1. An Understanding of Economics
Having a basic understanding of economics would be essential to growing your business. Business is more of decision making and you will have a lot of decisions that would be economically valuable for your business to make. Getting them wrong would be the beginning of the downfall of your business.
You need to have an understanding of pricing strategy and market demand. This will help you to know when to invest and when to look away.
2. Financial Accounting Skills
Having a basic understanding of financial accounting will help you run your business better. You need to be able to keep a record a diligent record of cash inflow and outflow. This will help you separate your profit from your capital. You can go as far as organizing your financial accounting reports in daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis.
A good financial accounting practice helps you to analyze your business’ profitability, potential and performance record.
3. Negotiation Skills
To be able to excel and keep your business going forward, you need to be a good negotiator. Being a good negotiator will help you get the right deals for your business at the right price. It will also help you convince potential customers into doing business with you
4. Others
As I mentioned, the focus of this session is not to discuss business skills you need to excel in your business, but to give suggestions on good businesses you can start up with low capital in Nigeria. Therefore I will cut it on business skills at the 3 stated above, however you can look up other basic business skills you should have to do well in your new business.
These skills include;
Decision making skills, Networking skills, Emotional Intelligence skills, Leadership skills, Effective Communication skills.
Addendum (by Jared)
In addition to the skills mentioned by the OP above, the following 2 skills are necessary for every small or large business to survive:
1. Marketing Skills
Marketing goes beyojust sales. It encompasses the entire customer profiling, prospecting, on boarding journey, retention, feedback and more processes. Since customers are the reason for business, then Marketing is vital.
2. Customer Service Skills
This is super vital. You must know how to satisfy your customers. Excellent customer service does not imply saying yes to all your customer's demands, but much more. Your customers must be given excellent experience to make them not only come oack, but also to recommend you to others.
Thank you.
