Your educational achievements are to be congratulated! We know this because we are educators; we know the efforts you’re making or have made to complete your education. It’s a great time, however, to also consider how you’ll put your education to work. You may have concrete plans already in motion, or vague ideas floating through your mind. Either way, let’s examine 7 key strategies for your business success, because it’s right around the corner, just waiting for you.
Key Strategy 1: Build Up From Your Base
The education you’ve acquired has been building your base set of capabilities and comprehension from the start of preschool. More often than not, we are unaware of knowledge acquired; it simply becomes our base of understanding and we move on to acquire additional knowledge in the remaining years of schooling. To achieve the first key strategy for your business success, prepare the following:
- List all of the education you’ve received to date, including preschool or other forms of instruction.
- Compare and contrast the courses that were highly beneficial to those that were not.
- Within the courses that were beneficial, list the fields of knowledge that appealed to you the most.
- Within the courses that were least beneficial, list the reasons why the knowledge was uninteresting or did not appeal to you.
- List the areas of business interest you hold today and why you are interested. This may include any roles or positions that sound intriguing to you or areas of interest, such as game development or journalism, that you would like to pursue.
- Consider the areas of business in which you have no interest and compare those with the list of roles and positions you would like to consider. Are any likes and dislikes conflicting in a role or position? Strike those out.
Key Strategy 2: Take a Walk
With your list of key areas of business interest from Key Strategy 1, take a walk among the possibilities that could be, or already are, positions you’d like to hold. For example, do you want to become an engineer at an aerospace company, start your own business, or become a business development manager? Examine the positions currently available on websites for those positions and make notes of the qualifications required.
Key Strategy 3: Define Your Interests
From your findings in Key Strategies 1 and 2, examine the results you’ve tabulated. Which of these positions captures a high degree of interest? If you envision a role that you’ll create, retain that concept. If starting your own business is your goal, that route can be structured using this small business plan template and moving forward with your original business concepts. In short, don’t hold back from using your education and interests to define your future.
Key Strategy 4: Refine Your Direction
This may seem tricky, but this is the time to fully refine your direction. This means you’ll examine and re-examine your interests, your aptitude, your experience (if any), and your personal goals. It’s time to put your education to work: ensure all of these areas are refined into your purpose for obtaining the position you will choose. Refine larger ideals into one or two potential roles; avoid a list of 10 or 15 different ideas. Refine your direction to your specific goal.
Key Strategy 5: Make One Contact
Much like sales prospecting for customers, this key strategy will take your interest and initiative to an interview. You’ll request an “informational interview” from an individual in a business of your interest. An informational interview allows a conversation to develop organically without pressure on either party to discuss job availability. Informational interviews allow the prospective employer and job seeker to form a relationship of mutual interest and, importantly, it may be a “practice interview” for your specific, targeted efforts ahead.
Key Strategy 6: Take an Opportunity
In this key strategy, you’ll take a very focused position that keenly addresses everything you’d like in a job. Take one opportunity to apply for a position from your findings of Key Strategies 1, 2,3, 4, and 5. For example, perhaps you’ve examined a career in tutoring and your direction is on how to start a tutoring business. Maybe your choice is to become a jewelry designer. Apply for positions that you’ve examined and sourced or start a business of your choice. You’ve pre-determined this step by your choices.
Key Strategy 7: Make the Leap
Finally, it’s time to make that leap. Take the position offered, start your business, begin your career. Embarking on the first job can be exciting, as it may be the unknown. However, one fact will remain: you examined your interests, refined those interests, defined the primary interest, and heartily pursued it. You can be confident in that. We wish you the best of success!
ALSO READ: 10 Soft Skills for Students for Personal and Professional Growth (First one is very important!)
