What do Small Business Courses teach you?

Whether you just founded an enterprise or have joined a venture in its growth stages, small business courses offer a unique learning experience. They help students develop skills that will at once impact the organisation.

Founders, owners and their teams are always on the move, learning things as they go along. There is a way to address the need to develop new skills without sacrificing much time away from operations. Small business courses offer digestible, self-paced learning resources and opportunities to consult with an expert.

Many small business courses are designed with the outcome of leaders and staff being able to immediately apply what they learn to solve specific problems like how to set up bookkeeping for a small business in Excel, how to improve your small business marketing, or how to make your processes more cyber safe. These courses are accessible through FedGov training grants.

General small business education vs. specialised small business courses

What's the difference between general small business courses and specialised ones? We share what you can expect from each type of course and how they could be helpful depending on where you are in your entrepreneurial journey.

Those considering starting a business or those currently running a business but still need to determine an area of focus often look to general small business management courses. Some of these training offer diplomas. They include modules introducing the different areas of a small business that one should oversee, like management, leadership, emotions and succession planning, recruitment and training, business planning, managing costs, market research, understanding your growth potential, marketing and more.

But once you've identified your strengths as a business owner and your team's strengths, you can also identify gaps you can close with more narrowed-down small business training.

Specialised courses for entrepreneurs and small teams can help them develop specific skill sets in business analysis, change management, project management and cyber security. Courses like these get to the heart of problems and offer practical learning.

As Australasia's leading information and communications technology training provider, Lumify Work designed and put together training programs to help small businesses keep pace with the technological changes that drive business transformation. View our small business courses.

Access small business courses, apply for FedGov grants

You can apply for training grants to cover the cost of small business courses in Australia. The Small Business Technology Investment Boost and Small Business Skills and Training Boost by the Federal Government offers grants for employee training to make up for your expenses.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) shares insights on how small businesses can deduct an added 20 per cent of the cost incurred on business expenses and depreciating assets that support their digital adoption. Expenses supporting digital adoption include those for portable payment devices, cyber security systems or subscriptions to cloud-based services.

For the new Small Business Skills and Training Boost, an annual $100,000 cap on expenditure will apply to each qualifying income year.

• Under existing laws, small businesses can find support for related training and upgrades beyond these.

• Small businesses can keep deducting expenditures ineligible for the bonus deduction under the existing tax law.
  

Businesses can also continue to deduct expenditures over the $100,000 cap under existing law.

This measure applies to expenditures incurred in the period commencing from 7:30 pm AEDT 29 March 2022 until 30 June 2024.

Questions to ask when choosing the right small business training

If you're keen to enrol yourself or your team in small business courses, we share some questions you can ask each other. Your responses to these can help uncover your unique needs and circumstances.

Questions on the business need:

• What are your long-term goals for your business, and how does the training fit into that vision?

• What specific skills or knowledge do you want to gain from small business training? Will these skills support your overall vision?

• What challenges or obstacles are you facing in your business that you want the training to address?

• Do you need to learn about any specific legal or regulatory aspects of running a business?

• Are you also interested in networking opportunities with other small business owners or professionals?
  

Questions on learning preferences:

• Do you prefer online training or in-person classes/workshops?

• Are you interested in a formal certification, or is informal training sufficient?

• How much time can you and your team dedicate to small business training?

• What is your budget for training programs? Can you augment this budget with grants from the Federal Government?

• Do you prefer self-paced learning, video tutorials, bootcamps, or instructor-led courses with set schedules?

Explore small business courses for your team today

With some reflection and discussion among the team, you can get started with your upskilling journey. Support your staff as they gain and maintain their credentials and qualifications that allow you to solve problems in the business, stand out from the competition and establish the value you offer.

You can access flexible training options for your small business, like self-paced courses and drop-in virtual consultations with our Lumify Work technical instructors.

Our small business training offers are available across Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Canberra. Feel free to contact us about our customised training solutions for small businesses. Download our eBook to learn about digital skilling for SMBs.