It used to be that if you wanted to get a good business education, you had to learn it on your own or spring the time and money on an expensive MBA.
Luckily, that’s a thing of the past.
In fact, some of the best business courses out there are online and highly affordable. That means you’ll be able to get a world-class business education from the comfort of your own home on your own time.
There are TONS of them out there too. That can be a good and bad thing. Good because you’ll have a wide variety of different courses and instructors to choose from. Bad because, well, there’s simply too many of them. That can make it hard to decide on which course to go with.
That’s why we’ve done the research leg work for you.
Below are the best business courses out there. We’ve extensively reviewed dozens and dozens of courses, and have narrowed it down to these very best ones.
The 5 Best Business Courses
- Earnable – Best for Creating an Online Business Selling Info-Products
- Seth Godin’s Freelancer Course – Best for Creating a Freelance Business
- Master Your People Skills – Best for Developing Interpersonal Relationships
- Financial Accounting Made Fun: Eliminating Your Fears – Best Business Accounting Course
- Hubspot Academy – Best Digital Marketing Courses
Keep reading below for our full reviews of each business course.
#1. Earnable – Best for Creating an Info-Products Business
• Great for online business
• Develop top selling info products
• Premium course
• Access to great community
• Enroll today!
Full disclosure: I have worked with Ramit before in the past.
While I won’t be sharing any insider knowledge with you, I can say that his Earnable product is one of the best courses out there when it comes to creating a business around selling info-products.
What’s an info-product? It’s a digital product that is focused on teaching or informing your customers. Think online courses, e-books, Internet communities, and more.
Earnable walks you through each step of the process when it comes to creating an online business. From coming up with a million dollar business idea, to creating your site, to coming up with your first product, this course shows you it all.
Ramit draws on more than a decade of experience blogging, selling, and building his business online to help. All of his methods are tested, proven, and have helped thousands of people get their online businesses started as well.
The downside? The course itself is pretty pricey. Though it’s obscured on his website, it’s likely around $2000-$3000 to enroll.
Of course, this is a premium product that gives you instant access to a community of like-minded entrepreneurs and guided step-by-step instruction on how to create a business. Plus if you consider the ROI of a successful business, it could be worth it.
#2. Seth Godin’s Freelancer Course – Best for Creating a Freelance Business
• Best for freelancing
• Taught by Seth Godin
• Learn to build your freelance business
• 4+ hours with 14 downloadable assets
• Enroll today!
Freelancing is one of the best ways to earn extra money on the side. It’s also a great way to build a business while you work for someone else.
And when it comes to a good online freelance business course, look no further than Seth Godin. He’s an author, entrepreneur, and the instructor for a fantastic course all on freelancing.
In it you’ll learn:
- How to build a stellar freelance reputation
- Tactics to find and choose good clients
- Strategies to create a personal brand
- Methods of increasing demand for your services
This course isn’t just for beginners either. Even if you’re an experienced freelancer, you’ll be able to use the lessons Godin teaches you to separate your offerings from the pack—and earn more money doing it.
The course includes more than four hours of video instructions by Godin himself. You’ll also have 14 downloadable assets to help you learn even more.
Interested? You can purchase the course on Udemy for a one time payment of $199.99. That’s actually quite the bargain compared to some other business courses out there, and you’ll learn straight from a professional while doing it.
#3. Master Your People Skills – Best for Developing Interpersonal Relationships
• Be more persuasive
• Build better relationships
• Effortlessly network
• 30 lessons and 22+ hours of content
• Enroll today!
One of the most important assets of any entrepreneur or employee is the ability to connect with others. Not only is it good for business, but it can also help you in other facets of your personal and love life as well.
That’s why we can’t recommend Master Your People Kills enough.
Taught by Vanessa Van Edwards, a lead investigator at the Science of People and bestselling author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People, this course shows you how you can effectively communicate ideas and build relationships.
Over the course of 30 lessons (45-60 minutes each), Van Edwards teaches you how to:
- Leave a winning first impression
- Attract more clients and customers
- Become more persuasive and influential
- Boost your confidence in any social situation
And more!
In all this course is 22 hours and 55 minutes long. That’s nearly 23 full hours of content including bonus lessons and actionable takeaways to help you develop great people skills.
The price is a one time fee of $104. That’s a massive bargain for the skills you’ll walk away with after this course.
#4. Financial Accounting Made Fun: Eliminating Your Fears – Best Business Accounting Course
• Learn the basics of business finances
• Manage income statements, balance sheets, and more
• Track and improve key metrics
• 4 weeks of classes
• Enroll today!
Your finances are the bedrock of your business. If they aren’t in order, expect to lose money and potentially face legal trouble down the line.
To help solve that, you’ll want a course that’ll teach you the basics on how to manage your business’s finances in plain and simple language. That’s where Babson’s Financial Accounting Made Fun course comes in.
This is the course for any entrepreneur or business owner scared by numbers. It’ll help you make sense of your financial statements and identify the key metrics you need to track in order to grow your business and profits.
It’ll introduce you to concepts such as:
- Income statements
- Balance sheets
- Cash flow statements
- Financial balancing
- Growth drivers
By the end of the course, you’ll be able to craft a financial forecast of your business that’ll win over any potential stakeholder and investor.
The course itself is four weeks long. Each week, expect to spend 4-6 hours on the course work. You’ll be taught by Peter Wilson, a professor of accounting and law at Babson College.
Pricing-wise, the course costs $199. After you finish, you’ll receive a signed certificate to show your achievements and knowledge.
#5. Hubspot Academy – Best Digital Marketing Courses
• Great for digital marketing
• Earn certifications for LinkedIn
• Beginner friendly
• Courses are FREE
• Enroll today!
A cornerstone of any good business is its marketing. After all, if people don’t know about your business, you won’t get any business.
That’s why you want to learn a thing or two about marketing. Luckily, the days of costly advertisements on television, billboards, and print media are gone. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can get started with digital marketing
That’s where Hubspot Academy comes in.
The company is most known for their marketing automation solutions. However, they also offer a stellar line of courses dedicated to:
- Marketing
- Sales
- Service
- Web design
- Web development
- Data privacy
Some of the courses also come with certifications as well that you can put on your personal
website and LinkedIn page.
While they offer courses across a number of categories, its their digital marketing certifications that really shine. Even if you’re a completely newbie to the subject, their expert team of instructor and digital marketing pros walk you through the basics of it all.
From inbound, content, email, and social media marketing, Hubspot is likely to have the course you need to learn about marketing online.
I personally really like their inbound and content marketing certifications. They’re excellent and comprehensive courses that consistently test you on your knowledge to make sure you know the information taught.
The best part? Hubspot Academy is FREE. Try any of their courses and certifications today and level up your marketing game.
How to Choose the Best Business Course
Wondering about which one you should choose? Or maybe you want to know how we went about choosing the courses to include on this list?
Choosing a course is a difficult process on its face. But really, its simple if you consider a few elements:
Goals
Namely, what do you want to learn from a business course? Your answer is likely going to be different from another person.
After all the beginner entrepreneur starting from scratch is going to have much different goals than the mid-career specialist looking to widen his skill set.
So ask yourself: What am I looking to learn? What are my goals and objectives with my career in business?
This will ultimately be the deciding factor of the course you go with. However, if you really want a well-rounded business learning experience, I recommend taking as many courses as you can (depending on your budget of course).
Instructor qualifications
Who is teaching your course is just as important as the subject matter and price point.
In fact, it’s arguably the most important thing.
When looking at these online business courses, you’ll want to see who will be teaching you. What is their background? What are their qualifications? What have they built and accomplished that makes them the subject matter expert on this topic?
It’s also a good idea to do some research on the instructor. Hit Google up and see if there are any reviews about what it’s like to learn under the person.
Trust me: If someone has a bad experience after springing $200-$2000 on a course, they’re going to let the Internet know about it.
Student testimonials
Related to the instructor qualifications are the testimonials. You want to make sure that students who have taken the course before enjoyed the product and review it warmly.
Of course, the testimonials you find on a course’s website are only worth so much. That’s why you’ll want to see if there are any third-party testimonials out there that can vouch for the course.
Some good places you can look for raw, brutally honest reviews are Reddit and YouTube. Just search the course name or the instructor’s name plus “review.” You’ll likely be furnished with tons of different in-depth reviews on the courses.
Of course, experience is going to vary from student to student. However, I find that the most enlightening information you can get about a course typically comes from these sources.
Bonus: Community
This one isn’t necessary for a good online business course, but it is very nice to have. Check to see if the course comes with access to a community of like-minded students.
Why? A few reasons:
First, a community helps motivate you and keep you on track for your goals. It’s easier to let lessons and homework fall by the wayside if no one is checking in on you. Having others there to help you along is incredibly beneficial psychologically.
A good online community also fosters long-term relationships. These are networking opportunities that might open doors to more business in the future. Even when your course is done, you’ll likely find yourself turning to that community later when you’re in need of help—or when you want to help others out as well.
Like I said though, this isn’t absolutely necessary. However, if a course has a solid community of other students, then you can probably bet it’s a good one.
Conclusion
Here’s our list of the five best business courses again:
- Earnable – Best for Creating an Online Business Selling Info-Products
- Seth Godin’s Freelancer Course – Best for Creating a Freelance Business
- Master Your People Skills – Best for Developing Interpersonal Relationships
- Financial Accounting Made Fun: Eliminating Your Fears – Best Business Accounting Course
- Hubspot Academy – Best Digital Marketing Courses
Choosing the right online course depends on your goals. However, if you can afford it, I highly suggest you take as many as possible. After all, knowledge is power.
Now stop reading and get started learning.
Source: quicksprout
Best Business Courses