Business skills are critical in so many situations from business to life. Every interaction is a great opportunity to practice leadership, communication, and more.
Here are some tips and stories that will help you assess your own business skills and improve one of the most important traits for your professional career.
1. Leaders must have vision in order to persuade others to follow them.
Where are you going? How do you get there? What do you need? Who can help? Create a “road map”.
2. Develop relationships and stay in touch with them. Stay top of mind. Use excuses to get in touch.
Some amazing networking advice: I used to send birthday emails. In the Facebook age, you should still send a personalized message. Giving people phone calls goes a long way. Phone calls stand out in an age where nobody calls.
3. Ask yourself if this is really what you want to do.
For everything, startups, career, life. For startups, they are a lot of effort. There is nothing like it. You have to love it. If you don’t, it won’t work.
4. Build something — anything — from start to finish.
Write a medium post or record a podcast episode about the tech trends you’re seeing on campus.
5. Care a lot
Whatever you are, care a lot. Concentrate on other people. You’ll be happier and better off. These are lessons I learned from building LinkedIn.
Now that you’ve heard from many successful business people, what business advice do you have for aspiring business people?