Why continued learning is crucial to every small business

No matter how hard you work, I believe as business owners we need to embrace the phrase “Every day’s a school day.”

As I write this it’s early September and I know I am not alone in being glad for term to start for our kids. As parents we send them to school because we want to expand their minds and help them grow to be the best they can be. I think it’s just as important to nurture your business with knowledge too.

Whether you sell a product or provide a service you want to help people in some way. By continuing to invest in learning you will protect the longevity of your business in so many ways:

It will keep you motivated

Running a business is exciting, yes, but it also has a lot of mundane parts that can get monotonous. I find getting stuck into learning a new skill helps bring fresh energy and enthusiasm. Whether you are learning something out of necessity or curiosity, the point is you should be able to see how it will benefit you and that will boost your motivation.

Keeps your finger on the pulse

The world is constantly evolving, and people’s requirements change. The pandemic is a case in point. We all had to learn how to function in a more virtual way. Keeping on top of learning new techniques and trends in your industry means your business stays current in its approach which is positive when prospective clients find you.

Clients like to see passion

People love to see that someone has a real passion for what they do when they are making purchasing decisions. It helps build trust. The fact that you keep investing on improving your own business show you care about providing the best service to them when they choose to work with you.

It will present you with new opportunities

There are so many great courses available nowadays with a strong community element. As well as it being useful when it comes to actually completing the course it has the added benefit of expanding your network with like-minded people. This can often present great opportunities for collaboration and sharing work between you to make use of different people’s specialist skills. For example, I recently completed VA Copy College with Chantelle Davison of Choice words by Chantelle.

As well as massively helping me improve my writing structure to confidently offer new services to my clients. I also came away from the group with a couple of opportunities of different kinds.

One was the chance to feature on a podcast belonging to one of the other participants which was a fun experience to see the other side of a process I only knew as a listener.

The other opportunity that came from completing this course was to become an affiliate. I’ll be honest the whole concept was something I only discovered earlier this year. Whilst it sounded fabulous as a semi-passive income stream, before doing the course I thought it was an unattainable thing for me. I didn’t know when signing up for a copy writing course that I would be proved wrong. I know I am not a natural salesperson, but I find it much easier to talk about how fabulous someone else is, I learned it doesn’t even feel salesy when all you have to do is be honest about your experience and support someone you admire. I now feel much more confident in knowing what type of affiliate roles suit me and my ethics, just a small piece of the extra personal learning that came from a business course!

take a new opportunity and you never know what might happen.

Deeper knowledge means you can charge more.

Customers come to you because they need what you provide. It may not always feel like it to you but to your customers who need your skills, you are an expert. People are generally quite happy to pay for expertise they don’t have when they need help. The more you invest in expanding your knowledge within your zone of genius the more you can charge to share that knowledge because you will be giving a more valuable service out.

Greater knowledge means better decision making

Sorry to pen another cliché in this blog but the saying “you don’t know what you don’t know.” Is true. Building and maintaining a business is a journey. As we learn lessons along the way for good or bad we become better informed. In this case, even mistakes are useful as long as you take time to learn from them what went wrong so that you can make a better decision next time you are faced with a situation. Experience and knowledge come from learning and learning leads to growth so ultimately the biggest reason to carry on learning when in business is so that you can achieve that all-important growth.

Learning doesn’t have to always be costly in terms of time commitment or money if that’s not possible for you right now. It can be as simple as reading blogs or listening to a relevant podcast. I find it really helpful to learn in small chunks like this when I am on the go especially because I can make a car journey productive by listening to a podcast.

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