by Georgenne Eggleston

Created on: January 07, 2010   Last Updated: January 18, 2010

Successful entrepreneurs are skilled in five areas.  These five skills are important to develop marketing strategies for small profitable business startup or in renovating established businesses.

1)     Spot patterns and determine trends.

2)     Make key decisions on limited data.

3)     Learn from mistakes.

4)     Understand their weaknesses

5)     Collaborate successfully with others.

Spot patterns, determine trends

To develop a company and market a product, entrepreneurs' senses are fine-tuned to watch what is happening.  Entrepreneurs listen to what people are saying.  They often use their own observations to depict trends and changes.

Entrepreneurs rely on their own experience and what they think should happen.  Some entrepreneurs have said that it was helpful to work for someone else in a manufacturing facility before they created their own business.  Working for someone else helped these entrepreneurs learn what should happen.  They learned how to design systems and meet regulations.

Entrepreneurs create systems.  They initiate new businesses - so nothing exists until they create it.  Making decisions about new systems is different from evaluating something already in existence.

Evaluating raw data without analysis

Entrepreneurs will often look at raw data with little or no analysis and make decisions about how to use it.  They might make a reduction in marketing territory based upon unfiltered comments of visitors to their company website.  Sometimes a decision could weigh heavily upon questions they hear potential customers ask at a seminar.  Entrepreneurs are able to visualize the patterns and make business decisions based upon these small amounts of data.

Being able to envision the new system before it exists allows an entrepreneur to build their dream.  Being able to do this on limit data allows the entrepreneur to be first on the market.  People who have to have all the data to make a decision will enter the market much later after the entrepreneur is established.

Make key decisions on limited data

Business conditions change quickly.  Entrepreneurs in startup businesses find change a daily event.  When changes occur, quick decisions are necessary.  A short time later, the entrepreneur may need to reverse that decision.

Changes could open a new door of opportunity to

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>