By Penny Power – Business Author & Human-Centred Speaker
This week my ponder has been around how amazing small business owners are with their diverse expertise, not only the one they have honed for clients, but the ones they acquire and keep elevating in order to run a strong, efficient and sustainable business, remaining relevant in a fast changing, faced paced business and technology world.
In this ponder I want you to consider the difference between your expertise, and your skills. (and the image I chose! Well, me on a sledge- skiing is not my skill!)
When I became a Business Owner, in 1998, it didn’t help that I had been a Director of a company, as an employee, in name only, my role was so specific as the Sales and Marketing Director, I had no fiscal responsibilities, nor operational. My expertise was Sales and Marketing, and I lacked skills in business.
When I founded Ecademy in 1998, we immediately brought in a CEO. I had 3 very young children and there was no way I could lead a business that was scaling at pace. It was enough for me to do the role I had of building and loving our Community, that was my Expertise.
Board Meetings, thankfully, were run by our CEO and Thomas, they were focused on the running of the business. Building a business in the Dot.Com Boom times was very focused and very complex. With 3 young children, I knew what I had to focus on and could not take in more information than the role I held. I stayed in my lane.
I can honestly say that I didn’t become a ‘Business Person’, or competent Business Owner until I started out in 2016 alone, no investors, no Board, just me. This time, I managed the finances, operations, technology, sales, marketing and client delivery.
Critically, because I had been burnt in business and had lost control to shareholders of two companies I had founded, I took my lack of business skills very seriously. The first thing I became so detailed about was cashflow. Thomas and I joked about how I was more excited by a spreadsheet than by him!
In Chapter 11 of Business Is Personal, I share the idea that while we all have a “primary expertise”, our unique expertise for our clients, and the flame that lights us up, we’re also required to learn a suite of essential business skills to thrive.
We can’t do it all. Nor should we. But there are five fundamental skills that no business owner can afford to ignore: If you ignore them, you cannot use your instincts to know what is right for you. Business is Personal and you can’t just copy what others are doing. Their ambitions, skills and resources will not be the same as yours.
Five fundamental skills that no business owner can afford to ignore:
- Business models – What kind of life are you really building and what Business Model is right for you?
- Sales – How do you want to attract clients and how many do you really want? What is your unique expertise that you are the best to deliver?
- Brand – Are you building trust with every word and post?
- Finance – Do you fear or respect your cashflow? What disciplines and boundaries do you have in place to protect your business?
- Digital and Ai skills – How are you staying up to date on automation, AI, lead generation, SaaS tools? All the ways that tech can make you competitive, efficient and keep you in your flame.
Each of these is personal. Not in a fluffy way, but in a very realway.
Your business is shaped by your values, your choices, and your energy. Learning these skills isn’t about becoming a machine, it’s about becoming whole and happy.
I love this sentence I heard recently
“In the world of small business, burnout doesn’t come from hard work. It comes from the wrongwork”.
Eventually we all start to realise that our time is more valuable than some of the tasks we are doing, and that working with an ‘expert’ we find, will be faster and better.
This is why Thomas and I created BIP100, a carefully curated community of just 100 brilliant B2B Experts. Not just for their business skills, but because they are people who have quietly, passionately, consistently invested in themselves and their clients for years, and they want to be in an honest community where no one feels small asking for help, and where they are surrounded by people who can plug their skills gaps.
Being seen, known, and valued not just for what you do, but who you are, this is what makes each of us feel significant.
This week, perhaps take a moment to reflect:
- Are you doing work that lights you up (your expertise), or work that’s burning you out?
- Which of these five skills do you want to strengthen next?
- Who do you need in your world to take some wax away so your candle can burn brightly?
Because, as I’ve learned over and over again, Business is Personal, your Expertise is Personal.
And so are the skills that you have to acquire.
