"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young." – Henry Ford

 

Educating yourself is probably something you did to start your business and don’t do now. You may think you don’t have time for it since you’re too “busy” with your existing clients or finding new ones. The truth is that you should never stop learning (whether you own a business or not) because it has been shown in countless studies that it keeps you young.

 

Research and Development or education doesn’t have to take much time nor even be formal like courses that give you letters. It doesn’t have to cost a lot either. Like marketing, a little bit can be done every day.

 

Here’s the way you can educate yourself – painfree.

 

1. Learn to read and understand your financials and all analysis (your website and your newsletter) of your business. You don’t have to become an accountant or a web designer or any kind of “techie” to do this.

 

2. Read magazines for small business. These always have an article to teach you something. Look at the ads and see what others are doing. They could be your competition or even your clients. If the writer or advertiser is a client then you have a reason to email them and stay in touch.

 

3. Subscribe to and read email newsletters. There are at least three kinds – those with topics you want to learn about, your competition’s, and your client’s. You always want to be learning or keeping up. You want to see what your competitors are doing. You want to learn what your client is doing. Remember that these can be just online versions of the magazine. Do similar things here but check out the links they suggest, too.

 

4. Read newspapers. Many of these are going away and being made available online, you never know what you’ll learn in them. Do the same things as you did in #2 with magazines.

 

5. Read books. This may seem like using “old” technology but it really works. Some people (like me) love to read. In fact, we are even known to read the cereal box in the morning! You can buy or borrow books in countless ways. Go into a bookstore to browse, get a book from one of the online bookstores, borrow from someone else (just be sure you return it) or go to the library. Yes, they still exist and people use them.

 

6. Participate in teleclasses. These are seminars by phone. Be sure of two things – have cheap long distance and know what kind of teleclass you’re taking. Some are at no charge but have advertisements in them and some cost money. Decide if it’s something you want to learn and it’s at a time you can listen.

 

Many teleclasses are recorded so even if you have something else at the same time, you can download the recording to your computer– if you sign up.

 

7. Attend live seminars to get new ideas and skills and to network with the others present. You may or may not have the time or money so put one in your budget for next year and go.

 

All of these activities can take up a lot of your time so know how much you’ll do of each one daily.

 

Put time and money in your plan under R&D (or education). Do some every week.

 

2008 © Trudy Van Buskirk – Smallbizbuilder

 

Trudy Van Buskirk, entrepreneur and founder of Smallbizbuilder, has been helping small business owners be better marketers since 1980 and publishes a free ezine full of valuable marketing tips, resources, and books designed to create business success. Go to her website at  www.smallbizbuilder.com  to sign up and learn more!