10 Skills and Traits Possessed by the Most Successful Entrepreneurs

You wonder how they do it, how they are able to build their businesses from the ground up efficiently and fledge it to the best to structure your business, and even talk to mentors. Unfortunately, the results aren’t as spectacular. However, you keep trying.

To be a successful entrepreneur, there are skills and traits that you have to possess. These traits are beyond your credentials and they determine how your business will move to the next step. These skills determine if you get funding from venture capitalists, angel investors, strangers, or your family and friends.

Here are the 10 skills and traits you need to possess:

1. Leadership skills

Do you possess good leadership skills? Do people like your leadership and does your leadership style inspire change? As a business owner, you must be able to manage your employees and the teams involved.

Businesses that are meeting their goals and aspirations have gotten where they are because of having leaders with the capacity to guide the businesses through the different challenges, but still come out on the other side having achieved what they set out to do. Being a great leader means that your employees work with you, question your moves at other times, and basically communicate well with you just to ensure that your business reaches its goals.

“The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.” – Ray Kroc

2. Excellent communication skills

For you to get the end product you had in mind when starting, you should be able to clearly communicate your goals to all the teams involved in the production and processing process. An entrepreneur needs to understand their employees, know their strengths or weaknesses, then help them use these effectively, making the business and the employee better. This is only possible through communication.

Communication must be two way and you should also listen. Good written and spoken communication skills are important out of the business establishment as well. Communication is integral when looking for funding, when handling complaints from customers, or when negotiating new deals.

3. Ambition

To change the world with your business, you need to have ambitious projects. Ambitious projects are often referred to as the disruptive ventures. To get on top of things and the industry, yours should be the project that will disrupt the society’s status quo.

As an entrepreneur, your ‘holy grail’ is a product or a service that will shake up the industry radically. This includes the ability to change the way people view things, interact or label things.

4. Risk taker

An entrepreneur is the definition of a risk taker. Business growth depends on your ability to dive into the future of uncertainty while embracing all the challenges and the problems that will cross your path. You should be willing to risk your money, time, and other unknown factors. To deal with these risks and the unknown, you should set aside resources, bandwidth, and plans to deal with the unknown.

5. Fearlessness

You cannot run a business when you are afraid of every turn you are about to make. Being a risk taker requires a fearless spirit. There will be scary moments, but your ability to maneuver and win over the fear is the power that will propel you and your business to greater heights.

6. Ability to listen to your gut instincts and to trust them

There isn’t one successful entrepreneur who faults or regrets trusting their instincts. In a normal consumer life as well as the business world, you have to listen to that little voice and step out when your gut says so.

As a result of the impressive results reported by entrepreneurs who always trust their instincts, gut instincts have been dubbed the sixth sense. This sixth sense is very powerful and you should be able and willing to trust and rely on it. It doesn’t matter what the rest of the team thinks.

7. Visionary

You cannot take on the entrepreneurship bull by the head and ride it without falling over or getting it to trample on you if you have a solid vision in mind. Perceptive and creative business visionaries tend to twist normal views, distorting reality and eventually change the way people see the world. To be in the top entrepreneurial league, you should be able to cultivate these visions in your mind so as to make the big breakthroughs, which could never be envisioned by an ordinary person.

“The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but on significance — and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.” – Oprah Winfrey

8. Motivation and passion

The most important trait ingrained in successful entrepreneurs is passion in what one does and the motivation to hit the big business storms every day without giving up. Because of passion, you will stay up late to complete unfinished tasks, wake up earlier for your customers to get their deliveries in time, work endlessly on the same thing without getting bored, willingness to make the business better and stronger, and the ability to be in love with that which you wake up to, every day. Without this and the internal motivation to make things work, you will not succeed in business.

9. Tech savviness

You don’t have to be a pro in all matters tech and programming but in this digital age, you should have the least possible capacity to market your products or services online and to connect to your customers, competitors, or suppliers through social media platforms. Digital marketing is crucial and you should do some basic SEO. You should also use the company’s and your personal social media platforms to build and enhance your business brand.

10. Good financial management skills

You need to manage your money. Even when you have a CFO, you still have to control things and help in making business decisions concerning money. Besides financial management, you must have the ability and the capacity to raise funds. To get investors interested in your business, you should be able to show them what you have and what their investment can do for your business.

In conclusion, the success of your business depends on these skills and traits. A rapidly growing business is one that is not only disruptive, but also one that leaves a positive impact in society. Your goal in business shouldn’t just be raising a lot of money, but you should have the vision to change things around to benefit the whole society.

What skills are you lacking in and how are you trying to fix them? Leave your thoughts below!

Image courtesy of Twenty20.com