So you are giving serious consideration to starting a business and running it from home. Thousands of people just like you make that big move from the corporate office to the home office. While this is a great move for quite a number of those who do take that decision, the fact is the majority of small businesses fail in their very first year of operation, as much as 80%.While there are numerous reasons for this, one striking reason is an inadequate skills set of the business owner. In a home business environment this is even more crucial as there is usually only the owner running the business. So a critical question you should be asking yourself if you are thinking of starting a home-based business is, are my job skills transferable in a manner that will benefit my business?Obviously you would have to do a match between what you believe your business would need in terms of a skills set to execute your business plan effectively and your own skills set. So one of the first things you really need to address is your own skills inventory. Basically you will want to answer two questions with your personal skills inventory exercise – what are the work-place skills you now have, and at what level of competence each one is.Your next step is to go through your business plan which should give you a good idea of what skills you will need where and when. Determine those tasks that you will need to perform as the business owner, how often and in what time frame. Your objective here is to come up with a skills requirement chart outlining the requisite skills, how critical each is to achieving your goals, who will be carrying out the tasks, how often the particular task will have to be done, and over what time frame.You now have a fair idea of what your business require in terms of skills and what skills you have to bring to the business. It is now time to find the critical skills gaps that you will need to fill somehow. Once you have identified the skills gaps, you need to give some consideration how these will be addressed.Some steps you can take to fill the skills gaps identified are:* Take additional training to upgrade your skills.* For those tasks where you do not have the necessary skills set to perform, consider contracting these out.* Take on a partner to complement your skills set.Ensuring that you have the requisite skills in place to make your home-based business a success is one of the most important things you can do for your business. It will save you a lot of unnecessary headache and frustration as you are now much better equipped to execute your home business plan.
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