Come 2020 and all definitions of vital business skills went haywire. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, all of us had to close down our shops temporarily and faced setbacks. However, this setback brought us a very important lesson; business needs transformation. As we are now opening back up and businesses are getting back on track, a lot of us found ways to stay afloat in these testing times.

As we now prepare to fight more such adversities and gear ourselves up for the future, let us take a look at some skills which may have been lower in the priority list. These skills have now become vital for businessmen as we enter 2021.

• Running Online Stores
  This skill is especially useful for shop owners. The fact that more and more people now are moving towards online shopping is a testament to that. Once you have your online store ready, you can start selling your products and merchandise online. This will not only increase your customer base but will also help you in keeping your business going on in case of another lockdown.

Also Read: A complete guide to opening Facebook Shops

• Social Media Marketing
  While you take your business online, you might also want to focus on getting more and more customers coming to your website and putting up orders. Generating leads is an excellent way to get more customers and clients. Social media is the one-stop destination to get great results and even quality leads. Even if you don’t own a shop, getting clients the online way is the way to go in 2021.

Also Read: 10 Smart Tips to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business

• Design and Video
  While dealing with online marketing, you will need to make creatives and promotional videos to put up on various media. Even if you hire a marketing firm, you might need to explain to them what kind of creatives you want. Knowledge of design becomes vital for business then. Once you have a good grasp of designing and creation, you will be able to make the most of this skill. You could take help from the internet to learn the basics of designing.

• Accounting
  Well, accounting is not a new addition to vital business skills. What is new this time around is the way we do our accounting. Since we’re talking about making a gradual shift towards the digital era, taking your accounting to the cloud doesn’t look like a bad idea. There are many apps for this. Many ERP software providers are also now including detailed accounting extensions for better management of their customers’ business finances.

• Google Ads & SEO
  Speaking of online business management, one cannot ignore the power of search engines and advertisement. Promoting your page(s) and putting up ads on Google is a great way to generate leads and have people take a look at your online business setup. You can always manage your expenditure on these platforms as per your budget. Learning how to design digital marketing material is also something one can quickly pickup. 

• Data Analysis
  You don’t have to become a data scientist in order to analyze your parameters effectively. Google Ads, Facebook pages, Instagram pages etc. all offer analytics through their business partner program. You can get a detailed report of how your posts performed, how many people interacted with your promotional and non-promotional posts etc. Making sense of these is not rocket science and can be learned easily. Since we are heading into 2021, these skills are sure to become of the essence.

Why These Skills Are Vital?

The Covid-19 pandemic showed us that businesses can be deeply impacted by unexpected catastrophic conditions. Lockdowns brought the entire global economy to a standstill. When lockdowns started being lifted, online orders were the first ones to get on the track to recovery. What this means is that people would like to stay home and get everything delivered to them if they can help it.

Since we already have a large number of options available to cater to that demand, all we need now is the skillset. Taking your business online would require us to learn a few things which we could postpone earlier. Moreover, taking your business online doesn’t mean the offline physical business would need to be shut down. You can always manage both without it being too taxing a burden. Knowing a thing or two about e-commerce will always be beneficial for both, the businessman and the customer. It is a win-win for both. 

You can learn more about why soft skills are important here.

Looking Forward to 2021

As we enter 2021, hopefully, the world will be a better place than what 2020 left it to be. If you haven’t taken these skills up yet, there is nothing to worry about. One can still take time to learn these skills over time. Also, it is not yet too late to start learning these skills. Adapting to change is what a good businessman always does. And as we adapt to the new world order, tomorrow will surely be better than yesterday.

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