Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, and entrepreneurs are their businesses’ biggest advocates — blending initiative and innovation to bring new ideas to a modern market. To succeed, entrepreneurs consistently need to reevaluate and evolve, mitigating risk while relying on sound strategy and strong business skills.

Whether exploring hard skills for entrepreneurs, researching technical skills for entrepreneur start-ups, or surveying soft skills for business, below are some of the best skills to learn for entrepreneurs everywhere.

Hard Entrepreneurial Skills: The Three B’s that Support Business Success

Hard skills are essential for entrepreneurship — they highlight industry education and experience, offering potential customers an added value proposition.

1) Branding

Branding is the identity and image your business portrays to the public. Defining a brand vision statement and buyer persona is pivotal. Successful marketing grabs the attention of audiences compelling consumers to act. From story-selling, fonts, and color schemes to clear, consistent copy — captivating brands convert passerbys into loyal promoters.

2) Budgeting

Entrepreneurs must understand the basic principles of accounting and finance, and further how money flows in and out of their business. To maintain a balance between income, savings, and expenses, business owners must manage resources effectively. By calculating quarterly costs and financial projections, entrepreneurs have organized data that can back their business decisions.

3) Business Management

Business management techniques like five-year plans, financial proposals, and long-term strategies set the stage for start-up profitability. Other factors like creating an inviting culture, elevating employee productivity, supervisor transparency, and troubleshooting operational issues maintain business success and keep it sustainable.

For prospective students wondering how to become a successful entrepreneurs, learning the above skills is essential. Fortunately, these fundamental hard skills are often further developed through postsecondary programs in entrepreneurship education.

Click here to see what business administration alumni and emerging entrepreneurs have to say!

Top Three Technical Skills to Master and Monetize Your Business

Learning technical skills as an entrepreneur, like software programs and applications, comes with great power and productivity. The below technical skills can assist entrepreneurs in advancing project management, identifying growth opportunities, tracking income, and monitoring business performance.

1) Data Analytics

Data analytics allows entrepreneurs digital insight into potential customers’ habits and preferences — enabling owners to cultivate meaningful campaigns, converting traffic into monetized sales. Analyzing data and recognizing patterns empower entrepreneurs to build their online presence and make bold business predictions that pave the way forward.

2) UX Design

In the online age of immediacy, a user’s experience (UX) is of the utmost importance. When entrepreneurs have a basic knowledge of user experience design, they optimize the interactions between people and their product or service. UX design turns websites and mobile applications into information accessible to audiences, easy to use, and effective for engagement.

3) SEO and Digital Marketing

SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is an important asset in digital marketing. Successful SEO practices propel websites to the first pages of search engine results. SEO helps entrepreneurs understand the search terms being used by target audiences. With SEO, business owners can uncover specific trends related to their industry, gauge business strategy, and steer campaigns to the content their targeted personas prefer.

Tackling technical skills can be tricky — but enrolling in an accredited business entrepreneurship degree can teach the necessary skills required for businesses to survive, prosper, and thrive.

Through higher education, professional abilities are elevated. An associate degree program focused on entrepreneurship, or even a bachelor’s degree in business administration, can help to develop and add value to an aspiring business owner’s area of expertise.

Elevating Entrepreneurship: Three Soft Skills that Sell

Soft skills are rooted in emotional intelligence, enabling people to work effectively with others. At the end of the day, it is essential for entrepreneurs to have the soft skills needed to connect with others and to drive their business forward. Below are some soft skills that entrepreneurs must learn and hone.

1) Leadership

Influential entrepreneurs possess the ability to empower others towards personal and professional growth. Prominent leaders consistently tap into curiosity, daring to take on challenges. Leaders of start-ups should be accountable, adaptable to adversity, passionate, persistent, and resilient, so professional goals become a plausible reality.

2) Time Management

Time management means seeing the big picture, finding practical solutions, and moving forward. Organizing objectives, prioritizing to-do lists, and triaging tasks are crucial for an entrepreneur’s career. Creating a healthy routine, regularly taking breaks, sleeping, eating, and exercising also works wonders to avoid burnout and focus on business initiatives.

3) Communication

Every entrepreneur needs to communicate the value of their company and have the confidence to speak, present, and write comfortably. From pitching, nurturing, and closing sales to networking events and building new partnerships, service-oriented communication helps business owners connect with consumers and ensure their brand is in-demand.

Pursue your passions at Goodwin University — study business administration.

Develop your talents with a flexible, forward-thinking curriculum.

Learn from supportive industry professionals with innovative business principles and practices to make your organization profit.

Build a foundational business plan to launch, operate, and grow your future dream career.

Do you envision a future in business administration or entrepreneurship? Click here to find out more about the benefits of a business degree!