How to save money, feel great and become a master at several different skills

How to save money, feel great and become a master at several different skills


It is true that often good businesspeople don't have a large array of skills, they hire talent instead. Though, to be an enlightened and happy entrepreneur I've always advised to invest in yourself, and your own abilities first. There's nothing to say you can't hire talent as well.
Many people, also, assume that you can hire talent first. When starting a business, you need to concern yourself with income generation, cost cutting and cashflow. If you can do the job yourself without hiring someone else great!

So, with the hours in the day where you are asking yourself- how can i use this time more effectively? I've put together a list of useful skills for the budding entrepreneur..

There are always blocks of time in the day, no matter what type of job you do, where you can be doing something productive. I have found that using travel time to do productive things has helped me enormously. So, back to the skills to work on...

1. Web design

If you are like most entrepreneurs you'll be wanting a site online to promote your new business, only natural. Though it may shock you a decent site, designed and managed well can cost (especially if it is an e-commerce site) 3000-10000 pounds, a huge fee for a start up. If you shop around you could get one of two options, a cheaper deal or a cheaper deal done by a crap designer.

As most people just start out with content sites- ie. information sites- nothing fancy- I advise the reader , if money is tight, to look into learning a bit of web design. There are many different ways of getting to the final destination of having a fully working site. Some people prefer using web design programs that do the programming for you. These can be effective, though sometimes don't work well and as you won't have invested any time in learning the skills chances are you might not be able to figure out the problems, if and when they arise.

The benefit of learning coding languages such as html, css, php mySQL is that, once you have built your own site, you can start helping others out too. So, you will have made a huge saving on the site costs (and if you really want you can always hire someone to maintain it) and you now have a valuable skill that you can use on other sites, your own or in the marketplace. Hell, you could even start another business from it! If other people are charging 10k for a site, you'll only need to know a bit about building sites before you start charging a decent amount.

2. Learn some numbers.

If you don't know numbers, you should. Even if you don't plan on becoming a massive businessperson, learning numbers will still help you in your everyday life. Personal finance, shopping, financial decision making- large portions of your life will be affected, positively, if you can learn some basics.

What to learn? Well, there's quite a bit. Multiplication, devision, interest rates, the power of compounding, the power of inflation. When you have time google the words and research into them. A good, useful and helpful calculation you can start with are your everyday costs.. For example, if you eat out every day:

One sandwich(2 pounds) x number of days 365 = 730 pounds per year

If you go drinking once a week and spend 30 quid out in the pub/bar you need to do another calculation:

bar spend(30) x 52 = 1560 pounds per year

So the numbers to remember include:

365 days in a year for daily costs
52 weeks in a year for weekly costs
12 months in a year for monthly costs
26 fortnights in a year
7 days in a week, for weekly costs over one week.

Once you get into the habit of doing this, without a calculator, over time you'll be planning thigns in your head quicker and your math skills will greatly improve, helping many areas in your life.

3.learn about good food, and how to cook it.

This will not only help you to save money on the ready-meals and client dinners- but what better way of entertaining possible contacts than a nice dinner party. Ok, not great for every occasion but learning about good food not only helps your budget, it helps you live longer. Fact.

4. Design skills-

Another good skill to gain in the first few stages of your business is design skills. Most logos, PR and design related tasks won't take long once you know how to do it, especially as youll be your own client. This can save a fortune and once again, once you have mastered it you can start a side line business out of it or offer it as a favour for friends.

5. Presentation skills- consultancy

Learning to speak and present in front of crowds is a useful skill. You can take powerpoint courses, or self-learn and there are public speaking courses as adult education courses (in the UK that is). It will do wonders for your confidence and you'll be preparing yourself for when your business is doing fantastically well and you are addressing shareholders, institutional investors or your hundreds (or thousands) of staff. Dreaming is good, preparing for your dreams is even better.

6. Invest in your social capital

This isn't really a skill but it will save you down the line. Having and maintaining friends is important. There are hundreds of thousands of words that have already been written about the importance of friends, I can't better the great philosphers on this. Though I will add that it may double the outcome of other skills if you learn them with a friend. Support each other and go further.

7. Find a hobby for exercise.

Again, doing physical exercise helps you financially and physically. You'll get more out of your work, with clearer thinking and you will be able to live longer as your health won't let you down. Plus, if you are reading this from a country similar to mine, where gym fees are exorbitant, it will save on those boring 'exercise factories' they call 'gyms'. Yeah right.

Right that's it for now. Plenty for you to work on.