Are you thinking about starting a business, or have you recently started one and now think that you’ve gotten in over your head?
There are a LOT of skills that are needed to successfully run and grow a business. They are not all obvious and they are not always given the attention that they deserve.
This post contains some of the essential skills needed to run a business. The earlier you know about the skills that you’ll need, the sooner you can get started on building the skills.
Financial Literacy
Business leaders say that accounting is the language of business. If this is true then starting or running a business without having basic financial literacy is like moving to France and having no intention of learning French.
Hire a bookkeeper to track and organize your regular financial transactions. Consult with an accountant as needed. But know that anything related to business financials is ultimately your decision.
If you can’t read and interpret a balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement, start there.
Sales and Marketing
If you do not have a product or service, then why are you in business?
At some point, hopefully soon, you will want someone to buy your products/services.
No sales/marketing skills -> no sales -> no cash flow -> no business.
Sales and marketing are two large skill areas with many sub-skills under each. They can be summarized as selling something to one person (sales) and selling something to multiple people (marketing).
Management
Management can be defined as the coordination of tasks to achieve a goal.
There are several types of management that will be important to master, including:
- Project management
- Time management
- Human resource (people) management
- Risk management
- Program management
- Operations management
- Strategic management
- Information Technology management
- Research and development management
- Change management
- Quality management
- Design management
- Facility management
- Knowledge management
This is just a taste of a REALLY long list. They are really important skills, though.
Prioritization
Having a business means having an endless list of tasks in front of you.
This is a good thing. No more tasks usually means no more business.
Because there are so many tasks, your business’s survival depends on your ability to prioritize.
Put simply, the tasks that matter the most are the tasks that:
- Help you get new customers
- Help you keep your existing customers
- Bonus points if you make them happier and worth more to the business
Delegation
This short list seems like a lot because it is.
The good news is that once you learn how to delegate, you won’t have to do everything yourself.
Don’t become the bottleneck or single point of failure.
Build a team, establish systems, and delegate tasks. You can even delegate building the team, and establishing the systems…
Conclusion
This is a short list of some of the skills needed when starting or running a business.
If you don’t have (or have access to) these skills, then your business might not last long.
The good news is that all of these skills can be learned. Better get started.
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