Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Well, I was wondering what does everyone think are the most important skills to develop for an entrepreneur?

I can think of a couple right off the bat here:

1) Memory- important for remembering appointments, keeping track of expenses, prioritizing etc, not to mention being able to recall faces really, really helps with good impressions.
2) Flexibility- being able to adapt to changing economic conditions, being able to see what the competition is doing and react accordingly.
3) Persistence- this is a big one, i think, because without persistence there would be no success. i don`t know anyone who started a business and came out screaming victory on his/her first run at it.

These are the top three for me, i guess. Would like to hear others you guys might be thinking about. For memory, i`ve been reading dominic o`brien`s book How to Develop a Perfect Memory. Kick-ass awesome book, highly recommended. When i`m working on flexibility, I like to think of a quote by Victor Frankl "between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose." When i`m sh*t tired, like i`m right now :), I think about Edison and what would have happened if he said, "Damn, I think i`ll just throw this junk in the trash, have a pint, and go to sleep."

Its personallly been my second go at this whole business thing and golly gee cheese whiz, i think i`m starting to get the hang of it! (maybe)

Dave

Hi Dave :-) Interesting question, but I think there are some red herrings in there. For example, "memory" isn`t a skill so it`s not something you can develop like a skill. You can perhaps work with mnemonics to develop a better way to use the memory, but that`s about it.

Flexibility, I`m thinking is more a personality trait? How do you develop flexibility?

Persistence too, is a personality trait. So I`m wondering if those really are skills that you can learn, y`know?

On the other hand, I would say computer skills are crucial, particularly in spreadsheets and if possible, basic database structuring.

Another is the skill of communications---writing, speaking, and rhetoric. We read about how schools used to require rhetoric and debate as part of the curriculum, and these days, think it means political debate.

Rhetoric is the field of language that involves persuasion. Debate is the formal development of an argument. The two also need the skill of logic and analysis. All sales and content written for a Web site rely on the *skill* of rhetoric.

I think public speaking would come under the heading of skills, particularly in the form of acting, body language, and entertainment. The skill of telling a joke, for example, as an ice-breaker. That would require the skill of timing.

Balancing priorities is a skill, and used all the time in logistics, another skill. They could come under a higher skill of planning.

Perhaps the most important skill for an entrepreneur would be partly a skill, and partly an art: Triage.

The formal definition associates with sorting victims or severities of injury, but it`s come to apply in business to the issue of sorting by critical necessity. It`s not the same as planning, which takes place prior to events. Triage, in this context, applies to sorting in real-time, either with crises or with rapidly incoming information. An example would be a flood of orders, a shortage of packing materials, running out of raw materials, and a machine breakdown taking place within hours of each other.

If you think about it, the skills needed by an entrepreneur are the same as what human beings have had to develop to survive. Unfortunately, in today`s complex and technological world, many people can easily survive without any skill at all. Schools rarely teach real-world survival skills, and most kids tend to believe that everything "just happens."

The result is that people believe they need to learn "special" skills to be an entrepreneur. Instead, they really only have to apply the skills they should`ve learned growing up. :-)

Very thought provoking question. I won’t get into the discussion around is it a skill or personality. The timing of the question is very apt, as I have just interviewed 15 top successful individuals for my next product launch.

And the top one which the vast majority said is key to be a successful entrepreneur was building relationships and your `network`.

Some of the other traits mentioned:

- persistence
- set you `outcome` goal
- adapt to change
- get several mentors
- use technology to be efficient
- surround yourself with people who are better than yourself as certain subjects, maybe finance, technology
- know when to ask for help (and don`t be afraid to)

Andrew

• Level Headed-ness - don`t make decisions based on emotion
• Critical thinking skills - something not taught in school anymore
• Communication skills
• A great "Baloney" detector
• The ability to say, "This isn`t working" and a willingness to kill pet projects that aren`t working.  So many entreprenuers get an idea in their head and push it through even when it drains their resources and clearly will not succeed.  In the words of Kenny Rogers - "You gotta know when to fold `em".

One of the more difficult lessons my father tried to explain to me, but that took me a lot longer to understand, is that "cut and run" or "this isn`t working" lesson Kim mentioned.

I`m not sure how to develop this---and it is a skill. In my father`s experience, he would watch people invest in the stock market, then see their value drop. They`d put in some more money, "just knowing" that the company or product was the wave of the future. Then they`d invest a little more, bit by bit, while the value continued to drop.

By the time they decided enough was enough, and tried to exit their investment, they couldn`t sell it; it had lost all value; and they`d lost their entire invested amount.

I think the skill involved is in being able to distinguish between long- and short-term trending. That would be "trend analysis," part of that critical thinking that isn`t taught anymore. Of course the next question would be how to go about learning trend analysis?

Whether an investment of mony or work or time, it`s the same concept. You might invest in some other business, or invest in your own passion and creation, but it comes down to (maybe) being overly emotional about the investment. So perhaps yet another skill would be to understand and develop the capability of shifting between subjective and objective viewpoints?

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Rosanna Tussey
Owner
New Mexico Candle Co.
http://www.nmcandleco.com