19/04/2020
Have you ever thought about starting your own business? See if you possess these characteristics of an entrepreneur.
It seems like everywhere you turn, someone is trying their hand at being an entrepreneur. It gives you a moment of pause to consider whether or not you have the successful characteristics needed to be an entrepreneur.
In fact, LendingTree ran a survey with Qualtrics of 1,067 Americans in 2018 and found roughly two-thirds thought about starting a business in the previous 12 months.
While most people in the survey claim a lack of start up capital for being the biggest reason for not taking that big leap, I have to question whether or not thatâs true.
The Real Reasons People Donât Become An Entrepreneur
In my more than forty years of experience in business, I have found that itâs not a lack of money that stops people from pursuing their dream. Rather they lack certain characteristics required of an entrepreneur.
After all, if it were easy, everyone would do it.
I believe most people could be an entrepreneur, but wonât. Most people wonât put in the time, energy and commitment it takes to be a successful business owner.
And thatâs OK. Not everyone needs to be a business owner. But if youâre wondering if you have what it takes to be successful at entrepreneurship, consider the following nine statements.
If you read these nine statements and donât feel that they represent you, then maybe it's time to take the leap.
9 Characteristics of an Entrepreneur
1. You donât have thick skin.
⢠Chances are youâve been thinking about starting a business for awhile. You may have told a few close friends about your âcrazy ideaâ but for the most part, you have chosen to keep this dream to yourself.
⢠Eventually, however, you will need to let the world know. And not everyone is going to share your enthusiasm.
⢠You might have family and friends who support you every day with personal problems that will suddenly show you a different part of their personality when you discuss starting a business: fear.
⢠Maybe they have tried to start a business and failed. Or possibly they live under the false sense of security a job provides and think climbing the corporate ladder is a guaranteed path to safety.
⢠Either way, you will face criticism fasterâand harsherâthan you expect. How you handle it will make all the difference.
2. You donât like being âconnected.â
⢠If you think living the life of an introvert will allow you to become a successful entrepreneur, you may want to think again.
⢠Youâll be living and breathing your new company every moment of the day while you try to educate everyone you come in contact with about your business.
⢠24/7 takes on a whole new meaning when you open your doors. No longer are quick 5-minute breaks spent scrolling your Facebook or Instagram feeds looking at updates from your family. Now, the time spent on the very same social networks will be spent answering customer service complaints and trolling your competition looking for ways to improve your business.
⢠Though you wonât need to be the life of the party, you will definitely need to get more comfortable in your own skin.
3. You need praise.
⢠There has been a disturbing trend in youth activities the last few years where all participants receive trophies. These awards are given to anyone who participates in the given activity like little league baseball or pee-wee football.
⢠As adults, we know thatâs not how life works. There are winners, and then there are losers.
⢠Think about your average day at work. How many times a day do you hear, âThatâs awesome!â or âGreat job,â or âThatâs soooo good?â
⢠It seems everyone has been trained to give positive feedback almost as if on autopilot.
⢠Unfortunately, you wonât receive this type of praise as an entrepreneur.
⢠Similar to statement number 1 above, you need to keep all criticism in context. Some people will love your product, others wonât.
⢠Regardless, if you have done your research and have built a business around solving a legitimate problem, eventually youâll receive your just rewards.
4. You need external motivation.
⢠Another characteristic of an entrepreneur is the ability to set your own tasks and accomplish them.
⢠You wonât arrive at work with a set list of expectations youâre to accomplish by days end.
⢠Whatever gets done (or doesnât) is entirely up to you.
⢠When I was in boot camp preparing for my brief career in the military, I received all the external motivation I could handle. From fellow recruits taking turns leading our troup through our daily training regime to the ever present drill sergeant, there was no shortage of people making sure I was doing what I should be doing, how I should be doing it and where I should be doing it.
⢠You are your own drill sergeant when you become a business owner.
⢠Do you have what it takes to give the orders and follow them?
5. You like to stay in your comfort zone.
⢠One characteristic of an entrepreneur that is often overlooked is the ability to wear multiple hats.
⢠Most people who dream about being an entrepreneur focus on the technical mastery theyâre providing. They feel that a decade of writing or baking or carpentry experience is the proof they have what it takes to run a successful business.
⢠Thatâs never the case. A successful entrepreneur needs to understand accounting, sales, legal protection, taxes, customer service, and a slew of other things to turn their technical mastery into business success.
6. You need to be right.
⢠We were taught in school that there is only one right answer. There is one side to history, one way to solve a math problem and one way to be successful in life. And when it is time to test your knowledge you either know the answers on the exam or you donât. If you try to look elsewhere for the answer it's considered cheating.
⢠But real life doesnât work like that. In real life, âcheatingâ is called teamwork. If you donât like to work as a team, you are often considered a âknow-it-allâ and no one wants to work with you.
⢠To better explain this, I want to use a diagram my rich dad taught me called the CASHFLOWŽ Quadrant.
⢠The CASHFLOW Quadrant shows how the four types of people and the different ways they make money.
⢠On the left side are the Es (employee) and Ss (small business owner). They value security above all else. There are similar characteristics between Es and Ss, namely they both get paid for their time.
⢠On the right side of the diagram are the Bs (big business owner) and Is (investor). Unlike Es and Ss who make money in exchange for their time, people on this side of the quadrant make money through other peopleâs time and money. They create assets that generate passive income.
⢠What does this have to do with being right?
⢠Similar to the previous point about staying in your comfort zone, highly-paid Es and successful Ss always have to be right. They were probably the first person in school to raise their hand with the right answer, graduated with honors and sacrificed for the big promotion at work.
⢠Thereâs nothing wrong with putting in the time to get things right, unless youâre an entrepreneur.
⢠Entrepreneurâs donât have the luxury of time. After all, time is money. If youâre spending time behind closed doors trying to get everything perfect before you launch tomorrow, youâre missing money making opportunities today.
7. You are looking for overnight success.
⢠Many people think I became a success overnight. One day I was a complete unknown and the next Iâm on Oprah with a New York Times bestseller.
⢠The truth is, it took almost a decade for me to reach that level of success.
⢠First, there was my failed nylon and Velcro wallet business. After my rich dad showed my how my partners were robbing me, I had to close the business. This left me over $800,000 in debt.
⢠It was for that reason that I knew the only way I was going to get out of such a financial hole was through entrepreneurship.
⢠There was no way to pay back such a monumental amount of debt with a day job.
⢠low and steady wins the race. There are no shortcuts.
8. You are a procrastinator.
⢠With almost $800,000 of debt, Kim and I knew we werenât going to break free from our financial situation any time soon. So, we developed a plan. It required tremendous sacrifice but we knew we would eventually get there.
⢠It all started with a dedication to increasing our financial education. First we worked to learn, then to earn.
⢠We studied real estate investing and created our own businesses. No matter how bad things got and how much we wanted to quit, we didnât.
⢠We kept our eye on the prize and looked for any opportunity to learn a new skill that was going to help us become successful business owners.
⢠The ability to take action is a vital characteristic of an entrepreneur.
9. You donât like to sell.
⢠My rich dad would often tell me that learning how to sell is the most important characteristic of an entrepreneur.
⢠After being an entrepreneur in multiple industries over the past three decades I have to agree.
⢠If you canât sell, you canât be an entrepreneur.
⢠After I returned from Vietnam, I had a choice to make. I could get a job in the shipping industry making very good money or take an entry-level sales job at Xerox.
⢠My rich dad recommended that I take the job at Xerox. I took it and it didnât take long for me to realize that I was not a natural born salesman. I spoke with my rich dad about my struggles and he suggested fail faster.
⢠Rather than find another sales job at night, I remembered some other advice from my rich dad, namely that itâs easier to find work if you are willing to do it for free.
⢠I found a charity that needed people to dial for dollars at night. So, I would leave my job at Xerox and put in a few hours cold calling people for donations. I was able to increase my failure rate from three to seven calls a day at Xerox to over 20 calls in a few hours at night.
⢠Though my failure rate increased, ironically so did my success rate. The more calls I made, the better I became at handling objections. I had no choice but to adapt, and so will you.
Summary of What Characteristics Are Needed to be An Entrepreneur
If you feel those statements do not accurately portrait you, then you might have a chance of being a successful business owner someday.
If you found that many of those statements do apply to you, donât give up on your dream to become an entrepreneur quite yet.
Perhaps you easily get your feelings hurt with criticism or feel like you are in need of constant praise or find you lack confidence in all areas of your life, begin to address those issues. I have found that if Iâm weak in one area of my life it is often negatively affecting other areas as well.
If you have tremendous odds stacked against you, and you donât have any other choice but to take matters into your own hands, you might be surprised to discover just how many characteristics of an entrepreneur you possess.
