Starting a business is a lot of work. Anyone who tells you it’s not is either lying or has never actually started one themselves. The hours are long, sacrifices are great and you are assaulted with new problems and challenges every day with seemingly no end. If you don’t have the constitution or characteristics of an entrepreneur that can make you weather these things, your business could implode on you faster than it started.
Multiple factors go into starting a successful business venture, including a strong concept and initial funding. But, perhaps the most important ingredient is the entrepreneur. These are individuals who must transform their ideas into a fully operational business.
What makes a good entrepreneur?
If you seek a challenge wrought with risk but with tremendous potential reward both financially and morally, read on friend, for you have the characteristics that can make you a successful entrepreneur.
Successful entrepreneurs, from Henry Ford to Steve Jobs, share similar characteristics to each other.
Traits of an entrepreneur
To see how many characteristics of an entrepreneur do you share with the top successful businessmen, lets delve into them
Strong leadership qualities
One of the important traits of an entrepreneur is strong leadership quality. Leaders are born, not made. A leader is someone who values the goal over any unpleasantness the work it takes to get there may bring. But a leader is more than just tenacious. A leader has strong communication skills and the ability to amass a team of people toward a common goal in a way that the entire team is motivated and works effectively to get there as a team. He earns the trust and respect of his team by demonstrating positive work qualities and confidence, then fostering an environment that proliferates these values through the team. A leader who nobody will follow is not a leader of anything at all.
Self-motivated
Business entrepreneurs in history that leaders are typically pretty intense personalities. Nobody makes progress by sitting back and waiting for it to find them. Successful people go out into the world and invoke change through their actions. Often you will learn that successful entrepreneurs are driven by a more complete vision or goal than simply the task at hand and able to think on a more universal level in that regard. They are also often very passionate about their ideas that drive toward these ultimate goals and are notoriously difficult to steer off the course.
Ethics and integrity
Mostly, business sustains because there is a common, understood code of ethics universally that underpins the very fabric upon which commerce is conducted. Successful, sustainable business people maintain the highest standards of integrity. With importance in working with clients or leading a team, effective leaders admit to any error made and offer solutions to correct rather than lie about, blame others for, or dwell on the problem itself.
Ready for failure
One of the qualities of an entrepreneur is risk taking. They have all gotten over one very significant hurdle and are not afraid of failure. They accept that, even if they make the best decision possible, things don’t always go according to plan and may fail anyhow. If you’ve heard the old adage, “nothing ventured, nothing gained,” that’s exactly what it’s saying: do not be afraid to fail, put it out there and give it your best shot. Again, there’s not one successful entrepreneur out there sitting on his couch asking, “what if?”
Continued innovation
Characteristics of successful entrepreneurs is almost defined by their drive to constantly develop new ideas and improve on existing processes. Successful people welcome change and often depend on it to improve their effectiveness as leaders and ultimately the success of their businesses as many business concepts rely on improving products, services and processes in order to win business.
Ready to learn
Characteristics of an entrepreneur that one should imbibe is there is always a lesson to be learned. They are rarely afraid to ask questions when it means the answers will provide them insight they can then leverage to effect. Successful entrepreneurs are confident, but not egotistical to the point that their bull-headedness is a weakness that continually prohibits them from seeing a bigger picture and ultimately making the best decisions for the business.
Competitive spirit
Entrepreneurs enjoy a challenge and they like to win. They would have to since starting a business is pretty much one of the biggest challenges a person can take on in their lifetime. In business it’s a constant war with competition to win business and grow market share. It’s also a personal challenge to use all of this to focus inward and grow a business from nothing into a powerhouse that either makes a lot of money or is so effective that it is sold or acquired for a profit as well.
Strong network
It’s always a team work and to know that is an important characteristic to a successful entrepreneur. In almost every case, entrepreneurs never get to success alone. The best understand it takes a network of contacts, business partners, financial partners, peers and resources to succeed. Any good leader is only as good as those who support him.
