10 Best Online Business Courses for Small Business Owners

Managing a business is a never-ending learning curve. Even if you are a start up business owner or a tycoon, learning will always be a tool for you to improve your business. As time goes by, new strategies are formed that allow your businesses to solidify their business processes. These techniques enhance the growth level of you and your company. You must take advantage of these approaches as it is essential in becoming a successful business owner to be able to get through the weather – whatever its state is. Furthermore, with the rise of technology and continuous innovations in the business industry, you must be able to keep at par with the rest of the world.

However, do not get me wrong. New does not always mean good or best. You must carefully assess these new practices as well if it best suits your business model. If it worked out with others, it has no guarantee that it will work for you too. But hey, do not let this discourage you because there are existing proven business frameworks that are being used for centuries now. These methods have been around since our Greek ancestors; are now eventually taught by university and college professors; learned by millions of students across globe; and applied by business owners.

New ideas and proven business strategies working hand in hand can make your business foundation secured and intact. You can only achieve these by applying methodologies that are coherent to your business. 

Good thing that you can obtain all these without having to attend formal school. In today’s age, we are now capable of maximizing our time to achieve new talents and skills with the use of tools that we have today – like the internet. Through this, you can now sharpen your proficiency in business management or in any field where you and your company can benefit from. Business online courses are now widely available for people who are interested to master different business expertise. These trainings have various curriculums that you can choose from depending on your current level of knowledge and how much lessons you want to cover.

So why should you take an online business course? Read further to get an overview of its advantages.

Knowledge is an advantage

Perhaps you already considered asking business coaches or well experienced entrepreneurs to learn business management skills. While that is a good idea, getting an online course provides more in-depth lessons. These educates you to fully understand the fundamentals of managing a business, step by step get a good grasp of how to take on business opportunities while at the same time applying it to an actual business model. Perfect for small business that are struggling to stabilize business or even to owners who are ready to expand.

Some online business courses also offer certificates to students who finished the program. You can use these to build your personal portfolio. This can come in handy especially when you are ready to invite investors to your company or you want to explore other business fields.

There are thousands of online business courses readily available for you. Our team simplified your best options by bringing it down to 10 according to specialty - Finance, Operations, and Marketing. Let us unveil everything together.

Finance

This is an important aspect of any organization as its role is to financially sustain the company. It mainly involves managing financial activities that is responsible for daily operational expenses, asset creation, exploration of new market and the list goes on. Almost every business decision that you make has to go through the finance department to make sure your financial status is healthy.   

1.   Fundamental of Finance and Accounting for Non-Financial Managers – This short course enables you to understand the fundamentals of business finance. Some of the things that you will learn are interpretation of financial information, management of financial flow, accounting processes, profit planning and maximizing profitability.


2.   Finance and Accounting for Small Business & Entrepreneurs – If you want an introductory course on finance and accounting, Udemy got you covered. This is a complete course that offers lessons about entrepreneurial finance. From audit processes, income statements, cash flows to forecasting and budgeting; everything you need to support you with better financial and accounting decisions are here in this online course. 

3.   Introduction to Financial Accounting by WhartonMastering technical skills in finance and accounting are key elements in this online course. It is a four week course that highlights importance of book keeping; managing revenues and expenses; financial statement analysis. Learn all these through real world cases and applications. 

Marketing

A key role to properly sell your goods and services. Marketing is responsible for driving your sales. It involves raising product awareness, finding and reaching to your audience and knowing what will make them respond to you. Marketing efforts are composed of various activities that allows your audience to engage with you. Sounds too much? Do not worry as there are lessons to help you with this.

1.   Entrepreneurial Marketing by MIT – There are multiple ways to market your business but it is significant to know the basics first. This course will help you to understand the principles of marketing methods, strategies, and concepts. If you are ready to boost your sales, be prepared as you will identify and evaluate marketing opportunities, maximize marketing with limited resources, tools for entrepreneurial marketing, and resolving marketing issues encountered by entrepreneurs today.

2.   Social Media Marketing by HubspotHubspot Academy is a world trusted leader when it comes to marketing and sales education. Nowadays, social media presence is an important part of marketing efforts as it reaches millions of users in a matter of seconds. With this free certification course, you will build brand awareness, gain word of mouth, and attract buyers. Implementing the right social media strategy will pave your way to successfully market your product online while simultaneously engaging with your market. 

3.   Advanced Marketing for MarketersIf you are ready to take your marketing efforts to a whole new level, this is the course for you. Learn the advanced marketing tactics and how to apply it in today’s era. With the continuous change on the buying behavior of people, you will find out relative techniques like segmentation by using machine learning to easily adapt to your market. Enable yourself to compete globally as you will find out how to strategize and tap the international market.  

Operations

Assuring your business operations run efficiently takes time and effort to accomplish and maintain. Successfully operating a business means that every aspect of your business is well oiled, smoothly working side by side. Business operations usually comes with employee management as these two functions best when combined. Check these online courses to find out how.

1.   Operations Management in Small Businesses Managing a small business does not mean that you can skip other applications to strengthen your company. Rather, this is a good time for you to build your skill and there is no better way to do it than to start as early as possible. This course teaches you the key concepts of business operations, to plan and deliver operations, evaluate then select management technique to deliver a specific need, and execute business strategies. It is an all around course that allows you to learn how to coherently operate your small business while applying all the business operations elements. 

2.   Making Successful Decisions through the Strategy, Law, and Ethics Model This free course gives you in-depth lessons on the structure of business operations to help you create successful personal, business, and leadership decisions. It captures key elements how to bring out the best in your employees, improve business operations, and create opportunities that will grow your company. 

3.   Business Fundamentals: Management and HR ManagementBusiness operations and employee management go hand in hand. You need your staff to be co-working effectively in order to achieve your business goals. Otherwise, it will be chaos after chaos. Managing your employees is similar with your business operations; each person / goal has its own specific needs and there is a right approach to everything. With this online course, know how you can combine different management procedures in order to gain business success by HR planning, recruitment and selection, enumerating ways to motivate your employees, finding the steps to nourish your staff, and other labor related initiatives.

4.   Business Ethics for Managers and LeadersEven small businesses encounter business politics in an everyday setting. This course is perfect for managers and leaders who have intermediate experience in business operations or even beginners as it tackles business ethics, how it critically affects your business growth, and how to refine them. It showcases real management and how to find the right solution for it. Get this right to accelerate the growth of your business in no time.

These courses does not only benefit you to develop your business but these practices involves how you can become a better person. Given that you now have an overview of the best online courses for your small businesses, you can now turbo charge your business operations and sales growth. With a few taps and clicks, unleash thousands of potential opportunities for you and your business.