Anyone wanting to become an entrepreneur and work for themselves needs to be suitably prepared. A good business owner should be acquainted with every side of the business.
But at the same time, they do not have to understand every element of the business in great depth, because if you can make enough money to cover it, you can have other people take care of different areas of the business for you.
So on that basis, I would recommend that you take a few basic business courses so that you can feel sufficiently confident to take those all important first steps.
In this article, I’ll recommend some great basic business courses that are perfect for anyone without a traditional academic business background that will give you the knowledge and skills that you can take forward to start running your own business.
Let’s get straight to it!
What Topic Areas Should Be Covered In Basic Business Courses?
Sometimes you might get lucky and find just one course that covers everything you’d want to know before you go for the kill.
But you may be better off taking a few short courses in individual subjects, so that you get a sufficiently deep understanding rather than just a quick overview.
Here are some of the subject areas you will need at least some level of knowledge or skill in before you run your own business (in no particular order):
Management – covering skills in leadership, communication and decision-making
Finance – covering management accounting and preparing a business plan
Marketing – ideally concentrating on digital and social media marketing
Sales – including the likes of procurement and negotiation
IT – most businesses use spreadsheets and databases to keep their records, and this is recommended
Business Specific Courses – such as e-commerce, drop-shipping, or online coaching and so on according to whatever goods or services you want to sell
Recommended Basic Business Courses
As promised, I’ve got some good basic business courses recommendations for you. They are all hand-picked, current, reasonably priced, and self-paced for your convenience.
I have chosen the Udemy platform because their courses are generally good value for money, and I have included the links you need to find out more about each course.
They aren’t listed in any particular order, and of course you can cherry-pick according to your wants or needs.
If you’re not far past the idea stage, then this is the roadmap you need to form a plan.
With this course, you can learn: how to identify highly profitable business niches, how to raise funds, when to protect intellectual property (when applicable), how to avoid costly mistakes, and receive expert help and advice along the way.
If you’re attracted to the idea of going freelance, then this course will teach you how to write a captivating freelance profile, the best way to build your portfolio, the most effective platforms to market your freelance work on, and the secrets to finding freelance work online.
Businesses require money to get off the ground. And while some entrepreneurs are able to finance their projects with their own personal money (for example if they start off as a side hustle), many cannot, especially if they have big dreams for their business.
And that’s exactly where courses like this one come in, explaining how to persuade investors to give you the funds you need for your business.
If you don’t already know what’s covered in this course, then I would argue that this course is absolutely essential for you…
It covers how your legal setup can affect your taxes, forecasting sales, creating a budget, and the differences between startup and ongoing expenses, and between how expenses and assets are treated for tax purposes.
Running a business on the fly via the “let’s try this and see how it goes” method may suit some entrepreneurs, but on the flip side, there are a great many who would prefer to begin their business with a carefully formulated plan.
And that’s where courses like this one come in, teaching you how to write a business plan.
And this can be particularly important if you were to apply for a business loan because it can serve as a rationale for lending you the money, because it forecasts the ability of your business to pay back the loan.
No-one’s going to buy your goods or services if they haven’t heard of your business, what it has to offer and how they can access it. That’s where marketing comes in. And these days, that generally means a heavy emphasis on digital marketing in particular.
This course will teach you how to generate leads online, including through social media and through optimizing your site for search engines, such as Google.
One thing you have to get a handle on in business is the financial side of things.
This course will teach you about financial statements, such as balance sheets, income statements and cash flow statements, and their key terms, as well as different types of bank accounts and so on.
eCommerce is a steadily growing industry – it’s even pandemic-proof. And as much as there may be plenty of help at hand in this field, it can be overwhelming at first.
That’s when you should take a course like this one, that gives you a really good overview of getting started in ecommerce, because it covers everything from finding products that will sell like crazy, the best platforms to use, and how to start making money straight away.
If you want to launch an online business where you’re not selling someone else’s products, but instead become an “infopreneur” selling your skills and knowledge, or creating streamable or downloadable content, such as audio or video content, then this is the course you should look at.
It covers the 12 different types of digital products, knowing the right digital product for your target audience, how to validate your product idea, the marketing and selling of your digital products, and more.
It’s not enough to just launch your business and to run it. You must always keep an eye on how well your business is performing.
And this is not something that can be assessed through finance and profits alone, it is also worth looking at other key performance indicators, and that’s where courses like this one come in.
This course can help you choose which metrics you should be measuring in line with your business objectives, and it provides you with the practical tools and techniques that will enable you to implement a robust set of KPIs.
Wrap Up
I hope that this article has answered your most pressing questions about what are basic business courses, but more so, I hope that this article has given you some food for thought about the next steps in your business journey.
![What 5 Things Should A Business Plan Include [Important!]](https://whichonlinebusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/What-5-Things-Should-A-Business-Plan-Include-Important-1-150x150.jpg "What 5 Things Should A Business Plan Include [Important!]")
