4 Skills You Need To Level Up Your Business & Build Generational Wealth

Growing a business is often as trying as it is rewarding. Most of us have entered uncharted waters as we work to turn our hobbies into hustles and into full-blown businesses. This can sometimes lead us to feeling overwhelmed or underwater.

[SEE ALSO: Grants & Resources For Black-Owned Beauty Brands]

But there are skills we can develop and resources that we can access for sustainable growth. In our latest edition of “The Business Of Black Beauty,” we chatted with Kenya McKnight-Ahad, founder of the Black Women’s Wealth Alliance, to learn how to level up as an entrepreneur and how to build generational wealth.

McKnight-Ahad is an award-winning thought leader and change maker whose alliance has provided more than 750K in grants along with education and resources to help Black women achieve wealth literacy by focusing not on just how we spend money, but how we can leverage it.

Here, she shares four keys that can help us open the doors to building successful brands — and legacies.

1. Financial & Wealth Literacy

McKnight-Ahad said the most important thing is financial literacy, i.e., understanding your personal and business’ bottom line. “Most people have no idea how much money they need to bring every month to secure their own household and then take care of their other responsibilities [and their] businesses,” she says. “If you don’t what your bottom line is you don’t know what you’re striving for.”

In addition, she encourages building wealth literacy, which she says is about more than just homeownership. She says to also look at diversifying your income streams with investments and robust life insurance (that covers more than your burial costs).

Not sure where to start? Reach out to your business banker — and if you don’t have one, get one.

2. Accounting & Legal Support

As we get our finances in order, McKnight-Ahad says many of us will need support in organizing it. “Accounting and legal support…that’s critical for women because our personal finances are generally tied to our business finances,” she shares. “And this is part of where the strategies are — there is a way that you need to do things so that there is a paper trail. That accounting is critical because it plays a role in your taxes, it plays a role in your lending and your access to different opportunities.”

This may seem cost-prohibitive for start-ups, but you can find government and local councils that provide complementary or community-based services, including the Small Business Administration and the IRS, as well as accessing accounting software like QuickBooks.

3. Administrative and Communication Skills

Being able to properly communicate your brand’s mission, products, and the work you do are also key to success. “You don’t have to be the expert,” says McKnight-Ahad, “but you do need to know how to send an email…how to have a conversation.”

She adds that administrative functions are just as important: “You do need to know how to do an invoice…how to fill out an application..[and] have your files and documents organized.”

4. Social Capital

And, even once you’ve got the above three skills down, she says we should all focus on raising our social capital. “This is the last, but biggest, thing,” says McKnight-Ahad. Most of the Black women entrepreneurs she has worked with “don’t know enough about who and where they don’t have the relationships to bridge the gaps,” she says.

Social capital is your network of relationships that you can tap into for not just everyday living but to level up your business. The problem is many of us have smaller, lateral networks that don’t allow us to access knowledge or resources to raise the bar.

Increasing your social capital can be achieved by joining groups and councils related to your field — and often, getting out of your comfort zone, to help expand your networks.

Press play below for a clip of our conversation with McKnight-Ahad.

For more information on the Black Women’s Wealth Alliance, visit bwwa-us.com.