Earners Are Learners

Sparkplugging is continuing our tradition called ‘Spark an Idea Thursday’. Each week we’ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers. We invite you to grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog! If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you were inspired!

This week we’re Sparking an Idea About Lifelong Learning

When I first started working at home online, there was no Paypal or eBay. The word “spam” hadn’t been used yet. Blogs and YouTube had yet to be conceived. Internet marketing was about bulk mailing (spam), pop ups, and adding your URL to search engines (pre-SEO). If I was still operating under the old rules and ignoring new tools, my business would be dead and gone. Keeping your business up-to-date with the latest resources and know-how is as important as marketing and other aspects of running your business.

Keeping on top of trends you need to know about is easy. Personally I love books. In fact, I recently wrote a post here about how Leaders are Readers sharing my belief that books are a significant part of personal success. I have piles and piles of books on my desk and bed side table. They range from marketing books (The Wuffle Factor and Secrets of Social Media), book promotion (The Frugal Book Promoter), and success (Go Put Your Strengths To Work) books just to name a few. That doesn’t include the magazines such as Working Mother, Home Business, and Writers Digest.

But books and magazines aren’t the only methods to gaining the knowledge you need to stay on top in the WAHM world. Blogs and news feeds offer lots of great tips, tools and news. I love Lifehacker and WebWorkerDaily for sharing new Google Hacks and other great tools to streamline my work. I follow several WAHM and telecommuting blogs as well. And Google Alerts lets me know when topics I want to know about are posted in other places I may not find otherwise.

Seminars are another great way to gain additional skills to increase your credibility and marketability. Community centers and colleges offer a host of low cost adult education course that can help you manage your money, learn Excel or other computer programs, learn to speak in public and much more. If you don’t want to leave the house, odds are you can find similar seminars offered through the phone (teleseminars) or online (webinars).

Finally, your network is a wonderful place to find new information and learn new skills. I can’t tell you how many great resources I have found by networking with other WAHMs. Its how I found Sparkplugging!

However you do it, learning should be a daily part of your working routine. Whether its checking out the technology through a blog feed or gaining confidence by reading a motivational book or learning great software hacks through a course,  the more you learn and implement, the more you’ll earn.