(Akiit.com) If you were to ask some of the entrepreneurs you look up to the most what the most essential skills for a business owner are, you’re likely to get a wide range of answers. This is because the skills and personality traits that need to go into a given business are always unique; dictated by the product or service, overarching vision, and a whole spectrum of other factors. Having said that, there are certain, more universal skills which every business owner should try to hone…
Organization
You’re probably discovering by now that running a successful business isn’t exactly a breeze. There are countless different factors and variables that you’ll need to keep track of to keep the ship sailing in the right direction. Contact information, sales figures, 
website metrics, and a whole host of other moving parts involved in running a successful business need to be considered, and kept running in a way that will ensure your business is growing and succeeding at a healthy rate. When problems do arise, (and believe me, they will!) being organized will ensure that you can tackle them effectively and without delay. From boosting sales to knowing how to resolve tax issues, digging yourself out of pits is always easier when the business is strictly regimented.
Time Management
Okay, this is just another facet of organization. However, it’s so important that I figured it deserves its own point in the post. If you’re unable to manage time effectively, then you’re going to have a lot of trouble getting your business to meet the goals you’ve set out for it. The two main ways to effectively manage your time are to bucket your tasks, and plan firm blocks of time for the work that you need to complete.
By planning each day out in firm blocks of time, you’ll have a clear and realistic idea of how much time you have to work in, and will find planning out your work so much easier. When you keep your day strictly regimented and do your most pressing work first, you’ll avoid having to switch haphazardly between different tasks, and will give yourself plenty of time for completing the things that matter most to your overall business plan.
Self-Assessment and The Ability to Learn from Mistakes
At many stages in my career, I’ve worked with people who are total geniuses in their particular field, but simply can’t handle failure. When they attempt something and it goes wrong, they’re flung immediately into a state of panic, or end up beating themselves up for their mistake for days afterwards. Failure is a part of learning. Through trial and error, we find out what works and what doesn’t, and if we take these experiences the right way, they can shape us into people we’d never dreamed we could be. If you know that you take failure a little hard, then try to work on your attitude. As a business owner, you need to be able to fail, identify what went wrong, shrug it off and move swiftly forwards.
Staff Writer; John Carter