How Many Skills Do You Need In Business?
In today’s article, we’re going to get in-depth with a very important aspect of your financial future as an entrepreneur. I’m going to talk about how many skills you need to be successful in business when you’re starting or even already running a fully functioning operation.
The Skills You Need In Business Aren’t Limited To “Intellectual Knowledge”
The ability to know what to focus on in business (and subsequently implement it) is as important as the ability to focus within itself. If you’re able to implement what skills are most crucial for your growth as an entrepreneur, you can translate that knowledge to any field you’d like.
You’ll experience a freedom that many people simply don’t have due to a lack of clarity about what’s important.
Here’s a typical example of how lack of skilled experience can hurt you:
I have a current mastermind who is a very smart guy, but his level of focus is a bit all over the place. He’ll remain anonymous for the purposes of this article, but let’s just call him Steve.
Steve definitely won the evolutionary lottery when it comes to intelligence and intellectual curiosity.
He’s a scientist, entrepreneur, and still currently even has a job. Furthermore, he dives head first into all of them… even his employment position in retail.
He takes the time to really try to understand the processes of each interest he has and wants to know every nuance of the field he’s curious about.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the problem is that while Steve knows every process of his chosen interest on a deeply logical and intellectual level… before he joined our mastermind, he hadn’t been learning the actual skills required to implement the knowledge.
The Modern Jack of All Trades
Now, this is nothing against Steve because this is a common problem in modern society, and specifically education.
University systems teach you to learn “a little bit about everything” and know how to regurgitate the key points of almost any given field without actually teaching you to become an expert in any one thing.
This leads to masses of people who can talk about a lot of things passionately on a surface level without knowing how to implement in real life.
You, on the other hand, want to become an implementer.
You don’t want to be somebody who just studies the plan, you want be someone who expertly executes the plan. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you need to implement.
If you simply gain tons of “understanding” with no experience in implementation, you’ll become a “jack of all trades and a master of none”, as the saying goes. You’ll write books full of fluff that no one reads.
You’ll get refunds because your customers don’t know how to execute all of your grand ideas because… you don’t know how to execute them either.
Sound familiar? That’s because a lot of so-called business gurus do this. They’re the average. You don’t want to be average.
The Better Approach To Skill-Building
The smart businessman finds a very specific skill to become an expert at and constantly refines that process until it’s almost a science
We have another mastermind member who has taken it upon himself to become an absolute juggernaut just in sales.
He takes almost any opportunity he can find to get better at sales, including doing some for me. He spends a lot of his “mental RAM” on just learning this ONE process until he is a world-class expert.
He doesn’t spread himself thin – he hones in on the goal and implements. He is not a jack of all trades. He is an expert.
The key takeaway here is that a master isn’t afraid to learn and re-learn a specific skill. It doesn’t get boring if the implementation is constantly adjusted to new markets and challenges. The upside is built into process when executed properly and refined continuously.
The First Skills You Need In Business
Now you’re wondering, “So, Aleks, what skills do I need to actually implement my business ideas successfully?”
Well, when you’re initially starting your main focus should be basic fundamental skills that you can implement effectively across the board in any business situation in the future.
To get more specific, I’m talking about the ability to make sales calls, having good copywriting skills, executing revenue-generating marketing strategies, andso on.
Having a solid foundation in these areas and continuously building on those skills is much more effective than becoming a jack of all trades and knowing a little bit about every minute detail in a business plan.
Your Audience Will Tell You The Skills You Need In Business
Once you have a good foundation, you’ll need to know what specific area to focus on.
The way this is done is having a clear understanding about the results you’ve gotten so far in your chosen niche and what you’re most interested in.
To be more clear, focus in on what people have come to you for advice in the past and gotten results from.
If people keep coming to you with questions about a particular skill that you have – you may have a winning offer sitting in your lap.
If you keep getting results for people using a particular skill that you have… you may have a winning offer sitting in your lap.
Make sense?
The Exception That Proves The Rule
Now, there are exceptions to this if you want to be a more of a business coach or consultant and need a broad understanding of all areas.
In my case, yes I took the broad route and it helped a bit. However, I could have gotten results much faster at an earlier age if I had focused on a very narrow skill early on.
How do you know if you’re going to broad?
If you’re not getting paid very well for that skill, plain and simple. If you’re not in demand, that means you’re probably going too broad.
Even if you do get paid a bit, if you’re not getting extraordinary results for companies – and I’m talking 20% increase in revenues and numbers like this – you’re heading into jack of all trades category. Again, you want to be a world-class expert at a specific skill to get paid more for your services.
Get specific and implement, that’s the name of the game.
