Entrepreneurs are lucky in developing their skills

Kanpreet is an excellent IT developer. He developed a product for schools. He had to decide whether to spend his time/efforts on 'selling', 'delivery' or 'product development'. He chose to remain in delivery (70%) and product development (30%) and develop his skills in these two areas. Is Kanpreet's approach right for his business? 

Graduates working in corporate constantly face a question "what should i do next", because they are trading in a skill. Entrepreneurs like Kanpreet, on the other hand, never face this question because they are trading in the 'product/service' that requires multiple skills. Instead, entrepreneurs have to work backwards from 'what is required' to sell the product/service and then attempt to fill the gaps in skill through their own skills or by bringing someone else.

This ends-driven approach of entrepreneurs of developing skills is far more efficient than the means-driven approach of skill development followed by corporate professionals. Corporate professionals try to learn any skill in the hope that it will 'fit' with some unknown future requirement. You will therefore find them spending considerable time in developing new skills such as learning Excel, ERP software, foreign languages, communication or time-management. But as they rarely get time to 'practice' those skills, they remain 'certificate' skills. On the other hand, entrepreneur's ends-driven approach of developing skills is very efficient, because they 'practice' the skill immediately after 'learning'. And because practicing immediately synthesises 'why' and 'how', one learns the skill quickly.

Despite having an advantage over corporate professionals, an entrepreneur like Kanpreet still faces four critical questions in skill development:

1. Should he develop an existing skill that will increase his 'strength' or a learn a new skill to compensate for his 'weakness'

A more efficient way is to develop the skill that will increase his strength further instead of learning a new skill. Kanpreet seems to have followed this approach, as he was excellent in IT. And as we have seen in Vinay's case, it is not easy to focus on one skill.

However, if the skill is critically required for the 'business unit', one should find a 'partner' with that critical skill. If for instance, 'selling' skill was critical for Kanpreet's unit, he would need to find a partner who is good in selling. If that is not possible, find an alternative person with that skill, even if high salary has to be paid for the person. Only if these options are not feasible, one should try to learn the new skill. And while learning such a skill, it is better to find an 'expert' who will 'coach' instead of learning by reading a book, because, the risk of failing is high as an entrepreneur.

2. Fill the one-time skill-gap by using consultants 

One time skills are required for a business unit from time to time. They are required for a business to grow from one stage to another. Many entrepreneurs, unable to fill this gap, either sacrifice growth or make several mistakes in negotiating their growth.

For instance, when a business unit has to grow in size, one needs the skill to understand 'what is required to grow the business in volume' (called scaling requirement) and how to fill the gap given the constraints. This is one-time requirement that should be ideally filled by hiring a consultant. Please remember that the scaling requirements of a business unit are just not physical and financial, but are also mental. Filling the mental-gap is more difficult than filling the financial gaps !

Or when the unit is seeking external funding, it has to institute several regulatory and managerial practices to comply with the norms. A consultant is ideal to fill this one-time skill gap adequately.

3. Which non-core 'small' skills should he learn

An entrepreneur may have to learn some 'small' skills because they 'enhance' the core ability of entrepreneur. Typically these skills could be presentation skill, communication skill, skill to hold meeting, skill to delegate, skill to use accounting figures to take decisions or even skill to strategise.

While learning these non-core skills, an entrepreneur has to ensure that the skill is not just learnt in a 'class' but also 'practiced' afterwards. It requires far more effort to use the skill in the entrepreneurial unit, than to just learn the skill in a class.

4. Which Core skills should he learn

As we have seen earlier, the skill to 'understand a business model' of your industry is a core skill. An entrepreneur does not have any option in learning this skill. A MBA teaches this skill, but given the time constraint, doing MBA requires too much investment of time and money. Entrepreneurs should ideally earn this skill either through a business consultant or a coach.

As an entrepreneur, what are you doing?