5 Characteristics of an Entrepreneur
What is an entrepreneur? According to Wikipedia, a entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a enterprise or venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome. To translate it into simple terms, an entrepreneur owns a business of which the entrepreneur is responsible for the risks and outcomes. To be a entrepreneur, one has to possess defined characteristics of an entrepreneur.
What are the characteristics of an entrepreneur? Are this characteristics vital? It’s a no-brainer actually, of course it’s important! Your chances of business success is significantly lower if you do not possess these characteristics. The characteristics of a entrepreneur consists of:
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Good leadership
Leadership is a rare characteristic. It is very hard to find individuals with good leadership qualities. This is because not many people dare to take responsibility, or take the lead. Alan Keith of Genetech once said, “Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.” Precise and right to the point.
To be a good entrepreneur, you must be a leader. You must be able to guide, direct, influence and affect people. This way, all your business problems can be overcome with ease.
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Risk taker
All businesses involve risks. There is not a single business in the known world right now that is 100% risk-free. You can’t make money if you are not willing to take risks. If you are not willing to take risks, then you are bound to fail in the business world.
But, a successful entrepreneur does not take all the risks he faces. All risks must be evaluated first, before taking the dive. You don’t want to dive into some unknown waters, would you?
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Honest and Trustworthy
This is an undeniable characteristic that all entrepreneurs MUST have. Let’s face it, would you give your money to some stranger that guarantees you to make 1000% profit on the street? No you would not. Maybe if that stranger asked for $10 dollars or he convinced you with hard facts, you would, but that’s out of the case. As the saying goes, “Honesty is the best policy.” Every one likes honest and trustworthy people.
Being honest and trustworthy is considered one of your most important characteristics. It would take years to build your credibility and honesty, but it would take just a few seconds to totally destroy your image should you do something dishonest.
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Your Passion
Your passion fuels your actions. And your actions make money. Any entrepreneur should be passionate about their business to be able to perform well. You must maintain your enthusiasm and interest in your field. For example, when making money online is your passion, you don’t feel working even if you stick yourself to the monitor 24hours a day.
Your passion makes it easy for you to act. Working no longer means working when you work with your passion. It just means doing something you like. If you like to play games and playing games are your 12-hour job, it certainly wouldn’t feel like working 12 hours a day.
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Intelligence
No, I don’t mean you need to have exceptionally high IQ to success. But what I mean is that an entrepreneur should be intelligent and witty in all your business dealings. You have to show that you are concentrated and 100% focused on your job to be able to gain your clients’ respect and trust.
The world is a mean one. Scammers are out there somewhere, preying for a weak target every day. To resist being scammed or being duped, an entrepreneur should be smart and be alert of who you are dealing with. If not, you would eventually suffer some uncalculated losses.
These are one of the few characteristics of a successful business entrepreneur. These characteristics will, no doubt, help you overcome obstacles you may have to face when you are operating a business. And without these characteristics, your business may eventually fail and you will have to bear the losses.
What if you have the main characteristics of an entrepreneur already? Then study the market, find a solution or make a product, get some capital and you’re ready to make a killing in the ever-changing world of business.
4 Qualities That All Entrepreneurs Must Have
What comes to your mind when the word “entrepreneurship” is mentioned?
The common perception that most people have towards entrepreneurs is that these ‘Lucky Bastards’ are risk-takers who dresses in beautiful suits & drives a cool car. Do we have such ‘Lucky Bastards’ in the employment world as well? Of course, there are! I’ve met lots of people like this who are working within MNCs as well. The only difference between an entrepreneur & a employee is there is no qualification process or interview to be an entrepreneur. It’s only a smart decision taken by a individual followed by massive actions!
I’ve been the world of self-employment & business for six years now & today I would like to share the four qualities that all entrepreneurs or even aspiring entrepreneurs must have that I’ve learnt over the years:
1) Determination
While its easy to start a business, it’s extremely difficult to sustain it & overcome challenges all the time. Like it or not, there will be challenges & failures all the time! I’ve once attended a motivational talk, and the speaker asked, “What will you do if you know that you can’t fail?”
Honestly speaking, I find that complete BS!
Of course, you will fail! The more actions you take, the more failures you make! The key is not to avoid failure but to embrace it, knowing that every failures will only make you stronger!
I believe that it’s Passion that gets you started. But it’s Determination that gets you going. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you have gotta have the stamina and drive to finish what you start!
2) Humility
Over the years, I’ve learnt not to judge a book by its cover. You learn something from someone everywhere. I’ll rather know that I don’t know rather than acting as if I know it all. Criticisms are free feedbacks for you to move towards greater heights! Always is open-minded to learning new things from people better than you.
Arrogance is a NO-NO! It’s the business killer!
3) Decisiveness
Nothing gets done unless smart decisions are made instantly. Developing a business is a repeated process of information gathering followed by decision-making. That’s why it’s important for an entrepreneur to upgrade his mind constantly by reading good books, attending good seminars & having conversations with smart intellectual people. You never know when you are required to make a major decision in only three seconds.
Most importantly, as an entrepreneur, always take responsibility for your decisions. Never blame, justify or give excuses! If it didn’t work, it didn’t work. Period!
One of my personal mantra that I remind myself all the time is this – whatever decisions that I’ve made is wrong. It’s up to me to decide how I can make it right!
4) Be a Strategist
An entrepreneur is required to be creative & able to evaluate every aspect of the business and the market it operates. My friend, a very successful local entrepreneur once shared with me this, every single day his mind is working as he analyses whether things are working as they should and how to improve the business systems. The best business owners have minds that think laterally and aren’t afraid to change radically the way they do things – based on good analysis, of course!
Entrepreneurship is not about fame & fortune. I’ve no doubt that some entrepreneurs focuses on that but generally, successful entrepreneurs don’t make headlines. They would rather be low-profile & deliver results! They dedicate their time to create clarity on their vision, headhunt talents for their core team, improve their business systems, think of ways to value add their employees & customers, and focus all their time towards a greater purpose!
Well… What I’ve shared above are all my personal opinions and my perspective towards the world of entrepreneurship. The bad news is… Most of these qualities are easier said than done. The good news is, all of them can be learned! If you have a strong ‘why,’ you will find the ways to get all the ‘hows’!
