I may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.
If you’re considering starting a business, regardless of the type of business, the very first thing that you need to find out is if you are personally ready to become self-employed.
Becoming an entrepreneur takes a certain set of skills and a foundation of knowledge for you to have a decent chance of being successful.
Nearly 40% of businesses fail by their third year in operation.
Data From BLS.GOV
I personally believe that most of those businesses failed because the founders were not personally ready to start a business.
Without adequate and well-rounded personal and business skills a new business owner is going to really struggle with just the day-to-day task required of a new entrepreneur.
I want to be clear that you don’t need to possess expert skills in anything, but you need to have basic skills in many areas.
You need to command at least enough skill to know what you do not know and to know how to find help when you need it. You might find that help by identifying and hiring people who really are experts, or you might find that help by just by going to Google or YouTube uplevel your own skill so that you can get the-job-in-front-of-you done.
But skills are not enough.
You also need at least a basic level of understanding regarding a broad array of business knowledge. To
But How Do You Know If You Are Ready To Start A Business?
The only way to know if you are ready to start your own business, even a small home-based business, is to really examine your own skills and knowledge base. You have to perform a self-audit and you have to complete it in a brutally honest manner.
I’ve helped countless people who I’ve consulted with through the process of doing a self-audit and creating an action plan to make themselves more business-ready. I don’t have time to do that with everyone, so instead, I created a tool to help individuals do their own business-ready self-audit. But we’ll talk more about that tool in a bit.
What Skills Do You Need To Start Your Own Business
Before you start a home-based business or any other business, you need both personal and technical skills.
Personal Skills Required To Be An Entrepreneur
- Spoken Communication
- Written Communication
- Public Speaking
- Listening Skills
- Question Asking
- Charm
- Work Ethic
- Project Managment
- Relationship Managment
- Organizational Skills
In the modern world, you will not be running any business on a notepad. You are going to need technical skills.
Technical Skills Required To Be An Entrepreneur
- Social Media
- Office Software
- Graphic Design
- Photography
- Photo Editing
- Email Automation Services
- Website Design / Maintainence
- Basic Troubleshooting
Do not freak out when you look at either of these lists. You don’t have to be an expert in any of these skills, you just have to know enough to know when you need help and be able to identify more highly skilled people in a world of fake skilled people.
Knowledge Required To Be An Entrepreneur
Before you start a home-based business, you need a basic understanding of the following business topics.
- City Regulations
- County Regulations
- State Regulations
- Federal Regulations
- Tax Law
- Business Accounting
- Advertising Regulations
- Marketing
- Sales Tax Regulation
- Pricing Methods
- Accounting Practices
- Financial and Operations Audits
- Customer Relation Managment
Once again, do not freak out! This is a long list and, honestly, it’s just scratching the surface of everything you’re going to eventually know to start your own business and grow that business to become your dream.
But you do not need expert knowledge in any of these areas. You just have to know enough to be able to smell BS when you are about to step in it, and that level of knowledge you can get in a short course, working for someone else for a bit, by selectively watching YouTube videos, or having a self-employed friend like me.
Completing A Business Ready Self-Audit Before Starting A Small Business
I mentioned before that I have created a tool to help you know if you are ready to start a business and to help you get more ready to become an entrepreneur with a better chance of success. I call this tool the Business Ready Self-Audit.
The Business Ready Self-Audit is built using Google Forms. There is one form that asks you questions that will challenge the self-assessment of your skills, and the second form does the same regarding business knowledge.
Both forms are kept short, with just eight questions on each. When you finish answering all eight questions, the ‘quiz’ will give you feedback that will help you understand what the ‘correct’ answer is and why that is important.
Just as importantly, with most of the skills or knowledge, you are going to find links to free and premium resources to help you beef up that particular skill or knowledge.
After all, the more business-ready you are, the less likely you are to be one of the 38% of new businesses that fail by year three.
You can get the Business Ready Self-Audit for just $20 and within a few hours, you’ll be getting yourself more ready to start a business.
