3 Skills You Must Have to Succeed in Business
Often, the question about success in all its scales has been asked. What is success? When it comes to business, success has always had but one definition; profits.
The return you get from your investment is usually the measure of success in business. The more you get, the more you’re a success.
To succeed in business requires much more than a diploma from a good business school. Classroom knowledge and understanding of business concepts like economics and financial accounting can only get you so far. Of course, that knowledge is essential, but business is a practical process that is unpredictable, and often unprecedented things come up.
In order to avoid being caught off guard when your business receives these unprecedented challenges, you need to take a minute and assess strategies. Some necessary skills are required to navigate such a time; creativity, listening, and grit!
You need to develop such personal skills to deal with these unprecedented events that spawn out of nowhere.
Here are 3 Skills to Have to Succeed in Business:
1. Creativity - Creativity is an essential skill for any entrepreneur to have. It involves being imaginative and inventive, which usually implies an analytical thinker. Think outside the box. For a new entrepreneur, be creative in many ways to ascertain your business's success. Analyze the needs of the projected demographic to which you want to sell. Then choose the best commodity which should be easy and least costly to be acquired from your location. Other factors have also to be put in place like capital, location, and labor.
Scope out the possible competition and create something different from theirs. Something that stands out in the eyes of the customers or clients. As for those already in business, creativity is necessary as you should always be looking for ways to improve your business. Seek out new ideas and be open to trying them out. This will make you stand out from your competition and gain the upper hand. A good entrepreneur is always creative.
2. Listening - Rachel Charlupski, the founder of The Babysitting Company, discussed the best lesson she ever got from her father: 'The customer is more important than the money. This displays a very important lesson on the quality of entrepreneur you should aspire to be. A great entrepreneur who has the highest possibility of receiving success always listens. Listening involves hearing what is being said to you, understanding it, and possibly putting it into action.
In business, listening to customers is a vital quality a business owner or entrepreneur should have. Listening to the customers will help you improve on their various complaints. It may be customer service, quality of products, or any other thing that may require your attention. Also, listening to customer complaints and acting upon them appropriately boosts the customers' confidence. It always makes them feel special and any time they are out with friends or colleagues, be sure that they will recommend you. The phrase' the customer is always right' may have been conjured due to the underlying benefits of listening to them.
Listening also involves taking advice from anyone. It may be your peers, employees, parents, or even other entrepreneurs. They may have noticed something about your business that needs rectifying, and listening to them will help you in the long run. Other entrepreneurs who have been successful in their ventures will give you the best advice on how to run your business. Generally, listening and taking all critiques and advice is for your good.
3. Grit - Grit means a lot of things. The general understanding is that it means courage and resolve. Without question, it is a definite quality needed for business success. I definitely cannot overstate the effects that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought on everyone, especially business people. Most businesses were destroyed and failed due to the pandemic's effects. Women entrepreneurs across the United States who depended on person-to-person interaction for business proceedings suffered a lot. However, some businesses managed to stay afloat and persevere these trying covid times. One thing is for sure; their owners had grit.
Here's how Forbes describes grit: courage, conscientiousness, resilience, long term-goals and endurance, and excellence vs. perfection. Courage is discussed under your ability to let down all your fears, especially fear of failure, now that we are talking about business. The ability to overcome that fear and embrace it as a motivating tool is called courage.
Conscientiousness stems from the original Big Five description of the personality traits that psychology describes all human personality traits. Of the five, it is the most inclined to grit. It happens on two fronts which are achievement-oriented and dependable. Both describe good skills that should ensure business success.
Achievement-oriented is a workaholic who completes tasks at hand, while a dependable is one with a lot of self-control. On another description for grit, long-term goals and endurance represent a value that oversees an entrepreneur's ability to withstand all challenges and overcome them to achieve their set goals. Resilience is discussed as a more relatable item to long-term goals and endurance. It represents the ability to not allow your challenges to break you. The confidence and optimism in yourself and your business and your reaction show resilience.
Finally, we have excellence vs. perfection. People with Grit are described as those who strive for excellence. They do not care for perfection since it is inflexible, and successful business owners need flexibility. Therefore, they are forced to accept the fact that everything will not always be perfect and thereby embrace imperfections for the sake of excellence.
P.S. And there you have it, the three skills you must have to realize success in your business. I recommend this. A lot of women have failed in their pursuit for business success not due to financial reasons but due to personal reasons that they may not have understood or interpreted at the time. I hope this article gives you the insight and courage to fulfill your business dreams.
Until next time,
Peace, Love & Hippie Stuff!
Khadijah