An entrepreneur is someone who has an idea and who works to create a product or service that people will buy, as well as an organization to support that effort. An entrepreneur takes on most of the risk and initiative for their new business, and is often seen as a visionary or innovator. There are four types set out below, read on as we define them in greater detail for you and then you can evaluate which one you are:-
The four types of entrepreneurs:
Coasting, opportunity comes to them (or it doesn’t)
Conservative (very moderate use of resources, protecting existing resources)
Aggressive (proactive, all-in, actively seeks opportunity)
Innovator/Revolutionary (attains growth through innovation)
Coasters
The coasters don’t look for opportunity, things kind of “happen,” and for some, that works. It's more focused on right now what’s in front of us.
Conservative
The conservative entrepreneur operates on the principle “resources are limited,” and thus, we have to “be cautious.” This is slightly focused on the future, but conservatively so, since ”you never know.”
Aggressive/Proactive
The aggressive entrepreneur operates more on the idea that there are many opportunities and uses whatever resources are there to achieve those objectives. This is more focused on what’s next, what more can be achieved, and generating growth through personal action and conviction.
Innovator/Revolutionary
The innovator not only seeks out opportunities that can be seized but look for opportunities that, with some refinement, can be the best of all worlds. This is the rebel, the artist, the non-conformist embracing all that’s possible in the future (even at the sacrifice of the present).
So the real question here becomes "Which type of entrepreneur are you?" And is that type serving you best to meet your objectives? If you can not answer yes to this, you won’t be able to play to your strengths. When you can say yes, you open the doors to:
Choosing the right opportunities
Choosing the right clients to best serve
Choosing the right partners, and
Knowing your next step up the ladder (if your current choice isn’t getting you the results in enough quantity and quality to satisfy your objectives)
7 Skills You Need to Be an Effective Entrepreneur
What skills do successful entrepreneurs have in common? We outline seven entrepreneurial skills that will help you start a business and make it thrive.
Sales - Sales is the most important skill for an entrepreneur, and your mindset must always focus on sales. You have to market yourself, your product, and your business to customers, partners, investors, and future employees.
Thick skin - Being able to handle criticism and anxiety well leaning on your emotional intelligence, or the ability to continue to operate in stressful circumstances.
Organisation - Being organised helps as it gives you the ability to know exactly where everything is if you need it is imperative.
Adaptability - Open-mindedness is important in life and work. Having macro and micro adaptability is beneficial. On the macro level, you need to know the big picture issues affecting your industry. On the micro-level you need to have tools to quickly manage the situations and seek to recover what you can.
Technology - Technology is a subset of adaptability, therefore don’t let technological illiteracy hold you back.
Financial literacy - The measuring stick for a business is profit. Learn all the accounting basics you need to understand the income statement and balance sheet, and take some time to learn the industry-standard metrics for your business. The more you understand your own financials, the better you can plan for the future and negotiate better deals.
Cheap - Accountants can attest the best business owners to work with is someone who is cheap as businesses exist to make profits. For the most part, good enough is good enough. An entrepreneur who is constantly vigilant about every cost is rarely surprised by bad quarters or unprofitable returns. However, if you get too obsessed and start to cut corners on quality or paying for services, it isn’t worth it, as the saying goes, what you pay for you will get back in return!
Entrepreneurs who want the newest and highest quality everything are rarely successful.
Entrepreneurs have one thing in common: they all seek survival and growth.
Yet all entrepreneurs seek out growth, opportunity, and expansion in various different ways. Pursuing and succeeding in an entrepreneurial career is admirable, but it isn’t easy and to expand you will need to grown and have a team. If you can work on the list of skills to set yourself up for success you will be one step closer to succeeding in your quest.
Isolating who you are and how you approach growth will make the difference in whether you do that quickly, slowly, or not.
Every entrepreneur is different. It's impossible to create a list of entrepreneurial skills and program a robot to run a successful business. For each of the skills above, we could think of a few billionaires who notoriously didn’t have the skill.
It’s about the cumulative skills you have in managing. If you can’t sell but you’re great with numbers, you may be able to run a million-dollar business based on deal-making and smart purchasing alone. If your desk would take a team of seven in hazmat suits to clean but you could sell sand in the desert, you can probably make it work. Know your strengths and weaknesses, and hire people who compensate for your weaknesses.
Useful Links:
Listen To Podcast: S4 E10: Entrepreneur Spotlight - Claudia Marfo
