To become a successful digital lifestyle entrepreneur, it is necessary to develop key entrepreneurial competences and acquire soft skills. There are many approaches that explain the core aspects of entrepreneurial competences and skills and in this chapter the basic ones will be presented.

What are soft skills and why it is important to develop them?

Soft skills are most often linked to communication with others, interpersonal relationships, understanding and problem solving. In contrast to hard skills, soft skills are not technical, specific knowledge, but a combination of positive attitudes, ability to deal with people, be flexible at the right time and work with others to achieve goals.

Soft skills play an important role in any workplace including enterprises. It enhances communication with customers, helps to solve problems and find best solutions, it can strengthen teams and attract new clients. When using soft skills like listening, compassion and empathy in business, one can easier identify the needs and problems of clients and find suitable solutions. Moreover, when starting a business, the ability to motive oneself, to manage time and plan further steps becomes very helpful.

What are entrepreneurial competences?

Entrepreneurial competence commonly includes such traits as problem solving, seeking new opportunities, initiative, planning, management, quality or, self-confidence. “Entrepreneur recognizes new (market) opportunities, using the intuition, creativity and analytical skills[1]”

Entrepreneurial competencies together with soft skills, those including personal and social abilities, lead to success at job market. Entrepreneurship as a competence can be called universal, because it appears in all spheres of life and includes personality traits which both are inborn but can also be acquired. The study of EntreComp: The Entrepreneurship Competence Framework gives such characterization[2]:

“Entrepreneurship as a competence applies to all spheres of life. It enables citizens to nurture their personal development, to actively contribute to social development, to enter the job market as employee or as self-employed, and to start-up or scale-up ventures which may have a cultural, social or commercial motive.”

There can be listed 3 basic skills[3], that are needed to become successful digital lifestyle entrepreneur – interpersonal, critical and creative thinking, practical skills.

Source: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/cant-can-self-motivation-4505837/

Interpersonal skills fall into one out of three core entrepreneurial competencies. Even though, depending on chosen business type, digital lifestyle entrepreneur has opportunity to work from anywhere, he/she still has to communicate with customers, users, suppliers, associates, investors, etc. Even if communication happens online, the ability to build a great and positive relations is the key to successful business. The list of skills that entrepreneur needs to have:

Communication skills – A lifestyle entrepreneur should be able to introduce, explain, sell and market his/her products and services. The ability to express themselves clearly as intended helps to avoid misleading messages, misunderstandings and misinterpretations with clients, customers, stakeholders, etc. Entrepreneurs as well should develop verbal, nonverbal, active listening abilities as it ensures that others understand their position clearly. If the business would grow, the entrepreneur should be prepared for written information reports for a variety of different audiences. They have to be able to share appropriate information to the right people at the right time.

Leadership skills is important for both small (e.g. Home-based businesses) and big businesses. It enables entrepreneur to develop a vision for the company and pursue that vision. In bigger companies it helps to manage and lead the team to fulfil the business goals.

Ethics involves respect, fairness, truthfulness when dealing with others. Entrepreneur should adhere to ethical standards, not to deceive clients, suppliers or employers. In this context ethics includes the value that entrepreneurial action can bring to society, environment or market.

Critical and Creative Thinking skills

These skills come in handy when developing new ideas or making the full use of emerging possibilities.

Creative thinking – being creative in digital lifestyle business is necessary. There are plenty of digital lifestyle entrepreneurs worldwide, that is why thinking creative means looking for a different method to distinguish himself/herself out of others selling similar products or providing similar services. Creativity goes hand-in-hand with innovations, having the ability to “think outside the box” helps to recognize an opportunity in each problem and find innovative solution.

Critical thinking – each entrepreneur has to be able to analyse information and come up with logical decisions objectively without unnecessary emotions or prejudice. This skill enables to find rational, clear, reasoned solutions, while understanding the consequences. Moreover, entrepreneur who thinks critically, is able to count pros and cons of different options and make thoughtful decisions.

Problem solving – in order to find solutions, creative and critical thinking are blended. The digital lifestyle entrepreneur should be able to face problems and find best solutions while recognizing own mistakes. Common traits of this skill – ability to show initiative, observe situation, make decision, be persuasive and negotiate when needed. Problem solving skill helps to see the situation and analyse it in different angles, to solve disagreements between conflicting parties.

Practical skills

To run business smoothly entrepreneur needs to have practical skills. Below are listed main practical skills:

Goal setting skills – is one of the core entrepreneurial skills. Entrepreneur should be able to set measurable and achievable goals for his/her digital lifestyle business. Goals should be effective and lead into progress. Useful tool SMART analysis (https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/smart-goals.htm)

Planning skills – especially helpful in digital lifestyle businesses as this kind of enterprise is quite flexible and encompasses variety of aspects including finances, marketing, production, etc., entrepreneurs must have strong planning skills. It is advisable to set long-term, medium-term and short-term goals. To begin with a basic business plan.

Basic management skills, including time management and financial management –

Time management skill is necessary to maintain productivity and efficiency. When an entrepreneur has this ability he/she can allocate time wisely and reasonable, depending on various tasks. This skill helps to follow the discipline which is very important when working hours are flexible and can interrupt personal time. Entrepreneur has to know which tasks are urgent, which can be delayed and which can be delegated to others.

Financial management skill helps to manage a budget and find funding opportunities. It enables to plan and evaluate financial decisions, to manage income that it would last for a longer period of time and support the chosen lifestyle.

Tips for managing time:

• Priorities – prioritize the tasks. It is recommended to allocate more time for high priority tasks and move on to less important.
• Objectives – set objectives for every week (start of week) to maintain efficiency.
• Plans – in order to meet the objectives, it is useful to develop an activity plan.
• Schedules – making schedules for each month, week and workday could also help achieving better time management.

How to develop entrepreneurial competences and soft skills?

There are several tips on how to develop entrepreneurial skills:

• To identify personal goals and objectives (taking in mind lifestyle that future digital lifestyle entrepreneur wants to lead) and analyse his/her skills and resources needed to achieve it. Link for self- assessment tests: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_36.htm
• To prepare realistic personal development plan.
• To use digital tools for information and learning such as Open Educational Recourses (OERs). It is a cheap and easy way to access the information online, and acquire entrepreneurial competencies. Some examples of OERs on a related topic:

1. Project “JOB-Yes: Choose a job not a dole” http://job-yes.eu/en-gb/oers-view-en
2. Entrepreneurial mindset https://badges.newworldofwork.org/quiz/entrepreneurial-mindset
3. OER Commons https://www.oercommons.org/search?f.search=entrepreneurial+skills&f.general_subject=&f.sublevel=&f.alignment_standard=

• To learn from admired digital lifestyle entrepreneurs – list their qualities and skills that have helped them to become successful in business. It can be helpful to contact them directly and do an interview.
• To learn by practising – one can become a volunteer, start internship or a small business.
• To use apps on a smartphone and participate in courses to improve soft skills.

Apps for improving soft skills and entrepreneurial competences[4]:

[1] Bortkevičienė, V. (2015). The importance of entrepreneurial Competence in activities. Website: https://www.vdu.lt/cris/bitstream/20.500.12259/30692/1/ISSN2351-7409_2015_N_1.PG_81-91.pdf

[2]  Bacigalupo, M., Kampylis, P., Punie, Y., Van den Brande, G. (2016). EntreComp: The Entrepreneurship Competence Framework. Luxembourg: Publication Office of the European Union. Website: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC101581/lfna27939enn.pdf

[3] https://www.parentbank.eu/index.php/the-project/

[4] Virtual Speech. Top Soft Skills Apps. Website: https://virtualspeech.com/learn/soft-skills-apps