermind. I didn't notice you wanted course recommendations and not books.
 

Zcott

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Eh. Actually thought this might have been a good thread for people who are building a business but need to learn certain areas to help move it forward. A way of learning something that has been validated by other forum members as worthy.

Example being someone who might be amazing at coding or whatever but knows nothing about sales, or vice versa, could go on a course recommended by this forum to pick up some tips.

I know people say you're just lining pockets of fake gurus, which is where the importance of validation from this forum came in on what are actually informative and helpful courses.

Just my two cents.
 

Walter Hay

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Speaking of your importing book, I purchased it back in 2017 and it was a huge help!

Have you updated since then? If so, how can I access it?
You can get your free download by contacting msteamwebmaster@gmail.com to request it. You will need to tell them the email address you used when buying.

Let me know if you have any problem.

Walter
 
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