VenturePORT Series - The Personal Characteristics?
Are entrepreneurs born or made? It's hard to say. But to embark on this journey, you had better understand whether you really want it.
Your Underlying Motives
It's easy to dream about becoming an entrepreneur, especially a rich one. No bosses to answer to. Total flex-time. The opportunity to make your own decisions. Not so! You've got bosses—your clients. Flex-time? As an entrepreneur, it's likely you'll get calls day and night. The opportunity to make decisions? You'll be making plenty of them, even when you're too tired to think. You've got to really want this.
How do you know you have it in you? Thoughts of running your own business and the ideas you have to build your business have likely haunted your thoughts over the years. We know of one entrepreneur whose first business was selling candy to fellow campers at the age of 12. A friendly counselor bought the candy for him, sold to fellow campers at a markup, with a small percentage going to the counselor. Many entrepreneurs had ideas right out of college, even as they held down full-time jobs. Others work for big companies but are the first to step up to help start a new endeavor or business. More than just creating goals, an entrepreneur enjoys the process associated with fulfilling those goals. Those who just want to win the game but who don't in some way enjoy the process will inevitably cut corners, making it that much harder to succeed.
Even more significantly, daydreams of glory will probably begin to look pretty silly after you've rolled up your sleeves and gotten started, so it pays to at least enjoy each challenging step on the way to meeting your goals.
Warning: don't become an entrepreneur simply because you hate your job and want to become rich quick. If those are your primary reasons, stick to buying lottery tickets. Your chances of success won't be much better, but the risk will be less. It's like what people who decide to climb Mt. Everest experience. It looks cool in the pictures, but feels like hell at 27,000 feet as you're burning through bottles of oxygen with a heavy pack on your back. You'd better really want to get to the top.
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Key Characteristics
It takes a lot of hard work and an appetite for risk to make even the best idea succeed. You will have the best chances for success if your personal characteristics include:
Leadership. Great leaders identify goals and mobilize people to achieve them. Leaders have different styles, but great leadership provides sustainable results over time, not just short-term flukes due to good fortune. Some people lead through authoritative command — finding great people, paying them a lot, and then telling them what to do. Others lead by "standing behind" — continually facilitating fresh strategic thinking, asking the right questions, letting people make mistakes, and being there to make the tough decisions under fire.
Both styles can produce impressive results.
Not all entrepreneurs make great leaders, and vice versa. Great entrepreneurs can conceive of a business, make the first sales and get it going, and then find strong leaders to help take it from there. Great leaders sometimes need to find entrepreneurs to provide the forward vision they may lack.
Passion. A true passion for your concept and launching a business, as opposed to simple desperation related to a boring job or career, will help power you through the tough times. A fundamental passion will help sustain you much more than a passing fancy that starting a business might be better than working for your boss. What do you really love in life? If you can figure out how to make that a business, you've really got it made.
Ability to cope with failure. Believe us, you'll make mistakes. You'll be forced to accept rejection. An idea or concept you thought 100% compelling to a potential customer will be rejected for some lame reason you never imagined. Even if you have a string of successes, eventually you'll launch something that won't work. Bill Gates once said he is happy for all of the mistakes he has made, because they have provided him with valuable lessons. Entrepreneurs benefit by thinking that way. When you have a setback, you have to pick yourself up and forge ahead.
The dexterity of a juggler. Even if you're one of those lucky few who raise a lot of money up front, you will likely experience a need to multi-task at a level you never thought possible. As indicated by the many issues covered by Ventureport.org, running a business has multiple processes — all going at the same time. On any given day, you could be dealing with managing cash flow, meeting customer needs, or dealing with an employee, independent contractor, or vendor issue. Someone may suddenly quit. A customer might yell at you. Your phone system or Internet access might go down; a pipe may leak water in to your office. You name it, it will happen. Can you handle three issues at once? You'll likely have to.
The art of selling. An entrepreneur who cannot sell is severely handicapped. Unless somebody sells, nothing happens. This doesn't mean you have to be your company's top salesperson, but you will need the ability to convince:
- Somebody to lend you some money and/or invest;
- Someone to buy from you who knows you're a start-up;
- Somebody to come work for you when you're only a start up;
- A supplier to provide you credit;
- A salesperson to come sell for you;
- Distributors to sell your product or service to their customers.
Even if you have invented something you believe will change the world, you will need the power to convince people.
Some believe you can't teach the art of convincing people, and you either have it or you don't. But here are a few tips just in case the pessimists are wrong.
- Be right. Do your homework. Be thorough. Look at whatever you have created from every standpoint. Be your own devil's advocate.
- Reduce the sense of risk. Most people don't like to waste money or time and are suspicious of newcomers. Identify what might make them wary of you and address it. That might mean associating your company with a person better known than you in the community or in your area of business. Potentially it means getting one big customer in the area to do business with you to gain credibility with other prospects. Or it could mean getting an endorsement from a major group in your community or field.
- Execute as well as possible. Pay attention to the appearance of your Web site, written materials, and all communications. Make sure you spell properly. Poorly executed materials increase a potential customer's sense of risk if they don't know you. If you promise anything, such as a follow-up call, fulfill the promise to the letter. Being true to even simple promises helps build confidence.
- Understand what people are saying to you. People will have a lower sense of risk if they feel you listen and understand what they are trying to say.
- Focus on benefits to the person you're addressing. Focus on identifying and addressing the needs of the person you're trying to convince, rather than on reaffirming your own beliefs. After all, you've already convinced yourself — the person who needs convincing likely has a different perspective than you.
- Communication skills. As a professional, good communication skills will only make your message stronger regardless of the audience. The better you're able to identify and address the interests or areas of pain your audience is experiencing, the better chance you have of convincing people. Through concise communications on your Web site, promotional materials, or e-mails, your audience will listen — if it's a well-delivered message.
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Expertise
In the end, people just don't buy products and services, they buy solutions. It could be a solution related to a personal interest, necessity, convenience, or a desire for entertainment; or it could address a business need or desire. Either way, and more often than not, almost every product or service is enhanced from time to time by expertise. All car engines are fundamentally alike from the average car owner's point of view. It takes expertise to help someone understand the distinctions that might affect their personal needs or desires — such as gas consumption, pickup speed, or torque for rough road conditions — when selecting a car. It really helps if you have some kind of expertise to reach informed conclusions.
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Follow-Through
Believe it or not, it's sometimes difficult to get something done from start to finish. Whether it's an internal project — such as getting your Web site live, or promotional materials written, or a project for a client — some people just can't get it done. They get mired in detail; they can't make up their minds; they worry over every step; and progress is affected by changes and delays. At some point, you have to make up your mind and say it is done. For those unable to follow through, this is much easier said than done.
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Ability to See Your Own Weaknesses
If introspection were mission-critical to entrepreneurial success, there would be far fewer successes. Many entrepreneurs do not have tremendous personal insight. In fact, some thrive by putting blinders on and focusing on fulfilling the opportunity they have identified without any attention to their personal faults. Nonetheless, the ability to see your own weaknesses provides you with an advantage, enabling you to find people who can complement your skills and otherwise make up for some kind of deficiency. Some people with terrible detail skills surround themselves with people who possess these abilities. Some people great on detail look for people with vision.
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Willingness to Learn
You can't know everything, and you never will. It's amazing how many people get through business without remaining fully informed on all of the latest trends, competition, as well as social and economic issues facing their marketplaces. The best entrepreneurs are the best prepared in terms of knowledge. They make a point of staying informed on what's going on in their area of business, their community (if a local business), and the national economy. If you're not staying informed, you're hurting your own efforts by not serving your entrepreneurial mission.
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Do You Have to Be a Gambler?
The answer to this question depends in part on how you define the term. Sure, an entrepreneur takes risks, sometimes very big risks. He or she bets a lot of time and, potentially, money on a dream. Yet, gambling generally refers to a game of chance, in which, most often, the odds are stacked at least a little in favor of the house. In the game of entrepreneurialism, you are betting on yourself, and you're competing not just against other companies but against the reality of the marketplace. There's little stopping you from succeeding if you have the right concept, enough money and relationships, and you execute properly.
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