Has the Internet Made Teaching Lucrative?

When I turned 18, my father took me aside to talk about my future.

I dont care what you do for a living, he said, as long as you dont go into education.

I obeyed to a point. I never did go into academia; I didnt become a schoolteacher or a professor.

But I currently run a business that teaches craftsmen and professionals how to master the fundamentals of business on their own terms, without spending years in school and without racking up six-figure debts.

Im in education, along with thousands of other people who teach valuable skills online. Brian is in education. So is Sonia. And most likely, so are you.

My dad was a schoolteacher

And he was a damn good one.

His specialties were math and science. Instead of following the textbook or drilling for tests, his students learned by doing real experiments. Every outlet in his classroom was used to power some sort of gadget. Piranhas prowled his fishtanks. Model rockets in various stages of construction were a fixture they were the tools he used to teach sixth graders physics, chemistry, and trigonometry.

When I was eight years old, my dad decided to stop teaching. Not because he wanted to, but because working as a teacher in a tiny Ohio township didnt pay enough to support our family. Dads salary was so low that our family qualified for the free/reduced lunch program at the school where he taught.

So, instead of doing what he loved to do, Dad decided to switch from teaching to administration, and began a career as an elementary school principal.

The change dramatically improved the family budget, but it was a very real sacrifice. Instead of directly inter! acting w ith his students in the classroom, Dad spent most of his time filling out paperwork, handling school politics, disciplining the 5% of the student population that couldnt behave, and managing the parents of those students, who (more often than not) were angry their children were being disciplined.

That job made my dad miserable for over twenty years. Its little wonder he warned me away from education.

I honestly tried to take my dads advice

I enrolled in college as a computer engineering major, since I was good at working with computers. Engineering was a respected, high-paying profession, which sounded great to me as a young man with no experience in the world of work.

It didnt take me long to learn the dangers of mystique after a years worth of classes, it was clear that Id be miserable as an engineer. I didnt care very much about how to make a faster microprocessor I cared far more about how people use technology.

Since engineering wasnt right for me, I decided to try business. My computer skills led me into a job at a Fortune 50 corporation (Procter & Gamble), which was experimenting with using the internet to market household products. A few years later, I found myself in brand management, working for the company that invented the field.

I was in a high paying, management-track job, working for a prestigious, well-known company.

But I was miserable.

As much as I learned in my time at P&G, I couldnt get over the nagging feeling that something was wrong that if I continued on the path I was walking, Id squander my life selling bottles of soap.

So I decided to disobey my father. I went into education.

A different kind of education

By education, I dont mean credentialing the process of handing someone a fancy certificate for completing an arbitrary set of criteria, which is what passes for education in most high schools and colleges today.

I mean education in the lea! rning se nse helping people master useful skills that will improve their lives.

I started my website, PersonalMBA.com, as a side project when I graduated from college. Instead of spending an enormous sum of money on graduate school, I decided to educate myself, and share what I learned with other people interested in doing the same thing.

Two years ago, I quit my job at P&G to teach business full time. Im essentially a business professor but I dont have an MBA, I dont have a PhD, and I dont work at a business school.

I teach craftsmen and professionals how to master the fundamentals of business on their own terms, without spending years in school and without racking up six-figure debts.

My teaching business is exploding. I make my living in a way that my dad would have found hard to foresee: teaching business skills to adult learners around the world (most of whom Ive never met in person) using a few inexpensive tools, my hard-won knowledge, and my personal experience. My clients hail from over forty countries across six continents.

My initial investment in some basic digital publishing training and equipment has produced the highest ROI imaginable: a debt-free, global, six-figure teaching business. Im making more than most college professors with a fraction of their schooling.

I can work from anywhere that has a stable internet connection and a phone line. I operated my business on a dialup connection in the mountains of Colorado for six months. And I could easily move anywhere in the world at any time.

Im not saying this to brag. Im saying this to emphasize an important point: the world has changed dramatically in favor of skilled teachers.

This is a golden age of teaching

My decision to disobey my father may prove to be the best Ive ever made. Teaching for a living has brought me financial stability, an enormous amount of freedom and flexibility, and the sat! isfactio n of improving my students lives for a living. Many of the methods and tools I use to teach my students didnt exist when I graduated from college just five years ago.

That said, its important to realize that the new world of teaching has placed new demands on teachers.

Your authority and credibility no longer depend on credentials it depends on mastering skills by practicing them in the real world. You must be sensitive to what your prospective students want to learn, instead of forcing them to learn whatever you decide to teach them. And theres no such thing as tenure. You stay relevant and useful or you lose all your students.

Attracting students requires learning the arts of content marketing and sales and using them every day.

Delivering quality training requires developing technical skills you may not yet possess. Above all, you must overcome your discomfort in charging what your services are worth, and learn to ask for the sale.

Four years ago, I dreamed of teaching for a living, but I didnt know where to start. If youre in the same position, youre in the right place. Copyblogger helped me get started, and theyll help you on your journey as well.

A few weeks ago, my wife Kelsey and I welcomed our first child into the world Lela Christine. Eighteen short years from now, I expect Lela and I will have the same conversation I had with my father only its very likely Ill recommend becoming a teacher.

About the Author: Josh Kaufman is an independent business teacher, founder of PersonalMBA.com, and the author of The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business. To receive free business b! ook summ aries and practical business training, subscribe to the Personal MBA newsletter.