Whether you already have a business or are struggling to find a business idea, one of the most critical steps is to take inventory of your skills and your immediate progression circle. In the beginning stages of your business, unless you already have capital or have secured substantial funding, your skills and the skills of others that you may tap into serve as your start-up capital.
If you are thinking of selling a service, evaluate an activity in which you are particularly skilled. Have you spent a corporate career as a staff accountant? Consider providing seminars on financial ledgers or maybe profit-and-loss statements for small businesses or, even greater, act as a financial consultant to organizations in your most recently worked field. Have you done work as a grant writer or fundraiser? Consider becoming a fund development consultant. The opportunities to repackage your existing skills are virtually endless. Below are five steps to take when assessing your skills:
2. What task would you do for free if money were no object?
This is often the most philosophical, yet the most fun and engaging part of the skills assessment process. What do you love? What would you do at no cost over and over again? If your answer is, sipping frosty umbrella drinks on the beach, then you had better put a process in place and monetize it. So find a beach you love, conduct market research on the need for frosty umbrella drinks, the proper licensing, liability, insurance, staffing needs, proper personnel and anticipated operating budget to run your little (one day immense; think franchise) enterprise. To be totally forthcoming, many of the most successful businesses happen by accident. Think Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. His ingenious idea for social connectivity started from the college campus of Harvard with essentially a waywardly, smitten college schoolmate inquiring about the relationship status of a fellow college schoolmate. The foundation of his ideas and algorithms conceptualized or borrowed is up for interpretation.
3. How effective are your planning and organization skills?
Planning in business is paramount! Do you have the necessary skills to mental process a well thought out business plan? Being a visionary with the ability to project a concept into the future and build a plan to meet your objectives is enviable, yet necessary skill for entrepreneurship. Effective planning will be your guiding light to business success. The efficacious planner understands that planning is only as good as its actionable counterpart. With that, you should hold the skill that enables you to plan, all the while maintaining flexibility. While there are multiple resources to help you develop sound business, strategic and marketing plans, it is paramount to inform both the input and the process. This calls for critical thinking skills and vision.
4. How sound is your decision making ability?
Without question, decision making ability will be a critical skill to possess in an effort to be successful. From the very beginning of your entrepreneurial journey, you must make sound decisions, first of all, about which business to go into. From there, decisions on hiring, informing your marketing, funding, sales, vendor selection, and a host of other decisions need to be made. The key is to be decisive with the freedom to learn from mistakes, rather than fearing mistakes to the point of paralysis. Ask yourself how you make decisions. Are you informed by relevant information and by weighing the potential consequences? There are numerous decision making tools with the core of those being models such as Decision Tree Analysis, Grid Analysis, Six Thinking Hats and the Pareto Analysis commonly referred to as “The 80/20 Rule”.
5. Are you at least amenable to sales?
Without question, sales is a topic near and dear to my heart! As the adage goes “No matter what business you are in, you are in sales.” You may not be a formally trained sales person armed with Zig Zigler quotes in your head, but if you are trading products or services in exchange for money, you’re selling. Of course the more skilled you are, the more successful you will be. If you are sales-adverse you will struggle on your journey to success. Before you employ a robust sales team, you will approach your initial customers yourself.
6. Are you an effective communicator?
Of all the necessary skills, this will be most critical! In order to effectively plan you will need high-level written communication to properly execute a well-designed plan. To communicate this plan to both staff and investor, you will draw upon proper oratory skills to explain your vision and strategy. Of course, if you plan to sell anything, you will draw upon solid oral and presentation skills. The skill of communication plays a role in the execution of all of the other skills above. If you don’t have this skill, none of the other skills will be fully developed, no matter how hard you try.