To be an entrepreneur you need curiosity, imagination, resilience and a little luck. Here’s a look at the skills you’ll need and how you can develop them.

Many believe entrepreneurship is something you are born with. That is true to an extent. Some people will be more naturally entrepreneurial than others. However, you can still develop your own set of skills. To start with, though, you need to know what attributes make a good entrepreneur.

 

Curiosity

Some of the most successful entrepreneurs are those who dared to ask ‘what if’. Men like Elon Musk identify problems and started thinking about solutions. This requires a busy and inquisitive mind which is willing to study areas and concepts outside of your comfort zones.

Being an entrepreneur is an adventure and you’ll need to curiosity to push back boundaries and explore the unknown.

 

Courage

Being an entrepreneur is a risky business. More than half of new businesses fail within the first five years . That stat in itself is often enough to deter many people. The fear of failure is an enormous millstone stopping people from taking that step.

It’s not just the thought of losing money which holds people back. Many are equally concerned about the prospect of being made to look foolish. An entrepreneur is someone who is willing to stand up and put themselves on the line and fail in a very public way.

Most of us have that little voice telling us to hang back; to avoid being made to look silly in public. Good entrepreneurs have that voice too, but they manage to ignore it.

 

Resilience

WA risky business means failure at some point is almost inevitable. There will be ups and downs. Not all of your efforts will bear fruit and you will face setbacks along the way. Running a business is incredibly stressful. You are responsible for its success and failure. Once you start recruiting people, you will also be responsible for their welfare. If you make a mess of your business, you will impact their livelihoods.

Entrepreneurs have to live with the kind of stress every day which most people wouldn’t like to imagine. They will be working every hour God sends trying to find new business opportunities, ensure the company can pay its staff and uncover new opportunities.

It’s a world of peaks and troughs. The good days will feel great; the bad days will feel terrible. There will be many times when you feel like packing up and turning your back on everything. These moments of self-doubt and crisis will be the ones which tell the successful entrepreneurs apart from the rest.

 

Organisation and time management

The day-to-day life of an entrepreneur will be incredibly demanding. You’ll find yourself wearing several hats all at once especially in the early days. You’ll be making sales, driving strategy, doing the accounts and even making the tea.

Keeping all those plates spinning will require excellent attention to detail and time management. One of the most common complaints of entrepreneurs is that they spend all their time bogged down in administration and never have time to do what they are passionate about.

This can be damaging for a business. As its lead you are also its most valuable asset. If you’re spending all your time on nickel and dime jobs like doing the accounts, you’re spending less on valuable tasks like driving new sales or trying to generate growth.

To do all these jobs and ensure one isn’t taking you away from something important will demand superhuman levels of time management skills.

 

Networking

Social skills are vital. By meeting people and building new relationships, your business may benefit in many surprising ways. However, this is a difficult skill to master and most seasoned entrepreneurs have blundered along the way. A good networker is engaging, confident and asks insightful questions.

When you start out you may feel extremely uncomfortable, but you can develop your skills and build your confidence levels. Possibly the most important lesson is to focus on the other people. All too often it’s tempting to go for the broadcast option and start spurting out your elevator pitch. If you listen to people and respond with good questions, you may find a way in which you can both benefit each other.

 

Ambition

Great entrepreneurs have an ability to see possibilities others miss. For example, when Steve Jobs started making computers in his garage with Steve Wozniak, he already had an inkling about the multinational company Apple computers might be.

True, he might not have believed it would get as big as it did, but he still had a concept of the company he wanted to build right from the outset. Plus, he had the drive and ambition to keep taking the company forward at every step of the way.

 

Financial nous

The last is possibly the most important. The most common reason startups fail is because of cashflow. Often this happens despite the business being, in all other respects, pretty successful.

Many entrepreneurs are ideas people and struggle with the detail of keeping the sums in order. As a result, their financial management is not always up to scratch. Accounts may be inaccurate or out of date. This can be lethal. At the very least you may find yourself making important business decisions on inaccurate or out of date information. For example, you may find yourself focusing on an area of business which is actually losing you money.

At worst you may have a misleading impression of your true financial position which could mean you find yourself overwhelmed by a crisis you don’t see coming.

If you’re not confident with your skills it’s worth taking training or employing an accountant who can help you. This will help lay the strongest possible foundations as you move forward with your business. Some of these skills are more intuitive than others. Depending on what type of entrepreneur you are, you may find yourself drawn more to one than the others. However, they are also skills which can be taught, refined and developed.

Nobody is born the complete package. We all need to educate ourselves and build on our weaknesses. Those who do so will be in the best possible position to succeed.