What is one business basic every entrepreneur should perfect when looking to start a business?
To help you master the business basics, we asked business leaders and entrepreneurs for their best insights. From delivering the right pitch to upskilling when necessary, there are several business basics to perfect when looking to start a business.
Here is what 12 thought leaders had to say:
Deliver the right pitch
Entrepreneurs pitch their companies every hour of the day. They pitch customers, candidates, employees, and investors via email, Zoom calls, at water coolers, and more. If people are going to buy into the vision and follow a leader, they need to be clear on what the company does and why it exists. That’s why if there’s one business basic to perfect, an entrepreneur should focus on the one-line pitch that can be delivered in a compelling way over and over and over again.
Brett Farmiloe, Terkel
Master sales
Entrepreneurship is a never-ending learning process. In fact, every successful entrepreneur is a lifelong student of entrepreneurism. But if you had to pick one business basic that is absolutely essential for any entrepreneur to master, it would be sales. It doesn’t matter how great your product is. It doesn’t matter how tremendous your business idea is. If you can’t sell these to potential customers, there is nothing you can do. Mastering sales is the difference between success and failure for any business.
Chris Panteli, LifeUpswing
Surround yourself with experts
When starting up a business, be sure you have Trusted Advisors in your back pocket. When I started HR Resolutions, I knew I was a subject matter expert in Human Resources. I also knew I didn’t know the first thing about accounting systems, computer technology, marketing, and oh so many other things. The very first step I took was to hire a Business Coach who got me to my first contract 2 weeks before the end of our initial contract!
Karen Young, HR Resolutions
Identify and understand your target market
Perfecting your target market helps you craft your business strategy, marketing, and business plan. Perfecting who your ideal client is can help you develop your product or service to fulfill that consumer’s need. Direct target marketing enables entrepreneurs to understand the consumer’s pain points and provides them with a solution that they want to purchase. Ultimately, the authenticity of your marketing is enhanced, and consumers can develop a connection with your brand.
Annette Harris, Harris Financial Coaching
Communicate a clear vision
Have a clear, specific, unique business idea, and be ready to answer why you’re starting it clearly and succinctly. You want to impress key stakeholders and potential customers by showing your passion for the product or service as well as your business knowledge. Mastering how you communicate about what you’re doing is a really important piece of starting out. This will help you connect with people who can help you grow and support you.
Lisa Odenweller, Kroma Wellness
Interpret financial statements
Every entrepreneur should know how to interpret the financials of their business. This includes understanding basic income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. If they don’t understand how cash flows through the business, it may be very difficult to scale the business profitably.
Matthew Ramirez, Paraphrase Tool
Delegate to others
One of the most vital functions that make an entrepreneur’s life easier and help a business function much more smoothly is delegation. In delegating tasks to other leaders and employees, entrepreneurs free up their schedules for more critical and insightful tasks. Even so, before delegating these tasks, it is recommended that an entrepreneur gains at least some knowledge about these business functions. An entrepreneur should always be aware of different details related to processes in an organization, ranging from the time taken for a task to the best tools to deliver them. This knowledge enables entrepreneurs to use their foresight and expertise to streamline them in a better way.
Krista Haws, Dripped Coffee
Acquire and manage talent
Employees play a crucial part in the success of a startup. It is important to have the right people in the right positions and manage them effectively. This means setting expectations, providing feedback, and ensuring that everyone is working towards the same goal. As an entrepreneur, you should equip your hiring teams with the best tools so that they can effectively screen candidates and make sure that they are a good fit for the company culture. It is also important to keep employees motivated by providing regular feedback and recognizing their accomplishments.
Chris Thompson, Backdoor Survival
Build models with Excel
Though it may sound like something that would only be relevant for business analysts and investment bankers, every young entrepreneur needs to know how to create simple financial models with Excel. This is an absolute must. People generally don’t start companies on gut instinct with just an idea and go for it. You need to be able to project costs, revenues and time to profitability, as well as analyze what market share you’ll need to attain success. Being able to build simple financial models in Excel will allow you to plug in known data, as well as assumptions, which will inform your decision of whether a business idea is worth it. You’ll never have all the data you need to build a comprehensive, completely accurate model, and variables do change, but creating a simple model can provide a helpful roadmap for assessing whether your hypothetical venture may be worth it.
John Ross, Test Prep Insight
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Manage social media
Social media marketing should be part of any entrepreneur’s core business strategy. You can’t succeed as a business in today’s digital world unless you have an online presence. Having a social media account for your business is a way to let your target audience know that you exist. Your customers are likely already spending substantial time on social media sites, so all you need to do is conduct market research to determine which social networks your target demographic uses the most. Once you’ve created an account on those platforms, people will be able to easily locate and interact with you, creating the framework for you to build a long-term relationship with them that will drive customer retention and loyalty.
David Bitton, Doorloop
Stay organized
Entrepreneurs should know how to be organized. Running a business can be extremely stressful to manage since everything is solely your responsibility. Staying organized will keep your business running smoothly and stay as prepared as possible for any potential hurdles. Organizing your business plans and the steps needed to take will set a strong foundation for the future.
Patrick Ward, Rootstrap
Upskill when necessary
Starting up a new business in the current market climate warrants the need for all entrepreneurs to be “upskillable”. One must be aware that fast-evolving tech is keeping the business landscape progressing at fast rates and this is the driving force that requires the mastery of developing around the shape of the box. A new entrepreneur will need to be prepared to change, update, and adjust his/her business skillset and even mindset according to the tides of the market.
Continuous curiosity and risk-taking qualities will keep a business person upskillable. Skill adoption needs to be flexible and scalable for a business person to keep producing critical decisions that fit current situations. Regardless of the option to hire talents and not do things by yourself, business leaders are solely responsible for looking at the bigger picture and maintaining relevant skills and knowledge to direct their companies in the right direction.
Michael Knight, Incorporation Insight
