Are you thinking about starting a business and owning your own LLC? If so, you need to possess a certain number of business skills or even entrepreneurial skills. The good news is that you don’t need to be born with these skills — you can learn them.
We’ve covering some of the most important business skills to master. Don’t get frustrated if you don’t pick them up right away — some will take months (if not years) to fully master, but that doesn’t mean the principles behind them can’t be implemented immediately. After all, you need to put these entrepreneurial skills to use and into action to become proficient with them. Each one is just as important as the next, and when you put them all together, you are setting yourself up for success.
5 Business Skills to Help You Launch Your Business
1. Motivation
First on our list of business skills is motivation. If you’re what they call an “underachiever” and nothing in this world motivates you to get out of bed for work, then starting your own business may not be for you. If you don’t have motivation, you may find it incredibly difficult to build a successful business.
Business is not kind to those who lack motivation. In fact, if you’re not motivated, you’re going to have many long and dark days ahead of you. But if you’re highly motivated, opening your own business may be one of the most exciting things you’ll ever do in your life.
Keep in mind that the cash register will not always be ringing all day long. You’ll have great sales days and some slower sales days. Just like with the economy and stock market, things go up and down and you need to roll with it and stay motivated.
2. Patience
In business, learn to (as Gary Vaynerchuk says) “trust the process.”
One topic Gary Vaynerchuk, Belarusian-American entrepreneur, author, speaker and Internet personality, always tries to hammer home in his content is having macro-patience and micro-speed.
You’re not going to go from a startup to a multibillion-dollar business in the next week, month or year. Heck, don’t expect it to happen in the next several years unless you come to market with something special and your business resembles a unicorn. Growth will take a lot of hard work, patience and determination. You will be tested, you will need to pivot and you will need to make adjustments along the way — it’s just part of the process.
If you don’t possess patience as one of your business skills, you may find yourself extremely frustrated very quickly in your entrepreneurial journey.
3. Sales
Sales and salesperson are two words that make most people cringe. They often think of the used car salesman who pushes and tries to sell you something you don’t want.
But to make money in business, you’re going to need to sell. You are going to need to get someone to make a transaction that is an exchange of money for your service or product. If you don’t, you go out of business.
So, how are you selling every day? If you have kids, how do you get them to do something? You sell them on the idea of completing a task. How do you get your spouse to go to a restaurant you want to eat at or go see a movie you want to watch? You have to sell them on the idea. Whether you realize it or not, you’re always selling — you just don’t think of it in the same terms of business skills.
Look at sales from a “closing” standpoint. Are you able to close the deal? Are you able to convince someone to take action? If not, how can you get them to that point so you can make a sale? That’s all part of selling.
4. Marketing
Marketing and sales are two aspects of business that go hand in hand. If you aren’t great at marketing, you should consider upping your entrepreneurial skills by reading a few books and studying the art of marketing.
One useful marketing technique is leveraging social media. Social media platforms are a free way to engage and connect with your consumers. After all, according to Hootsuite, 84% of people with internet access use social media. People are using social media as a way to engage with friends and to engage with businesses.
Learn the art of writing copy and content that can help sell your service or product. Marketing skills will not only help get your brand in front of people, but also improve sales.
Another smart marketing move is building is a website for your business. If you have no place to direct people or showcase your business, how do you expect anyone to find you? You can utilize platforms such as WordPress and Wix to start your website. Many of them are very user-friendly and you don’t need any coding experience to get a website up and running.
5. Organization
Last, but certainly not least on our list of business skills, is organization. You can have some of the best entrepreneurial skills out there, but if you’re not organized, it can be detrimental to the success of your business.
When you aren’t organized, you can easily miss client and project deadlines and even lose or misplace important documents. How are you going to explain to your client that you missed their deadline because you have no idea where you put their file?
Every part of your business should have a specific place. Use your calendar for everything (meetings, deadlines, follow-up calls, etc.). Use a filing cabinet and folders to organize your accounts payable information, as well as your accounts received. File away any other materials that need to be kept and stored so that you can find them easily when needed.
Ready to Start Your Business?
While having these five skills is important to starting a business, having a trusted partner in your corner can make a big difference. Incfile is here to help you with the process of creating your business.
Start with our Complete Guide to Starting a Business. We’ll walk you through the legalities of starting a business, business taxes and licenses, planning and funding, marketing and more.
