Every new business owner wants good business profitability. Face it! If there’s no profit, there isn’t a business for long. So before starting your own business, ask yourself if you have the skills needed to attain business profitability.
Do you have the following skills required to reach business profitability?
Financial Skills Required To Reach Business Profitability
Idea Generation Skills Required To Reach Business Profitability
Planning Skills Needed To Build Business Profitability
Management Skills You’ll Need To Attain Business Profitability
Marketing Skills You’ll Need To Attain Business Profitability
Customer Relations Skills Required To Reach Business Profitability
This article covers the first three of these skills. Part 2 will cover the last three.
Financial Skills You’ll Need To Attain Business Profitability
Even if you pay employees or professionals to do your accounting and bookkeeping, you still have to stay on top of your business finances. If you are to build business profitability, you must know at all times how your business is faring financially.
As a business owner, you have to understand financial statements and know what financial terms mean to your business. You also have to use business credit with caution.
You’ll most likely need a small business loan within your first few years of business, but you have to understand your finances well enough to be certain that your business cash flow can make the payments.
You may not have thought of other financial considerations that can affect your business profitability. Do you have business insurance to replace your small business resources if they are stolen, destroyed or blown away by a hurricane or tornado? Have you thought about using profit sharing to motivate your employees to work on your business profitability?
Idea Generation Skills Required To Reach Business Profitability
As a small business owner, you are the idea man or woman in your business. When starting your own business, you are the one that has to shift through small business opportunities to determine the most profitable business ideas.
You have to generate good ideas from the time you start to plan your business. Then you have to continue applying creative ideas for getting and retaining customers.
Do you have ample ideas for your business? Good, now can you implement them?
Planning Skills To Build Business Profitability
You have to incorporate your ideas into a thorough business plan, and let that plan guide your actions.
When planning your business growth, you need to get business advice from others who have already succeeded in a similar business. The Small Business Administration’s SCORE program provides free mentoring and coaching by established and retired business owners. So don’t be timid about asking for advice both during and after you’ve completed your business plan.
Some business owners think that the only reason to create a business plan is to apply for a business loan. They are wrong.
Your business plan is your map to business growth. The financial part of your plan can guide business growth and lead you step-by-step to business profitability. The marketing part of your plan outlines how you will get customers, and your planned policies can assure that you keep them. Your business plan should also outline your business procedures and processes to guide your and your employees’ day-to-day activities.
You need a business plan that will guide your business to growth and business profitability.
Conclusion
Do you have the first three skills needed to achieve business profitability? Can you plan, generate ideas, and understand financial terms and statements? If so congratulations. Now can you manage, market and maintain positive customer relations? These latter skills are covered in part 2 of this two-part article.
