Education is the market of the future.

About education and lifelong learning

How do you react to the constant change in your profession and in the entire markets? Education is the market of the future!

Angela Merkel mentioned her idea of lifelong learning at the WEF in Davos. Technology is changing incredibly fast, also driving the education market.

Stuart Ross started the discussion about this topic in the last SFM monthly visionary call. I would like to provide some additional context.

 

Who will be Apple in 2030?

 

Today, some of the biggest players worldwide are tech companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, …
During the last decades, they marked the rise of technology and it changed our world forever.

Since 2013, devices started to work better and better and the consumer now is in the possession of devices we all dreamt about in 1999.

The changes in our technological environment are fascinating but also frightening!

How can we master the constant need for education in a connected world?

The process of digitalization is not foreseeable! In just a moment every sector can get hit and nobody cares about.
Did you care when bookstores went out of business because of growing online sales, when taxi drivers protested against Uber … there will be more …

I strongly believe it will become more relevant to all of us, to constantly re-skill to meet the market.

The speed of change in my profession as a Business Analyst, IT System Administrator and Programmer is outrageous.
Technology and languages change so fast, your knowledge gets to maybe 60% less relevance in 4 years.

Currently, there are development cycles of half a year announced for some libraries …
But it is not just the speed of change of each library or each technology. It is about the great variety of technologies you need to cover as a professional.

 

The only solution for all of us will be lifelong learning!

A big part of education can be delivered as free content by platforms like Youtube and Wikipedia. Besides, there is also a big market growing, where paid educational content is delivered.
Other products are getting offered in the education process like masterminds, conferences, etc.

What is your benefit, if you take an advanced study course at a private provider, even if you get certified?
When the course ends, you might be up to date with the current trend for the cost of maybe 5000$ (Swiss price for a Social Media Manager education).
A year or two later you need to take the course again while the world moved on.

The solution to this issue might be education products, where you pay a fee to join and constantly learn.

 

There are some things to consider …

The education system in the US is very expensive for the individual. Studying is almost always paired with student loans. Many leaders claim, that a diploma from college will not bring these kids the high salaries anymore to pay off their student loans because earnings are shifting away from traditional jobs to working online.

Some prognosticate 45% of the workforce in the US working from home in 10-15 years.
Companies will not be able to pay for constant education. Each of us will be required to do his/her own homework to keep up to date with the change.

Since the last crisis in 2007, the US was not able to solve the credit problem of student loans and it seems to be just a matter of time until colleges will be hit by the next financial crisis. The result of colleges going bankrupt might be a big loss in creditability for colleges and maybe even universities and people might look around for other solutions to get their kids educated.

The internet provides us with the possibility to educate everyone on this planet!

The variety of things we can teach and learn are outrageous!

Every specialty might get the interest of 100’000 or millions of people.

Big players like universities and “Fachhochschulen” (Swiss professional education) are setting up their education online.
Many courses can now be watched online at the time the student decides.

 

Free education

Youtube is an incredible source of all sorts of knowledge!

I absolutely love Youtube!

You can become a master in almost everything through Youtube. The challenge to find the relevant sources concerning a topic and the amount of information besides the distraction through proposed videos remains the challenge.

But there is a lot more to find on google than just videos … articles, podcasts, blogs, platforms they all provide an incredible archive for the interested human being.

The big downside is the long time you spend searching. This can become critical as it is your ability to search, deciding if you find the red line for the things you want to achieve. If you calculate time into costs it will be hard to account these self-studies to any project.

By experience, we know that it is crucial for becoming successful to be efficient when learning new skills!

 

 

Paid education

Almost any ambitious individual did some additional education and certification during his/her career.

Here in Switzerland, additional education besides work is seen as important and courses can get expensive very fast.

In the online market, you can find all kinds of platforms. They provide a variety of courses about specific topics like linda.com, pairing up with LinkedIn Learning. These platforms are better organized then Youtube and might be more specific to a niche.

These sources did serve me a lot, but I was missing some things:
• a guide
• a practical business model
• a community to exchange ideas

I ran into the SFM education and community. Their concept of educating is an example of a modern lifelong learning education system for adults, starting very practical.

I am convinced, that for everyone, first of all, it is a big mind shift to understand how the world is working today. It is the challenge for everyone to open up his/her mind and get practical in the new environment to get trained.

Especially the generations 40+ will be struggling with the digitalization and all these people have to re-skill.

 

The speed of change

The speed of change is another quite relevant factor concerning education.

Due to the enormous speed of change in the technology sector and the incredible possibilities available now in all sectors, it will be difficult for professors and teachers to keep up with the development if they are not part of the real economy.

A new generation of teachers and leaders is growing. These new leaders persisted in the market and built a base of followers.

Anyone can promote his ideas and we suffer from the difficulty of selecting truth and professional information. This is a problem we will have to control further as we lose the media industry to social media feeds to consume information.

Many individuals are building their education product but to find the real expert Know-How is hard.

What I need as an individual are some platforms, dedicated to providing me a lifelong learning campus.

 

Education is the market of the future – We need education

When I started to educate myself concerning the digitalization in 2016, people here in Switzerland laughed at me. But the development went fast and it will be necessary to learn new concepts for anyone.

It does not matter if you want to socialize, get a job or get a client. You will need the ability to market yourself or any product you promote online. This can be done through so many different platforms and systems, so it can be quite challenging to develop a winning strategy.

Personally, I am convinced, there is a growing market for any form of education online but I also think, days will be over soon when people could sell a book or a course and succeed.

I evaluated the SFM education and systems. I was looking for an education in marketing but I was also really interested, in how the new riches made their fortunes. I was buying in, because of the leaders and the team behind them, which they managed to grow through the years. Another important factor for me was the community of active people paired with an idea of lifelong learning. Education is the market of the future!

I am convinced of my need to have a growing knowledge base at hand, provided by the SFM/DEA System.
At the essential level, I get LinkedIn learning and my Marketing Mastery (Gold) is stuffed with actualized knowledge of current trends in online marketing, including conference recordings and certificates.

While many of the current leaders in the space of online marketing and entrepreneurship focus on fast growth and mass marketing, Stuart Ross and Jay Kubassek are focusing on a fulfilled and sustainable form of entrepreneurship to get a lifestyle of choice.

Let’s see what you build … join here!

 

Comparison of the education market and the tech market

Margins in the tech market for product sales are decreasing for years. The costs of education are much higher and due to the circumstances of digitalization, people start to understand their need for education. They are willing to spend a substantial amount of money for it.

Education does not only concern kids and schools, but we are also talking about reskilling almost the entire workforce.

Depending on age and education level, higher education in any field can get to 10’000$ but reach 100’000$ and more for masterminds.

If you include the price of producing online education, you don’t need to rent office space or additional equipment. The big spread between costs and earnings looks pretty obvious. Besides costs for a course or semester plans, the industry is moving into membership concepts. Recurring income to the education company is the opportunity.

In my point of view, given the changes in our environment, education just started to take off.

 

How to invest in education and in the education market?

Education in my point of view is of real value to the society compared to financial constructs like Bitcoin and the entire Fintech industry.

There is no speculation involved but a real need. It is not about trading stocks at the financial markets but about the selling of products. Sales is a highly sustainable skill and while some parts of it can be automated, others are driven by direct communication between humans. It will most probably depend on creativity to find new ways to tackle the buyer.

 

Your own education!

Well, first of all, you should take care of your own education!

Whatever you do, make sure you develop your strength and drive your skills to the top in the area of your talent.

 

Investments in education companies

When it comes to investing in education companies, this can be quite tricky. The obvious space is covered by the big players already like LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, Code Academy and many more. Universities around the globe are jumping on the online trend too, offering various packages.
So you could invest in company Stock like LinkedIn but many players do not offer public investments.

 

Invest for higher commissions

But there is also another option, provided by the concept of affiliate marketing.

In short, affiliate marketing means, you connect the buyer and the seller to get a commission from the seller for any sale you trigger.

This model made Amazon big. Anyone can become an associate at Amazon and get up to 10% commissions for sold goods.

The same model is used in the online education space by the various producers of educational content in almost any niche. It is an unwritten rule in the affiliate business to just promote products you purchased and tested. Most of these products provide higher commissions for affiliate sales if you invested through your own purchase.

 

Your own education product

It is an incredible opportunity to stand out as a teacher or a leader!

If you are good at what you are doing you can find a big audience around the planet for your content. There are many ways to monetize it by yourself with a little knowledge about common online marketing strategies.

You could also provide courses for LinkedIn Learning or Udemy or many other online learning sites.

 

Fazit

Education will be one of the big themes in the next 20 to 50 years. It might be useful to have a plan about how to integrate education in your life and your investment objective.