Why investing in new skills is essential for personal and business growth

Continuous professional development is critical for the advancement of both your career and your business. Whether you’re climbing the corporate ladder or building your own business, learning should never really stop.

Investing in new skills (whether developing them yourself or bringing them in from outside) is what keeps smart businesses charging forward. Success doesn’t happen overnight. Instead it is the slow and steady perseverance, learning new skills, investing in the people in your company and growing together as a collective. Only then will success be achieved.

Why investing in your own skills is essential?

Given the competitiveness of today’s world and how fast information is transmitted, staying on top of industry trends is of key importance. Information quickly becomes stagnant and outdated so unless you want to stay behind and lose your competitive edge, you should really consider investing in your own knowledge and skills.

As a business owner you wear many different hats and are doing whatever it takes to help your company and team succeed. Focussing on improving yourself and helping yourself grow should be one of those priorities.

The more you learn, the more growth opportunities you’ll find. You’ll realise there are many new technologies and techniques out there you could be and should be using to further your business progress. Nobody is going to give you those on a silver platter, only through learning will you find them yourself.

Why investing in your team is essential?

There’s the old tale of a conversation between two managers considering sending employees on a course. The first one says ‘What happens if we train staff and they leave?’ to which the second one responds ‘What happens if we don’t and they stay?’

Investing in your team is the key to keeping productivity levels high, your business on track and more importantly your employees happy. When you invest in staff you’re essentially saying ‘I believe in you. I value you. I know that you matter to the success of this company. I want you to grow and I want you to help me grow my company’.

Investing in employee training improves morale and ensures key talent stays with and works to their max.

Investing in your business

If you can get everything your business needs out of yourself and your current employees, then great, but sometimes you have to bring talent in.

Be it making a new hire, getting an agency or using a freelancer on and off, investing in skills sometimes means bringing those skills in from the outside.

So tell me, when was the last time you invested in yourself, your staff or your business? How do you improve your skills and keep yourself up-to-date?

To find out potential areas of your business that will need new skills and new investment, take our Business Accelerator Test.