October 2021 - The Distance Learner

4 blogs and 6 podcasts for distance learners interested in business

As a distance learner, you don’t have to be majoring in business to know that it’s a subject worth exploring. Business touches on nearly every organization—from hospitals to colleges to government agencies. These organizations have payroll that needs processing, news that needs to be shared, and employees who need to feel valued. All of that is part of business.

That said, learning about how business works while you’re still in school can help most distance learners have a competitive advantage over their peers once they start their career. If nothing else, being familiar with common business terms will help you sound more competent in an interview.

Business knowledge can also help distance learners determine what major to pick.

So, for instance, if you gain a little bit of marketing knowledge, and find you love it, then maybe you should consider majoring in it. Similarly, if you explore what human resources in a business looks like, and are turned off by what you see, maybe you should avoid pursuing an HR degree.

If gaining a better grasp on business sounds like something you may want, consider reading blogs or listening to podcasts. Here is a brief list to get you started.

Best business blogs

If you’re a distance learner who prefers reading to gain information, check out some of my favorite business blogs:

Ramsey Solutions: While this blog covers a variety of topics, from budgeting to relationships, I want to highlight their business posts. Aimed primarily at business owners with 200 or fewer employees, the posts are useful for anyone wanting to start or grow a business.

Seth’s Blog: Prolific author Seth Godin is a genius. His innovative ways of thinking about doing business and interacting with your customers have really benefited my own company. He publishes a new post every day, so there’s sure to be content there that appeals to you.

Business 2 Community: Full disclaimer: I wrote for these folks years ago. But their content continues to be good. They write on general business trends and for various industries like entertainment, sales, and technology.

Content Marketing Institute: Even if you don’t fancy yourself to be a marketer, you may want to be familiar with best marketing practices. Especially if you’re a budding entrepreneur, you’ll need to know how to market your product or service. This blog can help you do that.

Best business podcasts

Are you too busy reading for school to read multiple blogs on a regular basis? Here are a few podcasts to consider:

The Entreleadership Podcast: This podcast gives a lot of helpful tips on thriving in the business world. It’s been around for years, so there’s a large library of past episodes you can peruse.

How I Built This: In this NPR podcast, Guy Raz sits down with entrepreneurs all over the world to discuss their successes, failures, and lessons learned. This is great for distance learners who are interested in the stories behind some of their favorite brands.

Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield: Primarily aimed at anyone who does marketing (including small business owners), the host deals candidly with a variety of topics that connect to business, such as overcoming feelings of unworthiness. Her candid style makes her content easy to understand for folks exploring the business world

Business Wars: This podcast details the stories of famous business battles throughout the years. For instance, Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola, Southwest vs. American Airlines, and Pizza Hut vs. Domino’s. Throughout each story, the narrator provides dramatic reenactments of important conversations that happened during these times.

Business Unusual with Barbara Corcoran: The Shark Tank investor reveals insights into her own professional life and interviews successful entrepreneurs who dish out advice on what they’ve learned along the way.

Business Made Simple with Donald Miller: What I like about this podcast is the insight Donald Miller provides on business. He helps the listener understand what might be going wrong in their business, and he gets expert tips from other successful business folks.

Wrapping up

Distance learning requires a tremendous amount of brain power to be successful. But if you can spare some brain energy for business topics, you might find it worthwhile. Try reading or listening to one or two of these recommendations, and see what you think.

A novel failure: 4 career lessons I learned from my literary flop

If you’re a distance learner who is thinking about being an entrepreneur after school, failure is going to be part of life. And that’s not a bad thing.

The upside to failure is that it can contain valuable lessons. Such was the case when, during grad school, I released a novel, only to have it be a critical and commercial failure.

I’m not going to mention its name here since some of the reviews were far from flattering. But I will say that it was a fantasy/sci-fi novel that was over 100,000 words.

Because of that flop, I learned a lot of valuable lessons as an entrepreneur, some of which are listed here. Whether you plan to start your own business or join someone else’s after college, I think these lessons may be useful to you.

1. Your product isn’t for everyone

I told everyone about my book. It didn’t matter if they hated sci-fi, fantasy, or reading novels. I figured if they could read, it was for them. But it wasn’t. My novel was for a niche market, for folks who met these specific criteria:

They like reading fantasy/sci-fi novels
They don’t mind reading the work of an unknown author
They enjoy works that are not based on a franchise
They don’t mind spending $19 on a novel (my publisher set the price higher than I would have liked)

I eventually came to realize that “people who can read” is not a realistic target market to focus on. And by focusing on marketing to everyone, I hardly reached anyone.

The fact is, pretty much everything on the market is not for everyone. As you probably know, distance learning isn’t for every high school graduate. People who advertise for distance learning programs are going to market to the folks who see the benefits of such a program. Because that’s who it’s for. And that’s who pays for distance learning.

2. Be wary of potential business partners

I didn’t go the traditional publishing route, meaning I put up some cash for the publisher to publish it, and they supposedly put up a lot more cash to edit, produce, and market the book. I say “supposedly” because, once I was already committed, I learned my editor was terrible. He actually introduced more grammatical and spelling errors than he fixed. I ended up editing and proofreading the whole thing myself.

In my current business, my business partner is also one of my best friends, so I’m very confident that I’ve picked the right person to start a company with.

If you can’t go into business with a great friend, at least make sure you have fully vetted them. Talk to people who know them. Look them up online to see if they are who they claim to be. The point is, whether you choose to start a business with someone else during or after your distance learning education, you need to pick the right partner.

3. Live out your company values

My publisher was named Tate Publishing. They went out of business years ago because their leadership was shady, and they were getting sued to oblivion by all the authors they bamboozled.

So, why did I go with them as my publisher? Among other reasons, they told me how they were a values-driven company. Nothing wrong with being values-driven, but you have to actually stick to the values for your company to work in the long run.

Unfortunately, Tate lied to their customers and underperformed at the work they were claiming to do. Deception and incompetence don’t make great values for a company to have.

If you set up a company and claim to have certain values, be true to those. You’re not perfect, but you can at least be honest and ethical.

4. Don’t rush the process

I was trying to get my novel out as soon as possible. I wanted to capitalize on having a book signing at my college while I was still a grad student. And I wanted to capitalize on the fact that I was still young enough for people to be impressed that I’d finished a novel. I also figured I should do it before I started my career.

Looking back, I wish I’d listened to the warnings of an older mentor about doing business with Tate. I wish I’d paid more attention to the online criticisms leveled against the publisher. Had I taken the time to revise the book while waiting for a proper publisher to come along, perhaps it wouldn’t have flopped.

Wrapping up

Consider this quote from Winston Churchill: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

I hope you’ll finish your distance learning education strong and start strong with your career of choice. And if you ever plan to publish a book, be careful of the publisher you partner with.