Say you just got out of business school and decide it’s time to start your venture and a few months in you begin to wonder whether what you learned in school bears any merit. While most people will be tempted to close shop and opt for employment, there are a few tricks you can master to help you overcome said predicament.
While the business school does arm you with the knowledge to survive the business world, they do not teach you everything you need to know. And quite frankly, they are not expected to do so if you are to manage your business finances successfully. We all have to get street smart by our own misgivings or from others some time. Fortunately, the era of the internet has made it easier to learn from others’ mistakes instead of our own experiences.
So what do you need to know to endure business startup headache?
Work-life balance
This applies to your time, personal finances and personal space. First, you need to ensure that your commitment to your new venture does not affect and or destroy relationships with your loved ones. Do not take your stress home, do not use personal expenses finances to sort out business issues and most certainly do not take your work home with you unless you work from home or it is a matter of life and death.
Negotiation skills
They most certainly do not teach you how to haggle like a pro in business school. In the real world, people look out for themselves. If you do not know how to look out for yourself then you will most probably not survive. Granted win-win situations are ideal, but they mostly apply to your customers and not suppliers or other stakeholders.
Stretching the dollar
Business school may have taught the building blocks for managing your business finances by budgeting, evaluating the return on investment before investing, cost accounting and value for money; but they never teach you how to make your minimal working capital deliver magnanimous results. You need to learn how to operate on credit, make your operations as efficient as is humanly possible and minimize running costs to the max. Embrace bootstrapping as if you have been friends since childhood.
Lead generation, nurturing and closing
Theoretical sales and marketing are so different from the real-life situation. You should just use that knowledge as generalized guidelines. It takes blood sweat and tears to carve out your niche and find your optimal means of generating leads as well as closing them. Figure out your niche first and the rest will follow.
This is just a scratch on the surface. The list of things you need to know is ever growing. That said you also need to learn how to resolve conflict in real time, use referral clients to grow your business, adapt, be resilient, motive yourself to keep the motivation juices flowing and handle the legal side of things. You can do this by joining business mentorship forums and attending customized training classes.
