Successful Business
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5 Traits of a Successful Entrepreneur
Not sure if you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur? There are many traits and characteristics you need to be able to have. No worries if you don’t have these traits though because you can always make dynamic changes and become the person you need to be in order to have a successful business and be a good entrepreneur.
Here are the top five traits you need to develop if you want to make sure you find success in your own business.
1. Curiosity
Before you can become an entrepreneur, you need to have an idea. You need to be able to find a product or idea that no one else has done before. In order to find success with a product, you need to be curious about the world around you.
Is there something going on in the world that you can change? How can you take a product or service that already exists and make it better to reach more people? How can you reach the most amount of people with your services and products?
Without this sense of curiosity and the way the world works, you will never be able to find a new business model that can benefit you and the world around you.
Part of curiosity is also that you have to be willing to go and fail to find yourself and find the business that works best for you.
When it comes to creating a startup, the biggest thing you can do is use failure as a stepping stone to get where you want to go. You need to be able to thrive even when you know failure is evident.
Be bold and consider what you can do to make the world a better place with your startup company.
When you are bold and curious, you can easily make a startup that is successful and ready to take on the world.
2. Oriented for the Future and Adaptable
In order to be a successful business person, you need to always be thinking towards the future. You should be willing to adapt to market changes and industry changes because you need to always make your product more marketable and keep up with the times.
You also need to think about where you want your business to be in the future. Part of being an entrepreneur is always making a business model and creating goals for the years to come. You need to know where you want your business to be one year from now, five years from now, and ten years from now.
What do you want your business to look like? What kind of growth do you want to see? Do you want to offer new products or just stick to the original business model and make it better?
To really be successful, you also need to be highly adaptable. Products will eventually become outdated. With new competitors and new products always coming into the market, you will see your business start to fail because your products are not keeping up with the new businesses and what they have to offer.
You also need to keep in mind that people nowadays get bored easily since there is always something to distract them. People can easily see a competitor's product on social media and then decide they want to give the other product a try.
This can easily take away business from you. When you are changing your product to meet the times though, you will find that people will keep coming back to your product because it is still serving their needs.
Not only do you need flexibility and adaption for your business and product, but you also need it for your employees and working partners. Consider getting the latest technology and software when you’re able to be able to make your working environment easier. This can include things like team collaboration software and inbound call services.
3. Oriented Towards Customer Service
Customer service is not everyone’s strong suit but you need to be able to help customers when needed. You also need to be willing to go above and beyond for customers so you know they are on your side and you are willing to fix any issues that might arise.
As your business is growing, you can even delegate these responsibilities to other people in your workforce. Make sure they have experience with customer service or human resources. Depending on your business size, you might need one person in customer service or a whole department.
Make sure you always have enough people though as you don’t want complaints and reviews to go unanswered.
When you offer good customer service, you have better customer retention. When customers feel like they are cared for, they will want to return to your business and buy more products because they feel like they can trust you and be with you.
Not only do you need to concentrate on customer service when you are first starting out, but you need to make sure you stay customer-oriented throughout your business.
If you feel like your customer service is failing, consider getting some software or online systems that can help your employees do a better job and take away some stress from customer complaints.
For example, consider getting a virtual receptionist that works 24/7. This allows your customers to stop being on hold for hours on end. Long wait times and too many automated messages can make a customer choose to go with another company that listens to them more.
Also, keep in mind all the customers you gain when you keep one customer happy. For example, if you have one customer that is endlessly happy with your services and products, they will recommend you to all their friends and family.
4. Self Awareness
Part of being a successful entrepreneur, you need to be self-aware of your actions and how they are affecting your products, services, and customers. Self-awareness also allows you to know how your employees are reacting and working in accordance with the way you are behaving and treating them.
You also need to remember that being an entrepreneur is not a solo journey. The idea might be yours and the product might be something you have created, but others will help you get your business going.
Almost no one is able to achieve their business and be successful when they are alone. This is why you need to get good people on your side that believe in you and believe in your business idea and model.
Part of self-awareness is that you realize you cannot do everything on your own. If you are living inside your own little bubble and think you can do everything by yourself, you will find you cannot be successful.
When you become self-aware, you will realize there are certain things you do very well and other things that you cannot do well. The things you do not do well need to be delegated to other people.
For example, if you are not good at expense tracking, you need to hire someone who is proven good at these skills so that you can delegate expense tracking. Make sure they collaborate with you and keep you updated on the expenses, but these tasks should not be yours.
You also need to remember that there is always someone that is smarter than you and better at certain things than you. These people should be hired to do the tasks that you cannot do. Most successful entrepreneurs will tell you that you need to hire your weaknesses.
You also need to be humble which is part of being self-aware. When you are arrogant, people will not want to work with you both as employees and as customers. Keep in mind there is a difference between arrogance and confidence.
Confidence is important when having a startup because when you are confident, you are able to show others how your product and service can benefit them and help them.
Arrogance though can push others away because they feel like they cannot trust you. Make sure you find the fine line between arrogance and humility. Being humble can bring you a long way and you will find that success comes to you much easier.
5. Wise with Money
Part of becoming an entrepreneur is working with investors and asking for capital to help with your business. You might receive a little funding or you might find that you get a lot of interest and investors.
No matter how much money you receive whether it’s a little or a small amount, you need to be wise with how you spend it and what you do with it. Of course, you will need to buy materials and machines to be able to start making products.
Make sure you delegate some of the money to be used for materials for products. You also need to take a portion of the money and use it for marketing. Without marketing, you will not be able to raise awareness of your product and how it can benefit others.
With marketing materials, customers will know where to find you and where to contact you so that they can ask any questions they might have before buying your product.
To be honest, the majority of the startups that fail are because they run out of cash or they spend the cash they have wrongly. This is because many entrepreneurs have not had this much cash before and they are unsure of where they need to be spending it.
Part of the reason that many people run out of cash is also because they are wasting money on things like office space. In most parts of the country, especially in large cities, office rent is very high.
Consider if your startup really needs to be paying for office space. Can you run the business from your garage or an extra room in your house? Can you rent a storage facility? Many startup businesses do this and it’s much more cost effective than renting an entire office.
Or maybe you don’t need a working space at all. Many companies work nowadays with only remote workers. This doesn’t work for every business but it works for most.
Invest this money that would typically go to your office on other things like marketing, product materials, traveling to meet with investors, etc.
Keep in mind that some of the most successful startups only have remote workers and some of these workers have never met in person with one another. This is the beauty of technology. You can have face-to-face meetings or phone meetings with each other to have discussions and go over ideas with each other for the business.
You can also use online services that help to organize your businesses and anything else you might need for your startup. Make sure of this online software as it can really do wonders for new entrepreneurs.
Final Thoughts
All successful entrepreneurs have different personalities and traits. Not everyone will be the same, so don’t be worried if you feel like you are different from other entrepreneurs that you know.
However, there are some traits that all entrepreneurs have including being curious about the world, being oriented to the future, being self-aware, being wise with money, and being oriented towards customer service.
With these five traits, you can be sure you are setting yourself and your startup for success. Make sure to be dynamic and always adapt new traits that can help you with your business.
Bertrand Allard