The Entrepreneur s Skills Assessment Guide

Transcription

1 The Entrepreneur s Skills Assessment Guide Identify what you re good at. Build a profitable business with your skills. By Ryan Robinson

2 Becoming a successful entrepreneur is about so much more than just having useful skills and magically stumbling into the right opportunities that give you the chance to really demonstrate those abilities. It s about more than making millions of dollars. It s about more than having passion for what you do every day. Sure, those are both great goals to aspire to, and are indeed essential to successfully running a business. However, I d argue that the true meaning of success in the world of business, should be measured by how much you re able to use your skills and strengths to help others. If you re not completely sure of what you re good at, or where you should start on strengthening the skills you want to build, it s a challenge to truly help large numbers of people. I m guessing that s exactly why you re here today. Before we get started, it s important to explain the very distinct differences between Soft skills and Hard skills. Soft skills: The technical definition of soft skills are personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. In short, these are the skills you possess, that you can t necessarily quantify. This is your EQ (Emotional Intelligence), not your IQ (Intellectual Intelligence). You re not often going to see soft skills listed within the job requirements when applying to new companies. However, these types of skills like being a good listener, being optimistic, and possessing strong leadership abilities are in my opinion, more important than most hard skills. You can learn many hard skills over a relatively short period of time, but becoming a leader isn t learned by simply taking a class on nights and weekends. Hard skills: These are what most people think of when they think about skills. Hard skills are specific, teachable abilities that can be defined and measured. Think: coding in HTML/CSS, writing great blog content, financial modeling, app development, and so on. In school, you take tests to quantify these. If you don t yet possess a lot of well-defined, sharpened hard skills, it s easy to feel like you don t have any valuable skills. Well, I m here to tell you that you re wrong. When I started my first side business, I had very few hard skills. But, what I lacked in coding talent, marketing chops, and writing abilities at the time, I significantly made up for in determination, optimism, and people skills that would help me build the meaningful connections I d need, to get my business off the ground without doing everything myself. Later on, I trained myself to become proficient with the hard skills my business (and future companies) would need. The goal of this Skill Assessment is to help you identify your soft skills, combine them with the hard skills you currently have, identify the ones you ll need to improve upon, and progress into a business where you ll be able to utilize your unique soft & hard skills. Now, let s get to it. 1

3 Determining Your Soft Skills Personal attributes that enable you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. Which soft skills do you think you possess? Choose from below at least 5, but no more than 10 soft skill traits that you believe describe you best. I would describe myself as A good listener Optimistic A leader Having common sense Being intrinsically motivated Hard working Empathetic Having a sense of humor A good negotiator A conversationalist Cool under pressure Diplomatic Collaborative on a team Open to critical feedback Driven A critical thinker A mentor to others A salesperson Self-aware Confident Resilient A good learner Patient Forgiving Now, rank in order of strength, what you think your top 5 soft skills are. Which ones do you use most, or feel help you succeed in your day-to-day life? 2

4 Determining Your Soft Skills Personal attributes that enable you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. Breaking down your biggest wins. Think of a time you did an incredible job on a class project, a challenging deliverable at work, or a time you felt particularly accomplished with something you worked on. These are the experiences when you lose track of time, because you re so engaged in what you re doing. You re excited. You feel motivated. One example for me, was during the week I launched my very first online course. I probably slept 4-5 hours each night and still made it into work at my day job. I felt energized every single day of that week. I was ing back & forth with people who were considering buying my course, answering tons of questions, and giving away some of the content for free to the motivated people that simply couldn t afford to buy it at the time. I built so many great relationships that continue to flourish. I loved it. Now, it s your turn. Identify one of your biggest wins. A time you felt truly in your element. What exactly were you doing? Tell me about it. Now, which soft skills did you use the most in this situation? What helped you achieve your goals? Do these match up with the top 5 soft skills you choose to identify yourself with on the previous page? 3

5 Determining Your Soft Skills Personal attributes that enable you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. What comes naturally to you? What have your friends, coaches, teachers, managers, or even your parents always told you you re a natural at? Was is always easier for you to pick up mathematics, than most of the kids in your class? Are you naturally more perceptive of how the people around you are feeling during a conversation? Do you have an easy time convincing people to see things from your point of view? Perhaps your friends usually look to you, when making decisions about what to do, and when to do it? Share with me 5 things you believe you re a natural at. Now, which soft skills do you believe help you naturally do so well at these activities? Do these match up with the top 5 soft skills you choose to identify yourself with on page 2? 4

6 Determining Your Soft Skills Personal attributes that enable you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. Asking others what comes naturally to you. Now that we ve done some introspection, it s time to lean on the people that often know you better than you know yourself. Your close friends, family, and co-workers you trust. Next, I want you to copy & paste the below message and or text it to at least 5 people who know you very well. It s important that you do this over or text, so that they have time to genuinely think about their responses, instead of feeling pressured or that they need to tell you what you want to hear, over the phone or in person. You can always follow up later in person to get more details. Your goal is to get honest feedback, no to reaffirm what you already believe about yourself. Hey [First Name]! I have a quick question for you. Right now, I m doing a self-assessment and taking a deeper look at some of my strengths and skills that best define me. Would you do me a favor and take a few minutes to think about 3-5 skills that you think I possess, and share any examples of when I used them, that stand out to you? Thank you so much! [Your Name] Feel free to personalize the script to fit your communication style and medium you re using to ask this question. Just make sure you re clearly asking them to share 3-5 skills that they believe you to possess, and ideally mention any examples of when you demonstrates those abilities. Do not skip this step. I know it can be uncomfortable if you re not used to asking others for feedback, personal favors, or you don t usually talk about these types of subjects with your friends and family. A major component of becoming a successful entrepreneur is training yourself to constantly challenge your assumptions, ask for meaningful (objective) feedback, and become more self-aware about your strengths and weaknesses. The act of completing this assessment is designed to challenge you to step outside of your comfort zone. On the next page, we re going to keep track of all the responses you get. 5

7 Responses Name: Skills: Relationship: Name: Skills: Relationship: Name: Skills: Relationship: Name: Skills: Relationship: Name: Skills: Relationship: 6

8 Determining Your Soft Skills Personal attributes that enable you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. A real-life example. Imagine your boss, coach, or teacher gives you an urgent group project to do. Your success at your job, on the court, or in the classroom depends solely upon completing this activity well, and it s a great opportunity to show what you re made of. Really think of an example in your head. You have 3 team members in your group for this project. What role do you naturally assume within your group? (Organizer, leader, creative, moderator, etc.) Is there a certain part of the project that you feel most compelled to take on, yourself? Do you like strategizing the overall plan? Being the one who assigns tasks to your other team members? Perhaps you prefer spending the bulk of your time and energy on the actual execution of the deliverables? From your hypothetical example, share with me which part of the project you want to take on. Which soft skills do you use most within this project and the role you ve taken on? Do these match up with the top 5 soft skills you choose to identify yourself with on page 2? 7

9 Determining Your Soft Skills Personal attributes that enable you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. 6. Zeroing in on your strongest soft skills. Take a look back through the past few pages. Which soft skills are written down the most, between what you ve defined for yourself and what others have reported back about you? It s ok to pause here and wait for the responses back from others. Write down the top 5 soft skills that continued to resurface, in order of how many times they appeared, right here. These are the soft skills that both you and the people who know you best, feel represent you most. If there aren t any clear stand-out winners, that s ok. Choose the top 5 that you feel describe you best and let s move onward. In order to maximize your potential for success in business, you need to be using your strongest skills and leveraging your strengths every single day. These are the soft skills you re going to lean on most, as you move forward in your business. 8

10 Determining Your Hard Skills Specific, teachable abilities that can be defined and measured. 7. What are some of your hard skills? Remember, we re talking about very specific, easily-measured abilities, like having a strong writing ability, being able to code in HTML/CSS, make complex financial models in Microsoft Excel, and so on. Based on how many years experience you have with each, rate your level of expertise. Beginner (less than 1yr) Progressing (~ 1 yr) Intermediate (1-2 yrs) Advanced (2-5 yrs) Expert (5+ yrs) Which soft skills of yours, do you believe aid most in doing well at these hard skills? 9

11 Determining Your Hard Skills Specific, teachable abilities that can be defined and measured. 8. What do you love to do? Do you like helping your friends talk through difficult situations at work or in their personal lives? Do you spend your free time writing about life lessons you ve learned through your travels? Do you go on outdoor adventures every weekend? Are you a fitness junkie? If you re anything like me, then you love to do the things you re already good at. It s human nature. Trying new things (and risking failure) is uncomfortable at first. At this point in my life, I love sharing my experiences in business through my writing, and pushing myself to my personal limits with long-distance running. By my own measure, I m already good at both of them. But, when I think back to how painful it was when I was just beginning to sharpen my abilities at both, there were many times I contemplated giving up. Once I got my first handful of breakthroughs, I had the momentum and confidence to keep pushing, and slowly I began to love them both. Now, share with me 5 things you love to do. This can be at work, in the home, or how you d ideally spend your free time out and about. Based on how many years experience you have with each, rate your level of expertise. Beginner (less than 1yr) Progressing (~ 1 yr) Intermediate (1-2 yrs) Advanced (2-5 yrs) Expert (5+ yrs) 10

12 Determining Your Hard Skills Specific, teachable abilities that can be defined and measured. 9. Zeroing in on your strongest hard skills. Take a look back through the last two pages. When you re doing the things you love to do, are you engaging any of the hard skills you ve identified for yourself? Using myself as an example, since I love writing and sharing my experiences in business with others, I m very frequently using a core hard skill of mine - persuasive writing - to do what I love. Because this hard skill is actively engaged in doing something I regularly practice, it constantly improves. Now, write down all of your self-identified hard skills that you use, when doing the things you love. Rank them in order of your expertise, so that you re focusing most on your strongest ones. These are the hard skills that you need to focus on utilizing in your business. If you can already identify some major gaps between the hard skills you possess, and the deliverables that your business will need, then you have 3 options: Take the time to learn the skills your business idea will need, in order to be done well Outsource your current weaknesses by bringing on a partner or hiring talented contractors to help Choose a different business where you ll be able to utilize the hard skills you currently have 11

13 Where to Next? After you have self-awareness, what comes next? So, you ve gone through the (painful?) process of identifying your strongest soft skills and hard skills. What you do with this information is completely up to you. I ve learned that the majority of people don t actually make it this far. Why? Because this is difficult. You re pushing yourself to acknowledge things about yourself that may not be comfortable. You re asking others for seemingly awkward feedback that you may be embarrassed to ask for. Out of those who do complete this assessment, most will stop right here. This will be it. However, if your goal is to launch a meaningful self-employed career, the journey has really just begun. It s time to take action. Now that you know which soft skills and hard skills are going to get you the furthest today, it s time to combine those with your areas of interest, and generate some potential business ideas that fit you. If you re ready to keep moving, join my course, The Launch While Working Formula. Questions? Feedback? Shoot me an at ryan@ryrob.com. I d love to help. Ryan 12