Do You Need an MBA to Succeed in Business?

04 May Do You Need an MBA to Succeed in Business?

Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are two of the most successful businessmen in the world. They did not graduate from college. Okay, granting they were Harvard dropouts—they did not leave some unknown college and became successful. However, the fact remains that they did not graduate from college but became successful anyway. They have proven that you don’t NEED a college degree to be successful. Following that train of thought, you don’t actually NEED a Master of Business Administration (MBA) to be a successful business owner. Notice the emphasis on NEED.

Hard work and some luck are actually better guarantees at succeeding in business. It has been proven and tested that if you work harder, the rewards will be bigger. Hard work always pays off. And luck, which is not something an entrepreneur can cook up, is random. Having said that, getting an MBA is definitely an ADVANTAGE for an entrepreneur.

MBA is an ADVANTAGE, not a NEED

Getting an MBA means higher learning. This will provide an entrepreneur with a scientific and organized skill set that will allow him to start a smart business. Smart because based on what he learned from his higher education, he will now be taking a calculated risk when starting a business. Regular businesspeople will just take a risk.

Taking up MBA also forces you to collaborate with other people—your classmates. There will be group activities that will test your ability to adjust to different personalities and work ethics. This will come in handy when you start managing people in your business. Of course, as a manager, you will be the leader of the group. But through your experience in school, you will learn how to adjust to different personalities. You can gauge how you handle one person from the other. This will also test your ability to listen. During your MBA studies, you and your classmates are on equal footing. You listen to each other’s ideas as equals. In your business, even if you are the owner and the manager, listening is still an important skill. Just because you have an MBA doesn’t mean you know everything. It is still best to solicit ideas from the entire team. Remember, an MBA degree is just an ADVANTAGE. And as they say, experience is the best teacher. You might have some employees who have more experience in the business than you. Their ideas may be better.

You get things done quicker, and you go where you need to go faster if you have an MBA. Running a business becomes smoother because you are not learning as it goes, you are already implementing the theories that you learned in school. And in school, you learned those best strategies. In your business, you are not stuck testing out the best possible procedure or solution. Decision-making will be easier for you because you have learned about the successes and failures of other businesses from your higher learning. Also, an MBA gives you credibility, which means more people would trust you and will do business with you.