6 Essential Skills Every Entrepreneur Needs to Master

The journey of an entrepreneur is unique and really straight-forward. To master the path less travelled and build a business that your feel proud of, I’ve outlined the six essential skills that underpin nearly all long-term success stories.

• Accounting: Grasp the fundamentals of financial management, like profit projections and cash flow, even if you employ a professional.
• Marketing: Focus on the core task of getting your offering in front of the right customers by clearly communicating its benefits.
• Team Building: Cultivate the skill of hiring top talent to allow you to work “on” your business rather than constantly “in” it.
• Leadership: Develop the traits necessary to retain your best staff and inspire them to consistently produce their highest-quality work.
• Delegation: Master handing over tasks to your team to ensure your business model is scalable and to avoid micromanaging.
• Strategic Thinking: Regularly remove yourself from the daily grind to spot opportunities and approach all major business decisions objectively.

Curious to find out more, read the full article below.

By Leon Howe

Leon Howe, Durham City Incubator Manager at Business Durham, helping startups succeed and scale.

All posts by Leon

When you choose to become an entrepreneur, you pick the path less travelled.

Unlike a software developer, salesperson or secretary, your career path isn’t laid out in front of you with clear steps up the corporate ladder.

Because of this, it can be a lot harder for anyone forging their own trail to get a grasp of the skills they need to master to give themselves the best chances of success.

However, there are six key skills that most successful entrepreneurs share.

If you want to build your business into a long-term success, focus on developing these six essential skills:

Accounting

While you should definitely leave the accounting to a professional, every successful entrepreneur has a great grasp of the fundamentals of crunching the numbers.

If you don’t understand the finer details of profit projections and pension schemes – or at least keep up while your accountant lays them out for you – your business isn’t likely to last long.

If you’ve already got your business off the ground and you’re surviving without any real accounting skills, keep in mind that things get very complicated very quickly when a business starts to grow.

Trust us – you’ll be thankful you got clued up on the financial side of your business before it starts to get out of control.

Don’t know the first thing about cash flow? Don’t worry – Sage’s ultimate guide to basic business accounting is a great place to start.

Marketing

Marketing can seem complicated, but it boils down to getting your product or service in front of people who want to buy it.

This might sound daunting, but there’s no need to overcomplicate things in the beginning. If you’re planning to launch a business, you no doubt know your sector back to front. You also understand the problems your target customers have and how your business solves them.

Your job is to sum up the benefits of using your product or service and then share that message so the right people see it at the right time. And don’t underestimate the power of good marketing being shared with others!

While marketing is simple when you boil it down to its essence, we’re not claiming it’s easy. If it was, we’d all be running international brands!

For help pulling together your first marketing strategy, use Hubspot’s marketing plan generator to come up with a 12-month plan in less than ten minutes.

Team Building

If you’re determined to make a success of your business, you need to build a talented team around you.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the people you hire are going to be the biggest decisions you make in your business – especially in the early days.

Hiring top talent is a whole skillset itself, and one you quickly need to get to grips with if you want the best chance of success.

The faster you can identify the skills you need to take your business to the next level and then hire the right people for those jobs, the faster your business will grow.

Crucially, this will allow you to work “on” your business rather than “in” your business, giving you the headspace to spot opportunities for growth and refine your strategy.

Find out how to hire top talent (and avoid making some very costly mistakes) by following Forbes’ four secrets to hiring the right people.

Leadership

Building a talented team is only half the battle. If you want to retain your best staff and keep them consistently producing their best work, you need to learn to be an effective leader.

A lot of people think leadership is a trait you’re either born with or you aren’t. But the fact is it comes naturally to very few people, and most successful entrepreneurs develop it like any other skill.

If you want to become the kind of leader people will want to follow, read Inc.’s 21 ways to be a better leader.

Delegation

While delegation definitely falls under the same umbrella as leadership, it’s so crucial to your business’ success that we’ve made it its own essential skill.

Ask any entrepreneur: their business is their baby. It can be hard to completely hand over the reins of even the smallest of tasks when you’ve worked so hard to build your business from the ground up.

And in the early days of your business, you might be able to do everything yourself. But as it grows and you start to build a team around you, it’s essential that you learn to delegate.

A business owner who micromanages every little task is unlikely to be a business owner for long. This not only isn’t scalable it’s going to quickly drive away your best staff.

So, while delegating tasks to your team so you can focus on continuing to build the business can be difficult, it’s an essential skill for any entrepreneur. Find out how to do it effectively from day one with this excellent guide from Brian Tracy.

Strategic Thinking

If there’s one trait every successful entrepreneur has in common, it’s the ability to spot an opportunity and then seize it.

But the fact of the matter is this: you won’t spot promising prospects or understand how to take advantage of them if you’re not thinking strategically.

Start a business in the wrong industry, at the wrong time or with the wrong offer and you’ll always be fighting an uphill battle.

Take the time to remove yourself from the daily grind and study the market from 20,000 feet and you’ll give yourself the best possible chances of success.

Of course, this is a lot easier said than done. But as a business owner, it’s your job to spot the changes in your industry and prepare for them long before they crop up.

This could be as simple as weighing up whether there’s more demand for a bakery or a butcher on your local high street or as complicated as predicting the future impact of AI and machine learning on your industry. But the key is to approach these business decisions strategically, rather than following fads or your emotions.

The first step in thinking strategically is to set out a business plan for your idea to find out whether it’s got potential. Download a free business plan template from The Prince’s Trust and lay out your idea on paper.

This will reveal gaps in your knowledge (“what does prompt customers to buy my products?”), which you can then fill in with research. Then you can make a fully informed and objective decision on whether it’s the right business idea for you.

These six skills take time to develop, but you can be successful!

Ready to turn your business idea into reality? Durham Startups is here to help. Call us on 03000 261261 to speak with one of our startup solutions advisors, and find the support you need to build a successful, sustainable business in County Durham.