[5-minute read]
When you’re in the early stages of starting and running your own business, there’s so much to learn. Every day is a masterclass in success and failure with you as the teacher, student, and examiner all at once. Sometimes, it’s necessary to take a step back and invest time and finances into your skills. That’s why we’ve put together this list of online courses that will bolster you as you grow your business. Some of them are free and some will require more budgetary commitment. Regardless of the cost, the value you will gain from growing confidence in your abilities cannot be quantified.
Learn Your S.E.Os
These days, everything is happening on digital. But not all of us are digital natives, so we need help with getting to grips with how fast things change and why it is actually necessary to have a social media account for your salon and think about Google search rankings. For that, we turn to Hubspot’s free SEO Training Course. Built and run by seasoned web experts, this course will simplify the mystifying world of SEO, spiders, backlinks, and key words so that your business becomes more visible to the people who are trying to find it.
Make Things Look Beautiful
No social media account is complete without great visuals, but not all of us are designers. That’s where this course from Skillshare comes in handy: Getting Started with Canva for Beginners. Sign up for free and absorb the basics of how to create engaging and appealing content for your business.
Master Facebook
Take a look at this course from Coursera, the Facebook Social Media Marketing Certificate. By subscribing to Coursera Plus for $59 a month, you can access this programme and more than 3 000 others. Alternatively, you could try and squeeze in all the information during your free 7-day trial, but sometimes it’s worth spending money on enhancing the skills that will set you up for success in the future. Facebook is more than a place to debate vaccines with strangers, it’s a powerful marketing tool. Learning how to harness its power will serve you well.
Learn How to Build Your Brand
Another worthwhile Coursera offering is this one – Brand Management: Aligning Business, Brand, and Behaviour. With all the information competing for people’s attention online, make sure that the message you’re sharing with the world is consistent, coherent, and captivating. Build trust with your audience and reap the rewards of their loyalty.
Become a Lifelong Learner
LinkedIn is an educational pillar in the world of business. Luckily for the rest of us, they’ve developed LinkedIn Learning, a hub for classes in the tech, creative, and business fields. Try it out free for a month and then subscribe on a monthly or annual basis. Offering courses from Adobe to QuickBooks, sharpen your skills as an all-rounder and master your social posts as well as invoices.
Discover The Art of Negotiation
When all is said and done, making a sale comes down to clear and persuasive communication. Sometimes that is achieved in ways more subtle than offering a 50% discount. With this course on the art of negotiation from the London School of Economics, delve into the nuanced world of impactful strategies that will transform you into an influential and effective communicator. At £2 200, it is a serious investment, so put it on your vision board and set aside some wiggle room in your budget to become a silver-tongued orator.
There’s no school like the school of hard knocks, but there’s never a downside to expanding your horizons in a professional and scholastic environment. There are hundreds of thousands of short courses available to you, these are just a handful that we think would benefit any entrepreneur as they wade into the deep end of business.
Was this video helpful? Share your thoughts and tag us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
P.S. Want a payments solution that does what it says it will do? Get Truevo. We can’t wait to connect with you.
