Becoming an Entrepreneur
Making the big decision of starting your own business can be a very daunting experience for any aspiring entrepreneur. This unfamiliar and risky territory is very different to the comfort of a job, but the rewards of starting your own business can be bigger than you can imagine. To start your own business means letting go of the safety net of a big organization with benefits, and the fear of failure stops many people from taking that first step.
There are certain habits and characteristics that if applied, can greatly reduce your chances of failure and increase your chances of building a successful business. They focus on the character traits that people admire, and successful habits that ensure you run your business in a profitable way.
Without further ado, here are the 10 Successful Habits And Characteristics Of Startup Entrepreneurs.
1. Your Word
Do you do what you say you’re going to do? And if you didn’t were you accountable?
If you think you are a person of their word, realize that the smallest actions can give you away. Its easy not to keep your word and try to justify it by thinking that others won’t remember, but they will. Every time you make a promise and don’t keep it, you are chipping away at who you claim to be. Be a person of your word and hold yourself accountable when you can’t fulfill a commitment that you have made to someone.
People will appreciate and your business will be built on a solid foundation of your good reputation.
2. Use the Phone
Many aspiring entrepreneurs have a fear of the phone. Emails alone won’t close that deal for you so pick up the phone and talk to the person who makes the decisions. The only way to overcome the fear of the telephone is by actually picking it up and using it. Follow up your emails with a phone call and be persistent.
3. Principles and Purpose
Hold yourself to a standard of behavior. What are your principles?
You should build a strong character and be honest, genuine, thoughtful, caring and brave. These are just mine but what are yours?
As an entrepreneur, you have to hold yourself accountable to your principles and live by them everyday.
4. Look for the Win Win
In negotiations, especially as a startup entrepreneur, it may be your goal to get a larger slice of the pie for yourself. You will try to leave every negotiation as the winner by trying to get a better deal than your client. The reality is that the best deals are the ones that everyone wins. Everyone has to get a good deal and leave the situation with a good impression.
Look for ways that you can help people and you will realize that you will get better results while having a better time.
5. Focus
As a new and aspiring entrepreneur, you may be spinning your wheels as you try to get a grasp on the many business ideas that you have but success requires you to focus on just one.
Focus means prioritizing and putting your emphasis on one project at a time. Multitasking is not a success principle. Find out what you most important task is and focus your attention on it. Once completed, move onto the next project and so on.
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6. Fear
As an entrepreneur, you will feel the fear and you will feel it regularly. As you constantly grow develop your business, you will constantly be pushing comfort barriers and feeling the fear as you go. Being an entrepreneur doesn’t mean you have to be fearless, but it does mean you have to be courageous. Courage is feeling the fear and doing it anyway.
Everyone feels fear but it is the successful people who embrace that fear and use it as a guide which tells them where they should focus their attention on next.
7. Strength
Anytime you are communicating you are negotiating and its important to have a couple of tips before you go into it. In negotiations, you need to adopt a firm but fair attitude. There are two things consider when negotiating:
– What is your goal? What outcome will you be happy with? Have a specific goal for each meeting. The key here is specific. Too many people go into a negotiation with the intention of winning, but this doesn’t give you a clear indication of what you want.
– What outcome will you be happy with, if you don’t get the preferred outcome? You have to give yourself some outcome other than the main objective, but if there isn’t one, don’t accept anything but decide on this before you start.
8. Generosity
When you first start out on your road to becoming a successful entrepreneur, you will need help from those around you. Some will help and others wont but the ones that did will leave you with a great impression of them.
You are more likely to help them, you are more likely to use their services or buy their product in the future. You need to be just as generous when someone asks for help, even if resources are scarce. Give what you can and help others achieve their goals. Its good karma.
9. Resilience
As an entrepreneur, especially when you first start, you need to stick to your guns and hold out until you get the result you want. Your job becomes to insist on what you consider to be the best course of action and not accommodating other viewpoints.
If you don’t feel good about relinquishing your viewpoint on a matter, it was probably because it was a bad move.
10. Keep Moving Forward
Entrepreneurship is not just about building a business. Its about facing fears, making mistakes, and building your life. Its about stepping into the unknown and having faith in yourself. Its about forward movement even when the outlook is bleak.
As soon as you realize that everything you ever wanted is just beyond your comfort zone.