Member Article

How Qualifications Drive Business Success in 2020

Competitive business landscapes are commonplace in 2020. Saturated markets, combined with a constant flow of new startup businesses, puts pressure on your company to stay ahead of rival brands.

There are many opportunities to enhance your business to remain competitive, but the obvious choices are also deployed by other businesses in your industry. In order to fight your way to the top of the food chain, you need to take on the business development strategies that your competitors lack.

One way to diversify your growth potential is through investment in qualifications. But how does further education give your business an edge over rival companies?

Develop Business Ideas in a Risk-Free Environment

Benefit: New Avenues of Business Development

Sometimes, change is necessary to facilitate growth. However, with change comes risk. You can’t be certain that your business move will pay off until you’ve actually executed a new plan. This can be off-putting and may lead to stagnation instead of testing new ideas — as stagnation is at least stable and reliable — if not realising your business’s full potential, or getting ahead of rivals.

But how do qualifications aid with this dilemma? Enrollment on courses that are focused on your particular business pain points can allow you or your staff to experiment with new ideas in an educational setting. They can help you look at potential ideas and test them through educational assessment, rather than testing through success or failure in the real world.

For this to work, it’s important to look for courses that involve practical activities and assessment-based learning. Not all qualifications will allow you to workshop ideas, but those that do can serve as crucial test runs for new ideas.

Qualifications also have the added benefit of helping you learn how to execute ideas more effectively. If you are entering a period of stagnation, they may just be the confidence boost you need. Education can help you understand how to do things properly, and mitigate risk factors that may be holding you back.

Jump the Queue and Acquire Valuable Industry Knowledge

Benefit: Better Problem-Solving and Solutions

There is always somebody who knows more than you. There is always someone who has travelled down your business path and experienced the successes you desire. These are people who’ve already beaten their competitors and climbed to the top of the industry ladder. While they rarely offer their insider information for free, many do regularly provide qualifications and courses built to share their years of expertise.

These kinds of qualifications are often very specific and fall outside of traditional education environments. They may come in the form of online seminars or one-to-one tutoring. They are, however, excellent resources. If you find the right qualifications, they can be honed entirely towards your goals. Instead of traversing the bumpy and unforgiving path to business success yourself — dealing with the mistakes and failures as they come — these qualifications help you get ahead of the crowd and access information that allows you to perform at higher levels faster.

The bottom line is — don’t learn business lessons the hard way. Get taught by an expert on how to do it right and succeed in your industry. Be proactive, not reactive, and you’ll reap the rewards while others flounder.

Boost Consumer Interest with Trust Factors

Benefit: More Attractive Marketing

When you market your business, there are two basic principles to follow:

You want to make your product or service enticing and worth buying. You want to make sure customers view your offering as superior to that of your competitors.

In the battle to win over consumers, qualifications can be a major influencing factor. Buyers are always hunting for signals that suggest quality and value for money. They’ll look at reviews, testimonials, brand presence, and numerous other factors to try and gauge the potential of your product. These are known as trust factors. Trust factors essentially help customers trust that your business is selling a worthwhile product.

Qualifications are one of those trust factors.

Qualifications and certifications show your expertise in a real and tangible way. They provide hard evidence that you have the skills and knowledge required to operate within your niche. The harder the qualification is to achieve, the more trust benefits you get, and the more powerful your marketing becomes when these trust factors are introduced as part of sales platforms.

For example, a business with team members that have gained CIMA accreditation showcases very specific skills and expertise that customers are aware they cannot get themselves. If your firm were to have CIMA accreditation, and rivals did not, you’d have a trust factor edge over competitors that you could leverage to increase lead generation.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by VIVA Financial .