Question from a reader --

"Hello, you don't know me of course, but I've been reading your posts for a while and it kinda makes me do greater things than I usually do (well mostly it makes me "wanna" do greater things but there has been noticeable improvement). But let me cut to the chase. I'm a relatively decent economics student from Croatia, but my problem is the college isn't really teaching me anything practical so when I leave the said institution in two years I'll be left with no definitive skill with real application in the current economic state, or any economic state I'm afraid. With this as my base http://sebastianmarshall.com/my-best-guess-as-to-what-an-aspiring-artist-should-do (as I'm also a photographer), and my usual voracious reading appetite, is there anything more you can recommend to someone who would like to one day start his own business, like books ,specific areas and skill sets to develop? The stuff I'm already working on is programming, social skills and developing a hard-working mindset (or maybe its smart-working) that my current social group/peers/family lack. Thanks, M"

Seems like you're on the right track with the learning. Here's two recommendations --

1. Accounting
2. Sales

First, accounting is the most useful course to take at university if you want to run your own company.

Why?

Well, it's only learnable through consistent rote practice and repetition. It's dreadfully boring to learn on your own without instruction, and most people wouldn't be disciplined enough to do it. And it's perfect for conveying in the professor/student relationship. Any remotely adequate professor teaching you accounting would mean you'd learn the skill to a reasonably high level.

So yes, take an accounting course or two. It's probably the most useful course taught in university. 

Second, sales. You need sales because it's what gets you money.

Sales also lays the foundation for understanding people, their needs, and collaborating with them. Training in sales gets you better at everything. Sales makes you a better manager and instructor of future staff, a better recruiter, a better negotiator, and a better communicator. It probably even makes you a better conversationalist and more likable.

Most people don't understand sales and don't understand what it's really about. As a starting point, I'd recommend Jeffrey Gitomer's The Sales Bible, which is extremely comprehensive and should get you going. The shortest version of understanding goes --

1. Ask lots of questions and don't talk too much.
2. Be likable, enjoyable, and trustworthy to spend time with.
3. Have credibility, expertise, referrals, and case studies.
4. Know how to craft good offers, particularly risk-reversing offers that lead to future business and ongoing engagements.

Gitomer covers all that pretty well.

What else? Rackham's SPIN Selling is excellent, and it's the only book I've read on sales that comes very a very thorough, empirical, research-oriented methodology that's also quite actionable.

Chet Holmes's The Ultimate Sales Machine is very good, though it's more like 70% about marketing, 20% about executive skills and business development, and only 10% about actual sales skills. Still, a great read and a classic.

I'd recommend you stay away from any book on sales before, say, 1990 until you've learned some and gotten a strong foundation. A lot of earlier books on sales relied on lots of little tricks, verbal sleights-of-hand, and other such nonsense that doesn't work well in the modern environment. Most books on sales from the immediately-post-WWII era were about consumer sales, whereas there's a very good chance your initial pitches and sales will be directed business-to-business towards owners, executives, and independent practitioners. If you're solo yourself and not getting a full-time job, you basically don't have the time, resources, and scale to sell consumer goods as profitably as you could do business engagements. (Well, never say never, but B2B is probably easier and more time-effective.)

Oh, I also started Alan Weiss's Million Dollar Consulting recently, and I wish I'd heard of it much earlier. It'll probably overlap with other points you'll come across, but the clearness and directness about making compelling value propositions and staying out of traps is very good. I'm only newly into it, so we'll see how it carries through. But so far, it seems very good and it came highly recommended to me.

After that? Get out there and sell. You might consider asking someone more experienced than you in a particular domain what their needs are, what solutions they'd buy, and then get out there and trial-by-fire it (and crash and burn repeatedly). The first time I did extensive cold-calling was in hospitality a few years ago, and I found it surprisingly easy to get meetings with the heads of Sales/Marketing and General Managers of Hotels. As I started calling cold other professionals, executives, and business owners (and later, government officials and people in the nonprofit world), I was repeatedly surprised by how receptive they'd be if you're prepared.

When you do reach out to people, start by doing relatively a lot of research upfront and look to get directly in contact with whoever is in charge if possible. Emphasize you did your research, be respectful, say you've identified something that could be valuable, and ask if you can meet and talk sometime. Saying you're a student will probably help by making it seem low-risk and kind to meet you, so definitely play card. You've got few advantages when you're just starting out, so use all of them that you've got!

When you get meetings, try not to talk too much. Ask lots of questions.

Frequently, from very busy people you'll get something like, "Okay, so what do you want?" Or, "Okay, so what do you have for me?"

Don't start singing and dancing at that point, it's a road to nowhere. You can almost always say, "I've got some ideas, but first I need to figure out what you're already doing and what your goals are so I can tailor what I've got. Can I ask a couple questions I prepared?" You'll almost always get yes. Do make sure you've prepared questions in advance. (Gitomer and Holmes both cover how to ask good questions.)

It's not rocket surgery, but you will likely screw it up about 10,000 times more often than you'd like when you're starting. But even with that, you can get pretty good at it in a year or so of dedicated effort if you keep at it.

If jumping right into selling is a little too intense-seeming for you, you don't need to do "hard" selling of particular products or services to gain experience in selling. At some point, you'll want to get comfortable particularly with asking for orders and getting checks written to you, because that can unnerve some otherwise skilled people and it's important if you want to own your own business. But as a training ground, "selling" educational initiatives, student initiatives, connecting with your professors or local government, promoting worthy causes, or otherwise trying to employ sales skills to accomplish things in the world will build you a good foundation. Again -- you'll need to get comfortable handling and asking for money sooner or later, and it's absolutely crucial to do so -- but you can start in something lower-intensity and with a higher success rate if you think it'll help your learning curve.

Godspeed and stay in touch. I've heard Croatia is beautiful -- maybe I'll drop you a line if I visit sometime.

Sebastian