Gaining Skills a Variety of Ways – Learn Something New Today

 

To keep yourself ahead of your competition and to keep your business staying fresh, it is important to keep up-to-date with your training and continually be gaining knowledge. Being a business owner, you no longer have an employer to offer the benefit of various training opportunities. You have to find them yourself.

You don’t have to sit in a classroom to gain knowledge. There is a variety of ways.

Online Training
If you Google “free online courses”, you will find over 1 million hits. This gives you the opportunity to sit at home and learn. It was interesting to see that you can learn just about anything from business topics to fun and games. Some of the courses you find will offer Continued Education Units (CEUs). This would help in getting that certificate or degree you have been working on. Some sites to look at would be:

     - Free and Affordable Distance Education (http://www.docnmail.com/)
     - Hewlett-Packard Online Courses (http://www.hp.com)
     - Small Business Administration (http://www.sba.gov)
         o Note: SBA has now joined Trump University for a few items.
     - About.com – AboutU (http://u.about.com/)
     - Business Week (http://www.bwcourses.com)

You might also check to see if a local university or community college offers online courses.

 

When searching through the online courses, don’t just look at courses to help you out. You may find some great courses to assist your clients too. This could be a value-added benefit your clients just might appreciate. You may even want to check these courses out for yourself.

Conventions/Seminars
There are a variety of online and offline conventions and seminars where you can gain valuable training. You should look at conventions and seminars that will not only assist in gaining knowledge, but also see if there are some that your competitors may be showing their products or services. You may just want to go as an attendee or you may want to participate and have a booth yourself. By having a booth, you are not only showing your products or services to potential clients, you can also learn if there is something more you can offer them. Individuals are always asking questions. What better way to find out what someone is looking for?

Trade Magazines
Another way to stay on top of things is to subscribe to and read trade magazines. Now, don’t only subscribe to magazines for your trade. Subscribe to your target markets magazines too. You never know what interesting tid-bits of information you may find. Since Google is our friend, try doing a search for “trade magazines” or even “free trade magazines”. Listed below are a few that might be of interest to you:

 

     - Free Trade Magazine Source (http://www.freetrademagazinesource.com)
     - All You Can Read (http://www.allyoucanread.com)
         o Note: This site also lists newspapers that might be of interest.
     - TradePub.com (http://www.tradepub.com)
         o Note: This site also lists white papers/reports, downloads and podcasts/webinars

Newsletters
Subscribe to competitors newsletters, newsletters that your target market would subscribe to, or newsletters that would assist in growing your business. You never know what you might learn.

Online Forums
Become a member of online forums where your target market and your competitors hang out. Read through the forums to learn what is going on. Create relationships with other like-minded professionals so that you can develop a support network for learning and growing.

Learning never hurt anyone. As the saying goes “We learn something new each day.” By continuing to increase your knowledge, your potential for helping your clients increases and you will have truly created a thriving business.
 

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