Philadelphia's Liberty Bell
This week I find myself a long way from home. I am in Philadelphia at my corporate sales forum where I am learning new ways to help my customers.
This forum has me thinking a lot about self education. You may already be an expert in your business and you most likely have undergone extensive training and education to achieve your current level of knowledge and experience. But what are you doing to continue to self educate yourself in your field?
In business, it is often your responsibility to educate yourself and stay up to date on industry trends. This can seem like a daunting task when you consider the million and one things you need to get done in your eight hour work day, but it is essential to your success. Many industries are evolving at lightning speed and if you don’t stay current you will lag behind. You must continue to educate yourself, and if you’re not I would bet that your competition is. Ignorance may be bliss, but overlooking opportunities can cause blissful ignorance.
There are many options self educating yourself, and many can be automated in such a way to save you time and get you to the resources you need faster.
Training
Participate in training opportunities that are available. These might be offered by your company, like my training this week in Philadelphia. Some may be offered by your vendors and others may be offered by local trade organizations in your area. Many of these events may be free while others may require a financial investment, and all will require an investment of your time. Please view these training opportunities as an investment in your success.
Learn more and grow more.
Trade Magazines
Do you read the trade magazines of your industry? Why not? These magazines are compiled by experts in your industry that understand your unique needs. This is also a great way to keep up on industry trends such as buying habits, equipment, or new products. Subscribe to the magazine so it shows up in your mailbox each month/quarter and read it. If you think that you don’t have time to read a trade magazine think again. Keep them on hand to read during lunch, coffee breaks, commutes, and anytime you have a few minutes of down time.
Target Marketing Trade Magazine
Books
What books are you reading or what books have you read lately? Hopefully you can answer with a title, if not head to Amazon right now. Books are such a great source of information and you can make time to read them. You don’t need to complete a whole book in a week and cram information. Keep it leisurely and make it enjoyable. Turn off the TV. or computer a little earlier and commit to read a little every night. Whether its five pages or one chapter a night, you will pick up great tips and strategies you can implement immediately.
My current book choice, Wikinomics
Business Journals
Most cities have a local business journal that functions as the premier business news source in your area. Read this cover to cover, it is filled with invaluable information. It will allow you to understand business trends in your area, read interviews with potential prospects, view lists about every different kind of industry, learn about new business openings, find people who have been recently promoted or hired, and learn more about training and networking opportunities. I cannot stress enough how useful your business journal can be, if you are not a subscriber go subscribe now!
The Tampa Bay Business Journal
Blogs or News Sites
Visit blogs and websites that are writing about your industry or clients’ industry. These are your fastest opportunities to obtain information because they are updated all the time and typically consist of short, condensed information.
While searching for the content you want, it is easy to get sucked into the web and waste time looking at irrelevant websites. You know the drill; you start out with a specific Google search and end up watching silly videos on YouTube and your whole morning has been wasted. To avoid this, utilize Google Reader which allows you to subscribe to blogs and log on to one space to see what your subscriptions are doing on a given day. You can also take advantage of the Custom Sections area of Google News that allows you to select the type of news that you see on your Google News page. For example, you can choose a section such as social media where you can view only social media news and cut out the clutter.
Subscribe to your favorite sites
Webinars and podcasts
These are useful tools that may be offered by your vendors, your business journal, or even your favorite author. Keep your eyes and ears open for these useful opportunities and take advantage. Many are live, but there are some that are prerecorded that you can watch after working hours.
Take advantage of webinars and podcasts
Social Media
Use social media as a way to view information, articles, or news that might be relevant to you. This is another opportunity for you to read short articles and access them instantly. Social media also has the ability to suck you in and waste a lot of time. A good strategy to avoid this is to create lists on Facebook and Twitter so you can view the useful information faster and avoid the clutter.
Also explore joining groups within Facebook and LinkedIn where you can interact with other people in your industry and collaborate.
Streamline your social media
These are just a few suggestions of ways to keep yourself up to date on what’s going on in your industry. Self education should not be optional for you, it should be required. Essentially I am arguing that you should try to do one of these things everyday so you are constantly learning a little bit of information regularly. If you have any suggestions other than what I mentioned please share with us!
Amanda Moore
