As business owners who juggle many things, finding time for professional development can be difficult. Ideally, you want to learn on your time and in-person courses are not always convenient to your business hours.

There are TONS of resources online which offer professional development which can be incorporated into your own schedule.

Consider these learning outlets:

• Archived and recorded web seminars.  - Many industries and professional organizations offer training topics through the web in a webinar format. While the “live” time may not be convenient, sign up for the session anyway. Most vendors offering a web seminar will archive the event and send out a link to the recorded version of the event to everyone who registered. You can the watch the session later at your convenience. Consider this source:  BusinessWeek offers courses at http://bwcourses.businessweek.com/

• Subscribe to various industry online newsletters. – Most professional organizations offer some type of e-newsletter format. You might not have time to read these publications regularly but save the emails. When you are looking for an answer to a problem in the future, you can go back and find some useful support documents.

• Government or Chamber Events – Web based training is offered for free through many government related bodies. For example,
    --> COSE offers an online forum where you can post a question to an industry expert and receive a response. Check out www.COSEMindSpring.com
   --> SBA (The Small Business Administration) offers a wide range of free courses covering topics such as: finance, contracts, disaster assistance, laws, compliance, etc. Check out www.sba.gov/services/training/

• Third Party Training Institutions – Virtual colleges and training companies have expanded their offerings in the last several years as the supporting technology has evolved and decreased in cost. Consider these institutions:
o University of Phoenix www.phoenix.edu
o Kaplan University www.Kaplan.edu
o University of Massachusetts Online www.umassonline.net
o MarketingProfs www.marketingprofs.com