The "Personal Development Industry"
Personal development as an industry[2] has several formats of operating. The main ways are business-to-consumer and business-to-business, however there are two newer ways increasing in their prevalence. They are consumer-to-business and consumer-to-consumer.
The business-to-consumer market
The business-to-consumer market involves selling books, courses and techniques to individuals. The market is divided[by whom?] into:
- newly-invented offerings such as:
- fitness[citation needed]
- beauty enhancement[citation needed]
- weight loss[citation needed]
- traditional practices such as:
- yoga
- martial arts
- meditation
Some programs are delivered[by whom?] online and many include tools sold with a program, such as motivational books for self-help, recipes for weight-loss or technical manuals for yoga and martial-arts programs.
A partial list of personal development offerings on the business-to-individual market might include:
- books
- motivational speaking
- e-Learning programs
- workshops
- individual counseling
- life coaching
The business-to-business market
The business-to-business market also involves programs - in this case ones sold to companies and to governments to assess potential, to improve effectiveness, to manage work-life balance or to prepare some entity for a new role in an organization. The goals of these programs are defined[by whom?] with the institution or by the institution and the results are assessed[by whom?][citation needed]. With the acceptance of personal development as a legitimate field in higher education[citation needed], universities and business schools also contract programs to external specialist firms or to individuals.[citation needed]
A partial list of business-to-business programs might include:
- courses and assessment systems for higher education organizations for their students
- management services to employees in organizations through:
- training
- training and development programs
- personal-development tools
- self-assessment
- feedback
- coaching
- mentoring
Some consulting firms specialize in personal development[3] but as of 2009 generalist firms operating in the fields of human resources, recruitment and organizational strategy have entered what they perceive as a growing market,[4] not to mention smaller firms and self-employed professionals who provide consulting, training and coaching.
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