6 Entrepreneurial Skills You’ll Need to Succeed

In the past few years the world has witnessed a growth in small businesses. This growth has been caused partly by the spreading of the internet, and partly because of the instability of conventional career paths.

This new entrepreneurial age is creating new opportunities and new challenges as our traditional models of education and business are struggling to keep up with the lightning-fast changes that occur in our new highly-connected worldwide economy. The skills that large corporations and academic centers traditionally value are becoming obsolete. Traditional education is being replaced with the development of entrepreneurial skills. The ability to develop these new skills quickly will determine your ability to thrive in the new entrepreneur-based economy.

Here are 6 skills you’ll need to develop to succeed:

1. Selling

Whether you want to sell a product to potential customers, or simply sell yourself in an interview the ability to connect with others, to communicate the value of what you’re offering, and to convert the potential buyer into a loyal customer is a necessity.

2. Networking

The term ‘self-made man’ gets thrown around a lot when talking about entrepreneurs. But any entrepreneur will tell you that while they did a lot of hard work their success was not a solo performance. Most entrepreneurs have groups of friends and colleagues that worked tirelessly to get their brand noticed. The ability to create relationships that will benefit you and move you closer to success is part of the price of admission in the world of business.

3. Self-Directed Learning

If you’re reading this post this is already a skill you’ve developed to some point. What makes self-directed learning an asset is the ability to learn new concepts and figure out how to apply them quickly. Anyone can understand the principles of SEO if given enough time, but the real rock stars of the entrepreneur world will be the ones that can learn a new idea quicker than the rest. This means being comfortable really immersing yourself in a new topic and not slowing down until you develop real understanding of it.

4. Communication

The ability to comfortably and competently communicate an idea is imperative to entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are constantly at the forefront of new ideas and as such should be able to describe abstract concepts in a way that is persuasive and easy to understand.

5.  Self Confidence

Self confidence may not seem like a skill at first. But when you consider that a lot of your time as an entrepreneur is spent pursuing ideas that are untested, with no one telling you the ‘best way’ to continue, then you’ll realize how important developing real self-confidence is in achieving success on your own.

6. Time Management

Finally, as an entrepreneur there is no boss that keeps you on task, any deadlines that are set are done so by you, and no one will be there to make sure you work 8 hours every day. This is why time-management is something that you need to learn in order to succeed as an entrepreneur.

This isn’t a definitive list of what it takes to be an entrepreneur. The ideas here are meant to give you an overview of the areas you need to develop. It’s easy to feel lost when you first step out on your own. I hope the concepts I’ve listed here will give you a little more direction for starting your path as an entrepreneur.

—–

Evan West is a freelance blogger. He provides personalized content focusing on life-skill development. If you’re interested in learning about networking, developing social-skills, self-guided learning, or anything else regarding personal development, then check out more articles on his website Evan West | Freelance Blogger.

---

GET THE BOOK BY
ERIN FALCONER!

Erin shows overscheduled, overwhelmed women how to do less so that they can achieve more. Traditional productivity books—written by men—barely touch the tangle of cultural pressures that women feel when facing down a to-do list. How to Get Sh*t Done will teach you how to zero in on the three areas of your life where you want to excel, and then it will show you how to off-load, outsource, or just stop giving a damn about the rest.

ORDER YOURS TODAY!