Three Components of Professional Development

Professional Development & Client Service

If you want to get better at what you do and start your professional development, you might be focusing on the wrong thing.

At some level, we spend part of our careers on professional development. We know that’s a key part in how we stay ahead of the curve and continue to move our clients, jobs, employees, and businesses forward. But with so much to learn, which topics should you focus on? Which ones have the greatest impact to you and your clients?

But for those of us who live and breathe by our clients, it’s not good enough to merely be experts; we must be trusted advisers. Especially when a core component of your business is the strength of those relationships.

Consider three broad components you can focus on in professional development.

• Tools
• Skills & Job Knowledge
• Effectiveness

Tools, for the most part, enable you to act on the skills you have. Advanced competencies in Excel, Acquisio, AdWords, Visio, Project, etc. allow us to product outputs with greater impact.

Skills & Job Knowledge are where the majority of us focus, which makes sense. Where the tools enable outputs, more knowledge increases the quality and quantity of our input. We go to conferences, get certifications, stay on top of changes to our industry, all so we can be better at our jobs. We want to be the experts and the geniuses and the mad scientists.

Effectiveness, however, is the key force multiplier. While tools allow you to enact your skills through technology, effectiveness is what enables you to enact your skills through people. And if you’re in a service business, you’d damn well better be as effective as you are skilled.

Listen Now

In this inaugural entry to the Digital Fireside podcast, Michael Klein and Theron Lalla sit down with host Heather Williams to discuss the three components and the role that effectiveness plays in SEO, Operations, and Marketing.