Why part-time MBA is more worth than a full-time MBA

Why part-time MBA is more worth than a full-time MBA? by Bhavin Gandhi

This is a long lasting debate. Some people prefer to do a full-time MBA as compared to a part-time MBA. Though you can’t say which one is better over another with utmost certainty, I would recommend part-time MBA for working professionals as compared to a full-time MBA. Obviously, there are various reasons why you want to do a part-time MBA, but some of the primary reasons are as follows:

Cost savings: Unless you got accepted to an Ivey League University for your full-time MBA, I would recommend you to do your part-time MBA from some local University. It will save you some tremendous amount of money. Let’s say, if you were to do your full-time MBA from some University. In that case, you had to quit your job for couple of years. Let’s say, you are earning $50,000/year right now. That means, you are losing $100,000 in two years of your education period, because you won’t be working full-time during that time. In addition to your loss of income, you have to pay for the tuition from your own pocket, which might be anywhere between $50,000 to $200,000. In short, you would be losing on an average around $150,000 ($100,000 + $50,000) during these 2 years of your full-time MBA. Let’s say, you somehow magically find a job in this economy with your full-time MBA, which pays you $15,000 more than your previous salary, then also you will take at least 10-15 years to cover that cost. Isn’t that right?

Minimal risk: Other than the huge cost savings, part-time MBA comes with other additional advantages. And one of the most important advantage is – minimal risk. If you are a working professional, then chances are …… your current employer might be covering partial or full cost for the entire program. Thus, you don’t have to come up with the tuition amount from your pocket. Let’s say, you started your program and in the middle of it, you somehow didn't end up liking it. In that case, you can just quit, since you haven’t invested much of your personal money in this initiative. In addition to this, you don’t have to spend much time studying for GMAT or GRE, since most of the part-time programs (like Harvard Extension School) offer few classes as Grad Special, and if you perform well in those classes then you get to enter in to the program without giving your standardize tests. This will ensure that you like the program before you actually get admitted in to one, unlike the full-time MBA program.

Understand the other side: When I first thought of doing my MBA, I wanted to do it to understand what my Boss does. Being from a technical background, I always had a problem understanding the strategic decisions taken by my company. I was much more involved in the technology as compared to the business behind it. My part-time MBA provided me with the opportunity to understand the business perspective better. I am not saying that I couldn’t have learned the same thing through full-time MBA, but if I were in the full-time MBA program, then I wouldn’t have the opportunity to connect this learning to the current work environment. Most of the times, I would learn something from my MBA classes, and I was able to directly apply that learning at my work place. And that has helped me retain approximately 60% of my concepts, which I wouldn’t have otherwise remembered due to lack of practice. And maybe, this is the key reason why one should prefer part-time MBA over full-time program.

I hope these tips will help to choose between full-time and part-time MBA program. Do you have any other reasons due to which you would prefer a part-time MBA program over a full-time option?

Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi.

How to sell your online MBA degree to future employers?

How to sell your online MBA degree to future employers? by Bhavin Gandhi Have you finished your MBA through an online program? Are you unable to experience any benefits from your degree? Well…..you are not alone. More than 50% of the employers still prefer an MBA candidate with the traditional classroom experience as compared to an online MBA student. Despite of this stereo types of an online MBA candidate, you can still succeed with your degree. You just need to know, how to sell it. With this blog, I am going to provide you with some pointers through which you can get the same benefit out of your online MBA program as compared to any other in-class MBA program. Capitalize on cultural awareness: If you are doing an online MBA from a Tier 1 or Tier 2 level school, then chances are…….you must be working in a diverse team with people from different countries. You should use this experience as your strength during your job search. Mention those specific projects on your resume to portray your knowledge of cross cultural understanding. With most of the major companies going global, this experience will definitely work in your advantage, if presented correctly. I would also recommend you to provide some specific examples on your resume on how you had solved some of the cross cultural conflicts. These kinds of smaller examples can help you bring up this topic during your in-person interviews. And you can then elaborate on that in further details. It goes without saying…..try to connect your experience with the company’s current needs of working with cross cultural teams. Be the leader of your virtual teams: If you think of it, all the project teams in an online MBA program are nothing but a virtual team. In your program, you must have worked with different people from different time zones to finish certain projects. And hence, you should also capitalize on your experience in working with remote/virtual teams. Don’t just say…..”I have worked in a virtual team”. Try to be more specific on your resume. Provide examples on how you resolved issues due to time and language barriers during your project. It wouldn’t hurt, if you can talk about those experiences in your in-person interviews, and maybe summarize with lessons learned during your experience. In today’s world, lot of companies operate in different locations. Thus, most of their meetings, projects and day-to-day activities are virtual. Thus, if you can prove that you have not only worked in that environment, but you have also learned how to improve those communications in that environment; then you would definitely standout from the crowd. I hope these tips will help to sell your online MBA degree to your future employer. Do you have any other ideas through which you can show the importance of your online MBA degree to your future employer? Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi. Bhavin Gandhi | July 26, 2012 at 7:59 AM | Tags: 21st century, brand awareness, brand management,Challenges, Change Management, Communication, Communications, Cultural Change, Employees, Find a job, Generation shift, Get a job, Information Technology, Leaders of Tomorrow, Leadership, Marketing,New hire, Online MBA, Online presence, Online programs, Organization's Culture, Self awareness, Self leadership, Sell yourself, Student Guide, Virtual Team, Work culture | Categories: 21st Century,Leadership, Management, Virtual Team | URL: http://wp.me/p103Cm-81

3 simple ways to make your business like Apple, Inc.

Recently, I was called upon for a consulting opportunity in one small business. Their major problem was to acquire new customers. Due to recession, they were getting less businesses from their existing customers. And that's why they were very entusiastic in acquiring new customers to survive. This business problem kept me thinking about today's businesses. For first few days, I didn't have any answer. I was asking myself, how can you make a good customer base? how can you create demand? how can you establish a recession proof business? And I looked at my iPhone and realized that there are few companies (Apple), which are creating huge demands for their products even in this economic crisis. 

Those days are gone when we used to manufacture a product and hope that someone will buy it. If businesses wants to be successful in the 21st Century then they need to have customer centric business approach. The key to your business future is - how can you create an extraordinary customer experience for people? What can you do to delight your customers, so that they will decided to do business with you again? Well, I am not a business creation expert by any means, but here are three simple ways to create a business like Apple.

Make your employees love your company: Great companies are always built by great employees. The key to an extraordinary customer experience is to make sure that the people in your company, who don’t want to be there go somewhere else. You only want employees who wants to work in your company, instead of people who just wants to cash their paycheck on every week. If you can create an employee base like this then they will focus on doing something that they like, and you can focus on your customers. Wouldn't you want your customers to hear that - your company is a great place to work?

Quality is more than you think: The bookish definition of quality is - your product or service conforms the customer’s standards and requirements. But I would define quality as customer experience and more. We should always deliver a product/service which not only meets customer's standards but exceed them. I am not saying that you should over build your product, but make sure to act as a user of that product when its ready. Ask yourself a question - will you buy your product if you were a customer? If you ask me, Apple had done a really good job of maintaining its quality. And that might be the major reason for creating a loyal customer base.

Make everything work for your customer: I really love to visit Apple retail store. And I am always amazed by seeing the crowd in the store. The key is in their service. They have revolutionized the retail computer industry by providing on-site training classes, amazing customer service, and friendly environment. Their sales people will always help you in  integrating your new Apple product with your other products, so they actually work together as one package. What a concept! Customers today are more impatient than ever. Thus, any business that offers to serve its customers faster immediately becomes the preferred supplier, even at a higher price. So, make everything work for your customers, and you can also create a business like Apple.

I hope my article was helpful, and I am eager to hear your feedback. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi

3 simple rules for selling more to your existing customers

Yesterday, one of my ex-client called me up, and asked my advice on - How to get more business? If I didn't have a good idea about their business then I would have advised them on few market expansion strategies. But I knew that he already has few major players of the industry as his clients, and he can get more business from them. And that's where I got an idea for my new blog post.

If you own a business with already established accounts, then increasing sales from the existing customers would be the best bet. Although this type of account management strategy sounds simple to plan, it is tough to execute. Here are three simple rules that might work well for all type of businesses.

Rule 1: Be honest about deliverable of your product or services. Your job as a relationship manager is to ensure that you give the customer accurate status. Obviously, you don’t want to announce problems using mass emails. However, if a major delivery is at jeopardy, the best way to handle it is to be upfront with the customer and present a problem resolution plan. Repeated honesty in disclosing problems and sincerity in trying to resolve them will help you to earn customer’s loyalty. These loyal customers will pave the way for the next deal.

Rule 2: Don't harass your customer. Relationship managers should focus on delivery rather than upfront sales. If delivery is done right, your customers will become the salespeople for you. It is best to slowly build the relationship and then talk sales, not vice-versa.

Rule 3: Relate with your customers on a personal level. I do independent management consulting, so I don’t have any account manager to handle my accounts. I, myself, have to work as a relationship manager for my customers. I try to invite my local customers to the bar and lunch quite regularly. If you got to know individuals personally outside their professional role, you are going to get more business from the same customers.

I hope my article was helpful, and I am eager to hear your feedback. Thanks. – Bhavin Gandhi

Where to start for selling your consulting services?

Having a full-time job, its really hard to get time from my schedule and consult businesses. Still I somehow manage my time, and consult lot of small local and remote businesses (some for knowledge and some for money). I mostly consult these businesses on weekends or in the evenings. The road is not easy, but I love the work that I do. Fortunately, I got my first consulting assignment for a medium-sized company (3000+ employees). I am really excited for this learning opportunity. After this experience, I will have a good idea about day-to-day challenges of a medium-sized company.

When I was reading few materials over the weekend to prepare myself for this opportunity, I got to think about the past - how did I get this opportunity? And I thought of sharing my experience with you. It might help you to sell your professional services to medium or big sized companies. The most basic advise that I can give you before you approach any medium or big sized company with your services is - improve your brand awareness, provide quality services, and try to get good references.

Improve your brand awareness: This can be accomplished by a number of means, but will certainly take time and vary in difficulty depending upon a number of factors including your size, history, geographic footprint, and financial resources. Just try to align your brand with the types of services you want to deliver in the market. Try to establish a history of delivering excellent values through clients across multiple industries. Complement this with marketing and public relations tools ranging from participating in industry events, trade shows, and blogging.

Provide quality services: Developing a reputation in the market for delivering services in a timely, quality, and cost-effective manner will definitely help your business. 40% of my consulting contracts are through the same clients. Quality of my service served as the foundation for building a strong reference base and opportunity pipeline. Don't just give importance to your initial contracts, treat all of your contracts as they were your first. This approach will definitely help you in maintaining good customer relationships.

Get good references: If you are a new service provider, a strong reference base is an absolute requirement. Most of my clients are extremely selective, when it comes to choosing a service provider. At first, lot of my clients simply refused to take a chance on someone new like me. But when they spoke to my previous clients to whom I have successfully delivered the same service, they agreed to try me. To build these initial references, I would recommend working for non-profits, small businesses and start-ups. Before consulting businesses for money, I have worked for many businesses for free. This is the best way to build up your reference base and get some good experience.

I hope my article was helpful, and I am eager to hear your feedback. Thanks. - Bhavin Gandhi

Lead your brand, in the world of social media

Lot of people might argue, but I feel that we are currently on the verge of a major paradigm shift. With the help of the Internet and new communication tools like - Facebook, Twitter, blogs and LinkedIn – we are changing the way, how we communicate with each other. Social media is completely changing the way we used to interact with each other. Maybe that’s the only reason why, we trust product’s reviews on - Facebook, Twitter and Yelp - more than on an advertisement seen on TV.

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One might ask - What if our communication ways are changing? What does that have to do with Leadership? In fact that has to do with only - Leadership. After all, what is Leadership? Isn’t Leadership – leading changes? Isn’t leadership about envisioning the future? If you are not yet convinced, then let me ask you one question – “Do you think that your customers are not talking about your products on these social media platforms?” In fact, YouTube became the second largest search engine after Google, and approximately 25% of YouTube videos contain product reviews.

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So, the question is – how can we lead this change? How can we use social media as a tool to improve our business? The answer is very simple. Just do what you would do in a normal situation. You just need to expand your horizon. I agree that social media is the fastest growing communication platform out there, but it’s just a platform. You still need to stick to your basics, and if your basics are strong enough then you can leverage this platform in favor of your business. Following are few tactics that will help you create “positive brand awareness” through social media:

1.       Be Present: For monitoring any kind of customer feedback through social media, you need to be on social media. So, create your account on few biggest social media platforms like - LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.

2.       Be vigilant: Continuously monitor social media. And find out what people are talking about your company/organization. With lot of free tools available out there like – “Google Alert”, it is not that difficult to be vigilant.

3.       Be quick in your response: In platforms like Twitter and Facebook, information is growing faster than ever. Thus, you need to be quick in responding to your customer’s positive/negative feedback. I would recommend you to have dedicated resources for this.

4.       Have your blog: This is the key element. Most of the times, your customers don’t find ways to tell about your products to the world. And that’s why they talk about your products on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter. If you would have given them some kind of platform to raise their voice, then they would rather blog on that website. The beauty of this idea is – you can control your feedback.

I hope this information proves to be helpful in some way. I am always eager to know your ideas too. So, feel free to comment on my blog.

Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi