For decades, an MBA degree has been considered a perfect boost for those who want to improve their careers in business, marketing, management, or even accelerate their promotion to the executive level and become leaders of some famous corporations. Each year, business schools graduate hundreds of thousands of students across the world helping them to become well-rounded professionals and more successful income earners. The popularity of MBA education doesn’t need to be explained. Not only is this an opportunity for older students to get a degree but also to become savvy in many business-related disciplines that would have remained hidden had you chosen some other majors.
And while the rule “if you want to have an edge over other candidates, get an MBA” is clear, few ever think that it’s also a great opportunity to get those necessary skills, experience, and connections to start your own business. Studying for a degree may be costly. But it will give you far more benefits in the long run. Here is how an MBA degree helps you succeed as an entrepreneur.
Provides Necessary Knowledge and Skills
Business is a complicated subject that’s not limited by good calculation skills alone. It’s also closely connected with economics, marketing, HR management and recruiting, logistics, psychology, and many other areas of knowledge. Moreover, instinct is as much important and it can be trained through practice and experience.
Speaking of which, MBA studies are a comprehensive business-targeted course that provides all necessary knowledge and skills any executive or a start-upper would need to bring their businesses to a new level. In the course of training, students will be completing numerous practical assignments to hone their skills in an actual business environment. Not only this allows you to reinforce what you know, but also gain experience and develop that gut feeling to bring your business to the top.
Gives an Opportunity to Build a Good Network of Contacts
As an MBA student, you will be studying with other like-minded people of different ages, backgrounds, jobs, and statuses. With some of them, you may share a common goal to start your own business. Others may be working in the companies responsible for IT support, transportation services, supply, consulting services, or other fields that may be of use when you decide to found your own business.
Therefore, this is an excellent way to establish friendly and trustful relationships with your probable partners, suppliers, and service providers, as well as share experience and perhaps, even other useful connections with each other.
Furthermore, in the course of training, you’re likely to meet top-rank people as a part of your practical assignments, which is also an excellent chance to build long-term friendships that will be helpful when you decide to join the ranks of entrepreneurs.
Makes You a Better Communicator
To have a successful business, offering quality products and attractive prices isn’t enough. It is the fact of life that no one will buy from a producer or service provider who can’t communicate the benefits of their products and establish trustworthy relationships with the clients. Or, what’s worth, lacks empathy and is rude. Communication also matters when it comes to hiring employees, negotiating with suppliers and partners, as well as solving bureaucratic issues with the authorities.
An MBA school can teach you that. During your studies, you will be learning to communicate with people of different tempers, views, backgrounds, and life situations. This will allow developing empathy, tactfulness, emotional flexibility, and confidence when talking to people from different walks of life. As a part of business training, you will also learn conflict management strategies and become a better negotiator. And these are the must-have skills for anyone willing to build a successful business.
Ensures Business Support from Professors and Peers
Many underestimate the benefits they can receive from being acquainted with MBA professors. Nevertheless, your professors, as well as your classmates, are a generous source of business support. All MBA teachers and mentors are normally successful business people themselves or skilled negotiators, marketers, HR professionals, analytics, whatnot. Not only can they give you valuable advice on your business plan or strategy, but also introduce you to their colleagues, who may be of help to you.
Your peers can also greatly contribute to your business. Some of them may already have some business experience and want MBA to take their company to a new level. If you have no experience at all, they can be your mentors or at least give you a few valuable insights. Others, however, may join your team to launch a soon-multibillion start-up together.
“My own business journey started with an MBA school,” says Hellen Morris, a Florida-based marketing agency owner, an education speaker, and Pro-papers guest expert. “I knew I needed a degree in business if I wanted a top-rank manager position in the marketing firm I worked in back then. What I didn’t know is that I would give up this dream and start my own marketing agency. And I wouldn’t have succeeded if not for my amazing classmates – now partners – I met at the school”.
Bottom Line
A dream to build your own business may not be the most obvious reason for getting an MBA. But in fact, this decision has many benefits. Not only is this the easiest way to get business-related skills and knowledge, but also an opportunity to expand your client-and-partner base of contacts, establish friendly relationships with like-minded people of different jobs and professions, greatly improve your soft skills, and get unlimited business support from professors and other students.
You can build a successful business without an MBA degree. But the journey may have to take hours of unguided research, hundreds of trials and failures, and significant time and money losses before you get your first story of success. Or, you can learn what other skilled business leaders know and do, and avoid most of the bumps. It’s up to you!
The Editorial Team at Healthcare Business Today is made up of skilled healthcare writers and experts, led by our managing editor, Daniel Casciato, who has over 25 years of experience in healthcare writing. Since 1998, we have produced compelling and informative content for numerous publications, establishing ourselves as a trusted resource for health and wellness information. We offer readers access to fresh health, medicine, science, and technology developments and the latest in patient news, emphasizing how these developments affect our lives.