What Are Some Common Traits Good Entrepreneurs Have?

Adopting some common traits good entrepreneurs have will improve your business success. Though rewarding, running a business involved a lot of pressure, and the entrepreneurs assume all the risks. However, with the right entrepreneurial characteristics, these individuals are well-positioned to achieve their goals.

I’ve served as a business law and corporate attorney for thousands of businesses in California. I’ve identified the common characteristics of an entrepreneur that lead to success. Entrepreneurs share common traits described as the abilities, characteristics, and patterns of thought that all successful businessmen share. Some individuals are born with these traits while others develop them over time.

Entrepreneurs are unique individuals who usually work under a lot of pressure. However, characteristics of an entrepreneur can help them survive and succeed in business. Common traits good entrepreneurs have generally include driven, intelligent individuals who seek to fulfill their visions by any means necessary. They routinely deal with challenges and setbacks, assuming the risks that come with their business decisions. On the road to success, they deal with a lot of pressure, both self-imposed and placed upon them by others. Sometimes, it can become challenging to maintain a clear image of the path ahead and, better yet, to keep believing in their own ideas and visions for the future.

Entrepreneurs cannot be categorized but they share common traits for success. People of every stripe have shown the progressive spirit and ingenuity to become successful entrepreneurs. However, it is possible to identify the characteristics, behaviors, and unique abilities of many successful business people and create a helpful list of these features. Some are born with these traits, and others develop them as they move toward their business goals. Whatever the case, simply being aware of them is the first step. These powerful identity traits include:

1. Introduction

2. Maintaining Optimism

3. Maintaining Confidence

4. Staying Passionate

5. Being Action-Oriented

6. Be Competitive

7. Displaying Leadership

8. Perpetually Learning

9. Self-Discipline

10. Being Kind and Compassionate

11. Ethics and Integrity

12. Embracing Failure

13. Being Innovative

14. Understanding Networking

15. Being Yourself

16. Be Proactive

17. In Summary

Maintaining Optimism

Being optimistic means being emotionally resilient to the negatives and focusing on the positives. An entrepreneur who manages, organizes, and operates a company is probably going to encounter plenty of setbacks. For instance, as he or she begins their business, they will have to fill out a lot of paperwork related to tax forms, licenses, bank accounts, and business plans. While preparing these documents, there may be problems that slow progress, like structural issues in the business plan or delays in getting a license.

Optimism can help a business owner overcome these issues quickly rather than being demotivated by them. Just as with the other important entrepreneurial characteristics, optimism can be developed and maintained throughout a career. An individual can cultivate optimism by doing the following:

Surrounding themselves with positivity: optimistic employees, inspirational interior design, upbeat music.
Having a positive outlook that impacts the way you do business, as well as your decision-making process.
Looking at everyday scenarios as business opportunities.
Looking for the positives in a troublesome situation and focusing on these while you fix the issue.
Hiring a career coach who can help you foster optimism.
Identifying when you are being negative and reframing your mindset. For instance, you can begin looking at problems that slow your progress as learning experiences that can set you up for future success.

Maintaining Confidence

Confidence may be defined as the subjective point of view that an individual has what is required for something. Entrepreneurs hire workers, ask banks for loans, build relationships with suppliers and clients, and motivate tams. It is therefore important for business owners to be confident that they can do these things.

Confidence directly helps a business. Major stakeholders are more likely to favor your proposals if you give off a confident vibe. There are a few strategies you can use to project more confidence, including:

Foster a belief in yourself and your skills. Write a list of your successes and review them when doubting yourself. For instance, tell yourself that you are making something people like and remind yourself of the achievements you have already made to improve your business.
Plan and do your daily tasks with the perspective that you will do them even if there are issues.
Take a look at how confidence can be communicated via verbal and nonverbal methods and use these techniques to change how your project yourself.
Practice situations like negotiations with suppliers or conversations with investors by practicing your delivery, learning to answer common questions and managing feedback in a professional manner.
Hire a career coach who can help you build up your confidence.
Hang out with friends who make you feel better about yourself. This social interaction can build your confidence in yourself.
Learn new soft and hard skills to better your work performance. This will make you more self-assured at work.
Improve your appearance by dressing well, eating healthily, and exercising regularly to improve your confidence.

Staying Passionate

Showing passion for creating and operating your business will make it easier to supply the effort needed to turn it into a successful empire. If you need to increase your passion for your business, consider the following tips:

Think of your job as more than just a moneymaker and think of it as a genuine love for something. Recall why you started the business or think of the positive impacts it is having on your local community, your employees, or your clients.
Begin each day by telling yourself the things you enjoy, like hiring a new employee or securing a deal.
Study how you can communicate with passion when engaging with suppliers, investors, or employees. Your enthusiasm will rub off on your major stakeholders, which will help your business on a grand scale.

Being Action-Oriented

Common traits good entrepreneurs have include action oriented. Do you know what constitutes a proactive individual, and do you consider yourself to be proactive? Being proactive, as opposed to being passive and waiting around for things to happen, is a highly important trait for all aspiring entrepreneurs to possess. People who are proactive tend to anticipate both good prospects and upcoming pressure. If you attempt to address adversity early instead of simply reacting to threats, you are a proactive person. However, we are not all born this way, and just as with anything else, there are ways to fine-tune this essential characteristic. Here are a few tips that might help you on your way to becoming less reactive and more proactive:

As opposed to relying on short-term solutions that will only disguise the problem, work toward long-term fixes that get to the causes of the issue plaguing you, your office, or your business.
Many entrepreneurs hit the books for constant research in their quest to get better, but listening to employees goes a long way in understanding their needs. Once you know what the “insiders” think will improve the business, go out and work towards those goals.
Analysis is a process you should trust and utilize constantly. Through constant analysis, patterns will become visible, and areas of the company that needs improvement will present themselves.
Many entrepreneurs attempt to ignore the competition and develop tunnel vision. Instead, locate any threats as they emerge and work to overcome and solve them.
If you value employee feedback—which you should—then show them this. Tell them this. This will create a more open environment and allow you to take the right action at any given time.

Be Competitive

All successful entrepreneurs are competitive. With virtualization and globalization, industries are becoming more competitive. To make your company profitable, it is crucial to foster a competitive attitude. Think about the following points to help foster your own competitive spirit:

Monitor what your competitors are doing with market-monitoring services and market research, and make sure that you do not lag in developing these.
Figure out what business tactics work for your competitors, and which do not. Use the good strategies to improve your own company.
Use pricing, product improvements, distribution, and marketing to make your services or products more competitive. For instance, you might release a new product at a low price to compete with a few establish brands. Your use of creative advertising motivates customers to try your brand, switching products.
Create customer analyses, using the findings to improve your services or products so that they are adapted to the needs of customers.
Use analysis of employees to offer incentives like severance packages, benefits, and performance-based rewards. This will draw the best talent to your company.

Displaying Leadership

Common traits good entrepreneurs have include their leadership skills. A small business owner has the burden of managing their fledgling company as well as getting it off the ground as a startup. Usually, being an entrepreneur involved identifying and building relationships with investors, monitoring operations, and overseeing employees. To properly perform these duties, an entrepreneur needs to be a good leader.

Leadership may be defined as the ability to guide others. A good leader encourages people to reach certain goals and is viewed as a leader by those who follow him or her. There are methods by which an individual can develop this trait, including:

Learning from experiences: Of course, it is normal to make errors when managing people. However, a good leader looks for the pros and cons of their leadership style while they work and uses their findings to improve their leadership skills.
Researching different styles of leadership: There are different kinds of leadership. The democratic leadership style, for instance, involves leaders and followers working together to make decisions. This can be effective during the first stages of establishing a business. This methods can also give a business owner insights into decision-making when it is not feasible to hire a bunch of experts.
Studying leaders in the industry: An entrepreneur can study how leaders in their industry handle major stakeholders and employ the leadership strategies that work for their specific businesses.
Creating an approach that works for you: Thinking about new kinds of leadership and analyzing your own leadership style can help you tailor a style that suits both you and your company.

Perpetually Learning

Common traits good entrepreneurs have include passion for learning. Every manager, supervisor, and even every CEO makes mistakes while supervising a team. Often, it is through those mistakes that the best leaders gain knowledge and experience. While many perceive errors as limiting, one of the more valuable entrepreneurial traits is the ability to pinpoint the pros and cons of one’s style of management and then develop further from there. The key here is a mantra we believe in wholeheartedly: never stop learning.

There are a plethora of leadership styles out there, with new systems emerging at all times. Thanks to the often helpful web of social media, leaders from all different industries are sharing what works for them and what doesn’t, and this can also be very helpful. For example, a more democratic type of leadership emphasizes collaboration between managers and employees regarding decisions of all kinds. This type of leadership can be very effective during a company’s startup phase, providing employers with specific insights that only their employees can offer with their particular knowledge.

The learning process does not just encompass employees but also peers. Entrepreneurs can absorb new ideas, approaches, and strategies by studying the other leaders in their chosen industry. For example, how do other business leaders manage key shareholders? How do they rely on powerful, progressive tactics to help their companies ascend?

While studying others and continually learning is paramount, it is important to remember that as an entrepreneur, you should have your own unique identity and leadership style. Seeking out and emulating the techniques of others only goes so far. The point is to combine what you have learned with your own philosophies and figure out what works best for you and your business. Of course, it is also essential to stay open to new ideas at all times.

Self-Discipline

An entrepreneur can greatly benefit from being disciplined. It is expected that entrepreneurs will work independently, overcome challenges, and set their own goals. To accomplish these things, it is essential to show discipline. The following advice can help you become more disciplined:

Become a self-starter who begins and completes tasks without needing oversight.
Reward yourself every time you meet a goal. This system will motivate you to meet your targets without getting sidetracked.
Establish a work ethic that makes you determined to work hard to achieve your goals. Remember that plenty of entrepreneurs who have created successful startups have spent more time at the office than their own workers.

Being Kind and Compassionate

While kindness may not seem crucial to an entrepreneur’s success, it is actually critical in maintaining long-term profits. For instance, it may be simple to focus on meeting your sales targets, but not considering the wellbeing of employees or the impact of the business on the local community could cause issues over time. This lapse could also allow competitors to step in. Use the following bits of advice to foster a kind attitude:

Look at your employees’ working conditions on a regular basis to make sure they have what they need to perform at their best.
Look over your employee benefits package to ensure it attracts the best talent.
Improve your production and distribution processes to make them less harmful to the environment.
Support a healthy company culture that has firm policies against sexual harassment, discrimination, and bullying.

Ethics and Integrity

Common traits good entrepreneurs have include high ethics and integrity. Some business owners fall short in terms of values and morals. They let the rigors of the business and the lure of high profits stain their all-important code of ethics. We are here to tell you that things never turn out well for these individuals. The very nature of business is based on a mutually understood ethical code, which stems from how commerce has always been a cornerstone of our society.

The most successful entrepreneurs enjoy long-term success based in part upon having a strong sense of integrity. The key here is trust: you must prove to others that you are trustworthy and deal only with buyers, suppliers, customers, and employees that maintain this sense of honesty and honor.

Embracing Failure

Common traits good entrepreneurs have include learning from their failure. Entrepreneurs who succeed take risks, and sometimes they fail. Actually, they fail often; this is one of the main ways they improve their skills, learn to recalibrate, and then win. We are not saying that winning entrepreneurs are irresponsible with their decisions. On the contrary, many entrepreneurs pride themselves on making measured, well-researched decisions, but sometimes, even the most calculated choices still do not pan out.

Seasoned business leaders know that things do not always go according to plan in the business world. They also are acutely aware that failure is not a bad word since a lack of success can actually teach them more than anything else. The key here is to take risks and own the failures, so you can also own the winning moments.

Being Innovative

Common traits good entrepreneurs have include being innovative. Innovation is a buzzword in business these days, but successful entrepreneurs have always known that original ideas have more power than recycled concepts. Originality and entrepreneurship have always gone hand in hand; entrepreneurs are marked by their commitment to perpetually developing new ideas and improving old processes.

Many entrepreneurs became so because they sought to improve a certain invention, service, or process and believed that they could do so. Whatever sector they are in, successful people are always looking to innovate and add their own groundbreaking and original ideas to the mix. Many companies, such as Apple, are based on ideas such as these.

Understanding Networking

Common traits good entrepreneurs have include always networking with people. Sometimes, we view networking events as a distraction from the work that needs to be done. However, the majority of entrepreneurs look at networking as an essential skill, one that can be improved and utilized often. The entrepreneur trait of skillful networking can result in both short-term and long-term gains. Individuals can meet new partners, co-workers, investors, buyers, and even customers. Networking is also a social activity that can yield new connections and ideas. Most entrepreneurs do not work alone or attain success by themselves. Rather, they are aware that it takes valuable resources, financial partners, business partners, advisors, mentors, and peers to help them achieve their goals.

Being Yourself

Common traits good entrepreneurs have include being themselves. Simply being yourself may be our 15th entrepreneurial trait on this list, but it is close to being number one in terms of importance. It may seem overly simplistic, but top business leaders and entrepreneurs understand the strength that lies in being honest with themselves. What are your top skills, and what qualities could you use for some improvement? What are you known for, and what is your biggest weakness? Realistically, there is no one “type” of an entrepreneur. Some are chatty and extroverted; others are quiet and insular. Some entrepreneurs spend long hours focused on their work alone, while others live a diverse life full of varied interests, which derive inspiration from sports and hobbies.

The point here? You do not need to copy anyone or live up to anyone else’s image. We are all totally unique individuals with different skills, interests, and passions. All of us can find our inner entrepreneurs if we apply ourselves and have the desire.

Be Proactive

A proactive individual is one who anticipates both threats and opportunities and attempts to address them. A reactive individual, meanwhile, merely reacts to situations. It is always better for an entrepreneur to be proactive and not reactive. The following are some ways in which you can be more proactive:

Combine active listening with research to better understand the needs of major stakeholders (employers, business partners, and customers).
Identify problems and come up with solutions before the issues grow in severity.
Review your business operations on a regular basis. Identify things that can be improved and make them better.
Try to come up with long-term answers to address problems rather than merely coming up with short-term fixes that are only band-aids.
Use both written and verbal communication to show workers that you welcome advice or feedback. This can help you find areas that require improvement or policies that should be explained more clearly to employees.

Having an open mind

When you keep an open mind, you show a willingness to hear others’ opinions and ideas. Usually, entrepreneurs start companies in competitive fields that already have established leaders in the market. To be successful in this climate, it is important to see opportunities in everyday situations and identify ways to improve what the business offers. Think about using the following tips to develop this trait:

Listen to other people, recognizing that they have equally valid opinions. This will increase the pool of insights and ideas.
Encourage customers and coworkers to offer feedback and think about their opinions to make a service or product better.
Use new insights or ideas about customer service, workflows, or employee engagement to improve a service or product offering.

In Summary

We hope that this list has been as helpful as it has been insightful and that readers have learned what it takes to be successful entrepreneurs. Good luck in all your existing and upcoming business pursuits.

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