Skills to learn

Five skills that you should learn during the lockdown.

Now you have a choice during the lockdown and during the Coronavirus. We are all stuck. We are staying at home, and now you have a lot more free time. Now it's up to you, whether you waste that free time, or invest that time to do something productive. And I think one of the most productive things that you could do is actually to learn a skillset. Because when this is over, this thing is over. It is only a matter of time. The world will start spinning again. What are you gonna do? Maybe you're a little bit concerned. Maybe you have unfortunately lost your job. But when things get back to normal, you will go out there and get a new job. But the thing is, Are you ready? Are you prepared? Because things are different now. Things have changed. Industries have changed. The world has changed. So are you ready? Are you prepared to go after that new opportunity? Or maybe go after that other job that you've always wanted. Or maybe go for that new promotion, or go start that new business. Whatever you want to do after this crisis, what would allow you to do a lot of those things, are your skills.

I believe some of the most valuable skills that you can develop, which you can learn, should meet these four criteria:

(i) A skillset that has an immediate impact on your life, your career, or your business. Not a skill set that takes years to see any results, but something that you could learn right now, and you could implement. Something that's very very practical.

(ii) It doesn't take you years to learn. That you don't need to go back to school again for four years of education. Instead, you could learn these skillsets in months, or sometimes in a matter of weeks.

(iii) You could learn from the comfort of your own home. Which means you don't need to go to a physical location. You could learn this from your computer, just from your own home.

(iv) You could learn at your own pace, meaning that if you want to binge-watch, and binge learn, you could do that. Or you want to pace yourself, you want to learn it through a period of time, maybe over a number of days, or a number of weeks, in your spare time, you could do that as well.

So I believe skillsets that meet these four criteria, are very valuable skillsets to learn. So what skills should you learn during this lockdown? Now you can pick any one of them, don't try to go crazy and learn too many.

1. Coding

Coders, programmers, developers, software engineers, they will always be in demand, especially with the virus. After this is over, think about the companies. Forget the companies who couldn't make it. But think about the companies who survive. If you were the business owner, what are you gonna do differently? Virtualize certain aspects of your business. Maybe you shut down completely your physical locations and just do it online. Things have changed. People learned. They will structure their business differently. You will structure your business and life differently. We learn from it. So what the Coronavirus did is to accelerate that process. It's a trigger. What it means is people who know HTML, CSS, PHP, they will be in demand. So if you have an interest, or you're thinking about it, coding skill is extremely valuable.

2. Digital Marketing

More businesses, more companies, if they have been doing some businesses online, they've been selling online. Now after this Coronavirus, they will be more motivated. Before it's like a, it's nice to have, it's nice to sell online, it's nice to do social media. Now, it becomes a necessity. Now, it becomes the new normal. Businesses who have always been doing business just offline, now they'll be thinking about to change. They have to restructure their business model. How could they take what they do, and do it online.

For e.g., let's say you're running a few gyms, and you have people coming in and out all the time. Now with this, your gyms are shut down. When you come back and when you bounce back, now you're thinking, how can I take my fitness training, how can I take my nutrition plan, how can I do this, and how could I serve the world? How can I sell it on the internet?

So what it means, if you know how to build Funnel, if you know how to generate traffic, you know how to do Media Buy, you know how to build websites. All those skillsets will be high in demand. It's already high in demand. But the ones who are good, you will always be in demand. Even though you may not be thinking about doing digital marketing full time, but if you are being interviewed at a new job, if you have that skill set, you can bring that to the table as so much more value to your resume.

3. Closing Deals

Skill number three is closing. It's the ability to close products or services, to sell them over the phone, or over the internet through Zoom. Those are very valuable skills. With the Coronavirus, with this crisis, companies are now looking into the entire sales division. How could we outsource this? How can we build a sales team remotely instead of a sales team with a physical location? How can we sell our products or services over the phone calls? They're thinking differently. So if you have the ability to close phone sales, if you have the ability to close products and services, companies are willing to pay you a hefty commission.
Closing will be one of the highest demand professions in the world because companies need revenue, they need salespeople, they need skillful salespeople, and they need that more than ever, especially when things are coming back to normal. They need revenue and they need closers.

4. Project Management

Skill number four is project management. Now, because of Slack, Zoom, people working remotely, and companies working remotely, companies are outsourcing. With so many projects going on creates new demand for project managers. People who are able to manage different projects and get stuff done are called Project Managers and the skillset is called Project Management. We're talking about Scrum, we're talking about Agile, we're talking about various project management methodologies.

With the complexity, so many companies now even after this, moving more to virtual. So guess what, with project managers, or just people with project management skills, because now chances are, you will be working with people face to face, but also you will be working with other people, other team members, remotely. So this skill would be very useful. It doesn't matter what it is that you do. It doesn't matter if you're working for a company. It doesn't matter if you're working for yourself. It doesn't matter if you're running a home business. Having this skill will be very valuable for career growth.

5. Copywriting

Skill number five is copywriting. Every single social media post that you see, every single email, every single ad, every single landing page, is done by copywriters. Companies that do any type of content marketing, companies that do any type of advertising, they need copywriters, and they will always be needing copywriters. Because it's not just one email, it's not just one page, it's not just one article. In order to stand out in this competitive world, in this market, content marketing is extremely important. They will need someone to write their script. They will need someone to write their social media post. Almost every single company out there, if they do any kind of online marketing at all, will need a skillful copywriter. And the beauty with copywriting is, it has nothing to do with writing. It has to do with selling and closing, that's why I call that closing in print. Copywriting is a learnable skill. It is learnable. It is transferable. It is sustainable, and it is doable.

Here, these were the top skills that are going to be in high demand post-COVID-19. You're at home, you have the time. Now is the time that you can learn these skills from the comfort of your zone. There are various platforms available on the Internet from where you can learn these skills for free. Your future is on your hands. Now you have to decide what you want in your life.