Practical Skills For A Digital World
The skills needed for the future are very different than those that have got you by so far. This is the digital age – the age of the Internet, automation and A.I. If you are looking at re-skilling to increase your earning potential, quality of life and general freedom take note. There’s a better than even chance that what you do now either wont be around in 10 -20 years or will be done very differently. That goes for a huge number of professions and industries that you might think are safe.
I’d always thought that sales skills would look after me. I could, I thought, move around different industries and niches with the same core skills. To some extent that was true for a long time but not so much now. I was never a hard sales person – more of a good communicator and negotiator. These days no one needs or wants to be sold to. If you want to persuade potential customers that your products and services are better than the competition’s, you better be able to do it online.
Repurposing Old Skills For The Future
The communication part of sales is still very relevant and always will be but that communication now takes place without face to face contact. I used to make appointments, go to meetings and make presentations. I’d be restricted to a single industry, a relatively small geographic area and was based in an office I’d have to travel to and from to do all that.
Now I sell multiple products in different niches to customers all over the world. I do it from home – or anywhere I can plug into the web. My customers “meet me” through videos, adverts and blog posts like this. I seldom if ever meet them in person. I find them through online research and highly targeted internet marketing (the best skill you can acquire for the future)
The skills needed for the future are those that are valued in an online world. You only have to look at the high street to see the shift to online buying. Every day another “sacred cow” of the retail world bites the dust. Every day digital technology is replacing jobs, careers and entire industries. The hard truth is that anything that can be done better by a computer – more and more by the second – will be. This now extends far beyond obvious administrative tasks into areas like law, medicine, architecture and education.
Learning The Skills Needed For The Future
When it comes to education, the skills needed for the future are not yet available through traditional methods. Schools, colleges and Universities might be able to teach some of the nuts and bolts but the digital world moves way too fast for them to keep up. By the time a 2 or 3 year curriculum is built it’s 2 or 3 years out of date. Learning the skills needed for the future involves going right into the trenches where it’s being built.
When I was laid off for the second time in my 8 year long career as a business development manager I knew I was going to have to re-skill. At 48 a complete re-skill through traditional means wasn’t a real option. I decided instead to re-purpose the skills I had for the Internet.
As I’ve mentioned I couldn’t find any further education courses that actually taught Internet marketing or selling online. I did however find an independent organisation founded by two very successful entrepreneurs. I signed up for the free video series they were offering and found exactly what I felt I needed. Actually they not only provided the education, mentorship and support but an earn as you learn business partnership too. That was 5 years ago and it really changed everything for me. I not only earn very high commissions as an affiliate for them but have created several other online businesses using their systems, tools and training.
If you are serious about getting the skills needed for the future and can see that they lie in the Internet world, you can check them out for yourself. Click on the link below to access the same videos I did.
