4 Skills Every New Business Owner Should Learn (4 Video Links)
Discovering your niche as a new business owner and developing a useful service or product is a great feeling. Whether you built your business yourself, inherited it, or recently got hired to manage it, there are some essential skills you should learn as a new business owner.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that about 20% of small businesses fail in the first year, while close to 50% crumble by the fifth year. By the tenth year, a mere third of new US businesses have survived. Want to be one of the successes? Use these four key skills to avoid failure and stay in business.
Contents
Financial Literacy
As a new business owner, it’s logical to keep an eye on how much you’re committing to operations and revenue coming in. How you do this depends on your budgeting skills. It is a must to keep a fair working balance between costs and earnings, which is why you need a firm grounding in financial literacy.
A lack of proper judgment and discipline could render your business unsustainable in the long term. Many start-ups in the United States go bankrupt due to deficiencies in this area, and you do not wish to add on to this growing statistic. Educate yourself on banking processes, accounting, investing, credit-debit cycles, and identity theft, among others. Look at how other countries work in this regard and read the advice given by Hussain al Nowais, as this can give you a good idea about what to look out for.
Marketing Skills
Hiring a marketing team may be a considerable expense to your new business, but it can be worth it. Sometimes, the person responsible for the business is the reason for its success.
Personal branding is a necessary tool in marketing, and as a new business owner, you should learn this skill. Clients and potential customers have a habit of developing and maintaining business relationships with the face behind the entity. The reason is, people want to remain loyal to a brand they trust and feel comfortable dealing with on a regular basis.
Communication Skills
The foundation of effective communication is the ability to listen and offer solutions when needed. An excellent business owner knows how to speak well and present business products without sounding condescending or belligerent.
People tend to be put-off by personalities who try to talk in an overly-intellectual manner. Customer service relies heavily on excellent communication skills. Enroll in an online communication class or dedicate time to read books that address this topic.
In the event of legal complications in your operations, your communication may help disentangle your entity from further problems. Learn more about Bey & Associates, a US-based firm with experienced trial lawyers with over ten years of expertise in personal injury cases.
Smart Time Management
As a new business owner, time management is critical as you work towards your goals. Time management skills help you avoid getting stressed in your working week.
It is normal to work under pressure to meet deadlines, solve problems, complete paperwork, or attend to customer needs. You can do all these by adequately planning your day, week, or month. Schedule your activities in order of urgency and priority. Keep a daily planner where you record and make easy references to all activities.
These crucial skills are developed only through learning and constant practicing. Use them to their full potential and your new business will be a success in no time.
Subscribe to Accounting Accidentally on Substack. Get links to new content on accounting, personal finance, and humor/ short story topics.
Get your questions answered to pass the CPA exam, and to learn accounting concepts.
Go to Accounting Accidentally for 400+ blog posts and 570+ You Tube videos on accounting and finance:
Good luck!
Ken Boyd
Author: Cost Accounting for Dummies, Accounting All-In-One for Dummies, The CPA Exam for Dummies and 1,001 Accounting Questions for Dummies
(email) ken@stltest.net
(website and blog) https://www.accountingaccidentally.com/