- Dan,
what's the most important skill in business?
- It is a good question, it is a question
that I believe I answered in my book "Unlock It."
I believe when you are young,
you don't want to work for money,
you want to work to get experience.
I strongly believe that who you work for
is more important that what you do, right?
Because what you do could change
but when you find that right person,
the right mentor to work for and work with,
that you will learn a lot.
I remember back then when I was working for my mentor,
my first mentor, Alan.
And I worked for him for
really next to nothing for one year,
basically as a volunteer.
And I didn't make a whole lot of money
but I gained tremendous valuable experience
by working with someone who is a genius in marketing
and that laid a foundation for later use,
for what I do.
So who you work for, you always want to consider that.
Now, when it comes to developing your skills
before starting your own business,
the reason why I'm such a strong advocate of that
is because with the wealth triangle, I talked about this,
why you want to have your high income skills first,
and I define high income skill,
it is a skill that can make you $10,000 or more per month.
You want to have your high income skill first
before you start your business.
The reason is it reduces your risk,
because business is risky, right?
Your failure rate is very high.
The reason most businesses fail is
because of the entrepreneurs.
They simply lack business acumen or business skills
or business experience.
But when you have the high income skill first,
it could be closing, it could be copywriting,
it could be public speaking, it could be digital marketing,
whatever it might be, you have a skillset
that you can offer your marketplace to earn money.
Once you have that,
that means that you are making some money,
you're paying the bills, you're making good money.
Let's say $10,000 a month.
Now, when you transition to starting your business,
because now you're responsible for way more things.
When you have a high income skill, it's only one thing,
you're offering a skill in exchange of money.
when you're running your own business,
now you got to manage people, you got to deal with inventory,
you got to look at your financial statements,
you got to manage, accounting, finance,
and so many other things, I mean, on and on,
and on and on.
If you can't even handle one skill,
what makes you think you can handle now 10 more other things
on top of that skillset, plus running the business?
And that's what running a business is.
So this is a very good testing ground.
Testing your ability.
But when you do have a high income skill,
you have a strong skillset,
when you transition to a full-time business,
you're just much more prepared.
So I believe the number one, the most important skill
that anyone needs to learn as an entrepreneur,
as a business owner, the ability to close,
the ability to sell,
the ability to convince and persuade and influence.
It is by far the number one skill that you need.
Now if you say, "Oh, but Dan, I'm kind of shy."
Well then, don't be an entrepreneur.
Don't be a business owner.
Because in business you're selling every day,
you're closing every day,
you're selling your ideas, you're selling investors,
you're selling banks, you're selling customer,
you're selling your employees,
you're selling all the time.
Without that skill, it's like you might as well say,
"Well, I don't want to be an entrepreneur."
Because that is the number skill that you need.
It is the most important skill
and it's always a skill that you need to constantly work on
and it is a learnable skill.
No one is born with the ability to close,
no one is born with the ability to sell,
no one is a natural born salesperson or closer.
It is absolutely learnable
but know it is the most important skill,
because as a business owner, at the end of the day,
if your company makes money or it doesn't make money,
you are the rainmaker.
You need to have the ability to generate revenue.
That is your number one job.
That is your number one job as the owner of your business.
You have to be able to generate revenue.
And I'm shocked by how many entrepreneurs,
they start something, they've got a great idea,
they've got a little, good invention,
they've got a little cool gadget,
they've got a cool product, whatever it might be.
When you ask them, "Well, how are you going to get customers?"
"How are you going to make those sales?"
"Well, I don't know."
Right?
They believe that if they build a better mousetrap
then the world will beat a path to their doors,
which is simply not the case.
You need to be selling all the time.
In fact, if you're good at selling,
chances are you could have a, not even a great product,
but a decent product, but you could make it work.
That is the number one skill that you need.
So if you haven't mastered your high income skill,
my recommendation is, you pick one,
it could be any one of them
and I've got so many videos on that,
you can find them on YouTube,
but find one skill that you master and focus on first.
Then you can stack on those skillsets.
If later on you want to transition to a business you could,
but first you got to develop the high income skills.
If you want to know my methodology for closing,
how to close anyone, anytime, anywhere,
click on the link in the description
and join us for a free, condensed training
on exactly how I do this and how I trained
tens of thousands of students and business professionals
and business owners around the world how to close.