5 Reasons Why you Should Invest in Yourself to Grow your Business

Written By Lucy Rennie

Description:

In this week’s podcast, I’m sharing with you the 5 reasons why I believe it’s imperative to invest in yourself, and in your own personal development in order to grow and future-proof your business.


I’m a massive believer in the fact that as business owners you should never stop learning, gaining new skills and finding new ways to do things, to think differently, and to continuously be looking to improve what you’re doing and to add more value.


I talk about: 

  • The need to keep up-to-date with your skills and your knowledge, to make sure that you're staying relevant as a business.

  • Making sure you are adding value to your clients, that you're doing a good job and doing what you say you're going to do. 

  • Your Reputation. Your credibility as a business and being that business owner that is always looking to improve and provide the best service.

  • How important it is to widen your skill set to extend your products or services and offer further value to your clients.

  • The JOY factor. There's something special about learning new skills or gaining insights, and understanding how things work. Striving to be the best at something or challenging yourself to question how you do things? Is there a better way or could you add more value? 


For me, investing in your own personal development allows you to stay interested and keep that spark alive.  It’s a great way to fuel your passion for your business and a fabulous way to get out and meet new people, meet up with your connections, your network, your friends or clients and strengthen those relationships. There's just so much that can come out of this. 

Resource Links:

  • Hello and welcome to the Future-Proof Your Business podcast with me Lucy Rennie.

    I’m a massive champion for small business and I’m on a mission to help you to love what you do and to build and grow your business in a way that works for you and feels good.

    I’m convinced that the best way to create a successful and sustainable business is to do it from the inside out, which means that it has to start with you, the business owner.

    In fact, I believe that business really is all about people, and if you want to future-proof your business and make an impact then you need to get really clear on why you do what you do, create the best experience and then build relationships and trust.

    In this podcast, I want to share with you as much of my knowledge, expertise and experience with you, as I can, as well as some behind the scenes stories and strategies from my business, and I’ll be having conversations with and learning from some amazing business owners and experts so I can give you everything you need to stay focused, on track and feel more in control on this rollercoaster ride that is building a sustainable business.

    Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Future-Proof your Business podcast. I'm Lucy Rennie. and today, I thought we'd have a bit of a chat about a subject that is important to me and one that I I believe in, and one that's really relevant at the moment because of certain deadlines and also because of what I've been doing this morning, and that is CPD, which is for those who don't know, is continuous professional development. I thought it'd be just a really nice topic to chat to you about. I suppose really what I want to do is blow its trumpet, and just talk to you about the benefits and why I really believe it's important as business owners for you personally, but also for your teams, to really encourage you to, think about it. And to get into that cycle into that mindset of continuously learning continuously challenging yourself questioning where you're up to, and what you're doing and, keeping up to date with things.

    Lucy Rennie 02:34

    So just a bit of a background really, just to sort of give you a bit of context and why I've chosen to talk about this with you today. As I'm recording this, literally about half an hour ago, come out of my supervision workshop, which was online. And for those who don't know what supervision is, basically, when you're a coach, it's really good practice to have what we call supervision. And that's where you check in with your own coach or somebody who's there to, I suppose, create a safe space for you to check in to maybe talk about things that have been taking place with your clients. And when you know that you've been mentoring or coaching, maybe discussing aspects, maybe there's things where you think, oh, you know, if only I could have done that better, or maybe I could have handled this a bit differently. Or maybe there's things that you kind of have struggled with or that you think, you'd like to learn other ways to be able to add value to your clients. It's also there if you might have particular challenges with how you show up, or how you develop the contracting or the different terms or manage expectations with your clients. And also it might be that there might be an ethical question there, there might be something that's come up where you just want some advice, or you'd like a sounding board, or you'd like to just talk a particular client or a project through so it's really important as a coach or as a mentor that that I have that space that supervision space.

    Lucy Rennie 04:15

    And this morning, it was great. It was with the brilliant Claire Bradshaw. Who I've worked with for a very long time. And I did the coaching mentoring training with and we have a great relationship. In fact, she's a client of mine, and we worked together on lots of different things. But she's now a supervisor for coaches. She's got so much experience in what she does. And so she brought together five of us, this morning on the online session, from different backgrounds doing lots of different types of coaching from senior execs in large organisations right through to the frontline, in the NHS, and we were all able to come together and it was almost like a bit like the hot seats that I do with in my mastermind programme. ones where we could come in, we brought our own question or our own challenge or issue or something that we wanted to reflect on and get some input from the others. So that's what we've done this morning. And it was really valuable. Firstly, just because actually, it's quite a lonely, lonely world, isn't it running a business, so to connect, and to check in, with each other. But also just to have that different perspective, for somebody to come along, and maybe kind of give you a different point of view on something, or maybe some reassurance, but also maybe challenge you or give you something else to think about, a different way of looking at something or a different model or theory or concept to explore, that you can then take away and think about reflect on and then maybe apply to your coaching or mentoring programmes or your sessions with the client.

    Lucy Rennie 05:58

    So that was this morning. So that's something that I do regularly. And we do that I think it's every couple of months, we check in, and we have that, safe space that time together. Otherwise, other things where, if I'm honest, in my story, if we kind of look back over my life, I think, since even just the early days of leaving university, I actually don't think there's been a year, or even a couple of months that have gone by where I haven't been learning something, or on a new course, or investigating something, reading a book or taking part in a project, whether that's, a formal qualification through, The Open University when I lived in France, or whether it's a grant funded programme with the Manchester Met, or whether it was in my old corporate life or Oslo when it was with university, it was like a project management qualification, or an HR. That's just something I think, in my nature is that I'm always kind of, love learning, I've always been curious, I've always wanted to know how things work. And I've always kind of wanted, to learn new things and to understand, different concepts, different ways of doing things. And, I suppose really, it's also about making sure, I'm improving all the time and finding new ways to do things or practice or, benchmarking myself against what other people do.

    Lucy Rennie 07:24

    So I suppose that's always been my kind of ethos. And even today, there's all sorts of things, whether it's even just going walking the dog every day, I'm always listening to either a podcast or an audible book, I'm always doing different things. And the other other side of it, which is today, as well, which is more of a formal side of it is because I'm part of the CIPL, which is the Chartered Institute for Public Relations, which is all about communication, and really helping businesses to communicate effectively with their stakeholders and looking in a holistic way to maintain my accredited status within the organisation that I have to is obligatory, it's mandatory for me to complete a certain number of points. So CPD points is what it's called. And this is where you based on the different learnings the different activities, the different programmes that I've been doing over the last sort of 12 months, we have to report in, we have to show that, we've been intentional about the fact that we want to be developing new skills or improving or making sure that we're staying up to date with things. And so the deadline for that is actually the 31st of March. So another reason why I thought this was really timely, because actually, it's something that's going on in my life at the moment, and I thought I would just share a few of the benefits. So I suppose the other side of things as well, is my background, which has always kind of been in industry and manufacturing. There's a high priority that's given to what we call continuous improvement. So based on kind of the lean manufacturing theories and ways of doing things, which is always about looking for the best practice looking to see how can you become more efficient at doing something, how can you become more productive? How can we improve things,and constantly having that cycle of,looking at things and checking, in a sense checking, am I doing this in the right way, and a great way that's incorporated in that which I suppose now is just been embedded in who I am and what I do and it's kind of something that I teach in my programmes is, sort of, looking outside of for lifting your head up and looking outside and sort of benchmarking with other people with other businesses with other industries even and being intrigued or curious about what the best practices are. So who's doing what how are they doing it? What's been recognised as the Standard, whether that's an ISO standard, or whether it's just simply, a good practice within your industry, but just being curious about that, and really thinking about how you can improve how you can move forward. And I suppose really, when we talk about CPD, it's kind of starts or kind of takes place. Once you've sort of finished your, I suppose, traditional academic kind of qualifications, so it's more sort of professional qualifications or training or skills, that kind of thing. And very often, it's much more industry specific.

    Lucy Rennie 10:42

    So as I spoke about, I do my CPD for the CIPR, which is where I'm an accredited practitioner. But also it could be where some some industries where, it's obligatory,to keep hold of your practitioner status, your charter status, whatever it might be, whether you're a lawyer, whether you're in HR, and it's the CIPD, whether, I'm sure, it's the same I don't know, but I imagine it's the same in the medical industry as well, for doctors, or people who need to make sure that they're staying up to date with relevant information, that kind of thing. So yeah, I don't know, if you're listening, and you want to share with me what, what you did. But in most industries, there are some kind of regulated or official kind of programmes or associations where you're expected to maintain a certain minimum standard of learning and personal development.

    I thought it would be relevant today to talk to you about this, primarily, because it fits absolutely with my framework of ethos about, future proofing your business and creating something that's sustainable, that successful and that keeps on giving, but also doing it in a way that really works for you and feels good. And so that, just if we look at that in itself, then that's got to be something that we're continuously reviewing that we're looking into that we're sense checking, that we're, we're exploring, I suppose into how can we do this better? How can we make it, feel better? How can we make it so that we're adding more value or getting better results and doing things more efficiently, and I suppose as business owners, sometimes it comes down to us to actually, implement this and lead by example, or engage with an organisation or with an association where there is a practice, where you can access this, and you can get that accreditation, it's different maybe to when you work in an organisation, when you're employed, were actually, there is a in house training scheme, or programme, that kind of thing.

    Lucy Rennie 12.53

    What I wanted to do really just today is to give you my kind of top five reasons or benefits as to why I'm a massive believer in this, and especially for small business, I think, if we're going to stay on top of our game, and really be that force, because then, I believe that we should all be doing that. And this is for you, as an individual, but also as a set for your teams as well. And it's going to come down to you to drive this. So I'm gonna take you through five reasons, really five benefits. And then I'll just at the end of it take you through a couple of different examples of where you can go find more information about this or signpost you to different things, and also just kind of how to set up maybe, a personal development plan for yourself based on the different aspects of your role or your business. So I suppose the first reason really why you know, why it's important to embrace a CPD programme to embrace the fact of continuing to learn and being curious and developing new skills. This is simply it sounds really simple. But actually, you'd be amazed the number of businesses here, who don't do this. The first reason is really to keep up to date with your skills and your knowledge. So, if you're working in a particular niche or a particular industry, you've got a particular skill set, that you're selling, particular products, then you don't want to get left behind, you need to make sure that you're staying relevant. And so I make it by continually developing, improving learning, looking at different ways of doing things, benchmarking with who your competitors are with other people in the industry, is a great way to make sure that you're staying at the top of your game. And you are relevant and that you are thinking and innovating and kind of being you almost needs to be kind of a step ahead, thinking about you know what's coming What are the new trends coming What are the new skills, what are the new programmes, what are the new ways of doing things is common to make sure that actually, you're embracing them in time to, not get left behind. And a great example of that the moment could be, you know, with this Chat GPT, which is all the artificial intelligence, it's creating content for people that's changing the way that we communicate that we do things. And, being interested in that and be exploring it, what anything that's an example of that could go across any industry, because I think it's going to impact all of us as business owners, in terms of how we communicate, but how other people are communicating as well, because it's opening the doors to content creation in lots of different ways.

    Lucy Rennie 15:39

    And in fact, I'll create a whole podcast episode on this, because I think there's pros and cons. I think it's scary, but at the same time, I think we've got to embrace it and go with it, but use it in specific ways. So just quickly on this, but I think it's more about using it for inspiration or ideas to get started, rather than actually having a computer create the whole blog or masterpiece for you that you then share and put out there. There's all sorts of issues with plagiarism or copyright or, or just kind of individualism and the ways that we can express ourselves. But I think we have got to kind of be open to it, and to explore it. And to think just being aware of how it's going to impact us as a business is really important. But as I said, I will come back to that and do a podcast episode on that. Because I think it's it's crucial that we do that. But finally, just in this first point, the last thing really to think about is it's a really great way also of just uncovering what the gaps are. So whether that's for you or your team, if you can make sure you're staying on top of what those skills should be or the knowledge or where you should be within your industry to provide the service and make sure you are at the top of your game, then, you it's a great way to kind of go okay, so actually, that's what we need to be doing. But where are we today, and that's how you can create that gap analysis that allows you to identify what the skills gap is, or what the training is that you need to go and look at or that you know, the service that you need to develop, and then you can go and find the appropriate source of information to help you to do that. So that's the first one is just simply I think it's a minimum, I think that's what we should be doing as businesses and you know, me, if we're going to be here to deliver and do what we say we're going to do to the best of our ability, then we should be making sure we're on top, we're keeping up to date with everything.

    Lucy Rennie 17:32

    The second benefit, the second point that I believe is really important, and it's kind of ties in with that is, it's about adding value to our clients, whatever our business is, whether it's a product or a service, or whatever that might be, we've got to make sure that we're ultimately doing a good job and that we're, doing what we say we're going to do, when we're that we're delivering on what the client is expecting, and I'm pretty sure most of the time, they're expecting us to be delivering, the most relevant information or the most relevant way of doing things or service or, the most sustainable approach, etc. So, being able to, ensure that you are offering correct and up to date information is really important, and making sure that we are delivering for our clients. The third point is, it's really it's about your reputation, it's about your credibility as a business, it's about, being that business owner that is looking to improve. And it sounds really simple, doesn't it but, and straightforward and kind of a given, but there's so many who don't want to invest in themselves, and maybe don't have the time or don't put that as a priority. But actually what they're doing is they're just becoming complacent, or they're sitting on their laurels, is that the expression? And what happens then is, you're not going to be top of your game, you're not going to be delivering a great service compared to maybe other competitors or the people in the industry. So first of all, that's going to have a massive impact on your reputation, your credibility. But secondly, if we reframe that, and we sort of, take the benefits of this, and we talk about it, we communicate it about it, and we share the fact that we are continually improving and we are looking to always, make sure we are doing a good job then that will enhance our reputation and our credibility and it's going to go much further in terms of standing out from the crowd by being the one that your customers choose because they associate themselves with your approach that it resonates that you should be looking to improve and grow and provide the best service so it's huge, I think there's a communication element to make sure that

    Lucy Rennie 20:05

    as a business you are looking to be the best, or you are looking to continually improve and make sure that you're developing, whether it's you or your team, again, tied into that is the fact that maybe you do have an accreditation, maybe you do follow a CPD scheme, like I was talking about at the beginning. And maybe that's something that actually gives you credibility, maybe that's something that's a deciding factor between you and another competitor. And the daft thing is that sometimes you might all have exactly the same accreditation, you might all follow the same scheme, but not all of you are talking about it. So just by being the one who actually said, Yeah, this is what I'm doing. This is me. And, you know, every year I follow this, I've been developing here or exploring this, or I'm looking to improve here, by being the one that actually talks about it, you're, you're going to attract more attention you're going to make, you're gonna help people make a decision. Because most of your customers won't have a clue. And that's, just because they're not in your industry, they won't know that it's something that has to be done, it's an obligatory thing or something that should be done. And so for them to see that you're doing that is going to be absolutely an added value. With that, I think there's something about kind of checking in with yourself, in the sense of, again communicating that, but looking at your achievements, looking how far you've come looking at the progress looking at your qualifications, if you know me i always talk about Lego bricks, don't I, that's what makes you who you are, and makes you unique, and it's that offering that if that mix of different parts of you that add that value. And so the more that you can add to that, the more you can create this amazing melting pot of skills and knowledge of know how I've experienced etc. You know, that's really going to help you in terms of standing out from the crowd. But also, it's about making a difference. And building your confidence. So that, we talk about impostor syndrome a lot, don't we on here, but in a way, it's great to be able to acknowledge what are the skills that you have got the fact that you are improved, and that you are up to date with things because it's really going to help you in terms of your confidence, when you're talking to your clients or your potential clients, about your your product or service, you can come at that with it safe in the knowledge that you do know what you're talking about, and you've got the most relevant information or that you are sharing, you know, the latest insights or benchmarks or best practices. So it's, yeah, there's so much good stuff to go with it.

    Lucy Rennie 22:36

    The fourth point for me is, from a personal perspective, but also as a business owner, from a business perspective is thinking about it in terms of widening your skill set. Which means that, okay, it's interesting, it's always good to learn new things, but ultimately means maybe from a business perspective, that you're able to extend your products or services, because you've got new skills or new experience on, how maybe you can offer further value to your clients, maybe there's some sort of, additional services, or Yeah, added value products and things that you can offer that will enhance your business, which again, will enhance the experience, which will, again, will enhance the loyalty and the fact that, your customers are going to love what you're delivering, and your products and services and keep coming back for more, which is what we talked about. But also through widening your skills, and through being curious and learning different things. It also allows us to maybe come up with new ideas, or to find new ways of doing things, whether that's more cost effective, more efficient, more interesting, but also new opportunities for you as well to grow or to collaborate, or to connect, or to have time off with your family, whatever that might be. It's really is a great way of kind of exploring and discovering new ways of doing things. And ultimately, again, with this in mind, if you think about this, it all feeds into that kind of goal, that we've got a future proofing our business of creating something that's sustainable, that successful, whatever that looks like for you. And that works for you and feels good. So, yeah, it's this continuous cycle of gaining new added value, new skills, new thinking, that will ultimately future proof your business or if you're, a team member and part of an organisation. You can apply all this learning all these things that I'm talking about to you, for your career. It's exactly the same concept. It's, it's about building you as a brand and and creating that reputation and that credibility.

    Lucy Rennie 24:58

    And then finally, the fifth benefit, or the fifth point that I wanted to share with each day is simply joy. And, I talk about this all the time. But for me, there's something about learning new things about that continuous drive to understand how things work or to, make sure that you are the best at something or challenge yourself on how you doing things? And is there a better way of doing it? Or could you add more value? Or could you do things differently, which I think is just so exciting, and so rewarding and satisfying, when something does work. And we can see and look back over the last month years, to see the progress to see the improvement and to see the change that's taken place.If we look over the last three years, when I think it's about now as well, actually March 2020, wasn't it when COVID hit? Well, I'm sure, you know, if you're listening to this right now, I'm sure your business pivoted, I'm sure you, you had to quickly adapt or do different things to make sure that you stay relevant or that you stayed open, basically. And so the satisfaction of coming out of the other side of it stronger, and maybe doing things in a different way is hugely rewarding, and tapping into what you love doing or what's interesting to you, is essential. That was exactly what happened to me during lockdown is where I kind of made that huge pivot from having an agency where we would create the strategy with our small business owners and our clients. But then we'd also have a team that would implement all those different things. And as, that primarily has shifted now where it's more about adding the value of the strategy, and then more about mentoring and coaching and supporting either you as a business owner or your in house teams. And that's ultimately what I love doing. And it's meant that I can spend most of my days in my office with Kylo, my chocolate Labrador sitting by my feet. And that as well brings joy to me that I can work with amazing businesses in different ways, adding value in the right way. And loving what I do in all aspects. So yeah, the fifth one, which really is joy is really important. And it allows you to keep interested and sort of keep that spark going. And, to fuel that passion that you've got for whatever your business is, or whatever your area of interest is, by learning new things, exploring new ways of doing things. But also, it's a great way to get out and meet new people, I mean, your connections, whether that's for friendships, or for clients, or for collaborations, there's just so much that can come out of this, that I just think it's it's hugely important.

    Lucy Rennie 27:56

    And so just to kind of conclude, really, I suppose, having a strategy for continuous personal development within your business for yourself or for your teams is just incredibly important, I genuinely believe that it's crucial if we want to really, you know, future proof our business and grow and keep relevant and sustainable. And I'd go one step further in the terms of kind of how to think about that, and a great way of doing it. And, sure, I can signpost you actually to a couple of different podcasts that have already done on this, but it's thinking about, if you're not sure where to start with this, or what to do first, or how to go about it. This actually is relevant, even if you are in an association or an organisation where you have got that mandatory CPD programme, it's still really important to start with the end in mind. So to think, because sometimes we don't know where to start, we don't do it's training to do whether it's about, could be about ethics, it could be about marketing, could be about management could be about people, it could be all sorts of different things we could be doing. But I think without kind of going and just kind of looking if you weren't perceiving someone's pockets or looking within and kind of seeing which way the wind is blowing, actually what we want to do is be strategic about it and think about kind of the end in mind. So where do we want to be? What is it that we want to be improving? Or which area of the business or what is it what's identifying what that gap is? Whether that's in terms of skills, or in terms of the way of doing things or benchmarking or improving a service, and that's when we can then create a personal development plan and have, a real process for this where we can kind of identify what those different areas of development should be. There's loads of resources on this. There's loads of organisations who can help you with this.

    Lucy Rennie 29:53

    We can look at it on an individual level on a team level on a business level, and it might be linked to that is bringing in new skills, as a business, it might be that we need to bring in either an apprenticeship or maybe it's about going finding an expert who can come and help you in the business. So, as a conclusion, really, I just wanted to signpost you to a couple of organisations, whether that's things like your local chamber of commerce or your local growth hubs. There's loads at the moment of sort of government grants that are out there for training across a whole wide range of different industries and different types of training, whether that's one day 12 months, or it's an hour, it's an online, it's offline, it's, you know, there's so much out there that you can access as businesses. But, we really need to be tapping into this. So that's kind of what's available, I think, in terms of, from the government or from the local authorities, but there's also private organisations or specific, charities or foundations are offering, you know, huge amounts of, of training and resources and different things, whether that's, enterprise nation, whether it's, there's all sorts of different places that we can tap into. And ultimately, don't forget, you can go and explore it yourself. And then there's books, even my book would probably count as, points towards your CPD, you know, if you're thinking of how you can apply that and improve your business, that your way of doing things, get into reading more books, or listening to books or podcasts. So there's no rules to this, we can do it in a way that works for you. And again, that's a whole another episode is how we learn things. But again, it might be that you're better at listening to things or watching things or trying things out or a mixture of all of those, and whatever works for you. So I'm going to finish here, but what I will do is I'll pop a load of resources or signposts into the show notes. So do go and check them out. And then if you know of other associations or other funding, different things that are available for small businesses, then please send them to me. And I will make sure that I'm sharing them or i will add as well to the to the show notes to make sure that you're getting the up to date and relevant information. So on that note, and my challenge, as I like to give you a challenge for the week, my challenge this week would be to think about your CPD, think about whether you've got a plan to grow to develop to take on, new skills or and whether that's the same for your business, have you got a growth plan or a development plan for your business that's making sure you are staying on top of things and adding that value as much as possible. And finally, if you want to get in touch if you've got anything you want to share with me, then please come over to my website. I am Lucy rennie.com. And you can find all the links to socials, there's a contact form there, there's an email, and let me know what you think. Let me know how you get on with the challenge. But otherwise, I will see you next week for another episode of The Future-Proof your Business podcast.

    Thanks for listening to The Future-Proof your Business podcast. I have been your host Lucy Rennie.

    I want to help as many business owners build a business that works and feels good, and the best way for me to do that is to get this podcast out to as many people as possible. You can help me do this by sharing it, clicking subscribe and especially leaving a review.

    If you want to get more of my insights and resources then head over to my website IamLucyRennie.com, and come and join me and lots of other small business owners like you in my FREE Facebook group, Communicate with Purpose. All the links are in the show notes.

    Thanks again and I’ll see you next week for another episode of The Future-Proof Your Business podcast.

Lucy Rennie
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