What SNHU degree do you need to become a business owner?

Owning a business is an exciting prospect. To turn your dream idea into reality, you need passion for the goods or services you sell and the drive to get your new business off the ground.

While taking an idea and building it from scratch can be rewarding, it can also be challenging. Continuing your education can set you up for success. For example, the skills and knowledge you learn by pursuing a business degree can directly affect your ability to start and grow a company. The network you can build with your professors and classmates will help give you and potential clients exposure.

In addition to growing your network, getting a business degree can help you improve your writing skills and learn new social media marketing skills. They take all the risk if the business fails, and reap the rewards when it does.

What degree do I need to start my own business?

When starting your own business, having a business degree under your belt can be beneficial in two key ways:

1. Tailoring your degree to your interests can help you get your business off the ground.
2. By completing coursework, you will learn new skills or strengthen existing ones. Choosing the right degree for your needs and goals can have a strong and positive impact on your business success.

While earning any degree in a field that interests you is important, earning a business degree in particular can help you leverage your existing business skills and develop new ones. For example, studying business administration at bachelor’s or master’s level will give you the opportunity to learn the core skills needed to start and run any type of business and to specialize your training if you wish. Some of the relevant business degree programs that are currently in demand

• Entrepreneurship. If you know that starting your own business is your goal, this may be the most suitable business degree. Coursework for this degree concentration may include more practical skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and leadership, as well as more practical skills such as accounting, finance and communication.

• Finance If the financial landscape of the business world appeals to you, this degree may be a good fit. Coursework for this degree concentration may include topics in corporate finance, financial markets, and financial regulations and ethics.

• Organizational leadership. This degree focuses on the principles of change management and team dynamics, as well as how to lead teams towards a unified vision. Coursework in an organizational leadership degree concentration may include topics in accounting, business law, marketing, and strategic management.

• Operations management. If your business idea is in manufacturing or warehousing, this degree concentration can be very useful. Coursework for this degree concentration may include topics on ethics and globalization, as well as trends in supply chain management, continuous improvement tools and techniques, and operations management.

• Management of special work. Strong project managers need communication, negotiation, leadership and critical thinking skills. A business administration degree in project management combines all these disciplines. Coursework focused on a project management degree may include logistics, inventory control, production planning, and forecasting.

What qualifications are needed to become a business owner?

While anyone can become a business owner if they put their mind to it, there are some important skills and traits that a willingness to learn can be important to successful business ownership, especially when starting out. These include:

• Love and knowledge In the area where you want to start a business. As you work full speed ahead building your business, you want to make sure you choose a product or service that makes the most sense for you.

• Desire to learn new thingssuch as business accounting, business law and marketing. These may not be areas where you excel, but the right business degree can teach you skills in each of these key areas.

• Ability to solve problems. Business owners deal with big and small problems every day. Focus and creative thinking — both skills learned in business school — can help a lot.

• pivot ability. The economy is constantly changing, and your skills and willingness to change with it can be the difference between success and failure.

• Energy and commitment. Owning your own business takes a lot of work and persistence. The drive to push forward every day is key to creating a thriving business.

In the end, there are no real criteria other than what you need to start a business. “You have to know your product, understand finances and be willing to work hard,” he said. Ann SanokFaculty Leader of Business Programs at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU).

Ultimately, anyone can own a business if they “choose it and get into the right industry,” he said Nick Stelitano ’12founder of Dillinger Research and Applied Data and alumnus of SNHU.

What skills do you need to own a business?

There are core business skills such as finance and accounting knowledge, project management and marketing that can help you run a business. But there are also transferable skills that apply to any type of business and can help you run your business successfully. These skills include:

• Strong work ethic. As a business owner, you are responsible for the ultimate success or failure of your business and with it, the livelihood of the people who work for you. Since starting a business requires providing many goods or services, it is important that you are willing to work as hard as necessary to keep the business moving forward.

• Ability to withstand adversity. According to CEO Stelitano, they may face “high highs and low lows.” “You have to be able to try and keep perspective through the ups and downs.” Being able to balance the bad with the good is critical not only for business, but also for your team’s morale.

• Ability to lead and manage people. People skills, communication skills, and a willingness to humbly admit gaps in your own knowledge and expertise make you a good leader. “As a business owner, you wear many hats, especially in the early days,” he said Melina EatonAssociate Dean of Business Programs at SNHU. “Being adept at hiring and managing the right people to support you in areas where you are not strong will be critical to your success.”

Is a Masters Degree Necessary to Own a Business?

No, a master’s degree is not necessary to own a business. In fact, you don’t need a degree to become a business owner. Many successful businesses have been started by people without any higher education.

But completing a master’s program in business, marketing or entrepreneurship “will help you build a broader set of skills that will benefit you as you build your business,” Eaton says. These skills include marketing, written and verbal communication and HR skills, among others. But the reality is that a master’s degree in business — like a master’s in business administration — is still highly valuable “because it can give you valuable skills that other entrepreneurs may lack,” Sanok said.

While some fields, such as nursing or counseling, require a master’s degree to obtain a professional license, continuing your education can give you the head start to own your own business, giving you financial knowledge as well as skills in organizational leadership. and knowledge of laws and regulations. Ultimately, “a graduate business degree can help you avoid pitfalls, reduce risk, and provide experienced industry contacts,” Sanok said. Those contacts can help you build your network and find clients down the road.

Which degree is best for business?

One of the best things about studying business is the opportunity to tailor your degree to your personal and career goals. While any business degree can help prepare you to own your own business, it’s important to choose the concentration that best suits your business needs. “Education is a powerful signal to others that you’ve done the work on yourself and that you’re worth a bet,” Stellitano said.

When choosing a business degree, be sure to focus on a business area that interests you, and pay attention to the coursework that does not apply. “The hardest courses for me were math,” Eaton said. But in some ways, those were the most valuable courses because they made me realize an area where I knew I needed support in my own business. Taking courses outside her comfort zone helped Eaton to have a baseline of understanding of various business areas so she knew what questions to ask her professors to develop expertise in areas she lacked.

A business degree is, of course, an obvious choice. Related degrees, such as accounting degrees, finance degrees, and marketing degrees, are also good options.

It’s also a good idea to think outside the box. Say your business idea is to open a clothing boutique. “A degree in fashion merchandising can be useful for that,” Sanok said. That degree teaches you the ins and outs of the retail world and how to improve sales of clothing and accessories.

Or, you might want to start a non-profit organization to help the homeless. Majoring in the social sciences or getting a business degree with a social science concentration — such as an industrial-organizational psychology concentration — may be the way to go. “Remember, no major or degree will cover the challenges you’ll face in starting and running a business, so study what you need and go from there,” Sanok said.

Emotion and passion are needed

Starting your own business can be one of the most exciting and stressful things. “You need passion and frustration and a willingness to fail, to find out what happened and then be willing to try again,” Eaton said. But your education can give you a solid foundation of skills and tools to help you succeed and deal with those inevitable failures.

Owning a business ultimately depends on bringing all your skills together and being able to use them strategically in building your business. If you’re interested in honing your existing skills, learning new ones, and forging your own path, a business degree in your chosen field will definitely help you get there.

Learn more about SNHU’s online entrepreneurship degree: what courses you’ll take, the skills you’ll learn, and how to request information about the program.

Marie Morganelli, Ph.D. He is a freelance content writer and editor.