Many of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, CEOs, and managers possess exceptional business knowledge, which is an essential strategic asset. It is an accumulation of extensive experiences, skills, industry insight, and abilities, which enable them to launch and operate a business. The comprehensive expertise not only shapes their individual performance, but it determines a company’s key activities and revenue.
Knowledge is power, especially in business. If you want a brand to become more productive, profitable, and powerful than its competitors, you must work on your industry expertise to separate a company in a marketplace.
To launch a successful new company or establish yourself as a business asset, read this go-to guide to growing your business knowledge.
Gain Hands-On Industry Experience
Become a force to be reckoned with in business by gaining hands-on experience across various departments. Before entering a role, you should gain experience in different areas of the business. For example, if you want to become a successful restaurateur or restaurant manager, secure a role in the kitchen to understand its needs, processes, and demands. If your dream is to launch a fashion empire, find a sales assistant position at a popular store.
If you are currently climbing the corporate ladder or running a business, take the time to learn about each department, talk to employees, and familiarize yourself with the different processes and demands. Gaining this expertise might take time and hard work, but it will make it much easier to lead a business to success in the future.
Earn an Online Degree at a Flexible Pace
Complement hands-on experience by earning a degree. Choose from various programs to sharpen your business knowledge and dominate an industry. Saint Bonaventure University provides various degree programs for ambitious professionals, as you could gain a Master of Arts in Leadership, Business Administration, or Business Analytics, to name a few options.
Online programs are an ideal option for professionals already in employment or who have demanding personal lives, as they are flexible and delivered 100% online. There is a course to match almost every need and interest, which will help you expand on your existing skills, work on your weaknesses, and gain a competitive advantage.
Study Famous and Local Entrepreneurs and CEOs
Make it your mission to learn as much as possible about the most successful people in your field, from famous entrepreneurs and managers to local business owners and CEOs. Each will have made various mistakes throughout their careers, which they may have shared in autobiographies, news articles, or videos. It will allow you to learn from their gaffes, tips, and tactics to enjoy greater individual and organizational success.
Expand Your Knowledge Base
To be successful in business, you must have a firm understanding of what your customers want and your employees’ skills and abilities. This knowledge base will help you operate a more efficient organization while pinpointing potential opportunities and reducing business risks. The in-depth understanding is called a knowledge advantage, as it could set your company apart from its rivals.
By understanding your company’s abilities and comparing them against your customers’ wants and needs, a business can gain an edge over its competitors, as it can lead to:
- Improved communication
- Fast problem-solving
- More innovation
- Organizational agility
- Streamlined internal processes
- Thought leadership
If the above benefits weren’t enough, a strong knowledge base can help you develop and market higher quality products and services, execute smarter strategies, identify market trends before competitors, and increase annual profitability. To become successful in business, you can’t afford to ignore your customers’ desires, and you must understand every aspect of the business.
Survey Your Employees, Customers, and Suppliers
Learn as much as possible about a brand or industry by surveying your employees, customers, and suppliers annually. Your team and suppliers more than likely have individual views about a company’s performance. Generate honest feedback by using anonymous surveys to identify a brand’s strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. By doing so, you could make various changes and tweaks to improve employee morale, build positive supplier relationships, and increase productivity and profitability.
Also, never forget to survey customers to expand your understanding of an industry and a business. The feedback will allow you to learn more about a company’s target customers, the market, and what they think of the brand. Plus, it could help your business identify an underserved want or need, which could help it tap into a gap in the market. Make it your mission to gather your customers’ views on new products, marketing campaigns, services, and price points.
Put Your Knowledge to the Test
Of course, there is no point in gaining extensive knowledge if you fail to put it into practice. If you don’t act on the sales, marketing, or business knowledge, you will never lead a business to success. Aim to put the tips and theories into practice to expand your knowledge, overcome obstacles, and strengthen a company’s position in a market. It might require you to take an informed leap, but the risk may pay off ten-fold for a business. If your staff members aren’t forthcoming about sharing their business improvement ideas or industry knowledge, provide various incentives for sharing opinions or tactics that may improve the company’s productivity or profitability.
Don’t Stop Challenging Yourself
To learn as much as possible in your career, you must never stop challenging yourself. To do so, you may need to occasionally push yourself outside your comfort zone. While you may fail at times, it will help you identify your weaknesses, build on your strengths, and learn from your mistakes. If you can pinpoint where you are going wrong, you could grow your business acumen and develop a positive reputation in an industry. Don’t fear failure and jump headfirst into a challenge to build on your knowledge, confidence, and abilities.
Continually Grow Your Network
You may have heard it thousands of times, but networking is one of the best ways to improve your business expertise. Forming connections with successful businesswomen and men could expose you to useful industry insights, ideas, and tactics. The more people you meet throughout your career, the stronger your knowledge will be and the more success you will enjoy.
Network successfully online by building relationships on the following sites and apps:
- Meetup
- LunchMeet
While social networking sites can grow your reputation in a field and help you form connections with industry experts, they shouldn’t replace face-to-face networking. Develop more meaningful relationships by attending various industry conferences, seminars, trade shows, and meetups. The stronger a connection with an ambitious professional, the more priceless ideas and information you will acquire over the years.
Monitor the Market
Never take your finger off the pulse in business, or your knowledge could quickly become outdated. Remain forward-thinking and creative by monitoring the market, your competitors’ performance, average pricing, and any new rivals in the field. Also, read the latest market research and reports, review any new products launched, analyze competitors’ sales and marketing strategies, and identify potential issues before they strike.
Develop a Knowledge-Sharing Culture
Developing a knowledge-sharing culture is one of the best ways to expand your expertise while strengthening your team’s skills. For instance, ask your employees to share their best ideas and techniques during a meeting to learn from their knowledge and experiences.
Also, host various brainstorming sessions and innovation workshops to introduce yourself and the business to new strategies, concepts, or ideas. It could help you and your team change an approach to a creative task or problem. Improve sharing and collaboration by encouraging staff to share advice, articles, or insights via a company’s intranet, an online chat, or email.
Listen to Business Podcasts in Your Spare Time
Podcasts have increased in popularity in recent years. While many industries are oversaturated in podcast channels nowadays, you can find high-quality content from industry leaders.
Aspiring or established entrepreneurs or managers can take their pick from many informative podcasts to improve their business acumen. If you are unsure about the best business podcasts to tune into, start with the following:
- The Mind Your Business Podcast
- Entrepreneurs on Fire
- How I Built This
- Youpreneur
- Dorm Room Tycoon
The beauty of podcasts is you can listen to them whenever you have a spare minute in the day, such as when cooking, commuting, or showering.
Secure an Experienced Mentor
Most successful entrepreneurs have learned various tricks of the trade from a mentor. For example, Richard Branson, the world-famous British business magnate, asked Sir Freddie Laker, a British airline entrepreneur, to guide him when he failed to get Virgin Atlantic up and running.
Also, Bill Gates, Microsoft’s founder, was mentored by Warren Buffet, one of the most successful investors of all time. Thanks to Buffet’s guidance, Gates navigated various challenging situations and developed a long-term goal mindset.
Find a mentor by:
- Asking successful local business leaders to spare some time to provide advice
- Networking at industry events and asking speakers for advice or a meetup
- Turn to an ex-employer or industry expert you admire for support
Watch Various TED Talks and Industry Videos
YouTube provides ambitious professionals with hours upon hours of informative content for free. Many industry experts have taken the time to share their market experience or business advice with the world. Plus, you can discover how-to articles, watch competitor campaigns, and even check out product reviews to gain an insight into your rivals’ goods and services.
TED Talks are a worthwhile watch, too. While they can’t teach you how to be a success in business, they could open your mind to new ideas and motivate you to accomplish your professional and organizational goals.
Collaborate with Other Businesses
Many entrepreneurs and managers make the mistake of believing all other businesses are a threat. However, they could become an industry asset. Many organizations understand the importance of entering a cluster, which is a concentration of interconnected businesses or organizations that provide a specific field or industry with goods and services.
Joining a cluster will allow you to connect with people from various companies in the same industry or area that share suppliers, infrastructure, or distribution networks. Professor Michael Porter is the brains behind the cluster concept, which encourages businesses to analyze cluster members’ existing businesses to grow their economic development. Prime examples of a cluster include London’s financial sector, Silicon Valley’s computer chip production, and Hollywood’s movie production industry.
Never Stop Learning
Business education doesn’t need to end once you have earned a degree in business administration or leadership. Committing to life-long learning could help you remain one step ahead of competitors and enjoy more professional success.
When you are not busy monitoring your competitors, brainstorming ideas with employees, or networking with other professionals, you must aim to learn as much as possible about an industry, innovative tactics, and the latest rules and regulations.
To do so, you must stay up to date on the latest news, monitor the economy, read the latest industry articles, and learn from reports and journals. Make education easy by subscribing to top publications in business, too, such as:
- The Economist
- Bloomberg
- Forbes
- Inc
- Fast Company
- Money
- Fortune
Conclusion
Growing your industry knowledge will take much time, hard work, and commitment. Plus, there are many ways you can expand your business acumen, as you could enroll in a respected degree program, find an experienced mentor, network with other professionals, or read the latest textbooks, autobiographies, or articles.
To succeed in business, you must dedicate yourself to life-long learning, as there will always be a new tactic to master, technology to adopt, or a popular platform to market a business. Set yourself apart from other professionals by watching informative industry videos, learning from the experts, and pushing yourself outside your comfort zone.
Despite your busy schedule, you must set time aside each day for learning, which could vary from listening to a business podcast on the commute home from work to following up with a connection on the likes of LinkedIn or Twitter.
