Inspired by the stories of Steve Jobs, Sara Blakely, and Elon Musk, millions of people dream of launching their own businesses – but few achieve that same level of success.
The question arises: Is being a successful entrepreneur a matter of luck or a craft you can learn?
To answer this question, let’s take a look at two real-life stories.
The first story is about a famous Italian fashion brand launched by Guccio Gucci. He involved all his sons in his first shop and thanks to their business acumen, it rose to unprecedented heights within half a century. But when the Gucci house was taken over by his grandson Maurizio, things went downhill, resulting in ending the family ownership of the fashion house. Although Maurizio was fortunate enough to be born into the Gucci family, he did not have the skill to maintain the success of the business.
The second story is about Oprah Winfrey, who was born into a poor Mississippi family (her mother was a housecleaner, and her father was a barber). Despite the obstacles she faced, Oprah received a good education – and became the first woman in history to own and produce her own talk show and a successful business manager.
There are millions of Gucci- and Oprah-like stories, but all of them indicate one thing: Businesspeople are made, not born.
Becoming a thriving business manager or entrepreneur requires a combination of skills, experience, and a strong business idea. In this article, we’ll focus on the skills you should develop and how to develop them to successfully launch your new career as a business manager or an entrepreneur.
Master These 7 Skills to Succeed in Business
Typically, running a business requires you to become a jack of all trades, managing core company resources like people, money, time, and materials. Developing skills that can help you do so effectively is a must.
Here's our list of the skills every business manager and entrepreneur should acquire:
Communication Skills
Let’s imagine that your company is an engine with numerous pistons, gears, cylinders, and valves that interact with each other, thereby moving the entire system forward. To make these components run smoothly, savvy auto mechanics keep the machinery well-oiled.
Just as it is important to have quality lubrication for smooth and durable engine operation, your communication skills are essential for your company’s overall success.
Whether you are communicating in-person or online, you should have the skills to carefully listen to every person dealing with your company and always know what to say, when, how, and to whom.
As an excellent communicator, you'll be able to fine-tune both business and interpersonal relationships, making your clients eager to buy from you, your employees pleased to work for you, and your business partners seeking to invest in you.
Sales and Marketing Skills
If communication skills are the oil for your business machine, then sales skills are its fuel.
Your top priority as a business owner must be selling your products and/or services. Otherwise, a day will come when your financial reserves dwindle, and you won’t be able to cover all your business-associated costs including taxes and wages, let alone allocate the marketing budget to attract customers.
Good sales skills are about knowing your audience and presenting the solution that can best meet their needs. To be a successful entrepreneur and top-notch seller, you need to enhance your communication skills with active listening, empathy, research, analytical thinking, product expertise, and presentation skills.
Solid sales skills enable you to design effective marketing campaigns, attract the right kind of customers, and ignite them to spread the word of mouth about your brand.
Leadership Skills
Leadership skills, such as strategic thinking, team management, and financial acumen, are essential for managing or running a business. Imagine if you were one of the millions of business managers or owners who had to navigate through the recent pandemic. Do you have the skills needed to protect your people and your company?
Financial Planning Skills
As an entrepreneur, you’ll need financial planning skills long before the first purchase of your product or service. Initially, you’ll need them to create a business plan. Apart from market research, competitor analysis, and target customer profiles, your business plan should contain estimated costs, profit, and time to break-even point. If you plan to attract investors, you should also calculate an approximate time to their return on investment.
As a business manager, you also need to know what business metrics, including financial ones, to track. For example, one critical indicator of a sustainable business is when the profit your customer brings to your company while using your product or service is more than the costs you’ve spent to acquire them.
Starting your own business, you need to know how to budget, evaluate cash flow scenarios, analyze financial reports, and forecast future earnings and expenses. Learning accounting, tax, and payroll fundamentals will also be important for running your own business.
Decision-Making and Problem-Solving Skills
Whether you’re managing someone else’s business or starting your own, you need to able to assess complex situations, identify potential solutions, weigh risks and benefits, and make informed decisions — from what chairs to order for the office to what unique selling point to use for offering new products to your clients.
These skills can be developed through education, training, and experience, and are necessary to achieve business objectives and success in a competitive marketplace.
Time Management Skills
Launching your new career in business, you may feel like there is so little time and too much to do.
Daily meetings with team members, attending business conferences, closing deals with key customers, pitching business ideas to investors, bargaining with suppliers for discounts on materials, interviewing top managers to join the company, finding a new office for rent — your to-do list as a business owner can be endless.
But like any human on this planet, you have only 24 hours a day to finish things.
By mastering the art of time management, you’ll be able to plan, prioritize, organize, and control the time you spend on specific tasks, therefore boosting your productivity and with it, the overall company’s performance.
If handled well, time management empowers you to get more done over a shorter period — and still have time to keep up your gym routine and attend your child’s school performances.
Lifelong Learning Skills
Your top priority as an entrepreneur is to make your business thrive. That means keeping it competitive, marketable, and relevant to industry trends. Therefore, one more quality you need to cultivate to be a successful business owner, or a business manager, is your inexhaustible willingness to learn.
With this mindset, you’ll be able to master new skills to seamlessly adapt to business changes, produce out-of-the-box solutions to entice prospects’ attention, and introduce innovative technologies to streamline your business processes.
How to Develop Your Business Skills and Gain Experience
Now that you know what qualities to develop to become a seasoned business manager, it’s essential to understand how you can develop them. Here’s our rundown of viable options:
Entry-Level Jobs and Volunteering
Apply for entry-level jobs in your field of interest to explore the inner workings of how a business is run and gain hands-on experience or start a side hustle to learn the basics of business management. Volunteering opportunities can also help you understand the day-to-day operations of a business you’re interested in.
Networking and Mentorship
Building a strong professional network can open doors to new career opportunities and valuable advice. Attend networking events, join industry groups, and seek mentorship from experienced business leaders.
Studying
Once you've figured out what skills are valuable to businesspeople, you’ll quickly notice the gaps in your knowledge. For example, you may be a brilliant communicator but don’t have the foggiest how to trace a company’s cash flow. Without proper education in financial principles and practices, it will be difficult to make informed decisions, monitor cash flow, and ensure the long-term health of the business.
Enrolling in a career college program is often the quickest and most efficient way to get the specialized knowledge and skills needed to achieve your career goals.
Benefits of Studying Business Management at a Career College
Enrolling in a General Business Management Diploma at a career college will provide you with the training and skills employers are looking for. Other benefits include:
- Practical training: Some career colleges provide practical and hands-on training that prepares students for the real-world challenges of the business world. This can include case studies, simulations, as well as practicums, that provide students with real-world experience and exposure to industry-specific practices and procedures.
- Accelerated programs: Career colleges often offer accelerated programs that allow students to complete their studies quickly and enter the workforce sooner.
- Career-focused education: Career colleges are often focused on providing education and training that is designed to prepare students for specific positions in the workforce. This means that if you are in a business management program, you only take courses related to that specialty. No unnecessary electives!
If You’re Ready to Jumpstart Your Business Career
By enrolling in the Sundance College General Business Management Program, you can get first-hand information and hands-on experience, taught by instructors who are well-versed in business management. You’ll also get practical work experience in a business setting, which could result in a permanent role.
Here is what our current student Elijah S. has to say about this course:
“I've been enjoying my online study of the General Business Management program at Sundance College. The faculty is very easy to reach out to, and the resources and websites to support my learning are convenient to access. I would like to thank Sir Vinnie, who's been my instructor on a few courses. He is approachable and responsive. He shows support and respect to his students, and you can truly see his passion for teaching!”
Take the first step toward launching your dream career as a business manager or a business owner by completing our General Business Management Diploma program. Contact us today to get more information about the enrollment process.