This month is all about Professional Development. Why? Because B2BThrive is here to help your business grow! And as with all small businesses, your business starts with YOU. So it is our aim to focus in on ways to help you develop yourself and your tools to help you develop and grow your business.
Let’s start with what Professional Development actually is…
Professional Development is the continuous process of obtaining new knowledge and skills or keeping your knowledge and skills up to date that relate to one’s profession, responsibilities, or work environment.
So why is this important?
You finished your degree, you started your business, you have a few certificates…you’ve done well for yourself. Why do you need to continue to self-educate? The world at large is ever changing. Best practices and standards are changing constantly. New laws, new ways to communicate, new technologies and new guides are shifting all the time. Keeping up with these changes are should be a top concern in your business, especially as a small or local business. Appearing to be incompetent can be detrimental to your credibility with your local customer base.
How do I work Professional Development into my busy schedule?
Creating a schedule and a list of helpful types of training will help you keep on track with regular and continuous professional development training. Determine what types of training your like best. There are online modules and live trainings (Webinars), live workshops, conferences, books, groups, networking, coaching and mentoring. You may enjoy a variety of these types of trainings. My recommendation would be to pin down 1-2 of these types per month, or if you prefer to read, work through 1 per month and keep a reading list. Put these trainings into your calendar so you are sure not to schedule over them.
Continuing your development cannot be underestimated. It’s hard to push forward when you’re already busy and you are working on growing your organization. However, your organization can gain major benefits from you improving your skills. One way to help you motivate yourself is by taking workshops that help you with areas you are weak in. Do you struggle with time management? Take a workshop that helps you with better organizing your schedule and workload. Do you have problems with managing employees? What about understanding the tax code so you can pick the best financial system for your business. Would it help if you were better at Excel? How about a course on how to increase your social media presence? There are all types of professional development workshops and books that can help you develop these skills.
As we get into this month on Professional Development, get social with us. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. You can also follow this blog. We will have more tips and promotional to help you as well as our CODE workshops. You can learn more about our CODE program here.
We hope this information was helpful and that you will use this information to catapult yourself into a healthy schedule of growing and developing yourself each month. Please share and drop a comment below!
