If something isn’t your passion, if you don’t wake up in the morning excited about it…..don’t do it. If you want to exude what it takes, below are the top 10 skills you need to succeed in business!
10 Skills You Need to Succeed in Business
1) Ruthless Determination
This is your business. Own it. When you do, you’ll not only succeed in business, you’ll drastically improve your life. You will bump into a lot of problems, but it’s how you see them, that matters. Do you see them as stepping stones on your path to success or do you see them as roadblocks? I always say that being successful is very much like the turtle and the hare race. It’s not going to happen overnight, but if you stick with it, you WILL win. Those that succeed keep going, not letting anything or anyone hold them back. There will be nay-sayers, most likely, some will even be good friends. But this is YOUR business. You can’t let anyone else define YOU. This is one of the most important skills you need to succeed in business.
2) Take Action
GOALS = DREAMS + ACTION. No one ever became successful sitting on the sidelines. You have to take action, it’s one of the essential business skills! Change your thinking from “I can’t” to “How CAN I?” Leave your fears at the door and go for it. I always look at every new endeavor I take on like this: If I don’t take action, I will be a failure. Because my ideas, plans, goals can’t work. It’s impossible for them to work if I don’t try them. It’s important to get out there and try your best. Even if something does flop, re-adjust, recalculate, reinvent until you get it right. If it still fails, YOUR not a failure because you got out there and did something whereas many other people are still sitting on the bench.
3) Invest in Yourself
Just as you go to school until a young adult, so must be your philosophy in business. We never stop learning…improving what we already do well. Track your success. See what works, what doesn’t, what your strengths/weaknesses are, and work on them. Take action and develop your skill sets. My mom always taught me, you’ve got to work with what you’ve GOT, but you can’t stay there.
4) Invest in Your Business
Ever heard the saying, “You have to spend money to make money?” It’s completely true! Buy those extra graphic templates, open up a store, create a website for your raving-lunatic fans. Spend money on your clients in simple ways that won’t break the bank. If I’m selling a bottle of essential oils, I like to put it in a pretty organza bag like a gift. Same for eBay sales. Just little touches like that help you to stand out from the pack. If you build it, they will come!
5) Choose Your Friends Wisely, Your Enemies Even Wiser
If you’ve taken action and you’re not seeing results, something has to change. Learn from people who are where you want to go! Surround yourself with those types of people. Pretty soon, you will become like them. Choose your enemies wisely as well. The goal here is to never make one!
6) Focus
One of my favorite lessons I’ve learned over time is to work SMARTER, not harder. Focus on the things that bring you success. Learn what tasks bring you the most revenue, make customers over-joyed to have purchased from you, and then perfect those tasks. Zero in on those tasks as your priorities, and you will become well-known as such. This will bring you more clients. Laser focus is one of the top business skills to learn!
7) Your Customers are Your New Boss
If you’re selling on eBay, your customers hold you accountable for getting a package out within the specified amount of time. If you’re selling a product, they want to be treated like a friend. They expect respect and consideration. They want to be treated like royalty. Since your customers are literally giving you your paycheck, you need to hold them with such esteem that you would a boss in a traditional job. Your success will be based on how well you treat your ‘boss!’
8) Know Who You Are
You are not selling an item. You are selling YOU. There are 100 other products out there in the same category, the same price range, if you work as an independent rep for a company, there are thousands of other reps all selling what you do, getting the same training you get, selling in the same WAY that you sell. What makes YOU different from everyone else? What makes you unique? Focus on that….and you’ll see success.
9) Delegation
What are you good at? What are your weaknesses? What frustrates you? It’s simple. Do the things your good at, delegate to others the things you’re not so hot at. In the meantime, work on improving your weaknesses. Find ways to make things easier for yourself. Don’t put more stress on yourself than necessary. Sites like Fiverr and Guru can help drastically. Delegation skills can be underrated, but to me it’s definitely one of the important skills you need to succeed in business.
10) Save Time
This applies to my selling on eBay, but if you are spending all day listing on eBay, you’re doing something wrong. From the time I take a picture of an item, to cropping it, watermarking it, and listing the eBay ad, it takes me 3-4 minutes total. In an hour, I can get 15 ads up and running. Whatever business you’re in, learn the time suckers in it. What can you do to make things go quicker? For me, it takes more time to use blank paper for a shipping label than purchasing pre-cut sticker labels and it only costs me $7.50 more for 500 labels. If I save 1 minute of time per label, that’s a little over 8 hours of time back for $7.50. You just made about $70 over a traditional job if you had worked with THEM a full day! Your time is valuable. Where can you save time???
Don’t know where you spend your time? RescueTime is my #1 favorite site for tracking how you spend your time online. It’s awesome! Has helped me sooo much in my businesses and I highly recommend it!
