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4 Traits The Successful Entrepreneur Must Acquire

Guest post by: Ken Sundheim

Article Overview: An entrepreneur must have a hybrid of skills to succeed and to successfully grow a business as well as sustain that growth. Businesses are living, breathing creatures and must be fed more and more revenue to survive.

4 Traits The Successful Entrepreneur Must Acquire

An entrepreneur must have a hybrid of skills to succeed and to successfully grow a business as well as sustain that growth. Businesses are living, breathing creatures and must be fed more and more revenue to survive.

The minute that the "Beast" witnesses prolonged famine, it shrinks then, within time, the entrepreneur gets tired and the company dies. To combat this potential failure, the business owner must become multifaceted - a chameleon of sorts.

With the aforementioned thoughts in mind, what traits must the entrepreneur gain to become successful and to properly lead a group?

The following is a good place to begin and where it ends, nobody has a clue:

1. The Successful Entrepreneur Must Have Thick Skin

Entrepreneurs need to have thick skin. From what I have noticed and lived through, some people will do and say very hate filled things out of spite, jealously or personal dislike.

It's a sad fact and will happen. The entrepreneur must adapt, to be able to anticipate and combat rejection. To give you a good example, I was told by a reporter at CBS that she didn't want to interview us because she didn't engage in negative thought.

This was because I warned her that I wanted honest reporting. Needless to say, she was the pot calling the kettle black.

I have gotten hate mail from competing firms claiming that they know our secrets and other personal things.

While many would be intimidated or hurt by such correspondence, to the entrepreneur, the hate mail is complimentary while the rejection from the CBS woman is frustrating: not hurtful, but annoying.

Regarding the hate mail, this correspondence tells the entrepreneur that people are angry and frustrated with his or her existence on planet earth. The entrepreneur smiles.

2. He or She Must Have The Ability To Recruit Talented Individuals

When I began a recruiting firm, I did it because I thought it was something that I could do. I got the idea from a book when I was just a kid.

As an entrepreneur, I randomly hit the business building lottery. For any business, recruiting and knowing how to obtain talent is immensely hard and the inability to do so, or having consistent turnovers, kills a company.

Therefore, this is an advantage that I hold dear. The entrepreneur must bring the right talent onto his team. Otherwise, the business won't stand out.

It's the entrepreneur who starts the business. However, it's the first few employees who determine the entity's success.

3. Marketing Skills

Marketing is a skill that each entrepreneur needs to have. I really don't see much of a way around it. Whether it is marketing themselves to the public, writing a website or marketing their company to potential employees, entrepreneurs need to learn marketing.

You could only imagine how hard it was for my wife and me to recruit our own employees while still based from our apartment early on.

The two employees who took the leap of faith with us while we were still in that early stage, we hold dear. However, it could not have been done if it were not for our website, which was the only allure we had as a frontline defense.

4. Basic Psychology and Persuasion

Entrepreneurs need to know how people think, what their drivers are, what their turnoffs are. If he or she is to gain the ability to motivate others, this is a necessity.

As someone who is under 30 who had really no other work experience, I learned this through reading, the help of my wife and trial and error. Do I have it down pat? The answer is "No."

Leaders are not born with a special leadership trait that some don't or will never have. Instead, entrepreneurs mold themselves into leaders as they grow up. Knowing basic psychology and persuasion allows the entrepreneur to do just this.

However, this theory also goes back to the 1st trait mentioned. When you become a leader, you leave yourself open to judgment and consistent rejection.

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Article Tags: entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, starting a business



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