If you’ve been pondering what you can do to help advance your small business, an online degree might be the perfect solution. If you’re unsure if college education matters in small business, it can — if you choose wisely. Not just any online degree will do, however. The degree you choose needs to be based on learning skills and strategies that you can apply in real-world situations regarding your business. Here are seven suggestions to inspire you:
1. Business Degrees
A variety of online business degrees are available to help you advance your small business, such as business administration, business management or even international business degrees. If you’re ambitious enough, you can also choose to earn an MBA online. Another option is to obtain your business analytics degree online. If you’re not sure what a business analytics degree is, in short, it teaches you how to comb through tons of data to tease out business-related details and insights that can help influence corporate decisions.
2. Marketing Degrees
It’s no surprise that marketing would show up on a list of college degrees for entrepreneurs who are interested in advancing their business. Valuable marketing skills can do wonders for your business by helping you be more creative and promote your products and services much more effectively, which will get you — and your business — noticed.
3. Finance Degrees
Being able to handle your finances well is an important skill to have as an entrepreneur and, if it’s lacking, it will definitely make an impact on your business sooner or later. But it’s not just about managing a day-to-day budget. An online degree in finance can also help you manage projects. As a project manager, you’ll need to know things such as how much money to allot in certain areas and where to cut back. And depending on the nature of your small business, a degree in finance could inspire your clients’ confidence in you.
4. Psychology Degrees
Some people might scoff at the idea that an online degree in psychology could be helpful in advancing a small business, but psychology courses that address personalities, decision making or business could be helpful in advancing your online business.
Think about all of the different people you encounter as an entrepreneur: clients, suppliers, employees, partners, financial advisors and more. Now think of which groups of people you need to persuade or influence. The answer? At one time or another, all of them. Having advanced skills and abilities in this area will only benefit an entrepreneur.
5. Communications Degrees
As an entrepreneur, you will undoubtedly have to communicate with others. The more effectively you can communicate, the more smoothly things will flow for you and your business. A communications degree can help you develop and hone public speaking skills, teach you the fine art of negotiation and guide you in resolving conflicts or miscommunications. You can also earn a communications degree to become more technically savvy on social media platforms or other forms of electronic communication.
6. Advertising Degrees
If your small business is based on providing graphic design services for clients, then a degree in advertising could be very helpful to have. It’s one thing to have the skill of graphic design, but it’s quite another to understand the elements that need to be in each design to effectively advertise and sell a product or service.
You can also use an advertising degree in general, especially if you’re pitching your services or products to other people and companies via formal presentations.
7. IT Degrees
In this age of ever-evolving technology, getting an online IT degree might not be a bad idea — especially if your small business is providing tech-based services and products. It’s true that you can hire someone to hire the more technical side of things if you don’t have the knowledge, but if you invest in the right type of IT degree, you can cut out the middleman and do it yourself.
8. Entrepreneurship Degrees
Last, but not least, you can choose to get a degree in entrepreneurship. Online degrees in this area offer courses that teach critical thinking skills, effective communication skills, enterprise creation and growth, e-marketing, social media, data analysis, international marketing, business spreadsheet applications and financing. Many of these online degree programs have an internship requirement, so don’t expect to complete the degree entirely online. In a typical internship program, students are paired with successful entrepreneurs to gain a hands-on learning experience.
