Just because business is doing well now, doesn’t mean you should get complacent. A good company owner knows that in order to future proof their venture, they need to be constantly learning, ahead of the game and able to adapt their business when needed to fit the market and what consumers want. Here are some of the ways you can continue to learn in business.
Shutterstock Licensed Photo – By Vasin Lee
Read
There are so many great books and articles out there which provide a wealth of information, keeping you clued up and teaching you new information. They’re cheap and accessible, you can easily download them to your devices if you can’t get to a bookshop and you can read anywhere. During your lunch, throughout your commute, before bed or just when you’re at a loose end. You can find books on just about any business topic, this best SEO books list for example would be useful if you’re looking to improve your marketing methods. Even if you outsource or hire others to run this department, knowing yourself what’s going on and having some background understanding is no bad thing.
Study
Perhaps you’ve set up your company with no previous business knowledge and learned as you go- it’s perfectly possible to manage this and plenty of people do. But even if things are going well, committing some time to study the subject can be invaluable and prevent you from making mistakes later on that can be avoided. If you already have a business degree or qualification you could build on this. Whether it’s another degree, a masters or just a number of shorter courses these can all give you some really useful knowledge. Since you can study online these days, it’s something you can do around running your business, from home in your spare time.
Attend seminars and webinars
If you don’t want to go back into formal education, you can still learn more and essentially access lectures whenever you like by attending online seminars. Experts in the field will often conduct talks and you can stream it online, having the opportunity to ask questions at the end. They’re not very expensive and it can be a fantastic way to learn more on a topic, from a person who really knows what they’re talking about.
Network
Having a good network of contacts is always helpful in business. Not only does it mean more leads and the chance to work with more companies, but you can also seek advice from other business owners. These are people who are in, or have been in, the same boat as you. Many will be happy to provide you with advice if you’re stuck based on their own experiences. This can be just what you need when you’re new to business, just a small push in the right direction.
