common characteristics of the best entrepreneurs

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Common Characteristics of the Best

Entrepreneurs

Posted by Chris Bennett, on June 19th, 2010

You’ve heard it said that certain careers require certain attitudes to succeed in. Policemen must

possess good physical fitness and courage in the face of danger. Graphic designers must becreative, original thinkers with an artistic mind. Entrepreneurs, too, share several commoncharacteristics that those those who hope to achieve success in the field should strive to emulate.Today we explore seven crucial characteristics of the best entrepreneurs that anyone thinkingabout starting a business ought to consider.

Perseverance

In the business world, problems and complications are a part of every day life. Especially in theearly days of a company, entrepreneurs can be said to be climbing a wall of opposition as theystruggle to manage the many goals, tasks and constantly evolving problems of the neworganization. Furthermore, many entrepreneurs fail many times when trying to start a smallbusiness, and the ones who succeed are the ones who can persevere through failure and try again.Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, was publicly thrown out of his own company at age thirty.Fighting thoughts of suicide, Jobs regained his composure and went on to found two other very

successful companies, NeXt and Pixar. Later, Jobs was recruited to come back to apple andrescue the company from the brink of extinction. His efforts demonstrate perseverance inentrepreneurship better than perhaps any other.

Task management

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The ability to see an end goal, break it down into many tasks, and see those tasks through tocompletion is a crucial skill of successful entrepreneurs. This skill is one many of us learned inhigh school and college. When you had a big research paper due, you knew you had to researchthe topic, find time to write the paper, compile a bibliography, proof read it, and turn it in ontime, all the while also working a job and managing work from other classes.

Similarly, you may come into your office one day to find that not only must you prepare apresentation for a big name contract, but must also move everything out of the main office inpreparation for a new hardwood floor installation, while also making sure that the design guysfinish their website template on time. Rarely will these things work out without any issue, andthat is when you must manage the tasks and figure out how to make them all happen.

Courage

It is typical for many people to discourage you in the early days of your new project. This can beeven more painful when your first few projects either fail or achieve very little success.Disparaging remarks can be hurtful to the morale of a new entrepreneur trying to get his or hernew project off the ground. It is then that you must possess the courage to tune out those who donot share your vision, ignoring the nay-sayers and pressing forward on nothing more than thestrength of your own determination.

It takes true courage to reject social pressure and to try to build something truly outstanding, butthis is a trait that all successful entrepreneurs must have in order to survive in the business world.When Larry Paige and Sergey Brin were beginning work on Google, they made the decision tomax out their credit card and drain their bank accounts in order to fund the nascent project. Such

a decision surely must have attracted some negativity from peers and family, but the two showedtrue courage in seeing the project through to the billion dollar empire it is today.

Social Skills

Rare is the entrepreneur who achieves huge success completely on his own. Even AndreyTernovskiy, the 17 year old founder of the wildly popular yet incredibly simple ChatRoulette website had to take investment money from his family to get the project rolling. Whether you

need help with design, programming, finance, or investment, if you plan on going into business,you must possess the ability to approach other people and convince them of the worth of youridea. More than just a friendly attitude, you must somehow find a way to bend their vision tomatch your own so that they come to see the brilliance of you work in the same way you do. Thisis by no means an easy skill to master, but it is one that will help you greatly as you struggle toput your new company together.

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Negotiation Skills

There is a saying among business savvy people that “everything is negotiable.” While this mightnot be exactly true, it does illustrate that most people in business will try to negotiate with you asyou strive to put deals together. Unless you possess solid negotiation skills, you might end up

getting the short end of the stick. For example, if you hope to put together a deal where a skilledprogrammer works on your project without pay in exchange for equity, you might only want togive up 5%, but he may be thinking more along the lines of 15%. Unless you possess a strongwill and an ability to negotiate in a time of need, you’ll end up giving away more of the company

than you had hoped.

Internal Motivation

A key difference between running a business and working a job is that no one will be pressuringyou to complete your tasks when you run your own business. Instead, you must be completelyself-motivated to do everything it takes to get the work done. In the beginning, you may beworking a day job or attending college classes at the same time. This means that after taking careof the work owe to those obligations, you must still find enough energy and determination to sitdown and put in long hours for your business.

If you are the sort of person who needs a boss hawking over their shoulder in order to remain ontask, or feels that you work best inside the known structure of a job, entrepreneurship will not bean easy life path for you. When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg began work on the project,he was attending classes at the prestigious Harvard University. By finding the drive to not only

juggle demanding course work but also to develop a groundbreaking social platform, Zuckerburgdemonstrated rock solid internal motivation.

Opportunism

Sometimes the best ideas are ones that are already showing huge success. As an example, whenJack Dorsey launched Twitter in 2007, Facebook’s status feature was already in use and gaining

popularity. No doubt seeing the opportunity in the feature, Dorsey and his team made it thecentral feature of Twitter. This little social web application has skyrocketed in popularity, being

regularly used by web surfers, celebrities, and even companies for marketing purposes. Twitterwas recently valued at $1 billion after raising close to $100 million in venture funding. Thelesson to be learned is clear: if you give the public what it wants, you stand a great shot atsuccess.

Successful Entrepreneurs by Judith L. Glick-Smith

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According to Webster's dictionary, an entrepreneur is one whoorganizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.Entrepreneurs live in the future. They have creative personalities, areinnovative, and thrive on change. But what makes an entrepreneursuccessful? Research done by Southern Methodist University's Cox

School of Business came up with common characteristics of over 200successful entrepreneurs. Successful was defined as being in businessfor at least 5 years and who has gross revenues of at least $1 million.

Common Traits in a Successful Entrepreneur

1. Good health. Successful entrepreneurs must work long hours forextended periods of time. When they get sick, they recover quickly.

2. A Need to Control and Direct. They prefer environments where theyhave maximum authority and responsibility and do not work well intraditionally structured organizations. This is not about power, though.Entrepreneurs have a need to create and achieve by having control over

events.

3. Self-confidence. Findings showed that as long as entrepreneurs werein control, they were relentless in pursuit of their goals. If they lostcontrol, they quickly lost interest in the undertaking.

4. Sense of Urgency. They have a never-ending sense of urgency to dosomething. This corresponds with a high energy level. Many enjoyindividual sports rather than team sports. Inactivity makes themimpatient.

5. Comprehensive Awareness. They have a comprehensive awareness of a total situation and are aware of all the ramifications involved in adecision.

6. Realistic Outlook. There is a constant need to know the status of things. They may or may not be idealistic, but they are honest andstraightforward and expect others to be the same.

7. Conceptual Ability. They have superior conceptual abilities. Thishelps entrepreneurs identify relationships in complex situations. Chaosdoes not bother them because they can conceptualize order. Problems

are quickly identified and solutions offered. The drawback is that thismay not translate well to interpersonal problems.

8. Low Need for Status. Their need for status is met throughachievement not through material possessions.

9. Objective Approach. They take an objective approach to personalrelationships and are more concerned with the performance and



accomplishment of others than with feelings. They keep their distancepsychologically and concentrate on the effectiveness of operations.

10. Emotional Stability. They have the stability to handle stress frombusiness and from personal areas in their lives. Setbacks are seen as

challenges and do not discourage them.

11. Attraction to Challenges. They are attracted to challenges but not torisks. It may look like they are taking high risks, but in actuality theyhave assessed the risks thoroughly.

12. Describing with Numbers. They can describe situations withnumbers. They understand their financial position and can tell at anytime how much they have in receivables and how much they owe.

Written by Judith L. Glick-Smith and reprinted with permission from INTERCOM, the magazine

of the Society for Technical Communication. Arlington, VA U.S.A.

Characteristics Of Entrepreneur


by: Michelle L. Casto

The Department of Labor predicts that the #1 employer in 2010 will be "self." An Internet poll of

25-44 year olds revealed that 90% of them hoped to own their own businesses. A surveyconducted by Ernst and Young found that 75% of influential Americans believe thatentrepreneurship will be the defining trend of the 21st century. Some of the factors that haveattributed to the rise of the modern day entrepreneurial spirit are access to technology, a globaleconomy and corporate stagnation.

Many workers have experienced feelings of discontent - likely due to the upsizing, downsizing,and right-sizing of corporations. But whatever the reason, modern workers want to have morecontrol over the work they do. And they want work that is meaningful and important to them.Now is a great time to become your own boss. In fact, the number of Americans who are runningtheir own businesses will continue to grow as we move further into the millennium.. As workers'

values are changing and people want more time to do the things they love with those they love,having employment that allows for a greater balance in their lives is critical to today's worker.

In fact, it is downright un-American not to believe in the principles of entrepreneurship. Westarted out working on the family farm or in the family-owned grocery store (or other smallbusiness), but as our country became more industrialized, families were pulled apart. We had togo where the work was. We left our homes and hometowns and ventured into the big cities. Bigcompanies, industries and corporations popped up all over the country, and we became reliant on



them to take care of us. Today, with the advent of the computer, we don't even have to leavehome to conduct business. It frees us up to concentrate on the "business of life" again.

The new world of work encourages the entrepreneurial mindset, in that we need to learn to useour imagination to dream up new ideas, challenge assumptions and belief systems to find a better

way, and break through worn-out thinking to create new and innovative products and services.This way of thinking is helpful whether you are working for yourself or someone else.

The characteristics of entrepreneur can be defined as 'anyone who undertakes a commercial risk for profit and/or tackles new challenges'. They are the change agents of society because they seea problem and want to find a way to solve it. They believe in being self-reliant and taking actionto better their communities.

Robert Schwartz's definition: "An entrepreneur is essentially a visualizer and actualizer. He canvisualize something and when he visualizes it, he sees exactly how to make it happen."

Successful entrepreneurs realize that if it is to become a reality, they are the ones to make ithappen. An entrepreneur is someone who is able to continually reinvent himself, and to rethink an entire project (and possibly start all over again) if he finds that something is not right. Thus,someone who has vision, flexibility, and a risk-taking nature fares very well in self-employmentventures.

Of course, like anything else, there are pros and cons to becoming an entrepreneur. One pro isthat you are the boss. The con is that you still have other co-workers, customers, and vendors torely on to get the job done. People who are self-employed often only have illusions of control.For instance, you may think you have everything under control and then something happens thatputs everything out of your control. The difference is that being the boss means that it all comes

down to you. You are fully responsible for your success. For many people this level of personalresponsibility is part of the challenge and enjoyment. The truth is that any successfulentrepreneur rolls with the punches and moves with the winds of change. Take this test to findout if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

Are You the Entrepreneurial Type?


Check if these entrepreneurs characteristics are applicable to you.

Responsible

Hard Worker Risk Taker Creative Flexible Follows through with ideas Personable Optimistic

http://www.4-small-businesses.com/entrepreneur.html






Perceptive Self-confident Determined High degree of energy Innovative

Independent Ability to anticipate needs Effective communicator Responsive to criticism Able to take the lead Learn from mistakes Self-directed

Would you say that you are always, sometimes, or never like these statements:

I am goal and action-oriented.

I am a self-starter. I am self-confident. I am a persistent person. I like taking risks. I am flexible and adaptable when necessary. I am a problem-solver. I am an innovative thinker. I can sell myself and/or my product to others. I accept responsibility for my actions. I enjoy networking. I can function in an environment of uncertainty. I like being in charge. I am willing to devote whatever time and energy it takes to be successful. I am able to see what needs to be done and then do it

Get Smart!

If you checked off and answered 'always' to ten or more questions, you are probably theentrepreneurial type. If you answered sometimes or never to ten or more, you may be better off working for an organization, or you could earn an online mba.

The 5 Key Characteristics of a SuccessfulEntrepreneur

Date Published: 15th February 2008

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Author: Keith Walden

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One of the biggest misconceptions regarding starting your own business is that you are doomed to

failure unless you have a natural aptitude or a natural talent for business. Needless to say, this is an

untrue notion.

While there are a number of skills that you absolutely have to be a successful businessperson, there are

ways for you to develop those skills along the way.

Instead of those skills, what you need to be thinking about are the qualities inherent to all good

entrepreneurs. Here are 5 critical skills or characteristics you will need to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Vision

The first is Vision/Leadership; successful entrepreneurs usually see what other don't and tend to think

outside the box, compared most people. Vision also implies leadership, and both qualities go hand and

hand. Leadership in this context means to do what others won't; to go outside their comfort zones.

Perseverance

Next is Perseverance. Starting a business is like the exponential version of working on a project for

school. When you are learning a new concept for that project, you are going to have to go slow, but

steady.

If you just start, do it for a bit and then leave it alone, you are going to fail the project. But if you

start it and then keep at it little by little, you are going to eventually succeed. This is what you need to

do in business; you need to keep at it until you reach your goal.

Self-Discipline

A related quality to perseverance is Self-Discipline. The ability to take consistent and persistent action

even when we don't feel like it. This means not allowing ourselves to get distracted by the T.V., social

events and any myriad of activities are "non-productive".

Flexibility

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Another great ability successful entrepreneurs have is Flexibility. They realize that,"there is more than

one way to skin a cat", so to speak, and are constantly looking for ways to do things better. They have

the unique ability to recognize when perseverance devolves in just plain "stubbornness", and will make

adjustments as necessary.

Mental Toughness

In the business world, you are going to meet a number of cut-throat individuals that would like nothing

better than to see you fail so that they can succeed. Unfortunately that is just a reality in business.

While it is good to have business relationships with others, what is not so good is taking anything

negative they say as the gospel and taking it completely to heart. If you do that, then it won't take

very many negative comments before you hang up your business for good. Consider taking peoples'

advice if it is constructive, but do not listen to anyone that is completely negative. It is also a fact that

often the most painful criticism comes from those that we love the most.

Finally the key to every successful entrepreneur is their ability to deal with failure. There are a

number of people that do not have this ability and in fact there are people that give up on somethingafter having one unsuccessful try at it. This is something that you need to avoid in business because

you're going to fail at things again and again.

Closely related to this handling adversity in general. It is important to remember that it is not what

happens to us that is key; instead it is how we react that is the determining factor in permanent failure

or simply temporary defeat.

Please understand that even the most successful businessmen and women of today failed at some point

their careers; The reason they became successful is because they DID NOT GIVE UP; you shouldn't give

up either.

Remember this, if you had to have just one quality, make sure it is the ability to deal with failure and

adversity. It may be the single most important quality an entrepreneur can have.

common characteristics of the best entrepreneurs

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