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With so much free education available on the internet, it’s becoming harder to justify the increased cost of higher education.
While some industries are still requiring a piece of paper to explain your reliability and intelligence, more companies are moving towards competence and ambition.
There are many online certifications and educational materials offered for a fraction of the price, which are as intensive as a Master of Business Administration (MBA) program.
Rather than waiting for people to complete these general MBA programs, an increasing number of companies are looking for employees who they can train to follow company policies and procedures.
Because of the vast number of MBA students who work in all different industries, most MBA programs are very general to cover many aspects of a business. While you can niche down during your elective courses, most of the core classes are broad and may be unrelated to your industry.
According to an article in the Washington Post, undergraduate students who went straight into an MBA program are often overlooked by employers. According to the article, if you’re interested in an MBA program, you should first pursue your career to gain real-world experience before going back for an MBA program.
With the continuing rise of podcast popularity, many experienced and successful business owners give listeners free and practical advice. This is why we have put together this comprehensive list of the top 18 podcasts that share information as good as getting an MBA.
Here are the top 18 podcasts that are as good as getting an MBA:
The Ideacast podcast by Harvard Business Review started in 2006, hosted by Alison Beard and Curt NIchisch, and Sarah Carmichael.
The show typically interviews high profile business leaders who offer insights into how they became successful and other actionable tips for listeners. Past guests have included Oprah Winfrey and Eric Schmidt from Google.
Hosted by Omar Zenhom, this podcast has a massive following with approximately 50,000 daily listeners. The popularity is due to the energy Omar has and his passion for helping entrepreneurs achieve their goals.
By offering actionable steps and cutting out the fluff, Omar continues to help people achieve their business dreams with over 1,500 episodes.
The business edition of TEDTalks is an excellent niche podcast geared especially for business owners or ambitious young entrepreneurs. Many guest speakers bring valuable insight into how they achieved success in business and the specific plan and route they took to reach their business goals.
Straight from the University of Pennsylvania, the Knowledge@Wharton podcast is hosted by the Wharton School of Business.
This podcast’s primary focus is to provide the most up-to-date information on the trends and news that influences businesses.
Many of the show guests include faculty from Wharton and other business leaders across all business sectors.
If you haven’t heard of the name Tim Ferriss, you may have heard of his book, The Four Hour Workweek, which he released back in 2007.
Ferriss is blatantly self-promotional, but his audience backs it up. His unique approach to his podcast is to interview someone and break down their success into smaller actionable insights.
He has interviewed people from all ends of the business spectrum to include celebrities like Lebron James and Secretary Madeleine Albright.
The Harvard Business School’s Cold Call podcast is a unique series that get’s down and dirty with HBS faculty members.
By relying on faculty members’ experience, the podcast goes over business cases authored by each member and their lessons during their affair.
Startup Nation is a down to earth podcast created by brothers Jeff and Rich Sloan.
By focusing on inspiration and regular people who became successful business owners, Startup Nation is extremely relatable.
Host Pat Flynn has created an award-winning podcast that aims to help online business owners increase their profits.
This podcast may be a little too technical for traditional brick and mortar business, but online business owners should give Pat Flynn a listen.
Entrepreneurs on Fire is hosted by John Lee Dumas, who has made a name for himself in the podcast world.
Dumas has interviewed an impressive lineup of business owners and entrepreneurs: Tony Robbins, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuck, and Seth Godin. Each episode is beautifully crafted and relatable at a casual and engaging level.
Produced by NPR, How I Built This is a professionally mixed podcast offering hosted by Guy Raz.
Raz interviews some of the significant business industry leaders, but he also breaks down the business and what sets them apart.
Bloomberg is one of the big names in business, and hosts Jason Kelly and Carol Masser continue to keep the bar high.
The Bloomberg Businessweek podcast focuses on some of the most relevant and timely finance and global technology news, as well as speaker insight into business and economics.
Entrepreneurs will undoubtedly face challenges unique to starting a business rather than working for one.
Host Andrew Warner offers actionable advice on the common but often unknown challenges small business owners will face.
Host Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, releases two new podcasts each week focused on business and finance.
As the podcast name suggests, Hoffman offers insight into navigating business growth from a few customers to a million. Hoffman’s impressive guest list has included Mark Zukerberg, Reed Hastings, and Howard Schultz.
The Business Wars podcast is a relatively new show created in 2018. However, due to the unique angle it takes to bringing business information to their audience, Business Wars has become one of the most popular business podcasts.
Each episode pits one business against another to determine why one became more successful than the other—for instance, Blockbuster versus Netflix, Red Bull versus Monster, and Southwest Airlines versus American Airlines.
By using real-world examples, this podcast tackles some of the most asked questions.
If you need a shot of inspiration and motivation, ABC’s Shark Tank’s Daymond John is there for you.
His podcast focuses on how to be successful with hard work and motivation. John exposes what makes the wealthy the way they are and how people use their money to make more money and free up time.
If you are focused on customers, the Outside In podcast with Charles Trevail may be just what you are looking for.
The focus of Outside In is to take an in-depth look into customer-centered brands and what makes them successful.
Hosted by Rachel Hollis, a best selling author, motivational speaker, and blogger, the RISE Podcast recently received an iHeart Radio Podcast Award.
Hollis interviews other business owners to gain valuable insight into how they grew their business and what other entrepreneur opportunities are available today.
The Mind Your Business Podcast is hosted by James Wedmore, who is both motivational and inspirational.
Wedmore’s primary goal is to help business owners keep their organizations moving in the right direction and take advantage of previously overlooked opportunities.
While there is nothing wrong with achieving an MBA, it is not a guarantee for success.
Many successful entrepreneurs and business owners had little to no upper-level education and certainly didn’t go into debt to obtain a piece of paper.
Take advantage of these top 18 podcasts to level up your business knowledge and learn from the mistakes of other wealthy entrepreneurs.