Category: Business 9

Throughout this course, Dr. North has touched on the topic of college many times.  Each time he advises skipping the first two years of college by taking CLEP courses and to only enter in your junior year.  Even then, he advises to do college from home if you are able to.  This way of college is much better than the traditional way as it saves your parents money.  In this essay, I am going to talk about would I be better off if my parents will give me a college graduation present: half of the money they presently plan to pay for my college costs.

Before I begin, I would like to state that Dr. North gave this essay prompt with the assumption that the student would follow his plan.  I personally think that this idea is a great one, however I unable to implement it.  CLEP exams are an American program.  Now that I live in Asia, and will probably be doing college in Asia, CLEP exams have no meaning to any college.  No college will accept CLEP credits.

But for the sake of the essay, let’s pretend that I go to an American college and I use Dr. North’s plan.

At graduation my parents give me half of my college tuition funds.  Would this benefit me more than them paying for my tuition?

Yes, I think so.  Assuming that I only pay for junior and senior year of college, I would have only paid half of what my peers did.   Then, when my parents give me half of my college funds, I will have gained the amount of money I paid. 

As you can see, my parents giving me half of my college tuition as a graduation present is better than them paying for all of my college experience.  With the money I can find my own apartment and have funds in my savings for when I join the workforce.

For the past 170 lessons I have been learning a lot of different things about how to run/start a business.  But out of the many things I have learned this year, three things about starting a Business has stuck out in my memory.  In this essay, I am going to be talking about those three things.

Planning

Planning is an essential part of starting a business. 

When you have a business idea, you may be tempted to jump into it without much thought.  Dr. North says that a lot of young entrepreneurs get excited and start right away without thinking about how they are going to do it.  They think “I’ll start the business now and figure the rest out later”, but that is the wrong approach.

My business, which is an e-book, requires a lot of planning.  I cannot simply jump into it.  First, I need to write the book.  Secondly, find out what is involved when I want to publish my e-book to Amazon Kindle.  Then, find out how to create a cover.  Then, there is the issue of how I am going to advertise.  Only after I have figured all of that out can I start the process.

The good thing about writing a book is that it buys me time to do the research on the things I have listed.

Your plan does not need to perfect the first time you create it.  It does not even have to be good, it only has to exist. 

Like Dr. North says, a bad plan is better than no plan.

Setting Goals

You may be thinking, “setting goals is the same as planning,” and you would be somewhat correct.  In my mind, setting goals is a way of planning and should come after you have launched your business.

Setting goals are extremely important when doing anything, especially when you are starting a business.  For many people, they may read this and think “well you obviously need to set goals.”  But do you know how to?

When I first started the Ron Paul Curriculum at the age of ten, it was challenging for me to take full control of my school at first.  My Dad and I started to sit down every Sunday before the week started and plan what subjects I had to do during the week and what lesson I need to have completed by Friday.  As I have gotten older, I started to take more control of the planning.  Now, at age 13, my Dad and I still sit down every Sunday, but it is me telling him what I plan to do during the week so he knows what I am doing.

A lot of adults might not know how to set realistic goals when they have to do something.  I learned that it is better to set small goals instead of huge ones.

For example, let’s say that I launch my business on January 1^st.  I can set small goals like, by January 31^st, I will have ten customers.  Or, by the end of year I have made a minimum of $1000 from my business.

Smaller is better in this situation.

The Younger You Are the Better

In business it is better to start young instead of when you are older.  When you are young, it is safer to take calculated risks in your business compared to when you are older.  The young are tough, we can recover easily and we do not have much to lose.  You can also gain experience and learn things you did not know before.

Conclusion

As you can see, the Business I course had taught be a lot about how to start a small business.  Before I started the course, I already had a vague idea of how to start one.  But now, I feel that I know enough to start trying to begin a small business.

Thanks for reading!

This week in Business, Dr. North talked a lot about how to convince a small businessman who uses Yellow Pages to switch to online marketing.  However, this piece of the course is outdated.  I do not know of a single business, big or small, that still uses Yellow Pages.  Today’s essay was supposed to be my plan for helping a small businessman switch from Yellow Pages to Google AdWords.  But seeing how this would be pointless as I will never use this plan, I will be talking about how I would advertise my business.

In this situation, my ‘business’ will be my self-published e-book that I am currently writing and I am the businesswoman who needs to advertise her business.

My plan for advertising is to go on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok to promote my book.  Since my book is YA (young adult), and the target audience are teenagers, I feel that social media is the best way to reach them.  I intend to emulate other authors who have done similar things for their books like Chloe Gong, author of YA book These Violent Delights.

On my account, my videos will be about my writing process, little snippets from my book to get people interested, character aesthetics (I have noticed that people like videos like these), and many other different types of videos to get people interested in my book.  From an article I read, you can find it here, they mentioned to take advantage of any audios or hashtags that are trending at the moment.

As you can see, I already have a plan for how I want to advertise my e-book even though I have not finished writing it yet.  While Dr. North talks a lot about using Google AdWords, I feel that if I did that I would not be able to reach my target audience or get much attention.

Thanks for reading!

THE TRUTH ABOUT GOOGLE ADWORDS

Dear Reader,

Many businessmen try and fail to use Google AdWords for their small businesses. 

Does this mean that Google AdWords is a horrible program to use?  No!  These businessmen simply do not know how to utilize it.

Do not make the same mistake as them.  I highly advise you to give the program a chance.

Here is why:

• Google is the biggest search engine in the world, making it the best option for marketing your business.
• It is possible to use multiple keywords at the same time.
• Your ads will appear at the top of the page, allowing it to get seen immediately.
• Can reach viewers through their Gmail inboxes.
• Monitoring who clicked on your ad and which keywords generate the most traffic is easy with Google AdWords.
• You can see how long a visitor stayed on your page and how many pages they went to.
• All of the work can be done from the comfort of your home.

Are you convinced yet?  Or do you want to start but don’t know where to begin?  Worry not, because I have the perfect solution for you!

I ask you to read Ultimate Guide to Local Business Marketing by Perry Marshall and Talor Zamir.  Click here to see their book.

Still not convinced?  Here are five more reasons to start using Google AdWords today.

• You can limit how far your ad will go (eg. 10 – 20 miles from your location).
• The design of the ad is entirely under your control. 
• Google AdWords is one of the most inexpensive platforms out there.
• Running the ad by yourself is easy and simple.
• You have the ability to instantly alter or pause your campaign.  Regardless of the time of day, you can change keywords, designs, or anything else you might want modify.

Don’t wait!  Start your free Google AdWords account today!

~Sophia Elahi

This week I started reading The Ultimate Guide To Local Business Marketing by Perry Marshall and Talor Zamir and analysing Bob Bly’s landing pages for his books.  In today’s essay, I am going to talk about what I learnt from reading Bob Bly’s landing pages.

Before I begin, here is a link to one of the pages I had to analyse this week.  You do not have to read it, but I would advise skimming through it for a few seconds so you know what I am going to be talking about.

Number one, small paragraphs and lists are easy on the eyes.  One of the main characteristics of Bly’s landing pages is how short the paragraphs are.  I know that short paragraphs are easy on the eyes and entice readers to continue reading.  I also noticed how he consistently lists of all the information his book offers and cites the pages where he talks about the certain topic.  People do not want to read long, dry paragraphs.  They want quick and easy.  Bob Bly knows this, which is why his pages are enjoyable to read and analyse.

Number two, the Order Now button.  Earlier in the week Dr. North stated that when writing a landing page you should bring up the order now option frequently.  At the time, I did not like that idea.  In my mind, it felt like I would be forcing the ordering option down my reader’s throat, but Bly showed me how to do this without seeming forceful. 

If you clicked on the link I gave, you would see that his page is very long, but he shows the Order Now button multiple times throughout the page.  By doing this, your reader can click the link and skip the rest of the extensive advertisement.  This brings me to the final thing I learnt from him.

Number three, there is nothing wrong with lengthy advertisements.  At first, I was convinced that good advertisements are short and concise, but persuasive.  But Bob Bly showed me that you can have long advertisements and still be persuasive.  I personally think that the only reasons Bly’s long pages work is because of how often he gives the Order Now button.

As you can see, Bob Bly’s landing pages taught me a lot about marketing this week.  After reading his marketing pages this week, I can see why he is as successful as he is.

This week in Business I have been learning about why people do not start their own business despite all of the advantages.  One of the reasons that Dr. North spent a lot of time talking about is procrastination.  In one of the video lessons this week, he stated that he believes that procrastination kills, and I agree with him.

If you have not taken the Business course with Dr. North, you may think that I am over exaggerating and that there is nothing wrong with procrastination.  Before I started the 9^th Grade Business course, I thought that as well.  But Dr. North gave many points that procrastination is not a habit you want to keep.  In this essay, I am going to show two examples proving that procrastination can kill.

Example One

When I was younger, I loved to write stories.  I would come up with story ideas and write them down, then get lazy and tell myself that I’ll finish writing it later.  “Later,” never happened and now, years later, I have a notebook full of incomplete stories that I never finished because I procrastinated.

Procrastination killed my ideas.

Example Two

A man starts waking up in the middle of the night with extreme chest pains and struggling to breath.  A few days later he also starts to feel lightheaded randomly.  His wife gets worried about him and finds out that he is displaying warning signs of a heart attack.  She informs her husband and advises him to go to a doctor.  The man brushes it off and says he will go the next day.  When the next day comes, he brushes it off again.  The man continues to do this and eventually a week passes.  Then two weeks, then three, then almost a month.

One night, the man goes to sleep and then next morning wakes up in a hospital bed surrounded by machines.  His wife informs him that he had a heart attack in the middle of the night and that he almost did not make it.

In this very extreme example, the man procrastinated so much that he almost lost his life. 

Conclusion

As you can see, procrastination is a habit that you should learn how to break.  If you notice yourself procrastinating, I strongly encourage you to start trying to break this habit.  It is not a harmless habit and it can cause serious harm to yourself, and possibly those around you. 

Parents, do you want your child to have a good education?  Obviously.  Do you want your child to be excited about school without you having to nag or teach them?  If you said yes to these, you should join the Ron Paul Curriculum. 

Here are some reasons to join the Ron Paul Curriculum:

1. Ron Paul offers courses starting from Kindergarten all the way to 12^th Grade.
2. Starting 3^rd Grade students can start teaching themselves.
3. All lessons are pre-recorded videos that are only 30 minutes long, sometimes less.
4. The curriculum is 100% online, no textbooks needed.
5. Your child has a question? They can go to the chat forums where other RPC students can help them and vice versa. Ron Paul believes that you learn the best when teaching others.
6. Writing assignments are given every five lessons for every subject except Math. This teaches your child good writing skills.
7. All texts needed for reading assignments are given to students by free PDFs. But if there is no PDF, you can easily get an e-book for under $5 (the curriculum even gives you links to find the books).
8. Starting 8^th Grade, real life courses like Public Speaking, Business, and Personal Finance are offered.
9. The Curriculum shows and teaches children how to CLEP their way through the first three years of college. One of the instructors for the curriculum, Mr. Bradley Fish, has done this.
10. Your child can learn at their own pace.
11. No stressful mandatory tests. Only Math quizzes every thirty lessons.
12. The course requires students to create a free blog for their essays and to post the link to these essays on the forum. Not only does your child learn how to run a blog, they have an online archive of all their work and can get feedback from others.
13. After buying and trying out the curriculum you find out it is not for? No problem!  The curriculum offers a 100% money back guarantee if you ask for a refund 60 days after the purchase.

Don’t wait! Click here to sign up today!

For the past few weeks I have been reading and learning about how to advertise a business.  There are many ways to advertise something, but it all revolves around proof.  In this essay, I am going to be talking about two USPs of the Ron Paul Curriculum.

Firstly, what is a USP?  It stands for “Unique Selling Proposition.’  Do not get this confused with the United Parcel Service!  A USP is a unique service or benefit that your product can give to your customers.  If it is a good USP, no other brand, business, or product can offer this specific benefit to customers.

Now, let’s talk about the Ron Paul Curriculum’s USPs.

USP #1

The Ron Paul Curriculum offers many useful courses that not many in person schools can provide.  They also offer CLEP cram courses.  If you do not know what CLEP is, it stands for College Level Examination Program.  These exams give students college credit, allowing some to CLEP their way through the first two years of college, which is what Dr. North suggests to parents and students.  The student can then enter college as a junior and pay half of what their peers have to.

Sounds too good to be true?  One of the RPC’s instructors, Mr. Bradley Fish, did this.  By the time he was 18 years old he had a B.A Degree in Business.

I do not know of any in-person school, or homeschool program, that offers this way of college.  Not only does the CLEP way save money, it also saves time.  If you have taken the Personal Finance course or a Business course with the RPC, you will know that Dr. North says that time is just as valuable as money.

USP #2

Once again, I am going to be talking about time.  The Ron Paul Curriculum is very mindful of their students’ time and tends to keep their lessons short.

For any Elementary or Middle Schooler using RPC, they will have four subjects a day (not including self-added subjects).  Each video is about twenty to thirty minutes, with a ten to fifteen minute reading assignment.  With only four subjects the whole school day will only take about three to four hours.  For High schoolers, who have five RPC given subjects, the school day should only take about four to five hours.   

These school days are significantly shorter than the ones other students are subjected to.  With such short school days students have time to do things they are interested in (e.g. extracurricular activities) and will not feel too burnt out by the end of the school day.

Conclusion

As you can see, the Ron Paul Curriculum offers some very unique things that no one else can offer to you.  These are only two of its USPs.  There are many more that I could have listed, but then this essay would be way too long. 

Thanks for reading!

Have you been thinking of home-schooling your child, but are slightly hesitant to do it?  Do you want a home-school Curriculum that does not require textbooks, handwritten papers, and other nuisances?  Do you want a home-school Curriculum that offers a good education to your child without you having to act as a full-time teacher?  If you said yes to all these questions, consider joining the Ron Paul Curriculum.

The Ron Paul Curriculum is a liberty and freedom based online home-school Curriculum that offers courses from Kindergarten to 12^th Grade.  The Curriculum requires almost zero parent involvement starting 3^rd grade.  Not only does this give parents time to take care of the house or do their jobs, it teaches the student ownership and responsibility from a young age.

Every course offered in the Ron Paul Curriculum teaches students in 20-30 minute videos with reading assignments.  Every course (besides Math) requires students to write an essay every five lessons.  If you do one lesson every day, you have to write essays weekly.  This teaches students good essay skills and gives them plenty of opportunities to improve their writing.  The Curriculum also requires students to set up a blog (which is completely free if you use WordPress.com) where they can post their weekly essays.  Not only does this teach the child blogging skills, but it proves to people that your child has been doing school and has been improving their skills over the years, and it allows the student to receive feedback on their essays from other RPC students.  Students can post their essays to the various forums available.  These forums serve as a database of essays for future students and a place where students and parents can talk to one another.

The best part about the Curriculum are the high school courses.  Starting 8^th Grade real life topics are being taught to students.  The Curriculum offers a Personal Finance course, a Public Speaking course, and two Business courses in High school.

There is an annual fee of $250 and $50 for each course.  But if this Curriculum doesn’t work out for the student, you have a 60 day money back guarantee. 

If this Curriculum interests you, click here to get started.

In my last essay I listed five reasons to join the Ron Paul Curriculum based off of my personal experience.  Today’s essay is going to be slightly similar.  I am going to be listing fifteen benefits of the Ron Paul Curriculum.

Benefit One: the curriculum is self-taught starting 4^th grade.  This teaches the child discipline and gives them a sense of responsibility.

Benefit Two: because the curriculum is self-taught, parents do not have to act as full-time teachers.  They can work from home or take care of the household without having to worry about their child’s school.

Benefit Three: the curriculum is self-paced.  The student can go at whatever pace they desire, resulting in a zero stress education.

Benefit Four: if the curriculum does not work out for a certain family they have 60 days to get a refund of their money.

Benefit Five: students are not required to use textbooks.  This saves money for the parents.  All books required for the courses are free on PDFs or can be bought from Kindle for under $10.

Benefit Six: speed reading is taught in ABC (Academic Boot Camp) and encouraged in all of the other courses.

Benefit Seven: weekly essays are required starting 4^th grade.  This not only teaches the students how to write good essays, but it gives them plenty of opportunities to practice their skills.

Benefit Eight: there are forums for every course where students can talk to one another when they need help or get constructive criticism on their essays and/or speeches.  The forums also serve as a database of students’ essays, allowing future RPC students to get essays for inspiration when it is their turn to write.

Benefit Nine: RPC offers unique courses like Business (two Business courses in high school), Public Speaking, and Personal Finance.  Regular schools do not offer courses like these to high school students.

Benefit Ten: the curriculum is very easy-going and allows students to have flexible schedules.

Benefit Eleven: the curriculum is 100% online.  Because of this it is possible for the student to do schoolwork anywhere.

Benefit Twelve: there is no extra work to do after the class is over.  The student is given assignments to do after watching the videos and then that subject is done for the day.

Benefit Thirteen: RPC does not force students to do hours and hours of schoolwork everyday.  The maximum time a student can do school using RPC is 6 hours.  Of course they can do more if they wish to.

Benefit Fourteen: there is no age limit to the classes.  Unlike Public and Private schools, grades are not based on age but on the student’s knowledge.

Benefit Fifteen: everything is home-based.  There are no bullies or social drama other than the ones at home (aka siblings).