Insights for Women in Business and Entrepeneurs

How can you maximize your current role while always striving for your future career opportunities or business opportunities? If you want to see your career propel exponentially, you always need to continue learning and growing. This does not mean that you should get another degree, or take time out of your career. What it does mean is that you must devote at least 10% of your time to your continuing education. Here are some ways that you can enhance your continuing education opportunities.

1. Continue to develop your knowledge by attending webinars. These are often free, and can provide tremendous value in a short timeframe.
2. Attend live events, or trade shows. Live events ensure that you stay focused on the content since you are devoting a considerable amount of time and money to attend. In-person events are a great learning opportunity, allowing you to build your network of like-minded professionals.
3. Start a peer group where you meet once a month or even once per quarter and focus on findings in a specific area. For example, if you are in marketing, you can focus one month on Social Media Advertising, another on Brand Marketing and so on. As a group, you can have one speaker who is an expert and shares their tips and, then spend the rest of the time collaborating on ideas and strategies. This builds your network and gives you a place to share and get advice in real-time.

Personal Story:

When I directed marketing for the global non-profit organization, there was a year when a professional development conference was unfortunately not in the budget. I knew that there was one conference I had attended in the past, and wanted to attend every year because of the amazing content and learning I gained in prior years. Since there was no budget, I decided to pay for the conference on my own, and take my vacation days to attend. Not only did I gain fabulous content that I’m still using today (and this was in 2013!), but this is also when I made the decision that I wanted to start my own business based on the connections I made and the stories I heard from other business owners. This one week, focused on the principle of learning, truly changed my life.

I invite you to download a copy of the chapter I recently co-authored for the book, The Female Factor: A Confidence Guide for Women. The chapter focuses on 6 strategies I have found helpful and hope this helps other early-stage female professionals (1-10 years experience), as you navigate your career in today's workplace.