By AIM Education & Training

Not everyone with a great idea for a small business is necessarily a born leader. There's a clear distinction between coming up with a great product or service and managing the staff who will create and sell it. They're two completely separate skill sets.

This is why some budding entrepreneurs need to lay a bit of groundwork before they can jump into being successful executives. They need to think critically about the future, plan carefully and develop their leadership skills. If they do all of the above correctly, they may be able to turn a great product into a thriving small business.

One thing every small business course will tell you is you don't want to jump into action without first taking the time to formulate a business plan which should be comprehensive and consider a few different angles. One is the context of the market around you. How competitive is the climate you're selling in? What are the economic conditions?

Secondly, you have to consider your audience. Knowing their demographic information and the types of products and marketing messages that will appeal to them is important. Finally, you need a financial game plan. If you have projected revenue figures for each cycle to aim for, that can anchor your long-term strategy nicely.

Knowing how to be a strong executive can be difficult when you're first starting out. Part of the trouble is finding the right balance between unilateral and collaborative decision-making. This is a tricky thing to find, and unfortunaely may only be through trial and error - leadership training can only teach you so much. Only form business partnerships when you're truly ready. If you try to do everything yourself, alienating others, you're sure to run into weaknesses you can't overcome. If you rush into partnerships, however, you might make mistakes that will hamstring you later.

Crafting the perfect vision for the future of your business is never easy, especially if you're a relatively new entrepreneur. That's why, at the Australian Institute of Management, we offer courses that are engaging and highly applicable to whatever challenges you're facing.

Our broad areas of expertise include project management, emotional intelligence, business writing, time management and many more. Whatever areas of your skill set you're looking to shore up, talk to us today about how we can help.