James Hopkins Coaching: Skills You Must Develop to Succeed in Business

An entrepreneur can be defined as an individual who takes an innovative idea and shoulders the risks of starting a new business based on that idea, filling a previously unidentified gap in the market. There are various traits that the most successful entrepreneurs share, which combine to create the type of person that has both the skills and the motivation to take an initial idea and develop it to the point of creating a successful business.

James Hopkins Coaching Limited works with aspiring expats to develop profitable digital marketing agencies with a focus on local business. Many of the skills shared by the most outstanding entrepreneurs are also skills that can play a key role in moving forward in almost any aspect of life, not just business.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking involves always questioning the ideas, viewpoints and assumptions of others, rather than just accepting them as fact. Critical thinkers are always able to use reason to determine the authenticity of any information presented to them, without personal bias affecting their conclusions.

Those who think critically do not reject information out of hand any more than they accept information without questioning it – they apply their own knowledge and ask the right questions to get to the heart of the matter.

The process of critical thinking involves listening to and researching every side of an argument or debate and weighing up the pros and cons of each side before arriving at a decision. This includes evaluating the implications that lay behind any argument or statement and the validity of each piece of evidence.

Motivation

As simple as it sounds, the people who get the most things done are the people who get their heads down and get things done. Great entrepreneurs do not stick their heads in the sand and wait for things to happen – they actively make them happen.

Successful entrepreneurs are self-motivated and able to identify what needs doing, work out the best way to do it, and get it done. They are also able to motivate others to work efficiently towards a common objective. The entrepreneurs who have enjoyed the most success tend to be those who are able to proactively identify their own goals, and then work with a team to achieve them.

Entrepreneurs are defined by their ability to troubleshoot and resolve issues, but they also know when to delegate to achieve the best possible outcomes in the shortest space of time.

Forging Personal Relationships

In a world where larger parts of everyone’s lives are increasingly being lived online, it can be easy to lose touch with the importance of building personal relationships. However, entrepreneurs understand that at the end of the day, people still do business with other people. The most successful entrepreneurs are capable of building strong, trusted and lasting relationships not only with their customers and employees, but with all stakeholders. People who can genuinely relate to others that they wish to do business with are already one step ahead of the competition.

Learning from Mistakes

A good leader sees every mistake as an opportunity to learn, rather than a failure. Avoiding mistakes is good but experiencing failure and learning how to adapt and move on can be priceless. Embracing risk is part of the process of creating a new business. While risk should be evaluated and mitigated wherever possible, not all gambles will pay off. There will inevitably be mistakes made along the way when building a new business; these mistakes only become failures when business leaders do not learn from them.