The half hearted quest for the MBA really began sometime in my senior year of college. I was meeting with my career advisor Bill Kolidinsky at the Rutgers Career office in New Brunswick who suggested two school: Thunderbird and Babson. Although I was not into the idea, I did go to the Thunderbird interview and did fairly well since they began sending me those direct mail pieces encouraging me to apply.
The truth was I was a bit arrogant since I had been running the business department of the college newspaper, The Rutgers Daily Targum. I figured I knew all that business school had to offer. After all, I had 5 or 6 direct reports and 100 part-time employees, a $250,000 annual budget and made $5000 per year in my junior and senior years at a time when tuition, room and board for school was less than $2000. I went to small claims court to sue deadbeat advertisers, settled all sorts of legal claims, sold advertising, learned how to manage the accounting (thank goodness we had a real book-keeper;there was no Quickbooks in those days). My friends Arthur and Sherwin sold advertising like crazy and I got commissions on their commissions. We still chuckle over the time the local sub shop - Greasy Tony's-- owed us money from the previous year (maybe a $1000) and they wanted to advertise their "buy one get one free" kick off for the fall semester. Arthur noticed that on the day he went to get the ad copy and I told him no advertising until they paid, that Greasy Tony's was taking a large delivery of cold cuts for the special. In an astute move that has made Arthur fairly well off as an adult, he told Tony that all that meat was going to go bad unless he could advertise with us and the only way he could advertise with us was to pay off the bill. Arthur walked out with a check for $1000. The ads ran, Tony sold out. The check did not bounce.
Further adding fire to find a job versus getting the MBA was that my grades were pretty mediocre, barely breaking 2.9 and those low down GMATs scores were just hanging over my head like little ice picks. Everntually, even Bill Kolodinsky came around to the realization that I was not going to graduate school and helped me get my first advertising job. MBA off the radar.
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2 comments:
Do you really think an MBA this late in life will get clients? Do they care about your education or examples of your business successes for your clients? You may be spending your hard-earned money for basically nothing.
No MBA will get you clients; and it's only impressive for a minute. It is how you use new knowledge to leverage new ideas into client businesses. What I am gaining today is a renewed perspective, and the ability bring newly evolving academic insights into my experience at a senior level, rather than at an entry level. Amortize the cost over the next 20 or 30 years, and NPV is quite high. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, my son's will just have to pick-up the tab. As for the intangible, I am increasing my network, meeting new people and you never know in business development where that will lead. If you are into Masearti's, then this is not for you. As my mother said: why not lease a Maserati for two years; it's the same cost? The Maserati is fun for about a minute or a week; this is a better investment.
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