Statistics indicate that approximately 46% of small business owners don’t have MBA degrees. So, can you become a successful entrepreneur without an MBA? Absolutely.
However, pursuing a master’s in business administration does improve your chances of running a successful company. You should realize that 4.4 million startups are established annually in America alone, but 9 out of 10 of them fail. Only a few things stand between you and realizing your business vision, and one of them is business acumen. So, keep reading this article to learn exactly how an MBA can make you a better entrepreneur.
1. Receive hands-on experience
MBA courses aren’t composed of mere lectures; students also get hands-on experience and find out what it’s like to operate a real-life business. This experience bolsters students’ business acumen and helps them apply their business skills practically. Students learn from experience when they work in mock situations and practice their business expertise under supervised instruction.
2. Better leadership skills
The 21st-century economy needs managers and effective leaders to lead teams properly. While managers dictate, leaders inspire; while managers direct, leaders take action. Today, online education has made it possible for students to improve their business expertise easily. Now, you can become a leader with an online MBA and help your team unlock its potential and accomplish business objectives. Learning important leadership skills will make you an outstanding entrepreneur and a productive business manager.
3. Improve soft skills
While many CEOs focus on hard skills, i.e., the qualities needed for their profession, they neglect to sharpen their soft skills. These abilities include creativity, adaptability, conflict management, critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, and similar leader-defining features. You gain these soft skills easily by doing an MBA. Managers can’t translate their hard skills into business productivity if they lack soft skills.
4. Learn to communicate
Communication barriers are unhealthy for a company in its infancy; effective communication makes a workplace more productive. When managers fail to communicate their expectations to workers, it negatively affects their performance. Entrepreneurs must explain their plans and ideas to investors, customers, and employees. And an MBA degree can help you articulate your plans and ideas effectively before people. This degree makes you an effective communicator.
5. Become financially literate
Why do startups fail? Experts have pondered this question a lot and ultimately determined that 82% of small businesses collapse because of cash flow problems. The solution lies in improving one’s financial literacy and learning at least finance and accounting basics. An MBA degree teaches you the fundamentals of financial management and key accounting concepts, and also familiarizes you with how to read and interpret information on financial statements and balance sheets. So, instead of relying completely on outsourced accountants, you can monitor the fiscal health of your company on your own.
6. Expand your worldview
In this era of accelerating globalization, business owners can’t survive without welcoming innovative ideas while looking at things from an international perspective. Today’s hybrid workplaces, as well as the trend of remote work, require business owners and managers to expand their worldviews and think universally instead of locally. That’s exactly what an MBA degree does. It teaches you how to think globally, act locally, and open yourself up to diversity/inclusion. A global mindset is what a successful business manager never lacks, so develop this international perspective by pursuing your MBA online. We’re living in the time of a global economy, and MBA-prepared business owners can navigate their way successfully in these times.
7. Make new connections
A new company doesn’t evade financial downfall with magic, but the owner’s networking acumen can ultimately save the day. An MBA program isn’t just a classroom filled with business lessons but also a playground where you meet new people and establish powerful bonds. This networking keeps going on even after you establish a startup. All long-term professional relationships you developed, maintained, and nurtured come quite handy when you need the support of the business industry.
8. Make data-based decisions
They say “trust your gut” when making important decisions, but one’s gut feeling isn’t very reliable in the business industry. However, two-thirds of CEOs rely too much on intuition rather than facts or data. But getting an MBA makes you realize the importance of data-driven decision-making (DDDM) over guesswork in modern society. Moreover, you learn about collecting, honing, refining, and presenting data to derive detailed insights from it; all of this comes naturally to MBA graduates. Then you can use this data to realize which product designs or ad campaigns are more effective.
9. Thrive under pressure
An entrepreneur’s responsibilities include keeping the vessel afloat and defending the startup from problems, e.g., changing market trends, evolving customer demands, or even a worldwide pandemic. However, an MBA degree shows you how to thrive under pressure and keep your company alive without falling over common business hurdles. You’ll learn how to handle hesitant investors, doubtful shareholders, and an unconvinced audience. Your courage inspires others to keep struggling.
10. Scale your business
Even if you’ve achieved business success without a college degree, getting an MBA helps you expand it properly. Business expansion requires knowledge of marketing strategy, operations management, and many other sciences in which MBA graduates excel. So, doing an MBA can help you realize how to market to an untapped audience and use the available data to scale your business the right way.
Conclusion
Arguably, an MBA seems like an ideal degree for anyone with a knack for business. It sharpens your skills and makes you more than a manager; getting your MBA will mold you into an inspiring leader. It should not come as a surprise that over one-fifth of full-time MBA graduates become entrepreneurs. It must’ve become apparent now that an MBA degree can give business owners the ingredients they need to make their companies more successful. Business owners polish their soft skills, communicate more effectively, and learn to network properly with an MBA degree. But, most importantly, they can improve their managerial acumen. So, pursue your online MBA today to become an inspiring leader tomorrow.
Also read: Smart Tools for Online College Education
