What Is B-School, Who Is Marie Forleo, And Is The Program Right For Me?

Feb 23, 2020 | Business and Entrepreneurship, Marie Forleo B-School

Guess what’s back? Marie Forleo’s B-School—and I’m a big fan

Marie Forleo’s B-School program is back, and I’m thrilled to be offering a bonus again this year. But if you’ve never heard of B-School or you’re just joining the party, then read this post first. In this blog post, I’m going to talk about:

What Is B-School?

B-School is an 8-week online learning program founded and created by Marie Forleo, the New York Times bestselling author of Everything Is Figureoutable and the creator of B-School. The program is “for big-hearted creatives who want to build a meaningful, profitable business online.” She teaches a curriculum of six pillars that help business owners learn smart, effective online marketing strategies.

The program is focused on helping you get more sales and more impact from your online presence. It’s best for people who already have a business idea (or a couple of business ideas), and/or who have been working on their business idea for a couple of years, although newbies can also learn a lot from the program.

B-School runs once every year—this is the eleventh year. Registration is only open for a few weeks in February, and the program runs from March through April. This year, in 2020, you can enroll in B-School between February 13th and February 28th. The last day to register is February 28th, 2020. The program kicks off March 2nd, 2020.

Learn more about B-School here.

Who is B-School For?

B-School is for people who want to learn more about online marketing—and for people who understand that leveraging your online presence can transform your business. Today, the world of the internet means that you can make money 24/7, even while you’re sleeping—but you need an online presence, website, and communications channel. It’s for people who understand the power of the internet and want to increase their online presence to make an impact—and an income.

Marie’s team wrote a brief about who is great at B-School, and they shared that the people who thrive taking B-School are usually:

  • People who are action-oriented, committed beginners.
  • People who have a business idea and some traction, and want to take their business to the next level.
  • People who want to make money online, who are clear about their business goals but unclear exactly how to put all the pieces together.
  • Authors, creatives, bloggers, consultants, experts, and people who want to build an audience and develop an online presence.
  • People with an existing business (online or offline) who aren’t yet making as much money as they’d like to—you might have an active or established following, but you’re looking to expand your reach.
  • People who have a strong desire to learn, to have a greater impact, and to reach more people with your work.

Is B-School Only For Online Marketers?

The world of the internet is a huge opportunity—people who understand that the internet makes it possible for us to connect to people all over the world will see what a huge opportunity this is.

All business owners will become online marketers, if you grasp that meeting people and connecting with them and serving them is something you can do in the digital world. Whether you own a local shop and want to connect to people with an online community group to complement your work; whether you want to stay in touch with your clients; or you want to create a funny newsletter for dog lovers to help spread the word about your business, the sky is the limit when it comes to being creative about how the online world can intersect with your business aspirations.

What Are The Core Modules of B-School?

The trainings are released in weekly modules in March and April, with one mid-program implementation and live coaching week, and one implementation and live coaching at the end of the program. Each module has step-by-step training videos, templates and worksheets (she calls them “Fun Sheets”).

When I took the program, I got a 5×8″ moleskine and took notes on each module and recorded all of my answers to the fun sheets. Honestly, doing the ICA (“Ideal Customer Avatar”) worksheet was so valuable that I STILL flip back in my notebook to get a sense of what my people are thinking and feeling and how to best serve them!

In addition, there’s a HUGE community of 20k+ people active in the forums and sharing stories and swapping ideas about building your business. Plus, there’s an online archive of past Q/A sessions and a whole host of video bonuses to go deeper.

The core modules taught over the six weeks are:

1: Profit Plan: Set a Solid Foundation For Your Long Term Success
2: Website: How to Create Websites That Sell and Don’t Suck
3: Communication: Design A Strategic Plan To Consistently Connect With Your Market
4: List Building: How To Strategically And Intelligently Grow Your Audience
5: Offerings: Create Outstanding Products & Services That Practically Sell Themselves
6: Marketing: Leverage Timeless, Proven Principles To Skyrocket Your Sales

There are also two prep programs to do before B-School begins

In addition, there are two prep programs for beginners who might feel like B-School is too advanced or complicated. If you’re the type of person who is swimming in ideas or you have a dozen different directions you could go, then there’s a program you MUST take before you start B-School (don’t worry it’s included in the program).

Inside of Marie’s B-School portal, you also get access to these two programs:

Start The Right Business—how to evaluate and test your business ideas and make sure you’re starting the RIGHT business before you get years deep into a project that doesn’t end up working.

The Follow-Through Formula—How to do the things you say you’re going to do and how to make it actually work for you.

If you’re not sure where to begin, start with these two—and then dive into B-School!

Plus, a library of additional bonus trainings with B-School

In addition, Marie also offers and updates her bonus training library each year, which includes lessons on:

  • Getting good at press and PR
  • DIY Tech Training
  • Understanding basic marketing metrics + website metrics
  • Getting started with social media
  • Productivity
  • How to Get Outstanding Testimonials
  • Behind The Scenes of the B-School Launch

…and more. Honestly, it’s too much to do at once, which is why people take the program every year. You get lifetime access to the program and as an alumni, you can access all of these bonuses and take the ones that apply to your business later on, when it’s the right time. For me, I focused on going through the core modules in 2018 and then I did some of the advanced trainings in 2019. I’m still going through some of the material, and doing the ideal client avatar exercises each year has been helpful in refining and focusing my offerings as a business owner.

Learn more about B-School:

If you’re curious and want to learn more, take a look through all of the materials that Team Forleo puts together each year. Every year, they do a live event and a free webinar to share some of the common challenges facing online business owners. They also walk through the six pillars of a strong online business presence (which you should have even if you’re a more traditional “brick and mortar” business), and share a huge number of student questions, testimonials, and more.

What Are The B-School Bonuses About?

This year, I’m offering another personalized B-School bonus. So are a lot of people around the web! If you see and hear a lot of fanfare about B-School, it’s because so many alumni are offering bonuses and perks if you sign up through our links.

If you don’t know about how this works, Marie Forleo’s B-School program is something that a lot of people are affiliates for, which means that in addition to everything listed above, we all offer big bonuses if you buy with our link (yes, we make money if you buy through our links—that’s how affiliate programs work). Because I think the program is so good, I’m beyond happy to share the program and be an affiliate—I love doing it!

In order to compete to get the most sign-ups, everyone offers these amazing bonuses and programs to help tilt you over to their website and project.

Your job? Go and look at all the amazing bonuses and figure out whether or not B-School is something that will actually be useful to you, and what bonus you’d like to do.

Personally, when I signed up for Marie’s B-Schoo, I looked at Nathalie Lussier, Denise Duffield Thomas, and Amy Porterfield for their bonuses to see if any of the programs would be a slam-dunk for me and what I wanted to learn. Eventually, I signed up for B-School with Denise Duffield Thomas’ link, because I wanted to work on money mindset and was so excited to be able to sign up for two programs at the same time: I wanted to deepen my psychological understanding of money, make more of it, and I wanted to review all of the marketing tools and programs that Marie teaches in B-School.

For me, oh boy was it worth it. B-School alone is worth it, and then Marie’s bonuses are worth it. Getting this plus all the bonuses that people offer usually makes it a no-brainer if you’re in a place where investing in your business growth is the right next step for you. In addition to her program, you get ALL of the bonuses from whoever you sign up with.

If you sign up with me, I focus my bonus on the part of the program that I think is the hardest—actually implementing what you learned and taking action on the things she teaches.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all there is to learn in the world of marketing and business. And the truth is, progress is slow. It takes two to four years to start most businesses. It just does. It takes a while to stay steady and consistent, to refine your offering, to get clear, to make it work.

That’s why I offer an accountability bonus program this year, alongside access to several of my flagship courses. My bonus is perfect for people who want to take steady, consistent action on growing their businesses and projects—and want to be in the trenches alongside other folks doing the same.

Take a look at my B-School bonus, here.

My B-School Story and Trajectory

When I took B-School, I decided to do one module per month, and then each month I made myself pick the ONE THING I thought would have the most impact and work on getting it shipped, MVP style, that month. Over the course of the year, I refined my website, my podcast publishing schedule, my opt-ins, and my email newsletter. None of this was done in a shiny quick-and-dirty two weeks. No way.

That’s why my bonus is focused on the slow and steady train. I want to work with people who are in it for the long haul, who want to make real progress on their businesses. In my bonus, you get 8 months of accountability and a live meet-up group on the first Friday of every month. Why? Because when we talk to real humans and make a small improvement every month, that’s how real steady growth happens.

When we make small, steady changes and take incremental actions, we’ll surprise ourselves with how much we can accomplish.

This year, when you sign up with my link, you get my 2020 Accountability Group ($879 value), plus my guided course focused on helping you get super clear on what you want—Get What You Want ($497). One person who took the course said she was blown away by how much it helped her clarify her goals:

“When I started the course, I felt very confident that I knew what I wanted. Sarah’s method for helping you articulate what you want and why you want it proved me wrong. Which is so valuable! When you are a solo entrepreneur, it’s really easy to waste time on things that don’t actually matter because you don’t have a team who can serve as a barometer. Sarah really blew me away and very quickly helped me redesign my goals. I actually re-set some of my biggest goals based on the guidance Sarah provided in the course, and I’m way more excited about them – AND they feel more achievable.” — Maggie Frank Hsu

You can see everything I’m offering when you sign up for B-School with my link—it’s a huge bonus this year and I’m thrilled to be in your corner with both my recorded courses as well as our in-person monthly meetups.

But only do this if it’s right for you, right now.

I will not encourage you to do a program like this if it’s not right for you. If you don’t have $2,000 to invest, if you don’t have any business ideas, or you aren’t serious about your work and projects—don’t do it. It’ll be another program thrown in the trash.

Don’t believe that you can change your whole life in six weeks. It takes more than that.

However.

If you have a business idea, or a couple of them, and you’re trying to figure out the right path forward for the next few years—or, if you have some traction on a business idea and you’re overwhelmed by all there is to do (marketing, email, newsletters, ack!)—or, if you want to develop a better understanding of creating an online presence for your work—or, if you’re a little hazy on WHO your product is for and HOW exactly to talk to them about it, and you feel confident that spending $2k is a solid investment in your work in the world because you have a business that you’d like to gain traction over the next couple of years—

Then definitely take a look at the program and see if it’s right for you.

Good luck this year! I wish you all the growth, success, and encouragement you need in pursuing your dreams. First, get clear on what you want this year, and then take action on it in the way that will best support you. I’m rooting for all of you.