These are the skills that are important for every business owner

In the last two months, 11 different people approached me with the question, “How can I become an authority in my field?” Let’s be honest, people want to become authorities because they believe it will shorten the path to finding clients, and they, ostensibly, will need to work less hard. But that’s not the right question; the right question is – what skills should I develop in order to be a better business owner?

In reality, becoming an authority demands considerable effort. This entails establishing systems, effectively communicating with the target audience, and, importantly, leveraging other essential skills.

During the building of my brand, I managed to build a supportive community and highlight the skills that help me elevate myself. 

No, there aren’t magical skills or life-changing ones that, if you only have them, you’ll become an authority in your field. But there are several skills that will definitely give you a boost and enhance your professional advancement, even helping you gather more audience and followers.

So, I decided to share with you 5 skills that will make you much more sought-after by your audience and customers. These skills will paint you in unique colors and make unique unicorns out of you. 

You can use these skills in your blog, social networks, your sales pages, and any other digital assets.

But… I’m sharing these tips with the assurance that you will be authentic and genuine with your customers and use these skills fairly to promote your business and help your customers.

The skills I’m sharing with you today are just a part of the skills I teach in my courses and personal coaching. In my eyes, they are the most important skills for anyone who has a business that needs digital visibility.

Let’s dive in…

Here are 5 recommended skills for every business owner:

Skill #1: Content Creation

I know.

You’re hearing this and thinking, “Okay, I didn’t really click on this article to know that content creation is important.”

The type of content creation I’m referring to is different from what most people talk about.

The goal isn’t just to write content for the sake of writing… but to try and understand the strategy of your business, who your audience is, and what you want to promote and generate content accordingly.

Content is not just posts.

Articles, websites, videos, images, and even podcasts are all different types of content.

Writing or creating content right for your business will help you express yourself and your value in a way that promotes the business.

In his book, “Content Inc“, Joe Pulizzi talks about the importance of investing our energy in the right media for us.

The book cover

I see too many business owners who write for Facebook, Instagram, blogs, YouTube… and more, more, and more – but without a significant plan. They waste their energy struggling with content, instead of directing that energy into consistent action that generates certainty – into a fixed system.

Listen to me closely – there’s a very significant difference between content strategy and content planning.

Creating content for your business is one that’s always focused on the real value you have to offer to your audience, and helps your followers understand time and again what you’re doing and how you can help them.

We see this with thought leaders and business owners who generate content.

Tony Robbins creates content solely about personal development. Every topic is told from this angle to generate certainty among the audience.

Lisa Faulkner creates only food that’s easy to make (“Food must be easy, easy, easy”). This means that even if she takes a complex recipe, she’ll simplify it.

The concept is simple.

Understand exactly the value you’re giving to your audience – and create all content from this perspective.

Plan ahead how you want to be perceived by your audience and what niche you want to occupy.

So when you’re already approaching content creation, ask yourself how I can provide value in my niche so that my audience feels contributed to and inspired by my actions.

That’s smart content creation.

Skill #2: Content Design

Using visuals and consistent language is a powerful tool for the psychological impact of our content on our audience.

It not only grabs the readers’ attention but over time, also gives them a sense of identification and even an increase in their trust in our brand.

There are many ways to create personalization in your content design and make your content memorable.

But let’s say you, like most business owners, don’t know how to design.

It’s not your forte and not your main occupation.

First of all, there are always platforms like Canva that can help you get design ideas.

In Canva, you can find interesting templates, ideas for visual content creation, and, of course, find a visual language for your written content.

I recommend speaking with a graphic designer who can help you find the basis for your visual language: color palette, fonts, unique elements, and maybe even design a logo.

If you’re concerned about the cost, I suggest finding a designer on the Fiverr platform and doing something minimal.

I know, there’s a chance it will make you dependent on the designer. If you want to design by yourself, without designers, when you’re using PowerPoint and still get stunning results, I have a short digital course that helps learn to create a visual language independently, without designers.

It’s important to understand that visual language is like verbal language. When our audience learns to speak our language, to recognize our elements, to identify our graphics, they will feel a higher connection to us, and the likelihood of them purchasing rises.

In an article by iQmetrix, they noted that proper visuals help generate an emotional response from potential buyers, and this identification increases the likelihood of purchase. This is already a reason to invest in design.

Skill #3; Digital Listening

People tend to think of listening as paying attention to words spoken by others, and sometimes find intention behind those words.

In my opinion, listening as a business isn’t just trying to understand the words coming from our customers’ mouths, but true listening refers to the experience our customer goes through in our business, or more specifically, through our digital assets. I call it “digital listening.” Our ability to use different platforms to create a dialogue with our audience, to listen to their desires, to receive feedback, and of course, to consider and change our service, product, or even our digital asset, according to what emerges from the field.

Kinneret Yifrach, a micro-copy specialist, wrote in her Facebook community ‘Micro-Copy: Writing UX’ about the process of defining government digital assets.

Not only did she not start the definition process based on preconceptions or knowledge she had before, she notes that Liron Liebkind-Mulian, conducted user research and found that some people think that the government’s asset definition is deliberately confusing.

“They write it intentionally so that you won’t understand anything”

– “Only after you’ve entered all the details do you find out that you need to physically go there for a sum. Couldn’t you say that upfront?”

or:

• “I swear I tried, but I didn’t understand what to do, I started reading and just gave up”

When we, as business owners, strive to understand our customers’ experience with our digital assets, from their interaction with us to the purchasing process, we can begin to enhance the customer experience. 

Listening to customers starts with internal work that allows us to be open to what customers are saying and to take their feedback seriously. 

But we can take listening to our customers one step further by initiating a platform that allows them to express their opinions, share their experiences, and from there, we can deduce what needs improvement in our business. 

The more you practice listening in a better way, the more you will succeed in building stronger relationships with your audience, and guess what – a business owner surrounded by a loyal and satisfied audience begins to build their authority effectively.

Skill #4; Storytelling

You are already skilled. You have created content for your business, designed it, even listened to your customers and made changes. But something was missing.

Storytelling is our business’s sanctuary to convey our messages effectively time and time again, to generate interest in our audience, to foster trust over time, and to be memorable. Yes, being memorable is one of the most important things, especially when the market is saturated with many service providers perceived as more or less the same.

When we talk about content and content creation, this is where storytelling shines.

There are clear structures for creating effective storytelling in content, ones that convey the message correctly.

There’s the “Hero’s Journey,” a structure in which we divide our content into the customer’s real-world experience, the journey they go through until they reach the decision to use our product or service, and back to the old world, as the victor.

There’s the “Bridge Transition,” in which we describe the customer’s current status quo after the bridge.

The ideal world, which is after the bridge. And the bridge itself, which is our service in action.

And there’s…

You know what, I’ll just write an article about types of storytelling. But in the meantime, you must promise me that you read a bit more about storytelling and content creation – my blog is full of information and tips.

Skill #5; Translation

No, I don’t mean translation from English to Hebrew or Hebrew to Spanish.

I’m talking about translating models, information, and ideas from one discipline to another.

Right at the beginning of the pandemic, in March 2020, I started a project called “The Clicker’s Academy.” A project designed to connect between lecturers, who were left disabled by the coronavirus, and an audience interested in content related to entrepreneurship and independence.

I set up a marketing system of newsletters, advertisements on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Telegram. Together with Alex, my partner, we built a new platform with recordings and interesting content.

Very quickly, thousands of people watched our lectures, as initially we had a new lecture every evening.

In any case, it was the beginning of the corona, and no one had anything to do…

But what we did really well and contributed to our success was translating a sales panel and customer journey into our marketing alongside translating an idea of MVP – MINIMAL VIABLE PRODUCT from the realms of high tech into our project.

That is, to be more specific, we took ideas from other content worlds and translated them into our project.

We took models that assist success and used them.

The ability to introduce additional content worlds and sometimes unconventional ones is an important part of your success and finding the uniqueness of your business and your thinking.

And you, after all, are used to saying about yourselves that you’re also, also, and also…

“Translation” is your ability to create an interesting fusion when you connect several content worlds together and use models and ideas from one discipline in another.

In summary, although there are no skills that if you only have them you will become authorities, there are skills that together with hard work will really shorten your path to there.

Learning is an integral part of creating a meaningful and relevant presence in your business. A big part of our growth and development is self-investigation of skills, models, and ideas. Our implementation is the fusion.

I’m always available if there are any questions 🙂