We are in the midst of a learning revolution.

Consumers are hungrier than ever to know why and how things are done, and are only buying from those who tell them.

This change is happening right now.  Those not willing to jump on board are already being left behind. In this article, edupreneur of 12 years, Sarah Cordiner, shares 15 reasons why you should integrate education into your business strategy for 2018.

We are in the midst of a learning revolution which is having the knock-on effect of a dramatic business evolution.

Consumers are fed up with being sold to, having promises made to them and sitting through endless sales pitches.

Instead, consumers are hungrier than ever to know why and how things are done and are only buying from those who provide them with the answers.

The Shift from Entrepreneur to EDUpreneur is Here

Those not willing to jump on board are already getting left behind and closing up shop forever.

It’s time to shift our way of thinking about obtaining and retaining business; time to shift how we provide information to markets.  

It’s time to shift how we sell and deliver our products and services to our customers, and shift how we nurture marketplace relationships.

We have moved from the traditional entrepreneurial methods of sales and marketing, to using the platform of education as a way to nurture everyone and everything around us, at the same time as our bottom lines.

If you are ready to shift into the new way of doing business, it’s time to become an EDUpreneur.

So, What is Edupreneurship?

It’s education that’s profitable.

It’s an entrepreneurial, income-generating business activity that has been strategically intertwined with education for the purposes of sustainable change at a social and economic level.

What does that mean for you?

Well, here is what most marketers and business owners forget – what clients want is answers to their questions.

If you are answering their questions, you are the solution to their problems; and therefore the number 1 choice to provide them with products and services that you have already demonstrated that you are an expert in providing.

14 Reasons to Become an Edupreneur

1.    Personal Transformation

Education is transformational in it’s nature.

It is all about enabling the learner to move from one place, to another.

But ask any edupreneur or traditional teacher why they do it and you’ll find that the money is something that always comes after ‘because it is so rewarding’.

When you start to see how much your expertise is valued by others, you too begin to value yourself in ways you never knew were possible; and that is true self-actualisation.

Here are some other reasons why becoming an edupreneur can lead to personal transformation:

• The process of discovery of the fact that you have so much to give to others provides solid reinforcement of your skills and knowledge.  This increases your self-efficacy, confidence and motivation to keep learning to keep sharing and the snowball of returns in the form of business and personal transformation just keeps getting bigger.
•  The research and information gathering process around being an edupreneur can be very refreshing.  We often are only consciously aware of around 5% of what we know.  By conducting our research phase we become re-conscious of the other 95% of information we already have.  This can be a big boost on self-esteem and enthusiasm for your topic as you begin to become more certain of your expert label.
•   The monumental satisfaction you will at the end of creating a formal training program, when intangible knowledge suddenly manifests into a tangible product or financial outcome – holding that workbook, learner manual or course folder; or watching the dollars roll in from your online school is such a good feeling.
•  Consolidating all of your knowledge into a tangible product often shows you that you are more ‘expert’ and capable than your may have realised.  It can then become quite addictive.  So many course creators that I have worked with came to me with a dream to just create one single course.  But the motivation that they were left with after one single ‘topic download session’ showed them that there was far more to their potential than just one course; and later have gone on to create entire online academies full of courses – which later turned into best-selling books, keynote presentations and much more.  Those people are completely different people to the ones that first worked with me in every single way.  I have seen firsthand people, their lives and their business completely transform in front of my eyes through the process of course creation and edupreneurship.

2.  No More Selling. Ever.

In business, why do we expect our potential customers to pay us high-end fees without first demonstrating our capability?

SHOWING people that you have the skills and knowledge that you say you do will get you far more business than any traditional marketing campaign ever could.

By sharing what you know and what you can do in an educational manner – the very act of demonstrating, giving and explaining, people are able to convince themselves that you ARE an expert through the very act of experiencing your expertise.

There is no need to promise, persuade, convince or sell anymore.

Instead, produce useful, helpful content in the form of blogs, articles, videos, live streams, online courses, short challenges, image cards, webinars, podcasts, books and eBooks and allow your education to sell you instead.

3.  Authority Positioning & Solidifying Your Industry Credibility

By demonstrating your expertise in the form of educational content, you are proving your industry ‘street-cred’.

Creating your own learning programs and products is the ‘straight to the top’ way of positioning yourself as an authority in your field and contributes to your professional credentials

As soon as I had published work (Online Courses, Books, eBooks and Articles), conference organisers began approaching me to speak at their events; podcasters wanted to interview me on their podcasts; corporates wanted me to train their staff; universities and colleges wanted me to train their teachers, and clients started pouring through MY door, instead of me having to knock on theirs.

By sharing your expertise in all of these forms, you are providing upfront, undeniable evidence that you are an expert in your field.  And that expert status rapidly shifts you into a position of an authority – a well known leader in your industry – when you have published that expertise consistently, over a period of time in multiple, educational formats.

4.  Leave a Legacy

Creating courses and other expertise-sharing products, are great ways to make a difference to people in a way that ensures you’ll always be remembered for the way that you positively contributed to the world.  

By writing down your strategies for achieving a certain outcome, overcoming a particular situation or giving people an insight, you leave behind valuable information about life today, and also impact on people beyond the reach of your immediate physical presence.

5.  Contribute to the body of knowledge in your industry

By sharing your expertise with the world, you are not just helping those who learn from you, but you are also contributing to the body of knowledge within an entire industry.  

In a data sharing world, everything is quickly consumed, encoded, decoded and regurgitated in some way through the filters of translation, scaffolding and synthesisation of those who consumed it.  This is how evolution and innovation happen.

By simply putting your content out there, you are contributing to the evolutionary development of an industry and leaving your own little legacy in the world.

6.  Positively change people’s lives

It goes without saying that when you help someone feel better, do better, gain a new skill, be able to think, behave or synthesise knowledge in a new way, that they are quite literally changed as a result.  

It doesn’t have to be dramatic – simply be the help that you wish you’d had when you first started on your journey.

By sharing what you know with someone else, you are able to change who they are and what they can do, ultimately changing their lives.

7.  Gain a global client base

There are over 3 billion internet users out there and many of them are looking for content that you currently have locked up in your head.  

The very nature of the internet allows anyone, from anywhere, to access a global market.

To simultaneously share an article with someone in New York and Sydney at precisely the same moment, just by pressing ‘post’.  

With the right course titles and descriptions, your courses can be found without you even having to advertise them. Going online means going global.  Instantly.

8.  Earn passive income

The art of finding a practice whereby you have money deposited into your bank account without emitting physical effort to enable the transaction – passive income.   

You have to create the course in the first place, and ongoing marketing requires effort, but the actual transaction is passive by definition.

Students enroll themselves, pay online and start taking the content – all without your input.

The online world enables us to automate so many traditionally time consuming activities, to the point where entire businesses can now be run with the use of some smart apps, tools and software; bringing income into our bank accounts without having to be sat near our computer at all.

9. Increased exposure

In a world where income is capped if you’re only exchanging time for money, it is vital to maximise your exposure and scalability – which means getting in front of larger groups, multiple platforms of exposure and going online.

Learning programs and products give you the opportunity for making a much greater and far-reaching impact to you and your target audience.

The more educational products you have out there, the more exposure you get; and this generates public awareness about your business, products and services.

10.   Scalable business model

Creating online courses enables you to take on thousands of new students daily without you having to hire staff or significantly increase your workload or resources.  

With online courses, there is no limit to how many learners could enroll on your training.

The added benefit is that more students doesn’t necessarily mean more work in the world of online learning either.

The more courses you produce, the more students you will attract, the higher your monthly income will be from one off payments and subscriptions to your online school alike.

Your customer base gets bigger, your income gets higher and your work load remains low.

11.  Lead generation

Any income starts with getting ‘leads’ (prospects).  

The very nature of educating your market with blogs, books, ebooks, online courses, videos and more attracts people who are interested in your product, simply by them hitting the internet with a question that your content had the answer to.

If they are interested in the free content, then the chances are that they will be interested in the paid content too.

With this in mind you can add tracking pixels into your blogs and online schools now so that you can capture the data of your readers and watchers and directly target them in future advertising.

Edupreneurship is about establishing a following for the long term gain and knowing that a free blog post today could very well become a high-ticket client later down the line.

12.  Increased revenue

If you are reaching more people, you are attracting more prospective customers.

Statistically, the more prospects you have, the higher your chances are of increasing your sales.

If you have tied this in with the scalability of online learning, then your income potential is now limitless.

Not only do your online courses become new income streams in their own right, but the other products and services you have an offer can be connected to your courses in the form of upsells, earning you more business.

13.  Relationship and rapport building

We’ve all heard the advice that to be successful, we need to make sure that our audience know, like and trust us.  

By creating helpful videos, especially ‘talking head’ videos, your audience get to soak in your knowledge, develop a huge amount of gratitude and trust in you for it, and feel like they get to know you via the transmission of your personality and character in your videos.

When you’re providing education, your audience engages, interacts and communicates with you. This builds long term relationships, followers and fans; which ultimately leads to sustainable business.

14.  Increased sales of ancillary products and services

Although you can very easily make good money from your online courses, they are not necessarily what will make you rich on their own.  

By using online courses as a pathway or bridge between different products and services, you increase your impact, and in turn interlink your income streams for greater profitability.  

Last thoughts:

Using your knowledge and expertise ‘edupreneurially’ proves to the world that you have the skills and expertise that you say you do.

This in turn provides further opportunity for your business, your brand and of course, all of the people that you are helping in the process of sharing your expertise.

If you are ready to become an Edupreneur in 2018, join the Legends lab today.