Expertise
Continuously learning the business landscape is paramount to keeping up with the ever-changing global market and regulations that encapsulate it. Although you might not have the technical proficiency or professional upbringing of the most successful entrepreneurs, it shouldn’t hold you back from building a successful business. Here are four ways to expand your knowledge.
Read Books
Reading books is perhaps the simplest and oldest strategy to improving your expertise not just in business but in any field. Reading books habitually has been scientifically proven to improve cognitive abilities. It improves your focus and concentration, expands your imagination, and generally makes you smarter.
Take Online Courses
Platforms, like Udemy and Coursera, provide self-paced coursework on specific topics and skills, such as how to file your taxes as an LLC or how to generate leads and market your brand. What’s great about these courses is that you can fit them into your current work schedule so you don’t have to make drastic changes like how you would in a traditional brick-and-mortar education. You’ll find many of these courses on sale, ranging from $20 to $200.
Attend Business Retreats
Not only is this a good way to expand your business knowledge, but attending retreats can also yield connections. Stay up to date on any upcoming retreats for business topics that interest you, such as legal marketing workshops with The Rainmaker Institute or other innovative opportunities. These programs are often sold in packages and can last for weeks, but you can take advantage of early bird specials to shave a few hundred bucks from the price tag.
Subscribe to Business Websites
Forbes, New York Times and other online publications are all reliable sources of anything and everything related to business, from stock investing to government regulations. Most of these business sites have newsletters that are free to subscribe to, but there are a few publications, like the Wall Street Journal, that charge a monthly membership fee. Whether or not these paid subscriptions are worth it depending on your current status as an entrepreneur or business owner, with wealthier and higher net worth individuals being a more appropriate target of such publications.
Regardless of how you choose to expand your business expertise, strive to learn the ins and outs and the new and the old of running a business. The landscape is too wide for any one entrepreneur to master everything. Keep learning and expanding your knowledge so that you can predict future trends and react to current economic changes underway.