If you’re an entrepreneur or a business person, then chances are only one thing will be on your mind: advancing your career and being the best version of yourself that you possibly can be. Here are a few tips that will help you do that as fast as possible.
Develop Your Own Skills
First of all, make sure that you’re always developing your own skills. Whether it’s asking your employer if you can be put forward for a new course or learning things in your own time, a management skills course if you want to learn how to manage people better or an SEO In Excel course if you want to improve your marketing skills will be absolutely invaluable. Not only will it help you to develop the skills that you already possess, but it will show future employers and investors that you simply aren’t willing to rest on your laurels and you’re always looking to be bigger and better. You can also help your career by furthering your education. With places like RMIT university offering a variety of courses online, you can develop your skills without the hassle of going to a traditional college.
Learn To Network
Networking is one of the most important things you can learn to do. If you think of yourself as a nerdy person, the inventor rather than the business person, it’s time to ditch that introversion and learn how to plaster a smile onto your face. Make sure that you go along to as many conventions and networking events as you possibly can, and don’t just loiter in the corners – introduce yourself to people, hand out business cards, smile and be friendly and ask questions. Make yourself someone who everyone else will remember at the end of the day.
Treat People Well
The old saying goes that you should be nice to everyone you meet on the way up because you’ll be seeing them again on the way down. Hopefully you won’t ever be on your way down but you still need to prepare for that possibility – people will turn up again at different companies in different roles and you need to make sure that if you’ve already had a business connection or relationship with them, it was a positive one. In business, of course, not everything ends on a great note – but you need to make sure that you reach out to people with kindness and that you act with care and honour at all times. Not only is that basic human decency and behaviour that would make your mother proud, but it’ll also mean that people recommend you to their peers and think of you as someone that they enjoy working with. Treating people well puts the sincerity back into networking.
Stay Curious
Finally, make sure you stay curious. Being intellectually curious is one of the most important skills for any entrepreneur – read the news, keep up to date with what’s going on in the world, and in that way you can figure out what exactly people will be wanting in a year and what the trends are moving towards. Being curious will help you gain knowledge, clarity and understanding, making you a more interesting businessperson as well as a more rounded person.
