5 Critical Skills for Entrepreneurs

These are 5 essential skills that every entrepreneur needs in order to be successful and effective. The world’s best CEOs are masters at these skills. You should aim to master these skills also.

1. Sales

When you are first starting out on your own, being able to sell will be the single most important skill that can determine whether your business will succeed.

You will need to sell to consumers on the internet, to businesses on the phone, to corporations in person — you are always selling, selling, selling. When you are networking, you are not just making contacts — you are selling yourself. When you are presenting your idea to venture capitalists, you are not only selling your concept. You are also selling yourself. The venture capitalists will be thinking to themselves:

Can this person deliver?

Can this person execute?

Is this person passionate?

Does she have what it takes to make this thing succeed?

Rarely does an idea by itself get funded. A great sales person can make even a terrible business idea get funded if it’s pitched right. A brilliant idea that’s terribly presented will not typically be considered.

So it goes for any product or service you may have to offer. As an entrepreneur, you wear many hats. You are CEO of sales, advertising, administration, website, recruiting, customer service. The single most important hat that you will wear is sales. This will determine whether you will bring in revenue.

The art of selling is not to hit people over the head and get them to buy from you. It is not about being pushy. It is much more subtle. It is about asking the right questions. Communicating your viewpoint persuasively. Listening. It seems counterintuitive but some of the best sales people are the best listeners.

Practice:

Look for opportunities to sell yourself or an idea. Look for opportunities to persuade people. You can stop people on the street and persuade people to do a ‘quick’ survey for you. Doing simple things like this will teach you a lot about selling.

2.   Communication

Writing

The ability to write effectively is essential to succeed. This is as true as it has ever been, especially in the online world with search shifting to high quality content. Great writing can bring plenty of qualified traffic that convert into millions in revenue. Top copywriters charge $10,000 for a single sales page.

You will be writing content on your website, blog, newsletters, emails. You will write persuasive sales letters and proposals. You will write magnetic headlines. You will write advertising copy that sells. You will write emails to website owners to get back links. You will write press releases to try and get media coverage. You will write letters to venture capitalists to try and get a meeting. You will write proposals to business executives to hire your firm. No matter what industry you are in, you will need to write. It pays off handsomely to write well so invest in your writing ability.

Remember that you are not writing for yourself. You are writing for an audience. Never lose sight of that fact. The audience you are writing for should always be on the back of your mind. You will find the worst kind of writing on large corporate websites and press releases. They’re impersonal, confusing, and self-promoting. Nobody reads them because they’re not written to be read. Don’t make the same mistake.

Practice:

• The best way to improve your writing skill is consistent practice. Use 750words.com — Go to this website and make a goal to write at least 750 words a day. You can write about anything you want and whatever you write remains private. Doing this consistently will improve your writing skills.
• Read Stephen King’s On Writing — Even though this book is written for novelists, it is a great book for anyone that wants to write in an engaging content
• Read The Elements of Style– This is an essential book for writers. I keep this one within arm’s reach.

Speaking

The ability to speak in public will make you an expert in your industry. It will win you trust and credibility. It will open doors to many opportunities. You may find yourself having to present your case to investors or a board of directors. Develop your ability to speak in front of an audience and you will deliver a more powerful presentation.

Speaking at conferences and industry events are the best way to promote your service or product in the market place. As your business becomes more successful, the need for you to speak at public events becomes even more crucial.

Public speaking can of course be a scary thing. People are reportedly more afraid of public speaking than they are of death. But like all skills, you can improve your ability to speak in front of people with practice. And that’s the key — to keep at it. Can you imagine the CEO of a billion dollar company being afraid to speak in public? I can’t. In fact, if they weren’t able to speak in public, they wouldn’t be selected to be the leader of any organization in the first place. But these CEOs weren’t all natural public speakers to begin with. Many simply practiced, over and over again. Some still aren’t great at it. But they all do it. And you can also.

Practice:

Take a Public Speaking Course such as the Dale Carnegie one. Join Toastmasters, a debating club or any other organization which will allow you to speak in front of an audience.

3.   Desire to Learn

You need to be constantly learning. About business, about the industry you have chosen, about your customers, about your own mistakes. To be master of your trade, you need to know as much about it as possible.

If you want to be in the finance industry, you should be reading all of the top finance books, read the FT, the WSJ, the Economist, follow the experts. If you want to be in the software industry, read the best software blogs, attend software conferences, keep up to date with the latest technology, read hacker news.

When you are reading, you should not necessarily read only about your industry. You should read widely and with an open mind. This will allow you to explore different ideas and come up with new ones.

Never stop investing in your own learning and development.

This will help you write better content, write better speeches, sell more intelligently and push your business to new heights.

Practice:

As an entrepreneur, start by reading the best sales, marketing and business books. Read publications that are relevant to your industry. Follow bloggers and experts in your industry. Aim to be an expert.

4.   Focus

The most successful people in the world are the ones that focus on doing one thing well. Warren Buffett, the world’s richest investor, once said that absolute focus is the single most important element in determining a person’s success. The focus of his own life has been dedicated to investing, in finding great companies at good prices. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, has gone from $8 per share in 1965 to over $153,000 a share. Not bad, right? Bill Gates says that it’s ‘maniacal focus’ that got him where he is today. And it’s that same laser focus which will allow you to be the best in your game.

Do you have 7 things all going on at the same time? Then stop.

Choose one thing and make a conscious decision to do it well.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that trying to execute multiple business ideas will maximize your chances of success. It’s doesn’t. It’s exactly the opposite.

You will do a mediocre job, or more likely, a poor job at all of them. You will stretch yourself thin and none of your business ideas will get the time and attention they deserve. Further, you will find yourself stressed out and a lot of your business ideas will remain dead in the water without ever seeing the light of day.

Be the master of one trade, not the jack of all trades. Focus your efforts on one idea. If you don’t know which idea to focus on, I recommend the book ‘The Lean Start Up’ by Eric Ries. You will learn how to test concepts and ideas with minimum viable products (MVPs) on the market. This concept is applicable to most business ideas and it is well worth reading no matter what industry you’re in.

Practice:

Write a list of things that you are working on. Apply the 80/20 rule to it — identify which 20% of your tasks will give 80% of the result. Focus on those tasks.

5.   Time Management

The best entrepreneurs and CEOs are effective time managers.

Entrepreneurs and small business owners have a reputation for being extremely busy people and working excessively long hours. The problem isn’t that we don’t have enough time in the day. CEOs that manage hundred billion dollar companies with hundreds of thousands of employees have the exact same amount of time as we do. The only difference is in the way we manage our time (and the system that we use).

We are constantly responding to distractions which really doesn’t help us focus on the tasks that matter. We respond to emails as they come up, read articles here and there, go on Facebook or YouTube, and we end up losing track or interest of what we were working on.

To be effective, we need to work smarter and be more proactive about time management. To do this, we need to focus on the 20% which brings 80% of the result.

6.   One More Critical Skill: Persistence

As an entrepreneur, you will inevitably have ups and downs. Not everything you try will work out. In fact, a lot of things you try will not work out at all. It’s just the nature of the game. Don’t get discouraged if an idea fails. You just get up and keep trying again, and again. James Dyson famously created 5,126 prototypes for a vacuum cleaner whilst drowning in a sea of debt. But his 5,127th design was the breakthrough he needed and with it came the start of the Dyson company. The Dyson company today earns over 1 billion in sales annually.

Read more at http://under30ceo.com/5-critical-skills-for-entrepreneurs/#cRmWO4f8Ctg0V99s.99

The importance of Entrepreneurship evolution in Malaysia.

Entrepreneurship has existed since Malacca has the interaction 

with foreign trades from other country, like Arab and  China.

When the British colonized the Malay Penisular, British  

changed the structure of the society and practiced the "divide and rule"

in our country.In this system, Malays community were engaged in

administration and agricultural, Chinese were engaged in

business and mining, and the Indians were engaged in rubber plantations.

After  independence, Government of Malayisa realized the importance of

entrepreneurship to the individual, society and also the

country. started from the New Economic Policy (1971-1900), 

the National Development Policy (1990-2000) and the Vision 2020

are the examples of Malaysia Government has been focusing, encourage

and support entrepreneurship in Malaysia.

Government realized the entrepreneurs can contribute the development 

of the country. Therefore, in 1995 government incorporate

the Ministry of Entrepreneurship  Development as a specific department 

to manage and promote entrepreneurship in Malaysia.

Now, this ministry recognized as the Ministry of Entrepreneurship 

Development and Co-operation (MeCD).

Different types of entrepreneurship: What’s best for your business?

By Jelena Djurkic

October 14, 2013

Entrepreneurs are often clumped into one big group. Images of the next Mark Zuckerberg hacking away in a dorm room are what come to mind for most people these days.

The reality is much different. Entrepreneurs come from various fields and with various ambitions. Some want to make money and scale, others want do social good.

Some want to do both.

Now, more than ever, there are business structures to accommodate every entrepreneur. Last week’s Entrepreneurship 101 lecture introduced the audience to the different types of entrepreneurship and questions every person should consider before committing to a business.

The right corporate structure

Answering these questions can help you decide where your business should fall in the organizational spectrum. Most people are familiar with traditional corporate structures: Non-profit charities deliver social return funded largely by grants while for-profit businesses such as banks focus solely on financial return.

B Corporations are an emerging option for those who want to balance social impact with financial return. These ventures use the power of business to solve social or environmental problems. Bullfrog Power, a MaRS client that offers clean energy solutions, is a certified B Corp.

No matter which structure you choose, each carries its own benefits and risks. For example, if your business relies solely on government grants, an election or change in government policy can put your organization at risk. Explore the lecture slides for more examples of business structures.

Financing your business

If you have a great idea and know your business motivation, you will need financial resources to develop it. Should you target debt or equity financing, or bootstrap your way to profits? Another option is crowdfunding, which involves raising small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically online. Crowdfunding can also be used to build company awareness or secure pre-orders of a product. MaRS client PUSH, for example, is currently running an Indiegogo campaign to build support for its wearable fitness device. Always remember: If you wouldn’t invest in your own idea, then chances are, others won’t either.

MaRS offers several other financing options for entrepreneurs:

• The Funding Portal search tool provides access to more than $30 billion in funding sources for startups.
• The JOLT accelerator invests $50,000 in each high-growth web and mobile company selected to participate in program.
• Social Venture Connexion (SVX) connects impact ventures and investors to catalyze debt and equity investment capital for ventures that have social and environmental impact.

So whether you have years of business experience or just a really good idea, check out the lecture video below to catch up on the latest financing options and ways to structure your business.

Produced by MaRS Media.

History of entrepreneurship

First used in 1723, today the term entrepreneur implies qualities of leadership, initiative and innovation in manufacturing, delivery, and/or services. Economist Robert Reich has called team-building, leadership and management ability essential qualities for the entrepreneur. The successful companies of the future, he has said, will be those that offer a new model for working relationships based on collaboration and mutual value.

The entrepreneur is a factor in microeconomics, and the study of entrepreneurship reaches back to the work in the late 17th and early 18th centuries of Richard Cantillon and Adam Smith, which was foundational to classical economics.

In the 20th century, entrepreneurship was studied by Joseph Schumpeter in the 1930s and other Austrian economists such as Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek. The term "entrepreneurship" was coined around the 1920s, while the loan from French of the word entrepreneur itself dates to the 1850s. It became something of a buzzword beginning about 2010, in the context of disputes which have erupted surrounding the wake of the Great Recession.

Entrepreneur. It is defined as an individual who organizes or operates a business or businesses. Credit for coining the term entrepreneur generally goes to the French economist Jean-Baptiste Say, but in fact the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon defined it first in his Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général, or Essay on the Nature of Trade in General, a book William Stanley Jevons considered the "cradle of political economy" Say and Cantillon used the term differently, however. Cantillon biographer Anthony Breer notes that Cantillon saw the entrepreneur as a risk-taker while Say considered the entrepreneur a "planner".

Cantillon defined the term as a person who pays a certain price for a product and resells it at an uncertain price: "making decisions about obtaining and using the resources while consequently admitting the risk of enterprise." The word first appeared in the French dictionary entitled "Dictionnaire Universel de Commerce" compiled by Jacques des Bruslons and published in 1723.

Top  10  Success  Factors  for  Entrepreneurs

1. Be passionate. You must be passionate about what you're trying to achieve. That means you're willing to sacrifice a large part of your waking hours to the idea you've come up with. Your passion will ignite the same intensity in the others who join you as you build a team. And with passion, both your team and your customers are more likely to truly believe in what you are trying to do.

2. Maintain focus. Great entrepreneurs focus intensely on an opportunity where others see nothing. This focus and intensity helps to eliminate wasted effort and distractions. Most companies die from indigestion rather than starvation. Companies suffer from doing too many things at the same time rather than doing too few things very well. Stay focused on the mission.

3. Work hard. Success only comes from hard work. There is no such thing as overnight success; behind every "overnight success" lies years of hard work and sweat. People with luck will tell you there's no easy way to achieve success-and that luck comes to those who work hard. Focus on things you can control; stay focused on your efforts and let the results be what they will be.

4. Enjoy the journey. The road to success is going to be long, so remember to enjoy the journey. Everyone will teach you to focus on goals, but successful people focus on the journey and celebrate the milestones along the way. Is it worth spending a large part of your life trying to reach the destination if you didn't enjoy the journey? Won't your team also enjoy the journey more as well? Wouldn't it be better for all of you to have the time of your lives during the journey, even if the destination is never reached?

5. Trust your gut instinct. There are too many variables in the real world that you simply can't put into a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets spit out results from your inexact assumptions and give you a false sense of security. In most cases, your heart and gut is still your best guide. We've all had experiences in business where our heart told us something was wrong while our brain was still trying to use logic to figure it all out. Sometimes a faint voice based on instinct is far more reliable than overpowering logic.

6. Be flexible but persistent. Every entrepreneur has to be agile, continually learning and adapting as new information becomes available. At the same time, you have to remain devoted to the cause and mission of your enterprise. That's where that faint voice becomes so important, especially when it is giving you early warning signals that things are off-track. Successful entrepreneurs find the balance between listening to that voice and staying persistent in driving for success-because sometimes success is waiting right across from the transitional bump that's disguised as failure.

7. Rely on your team. It's a simple fact: no individual can be good at everything. Everyone needs people around them who have complementary skill sets. It takes a lot of soul searching to find your own core skills and strengths. After that, find the smartest people you can whocomplement your strengths. It's tempting to gravitate toward people who are like you; the trick is to find people who are not like you but who are good at what they do-and what you can't do.

8. Focus on execution. Unless you are the smartest person on earth, it's likely that many others have thought about doing the same thing you're trying to do. Success doesn't necessarily come from breakthrough innovation, but from flawless execution. A great strategy alone won't win a game or a battle; the win comes from basic blocking and tackling. No matter how much time you spend perfecting your business plan, you still have to adapt according to the ground realities. You're going to learn a lot more useful information from taking action rather than hypothesizing.

9. Have integrity. I can't imagine anyone ever achieving long-term success without having honesty and integrity. These two qualities need to be at the core of everything we do. Everybody has a conscience-but too many people stop listening to it. There is always that faint voice that warns you when you are not being completely honest or even slightly off track from the path of integrity. Be sure to listen to that voice.

10. Give back. Success is much more rewarding if you give back. By the time become successful, lots of people will have helped you along the way. You'll learn, as I have, that you rarely get a chance to help the people who helped you because in most cases, you don't even know who they were. The only way to pay back the debts we owe is to help people we can help-and hope they will go on to help more people. It's our responsibility to do "good" with the resources we have available.

This video is a brief biography on the founder and CEO of facebook Mark Zuckerberg. In this video you will see the secret's to mark zuckerberg's success .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZuo3KcJflE

motivation video ~ entrepreneur success tips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAeha727ZWI