Business and Investment Center

Whether you are a parent scouting for the best schools in town to educate your business professional wannabe, or a student on the lookout for the first rate business schools, it is important that the right choice be made. And to be able to make the right choice, you should be able to tell which business schools offer the best training curriculum and facilities.

A good school can be measured by the alumni it has produced, the programs it can offer, and, best of all, by the ranking that it gets from several survey bodies across the globe. If you only want the best, rankings can help you make the decision. There are rankings for the schools that are selective in their enrollment process, there are those who are ranked high because they constantly procure awards from business institutions, and there are those who are recognized for their contribution in the business community.

Who does the rankings for these business schools, anyway? Practically everyone and anyone. There are surveys that are being conducted (mostly annually) and the best schools are rated by several people. Now, just how important are rankings anyway? Are these enough to prove that the top schools that you are scouting are reputable or that they provide quality set of courses?

Keep in mind that most of these schools already have proven track records in providing the best quality of business education and producing choice graduates. The only difference that rankings or accreditations make is reputation. Once a university gets a certain label on its name, then you are assured that their faculty, resources, facilities, and curriculum have all passed a definite criteria on quality.

If you are still confused on which school to choose, then it’s time to assess your goals on your career. These career objectives should coincide with the values that certain schools offer (not to mention that they have the specific program that would suit your needs). Once you narrow down your career choices, then the number of schools on your list would automatically be limited.

To further trim down the number of schools on the list, it’s time to consider the location and your budget. Full-time MBAs, of course, cost more and take longer to finish. There are business schools that offer executive and part-time programs on this. Remember that you are not looking for a low-budget program. Instead, keep in mind that you are looking for a school that provides a good return on your investment.

If your list remains long, then it’s time to consider the schools’ service department on career. Do they really produce good results? With more hits to any particular school, then it would mean that their graduates and MBA holders are hired more than the competitors. Receiving any form of scholarship would also greatly influence any potential candidate’s choice of school.

Most of the top business schools (especially those that are constantly ranked to be one of the best) have world class services, that is why it is best to prepare well before embarking on their entrance examinations and grueling interviews. Only the best of the best are accepted on the top business schools (especially the Ivy League)—the la crème de la crème; so expect the best and prepare for the worst!

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You can have your information products on sale day in and day out, and that can give you a modest flow of income. You can increase sales and bring in a lot more income by creating sales events that encourage customers to reach a buying decision. People really have three possible decisions: “yes,” “no,” or the most popular, “no decision.” Convert the “no decisions” into either “yes” or “no,” and you will get a lot more yeses.

The big problem with having your products available all the time is that there is no reason to buy now, so quite a few people never decide to buy.

For a sales event, you need to give only a limited amount of time to buy. It must start at a certain time and end a few days later at a certain time. You must give people a reason to buy during the event. There must be benefits for buying during that time and penalties for letting the opportunity slip by.

You need an e-mail list of interested people. You send out announcements to the list. A month ahead of time, you tell them that an event is coming up. Over the next few weeks, you send out e-mails telling them a little bit more about the product that you are launching at the event. You tease them with maybe a single benefit per e-mail. You answer their objections.

A good way to begin your event is to use a teleseminar or a webinar. You can help people understand how they would use and benefit from your information product. You give them some of the information out of it. You explain the benefits of buying during the event in terms of price and bonuses.

You can offer a lower price for the duration of the sales event. The penalty for not acting immediately is that the price will go up as soon as the event is over.

You can offer bonuses e-books and videos are perhaps the best because they can be distributed at essentially zero cost. You can have the bonuses available only for a certain amount of time, so that only the people who act within the first day can get the entire list. At specific times thereafter more of the bonuses become unavailable. One of the problems is that many people will not attend your teleseminar live but will only listen to the recording the next day, so they will miss out on some of the bonuses and will not be motivated by them.

An alternative to having the bonuses time out is having only a limited number available. Scarcity is a great motivator. You can offer the entire list of bonuses to the first five people who buy, a smaller list to the next 10, and so on.

Some people react to all this hoopla as its being manipulative only to confuse and exploit people. Certainly a lot of the discussion of these techniques can lead to that conclusion. There are two different ways to view it however. First, it’s part of the fun of the sales event. Quite a few people enjoy all the hoopla. They like being able to pick up bonuses. They like cheaper prices.

The second view is that it helps people make a decision. You’re offering a product that helps some people. It’s not for everybody. What you really want is for people to decide yes or no. Give them all the information, intellectual and emotional, to make a decision, and encourage them to reach the decision immediately. If they go off to decide later, they will most likely fail to make the decision. Their attention will dissipate. The reasons to decide one way or another will slip out of their minds. They will forget that there is a decision to make. All the hoopla of the sales event helps people decide to decide, and whether the decision is yes or no, they benefit by actually making it.

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