Top entrepreneurial skills you need today

Being an entrepreneur can be both fun and challenging. Before you venture into the world of entrepreneurship, find out if you have the entrepreneur skills that will help you succeed in your new arena?

The business world has become very competitive so you will need specific skills even if you decide to venture into a home business. As an entrepreneur, you need to have organizing and management skills that will take your business plan to the next level. But more than that, you need to have that thirst for accomplishment which could only be satiated once you have established your business.

Here are some of the entrepreneur skills you would need to run your business successfully:

1.Jack of all trades

This figure of speech may leave a bitter taste in the mouth nowadays but this is exactly one of the skills you would need to start your own business and to see it grow from scratch, minus of course the “master of none” part. The original meaning of the phrase referred to being a generalist, not a Renaissance man like Leonardo da Vinci who was exceptional in a variety of disciplines, but someone who is flexible enough to know the business fundamentals and how each independent aspect works. Among all the other entrepreneur skills, this one gives you the capacity to see how things are interconnected and allows you to run the show.

2. Managerial and administrative skills

Most of the multinational corporate ventures employ hundreds of people with their own specializations. Forget about that if you are starting small like most entrepreneurs. Even hiring an assistant is a luxury you would not be able to afford, so basic entrepreneur skills in the administrative department would come in handy for posting in your daily income and expenses, making your receipts and even for making sure you pay your bills on time. On top of that, you need your managerial skills to be at the top of the situation when you business starts to operate. It means making a sound decision about approving a certain account while answering the phone as part of your customer service.

3.Planning skills

Planning is one of the entrepreneur skills you should arm yourself with especially if you are starting a home business. Better yet, hone your time management skills so that you do not waste your time puttering in the house when you have loads of unchecked emails in your mailbox. Your planning skills would make sure you have, not only an idea of what you have to accomplish for the day, but you are bent on sticking to your plan. The hardest thing for a one-person business, much more a home-based one, is the overwhelming task ahead of you everyday. Multitasking is clearly the name of the game and you have to be really good at it to accomplish things

4. Financial skills

Since you are in business not only to render service or to fulfil a dream but also to make money, you need to brush up on your financial skills to make ends meet. and more than that. One of the most essential entrepreneur skills you need to have even for small business ventures is the ability to manage your finances so that at the end of the day, you have money to pay for your business and incidental expenses and have some left for your profit box.

5 People’s skills

Establishing a business will require you to deal with people from all walks of life and this is one of those entrepreneur skills that will take your business far. Every successful entrepreneur has people’s skills and those who do not have it hire someone else who does. You will always deal with people at any phase of your business so make sure you are inherently interested in people and how they work.

Entrepreneur skills are the abilities, inherent or learned, that will make or break your business. Having these skills from the start will reduce the challenges of starting a business but being able to use them strategically will ensure that your business stays on even when competitors come in.

by Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata Jnr. "CFA"