Entrepreneur Skills

Entrepreneur Skills

Entrepreneur Skills
SHARP IN GOOD
Essential Skills Breed Success!
Introduction
In order to succeed as a person in business you must be able to cultivate and adequately use certain skills. As an entrepreneur you have customers and unless you are a sole proprietorship– employees interact with on a daily basis.

Makes sense right?

Unless you have adequate “people skills,” your business will fail.

IN OTHER WORDS IF YOU ARE A HIGHLY INTELLIGENT NERD WIT ZERO PEOPLE SKILLS – Entrepreneurial work isn’t for you! SURE you can be the brains behind the business and hire another certified PEOPLE PERSON. But if you aren’t willing to do this then you’re barking up the wrong tree!
Leadership
All for One and One for All!
Great Leaders Lead By Example
According to entrepreneurial expert Jerry Kaplan, leadership is a skill that must be present in any successful entrepreneur. Makes sense right? If you are working with a team, third group must have a clear message from you–the leader–about what direction you wish the company to go in.

No direction is just like cutting the head off a chicken! ICKY BUT TRUE!
You must have a CLEAR and DETAILED vision and the ability to rally your team squarely around it. You must convince the members of your team that the direction in which you are going is the best thing for the company and your decision as leader is based on sound reasoning.

ALL STUPID AND ILLOGICAL LEADERS BE GONE!

If you own a record company for instance, you must be clear on why you feel that adding a given artist–or dropping her–would be good for the company overall.

Granted, you may lead by fiat, and by phrases you probably heard from your parents while growing up, such as “Because I said so,” but such success may not be long-lasting because such an attitude has been known to significantly reduce the number of people who want to work for you.

If you’re an arrogant ass nobody will want to work for you regardless of how spectacular your idea is!

An example of this may be seen in a popular dance reality show where the leader rules her studio with an iron fist. While this may make her operation successful, it may also alienate her customers–the parents–who eventually tire of her belligerent attitude towards her students.

Pretty straight forward if you ask me!

Have YOU got what it takes to make it happen?
Vision
To See or Not to See
Visions are Dreams About to Happen
One of the chief entrepreneur skills is vision. Your team wants to know what the aim of your company is and what you are attempting to accomplish. The founder of Dairy Queenfor example, had one end in mind: to make summertime memories for children and adults alike by providing the best ice cream of any other ice cream parlor.

Great dream if you ask me!

They were successful at ice cream and expanded to hot dogs and French Fries as well.
Indeed, the vision piece is quite important in that it affects who the entrepreneur hires, refuses to hire or lets go. It dictates what leadership positions he makes available and the tasks he delegates. Not only does the business person need a clear vision for the company but he needs to be able to communicate that vision and rally his team behind that vision.
The late former Microsoft CEO Steve Jobs is an example of a visionary. Actually he was a VISIONARY EXTRAORDINAIRE!

He was able to convince the people who worked for him the value of the technology he placed on the market and why he believed it would sell.

HE MADE OODLES OF MONEY BECAUSE OF THIS – His BELIEF – His VISION – His PLAN TO EXECUTE!
Delegation
WINNERS Delegate
If You Suck – Delegate!
A good entrepreneur always delegates when appropriate and accomplishes tasks himself when necessary. If he knows that his strength is relating to the public and making sales calls, then he knows that he should do that himself.

DOERS DO WHEN THEY’RE GOOD!

On the other hand, if he knows that he is not the best at the financial end, he hires an accountant to be responsible for the monetary side of the business. DO NOT make the mistake of struggle, wasting your time and screwing your business up just because you’ve got an EGO, Control Issues and you’re too proud to admit weakness!

GET OVER IT FAST MY FRIEND!

It is not only about delegating but being able to select the right people for any given position. For example, an auto mechanic in business for himself would not hire a person whose strength is sales to do maintenance. That is an excellent example of a self-defeating hire.

SELF-DEFEATERS are LOSERS and they FAIL!

You with me on this one?
Problem Solving Skills
MUST HAVE MUST HAVE MUST HAVE
You’ve got it or you don’t!
A fantasticentrepreneur possesses problem solving skills. As the Mind Tools website says, he not only possesses such skills but he shows initiative. He is able to quickly look at a problem and to end it in its early stages, before it interferes with the accomplishment of the company vision, or poisons the team.

PREVENTION is key! You don’t want itchy crabs – Then don’t slut sleep!

I trust you get what I’m saying here!
Ability to Make Difficult Decisions
Decide and Move Forward
Decision Making is a TALENT
An entrepreneur must know when to make the difficult decisions, such as firing an employee, letting an unruly customer go or taking her to collections. EEK!

When a worker has clearly violated company policy or demonstrated a performance level that’s below par after constant counseling and encouragement by management, then he knows that keeping the employee there is a threat to the company. He will swiftly take decisive action towards getting rid of the problem – NO OFFENSE!

Also, he is the one who must decide when to discontinue a given product line when it becomes apparent that it is not selling very well.

A GOOD ENTREPRENEUR MAKES GOOD DECISIONS. Have you got what it takes?
Ethics
Wrong – Right Isn’t Black and White
Are You Holier Than Thou?
All the other skills mentioned in this post mean nothing unless they are also accompanied by a strong sense of ethics. Those under you must be able to trust you to treat them fairly; and your customer base must have confidence that you will charge them a fair amount of money and be consistent between customers. Also, your customer base must have faith in the quality of your product. They must be able to trust that your staff checks its goods for defects before they place it on the market. In short, an entrepreneur is most effective when he understands the Golden Rule.
Can you guess what it is?
We should treat others as we would wish to be treated. Ring a few bells?