I often get asked, how do I justify the cost of LJN Premium membership. After all, the internet is free to use and the biggest social media players on the planet, Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn are free to use.
That's true, so many social media platforms are free. At least at the basic level. But what LJN does is provide a specific education resource that has been built up over the last 9 years, for the landscape and horticulture industry . LJN is unique.
LJN is a mixture of peer-to-peer information sharing, as well as peer mentoring, with no less that +25,000 items of landscaping and horticulture related information instances.
LJN has helped so many individuals and businesses over the years, many of which I've seen go on to establish themselves in what is, to be honest, a very competitive and transient industry.
LJN isn't really just about business advertising - although it's very powerful in delivering our members SEO benefits - but much much more about education.
Education is more passive now
I paid a lot of money to put myself through college in the mid 80's and then again in the mid 90's. I had to take a whole day a week off of work, travel to a college and then sit through lessons telling me much of what I had already learnt.
I also signed up to a postal correspondence course (this was way before the internet was available) in the late 80's for £300 per year.
LJN is available 24 hours a day fifty-two weeks of the year
Over the years we've given so much on LJN away for free. However, free - as a social concept - cannot remain free forever.. LJN is a business, just like yours, and for it to be here tomorrow and help your business, it has to not only be financed on a day-to-day basis, it also has to invest in the future.....so that it can remain a part of your future.
Whether that means updating LJN's website or touring the country to meet members, as I did last week. LJN has to be financed so that it can continue its important work.
The following is just a sample of what's available in the Business Objectives Group. One post I wrote that has the potential to influence you as you progress your business and save (make you many times over) the cost of the LJN yearly subscription.
Capillary mentoring - silent but extremely effective
Capillary mentoring is a term I've given to a subliminal form of continuous professional development (CPD).
There are very many incarnations of CPD and the term can be applied loosely to so many aspects of education or peer-to-peer (P2P) mentoring.
Much of LJN is pure P2P. Through your member network we've been able to share so many different things;
- Emotion
- Documents
- Ideas
- Argument
- Leads
- Resources
- Our past experiences
- Futures
- Successes
- Failures
...I could go on but I'm sure you get my drift? Networking is often viewed as one climbing the ladder of success - but without a safety net - through a combination of one's own steam and that of one's peers.
My vision of capillary mentoring is of something more passive, less tangible, not blatantly obvious but nonetheless, powerful networking. Landscape Juice has worked in this subliminal manner since its inception in 2008. Long serving members with oodles of knowledge, skills and experience literally help pull their peers up to higher levels of achievement.
In doing so, the learner, who is eager but less experienced, also pulls the next person, below them, upward in the capillary chain, as they too become more experienced, skilled and confident. As the chain is pulled up, fresh learners attach themselves in the link, in the chain at the bottom. Try to think of this chain as the length of a career. Someone who's remained in the industry the longest will normally have the greatest of life's business experience and naturally climb higher on the chain.
LJN members not only pass their knowledge on but they also tend to also connect with their peers below who they feel are worthy of being the recipient of their knowledge, and pull them up as they too move higher, with the help of their peers above. Sometimes there may be a weakness and the chain breaks. People leave the industry, change direction or they are just not good at what they do or aspired to be. It doesn't take long for the chain to be re-connected...and the process continues.
Capillary mentoring is knowledge and skill transfer working at its very best. There are no certificates or awards coming from it but it's potentially your strongest learning source.
Help support LJN to support you
If you wish to go Premium and help support LJN to, in turn, support you, then please see here: http://landscapejuicenetwork.com/page/go-premium
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