Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy. Here are some of the most important attributes entrepreneurs need to possess in order to succeed:
Ability to Listen to Advice, While Making Their Own Decisions
Entrepreneurs need to be able to listen to people who have more experience, their peers and their customers. They must fully and deeply understand their market, their customers, their current situation, their problems and their potential solutions. Therefore, no matter how much experience their advisors have, they ultimately have to be the one to make a decision. Entrepreneurs must be willing and able to call their own shots, sometimes even if it goes against what their advisors with more experience suggest, if that is what their instincts tell them.
Honed Instincts You Can Trust, Especially with People and Deals
Business people need to be able to trust their instincts. The two most important instincts they need to possess and be able to rely on are their instincts about people and about business deals.
Ever get the sense that you just can’t trust someone, or the sense that you genuinely want to do business with someone? Do you trust these instincts? When a business proposition is presented to you, do you have a strong internal compass that tells you “yes” or “no”? Can you trust these gut instincts?
The best business decisions are not made just on numbers and projections. Although those are important, the real decision often comes down to whether or not your instincts tell you go forward. Your instincts will usually be right.
An Orientation towards Action
Great entrepreneurs are action-oriented. Instead of spending two years writing a business plan and conducting market research, real entrepreneurs just go for it. They take the results they get from the real world, rework their plan in real time and keep moving forward.
MBA-types who study businesses hypothetically without actually building businesses tend to think about business a lot. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are much more apt to just do something and see what the results are. In order to create result, you must be strongly action-oriented.
Be Willing to Take Risks, Sometimes Really Big Risks
Sometimes it is necessary in order to get your venture launched to risk everything you have on your ideas. Many entrepreneurs have had to sell their homes to fund their businesses. Some have had to leverage enough of their corporate equity that they would lose control of their own company if anything went wrong, in order to fund the next stage of their growth.
To really succeed in running your own business, you must be willing and able to take risks. Sometimes those risks will feel overwhelming, but you must be willing to take them anyway.
These are some of the most important aspects of succeeding as an entrepreneur. If you think you have the necessary skills, then you have an incredibly exciting and potentially highly lucrative business career ahead of you.
