Entrepreneurship is not for everybody- working long hours while dealing with people who have different temperaments and personalities can be a daunting task for some of the most mentally strong people. Of course, entrepreneurship entails much more than working long hours and dealing with people. To have a shot at being a successful entrepreneur, there are some traits and characteristics that you must possess. In this post, we discuss 10 of the most important characteristics of successful entrepreneurs.
Creativity
Creativity is one of the key characteristics that an entrepreneur must have in order to be successful. Creativity is very integral to problem-solving and finding solutions when you run into a brick wall.
A successful entrepreneur uses creativity as a tool for meandering the business world effectively. A successful entrepreneur often creates new opportunities in the sector that they play. In that sense, they need to be creative to achieve that goal, thereby underling the importance of creativity to the entrepreneurial process.
Open-Mindedness
Another strong trait of successful entrepreneurs is that they maintain an open mind towards things. They quickly understand that they do not know everything, and as such always keep an open mind in order to learn more and push the need. If you are someone who is typically close-minded and do not bother about the opinion of others, then you may not become a successful entrepreneur.
Risk Tolerance
An entrepreneur success can oftentimes be tied to their risk appetite. Most top entrepreneurs often travel the uncharted road to sometimes bring us innovative products and solutions that radically change the way we live our lives. A successful entrepreneur, therefore, typically has a high-risk tolerance and takes on risks to be able to succeed. The story goes that when Jeff Bezos started Amazon, people laughed at him for wanting to sell books online. Today, he is one of the richest men on the planet and has grown Amazon into the top eCommerce platform in the world. Risk breeds rewards when done right.
Passion
It is a well-known fact that the early days of entrepreneurship can be difficult and sometimes frustrating. One has to be very passionate about what they do to find the strength to go on. To be fair, as an entrepreneur, you will likely meet some roadblocks on the way to success, and passion is very important to keep trying.
According to statistics released by the American Bureau of Labor Statistics (LBS), about 20% of businesses fail during their first year in operation. To avert being a part of this statistic, it is cogent that an entrepreneur has passion.
Innovation
Very close to the characteristic of creativity is innovation. In fact, creativity is very key to the process of innovation. While creativity is thinking of new ways to solve problems, innovation is finding new ways to do things. Innovation is the hallmark of successful entrepreneurship. True, one can become an entrepreneur by doing things the same way it has always been done, but there needs to be innovation in the processes of doing the said business for it to be truly successful.
Focus
Focus is another very important characteristic of a successful entrepreneur. As we already established, the road of entrepreneurship is often riddled with disappointments, failures, and sometimes fear. Having the ability to focus during these intimidating times is one of the key characteristics that successful entrepreneurs exhibit.
When Elon Musk started Tesla, he poured all of his life savings into it and by his admission, he was not sure that the company will become successful but with focus and persistence, he has turned the company into the market leader for electric vehicles.
Empathy
Empathy is the ability to be able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. It is an important trait for successful entrepreneurs because building strong products and solutions in a sense requires the entrepreneur to be able to think like the end-user. Having empathy as an entrepreneur should transcend just building products and solutions. You will be typically dealing with different people from different backgrounds as an entrepreneur. So, having empathy will help you treat everybody kindly thereby building a strong business culture that is primed for success.
Confidence
As an aspiring entrepreneur, you should make sure that you build your confidence, after all, people will be able to see through it if you lack confidence and as a result, they may not trust your product or solution. It is very important to note here that confidence is not arrogance. Confidence simply means that you believe in the product that you are selling, while arrogance on the other hand comes from a know-it-all stance. The first step towards gaining confidence as an entrepreneur is by making sure that your product comes as advertised on the tin. When you have a strong product or solution, chances are that you will be more confident talking about it generally.
Decision Making
As an entrepreneur, you are likely going to be faced with difficult scenarios from time to time, and as the leader of the enterprise, it is going to rest on your shoulders to make those difficult decisions from time to time. It is true that as a leader, you may be able to call on the expertise of others when looking to make a decision, but the truth is that the onus is on you to make the final decision. Therefore, having strong decision-making skills is very important to the success of entrepreneurs.
Social Skills
In your entrepreneurship journey, you will be probably interfacing with a lot of different people and to succeed with this, you are going to need to have social skills. We are not in any way saying that people that are socially challenged cannot be entrepreneurs, however, if you want to be successful as an entrepreneur, you need to develop social skills so as to be able to communicate effectively with customers and different stakeholders.
Conclusion
Entrepreneurs are the fabric of growth and development in our society. Therefore, we need entrepreneurs to help us find newer, more exciting ways to do things. Are you an entrepreneur or an aspiring entrepreneur? The characteristics outlined above are quite integral to your success.
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