Ten Characteristics of Entrepreneurs

Successful Entrepreneurs in the World

Every field has those who excel, and entrepreneurship is just a further example of that. There are those who do well as entrepreneurs, and then there are those who do amazingly well. They are the ones who excel at what they do, and move forward in life to greatness. So, who are these entrepreneurs and what did they do to make themselves so successful?

• Richard Branson: One of the most famous men on Earth, he is known for his adventures just as much as he is for his business. Branson dropped out of school at the age of 16 and began a magazine called Student Magazine. From there, he went on to form Virgin Records, which signed some of the best bands of the 70s. Moving forward, he then created an entire Virgin brand that has 360 companies within it, including an airline and the world’s first space tourist service.
• Coco Chanel: Growing up as an orphan, Chanel worked as a seamstress to make ends meet. She had a strong drive that pushed her to try new things and learn new things, and that allowed her to create fashion ideas that would revolutionize what people wore. These days, she is known as much for her perfume, Chanel No. 5, as she is for her extremely profitable business.
• Michael Dell: Starting with $1,000 from home, Michael Dell dropped out of college and created PC’s Limited, which would become Dell Inc. From there, he created through drive and determination, one of the most successful computer manufacturing companies on the entire planet.
• Bill Gates: The richest man on Earth from 1995 to 2006, Gates dropped out of college and began Microsoft with a friend. With revolutionary new ways for users to use computers, Gates not only helped start the computer revolution, but helped to change the world in the process.
• Henry Ford: Speaking of changing the world, Henry Ford started off small as an apprentice when he was 16 and would go on to found the Ford Motor Company. Through his amazing concept of assembly line production, Ford not only changed how people made cars, but he made them more affordable for the masses and his concept of assembly lines changed the world in everything from clothing to food.
• Walt Disney: His name is known to all of us, and this high school dropout started off as just an animator who created a company that has become iconic. Thanks to starting off making cartoons with a mouse named Mickey, Disney and his company have gone on to create theme parks around the world, while making an estimated $30 billion a year.

These are just a few of the most successful entrepreneurs in history. If you want to be successful, it would be a good idea to learn their story and see how they were able to find such immense success in the working world. If they can do it, so can you.

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How To Become An Entrepreneur

A lot of people want to start their own business because that allows them to take their career into their own hands. In tough economic times, working for someone else is not always guaranteed and there is often very few jobs to choose from. As a result, many people will start to be an entrepreneur because they want to own their own business and be in charge of their own lives. So, how do you go about being an entrepreneur? Just do the following:

1. Think of a great idea that you believe will be something you are interested in. If you are providing a service, make sure it is something that you are going to love doing. If you are making a product, look at how much it costs to make, whether it will be popular and how long each product takes you to make. You should do a test market for your product or service to determine who will want the product so you can know who to sell to.
2. You need to do up a business plan and this is very important. The business plan is what ensures that you start your business off on the right track. Through the business plan you are stating how you will make money, what you will be selling, who you will be selling to and what you hope to gain from the business. Other things that make up a business plan is an assessment of your competition, your marketing plan, sales forecasts and the analysis of the market you are getting into.
3. If you need money, you should look at getting a small business loan or going to venture capitalists. Not all businesses can be started for nothing, so you may need a loan or investment. However, if you can start a home business without borrowing money, then all the better as you can start making a profit much quicker.
4. It is very important that you do what you can to network with other entrepreneurs. By doing that, you can ensure that you are meeting with people in your industry who can serve as mentors. Networking gives you the ability to tap into a wealth of knowledge that will ensure your business stays successful for many years to come.
5. The last thing you need to remember when you want to know how to be an entrepreneur, is to do everything you can to make your business successful. This means working long hours, talking with people, doing cold calls and more. As an entrepreneur you need to be a public relations expert, a marketer, an innovator, a sales person and more, all rolled into one. It is not always the easiest job in the world, but it does have its rewards and it can be something you truly enjoy.

There is much to remember if you want to be an entrepreneur but it all comes down to doing what you love, knowing how to be successful and having the drive to make yourself successful.

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Why Are Entrepreneurs Different?

Due to the global financial meltdown and corporate downsizing, the concept of entrepreneurship has steadily captured the attention of the general public. Statistics Canada reports that self-employment increased by 4.3 per cent between October 2008 and October 2009. However, the interesting part is the rise in entrepreneurship was not the main cause of people losing jobs due to economic downturn, as the characteristics of those who lost jobs did not resemble the characteristics of those that became entrepreneurs.

There are various factors leading people to become entrepreneurs. However, there are some characteristics entrepreneurs have in common. I contemplate these “special” characteristics all the time; today, I decided to mention some of them I can think of off the top of my head.

Entrepreneurs Go Against The Norms of Society – We are programmed by our society from a young age to go to school, get a job, make someone else (most likely a corporation) rich, and one day retire or die while making that person or entity rich. Entrepreneurs break these traditional societal norms and the vicious cycle of making someone else rich by exiting the traditional comfort zone and trying something beyond the ordinary.

Integrity – Integrity leads the way to becoming courageous and taking necessary risks to becoming successful in a business. Entrepreneurs earn credibility by sticking to their principles and values, thus attracting more business (because people always want to do with business with someone they can trust and feel comfortable dealing with) in their respective fields.

Determination, Dedication, and Hard Work – Determination, dedication, and hard work lead to the bridge to success. The majority of non-entrepreneurs are lacking the combination of these three virtues. Drop any one from these three, and the other two will be meaningless.

A Receptive Mind – Entrepreneurs are always learning new things and they are always on the lookout for new knowledge.

Time Is Precious – Our time is very limited on Earth. We all have two options regarding the use of our limited time: we can make someone else rich by working for someone else, or we can use this limited time to work for ourselves, making ourselves rich and spending this limited time our own way. Entrepreneurs pick the latter one.

Life Starts Now – Entrepreneurs do not want to start life at 69 when they need hip replacement surgery. Regular people wait to start life at 69, once they retire. Entrepreneurs have already started their lives and living their life. The time is NOW, there is no need to wait for life to start at 69 (after having hips replaced).

Higher Degree of Frustration, Rejection, and Criticism Tolerance – Entrepreneurs can tolerate frustrations, rejections, and criticisms a lot better than non-entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs gather feedback from these obstacles and put them into productive use.

Discipline and Self-Control – Entrepreneurs have the ability to manage emotions and live a disciplined life.

Tenacity – Entrepreneurs practise enormous persistency and never give up on their dreams.

Optimism – Entrepreneurs always have a positive outlook about everything and about life in general. They always believe in a positive future and lay out a solid roadmap to reach the future.

Do you have these in you? If you want to be an entrepreneur and think you are missing some or all of them, there is no need to worry. We were not born with these characteristics, and they can be learned. If you are determined to be an entrepreneur and have the willingness to change, you will be an entrepreneur one day. When that happens, it will be my pleasure to greet you saying, “Welcome to the club!” I am looking forward to that day.

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Taking Your Employment into Your Own Hands

In tough economic times, you may want to find ways to secure your employment and secure your paycheck. There are many ways to do this, and pretty much none of them involve working for someone else. In the 21^st century, more and more people are beginning to learn that working for someone else is not the way to go. When you work for someone else, you are putting your life in their hands and as has been seen with corporations over and over, shareholders are more important than employees. Why show loyalty for a company that may fire you to save money? In addition, if you work very hard you might get promoted but the chances are you will not. The harder you work, the same you will get paid. Why should those above you benefit from the work you do?

This is why being an entrepreneur is such a great idea. When you are in charge of your own life and you are in charge of your own career, you get several benefits. First, as an entrepreneur, you can work in an industry that you love. If you like doing yard work, start a yard work company. If you love graphic design, then begin doing graphic design from home. All of this can easily be done through being the owner of your own business. The other big benefit of being your own boss is that when the company does well, you do well. If you work hard and make an extra $50,000 for the company, then that entire $50,000 goes to you. If you have employees, you can treat them the way you wanted to be treated when you were an employee. Being your own boss puts the power in your hands and it can be one of the most satisfying things in your life.

These days, being your own boss is easier than ever. In the past, when you owned a business in your area, your customer base was only the people who could get to your store. This would greatly limit the potential for your company. However, with the creation of the internet, your customer base goes from a few hundred to a few million thanks to the ability to make money online with an internet business. Whether it is selling services online, or just selling products, the sky is the limit when you are working for yourself from your home with a business that you have online.

Another great thing that the internet does for you is it allows is it provides you with the resources of individuals who have been their own boss for years. These resources can teach you how to be a boss and how to make your business successful. Websites like EntrepreneurJourney.com help you by giving you the ability to be successful with your online business. Whether you are delving into e-commerce by selling products online, marketing yourself through social media marketing, or just doing some freelance writing, being your own boss is something you will come to love, especially when you are making a good living at it.

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Affirming the Law of Attraction – the Successful Entrepreneur

No one disputes that there is in nature a law of positive attraction, by which people hope to gain many things, including money, by doing things and saying things that they hope will invoke its power.

The reality is that the law of attraction will always work for you, bringing about the things that you desire, so that what you want will come to you. The only problem with it, and what you need to understand is that you don’t always know what it is that you really want, and what you say you want, and what you really want are often two completely different things.

The successful entrepreneur will attract success because that is what he wants, that is what he is aiming for, and regardless of failures along the way, he will still have his eye on the ball. Everything that he does, his whole attitude and approach will reflect that deep down desire to make whatever enterprise he chooses to engage with, work and become a success. That is not to say that there will not be mistakes and errors of judgment, but when these occur, lessons will be learnt, errors discarded, and new ways to make things work will be actively looked for and sought. Ideas will come as if by magic but really they are the product of a focused mind sifting and looking for potential.

This positive attitude will tend to attract the information and concepts which are most needed to put in place something which is highly desired, which could be to get a new business going, or to reduce current working hours without losing money or momentum.

This positive attitude, which seems to attract success can easily be compared to a less focused attitude, which might appear to put a lot of effort in, but still complains of lack of success. Two men have to be at a meeting – one gets there on time, although the car broke down. The other would have got there, but the car broke down. You will hear the little “but” creep in whenever what someone says was their main desire, in fact really wasn’t.

People might say they want to go out to work but they have to stay at home with the family. They might say that they want to work from home, but neighbours keep calling in for a coffee. When they complain that their business isn’t working, it is easy to see that what they really want to do is to be at home with the family having coffee.

The law of attraction is simply that you will make every effort to get what you want and attract what you really want to you – if you are focused and do what is necessary to get a money making venture to start, you will be successful if that is what you want – but if your dreams and hopes lie in other directions – you will attract a mixed outcome at best.

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Let your sharp mind see new income making opportunities

More than ever before we live in a generation that has so many opportunities of making money just staring at all of us, yet very few people gat to discover them at all. The reason could be that most of the time they come disguised as just some little extra work. With the economic crunch that has come upon the whole world, the issue may not necessarily be making extra income, for most people it is making any income at all. With the fluid job marker no one is safe any longer. Just thinking a little out of the box is that makes up the entrepreneurial spirit that will survive our times.

The difficulty that many people will have is thinking that everything that could be dome for money has already been discovered and nothing new can be coming along. Just a little scratching of your head will lead anyone to seeing needs of people that are usually disguised as complaints, and if you can discover a way of solving that then you are going to be paid for it, and isn’t that what business really is all about? Ideas and fresh ideas are what you need and lack of money will not be an issue at all for you.

And of course like we have said there is no shortage of fresh ideas out there. The idea you ignore today becomes what makes someone else a millionaire tomorrow. Who, for example, thought the current list of young internet millionaires would reap millions by just harnessing the power of the internet? You can try anything from garage sales and it will simply surprise you the things that people will be willing to buy from you. And you do not need to look for an office outside your home. Did you take advantage of online auctions such as eBay and sell stuff out there and just make money?

If you lack money today it would simply be because you have not trained your mind to see opportunities and take advantage of them. Take something like clutter management for example, do you know anyone who occupies a house or office that could do with just a little rearrangement o make life more comfortable? Then there you are with a business known as clutter management. You do not know the number of people who are willing to pay anyone who can help them arrange their homes and offices so that they know where to get any stuff they require.

And still at the home front you may want to consider the niche of healthy foods that have become the fad today. There many busy folk who know they need to eat healthy and they do not know where and how. Several people have turned their little kitchen skills into a money minting idea simply preparing and delivering whole meals to some lazy fold out there who have a phobia for their kitchens, or simply do not know what to do to turn their ideas into healthy meals. It is simply time to transform your ideas into money before someone else beats you at the game.

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Don’t Be An Ambulance Chaser

There is no doubt that although the majority of entrepreneurs are simply individuals who spot a gap in the market where it exists, and use their business sense to make it work for them, there are others who see an opportunity for profit everywhere, and even take an approach which morally compromises them. It is important for an entrepreneur who wishes to be taken seriously that they do not get a reputation for the latter. It may make short-term business sense to be ready to make money where others would feel morally compromised, but in the long term fewer people will want to do business with someone who has a reputation for being morally blind.

In cases of natural disaster, a high-profile death, national emergency or other such events, some people will see the chance to make money and care little about how their actions will be interpreted. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11^th, 2001, almost the entire world was united in revulsion about the events and in sympathy for the victims and their families, as well as being strident in their insistence that such a thing should never happen again. It was also the case, however, that a few individuals saw the opportunity to play on people’s fears by spotting a sales opportunity – hiking up prices on essential living items in the knowledge that people would be reluctant to leave their homes, selling security devices which would be useless in the event of another attack to play on the very real desire for safety, and so forth.

It is desirable for an entrepreneur to be opportunistic. Seeing the chance to make money where it exists is how an entrepreneur makes a living. While there is a lot of moral relativism around – “Someone was going to get rich off this, why not me?” is a favourite defence – it is essential for a businessman to consider the matter of public relations. OK, most people will view the concept of public relations to be something of a pseudo-science. The truth of the matter is that in business, it is important. In most cases, our conscience will restrain us from doing something that the majority of people would find distasteful. It can be tempting to look at someone profiting from a tragedy and think “Well, if that ass can do it, I don’t see why I should suffer because of my conscience.” But there are very good reasons not to give in to that thinking.

When someone makes a living off preying on the fears and the sorrows of individuals or groups, they gain a reputation as an “ambulance chaser” – from the branch of law known as “personal injury”, where people are encouraged to find someone culpable for an accident and sue them regardless of genuine responsibility. Ambulance chasers are not widely respected and will find that anyone who has a genuine choice as to whom they do business with will avoid them like the plague. It may be a way of making short-term cash, but in the long run it is not really a sound business approach.

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Two Heads Are Better Than One

There is often an impression that the world of entrepreneurship is somewhat hyper-competitive, with many people under the impression that if you can’t do it all on your own than you might as well forget it. There is a fairly negative impression of sharing, of accepting or looking for help, and once the game is over and the money is counted, the people with the most smug smiles on their face are the ones who are able to say they did it all on their own. Some credit has to go to these people, undoubtedly, because they have done a fine job to get so far without any input from someone else. But would it be such a bad thing to enlist help on occasion? Sometimes a partnership is, after all, more than the sum of its parts.

Whatever you call it – outsourcing, joint venture, partnership or anything else – there are times when doing it all on your own becomes counter-productive. Maybe it is true that no-one knows your business better than you do, but sometimes you will need to look beyond the world in which you are comfortable and allow someone else to take a look at things. Working together with them in an official capacity could be the smartest decision you make – and the best for you. Some people avoid joint partnerships because they feel that they will have to share more than they would like. But what if a half-share in something big is better than a hundred per cent of something smaller? It does not have to be about doing it all on your own. Sometimes the partnership is the soundest business decision and the best for your bottom line.

It is best to accept early on in your business career that you are not going to be a master of all trades, because no-one is. There are gaps in everyone’s knowledge, holes in everyone’s experience. This is not an admission of weakness. It is strategic realism. If you accept that you are not an expert on everything, and enlist someone who is an expert in a field that can help you, you will benefit from their expertise and you will see better results for it. Indeed through working with someone else you can find yourself absorbing knowledge that could help you in many other ways somewhere down the line.

It may be that someone else speaks another language which will help with an overseas market, or that someone has an innate knowledge of a specific way of doing a job – something that your customers have requested several times in the past. The other person may have an ingrained knowledge of the geography of an area you want to crack, but whatever it is, the important thing for you as an entrepreneur is that it can aid you in your dealings and take you up a level. Spurning the chance to work with someone else, someone with experience and intelligence, is simply cutting off your nose to spite your face.

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What Approach Should You Take?

There is a cliché image surrounding entrepreneurs which essentially amounts to a caricature of a man (almost always a man) with a cell phone clamped to one ear and a briefcase held in the other hand, looking increasingly impatient as the rest of the world fails to give them their due for being so clever. In fact, entrepreneurs get a bit of a hard time from a lot of people, but in all truth the definition “entrepreneur” tells you no more about a person than the word “tall”. There are many different perspectives to entrepreneurship, and the one thing which unites all entrepreneurs is that they use their initiative to make money. The many things that separate them, now, they are the important bits.

Some entrepreneurs are just like the cliché mentioned above. It is inevitable that they will be, really, as clichés tend to have some basis in fact. Often it is this kind of impatience and hustle that takes a business from being quite average to being the best in its field. This is the case for as long as any entrepreneur will benefit from being impatient and persistent. That is to say that it works well for quick pressure selling, but not so well for more specific niches. Some entrepreneurs are successful for other reasons. Some are actually a lot more methodical because it is that approach that will gain them the most interest from customers. What is it, you need to ask, that defines the niche in which I work?

Sometimes you need to be the details guy or gal. Customers set a lot of store by getting exactly what they want, and will pay what it takes, wait as long as it takes, to get it. being strong on detail will get you everywhere with those customers. A manufacturing entrepreneur may well find that their target market is full of such customers. Then again, it might be all about the quick turnaround. A good sense of observation rarely goes to waste for an entrepreneur – being aware of what seems to be popular can feed into making lots of money, and being ready to ask questions and learn about your customers often pays off handsomely too.

To find what makes your entrepreneurial spirit unique to you, you need only look at what you are like as a person. If your friends use words like “considerate” to describe you, then you are, in all likelihood, going to make money by being attentive to customers’ needs. If you are often described as “witty”, then you may well find that you have the sales pitch that can sell just about any product to a captive audience. Play to your strengths, and what’s more, always be inwardly tenacious. You don’t need to always be in the customer’s face. Being there when they need you – whatever kind of entrepreneur you may be – will always pay off. Having a reputation for reliability is the kind of advertising that money cannot buy.

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If At First You Don’t Succeed…

Making your way as an entrepreneur is never going to be easy. Sure, you might have a “head for business”, and that makes the process more manageable without a doubt, but without putting in a lot of hard work the chances of sustained success will inevitably be limited. This is important to remember, because the path to business success is littered with companies and individuals who had good ideas and vision but when frustrated at an early stage failed to drive forwards in the way they would have hoped to. It is easy to become discouraged, especially when there is money in the equation, but the people who find real success are the ones who realize that problem solving is an indispensable part of business.

One of the major problems that arises in business is a slow start. You have an idea and find a way to put it into action. You have good contacts and feel you have advertised well, but for one reason or another there is not the take-up on your offers that you would have hoped for. This is a situation that can arise for any number of reasons. You need two things to overcome this problem, and they are very different things. Firstly you need to be able to analyse well. There will be a reason things didn’t go as hoped. Did you think through your advertising campaign? Have you priced your service too high? Was there some slippage between what you promised and what you could deliver? These are just three reasons, and it may be that you find another reason.

The second thing you need is the tenacity to avoid getting discouraged. A business going wrong can be one of the most painful things to happen to a person, after divorce, bereavement and serious injury. It can be hard to separate the business from your personal identity, so if you feel that people do not like the business, you might extrapolate from that a personal slight against you. In actual fact, there is every reason why things might have failed in spite of you rather than because of you. Be forensic in looking for reasons why things went wrong, positive in applying a solution and honest in sticking to it.

Think about other things that didn’t quite take off at the first attempt but which are managing perfectly well now. Think about businesses and people who even went bankrupt once or more before they pulled things around, like Walt Disney and Henry Ford. That is the level of tenacity you need. No-one’s saying you should push things until you go bankrupt, but if you can rally yourself when things don’t begin encouragingly, you can be successful. In fact, it may be that it is what makes you successful. Every time you solve a problem, you learn something – something which is almost certain to be useful later on in your life. For this reason you need to roll with the punches from time to time. Combine wisdom with perseverance, and you will succeed.

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