Regardless of your career or industry, having the right business skills can help you excel personally and professionally, making you more valuable to your organization and enabling you to enjoy your work more than ever before. If you are already on your way to success, take a look at these six business skills you may wish you had in 10 years that can help propel you even further.
1) Technology management
Developing a competitive advantage can be difficult, but sometimes the best way to do so is by leveraging your unique skills or talents. For example, if you’re an avid computer gamer, you may want to consider turning your love of gaming into a business by becoming a full-time professional gamer and promoting your streaming on Twitch.
2) Time management
Time management is one of the most important skills for entrepreneurs, especially when it comes to deciding how to spend your time on any given day. Many successful entrepreneurs are able to manage their time effectively because they know what matters most, and they are focused on achieving those things instead of spreading themselves too thin by trying to do a million different things.
3) Read, read, read.
Reading is the key to success. Smart people constantly improve their knowledge by learning from others and that’s what makes them smart. You don’t have to spend all your time reading business-related materials; there are lots of non-business books and blogs out there that you can use to fill the gaps, but it’s important to build a habit of reading about things other than business so you keep your mind fresh and learn new things.
4) Speaking at events or conferences
If you speak at events, your audience will have an opportunity to meet and interact with you, which can lead to potential connections that may result in collaborations or sponsorships. Plus, event organizers are always looking for engaging speakers who will enhance the experience of the event attendees by adding value.
5) Pricing strategy
Let’s take a look at how you might go about implementing a pricing strategy. Pricing strategies can be as simple as pay what you want or as complex as having different pricing tiers for different types of customers. A key question to answer is what your goal is for the prices of your products: do you want to maximize revenue, market share, customer lifetime value, or some other metric?
6) Budgets and planning
Budgets and planning are important because they can tell you what is necessary to get a business up and running. Calculating the cash flow is a great example of this as well as determining when expenses need to be paid. The same goes for forecasting trends and predicting how much income will come in from sales each month or year. Making an accurate forecast will help determine if there is enough money coming in to cover all the monthly or yearly costs. The best way to do this is by projecting monthly, quarterly, and annual data for a minimum of three years.
