20 Characteristics Of Successful Entrepreneurs
Are you planning to start and run your own profitable business? Do you know the right qualifications and characteristics an entrepreneur must have to succeed?
Does your profile match that of a successful entrepreneur?
There are several important traits and values that are common among successful entrepreneurs.
Before you go and start your enterprise online, brick-and-mortar, or a combination of, it will be very helpful to think and reflect on whether you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.
If not, you can also start developing these character traits.
It is not true that successful entrepreneurs are born that way; in fact, anyone can be a successful entrepreneur if he or she is willing to put in the work.
However, there are some specific entrepreneurial traits a person must have to be successful in the field of business.
Of course, entrepreneurship is not for everyone. But with these particular character traits, you can see if you really have what it takes to succeed in the highly competitive, world of business.
What are these essential entrepreneurial traits that anyone who is interested in starting a business must possess?
In this article, we will explore and discuss the essential characteristics that every entrepreneur must have.
Let’s get going…
1)) Self-Confidence
To succeed in today’s hyper-competitive business world, confidence and trust in oneself is an indispensable traits.
Self-confidence means trusting your own powers and capabilities despite the naysayers you may be surrounded by.
The world of entrepreneurship is not immune to failure and disappointments.
To survive in such a cutthroat world, an entrepreneur must have the ability to look within him or herself and find the drive and persistence to go for it.
An entrepreneur must have the gumption to face any adversity and tackle any problems that may be encountered in the world of business.
They believe in their capabilities and make sure that they will put in their best effort into their particular endeavors, and likewise expect the best results from it.
The business world is very competitive and is not a place for the half-hearted.
Belief in one’s capabilities is very important in achieving any goal, especially in the world of entrepreneurship, because most people fail and eventually call it quits.
If building a successful business was easy, everyone would get in on the action.
2)) Risk-takers
Being an entrepreneur means having the ability to trust your hunches and acting on them.
Great business ideas sometimes start as a hunch that enterprising individuals acted upon, despite being nervous and fearful.
There is always the risk of loss in any business venture, and entrepreneurs have just the right level of confidence to take calculated risks to achieve their objectives.
However, an entrepreneur’s risk-taking does not depend on luck, but on sheer effort and hard work.
There’s a popular saying used by entrepreneurs that goes like this, “Hope Is Not A Strategy.”
Serious entrepreneurs never give up, and when faced with challenges, will pick up the pieces and continue their journey.
They see those roadblocks as temporary failures and use them to learn from their mistakes as they move forward.
3)) Knows the Value of Money
To succeed in any business, an entrepreneur must understand the value of money and the cost of things.
Typically, successful entrepreneurs learned how to earn and value money at a young age.
Most of them started out by earning loose change as teenagers mowing lawns, bagging groceries, working fast-food jobs, babysitting neighbors, etc.
When a person works to earn money, he or she understands and appreciates the value of it.
I’m pretty sure that you’ve heard the saying, “Money Doesn’t Grow On Trees.”
Understanding the value of money can prevent you from overspending and keep your overhead low so that you retain more money than you spend.
4)) Have the So-Called Head for Business Mindset
Many entrepreneurs are gifted with intuition because they seem to know what products, services, and industries are going to be winners.
However, this ability does not involve clairvoyance or extrasensory powers of some sort, but rather, keen observation and understanding of what is going on in the world around them.
A good entrepreneur is always on the lookout for new ideas and new ways to make money.
In today’s technologically advanced environment, there are tools that make it easier than ever to do market and trend research without having to guess.
When used properly, these tools can help you to reduce your business risk drastically.
5)) Competitive
The world of business is a super competitive environment. An entrepreneur must be aggressive enough to pursue his or her goals despite having many rivals and fierce competitors.
An entrepreneur must know how to stay ahead of his or her competitors, either by introducing new ideas or exploring new ventures, all in the spirit of expanding the business.
You must never allow yourself to become complacent or arrogant no matter how successful your business becomes.
There are many examples of well-established brick-and-mortar businesses that were eclipsed by younger online businesses.
The reasons are that those older businesses were totally oblivious, too arrogant, or too slow to change.
As a business owner, you must constantly make what you’re doing obsolete or your competitors will do it for you, and leave you in the dust.
6)) Honorable and Have A Good Work Ethic
Although it is a fact that the business world is ruthless, the successful entrepreneur will strive to make every business deal and transaction honorable.
The mark of a successful entrepreneur lies in a good personal work ethic that ultimately leads to good business practices, excellent reputation, and good association with industry peers and business partners.
You must put the best interest of your customers and clients first, and success will most likely follow.
7)) Knows the Importance of Leisure Time
Hard work and determination are very important values every entrepreneur must have.
However, a good entrepreneur knows when it’s time to take a step back from all the rigors of business and enjoy some downtime with their family and friends.
Besides, we all do need a little relaxation to refresh the body and mind before plunging back into the challenging (and stressful) world of business.
8)) Goal-Oriented
Whether short-term or long-term, a successful entrepreneur strives to never miss his or her goals.
This trait can be developed at a very young age. For instance, a child sets academic goals for him or herself or sets a specific time frame to achieve something.
Say, for example, the child’s parents cannot afford to buy him or her a specific toy.
The child will try to get this toy by saving money or making money for him or herself.
When the child grows up, he or she carries this trait in doing business.
This same child is more likely to become successful because he or she knows how to get certain things he or she wants.
But it does not stop there; a successful entrepreneur knows how to revise or rewrite goals whenever he or she thinks that there is something that needs to be changed.
9)) Opportunity Seeker
An entrepreneur knows how to search for opportunities. It may be an opportunity to earn more or to gain more real-world knowledge.
This business builder will not settle on the things that exist around him or her and knows how to find opportunities that may not be visible to most people that don’t have the gift of sight.
Once opportunities have been found, he or she knows how to take advantage of them.
This doesn’t mean that he or she will become impulsive, because the entrepreneur spirit knows how to identify what type of opportunity will give him or her the most benefits.
A smart entrepreneur will ask these questions:
- Will it cause more good than harm?
- Is it worth the time and money?
- Will it be able to help me reach my set goals?
10)) Knows His or Her Strengths and Weaknesses
Another good trait of a successful entrepreneur is knowing his or her strengths and weaknesses.
This type of trait will enable him or her to define limits and know how to extend them.
Knows the borderlines and how to keep them expanding.
An individual who does not know his or her strengths and weaknesses is like a person facing a mirror without clearly seeing his or her face.
Successful entrepreneurs can clearly see their faces in the mirror and recognize imperfections.
They would then polish those imperfections and transform them into something that’s beneficial.
Successful entrepreneurs whole-heartily understand that they’ll need the help of others because no person is an island.
They respect the opinions and views of other people, especially the ones of team members and staff.
They do this to minimize the risk of making mistakes.
An entrepreneur can easily pick out the right person for specific tasks and jobs.
11)) Strives To Be the Best
Successful entrepreneurs do not settle for second best. They always find ways how to be the best in their craft.
Being aware of their strengths and weaknesses oftentimes allows them to achieve what others can’t conceive.
They pay close attention to detail and quality.
The number one priority is to treat their clients, customers, and staff with the utmost respect and to provide extreme value.
12)) Craves Independence
This is the most common denominator of all entrepreneurs. They want to seize control of their future; thus they decide to become their own boss instead of laboring under the gaze of a micro-managing employer.
Entrepreneurs have a strong sense of independence and will march forward to the beat of their own drum with a purpose and that is to earn money through their own means and hard work.
Two of the biggest goals that entrepreneurs seek are Financial and Time Freedom.
When people don’t have these two factors going for them, they usually suffer from many imbalances that lead to a mediocre life at best.
13)) Persistence and Determination
The world of entrepreneurship is fraught with both success and failure.
If truth be told, more failures than successes.
An important quality of successful entrepreneurs is the determination to continue pursuing their goals despite some setbacks and obstacles that they may encounter along the journey.
This persistence and determination are fueled by a burning desire to achieve the goals of succeeding in their chosen field of business.
14)) Creativity
In the business world, you cannot afford to be complacent and un-creative unless you want the competition to pass you by.
Thus, you really have to be very creative and must be able to create new ideas, as well as find new ways to solve problems.
This way, you can make sure that you stay ahead of the competition. Creative people are naturally curious, inquisitive, bright, and highly flexible when it comes to thinking.
They keenly observe their environment and have an eye for spotting new trends that could potentially be a business opportunities.
15)) Organized
An entrepreneur knows the value of organization in a business endeavor. All efforts must be focused on achieving specific goals.
Smart entrepreneurs systematize every move they make so that less time and other resources are consumed in achieving goals.
Good entrepreneurs have the ability to consolidate resources, which can increase the sustainability of their businesses.
16)) Visionary
Entrepreneurs have a vision for their futures and are guided by it in everything they do in their business endeavors.
This vision may be for the short, middle, or long term, but the purpose is to expand the enterprise.
Visionary entrepreneurs are able to see the “Big Picture” of what they’d like the business to look like in the present and future.
17)) Perseverance and Hard Work
These are perhaps two of the most important entrepreneurial traits. In the world of business, there can be no real success without perseverance and hard work.
Nowadays, unsuspecting people are being lured into countless Biz-Op and Money-Making Scams at an alarming rate promising instant riches by pushing a few buttons.
That’s not how business work.
Even if someone handed you a proven blueprint, you still have to put in the work, make mistakes, and be consistent with your efforts before you achieve success with it.
People, who understand that it takes hard work, consistent effort, and focus on one business model at a time, put themselves at an advantage because they know most would-be entrepreneurs are going to jump from one thing to the next and never achieve success.
If you’re currently not having any business success, one of the fastest ways to increase your chances of turning things around is to simply find a proven blueprint and stick with it until you make it work.
That alone can leapfrog you over most of the entrepreneurs out there.
Starting today, except the fact that it’s going to take consistent hard work to achieve success, and get comfortable with this reality.
18)) Commitment
An entrepreneur will not achieve success if he or she gives up at the first sign of trouble.
Commitment to business and to its success springs from the urge to achieve the goal.
19)) Leadership
Leadership does not come out merely from the inner personality of people or from their philosophy of leadership, but from their enthusiasm to become the person other people will follow.
This means that how a leader reacts when his or her power or safety is challenged, and how he or she interprets the world around him or her, is crucial to developing strong and effective leadership qualities.
Vision is the primary and most important quality for a leader to possess if they aspire to be a successful entrepreneur.
It is what leads and motivates him or her towards success, the fire that lights the road he or she will be traveling to prevent getting lost along the journey.
It is the sense of direction that draws him or her forward. A leader without a vision is like a traveler who doesn’t have a predetermined destination.
Casting a vision for your organization works much the same way, the vision should be effective, useful, and doable so that chances of achieving success are drastically increased.
Your vision is the starting point, and when well thought out, can lead to a flourishing outcome.
Therefore, to be a leader, you must have a vision that inspires your staff, customers, business partners, and more importantly you.
Without a clear vision of what you want to do and where you want to go, you just cannot hope for anything to happen, and no one will follow
To be a successful entrepreneur, you absolutely must develop your leadership skills, because at some point during your business-building journey, you will require the assistance of others.
20)) Focuses On Strategy
The best way to grow your business is to develop an overall Big Picture Strategy, which is nothing more than a roadmap that details how you plan to achieve your short and long-term goals, which includes the tactics and objectives that’ll be used to establish your position in the marketplace.
Successful entrepreneurs understand that a sustainable business can’t be built using uncoordinated ad hoc tactics.
They know that in order to win, tactics and strategies must be combined and implemented in a coordinated fashion.
If you don’t approach your business in that manner, the competition will walk all over you.
So, to be a great entrepreneur, you must learn and apply everything you can about business strategy.
Conclusion
These are just twenty of the most important characteristics a successful entrepreneur should have in order to take their business to the next level.
Of course, the characteristics every entrepreneur must have are not limited to the ones I covered today.
Having these characteristics is not a guarantee that an entrepreneur will be successful.
But with these characteristics, an entrepreneur has just the right ingredients needed to achieve success.
All you need to do is find the right mix of these values, have excellent timing, perhaps a bit of luck, have faith in yourself, choose the right business opportunities, model success, and work hard.
Read back over the 20 Characteristics Of Successful Entrepreneurs and determine which of them you have and the ones you need to implement into your life.
So, do you think you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur?
Only you can answer that question.
If you believe that you can, you will, and if you believe that you can’t you won’t.
Never let anyone else determine whether you have what it takes to be successful.
That’s your choice to make, and if you have some of the entrepreneurial traits that I covered in this article, you definitely have what it takes to succeed in the world of business.
Never stop learning about yourself and your business.
Good luck with your entrepreneurial quests!
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