Entrepreneurs need to have a “go get it” attitude. People can start their own business regardless of their age and gender. Waves and waves of people seem to have a dedication to taking their business off the ground and often times their ideas hold potential too. However, a surprising number of people fail to follow through. Ask them what they have done so far to make their concept into reality and they will have nothing to say.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. Abraham Lincoln
If you want to be successful, learning from those who already are will help steepen your learning curve with lessons that you can bypass learning from experience since they already have. All successful entrepreneurs have the following qualities in common.
If you want to excel yourself as an entrepreneur, it is important to integrate the following traits into your personality to make yourself a strong and successful entrepreneur.
1. Passion
Passion couldn’t be anywhere on the list except at the top. It is important to know what motivates you. You need to be aware of what drives you to get up early every morning and to do your best every day. Having passion is the ability to stay up all night because you have yet to finish what you were working on, and ensuring that it gets completed, and understanding that this happens quite often, while not getting burned out of this continuation, is a true passion. Success is a product of determination and passion.
You need to value time because it is undoubtedly the most valuable asset of your life. If you are passionate about your startup idea and are passionate about it, you will utilize your time to work toward making it into a reality and do whatever it takes to get start your business off. Whether you are pitching your idea to venture capitalists or building a prototype on your own, ask yourself if you are passionate about it enough to work late nights and early morning consistently.
2. Brave enough to take risks
All entrepreneurs must take a leap of faith. As an entrepreneur, you must familiarize yourself with uncertainty and be ready as well as comfortable with embracing it. However, entrepreneurs are always prepared with alternative plans too. You must always take “calculated risks”.
This means you must always have plans, resources, and the bandwidth to tackle uncertainty head-on. It is ludicrous to make unreasonably moves in a futile attempt to take necessary business risks.
Risk assessment is an integral part of an entrepreneur’s mode of action. When confronted with risk, you must ask yourself whether the risk is worth the cost, time and money. You must also consider the aftermath of the risky venture if it does not work out. Only move go ahead with the move if you can overcome the negative implications.
3. Perseverance
Obstacles are an unavoidable and arguably necessary part of entrepreneurship. It takes time and consistent effort to build a business. One of the most common mistakes that entrepreneurs make is giving into their impatience and having unrealistic expectations to get their business off the ground overnight.
You need to learn how to handle a “no”. You must have a tunnel vision to where you want to be and until you are there, you must never lose sight of the big picture. Great entrepreneurs have gotten shut down time after time, but have still strived through the refusals and let downs. As an entrepreneur, you need to be the one who is the most motivated about your business.
There will be times when you’ll feel discouraged for irrelevant and inexcusable reasons but until you show an undiminished persistence in your efforts to make things happen, you will fail, unfortunately. If things don’t seem to happen one way, find another but never give up.
4. Adaptability
Though staying uncompromisingly dedicated important for an entrepreneur, you must also be adaptable and flexible. You must always be receptive to the market dynamics. The changes in the needs of the market or your client will also require a certain degree of flexibility on your end. An entrepreneurial venture is not just about following through with an idea practically; it involves making a successful business from it.
As an entrepreneur, it is up to you to make the necessary adjustments to customize and optimize your business with the changing needs of the market. Without having a barometer, entrepreneurs lose touch with their clients and the markets, which in turns leads to failure in offering customer satisfaction. Businesses can either adapt to their changing market environment or perish.
5. Resourcefulness
Being resourceful is an extremely valuable asset for any entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs create a business and must be able to do all they can to make their venture successful. You must know, if not learn, how to make the most of what you have. Often times, you cannot have all that you need when you need it to move forward with your idea.
The key is to be able to utilize all that you have to the fullest. Having the right connections with people having a variety of skills can come in handy. This is why good peoples-persons make great entrepreneurs since they are able to reach out to those with the required skill when needed.
6. Knowledgeable about market and product
Entrepreneurs can either create a business out of nothing, or they can improve an already existing product after running into frustrations about certain shortcomings of the product, or its design. Until you are aware of the product you are offering inside out, you will not be able to determine the change it is going to make. Consequently, you would not be able to convey this to the potential customer either.
You must be vigilant about the market. Being at the top of your game as an entrepreneur means to understand your competitors, and the market itself. Having the ability to adapt, improvise, and overcome is the most vital part of staying ahead. These extraneous factors can be the reason your product fails, so don’t take them for granted.
Sources:
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/101014/10-characteristics-successful-entrepreneurs.asp
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232991
