Learning, Self-Improvement, and Home Business Growth

In a few days I will be attending a live training event in Portland, Oregon with Ann Sieg, Mike Klingler, Ty Tribble, and a host of other internet network marketers. I am looking forward to what I can learn there and the opportunity to network with like-minded entrepreneurs. I knew I wanted to attend this event when I first heard about it last summer, so I registered just as soon as “the doors opened.”

I anticipate being able to share some useful ideas with you after I get back.

Attending this live event is just one of the things I am doing –and have been doing– in the area of personal education as a marketer and entrepreneur. Although I will be 64 in just a few months, one of the first of the baby boomers (!!), I enjoy learning new things.

The Top 5 Things I Did for Self-Improvement in 2009.

Programs at the Renegade Professional:

1) Video Training on Many Marketing Topics: The Renegade Professional is a membership site loaded with practical video tutorials on every possible aspect of internet marketing. Because the videos are so straightforward –click-by-click, step-by-step training– it works for everyone, from the computer novice to the more experienced. Just when I think I know it all, I’ll go through a series of videos and inevitably discover new tricks, or realize some critical error I had been making. I had already build several Word Press blogs, but the Steve Anderson video series (23 tutorials!) gave me tremendous help in improving the sites with best choice plug-ins and a lot more. Access to the over 200 training videos has been one of the valuable benefits of the Renegade Professional membership for me.

2) Coaching Cognition: Personal communication skills are absolutely critical for internet network marketers; networking involves communicating no matter if you are establishing leads in your circle of friends and local community or over the internet. You must always be ready to listen, support, lead, encourage, and direct. Although I have been in the teaching and training professions all my life, I knew I could still improve in this area of personal communication. Coaching Cognition is a six month course including online learning, live webinars, reading and audio assignments, and several hours a week practicing one-to-one coaching with course peers. This is proving to be even more valuable than I had thought as I have the opportunity to meet and brainstorm with other entrepreneurs. The $1500 spent for this course has been a solid self-improvement investment.

3) SuperGuide Program: The Renegade Professional has a program that identifies individuals as capable of helping other growing entrepreneurs – and those that qualify are called SuperGuides. The requirements to qualify are rigorous. There is a checklist of accomplishments which must be met and evaluated by one of the more experienced, long term SuperGuides. Last August, I decided to attempt qualification for the program, primarily as a way to learn and secondly as a little motivation to get more accomplished. I met the deadline and qualified, and in so doing, learned a lot about “building a web of content” that I thought I understood, but hadn’t. This was another valuable self-improvement learning experience in 2009.

Other Programs:

4) 31 Days to Build a Better Blog: Last spring, I was one of thousands to accept a challenge from one of the world’s foremost bloggers, Darren Rowse, to build a better blog. For 31 days he provided instruction, examples, and links for further study along with a daily assignment. I admit to falling behind in the assignments so the whole process took me a bit longer than 31 days. But every assignment was truly worthwhile. At the end of the adventure, I decided to purchase an e-book version of the course he had been posting on his blog. It is one of the finest investments I have made in learning materials. This is a quality e-book at a great price – $19.95.  It is not for someone who does not yet have a blog; it is for those of us with a blog and want to gain traffic by making it better. (I have 4 blogs.) I highly recommend 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. I plan to use the workbook to go through the “31 days” again this year.

5) Connie Ragan Green: Last summer, I hopped onto a webinar with a woman who has made good money online primarily from affiliate marketing.  I found that she gives a lot of value. The webinar teaches a lot of affiliate marketing basics for beginners (that’s where I was) and I learned some techniques I have been able to use without having to buy into someone’s “system.” I just wanted to do it for myself. The 90 minute webinar was recorded and you may find it as useful as I did. It’s inexpensive.

Some Other Stuff I Learned

Those were the best things I did last year. I confess to buying some other materials that were mediocre (or worse) – but I won’t mention them here! I would not recommend you try to do too much at once.  It is easy to err in jumping from one plan of attack to another and thus getting nothing done.

Others err in doing nothing to improve themselves; they are afraid of spending money to see their business grow. It is certainly wise to select your self-improvement investments carefully.  Many can attest to wasting money on low quality programs. I can even confess to spending money on a high quality program which I have not begun to use; that is a waste of money for sure. So be certain you have the time set aside to devote to the learning!

Not everything has to cost money.  Another valuable thing I did last year was to re-read several times two free e-books by Ann Sieg, including The Attraction Marketer’s Manifesto which I highly recommend.

Why keep learning? Why keep improving yourself? One of my reasons is to improve my value to you! For example, I have had the pleasure of chatting with some of you about your business activities, but I want to be sure to be as helpful as possible. I have been a professional workshop trainer for many years. But I know that sometimes you may not want “training” but simply – help, or – coaching. That was a major reason for my investing in the Coaching Cognition program.

What are You Learning?

So that’s some of what I have been doing for home business self-improvement. What about you? I would be most interested in hearing from you, especially if you are a baby boomer like me – What are you learning for home business growth? What was the most valuable thing you did last year to improve yourself in order to improve your home business?  I really would welcome your response as a comment to this post!

You might also want to see these related posts:

1. Your Home Business Leadership Needs to Grow in Competence
2. Persistent Home Business Marketing – The Turtles Will Still Be In the Race Next Year
3. Home Business Newsletters- Not the Best Way to Learn Home Business Information
4. Coaching Cognition – Antidote to Communication Failure
5. Grow Your Business at Out-Of-Your-Circle Live Events