When starting as an entrepreneur, the main aim is to create and grow a successful business. With most entrepreneurs working seven days a week, and long hours, it’s near impossible to grow as a professional and run a business.
There is a lot of learning on-the-job as an entrepreneur, but sometimes not everything can be learnt that way.
We’re going to look at some ways that entrepreneurs can still develop outside of the daily tasks faced. After all, as an entrepreneur, you’re also an employee.
Training Courses
Entrepreneurs don’t always have the right skillset for a task at hand. This can be both fun and daunting as you need to acquire certain skills if you don’t have any employees or only one or two.
One important way to keep learning is via business training courses. Development-academy.co.uk is one of many training providers that offers business leaders the opportunity to learn new skills in person or online.
There are many topics covered by business training courses. Here’s a small list of courses that you’ll be able to find at these training centres.
- Leadership skills
- Time management
- Communication skills
- Public speaking
- Assertiveness training
There are of course many more too. Now with more businesses working remotely, there are even courses on how to manage teams virtually. This is a new area for lots of business owners, so gaining new knowledge on best practices is a good idea. Learning on-the-go can only get you so far, outside knowledge should always be welcomed.
Reading
With so many books on business and entrepreneurship, reading is a great way to learn different approaches. There are claims that the average CEO reads 60 books per year. Although, this number will vary a lot depending on the size of the business and the CEO in question.
Still, the important takeaway here is that reading business books offers a lot to your development. It opens up your mind to different points of view and makes you question your own business and processes.
Not every business owner has the time to sit down and read, especially if they also have a family to look after. One alternative that has been growing in popularity over the last decade is the use of audiobooks. Audiobooks can be consumed whilst on a daily commute or run, enabling you to do two things at once.
Networking
A great way of learning and becoming a better businessman/woman is to surround yourself with like-minded people. That’s why networking is a great way to meet other entrepreneurs, and discuss what is and isn’t working for your business.
The downside to networking is that you don’t always meet people that you click with, and you don’t get lots of time with a few select people. You can, of course, go to multiple networking events to get more chances of meeting other entrepreneurs.
Networking is good to a degree, but it can be even more intimate if you meet the same people frequently, instead of new people each time. That brings us on to our next point.
Entrepreneur Forums
Entrepreneur or business forums are places where business owners can meet to discuss how their businesses are going. There are many online forums that you can join to take part in, but there’s another option which is to create a private business forum. You can involve however many people you like, but a good number is somewhere between 6-10 people.
In this group, you can agree to how many times you want to meet each month and then discuss anything that’s on your mind. This way you will receive many opinions on the subject in question.
The beauty of creating a private forum over a public online forum is that you get to know each member better. This in turn gives more time for each person’s issues. It’s known that some business owners have met future business partners and life-long friends from this private forum approach.
Podcasts
A relatively new medium that new business owners can turn to is podcasts. Podcasts have become increasingly popular in the past few years, across all industries, not just in business. You only have to look at Spotify paying Joe Rogan to move his podcast exclusively to them to see how big they’ve become.
Well, there are hundreds of business/entrepreneur podcasts available now. As well as niche podcasts that will focus only on the sector of your business. Each episode will cover a different topic or have a guest that discusses questions with the host.
Like the audiobooks approach, these episodes can offer new light on certain topics. Listening to them whilst on a morning run or your daily commute is easy as they’re downloadable. You can find business podcasts from Harvard Business Review (HBR), Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, and many others. Entrepreneur.com has compiled a list of 25 business podcasts that are worth checking out.
