Solopreneur – Invest in yourself

As a solopreneur, you likely have so much on your mind that it’s difficult to even think about educating yourself on better business skills and practices. After all, in many cases your time is literally money.

Still, it’s important to keep investing in yourself so you’re able to keep up with industry trends and innovations. If you focus on your current business to the point you’re ignoring your future business, you risk becoming old news as technology evolves and new techniques and challenges come to the forefront.

“Most professionals focus on productivity and efficiency, not on improvement,” writes Michael Simmons on Inc.com. “As a result, just five hours of deliberate learning a week can set you apart.”

More suggestions for furthering your education as a solopreneur:

• Carve out time to disconnect from electronics and reflect on where you are and where you’re going. “This is another way to allow the brain to find the new connections you’re looking for,” advises author Scott Halford in Entrepreneur. “Be open to the ideas that come flooding into the canals of your mind.”

• List and rank by importance subjects you’d like to learn more about for business purposes.

• Try to fit in 45 minutes to an hour each day to review news stories, blog posts, podcasts and books on subjects that may help your business.

• Establish a Google News feed with keywords for the kinds of news reports you’d like to be emailed each day. Avoid information overload by being as specific as possible with those keywords.

• Seek a mentor who can help keep you abreast of what you need to know most to grow your business. Experience can be the best teacher, and the ability to learn from others’ mistakes can save you much time, energy and frustration.

• Invest in technology that allows you to continually learn about the people in your customer base, their preferences and their patterns of behavior. The more you understand about how they think and respond, the better you can target your business strategy toward solving their pain points and gaining their loyalty.

• Evaluate what is and is not working for your competitors. “More likely than not, other businesses are doing at least one thing different than you,” notes entrepreneur Kevin Harrington, who bills himself as the inventor of the infomercial. “By studying them, you are gaining another perspective when it comes to your industry, and you are also seeing how these companies approach their problems.”

• Review your probable ROI on paid webinars, courses and classes. Might your new knowledge enable DIY functions that could save you money, such as the ability to complete your own tax returns? How long before your new acumen pays for itself?

• Consider the benefits of earning an additional degree or certification. Would it gain you more credibility with clients? Allow you to expand your range of products or services? Help you cut back on payroll? Boost profits? Weigh all such advantages against the costs to your solopreneur wallet, schedule, energy levels and mental health.

• Save receipts for educational goods and services, many of which are tax-deductible when classified on tax forms as “business development.” Items eligible for deduction may include books and e-books; traditional, email and online courses; webinars, seminars and workshops; membership to relevant industry sites and registration for conferences.

• Make concrete plans to implement what you’ve learned. The time and energy you spend learning will all go to waste if you’re too busy or preoccupied to put your new knowledge to practical use.

“By stretching your solorpreneur brain every day, you keep it young and smart,” concludes Halford. “The combination of the wisdom from experiences and your constant new knowledge will be one of the most powerful innovation tools you will possess.”

Be sure to also include in your learning, the importance on inbound calls, and how a vanity phone number from Custom Toll Free can help You and your customers.