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I’ve heard a lot of great business ideas lately — and more than a few
people announcing that now is the right time to go into business for
yourself. I think that there’s a lot to be said for becoming an
entrepreneur during a down economy — although the risks definitely go
up. With your own business,
especially if you hold on to your day job as long as possible, you’ve
got more flexibility if you get a pink slip. But starting your own
business is certainly not for everyone. There are certain
characteristics that can significantly improve the odds of succeeding as
an entrepreneur. Without these characteristics, though, it’s hard to do
well even with the best of business ideas.
- Discipline:
Plenty of business experts claim that you can’t get anywhere as an
entrepreneur without vision or creativity, but that’s simply not the
truth. Instead, the one quality that no entrepreneur can be successful
without is discipline. To build an idea into a business, you have to
have the discipline to spend time slogging through the least fun parts
of running a business (like the bookkeeping), rather than taking that
time to do something fun. When you’re the boss, there’s no one to keep
you at work except yourself — and there’s no short-term consequences for
skipping out early. Sure, if an entrepreneur plays hooky enough he
knows that the business just won’t happen, but it’s very hard to
convince someone that ‘just this once’ won’t hurt (and to keep ‘just
this once’ from becoming a daily occurrence).
- Calm: Things go
wrong when you run your own business. Most entrepreneurs go through
crises with their businesses — and more than a few wind up with outright
failures on their hands. But when you’re responsible for a business,
you have to be able to keep calm in any situation. Any other reaction —
whether you lose your temper or get flustered — compounds the problem.
Instead, a good entrepreneur must have the ability to keep his cool in
an emergency or crisis. It may not make the problem easier to solve, but
it certainly won’t make it harder. If an entrepreneur can handle
failure without frustration or anger, he can move past it to find
success.
- Attention to Detail: Restricting your attention to the
big picture can be even more problematic than ’sweating the small
stuff.’ As an entrepreneur, unless venture capital has magically dropped
out of the sky, a small expense can be a killer. It’s attention to
detail that can make a small business successful when it has competition
and it’s attention to detail that can keep costs
down. Attention to detail can be difficult to maintain — going over
ledgers can be tedious even when you aren’t trying to pay close
attention — but keeping your eye on a long-term vision is just asking
for a problem to sneak in under a radar. After a business grows, an
entrepreneur might be able to hire someone to worry about the details.
In the beginning, though, only one person can take responsibility for
the details.
- Risk Tolerance: No entrepreneur has a sure thing,
no matter how much money he stands to earn on a given product. Even if a
product tests well, the market can change, the warehouse can burn down
and a whole slew of other misfortune can befall a small business. It’s
absolutely risky to run a business of your own and while you can get
some insurance, it’s not like most investment options. Even worse, if
something does go wrong, it’s the entrepreneur’s responsibility — no
matter the actual cause. In order to deal with all of that without
developing an ulcer, you have to have a good tolerance for risk. You
don’t need to channel your inner frat boy and take on absolutely stupid
risks, but you need to know just how much you can afford to risk — and
get a good idea of how likely you are to lose it. If the numbers make
you uncomfortable, the risk is too great. An entrepreneur has to be
willing to accept pretty big risks, with some level of comfort.
- Balance:
You can take any characteristic too far. There’s a point at which
attention to detail can become obsession or calm can become unemotional
response. As an entrepreneur, you have to be able to balance your
characteristics, getting the most of them without going over the edge.
But balance for an entrepreneur goes far beyond keeping your
characteristics in check, though. Just as an entrepreneur doesn’t have a
boss to keep him at work when necessary, he doesn’t have one to send
him home
when he’s done. If you are working for yourself, you have to decide how
to balance your work and home life — and if you have a day job to add
into the equation, balance just gets more complicated.
The
characteristics I’ve listed below are not characteristics that a person
is born with. Some people do seem to have an aptitude for those
qualities that make up the entrepreneurial spirit — but they can be
learned. They aren’t the easiest things to learn, admittedly, but it’s
not impossible. You won’t find classes in these subjects, but you can
teach yourself, if you truly want to.
Are there any other
characteristics you think are necessary? Share them in the comments and
tell us why you think a particular characteristic is crucial to an
entrepreneur’s success.
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