Take a few minutes to imagine yourself as an online entrepreneur. Are you working from a tropical location with a laptop or just working from home?

There’s no doubt the work can be solitary. There’s no water cooler for office gossip or any extended power lunches. On the flip side, you’re motivated to work quickly and efficiently because once the work is finished you have time to play or pursue other interests.

There are some specific skills you need to succeed in online business. The good news is most people with corporate experience have them, they’re just untapped or unused in their current job.

Productivity

This sounds like a no-brainer but online business work is usually high-focused with a specific goal in mind for a certain period of time. The work is often handled differently from a traditional eight hour work day.

When you’re starting out, it helps to be someone who can concentrate rather than multi-task. Being able to focus allows you to produce your best work. If you’re doing this outside your corporate job, figuring out some quiet time when you’re most alert is the best time to get in a few hours of high-quality online or offline work.

Belief in Your Business

You need to have confidence and passion in your business. If you don’t have a passionate belief in what you’re doing, who will?

Even if you’re a creating an online business to sell in the future, the passion still must be there to the extent that you can communicate your unique selling proposition to your prospects. You have to believe in what you’re building and that it will have a positive impact on someone else.

Not only will it make the business more pleasurable to work on, the result will be a better experience for the end user.

Coping with Failure

Frequently failing to meet a deadline or a sales goal in the corporate world can arrest a career.

But online business owners fail all the time. They’re not bad at the work they do, they’re discovering what works and what doesn’t in their particular business. They adjust and adapt their procedures so they don’t fail next time. Then they move on. They see failure for what it is; a simple lesson and a signal for course correction.

This is not an exhaustive list, as many other qualities depend on what kind of online business you’re running. As you can see, there’s some overlap with your current office skill set. If you’re considering online income as a contingency plan for job security you’re already part-way there in terms of skills. A lot of the rest is adjusting your mindset.