Starting a business is one thing, but running a business is entirely a different thing. Apart from requiring your absolute dedication and attention, the level of your skills in various business aspects goes a long way in ensuring your startup survives. If you are starting a business in 2021, or are looking for skills to learn for the running of your business, here are the essentials you will need:
Financial Skills
There are many reasons behind the failure of a startup, and lack of financial management tends to top that list every time. You do not have to be an accounting and finance professional, but having some background on the matter will help manage your business.
That means learning as much as you can about budgeting, using accounting software, analyzing financial statements, and understanding the basic accounting terms and entries. Even if you were to hire a professional to do all your startup’s accounting, basic finance skills ensure you know everything about your business’s cash flows.
Marketing Skills
The secret to selling your business’s products or services is understanding every nook and cranny. This, coupled with some marketing skills, you can sell your business from a place of understanding and pride in what it sells. Prospective customers will believe in you and your business when you can sell it and show your passion for the company.
Yes, hire marketers and salespeople, but how will you sell your startup to people within your network. Or to people you meet in any events if you have no skills to sell it from a marketer’s perspective?
Technical Skills
Whether you are an entrepreneur or not, being tech-savvy is becoming a must-have skill for everyone in the world. Most business aspects are going digital, from marketing to sales, financial management, among others. To run your startup successfully, you need to be aware of what happens technologically.
It is even more critical when you have a company website and social media pages. You might not have skills in building websites, but some knowledge of what is required ensures you do not fall into the traps of scrupulous individuals selling you a half-made website. The same case applies to understanding software your startup uses, as you can understand what happens when it comes to accounting, procurement, and management of vendors and customers.
Be Flexible
More than ever, entrepreneurs need to be flexible and ready to steer the business in any direction, depending on the business environment. If the pandemic has made anything clear, it is the fact that being in sync with the world’s happenings and being ready to make fast decisions to steer the business in the best direction saves a company during the unexpected.
Time Management Skills
Time management is a skill everyone must-have, whether you are running your own business or are employed. As an entrepreneur, though, this can make or break your entrepreneurship journey.
As much as you want to achieve everything possible success with your startup, there is only too much that you can do. Without proper time management, you cannot achieve even half of your day’s tasks. It will affect not just your performance but that of your startup. Ensure you have a planner and a schedule that you strictly follow.
Leadership Skills
Not everyone is born a leader, but with some training, you can learn how to balance being a critique of your employees and a motivator. Being a leader also means having the authority and the respect of each of your employees’ skills and personalities.
We are no longer in the age where bosses talked down on their juniors. In the current working environment, such an attitude will leave you with no employees or demotivated employees. You need to know how to be a leader, not a boss.
Delegation Skills
Leadership skill is not the only skill you require when dealing with employees. Delegation of work goes a long way in ensuring you do not micromanage your employees. Whenever you start hiring employees, you need to understand their skills and what each employee brings to the table. This way, you can delegate jobs to employees depending on their abilities, which utilizes their skills to the maximum and leads to better performance.
You might not have all these skills when starting your business, but having a combination is a must-have for a great start. For example, financial skills allow you to begin managing your capital and any revenue you earn. Technological skills also come in hand when starting a business, for easy management of every aspect of your business. With time you learn other skills, like leadership and delegation, as your business grows.
