What are regarded as entrepreneurial skills?

A wide range of skills are seen as entrepreneurial and useful to entrepreneurs, these include both personal traits and skills:

• Management skills - the ability to manage time and people (both yourself and others) successfully
• Communication skills and the ability to sell ideas and persuade others
• The ability to work both as part of a team and independently
• Able to plan, coordinate and organise effectively
• Financial literacy
• Able to research effectively, for example available markets, suppliers, customers and the competition
• Self motivated and disciplined
• Adaptable
• Innovative thinking and creative
• The ability to multi-task
• Able to take responsibility and make decisions
• The ability to work under pressure
• Perseverance
• Competitiveness
• Willingness to take risks
• Ability to network and make contacts

Many, if not all of these skills and traits are also useful to intrapreneurs, those who are entrepreneurial within an existing organisation (internal entrepreneurs). These skills and traits would also benefit all employees within a business and so are useful for graduates to have. Many of these skills, such as communication skills and the ability to work as part of a team, are already promoted within existing degrees.

In addition to those more general skills listed above, other more specific or business related skills, will be of use to entrepreneurs, these may include:

• being able to draw up a business plan for a new venture
• being able to market and sell a new product or idea
• financial skills, such as book-keeping and calculating tax
• awareness of intellectual property and possibly patent law

Must-Have Skills for Entrepreneurs

Must-Have Skills for Entrepreneurs
	What skills do you need to have to succeed in business? Know the five must-have skills you need to have as an entrepreneur and develop to succeed in today's competitive market. by Lyve Alexis Pleshette Senior Staff Writer, PowerHomeBiz.com

 

You've decided that you want to get out of the corporate rat-race and be your own boss. As you begin planning how to start your own business from home, you begin listing down what you want to do and what you can do. You tell yourself that you love to do a little bit of everything  you can do research, Web design, write, with a 10 years experience in legal and administrative support. But then, you ask yourself, "What skills do I really need to have to succeed as a home based entrepreneur?" If you are thinking of starting a business, you will need a broad array of entrepreneurial skills to succeed in today's competitive market. You must possess basic skills necessary to enable you to start, develop, finance, and market your own home business enterprises. There are a number of qualities and skills you need to have, including personal attributes, business skills and management capability. While you may not have all of them right now, there are five basic skills you really must have to run any kind of business. These five skills are: 1. Sales and marketing skills. Sales and marketing are the two most important skills you must have when you plan to start your own business. A business is nothing if it has no customers. You may have the fanciest computer with the latest graphics software, but if no one is knocking at your door to hire you as a graphic designer, then you better rethink why you are in business in the first place. Maybe you are better off employed by a firm. To have revenues and profits, you first need to have customers. To get customers, you must be able to market your business and possess the skills to close the sale. As you plan your business, you must begin to think how to reach your target audience and the people who may need your products or service. This entails understanding the concept of marketing, and using the tools that your budget permits. You must have a knack for understanding what people wants, listening to their needs, and interact well with other people. It would be extremely helpful if you possess excellent written and oral communication skills to help you sell your products and services (more so if you are a solo entrepreneur who will be doing everything by yourself). You need to create a buzz about your business by talking to people and presenting to them your business. You need to write ads, press releases and story ideas about your business. Starting a business is a time to get out of your timid self and begin to aggressively market your venture. That's the only way you can succeed. 2. Financial know-how. You are in business to make money. Therefore, the most important skill you must have is the ability to handle money well. This includes knowing how to stretch the limited start-up capital that you have, spending only when needed and making do with the equipment and supplies that you currently have. You also need to identify the best pricing structure for your business in order to get the best kind of return for your products or services. Success in business is not limited to those who have tons of capital in the beginning. Look at the failed dot-coms with funding of as much as $100 million. Even if they are awash with cash, they still ended up as a failure because they were not able to manage their money well. They lavished themselves with high-tech office furniture and gave their CEOs fancy jets to fly, only to have their cash flow depleted in less than a year. If you are able to manage your cash flow well when the business starts to run, you will be able to survive the ups and downs of self employment. The important thing is to always focus on the bottomline. For every spending, always ask yourself: "How much will this contribute to my bottom line?" If it will not give your business anything in return financially, better think twice before opening your wallet. 3. Self-motivation skills. As an entrepreneur, you do not have the luxury of bosses and bureaucracy to tell you what needs to be done. Everything rests on your shoulder ­ from thinking where to get the money to fund the business, to developing the product, to determining how to reach the customer, and so on. Only you will create the plans, and change them should the situation shifts. You need to be smart enough to know when you need to go ahead, and when to stop. To succeed in business, you must be a self-starter with a clear desired goal in mind. You must have the confidence in yourself, and in your ideas (how can you sell your ideas to others if you yourself do not believe in them?). More importantly, you must be willing to focus your energy and work hard towards each and every step that will make your enterprise a success. Especially if you work at home, it is doubly hard to get into the work mindset: sometimes, the television is just too tempting that it is hard to get out of your pajamas and begin typing in your computer. You therefore must have that extra drive and commitment to make sure that you are taking the necessary steps to make your dream of a successful business a reality. 4. Time management skills. The ability to plan your day and manage time is particularly important for a home business. When you wake up in the morning, you must have a clear idea of the things you must do for the day. Especially if you are running a one-person operation, you must have the ability to multi-task ­ be the secretary at the start of the day typing all correspondences and emails, become the marketing man writing press releases before noon, make sales call in the afternoon, and become a bookkeeper before your closing hours. Imagine if you are selling products and you still have to create the products, deliver and fulfill the orders, rush to the bank to cash the checks. Lots of job for a simple home-based business! No, you don't have to be a superman (or superwoman). You simply have to know how to manage time and prioritize your tasks. One difficulty of working from home is that you can never seem to stop. There are simply too many things to do, as if work never stops (and it doesn't!). Part of having good time management skills is knowing when to stop and when to leave work, and begin doing your other roles in your family  as the husband, wife, mother or father. You must be able to know how to keep your home life separate from your work life, and ensure that there exists a balance between the two. 5. Administration skills. If you can afford to hire an assistant who will organize your office space and file your papers and mails, lucky you! However, most start-up entrepreneurs cannot afford such luxuries. Over and above the tasks of managing, marketing and planning your business, you also need to possess a great deal of administration skills. You need to file your receipts so tax time will not be a trip to Hades. You need to do all the work in terms of billing, printing invoices, collecting payments, and managing your receivables. Starting a business is never easy, even if you have the perfect background and possess all the above skills. Having all the needed skills and qualities will not even ensure your success. But having these basic skills will, at least, lessen the pain of the start-up process, giving you greater chance in seeing your business grow and prosper.

 

Aligning Managers for Organizational Change

Aligning Managers for Organizational Change by Michael McInerney   A rapid alignment strategy that focuses on training middle management brings speed to the change-management process. In addition to allowing the organization to implement change, it also results in overall improved leadership skills.   In preparing for life post-recession, many companies are shifting modes from survival to success. Doing so requires rapid change and engaged employees. But, many organizations believe their workforces, which have been beaten down by the recession, are not capable of adapting to change.   This means change is slow, and slow is expensive. However, an emerging discipline called rapid alignment is bringing speed to the change-management process and is becoming a necessary standard practice for large organizations.   Leading from the Middle   Organizations can reap enormous rewards if they implement change faster. However, the big barrier to change is the failure to provide appropriate training to middle management.   The middle of the organization is where change is executed and institutionalized. This is the point of intersection where the comfortable idea of a "change program" becomes the uncomfortable reality of a new way of doing things.   But, at this layer and the layer below, understanding the reason for a strategic change and what employees are supposed to do about it gets fuzzy and diluted.   While top management may be looking outward at a changing market, mid-level managers are looking inward at the same day-to-day issues they always have. They don't overtly resist change, they just haven't been given enough opportunity to lead from the middle.   Each leader needs to figure out how change impacts his or her own operation, to learn new skills, and finally to adopt the new behaviors that will accelerate the new directions. If the hundreds or thousands of middle managers learn faster, the organization changes faster. The secret to rapid alignment is finding a way to deliver that learning.   What do organizations need from leadership development? In a survey of 30 leading companies, executives ranked the following priorities with respect to leadership development:   1. Applicability 2. Convenience 3. Consistency 4. Efficiency 5. Value 6. Measurability 7. Scalability   Whatever the method of leadership development, it must be judged against these seven tests. The traditional classroom approach to learning often falls short. Even with the help of a vendor, customized training programs rarely succeed in reaching the unique needs of individuals and can miss the mark in terms of high-impact timing opportunities.   Individual coaching is highly applicable, convenient and efficient. Often, an executive can get more value from 30 minutes of personal coaching than a full day in a classroom. But success is hard to measure and delivery can be inconsistent. If the shortcomings of coaching can be addressed, it is the learning tool needed for rapid alignment.   Delivering Coaching to Middle Managers   When seeking rapid alignment via coaching to large numbers of middle managers, one successful approach centers around Research, Evaluation, Alignment, and Learning and Measurement. These are the key components:   1. Research   a) Contextualize the learning. b) Research the business and organizational context and the personal context of the individual leader.   2. Evaluation   a) Evaluate the strategy. b) Create a tool for alignment, a scorecard showing how enterprise-wide change goals are stepped down to goals at each organizational level and ultimately translated into individual goals. c) Use the scorecard as the basis for ongoing three-way dialogue among the coach, the individual leader and the leader's immediate boss. d) Create a consistent process and customize it to match each individual's circumstances.   3. Alignment   a) Provide coaching on both a scheduled and just-in-time basis, bringing new perspectives, behaviors and skills close to the situation. b) Make coaching scalable.   4. Learning and Measurement   a) Maintain a four-way dialogue among the coach, individual leader, leader's immediate boss and top management to uncover impediments to change and new opportunities. b) Measure using self-assessment, current business goals and 360-degree surveys. c) Give regular progress reports to determine if the coaching is generating the intended impact.   It is key for the whole group of managers to be working on change at the same time. Organizational change is real when the group as a whole changes direction. Each leader is working at an individual level, which compounds organizational efficiency. If everyone is working from the same scorecard, rapid alignment occurs.   When it comes to coaching middle management, an obvious question arises: Isn't coaching supposed to be provided by direct bosses? Or is it just that senior management needs to do a better job of coaching direct reports on the reasons for strategic change and how to implement it?   The shift to de-layered organizations steeped in communication technology has reduced the time leaders can spend guiding middle management.   Once, managers had time for lunches with subordinates. Now, they spend their hours consumed in an intense flurry of e-mails and conference calls, with increasing performance demands.   Also, to be frank, most managers are not very good coaches. They are mainly about getting results through problem solving, directing and organizing processes. Leadership development requires different skills.   Value and Progress   Rather than pressing managers to coach more, organizational design innovation is needed, specifically coaching by a coordinated team of expert coaches. Part of what makes rapid alignment cost effective is simply that it is delivered efficiently. A team of coaches works in a coordinated way to direct learning.   However, the value is not just in controlling costs. The greater value comes from achieving change rapidly. Before venturing into a rapid-alignment project, an organization should determine just how important speed is. How much more valuable is the change if it occurs in three months as opposed to six months?   It's when people actually see the value of speed, and recognize that speed is achievable, that they embrace the sense of urgency that makes rapid alignment work.   A third element of value arises because, at the same time the organization is implementing change, it is also improving individual leadership skills, thereby increasing the number of capable leaders. Having a greater number of capable leaders results in a deeper succession pool, more flexibility in deploying talent and the ability to take on more projects.   Structured and coordinated coaching is not only a solution for the organization, it's also a way to make the lives of hard-pressed middle managers better and more engaged. Focused and personalized coaching helps them become more comfortable in their critical role of taking concepts of strategic change and making them a day-to-day reality.     [About the Author: Michael McInerney is vice president of executive performance and rewards at Aon Consulting. He specializes in strategies to improve employee performance. Aon Consulting works with organizations to improve business performance and shape the workplace of the future through employee benefits, talent management and rewards strategies and solutions.]

How to conduct Training without any Training Aid?

As training industry is becoming one of the prime career, many are
attracted towards it because of the respect it earns as a profession.
However , i have seen fresh trainers are more dependent on PPT,
training aids and games and facilitators guide,Laptop,pen drive, LCD
Projector, insufficient training space at venue etc.

If due to some technical fault or logistics error if any of the above
training aids are not present in training room then some trainers
loose their control,get restless,frustated and scared on how to
conduct the trainings as per planned session flow.

Request to Trainers forum to add valuable inputs on this issue to help
our training fraternity.

Here are few tips .

1.Preperation in advance would make the training successful.
2. Do not be totally dependent on System.
3. If its your first / first few trainings, take printouts of PPT.
4. Classify one singe page in various columns,boxes and write
examples,stories,case studioes, some statistical figures if required,
jokes,icebreakers, for every planned activity you must have one
alternative which could be carried out without any training aid.
5. Look for resources  around training room, think innovatively and
create some instantaneous training aids which matches your training
objectives.
6 . Create two assistants from the group itself to help you out.
7.Start the session with note , constraints are there, lets take this
session as example how to overcome constraints and still justify the
session flow and learning objectives.
8. Never ever complain to participants about others mistakes, your
credibility as a trainer will be lost.
Request to Trainers forum to add valuable inputs on this issue to help
our training fraternity.

Courtesy: Mahendra Ingle

Bill Gates - 11 Rules

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer... This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

10 Deadly Sins of Negative Thinking

The way to overcome negative thoughts and destructive emotions is to develop opposing, positive emotions that are stronger and more powerful." - Dalai Lama Life could be so much better for many people, if they would just spot their negative thinking habits and replace them with positive ones. Negative thinking, in all its many-splendored forms, has a way of creeping into conversations and our thinking without our noticing them. The key to success, in my humble opinion, is learning to spot these thoughts and squash them like little bugs. Then replace them with positive ones. You'll notice a huge difference in everything you do. Let's take a look at 10 common ways that negative thinking emerges — get good at spotting these patterns, and practice replacing them with positive thinking patterns. It has made all the difference in the world for me. 1. I will be happy once I have _____ (or once I earn X). Problem: If you think you can't be happy until you reach a certain point, or until you reach a certain income, or have a certain type of house or car or computer setup, you'll never be happy. That elusive goal is always just out of reach. Once we reach those goals, we are not satisfied — we want more. Solution: Learn to be happy with what you have, where you are, and who you are, right at this moment. Happiness doesn't have to be some state that we want to get to eventually — it can be found right now. Learn to count your blessings, and see the positive in your situation. This might sound simplistic, but it works. 2. I wish I were as ____ as (a celebrity, friend, co-worker). Problem: We'll never be as pretty, as talented, as rich, as sculpted, as cool, as everyone else. There will always be someone better, if you look hard enough. Therefore, if we compare ourselves to others like this, we will always pale, and will always fail, and will always feel bad about ourselves. This is no way to be happy. Solution: Stop comparing yourself to others, and look instead at yourself — what are your strengths, your accomplishments, your successes, however small? What do you love about yourself? Learn to love who you are, right now, not who you want to become. There is good in each of us, love in each of us, and a wonderful human spirit in every one of us. 3. Seeing others becoming successful makes me jealous and resentful. Problem: First, this assumes that only a small number of people can be successful. In truth, many, many people can be successful — in different ways. Solution: Learn to admire the success of others, and learn from it, and be happy for them, by empathizing with them and understanding what it must be like to be them. And then turn away from them, and look at yourself — you can be successful too, in whatever you choose to do. And even more, you already are successful. Look not at those above you in the social ladder, but those below you — there are always millions of people worse off than you, people who couldn't even read this article or afford a computer. In that light, you are a huge success. 4. I am a miserable failure — I can't seem to do anything right. Problem: Everyone is a failure, if you look at it in certain ways. Everyone has failed, many times, at different things. I have certainly failed so many times I cannot count them — and I continue to fail, daily. However, looking at your failures as failures only makes you feel bad about yourself. By thinking in this way, we will have a negative self-image and never move on from here. Solution: See your successes and ignore your failures. Look back on your life, in the last month, or year, or 5 years. And try to remember your successes. If you have trouble with this, start documenting them — keep a success journal, either in a notebook or online. Document your success each day, or each week. When you look back at what you've accomplished, over a year, you will be amazed. It's an incredibly positive feeling. 5. I'm going to beat so-and-so no matter what — I'm better than him. And there's no way I'll help him succeed — he might beat me. Problem: Competitiveness assumes that there is a small amount of gold to be had, and I need to get it before he does. It makes us into greedy, back-stabbing, hurtful people. We try to claw our way over people to get to success, because of our competitive feelings. For example, if a blogger wants to have more subscribers than another blogger, he may never link to or mention that other blogger. However, who is to say that my subscribers can't also be yours? People can read and subscribe to more than one blog.  Bottom of Form Solution: Learn to see success as something that can be shared, and learn that if we help each other out, we can each have a better chance to be successful. Two people working towards a common goal are better than two people trying to beat each other up to get to that goal. There is more than enough success to go around. Learn to think in terms of abundance rather than scarcity. 6. Dammit! Why do these bad things always happen to me? Problem: Bad things happen to everybody. If we dwell on them, they will frustrate us and bring us down. Solution: See bad things as a part of the ebb and flow of life. Suffering is a part of the human condition — but it passes. All pain goes away, eventually. Meanwhile, don't let it hold you back. Don't dwell on bad things, but look forward towards something good in your future. And learn to take the bad things in stride, and learn from them. Bad things are actually opportunities to grow and learn and get stronger, in disguise. 7. You can't do anything right.! Why can't you be like ____ ? Problem: This can be said to your child or your subordinate or your sibling. The problem? Comparing two people, first of all, is always a fallacy. People are different, with different ways of doing things, different strengths and weaknesses, different human characteristics. If we were all the same, we'd be robots. Second, saying negative things like this to another person never helps the situation. It might make you feel better, and more powerful, but in truth, it hurts your relationship, it will actually make you feel negative, and it will certainly make the other person feel negative and more likely to continue negative behaviour. Everyone loses. Solution: Take the mistakes or bad behaviour of others as an opportunity to teach. Show them how to do something. Second, praise them for their positive behaviour, and encourage their success. Last, and most important, love them for who they are, and celebrate their differences. 8. Your work sucks. It's super lame. You are a moron and I hope you never reproduce. Problem: I've actually gotten this comment before. It feels wonderful. However, let's look at it not from the perspective of the person receiving this kind of comment but from the perspective of the person giving it. How does saying something negative like this help you? I guess it might feel good to vent if you feel like your time has been wasted. But really, how much of your time has been wasted? A few minutes? And whose fault is that? The bloggers or yours? In truth, making negative comments just keeps you in a negative mindset. It's also not a good way to make friends. Solution: Learn to offer constructive solutions, first of all. Instead of telling someone their blog sucks, or that a post is lame, offer some specific suggestions for improvement. Help them get better. If you are going to take the time to make a comment, make it worth your time. Second, learn to interact with people in a more positive way — it makes others feel good and it makes you feel better about yourself. And you can make some great friends this way. That's a good thing. 9. Insulting People Back Problem: If someone insults you or angers you in some way, insulting them back and continuing your anger only transfers their problem to you. This person was probably having a bad day (or a bad year) and took it out on you for some reason. If you reciprocate, you are now having a bad day too. His problem has become yours. Not only that, but the cycle of insults can get worse and worse until it results in violence or other negative consequences — for both of you. Solution: Let the insults or negative comments of others slide off you like Teflon. Don't let their problem become yours. In fact, try to understand their problem more — why would someone say something like that? What problems are they going through? Having a little empathy for someone not only makes you understand that their comment is not about you, but it can make you feel and act in a positive manner towards them — and make you feel better about yourself in the process. 10. I don't think I can do this — I don't have enough discipline. Maybe some other time. Problem: If you don't think you can do something, you probably won't. Especially for the big stuff. Discipline has nothing to do with it — motivation and focus has everything to do with it. And if you put stuff off for "some other time", you'll never get it done. Negative thinking like this inhibits us from accomplishing anything. Solution: Turn your thinking around: you can do this! You don't need discipline. Find ways to make yourself a success at your goal. If you fail, learn from your mistakes, and try again. Instead of putting a goal off for later, start now. And focus on one goal at a time, putting all of your energy into it, and getting as much help from others as you can. You can really move mountains if you start with positive thinking.

Proven Ways to Get Along Better with EVERYONE

1. Before you say anything to anyone, ask yourself 3 things: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

2. Make promises sparingly and keep them faithfully.

3. Never miss the opportunity to compliment or say something encouraging to someone.

4. Refuse to talk negatively about others; Don't gossip and don't listen to gossip.

5. Have a forgiving view of people. Believe that most people are doing the best they can.

6. Keep an open mind; Discuss, but don't argue. (It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable. )

7. Forget about counting to 10. Count to 1,000 before doing or saying anything that could make matters worse.

8. Let your virtues speak for themselves.

9. If someone criticizes you, see if there is any TRUTH to what is being said; If so, make changes; If there is no truth to the criticism, ignore it and live so that no one will believe the negative remark.

10. Cultivate your sense of humour; Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.

11. Do not seek so much to be consoled, as to console; Do not seek so much to be understood, as to understand.