Unconventional Professional Development: Small Business Secrets Revealed

The most unconventional resource I use for professional development is running blind prompt audits across AI models like Claude and ChatGPT to see how they explain my industry. Instead of reading standard business books, I treat these models as an interactive mirror to uncover blind spots in my own thinking.

I stumbled onto it while founding LLM Listed, where we help brands manage how they appear in AI answers. Watching how different engines synthesize complex topics showed me where typical business advice falls flat. Now, I spend thirty minutes every Friday running difficult client scenarios through multiple models. It forces me to strip away industry jargon, sharpen my logic, and understand how buyers actually digest complex information.

One resource that’s been more useful than any course or certification is client call recordings, specifically going back and listening to calls where something went sideways, a client pushed back hard, a pitch didn’t land, an explanation confused someone, rather than only reviewing the calls that went well. Most professional development instinct is to study what worked. We found more value studying what didn’t.

We discovered this almost by accident, we started recording calls purely for internal handoff purposes, so a new team member could get context on a client relationship without a lengthy briefing. Someone started using the recordings to review their own calls after a client seemed unusually hesitant, and noticed a pattern in how they’d explained a concept that consistently caused confusion. That became a habit, not a formal training program, just periodically revisiting calls that felt off and figuring out specifically what caused the friction.

Implementing it as an actual practice just meant making it normal to review your own recordings without treating it as a performance review. We set the expectation that this was self-directed, nobody else was required to watch it unless the person wanted a second opinion, which removed the defensiveness that usually comes with being evaluated. The value showed up gradually, people started catching and correcting small communication habits, over-explaining a point that didn’t need it, glossing over something that actually needed more detail, faster than they would have from any generic communication training, because the example was their own real conversation, not a hypothetical scenario in a course.

One unconventional resource I used for professional development was creating and delivering training content. I discovered its value through my hands-on learning and a journalism background that pushed me to distill complex ideas. I implemented this by developing and delivering an educational webinar series called “SEO Olympics,” which forced me to break SEO into clear, teachable modules. Preparing and teaching that material exposed my own knowledge gaps and directly improved how I advised clients and led my team.

One unconventional resource has been the workflow itself. In public practice, I learned a great deal by paying attention to where files stalled, what questions kept coming back, and which tasks consistently consumed more senior time than they should.

I treated those patterns as a form of professional development. Documenting recurring friction and discussing it with the people doing the work helped me understand process improvement more deeply than any generic business course could, and it eventually shaped how I approached building Crunchr Apps.

One resource I’ve personally found valuable for professional development is industry-focused online communities and discussion forums. I initially came across them while looking for practical solutions to challenges I was facing in business.

What I liked was that the discussions were based on real experiences rather than just theory. I could see how other business owners and professionals handled issues involving construction, technology, project management, and day-to-day operations.

I started regularly following these discussions, asking questions when I needed another perspective, and taking note of ideas that could apply to my own work. Some of those conversations led me to change how I organize workflows and evaluate new technology.

For me, the biggest value has been learning from people who have already dealt with similar situations. It’s an inexpensive resource, but if you actively participate and filter the advice carefully, it can be surprisingly useful for professional growth.

One unconventional resource I have found incredibly useful is customer support conversations. They are not usually thought of as professional development, but they give you a very direct education in how people actually use your product, where they get stuck, and what matters to them.

I started paying closer attention to recurring questions and frustrations rather than treating support as something separate from product and leadership. We use those patterns to challenge assumptions, improve how we explain things, and decide what deserves attention next.

For a small business, that kind of learning is hard to beat because it is immediate, practical, and comes directly from the people you are trying to serve.

Conor Keenan, AWMA(r),

CoFounder CompareAccounts, Accredited Wealth Management Advisor(r) designee

A book club seems unconventional now, but used to be one of the best ways for learning and professional growth before the internet.

I’ve implemented different flavors of a book club over the year, where we read one / listen to one book every 6 weeks and discuss how we can implement its teachings into our processes.

The trick is keeping the group small and engaged while avoiding to exclude people who want to join.

Over the years, we’ve read and implemented different aspects of The 10 equations that rule the world, the Algorithm, Hooked, The Richest Man in Babylon, and The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.

We’ll often read through a section of a book and then come together to discuss ways we could implement that section into our business. It’s not perfect, but I’ve found that it increases the team’s engagement which seems to correlate to lower turn over and more promotions among book club participants.

I actually realized that a lot of the SaaS tools you’re already using have these free courses that people don’t really think about. Especially the bigger SaaS companies. They don’t just have guides for how to use their product. Some of them actually have full courses that you can take for free.

And you don’t even have to be a user of the product sometimes. It’s just free for everyone. I’m actually taking one right now for a lead generation tool that we’re using. I found some of their videos on YouTube, and then I went to their website and realized they actually had courses on pretty much everything I needed to learn.

They have a full course, downloadables, and different resources. It’s almost like a Google or Coursera course, but it’s free.

I think this is really valuable because courses can be pretty expensive. If you’re a small business and you don’t really have a budget yet for professional development, whether that’s for your team or yourself, I think this is a really good resource. Before paying for another course, I would check the SaaS tools you’re already using, and even the ones you’re not using, because they might already have a full course sitting there for free.

Being a part of someone else’s journey and mentoring younger researchers has been a very rewarding and enlightening experience for me. For us in food safety, a lot of the learning that comes when we just start out is only attained on the job itself.

I myself hold a doctoral degree in Microbiology and Molecular Biology, and yet it’s the countless years of working in the lab, consulting with my professors and being exposed to different specialties that have shaped my journey. And being able to offer that expertise to someone helps me also look at things through a different lens.

Especially because it’s very different from teaching a protocol. You have to let them form a hypothesis, and then be willing to let them be wrong before you step in. And in many instances, I’ve found that they take the research in a direction I hadn’t considered. That’s incredibly valuable for the work we do in pathogen detection because you can never look at these problems from just one angle. So I’m learning from their experiments as much as they are.

One resource I think small-business owners often overlook is a good mentor. I found that the best learning did not always come from another course or book, but from speaking with people who had already faced the same kinds of problems. I would bring one real issue at a time, share the numbers, and leave with a short list of actions to test. For me, the value is having an outside point of view without the cost or pressure of a formal consultant. I treat those conversations like a monthly board meeting: bring your biggest decision and the thing you may be too close to see clearly.

I started learning from my own job board’s data instead of paying for expensive courses. I found this by analyzing which job postings on my site got the most clicks and applications. I quickly realized that this data listed the skills needed for a particular job and the skills gap for job seekers. I was shocked to discover this while sitting in my office as the owner of the business.

This is what I did:

1- I looked at which skills were trending on my job board.

2- I read what the employer feedback and applicant questions were to assess reasons for the gaps in the hiring process.

3- I looked at what other job board owners were discussing and posting in various Facebook groups.

4- I did what is referred to as ‘user’ or ‘customer’ research to better understand what was most frustrating to them and why.

I’m a strong believer that many of the answers to questions you have as a business owner are hiding in the data you have right infront of you. Answer these questions, and chances are you’ll have enough information to feel confident in running your business.

I am not convinced any more that a course does much for anyone here. The thing that changed how my team works was a folder of recorded calls. We bring together founders and the investors who might fund them. The recordings were already sitting on a drive for handovers. Nobody had thought of them as training. A writer who has listened to 20 investors say no picks up something about objections that no framework covers. I found it by accident while looking for something else.

You need no budget for it, which is most of why it stuck. The 2 people who got the most out of it were the newest. It is free right up until someone spends 2 hours a week labelling the recordings so anyone can find the right one.

The most useful professional development I’ve found is reading annual 10-K reports from industries that have nothing to do with mine.

I found it by accident. I was building software that parses SEC filings, so I ended up reading hundreds of them, and somewhere in there I realised that each one is a company explaining its own cost structure and risks in plain language because the law requires it to. That’s a management course written by the people actually running the business, and it costs nothing. I feel like that’s overlooked by a lot of people.

How I use it: one filing a week, and I skip most of it. The risk factors and the segment breakdown are the two parts worth your time, because they tell you what actually threatens a business and where the money really comes from. It’s usually not what the company says in its press releases, but very useful if you run a small business yourself.

The catch is that it’s slow, and I still haven’t worked out how to tell which filing is worth the hour before I’ve already spent it.

One unconventional resource I’ve used for professional development is Facebook groups for other small business owners and professionals in my industry. For example, I joined several Facebook groups specifically for professional organizers.

What I like about them is that if you have a question, you can ask it and usually get a bunch of responses from other organizers who may all do things a little differently. It gives you a chance to get advice, hear different perspectives, learn what’s working for other people, and connect with others in the industry. I’ve gotten ideas for everything from pricing and hiring to client communication and organizing products, and I’ve been able to take some of those ideas and use them in my own business.

To find these groups, I simply used Facebook almost like a search engine and searched for terms like “professional organizers.” Then I filtered the results to Groups and found several communities specifically for people in the industry. There are usually a bunch to choose from, and you can do the same thing for almost any industry.

Some of my best lessons in management came from reading Glassdoor reviews for companies I don’t even know what they do. Mostly the bad ones and 1-star reviews. I would read them for fun and notice the same things popping up over and over with trucking companies, hospitals, small banks. They all complained about the same things, which was pretty enlightening to learn about at 11pm.

I pick a random company I have no affiliation with and read 20 reviews on Friday mornings. I’ll find what the most common complaint is and then think about if it’s happening in my office. It’s always a little scary to think about, but I think the answer is yes more often than not. Especially when it comes to nice managers who don’t set clear expectations. Reading about other companies gives you that distance.

Joining a peer advisory group. Business owners from various industries meet to discuss challenges and roadblocks they are currently dealing with. It’s a great forum to crowdsource advice and expertise. We often have guest speakers come in to share insights on new developments — such as AI innovations. It’s been a great resource for me, and it’s one I’d suggest for a business of any size.

I ask Claude to email me every Monday with the previous weeks’ useful Reddit posts that have tips about working with Excel, PowerPoint, AI, financial modeling, market research and running a small business. The idea itself came from someone on Reddit. Every week there might be 10-20 tips, and maybe one or two that I can implement myself.