The 5 Traits of a Successful Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is apparently someone who can: organize, manage and assume the risks of a business or enterprise. To do all that successfully, there are specific measurable ‘traits’ that indicate one’s capacity to do such work - job criteria essentially.

Why do this work?

Around a year ago, I discovered home business opportunities...yes, making millions from the internet. I was hooked and sold on: setting my own hours, being my own boss, enjoying the freedom of being self-employed, the rich life-style my success would bring and giving up my day job. This work makes use of my multi-media skills, passion for music and image production, and education. So this is why I started down the path of entrepreneurship initially...I guess I’m an ‘entrepreneur’, but do I have what it takes to be a rich one?

The Journey to Date

To date, I’ve followed a lot of business models, setup heaps of websites and blogs, wrote heaps, posted to social sites, am doing the on-going traffic thing, training, taking action and I’ve spent heaps and made some money...not enough to give up my day job yet...so I must be doing something wrong because I’m not totally self-employed yet – although this is not necessarily a criteria for success. However, it seems that I’m getting some things right too.

The 5 Traits

Okay, Number 1: must be able to stick with something despite no results. (TICK! Yes, I’ve met the first trait successfully). I’ve been able to bounce back time and time again in the face of low or no results for my hours and hours of dedicated pursuit of entrepreneurial excellence.

Number 2: Let Go of a Losing Idea? (A TICK with some initial exceptions). Okay a tough one I admit. I’ve struggled with this one. After spending days on a campaign, developing it, setting up the site, doing the pages, links, PayPal, autoresponder, advertising via PPC, emails, article writing, blah blah, to see nothing happening is a bummer.

The first thing I find myself getting resentful and then discouraged and then I just leave it for a while. I usually get over it and I might look at problem solving to perhaps improve upon this ‘guaranteed’ niche area and hang on to it for a time. ‘Letting go’ of my first ‘failed’ campaign was the toughest one. I realised that I was just wasting money in the face of no interest, and I had to console myself with the fact that I learnt a great deal doing it and that I needed to approach it differently next time.

Number 3: Self Confidence. I don’t think any of us are absolutely ‘doubt-free’. I have doubts at times but I’ve learnt to reinforce what I want, check and be aware of doubts and renew myself daily...tomorrow is another day (So a TICK here for this one too).

So let’s see how I’m going? 3 out of 3, so I’m doing okay and this indicates that so far, I’m a successful entrepreneur, so I’ll keep going.

Number 4: Knowing the value of my products and services. (This is a tough one – half tick). I’ve had franchises that had an industry value of, for example $37. Then a saw another owner of the same franchise offer the same product and 4 others for less than what I was trying to sell one for...that was discouraging. It invited me to think that I was over-charging...or more-than-likely they were under-charging...but if they got the buyers with the deal, then I miss out...very frustrating.

I continue to wrestle with this one and it seems that offering heaps of bonuses with the product services is the way to go. For example, the price to buy something is $37, but the value to the buyer – with the bonuses – is 1000’s of dollars and it would seem that the competitive nature of the industry requires this approach.

Number 5: Be able to solve problems. A problem is an unsuccessful attempt at finding a solution for something. This is one of my philosophies, which I apply to my life and business. If there’s a problem, then I’m responsible for solving it...no-one else, unless there’s a member of my team involved.

One of the areas I need to work on however is being able to spot and solve other people’s problems. Most of my work to date is about copying other businesses, which is legit and recommended when starting out. However, unless I learn how to find problems and provide original solutions, then I’m just building upon other people’s creativity (1/4 of tick here).

The Final Assessment

So I’m doing okay with these 3 out of the 5 traits, but I’ve identified what I need to focus on in order to take my entrepreneurial skills to the next level. If I’m in the business of solving my customer’s problems, then I need to learn to do this more effectively and make sure that my offers are competitive and unique.

The Free Self-Assessment Quiz

There are many more traits to help gain a more insightful measure of one’s entrepreneurial capacity. Take this free assessment test (12 traits) to see if you’ve got the mindset to be a rich entrepreneur. You can claim your free Silver Membership to SuccessUpgrade here (the value is normally $27).

http://www.successupgrade.com/go/id2/amadavit/Silver.html