The Traits of an Entrepreneur Destined for Success

By: Paolo Arguelles

There is no greater feeling than removing yourself from the shackles of the employee life to become your own boss. It might mean a lot of work and responsibilities, but you are now the person making all the decisions. You are placing your name in an exclusive list of inspirational and fulfilled individuals who dare take on the challenge of becoming the head of a small business and turn it into an up-and-coming enterprise.

A Challenging Test

The start of the journey will make you face an unexpected reality that might catch you off guard but shouldn’t be surprising either. The entrepreneurial path is a quest taken by 582 million individuals as of 2021. The number of rookies starting their respective ventures has continued to grow over the years, filling up every industry with promising startups and stability. It doesn’t feel that exclusive, does it? With so many people taking the same path as you, it wouldn’t be surprising to find yourself in a competitive space.

Maybe you don’t have to worry about all of them. Your location, industry, target audience, value proposition, and other business factors will narrow down the enterprises you have to compete with on your journey. Still, rival businesses are inevitable, and they could be the reason for stunted growth and development. Maintaining competitive relevancy is critical for the rest of the business journey, especially when 90% of entrepreneurs have their ventures cut short within the first five years.

Just like that, the feeling of accomplishment will become an afterthought as you strive to survive a competitive entrepreneurial journey. Even the slightest dip in performance will trigger significant adjustments. Nine out of ten small businesses will fail, and it takes a particular set of circumstances and efforts to be the one that gets to continue the business journey. It takes grit, guts, and a couple of valuable personality traits to become a successful entrepreneur. Working on self-development can set a ripple effect that improves future decisions, especially in a competitive and fast-paced landscape. If you want to improve your chances of becoming that one person out of every ten entrepreneurs to succeed, these qualities can set you apart.

Highly Motivated

Running a business requires 100% commitment. This is not something you can do on the side. It will take every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears to establish a small business that falls under the 10%, more so when you consider the number of obstacles to overcome along the journey. The initial challenges for every business owner feel formal and achievable, sort of a rite of passage that proper preparation and planning can accomplish. As the journey moves past the business launching stage, the issues and obstacles become more rigorous, as if they are tailor-fit to give you a headache.

It can be easy for business owners to get fixated on one business problem, but there will be a boatload of issues thrown your way. When entrepreneurs get overwhelmed with stress and pressure, their decision-making skills will suffer. The result often ends with delayed responses to immediate business problems.

Business owners have to accept the reality that problems will not disappear. They will continue to bug you for the rest of your entrepreneurial life. Problems, as much trouble as they’re worth, will serve as the test for an entrepreneur’s motivation.

The trait provides the drive entrepreneurs need when adapting to changing situations. Motivation also serves as the spark that ignites thriving entrepreneurs towards new goals and higher levels of growth and development. The quality goes by different adjectives in the successful entrepreneur dictionary, with hardworking, inspired, and hungry being the top choices. However, being highly motivated is the description that fits the best.

Passionate

When you decide to run a business, hard work and long hours are almost non-negotiable. It will be stressful, overwhelming, and draining. At some points, it will affect your mindset and confidence. Businesses can be a source of frustration, misery, and even medical problems for entrepreneurs. The majority of your life will revolve around it. With such an overbearing impact, wouldn’t you rather spend your career doing what you love?

Running a business is about making a profit, but it is not all there is to it. It will be your life’s work, and doing what you love can make all the stress worth it. Being passionate about your venture allows you to persevere better, dedicate yourself to your vision, and avoid giving up when the challenges pile up. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs pursued their passion and went on to build empires, and you can be one of those people when you focus on the venture you love doing the most. 

Competitive

Competition is everywhere when you walk the entrepreneurial path. The business world is full of innovation, with most companies requiring adjustments from time to time. The changes might come at record-breaking speed, and small businesses could encounter obstacles financially. Challenges are a part of any road in life, and it should be an entrepreneur’s resolve to overcome them. The business owner’s competitive spirit will reflect on the company’s performance. Fortunately, the latter presents a more quantifiable method for keeping track of competitiveness.

There are two primary principles to maintaining a competitive edge for your business. One is reducing costs, which can help increase profit margins when sales dry up. However, cost-cutting strategies also provide long-term solutions to streamline or digitize processes, making business operations more efficient and productive. The second principle involves taking risks, which might feel like a stark contrast to the first. The strategy will make you spend money by pursuing projects that could elevate your business.

It can be scary to dedicate funds and resources to a project, an innovation, or software when the results don’t pan out effectively for your company. However, staying complacent will make you feel stuck on the path while other entrepreneurs seem to be moving forward. Risk-taking becomes a profitable opportunity when entrepreneurs take a cautious approach in research and development, reducing the chances of high-risk, low-reward scenarios.

Creative

t can be easy to box an entrepreneur as practical, especially when funds and resources have limits. Business owners will take the most efficient route because one mistake could lead to financial losses and operation delays. However, this section is a reminder that entrepreneurs are unique thinkers. All businesses, and I mean all of it, start with an idea. The initial thought triggers other ideas, creating an interconnected chain serving as the venture’s backbone.

Ideas should always flow for a successful entrepreneur. They are the out-of-the-box thinkers, the innovative visionaries, and the pattern-disrupting trailblazers. The quality also extends beyond internal operations. Globalization means that the world is full of products that provide consumers with lots of options. Creative entrepreneurs will always find ways to make their businesses stand out. However, it doesn’t mean that your employees can’t contribute. Creativity, while an essential quality for an entrepreneur, is available everywhere in your company.

Resilient

The entrepreneurial path is unpleasant to the naked eye, which is why very few manage to thrive in it. It is full of roadblocks, pitfalls, and obstructions that will test entrepreneurs in every direction. The business journey might be enough to scare aspiring business owners. People who got over their fears and started their ventures might end up succumbing to the more difficult challenges along the road.

Sugarcoating it won’t do you any good. Running a business will spend all the energy you have every day, and there will be days when you won’t get enough sleep to recover. Some of the challenges you face could end up becoming make-or-break situations that will dictate if your business journey will stop on its tracks or continue moving forward. Those elements will come at you non-stop, and you might not even have time to brace for impact. Entrepreneurs have to survive after all those hits and come back with a plan for a counterattack every time.

Your resolve will be put to the test with every challenge, and the road is full of it. There will be setbacks you might not be able to overcome, leading to business losses. A resilient entrepreneur will consider those moments as lessons for growth. You’ve worked hard for everything you built for your business. Do not let a few losses get to you when you’ve accomplished far more.

Realistic Optimism

The entire business experience involves many ups and downs, similar to how we associate life as a roller coaster ride. There will always be two sides to the coin. Your business will have successful accomplishments and frustrating failures. Operations could flow smoothly one day, and experience issues the next. Just last year, the pandemic forced many businesses to shut down. The whole world agrees that it is a significant setback. However, it doesn’t mean that the future is beyond saving.

Realistic optimism allows people to look ahead and find ways to solve problems and maintain growth. Being practical and positive provides the best combination of qualities a successful entrepreneur should improve. If there is something good for the company in the future, the business owner knows that there will be a path filled with tasks to get there.

Conclusion

Businesses will go as far as the business owners take them, but nobody expects a pleasant and journey to the final destination. Even if you reach your goal, you might find something better on the horizon, extending your quest further. It is a hard-knock adventure traveled only by daring entrepreneurs who have these traits under their belts.

However, business owners do not have to carry all the load in the path to success. Employees will contribute significantly, making it necessary for the entrepreneurs to surround themselves with talented individuals. There will always be room for more employees as long as your growth and development plans continue to progress. If you want a team of tailor-fit and highly skilled workers that will speed up your journey, you can book a call with us!