It ain’t easy being your own boss, no matter what people will try to tell you. To illustrate this, and help you overcome the issue, we’ve put together a list of 9 crucial skills every small business owner needs.
Leadership
The first of the crucial skills every small business owner needs on our list is Leadership. Now, this might seem obvious, or you may think we’re implying that the boss also needs to get down to work and lead by example. And that’s all admittedly true. However, just as important when leading is knowing how and when to delegate. Leading a business does not mean doing everything on your own all the time. It means finding people you know can do their job right and in whom you can put your trust.
Adaptability
Some might argue adaptability is a trait, but as the marketing experts from Movers Development will tell you, it is also a skill that can be trained up. No one is born capable of handling every situation that comes their way. You become capable by accumulating experience and developing your skill to adapt! So, try to keep an open mind, think on your feet, and just try not to freeze up. Everything else will come with time and more experience!
Problem-solving
As a small business owner, you’ll need to do a lot of problem-solving. Problems that your customers have run into. The problems between your employees. And the many, many problems that the day-to-day running of a business inevitably dredges up. You need to learn how to deal with them quickly and efficiently without letting them trip you up. This does mean that you might need to take a slightly more measured and diplomatic approach to things sometimes. Even if you don’t particularly like doing that! But, trust us when we say it will all be for the best.
Communication
One of the absolutely crucial skills every small business owner needs is the ability to communicate properly. Sounds easy enough, right? We do it every day, after all. Well, it’s surprisingly hard when you actually get down to it. Employees can easily misunderstand or misconstrue your words. After all, when you say something, it is the result of your thinking process and is tinged by your own perspective. If you neglect to give detailed instructions because they seem ‘obvious’ to you, then the job you assigned to someone might be carried out in a very subpar manner. It is always better to be more exacting until you’ve worked with your employees for a long time.
Risk-taking
After all, even trying to start your own business is, at the end of the day, taking a risk. So it should come as no surprise that knowing how and when to take a risk is one of the crucial skills every small business owner needs. Without taking an occasional risk, you will never really be able to grow and improve your business. Opening up a new market is a risk, and so is investing in a new product. The trick lies in knowing when the potential fallout will far outweigh the potential gain.
Basic financial literacy
While you should definitely hire a professional to manage your finances, it is unequivocally useful to have some skills in the area yourself. For one thing, even if you do not want to manage it all yourself, it’s useful to be able to check over your subordinate’s work. And then there’s applying such skill and knowledge to things such as relocation industry statistics so you can properly consider your potential gains and losses and allocate your resources the right way. In other words, if you’ve never taken a course on the subject, then the time to do it is now!
Basic website management
Ideally, you will have your own tech team one day dealing with all the website nonsense for you. However, as a small business owner, especially when you’re just starting out, it is essential for you to be able to run your own website. Now, we’re not saying you need to know how to code or design a site. However, plenty of site builders come with simple and intuitive tools that let you get your online presence set up properly. And being able to do it and keep it running may be the difference between making your business successful until you have enough money to hire an IT department and declaring bankruptcy shortly after you’ve started your business. Even just getting an online moving quote calculator is a major boon for small movers, after all. And there are plenty of such small additions that would help out immensely.
Time management
If you don’t know how to manage your time properly, you will run ragged. All the while failing to actually complete your work! Without this essential skill, your life will seem like an overwhelming deluge of tasks you’re constantly falling behind on. This goes double for when your moving business is just getting off the ground. It will likely seem like you need to be there to micromanage everything. However, your task is to refer to our first point on the list of crucial skills every small business owner needs, and then figure out a way to tackle all the major problems and tasks in your available timeslots.
Negotiation
You will obviously eventually need to do negotiations with business partners, customers, or even potential employees. So, being able to tackle this properly and with skill is a requisite of being a small business owner. It may seem like this is similar to being able to communicate properly. However, it really isn’t. Most of the time, negotiation skills come down to understanding the bottom lines of both parties as well as their desires. And then refusing to crack under pressure while the other party pressures you.
Final word
If you can master all of the 9 crucial skills every small business owner needs, you will quickly find success. If you can’t, however, then you need to at least master the first one on our list. Leadership through proper delegation can still take you quite far, as long as you don’t try to micromanage.
