Why successful small business owners never stop learning

by | Online Learning, Upskilling

Successful Small Business Owners

Continual learning: A guide for small businesses

For most business owners, fitting time in to learn a new skill isn’t high on their priority list, because time is money. However, it should be! The benefits for business owners and employees who spend time upskilling and enhancing their current knowledge base will most definitely outweigh the lost time. After all, continual learning is essential to our existence.

What is life-long or continuous learning?

Life-long, also known as continual or constant learning, is the process expanding your knowledge to gain new skills and expertise throughout your life.

What are the benefits of continuous learning?

With the digital age, continuous learning forms a necessary part in acquiring critical thinking skills, and remaining adaptable, diverse and providing the edge on your competitors.

Here are but a few benefits of continuous learning for small business owners.

  • Facilitates adaptation through constant learning you will be able to remain adaptable to provide services that weren’t even in existence when you started working, so you can be prepared for the unexpected.
  • Enables skills sharing – being able to pass on knowledge, when you are able to outsource or delegate will establish you as a SME and demonstrates great leadership.
  • Avoids shortsightedness – Without forever learning new and improved ways of doing things, you can miss key optimisations and efficiencies that might be right in front of you.
  • Improve Your Self-Confidence – competence leads to confidence, the more you know on a topic the more you will be able to sell and promote your product or service.
  • Keep your mind sharp – We all know the saying ‘if you don’t use it, you lose it’. In order to keep an active mind and out of the box thinking it’s important to continue learning new concepts, methods and skills.

“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” William Pollard

Find a learning style that works for you

Everybody has different learning styles; it is important to work out what works best for you. There are three different types of learning styles in the Fleming VAK/VARK model, these are:

Visual Learner

If you are a Visual learner your brain will associate information with images. The best forms of learning for visual learners are webinars, practical demonstrations, flow charts, info graphs, mind maps.

Auditory Learner

Auditory learners need to listen, speak, and interact in order to learn. They will enjoy lectures and seminars and podcasts.

Kinaesthetic Learner

Kinaesthetic style prefers tactile learning. You will most likely recall what is being taught by moving, touching, and doing the activity. You will enjoy practical experiments and training and role play type learning.

Resources for continued learning:

There are many skills needed to be a successful business owner and staying up to date or even ahead of the competition is important. However, it can be costly with both time and money, so here are some free, high-quality educational resources online and otherwise to help you upskill.

  • Read magazines and online articles.
  • Hubspot Academy have a FREE certification program on inbound marketing.
  • Analyse and critique case studies.
  • Moz provides SEO free webinars and information.
  • Subscribe to publications specific to your areas of interest.
  • edX has over 300 courses on a variety of topics for businesses and industry specific.
  • Attend training courses and events. Try MOOCS (Massively Open Online Courses) such as Course era and Udemy, open universities.
  • Listen to podcasts and watch TED Talks.

Conclusion

Never stop learning to maintain a sharp mind. As Albert Einstein stated: “Intellectual growth should commence at birth and only cease at death”.

The skills you continue to learn, will not only assist in your personal growth. It will also benefit your professional growth and ability to adapt to change.

If you need some business support while you upskill yourself further. Streamlined organising can keep your business running while giving back some precious time.