The market for post-undergraduate business education is being underserved, but not in the way you think.
Executive MBA programs are gaining stature every year. Many of the country’s best B-schools now offer programs structured for students well into the workforce and with life situations that preclude leaving work and family obligations for two years of full-time study. It’s a wonderful time to be in the position to further one’s education and obtain an MBA. However, with an average cost of around $47,000 and a commitment to two years of nights and/or weekends, an executive MBA program is still out of the reach of most aspirants.
“You dropped 150 grand on a f****** education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library!” - Good Will Hunting
For considerably less cost is an attempt to obtain the equivalent knowledge through books. There’s even a surprisingly well-organized attempt to define a personal MBA. It would seem that with the volume of business books available one could easily access the best current thinking on economics, marketing, sales, creativity, leadership, and management while sipping a latte at Barnes & Noble. But there’s something missing in that equation – the classroom experience. And that leads me to the missing link between business books and an MBA.
At its core, higher education is less about learning than about how to learn. And an effective MBA will be less about core business fundamentals than about the collaborative learning environment during the program. So here’s the opening, the opportunity. How can one get the shared sense of accomplishment, of dedication to task, of focus on a goal without the motivator of a large tuition payment? And most importantly how can one collaborate with a group of similarly motivated individuals so that their shared experience is the real accomplishment?
Somewhere between that $1.50 at the library and the $47,000 to a B-school is a huge opportunity.
I paid my American Express bill late recently and incurred a $29 late fee. I called and innocently inquired about it hoping that it would be forgiven. The nice customer service rep that explained to me what day my payment had been due and what day mine actually arrived didn’t hesitate to help me out. She said that I had been a member for a long time and she would certainly remove the charge. Of course, I thought to myself. I’ve been a member since 1989.
I feel that I get better customer service from American Express. Do I actually? I don’t know, but it seems that way to me and that makes a difference. In fact I didn’t just say that that I had an American Express card, or that I used one. I called myself a member. Think about the power of that. How many other products elicit feelings of membership by their users?
Sharp sells LCD TVs and to me has a great advantage. Their company name is a positive characteristic of the product. What fantastic branding. So how does Sharp capitalize on that advantage? They don’t. Instead they paid some untold sum of money to branding experts to christen their LCD television line as “Aquos.” The name Aquos is fine by branding standards. It conjures up pleasant images water and fluid motion. But LCD televisions are about unparalleled clarity. Water and fluid are about blurred motion. Dump the Aquos branding Sharp and capitalize on your fortunate corporate name.
What do you do with a customer that comes to your site wanting to buy a product you make? Well, if you are Timex you turn him away. I recently saw a Timex watch in a magazine that I wanted. That’s a strong consumer impulse to make a buying decision off of a print image and act on it. That puts Timex in an enviable position at that moment. All they need to do is give me the product I am coming to them to buy. But the first strike against them was that I knew from experience that their website was a mess of flash animation and endless subcategory navigation. So I followed the print directions to look at “select Kohl’s stores.” Well, my local Kohl’s apparently wasn’t select enough so strike two, and onto the website. After spending far too long searching I resorted to the live help chat. Great feature by the way. Unfortunately, the very helpful woman on the other end of the chat told me that the watch in question was only available in those select stores and not on the company website. She would be happy to report my frustration at being unable to buy from them and I wasn’t the first person this happened to. Apparently it’s not enough of a problem for Timex to decide to actually have their advertised product line available for purchase on their website. Telling the customer in this way that you don’t want his business is the kind of retail conversation you don’t want to have. Strike three, Timex.