posted in business strategies on 16 January 2009
by Andrew Lang
View by Categories | View By Latest

What is an autodidact?

If you don't know what an autodidact is, but your first impulse is to find out yourself, YOU may be an autodidact. I'll save you the search:-

autodidact – noun
a person who has learned a subject without the benefit of a teacher or formal education a self-taught person.

If you translate this meaning to running an online business, it can mean:-

you pick up SEO (Search Engine Optimization) skills by reading online articles about SEO and trying it out yourself - saving you money hiring a company to do this job for you. Not only saving you money, but gaining you a new skill that you can apply to future online businesses yourself
you learn how to write compelling content. Quite often this is through sheer experience of writing - again, this is a form of self-teaching.
you learn what works and what DOESN'T work when selling online - through reading other people's tips and advice, to experiencing what does and doesn't work yourself

Self-teaching is perhaps THE best habit you can get into. The alternative is to treat knowledge as something only gained from enrolling on a course, and spending time in front of a tutor. This invites the perfect excuses not to learn : no time and/or it's too expensive. Also many people delegate tasks to others that they could do themselves with just a little self-teaching.

With the internet, now you can learn whenever you have free time, and for no cost (there's always a free alternative online for whatever you want to learn).

Share this article:

view my profile on Google+