How To Develop The Soft Skills Of The Successful Entrepreneur

Written by Lindsay Broder - The Occupreneur Coach

Can you really teach entrepreneurship? That question gets asked a lot, both in business and academia. Some claim you can learn the skills necessary to be a successful entrepreneur. Others say you either have “it” or you don’t, whatever "it" is.

But I think we're asking the wrong question. It's not about whether you can teach skills to be a successful entrepreneur, but rather what skills need to be taught or learned. For instance, when it comes to the hard skills, anyone can learn them, either in a classroom or on the job. These include things like finance and accounting or branding and marketing or legal. They are the skills that lead to specific action… the “doing” of running your business.

But, more important are the soft skills. These are trickier to learn. They don't come in a textbook or a webinar. They don't even necessarily come from working hard at your job. They come from inside you.

Rather than be taught them, you need to unlock them and foster them. 

Fostering (or "learning") soft skills that don’t come naturally to you might seem challenging and even very uncomfortable. But know that you have more soft skills available to you than you’re currently using. Perhaps you’ve never considered some of them. Or maybe you’ve not had the opportunity to work with a mentor or boss to show you by example. But if you’re willing to look inside yourself and you’re open to making significant changes, you can learn to access and use the many soft skills available to you within yourself. Here are a few examples:

Drive, Ambition and Stamina.

Let’s face it -- being an entrepreneur is really hard at times. You have to push yourself every day to be better when things aren’t going your way. It’s a major effort to keep going when you feel like nothing is right. But that’s why drive, ambition and stamina are necessary. We all have it. We’re born with it. Some have more than others, but you can strengthen yours by looking for inspiration from those with a ton of it and following their lead. It’s like a muscle that if you exercise regularly, it will become stronger.

The Temperament to Manage Adversity.

It’s no secret that entrepreneurship is full of adversity. That’s why people with unbelievable ideas never take the plunge into the entrepreneurial sea. Some entrepreneurs have such trouble managing tough times that they go grey, gain weight, lose their hair and age 20 years from the experience. Then there are those who’ve never looked or felt better from it. These are the people who approach entrepreneurship with joy and who remain calm even in the worst of situations. They don’t let the worst of it get the best of them. While it looks like some people are just born with this kind of temperament, I can tell you that I’ve known many people who have learned how to be this way as they’ve grown as people and as entrepreneurs. They learned to let go and have faith that everything will be OK.

The Capacity to Embrace Change.

If you don’t evolve with the world around you, specifically with your customers’ ever-changing needs, your success will be short-lived. Most people hit a ceiling on growth and become stuck in their ways. Nothing can be more detrimental to running a business. If this is something you struggle with, consider forcing yourself to engage in one activity every day or every week that you’ve never done before that kicks you out of your comfort zone. Or perhaps try taking a new path to work, stopping at a new coffee shop or trying a new food that you’ve never had before.

A Ton of Chutzpah.

You’ve heard the term, “Fake it til you make it?" Some people are just really good at this. We usually call them bullshit artists. But even if you think you’re well prepared for your entrepreneurial journey, you’ll more than likely uncover a few holes that you’ll have to mend on the go. At some point you’ll likely find yourself pitching for business that you are pretty sure is out of your league or you might have to pull out all the stops and get in front of people to sell your business who might expect you to be much more experienced than you are. I never advocate for lying about anything but there is a way to message your business that isn’t lying but makes you sound pretty darn good! But if you aren’t willing to fake it, you’ll never make it or it will take you a much longer time to.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/243059

You Might Be an Entrepreneur If You Meet These 3 Conditions ...

Article by Steve Vanderveen - 

After four years of operating a small startup incubator at a private liberal arts college I've learned a lot about creating business models that work and who might become a successful entrepreneur. It’s not about having access to capital or area of study. Rather, it’s about having the right skills, the right process and the right heart.

1. The right skills.

Marketing innovation. As Michael Ellsberg wrote in The Education of Millionaires, the prerequisite to selling is listening. It's important to understand people and their needs, build networks and relationships and create unique solutions to pitch effectively.

Managing risk. Entrepreneurs aren’t risk takers as much as they're risk minimizers. One way to minimize risk is to bootstrap: Provide the resources for a startup with customer revenues. Another way is to follow the advice of Eric Ries, pioneer of the lean startup movement, proponent of the “build-measure-learn” mantra.

Test all business model assumptions, ranging from the notion of the customer problem to the hypothosized revenue stream. Startup expert Ash Maurya wrote in Running Lean that the job of entrepreneurs is to find a business model that works before running out of money.

Leading oneself and others. Entrepreneurs keep going when others stop trying. They overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. They build tribes. They transcend the status quo, form new relationships and patterns of behavior and bring change where it's sometimes unwanted.

Having experienced the process, entrepreneurs quickly adapt and confidently try new things. And things don’t always go as planned. Entrepreneurs, like leaders in the “fundamental state,”  a term coined by Robert Quinn in Building the Bridge As You Walk Across It, have the “adaptive confidence,” “detached interdependence” and “grounded vision” to figure things out.

2. The right process.

Entrepreneurship is a discipline. Peter Drucker, sometimes called the "inventor of management," argued that entrepreneurship is a management discipline. It’s a process that can be learned and applied.  

Discipline implies a process. Entrepreneur and educator, Steve Blank, outlined the customer development process in The Four Steps to the Epiphany, which was validated and further refined by Maurya and Ries for their own startups (Spark59 and IMVU, respectively). The process begins with customer discovery or understanding problems from consumers' perspective and testing whether the entrepreneur’s solution fits. 

Then there's customer validation or determining how, when and where customers (the market) and the entrepreneur’s solution (the product) meet and value can be exchanged. And customer creation entails discovering how to entice the next wave of customers to move en masse toward the sales channel. Then and only then should resources be spent to build a company to support the business model.

That last step is called company creation. Before I became a lean startup convert, I used to ask students to do the company creation step first. They wrote long business plans outlining the structure of their company before any of them knew or had tested if they had a business model that worked. How wrong I was. And how much student time and resources I wasted!

3. The right heart.

Love of the game. It takes much trial and error to find a business model that works. If a businessperson doesn’t love the process, he’ll lose energy not only before running out of money but also before it's even the right time to ask for money. 

Commitment. So what determines if entrepreneurs keep going? Love, like skill, involves both nature and nurture. It entails affection, passion and discipline. It requires both the heart and head. As is the case in a marriage, a commitment to putting others first is needed for getting through the tough times. The entrepreneur should find ways to complement others' skills and invite them to complement hers. Entrepreneurship is one of the ultimate team sports. 

Skills, process and heart can be learned. They also flow from some natural endowments.

The most difficult challenge in operating an incubator at the college level is giving students enough time to discover and develop the skills, process and heart to become successful entrepreneurs. And if they do, the next challenge is giving them the opportunity to prove that they deserve additional support to find a business model that works.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/237312

How Jemal Peters aka Big J's Kitchen Used Instagram To Build His Business ...

A man known by many names, Jemal Peters knows the streets of London only too well. Motivated by the arrival of his daughter, the now savvy businessman picked himself off the streets to form Big J’s Kitchen, a business that blends elements of London culture to offer ‘Da Flavour of Da Street!’

Hi Jemal. Can you start by telling us a bit about your background? 

Where do I start? I’m south London born and raised. I’m a go-getter with a passion for food and drink,

I grew up with my mum and two brothers, and since I was a child I’ve always been known for having entrepreneurial ways and a go-getter attitude… I’m known for making things happen.

What aspects did you learn from your childhood that you have taken into the business? 

Most of it! The obvious things I’ve taken into business are my cooking skills, the ability to taste and mix flavours and then create something special.

From early on I learnt how to hustle and I knew that if something cost me £1… I’d sell it for at least £2, which to me is the fundamental point of a business. Certain situations happened in life which enabled me to realise from a young age that the world owes you nothing but at the same time is willing to give you anything and everything you want … all you’ve got to do is go get it! So I’ve had a saying that I created from a young age: “A dream’s worth nothing if you leave it on your pillow!”, so anything I want in life… I pray for it then work hard to get it.

You have amassed a high following through Instagram. Tell us how you’ve used the app to your advantage… 

I’m always on the lookout for what’s new and ways of doing things that haven’t been done before. My brother takes some top quality photography and about a year or two back he was telling me about this thing called Instagram. He was on it sharing pics and he had people from all over the world contacting him. Facebook's good and Twitter’s cool, I’ll go on them now and then, but I prefer things more visual, so ‘insta’ was perfect for me. I noticed a trend that people would always take pictures of their food and post it… so not only did I start slapping meals up using my products, I also got everyone involved by doing competitions where people put the #BigJsKitchen hashtag on their food pictures and automatically got added to the competition where they could win special Big J Goodie bags and the winning pictures would go up on my website. This took off and went out of control; I got a number of followers and business contacts which led to Big J’s Kitchen products being put in Puma Sports VIP goodie bags for the London 2012 Olympics and many other promotions. This was vital in showing the world that London’s not just tea and crumpets; we have a new food brand that represents the fun, real and diverse urban side on the up – Big J’s Kitchen, “Da Flavour Of Da Street”!

How do you think non-food related businesses could utilise the image-sharing concept to gain a following? 

In exactly the same way. Seeing is believing; it allows people to see what you’re about and get involved with you. A product’s a product, whether it’s food, trainers, clothing or technology. Find your community in there and let them see what you’ve got! Also no one likes stingy people, so give something back… prizes, giveaways, discounts whatever. Social networking is major and it’s only getting bigger… you can reach all corners of the world and it’s usually free! You’d be a fool not to take advantage of it.

To you, what makes a business successful? 

A business that’s something fresh and new, even if it’s in a well established field, as well as the people behind it, good ethics and values.

How would you describe your entrepreneurial approach? 

Trustworthy, creative and effective. I make sure I box clever, and I “Keep It 100”. Integrity is important to me and I like to build good relationships.

Finally, can you offer any advice to those wanting to change their circumstances for the better? 

A dream’s worth nothing If you leave it on your pillow! If you want something, get up and get it.

Learn from others’ mistakes and successes. Don’t do it all on your own, there’s no point! Take advantage of the support that’s out there. I made sure I got support and mentoring from people who had done it before and could really help me, I linked up with mentors like Chelsey Baker and Jim Foxhall through the Rockstar mentoring programme and in a few short sessions they taught me a number of things that would have taken me years to learn and things that I may have had to learn the hard way.

For more information on Big J’s Kitchen go to http://www.bigjskitchen.com or if you need funding and mentoring for your business or business idea contact The Rockstar Group www.Rockstartstartuploans.co.uk

Extracts taken from the full interview with Jemal Peters, which can be found at http://www.startyourbusinessmag.com/jemal-peters-aka-big-j/

The Ten Myths of Entrepreneurship ...

Watch this great 10-minute video ... 

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