While many business owners have some natural skills that are very useful when running a business you will also have some you need help with.  You can’t be perfect at everything, no matter how hard you try.  Here are some of the things you may not have thought about.

Leadership:

Leadership is about being honest, authentic and having the drive to inspire and influence those you interact with and yourself.  Running a business requires;

• A vision, with clearly defined goals – know what your about and where you you need to go
• Clear standards, rules and continuous professional development
• An understanding of change management.
• A SWOT analysis.
• Time management and ability to delegate.

Emotional Intelligence:

Not everyone likes people, some of us like to hibernate and not have to interact with people BUT to succeed in business we need people.  Whether we interact on-line or off-line we need to understand the impact we have on others.  Self awareness is the first step in understanding emotional intelligence,  The next step is learning how to read and analyse those you interact with.  When we get these steps right we then can market, sell and connect with more people therefore generate more profit.

Accountability:

Everything you do and say reflects on your business.  How professional do you come across?  How professional does your website look?  Can you and your business be trusted?  Whether you agree with negative feedback or not, your accountability requires you to take responsibility for the issue. Small businesses have an advantage here to give exceptional customer service and accountability is one way to achieve.  This doesn’t mean you have to apologise all the time it just means you take responsibility for it.

Running a business requires business owners to acknowledge they need to invest in themselves.  This not only means continuous professional development it also means to acknowledge and build in the importance of reflective practice and switch off time.