5 Most Crucial Skills You Need to Start a Business

You can never have enough skills but you don’t have enough time to get all of them. So which are the most crucial skills to have as an entrepreneur? I will tell you!

I’ve always said I want to have as many skills as possible because you never know when you’re gonna need them. But we can’t have it all so we’re going to narrow it down to five most crucial skills you must have in order to be a successful entrepreneur.

1. Rational Decision Making

First up is rational decision making. You’re not going to hear this a lot from other people, but it is really, really crucial. A lot of people, including myself, always say “you must have good instinct.” But sometimes instincts fail and you must fall back on the right way to make decisions. That’s where rational decision-making comes. In order to make a rational decision, you must conduct a cost-benefit analysis. For any situation, any opportunity, any decision, you must first look at the benefits you’re going to gain on one hand, and the cost to you on the other hand. You must look at this rationally and compare the two, then make a decision. It sounds simple, but it’s not — sometimes it’s really hard to make a rational decision. Suppose I’m kind of down today. I’m tired maybe my business didn’t have a good day, and I just want to sit down and do something that makes me feel better. I’m looking at a tub of ice cream in front of me. Should I eat that tub of ice cream? HA! That’s a hard decision. There is the benefit and there’s the cost! Which one shall I decide? See that is a crucial decision to make! what would you choose?

On a more serious note, you will face a lot of decision time like that in business. Sometimes your emotion is on the opposite side of what is good for your business. Should you do what’s good for your business or should you follow your heart? That’s a hard one. That’s why I think it’s crucial to at least understand what the rational decision should be, so you can make an informed but wise decision.

2. Time Management

Second is time management. This is understandable. In a previous article I talked about time as an important resource. Good time management is crucial to an entrepreneur because as an entrepreneur you will have a lot of different tasks in front of you. You don’t want to get bogged down on one or two tasks and end up not being able to complete the rest. On the other hand, if you do everything not very well then the whole business suffers. So good time management skills allow you to divide your attention divide your energy and focus on each thing in front of you sufficiently so you can reach a good result.

3. Leadership

Third is leadership skills. Ultimately you will have people working for you. Maybe they are employees, maybe they are contractors, maybe they are volunteers, maybe they are friends and family. Being able to efficiently and effectively lead a group of people to finish a task is a very crucial skill for an entrepreneur. As entrepreneurs, our resources are always limited. So being efficient with your resources and producing the best result with what you have is very important. It takes a good leader to get everyone together, to stay on point, to get things done. All of you probablyh ave been in a group capacity. When there is a lack of a good leader a lot of time get wasted and things don’t get done. It takes a good leader to get everyone together, to keep them on point, and to keep them happy working together.

4. Skills in the Trade

The fourth is skills in the trade. Whatever business you’re trying to start, you need some skill in the business. You might not need to be a master, but you should have a good overall understanding of the business and the trade. For example, let’s say you want to build an app. You should at least know how app works at the minimal. The ideal situation might be that you know how apps should be made, you just lack the programming skills to do it. In that situation, you can hire a programmer, you can contract a development company who can help you make the app. But because you have a thorough understanding of how apps are assembled togethe, what needs to go in it, and how is supposed to work, then the end product will probably be satisfactory. On the other hand if you have no idea how apps work or how apps are made, you just have an idea that you think will work well on the app, you might spend a lot of money and time just to end up with an app that doesn’t work all that well and doesn’t really do what you want it to do. So having at least a good and broad understanding of the trade you’re trying to get into is very important.

5. People Skills

Last but not least you need people skills. This one I fall short a lot of times. Back when I first started as entrepreneur, I just thought I was a great programmer and I was a great entrepreneur, so I could do everything on my own. For the large part I did, so I never really felt the need for other people to be around. And that was a huge mistake. What ultimately happened was I had a great company with a great product but I was the only person happy working there because I didn’t have the right people skills to deal with everyone else. Ultimately that kind of company does not grow, does not expand, and does not scale. Without growth expansion and scaling, a company does not have a future. I’ve learned from those mistakes. Not only did I learn how to work with people, I’ve also come to appreciate everyone that’s around me. That’s super important because people love to be appreciated and respected. If you have good people skills you can put the right people on the right job and they will help you become successful. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in one day and most certainly not by one person! You’re going to need to have a team and you need good people skills.

Again thank you for attending my five minute lecture! If you have any questions or feedback please leave in the comments section, Iw ill make sure to answer them if you want to see the topic covered that I haven’t covered before, please also leave in the comments or send me email, and I’ll try to work it into a future lecture.

Be successful!