𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙩𝙝 & 𝙒𝙚𝙖𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙨
How does one become an entrepreneur? Are there skills that are innate; you either have them or you don’t, or can you learn these skills? Personally, I think it’s a little bit of both. You can’t change your instincts but you can definitely sharpen them!
I have to say that my biggest strength is my interpersonal skills which has allowed me to be really good in sales and in negotiation. As far as I can remember, I have always been great at connecting with people. In fact, I would say that I survived pretty well in life due to this skill. Further to my ability to sell and negotiate, this I owe to my maternal grandmother and mother who owned their respective businesses. At an early age, they taught me terms such as markups, margin, profit and the art of negotiation, and allowed me to practice my skills in their stores. One thing I’ve learned is that it all comes down to individuals having a need; the earlier you identify that need, the simpler it is to sell and/or negotiate.
An area where I would like to improve is in people management. As a democratic-type leader, it is a constant effort for me to make decisions quickly. I need to learn that I do not always need to consult with others, and that my decisions do not need to please or make sense to anyone but myself. To overcome this, I try to avoid over-analysing situations and limit my consultations to select individuals once I have made my own decisions. Finally, I would like to improve my financial planning skills. Though I have managed my finances pretty well, I tend to be uncomfortable with having debts, and I would benefit from learning when, how and which financial risks to take. As they say, in order to make money, you have got to be prepared to lose money… I just have to learn how to do it smartly.