What are the top entrepreneurial skills I must have or develop to become a successful entrepreneur?
If you want to be an entrepreneur, there are some personal skills you can develop to be even more succesful at this. Business schools are full of this business thinking, but you need practice as well. Here is a list, that helps you to review your personal skills and competency level.
Some core concepts
- Risk taking – taking leaps of faith, failing, trying, repeating
- Independent
- Drive – you must do it yourself, you need to want it
- Preparedness & experience helps
- Open for the new and to learning – Curiosity – you will need to learn tons of stuff
- Can do attitude – be practical
- High energy – excercise works good to maintain high energy levels
- Resilience – when things are not going to plan
- Have a vision – know where to go in 5 years from now
- Know/learned about the business – very important on the business success – have some working experience in the domain of the business
- Have working experience – a few working years experience really helps, most entrepreneurs start after 35 so they have more experience under their belt.
- Open to people (as you will have many, many contacts with others)
- Financial insight (it’s all about revenue, cost and profit and cash)
- Sales skills. You will need to convince and interact with a lot of customers, employees, partners.
- Leadership / managing a team – know how to get your team working for your business
- Not afraid for numbers. You will need to check financial statements, calculate profits/margins, manage cashflow, etc.
- Cooperation with others – working with suppliers on getting things done. Empathy helps.
- Some legal awareness – reading contracts
The Entrepreneur MBTI profile
In MBTI measurements, the entrepreneur would have the ideal ENTP or ESTP personality. An Entrepreneur (ESTP) is someone with the Extraverted, Observant, Thinking, and Percieving personality traits. They tend to be energetic and action-oriented, navigating whatever is in front of them. They love uncovering life’s opportunities, whether socializing with others or in more personal pursuits.
Take a test here: https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test.
This only shows, if you have a such a character that fits this profile. One can be of any character and still be a good entrepreneur.
List your strenghts
Find the core strengths of what you can do, this will hugely help to check your potential. Are you good with finances, people, sports, concepts, etc.? Work with your strenghts.
This approach will help you what you will do very good, for the other weakness you can structure your future team to support your weaknesses (for example, hire an accountant for the financials, or a webdeveloper for your website, if you don’t have the skills or don;t want to get involved in these areas.
Find your strenghts, this helps you a lot to better stand your ground. Being an entrepreneur and a leader requires that you know yourself and so you can work and learn to improve and adapt to these strenghts. You might be great at dealmaking, customer contact, finances, webdesign, concept thinking, visual, or numbers. Knowing this helps a lot. So make a list.
Skills for a great entrepreneur
A great entrepreneur must be able to effectively communicate, sell, focus, learn, and strategize. An ability to continuously learn is not just a key entrepreneurial skill, but also a very valuable life skill. Growing a business requires a sound strategy based on inherent business sense and skills.
What personality is best for en entrepreneur? 8 Personality Traits of Successful Business Owners
- Personable, Outgoing, a People Person. You have to be able to sell your product, yourself, your business.
- Driven, Motivated, Confident. ..
- Risk Taker and Proactive. ..
- Good with Numbers. ..
- Goal Oriented and Future Focused. …
- Passionate.
- Leadership. …
- Honest and Humble.
So what are your skills as an entrepreneur? Do the test here.