Have you ever spent thousands of pounds on a business course, mastermind or mentoring programme, convinced it would change your life, only to finish wondering what exactly you had paid for?
Perhaps you were promised a proven formula for success.
Perhaps you were surrounded by people talking about their millions, their properties, their extraordinary business growth and the financial freedom you could achieve if you simply followed their methods.
Perhaps you believed that being in the right room, surrounded by the right people, would finally unlock the opportunities you had been searching for.
And perhaps, somewhere along the way, you found yourself being offered another course.
A more advanced programme.
An exclusive mastermind.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn the real secrets.
All for another few thousand pounds.
Sound familiar?
If it does, I want you to know something.
You haven’t necessarily missed your opportunity to succeed just because you couldn’t afford the next course.
And if you invested money in programmes that failed to meet your expectations, that doesn’t mean your ambitions were unrealistic.
It may simply mean that the advice you received wasn’t what your business actually needed.
I know this because I’ve been there myself.
I’ve spent over £30,000 on business education. Here’s what I’ve learnt.
My name is Audrey Jurkoniene. I’m an accountant, business consultant, wealth strategist, property investor and founder of Business Help UK Group.
I established my accountancy practice in 2005. Today, I work with a team of more than ten accountants, supporting businesses with everything from accounting and tax compliance to financial planning, business restructuring and growth strategies.
Over the past two decades, I have studied hundreds of entrepreneurs’ stories. I’ve seen businesses grow, struggle, change direction and sometimes fail.
I’ve also invested more than £30,000 of my own money in business education, coaching, masterminds and training programmes.
Some experiences were excellent.
I met inspiring people, gained valuable knowledge, made connections and discovered new ways of thinking.
I don’t regret investing in my education.
But I do question whether every investment delivered the value I was led to expect.
There were occasions when I left events feeling energised but struggled to identify anything practical I could apply to my business.
Other times, I found myself listening to information I had already heard, watching presentations filled with success stories and waiting for the promised practical guidance.
And sometimes, before I had even received everything I expected from one programme, I was already being introduced to the next.
I began questioning something that I believe every entrepreneur should consider before buying another course.
Am I investing in knowledge that will improve my business, or am I investing in the hope that someone else has discovered a shortcut to success?
There is a significant difference.
The most expensive course isn’t always the one with the highest price tag
This is something I believe isn’t discussed nearly enough.
When entrepreneurs evaluate the cost of a business course, they usually focus on the price.
£1,000.
£5,000.
£10,000.
Sometimes considerably more.
But as an accountant, I look at the cost differently.
Money is only part of the investment. Your time has a value too.
Let me give you a simple example.
Imagine you purchase a business mastermind for £5,000.
Over the following months, you attend several full-day events. You spend time travelling, staying in hotels, networking and participating in online sessions.
Let’s say you spend 80 hours altogether.
If your working time is worth £50 per hour, that’s another £4,000 of potential business time committed.
Your £5,000 mastermind has now required a total investment equivalent to £9,000, before considering travel, accommodation or any additional expenses.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you have physically lost £4,000 in earnings. Not every working hour generates revenue.
But it does mean you have committed 80 hours that could potentially have been spent improving your business.
And that brings me to an even more important question.
What could you have achieved with those 80 hours?
You might have:
Reviewed your pricing and discovered why your profit margins were shrinking.
Improved your bookkeeping and cash flow management.
Trained your team to work more independently.
Developed a marketing strategy suited to your actual customers.
Restructured your business to support future investments.
Reviewed unnecessary expenses or inefficient processes.
Built relationships with existing customers who already trust you.
Or perhaps you could simply have spent more time with your family.
Isn’t that one of the reasons many of us started businesses in the first place?
To have more freedom?
The real cost of an unsuccessful business course isn’t just what you paid. It’s also what you could have achieved with the time and resources you invested elsewhere.
And this is why I become frustrated when I see entrepreneurs spending valuable hours attending events that provide little more than motivation and repeated sales messages.
When did showing off wealth become proof of business expertise?
We seem to have created a culture in which financial success is often presented through possessions.
Luxury cars.
Expensive watches.
Mansions.
Private jets.
Yachts.
Photographs alongside celebrities and successful businesspeople.
And, of course, stories about extraordinary financial achievements.
I’m not against wealth.
Quite the opposite. I’m passionate about helping people build it.
But after more than 20 years working with businesses, I’ve learnt something important.
Looking wealthy and being financially successful are not necessarily the same thing.
A photograph beside a luxury car doesn’t tell me whether someone owns it.
A photograph on a yacht doesn’t tell me anything about someone’s financial position.
A business achieving £1 million in turnover doesn’t tell me whether it makes a profit.
And being photographed with a famous entrepreneur doesn’t establish someone’s ability to advise others.
I have personally witnessed presentations where considerable time was devoted to displaying achievements, connections and lifestyles.
Sometimes I found myself wondering why we were spending so much time discussing the presenter’s success rather than examining the practical decisions that helped create it.
I wanted to know what happened behind the scenes.
What were the risks?
How much capital was required?
What went wrong?
What did the business actually earn?
How much debt was involved?
What did the owner sacrifice along the way?
And, most importantly, would the same strategy be appropriate for someone starting with very different circumstances?
Those are the questions that interest me.
Because turnover is not profit. Profit is not cash. And an impressive lifestyle is not evidence of financial security.
I’ve watched entrepreneurs trying to run their businesses while attending events designed to help them grow
One experience has stayed with me.
I remember sitting in expensive business events and looking around the room.
People had travelled considerable distances to attend.
They had paid substantial amounts of money to be there.
They were ambitious entrepreneurs, eager to learn and improve their businesses.
Yet I often noticed people answering emails, dealing with customers, managing employees and trying to resolve urgent business matters while speakers were presenting.
I could relate to them.
When you run a business, the work doesn’t simply disappear because you’re attending a mastermind.
Your employees still need guidance.
Your customers still need answers.
Your bills still need paying.
And your business still needs managing.
Meanwhile, valuable hours can pass listening to stories, motivational messages or information that may have been covered at previous events.
Of course, networking and inspiration have value.
Sometimes a conversation with another entrepreneur can change the way you think about your business.
But inspiration alone doesn’t pay your suppliers.
Motivation doesn’t automatically improve your margins.
And sitting in a room full of successful people doesn’t guarantee that their strategies will work for you.
What matters is what you take back to your business and what changes as a result.
I believe every business course should be judged on that basis.
Not how impressive the event looked.
Not how exciting the atmosphere felt.
But whether the knowledge was relevant, whether the promises were fulfilled and whether you were given the practical tools to make better decisions.
More sales won’t necessarily make you wealthier
This is probably one of my biggest frustrations with the business coaching industry.
So much emphasis is placed on increasing turnover.
More leads.
More customers.
More sales.
More marketing.
More growth.
And yes, these things can be important.
But what happens when a business doubles its turnover and its costs increase even faster?
What happens when the owner is working twice as hard but taking home less money?
What happens when the business grows so quickly that cash flow cannot support it?
Or when the owner becomes so essential to daily operations that taking a holiday feels impossible?
If your enquiries doubled tomorrow, would your profit and freedom improve too, or would you simply have twice as much to manage?
This is the question I wish more business owners were encouraged to ask.
I’ve spent years looking at businesses from the inside.
And I can tell you that increasing sales is not always the solution.
Sometimes a business needs better pricing.
Sometimes it needs better systems.
Sometimes the owner needs to delegate.
Sometimes the business needs restructuring.
Sometimes the biggest opportunity is already there, hidden in the figures nobody has properly examined.
And sometimes the most valuable advice is to stop chasing growth until the foundations are strong enough to support it.
Real business advice should begin with understanding your business
Before I advise someone on growing their business, I want to understand what they are trying to achieve.
Not just their financial targets.
I want to understand their life.
Do they want to employ 50 people?
Or would they prefer a smaller, highly profitable business that gives them more personal freedom?
Do they want to invest in property?
Build a business they can eventually sell?
Create passive income?
Retire early?
Provide financial security for their family?
These are very different ambitions.
And they require different strategies.
There is no universal blueprint for success because there is no universal definition of success.
Something that works brilliantly for one entrepreneur could be completely inappropriate for another.
That’s why I believe genuine business advice requires much more than repeating a successful person’s story and encouraging everyone else to follow it.
It requires understanding the individual, their business, their financial position, their appetite for risk and what they actually want their future to look like.
You don’t need to become an accountant. But you must understand your numbers.
This is something I tell business owners repeatedly.
You don’t need to become an expert in bookkeeping, taxation or financial reporting.
That’s what accountants are for.
My team at Business Help UK Group helps businesses stay compliant, ensuring that accounts, VAT returns, payroll, CIS returns and other statutory obligations are dealt with correctly and on time.
But compliance is only one part of the picture.
My greatest interest is helping entrepreneurs understand what their numbers are telling them.
Because your accounts shouldn’t simply describe what happened last year.
They should help you decide what to do next.
Are you making enough profit?
Do you know which products or services generate the best margins?
Can your business afford another employee?
Are you paying yourself appropriately?
Could the way your business is structured affect your long-term plans?
Are you building personal wealth or simply creating a bigger business that depends entirely on you?
These questions matter.
And you don’t need to pay thousands of pounds to someone promising business secrets before you can start asking them.
Good financial information, combined with sound judgement, can be far more valuable than another motivational seminar.
The real secret to building wealth? Start with a plan.
I have achieved many of the financial and personal goals I set for myself over the years.
But I would be misleading you if I claimed everything went according to plan.
It didn’t.
I’ve changed direction.
I’ve reconsidered investments.
I’ve adjusted my financial goals.
I’ve learnt from decisions that didn’t produce the results I expected.
And I continue to learn.
That’s normal.
Building wealth isn’t about discovering a magical strategy and following it blindly for the rest of your life.
It’s about being intentional.
Understanding where you are.
Deciding where you want to go.
And regularly reviewing whether the decisions you’re making are moving you closer to that destination.
Sometimes that means growing your business.
Sometimes it means improving profitability.
Sometimes it means investing outside your business.
And sometimes it means recognising that the business you’ve built no longer supports the life you want.
Your business should be helping you achieve your goals, not becoming something that prevents you from enjoying them.
This is the kind of conversation I want more entrepreneurs to have.
So why am I opening the curtain?
Because I’m tired of watching entrepreneurs spend money they can barely afford on programmes that promise extraordinary results but may deliver very little practical value.
I’m frustrated by the suggestion that the knowledge required to succeed is available only to those who can afford increasingly expensive courses.
And I’m particularly frustrated by the idea that if you haven’t achieved the promised results, the answer must be to buy another programme.
I don’t believe that.
I believe there is an enormous amount of valuable information available to everyone.
The real challenge is knowing which information matters, whether it applies to your circumstances and how to use it.
Having access to information is no longer the greatest advantage. Knowing how to apply it is.
And that’s where experience, professional judgement and honest conversations become valuable.
I also want to say something to those entrepreneurs who have spent thousands on business coaching and now feel disappointed.
Please don’t allow one disappointing experience to destroy your confidence in seeking professional advice.
There are excellent business coaches, consultants, accountants and mentors who genuinely care about their clients.
There are people who will tell you when an idea is unlikely to work.
People who will question your assumptions.
People who won’t automatically agree with everything you say simply because you’re paying them.
And people who understand that sometimes the best advice is not to spend more money.
You may have been disappointed by a programme. That doesn’t mean your business has failed or that your ambition was misplaced.
There are still opportunities ahead of you.
And there are still people who genuinely want to help you make the most of them.
What to ask before you invest in another business programme
What business problem will the programme address? How much time will implementation require? What evidence supports the approach? What would you need to stop doing to put it into practice? Ask those questions before committing your money.
If you would value an independent look at your company’s finances, profitability or plans, get in touch with Business Help UK Group to discuss a business health review.
