It’s a simple, yet incredibly frustrating, fact of business that we can’t all be good at everything; as much as we’d like to think we come close. However, while perfection is impossible, it is possible to make up for your shortfalls in other ways and to address the skills that you feel you may be lacking. You see, a big part of becoming an entrepreneur revolves around identifying your own failings and learning to compensate for them in other ways, as well as addressing more serious deficits. Are you ready to take a good look at your abilities? Then you’re ready to be an entrepreneur…
Organisation and time management
Entrepreneurs often lack time management and organisational skills; we’re often so used to prioritising those big jobs and neglecting smaller, less significant ones that it’s easy to be bogged down when we’re thrown a curve ball. Entrepreneurs have many balls to juggle, and sometimes we just don’t know when to start throwing and when to catch. There’s very little you can do to compensate for such a failing, but there is a solution; calling on the services of an Umbrella Company will ensure your paperwork, administration, and legalities are sorted for you, freeing your time to worry about the job at hand. What’s more, Umbrella Companies will keep your business above board, and take away the hassles often associated with freelancers, contractors, and a full schedule.
Empathy and open-mindedness
When you’re used to being driven and to working towards goals for a return on your time and money (as we entrepreneurs often are), it is often very difficult to empathise with others. When you’re used to relying upon yourself for answers, adopting empathy, or being open to a client’s ideas, can be incredibly difficult. Indeed, numerous studies have discovered that empathy is something that serial entrepreneurs lack, so how can you overcome such a void? Learn to compensate for a lack of empathy with compromise; prepare to be open minded, and use reason and persuasion to meet your clients somewhere in the middle, as well as steeling yourself to not agree with what’s being suggested every time. Entrepreneurs work incredibly hard to establish themselves but you must understand that success comes from collaboration.
Communication and problem solving
Next to time management and organisational abilities, communication and problem solving are some of the most important skills that entrepreneurs should possess. They also happen to be two skillsets that are often underestimated, or abandoned altogether. Communication is not something that can be compensated for; as an entrepreneur, you must know how to explain yourself and how to communicate with those around you. However, it is possible to use your strengths to carry your weaknesses, by learning to curb your communicative fears, and to utilise the skills you’re most comfortable with. Similarly, analytical problem solving is a skill many entrepreneurs lack; we’re too used to seeing, and working towards, the bigger picture, and so data and minor details tend to bore us. Compensate here by breaking all of those bigger pictures into smaller images; punctuate that endgame with a series of smaller visions, and you’ll soon find yourself working towards more manageable goals.
Oh, and female entrepreneurs…
Don’t be tempted to go too far the other way by over compensating for a perceived lack of skills in the workplace. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that female entrepreneurs are able to hold their own in a boardroom full of men, so never be intimidated into changing who you are. Realising your failings and learning about compromise is an incredibly personal journey, which should be undertaken by an individual – regardless of gender. Understanding where you’re lacking, and working out ways to compensate for your shortfalls should be about you and your role as an entrepreneur; the first step towards change is recognition but ensure it’s yours, and yours alone.
As an entrepreneur, you’re probably very proud of your achievements and of the skills you possess that helped you get where you are today; so you should be. Identifying, and compensating for, the skills we lack, though, is something else entirely. Indeed, it’s only human to push our weaknesses to the back of our minds if everything else is working as it should. However, to be the very best that we can be – for ourselves, and for our clients – it’s essential to recognise our failings and to overcome them as best we can. If you can’t overcome a particular weakness, be sure to compensate in other ways; success is waiting for those truly willing and able to apply themselves.