The hours are long, sacrifices are great, and you are assaulted with new challenges with seemingly no end. If you don’t have the dedication to commit to these things, your company may implode on you faster than it started. 

Entrepreneurship is not for everybody, but how do you know perhaps entrepreneurship is for you or not? It would be best to start by asking yourself what it takes to be a good leader and do most of the work up front by yourself.

But if you can’t lead yourself through a startup, your chances of being able to lead and manage your company are slim.

It takes only the lucky convergence of opportunity and ambition to create success. Successful entrepreneurs or business owners, regardless of the industry, share some significant personalities that set them apart from the rest.

Leveraging these skills enables them to turn their business ideas into profitable realities. As an entrepreneur who is just starting, success depends on a firm conviction in your abilities and a clear understanding of what it takes to start and run your own business successfully.

However, if you seek a challenge wrought with risk but with terrific potential reward both financially and morally, read on, for you have the potential of what it takes to be a great and successful entrepreneur.

Successful entrepreneurs or business owners, regardless of the industry, share some significant personalities that set them apart from the rest of the entrepreneurs.

What Is a Successful Entrepreneur?

What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur? Do you need to be charismatic enough to convince or persuade people?

To become a successful entrepreneur, you must make good decisions around spending your time, continually evaluating and prioritizing tasks according to relevance and importance.

However, it is essential to state from the outset that no magic formula can transform you into a wealthy and successful business owner overnight. You need to work diligently to succeed, with an almost formulaic blend of entrepreneurial traits that sets successful businessmen and women apart from others.    

Management is the Key

Being an entrepreneur means you are your own boss, as well as the boss for your team. Therefore, your skills and traits need to be extensive to be successful. As an entrepreneur, you should effectively manage people, budgets, operations, and other resources.

Finding and keeping clients is one of the entrepreneur’s essential management undertakings because sales revenue from customers keeps your business alive. This requires a multi-tasking work style including short and long-term planning and the ability to participate in economic forecasting and research.

Therefore, entrepreneurs must have the ability to manage customers, show up at work every day, troubleshoot business problems, over-see client interactions with employees, and make sure that clients are well satisfied.  

Entrepreneurs must have the ability to manage customers, show up at work every day, troubleshoot business problems, over-see client interactions with employees, and make sure that clients are well satisfied.

Are Successful Entrepreneurs Born Or Made?

Human beings are born with an innate sense of motivation or drive. Remember, when you are young, you are driven by simple motives such as eating, sleeping, playing, being comforted, and many more.

However, as you age, your motives change. These kinds of motives refer to an entrepreneur as a “why.” A “why” is what prompt entrepreneurs to create, innovate, preserve, and ultimately develop their businesses into the innovative products or service we use today.

However, each entrepreneur’s “why” is special and unique to them. For example, it prompts them to leave home early, work extra hours in the day, and it’s why entrepreneurs keep going when others see them as crazy.

Anyone can start a business and tag themselves as an entrepreneur. Nevertheless, most businesses fail, making people wonder whether the successful entrepreneurs have a remarkable entrepreneurial innate ability that others live without.

Entrepreneurs Are Born

Some believe entrepreneurs are born, while others think people can become successful entrepreneurs through actions. It has even been suggested that there is an entrepreneur gene that people say predisposes them to succeed in their chosen niches.

However, after series of personality and aptitude tests, and from the research, it is considered that there are three key foundational DNA pillars that are behind entrepreneurial success:

• High fluid intelligence
• High openness
• Moderate agreeableness

Also, research of molecular genetics shows that there is genetic heritability to four core entrepreneurial personality traits and each of which increases the likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur:

• The ability to identify new business opportunities
• The likelihood of starting a business
• The tendency to become self-employed
• Extroversion, i.e., when you easily make new connections, lead people, and engage in a wider community

However, the ability to apply the personalities mentioned above in the right way and in a suitable space is likely what makes an entrepreneur successful, over having these innate qualities as a person.

Entrepreneurs Are Made

If you apply yourself unconditionally, some believe this is how entrepreneurial success is made. If nurture did not exist within greatness, vocational skills and the education system would be meaningless, and they are proven to support achievement and self-development.

Successful entrepreneurs can be born with ideal personality traits to be successful. Still, they must apply their qualities in a particular way because no one is born with all the personality traits required to be 100% successful.

Every entrepreneur would have had others they look up to as a mentor for advice. With relevant drive, commitment, and patience, you might be even more likely to succeed than someone genetically predisposed to starting a business.

The Combination (Born and Made)

Many articles, studies, and debates have attempted to answer this question, and they’ve landed on either side of the fence. But the fact is, entrepreneurs are both born and made. However, suppose you get the balance right between your nature and nurture and apply your interest and passion. In that case, you can effectively establish your business idea and achieve your business goals.  

How To Become An Entrepreneur

Find the Right Business

The term entrepreneurship is quite broad, and you can become a business owner (founder) in just about any aspect. However, you will have to choose a field to start your business. Find a niche that you will be successful in and make sure it is something you are passionate about. Entrepreneurship is about commitment and hard work, so you have to focus on something you care much about.

Plan your Business

Before you develop your business idea, you need to have a business plan.  It plays out any objectives you have and your business strategy for achieving those goals and objectives. In addition, a business plan is essential for getting venture capitalists on board and measuring how successful your business is.

Find your Target Audience

Not every niche appeals to the market. Your demographic such as age, gender, income, race, culture, and many more will play an essential role in determining where you establish your company or if you even need to have a physical address for your business. Do your research to find the group that best fits your business model. 

Network

While networking is essential in all businesses, it may be most significant for entrepreneurs. Networking means how you connect with other people that might have skills to develop your business. Also, you can find potential investors through networking to help get your business off the ground.

Sell Your Idea

Consumers want products or services, but they don’t know the exact product or service to choose. Your job as a business owner is to persuade people that whatever you are selling is the best option available for them. Entrepreneurs know what they want to offer and to whom they can sell it to.

Market

To be a successful small business owner, you need to focus on marketing before, during, and after establishing your business. For example, you may have the best cafeteria in your city, but no one will visit you if they don’t know your business exists in that location.

Character & Personality Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

Many characteristics can contribute effectively to the success of entrepreneurs as they launch, operate, and scale their businesses. These characteristics can include the timing of their business, how competitive their market is, the reliability of their supply chain management, the actual amount of capital they can obtain, and the current economic climate.

In addition to the essential elements, there are several personality traits successful entrepreneurs have in common that contribute to their business success. However, the following are the characteristics and personality traits of successful entrepreneurs:  

Vision

Vision happens to be one of the significant traits that are needed to run a business successfully. However, being a visionary supersede them all. Running a business involves being on the cutting edge of where your industry is going, anticipating your clients’ needs, and conveying a strong vision that your team would want to assist you to execute. Entrepreneurs always focus on the big picture, and this ability can provide you, great employees. “Vision is about strategic planning,” Litzinger says.   

Creative

One of the significant parts of creativity is the ability to discover a relationship between two unrelated events. Creativity produces something new. For without creativity, innovation is impossible. Creativity helps in coming up with new concepts and enables entrepreneurs to think out of the box. Also, it gives them the ability to develop new products and implement necessary solutions that lead to business growth and development.

Passion

Passion is one of the most relevant characteristics of entrepreneurs. Your job should be your passion. Your passion will drive your business and enable you to get connected with your clients and do something relevant. Entrepreneurs are successful because they have passion for what they do. Passion triggers creativity, tenacity, salesmanship and builds a strong connection with customers. Passion acts as a driving force, with which you are motivated to do something great.  At the beginning of every business, there are always obstacles, but your passion ensures you conquer these stumbling blocks and move ahead towards achieving your goals.

Confident

Another quality of a successful entrepreneur people usually notice is their confidence. If you have new opportunities you want to bring to life, you have to have the confidence to see the idea through.  As an entrepreneur, you must have confidence in yourself as well as your business. You must be able to stand for what you do correctly and confidently.

A successful business doesn’t doubt its progress. Successful small business owners are generally confident enough that their knowledge, skills, and know-how will assist them in making their business ideas prosperous. They radiate this confidence in whatever they do to achieve their business goals.   

Motivated

Another essential characteristic of an entrepreneur is self-motivation. When you want to succeed in your business, you need to push yourself forward to achieve your business goals.  You are your boss as an entrepreneur, and that sometimes means that it may be hard to get moving in your career without anyone by your side to encourage or motivate you. Therefore, you need to be dedicated to your business goals and objectives – even though you aren’t getting an immediate result.

Life-long learner

Having a growth mindset is understanding that your skills and abilities can be developed and enhanced to increase your skills and knowledge. Successful business owners don’t believe that they know it all and understand that sometimes they are going to need to improve their skills and increase their knowledge. You may be naturally gifted in your business, but hard work, commitment, and growth development of skills can push you from being average to a top business owner.   

Risk Taker

The ability to take a calculated risk is an essential characteristic a person in business can possess. When entrepreneurs are willing to take risks, they can learn and develop in their business that can enhance their company in the long run—taking risks to assist them in discovering new business opportunities themselves from the competition, particularly in a saturated market. If the risk doesn’t have the intended result, the business owner can still apply the valuable ideas learned to future business decision-making.

Leader

As an entrepreneur, you have a vision, goals, and objectives. However, it takes resources to turn your vision into reality and achieve such goals and objectives. One of those resources is the employees you hire to operate various units like production, marketing, sales, accounting, supplying, etc.  A single employee can’t perform the entire task. Thus it is essential to bring in more individuals to fill in the posts. This also makes leadership a crucial characteristic of entrepreneurs. Without proper leadership in your company, everyone would be working independently without achieving the business goals and objectives.

Decision Making

As a business owner, you need to make quick and effective decisions and take action for the success of your business. To enhance your decision-making skills, you can notify yourself to understand better the business challenges you try to solve. Also, make it easy for yourself by narrowing your options to ease the process of your decision-making.

Hard-Working

Entrepreneurs are very determined and hard workers; they are not the lazy type. They think and act logically. They continuously do proper planning and don’t sit idle. Successful entrepreneurs always strive to progress and expand their businesses. 

Goal Mindset

Business owners are goal-oriented. They know what they want to accomplish, set reasonable goals and work towards getting better results. Determination is essential to overcome possible challenges. However, to become a goal-getter, you can start by identifying what you want to achieve and clarifying your future vision. Then you can set a goal with a good timeframe to guide your actions as you work towards achieving your goals.

Entrepreneurs believe in smart and intelligent jobs. They think and act logically.

Conclusion

If you began your journey of becoming an entrepreneur, but you’ve not seen the expected results, you may need to adopt the characteristics mentioned above. Perhaps you only need to work and improve on some of the qualities.

This is the time to take your ideas, dreams, and innovations and turn them into reality. Being your boss and running your business doesn’t have to be something that you only imagine. Take action. Your ideas don’t have to remain a daydream. Most of us have the required skills and knowledge to start our own business and build our empire, we just need confidence and motivation to get started.

So, what are you waiting for? This is the time to test your newfound entrepreneurial skills by taking your first step to starting an abundant lifestyle.

The post Do You Have All These Entrepreneur Traits? appeared first on Startup Oasis.

Enter Social Entrepreneurs.

A social entrepreneur’s goal is to build a great business and ensure that its company positively impacts society.

This could be from helping the homeless to reducing the impact of climate change. Social entrepreneurs see their business, not as one that can provide them with a financially free lifestyle but one whose actions benefit more than just their customers.

This post will cover the basics of social entrepreneurship, why it’s becoming more popular, and how you can start your social enterprise today.

We’ll also look at some pioneering companies leading the way and the innovative founders behind them.

Let’s jump in

When attempting to tackle a social problem, a company can still be for-profit. Still, the organization will typically use a portion of its revenue to support the operational costs and ventures of the social arm of the business.

What Is a Social Entrepreneur?

A Social Entrepreneur (or Socialpreneur) builds a business intending to make a successful social impact on the local community or create a broader social change.

When attempting to tackle a social problem, a company can still be for-profit. Still, the organization will typically use a portion of its revenue to support the operational costs and ventures of the social arm of the business.

Socialpreneur vs. Entrepreneur

Socialpreneur: Someone who sets out with the intention to develop a (sustainable) business to address the social needs of the community or other areas around the world

Entrepreneur: Someone who develops a consumer product in an attempt to make a profit

10 Examples of Socialpreneurship

While understanding the nuances of Social entrepreneurship will help you know if it’s the correct route for you when starting a business, analyzing existing companies that are taking part in social ventures, and leading the way in the world of social responsibility can inspire you to take action on your new business in the future.

Ben & Jerry’s

Arguably one of the more famous examples of a company championing for change, Ben & Jerry’s has been pursuing social entrepreneurship since the very beginning.

The company continues to ensure that its products are made cruelty-free and implement positive actions and promote social good from the top down.

When Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield sold the company to Unilever, they felt they could only sell the company in good faith if Unilever carried on its social practices and committed to going even further.

Since their founding, Ben & Jerry’s have been involved in several social issues, including;

• 1% for peace – The company set a goal to redirect one percent of the national defense budget to fund peace-promoting activities and projects.
• Content cows – where eight million Ben & Jerry’s pints carried a “Support Farm Aid” message as part of the grassroots efforts of Farm Aid, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to keep family farmers on their land.
• Committing to transition that all the company’s ingredients to be entirely sourced non-GMO.

TOMS

After a backpacking trip to Argentina in 2006, TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie saw the hardships faced by children without shoes.

This inspired Mycoskie to create a for-profit business that a new pair of shoes would be given to a child in need, for every pair of shoes the company sold.

The company exploded to fame following this commitment. Many celebrities endorsed the product and improved its reach across the world. Since then, TOMS has given away nearly 100 million pairs of shoes!

Warby Parker

The founders of Warby Parker started the company to solve a problem. They found that it was costly to buy a pair of glasses, considering that the same company manufactures most glasses produced globally!

Warby Parker set out to make sure this model changed and manufactured quality eyewear that didn’t break the bank. Like TOMS, they also set a mission to donate one pair of glasses for every pair sold.

Patagonia

Did you know that the founders of Patagonia and The North Face were best friends and used to go climbing together? It’s a fascinating story and one you can hear played out on the “Business Wars” podcast. Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, started by making quality climbing gear in his garage but found that his gear was responsible for damaging the environment when he went to his favorite climbing spots. From then on, he vowed never to create anything that directly hurt the environment as a result.

Patagonia’s clothing and gear come with a lifetime guarantee, and the company promotes a workspace that puts the employees first. The company consistently ensures that their products are never manufactured in unsafe working conditions and work only with contractors that provide fair wages and hours.

Google

While Google may not be the first company you think of when considering social entrepreneurship, the organization takes social innovation and sustainable environmental practices very seriously.

Google has been Carbon Neutral since 2007 and plans to be Carbon free by 2030, which is no mean feat for an organization that has massive serve usage.

On top of that, Google ensures that most of its data centers are placed in locations that use clean energy and match 100% of their annual electricity use with renewable energy purchases since 2017.

Lego

Lego focuses its social entrepreneurship on three major areas; Children, environment & people. As a toy company, the company does a lot to promote play for learning purposes and aim that by 2022 to have brought learning through play to 8 million children worldwide.

To limit its impact on the environment, Lego plans to remove all single-use plastic from its boxes by 2025 while creating a safe, fun, and unique work environment for all its employees globally.

Levi Strauss

Making jeans requires a considerable amount of water. Levi noticed this and vowed to reduce the volume of water and resources needed to make their most famous product.

The company also added the product tag, Care for Our Planet, in 2009, which advises users on how to preserve best their clothing and where to donate them once you have no more use for them. Levi Strauss works with Cotton Inc.’s Blue Jeans Go Green to collect used clothing to sell pre-owned or restored vintage clothing items to reduce its carbon footprint. 

Microsoft 

When your founder is Bill Gates – co-founder of one of the most influential nonprofits in the world – you can imagine that Microsoft will be involved in various social enterprise programs and support successful social entrepreneurs.

Like Google, Microsoft is committed to helping to create a sustainable future and earning the trust of its employees and users through a commitment to privacy, security, and the responsible use of AI. If numbers are your thing, Microsoft has;

• Donated $1.9 billion to nonprofits as well as offering discounted technology and services
• Ensured their suppliers reduced their Carbon dioxide output by 21 million metric tons
• Analyze over 470 billion emails each month for malware and phishing attempts

Klein Kanteen

For a company whose main product is a reusable water bottle, you can be sure that social entrepreneurship is at the top of the company’s mission. The organization strived to be a sustainability leader and is a Certified B Corp company and one of the first companies on the market to introduce stainless steel, BPA-Free, multi-use water bottles.

They are driven by removing as much single-use plastic from the planet as possible and even host free filtered water stations at events, bringing along their sustainable mission—a clear example of a company whose mission is championing positive change.

Bronner’s

Another Certified B Corporation whose feel-good factor can be felt in their USDA organic soaps, balms, lotions, and cleaners. The organization is committed to using the purest ingredients. It ensures they do not use any synthetics or additives in their products.

Dr. Bronner also caps all executive pay so that no staff member earns more than 5x anyone else in the company; that goes for the CEO, too, a refreshing concept in the age of inflated corporate wages.

Finally, the company is all about spreading positivity; if you’re ever feeling down, head over to their website for a dose of feel-good hormones.

Social entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes; there is no one size fits all model.

Solopreneur or Co-founder?

There are pros and cons to being either a Solopreneur or starting your social enterprise with a co-founder when it comes to social entrepreneurship.

Working by yourself allows you to develop your social enterprise entirely in the image of your vision. You can create a nonprofit in the developing world or focus on creating social change within your community or society as a whole.

The direction of your business is totally within your control. However, that means all of the pressure rests on your shoulders.

Whereas, when building a company with intentions of solving social problems with a co-founder may allow you to scale quicker and offer your product or services to more communities with a more significant overall impact.

Scaling social enterprises with a co-founder means that you can share the responsibilities, keep each other accountable and hold each other up when times get hard.

Social entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes; there is no one size fits all model. Before starting it’s important to define your goals and decide whether you think a co-founder will help rather than be a hindrance.

Where You Can Start With Social Entrepreneurship

Building a social enterprise is the same as building any business. Your goal is to create revenue. However, instead of using it to fuel your finances, you use it to invoke social change. With that being said, it’s still essential to start by understanding your business model. Do you want to sell merchandise or help provide access to education for underprivileged children? Whatever social problem you want to help solve, start from the beginning:

• What will you sell?
• How will you fund it?
• How will you position your branding/marketing?
• Do you need to develop a website?
• What are your core values?
• What is your mission?
• What is your niche?
• What is your Year 1 target?

The more definition you can give to your social enterprise, the better your chances are of starting on the right foot.

Since building any nonprofit contains many of the similarities of doing any other business, take a look at podcasts you can listen to, to gather ideas of manufacturing or innovation. Read blogs from entrepreneurs on how to secure funding and develop a marketing plan using automation and SaaS tools to help keep your business lean in the beginning.

However, the most important thing is to make sure you choose a cause you are passionate about. Ensuring you are creating a business to help solve a problem that means a lot to you will determine your motivation.

Building any business is hard; there will be hurdles and pitfalls along the way. However, suppose your business targets a social issue that aligns with you. In that case, you’re more likely to be determined to create lasting change.

Social Entrepreneurs To Follow Today

Bill Gates

Co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates has been responsible for many philanthropic projects attempting to impact today’s world positively. Gates’ social entrepreneurship also spilled over into Microsoft, as we saw above. If you’re interested in finding out what the foundation is committed to tackling, you can check it all out here.

Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus is the founder of the Grameen Bank. This enterprise focuses on providing small loans to those living in poverty. This Bangladeshi-based social enterprise helps those communities in poverty gain access to money they would otherwise have been rejected from receiving. For his work in helping the impoverished, Yunus received a Nobel Prize and has done several talks on “The New Economics of Zero Poverty.”

Bill Drayton

Arguably one of the most influential social entrepreneurs of our time, Drayton is the founder of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. Ashoka takes a personal approach to find, support, and provide value to social entrepreneurs globally, assisting them in creating social ventures that help communities. Drayton is also the chair of the board for “Get American Working!” and “Youth Venture.”

Shiza Shahid

Shahid is a Pakistani social entrepreneur, activist, and investor. She is also the co-founder and former CEO of the nonprofit Malala Fund, promoting education for every girl. In 2013, she was included in Time’s “30 Under 30” list of world change-makers. In 2014, she was listed in Forbes’s “30 Under 30” list of global social entrepreneurs.

Blake Mycoskie

Mycoskie is the founder of TOMS – see above -. Through his brand, Mycoskie was able to raise awareness about issues such as global poverty and health. By 2019, TOMS successfully provided people in developing countries with 95 million pairs of shoes. Mycoskie is continuing to scale his mission to provide help and resources to those in developing countries by assisting local communities in gaining access to clean drinking water and providing those who can’t afford it with prescription eyewear.

Is Social Entrepreneurship Here To Stay?

Businesses founded by those with an entrepreneurial spirit to tackle social problems are precisely what the world needs. Companies that bring a social aspect into their goals can look forward to creating a lasting impact outside of the one they have on their consumers but can also feel proud about what the organization can achieve.

Society needs more enterprises that are focused more on success in a community than on profits. Social entrepreneurship is here to stay. Consumers are more likely to do business with those organizations that are championing for change and helping to make the world a better place through helping the community, the environment or promoting a sustainable business model that doesn’t drain the world of resources.

Final Word

Creating a business can be extremely rewarding in its own right. By taking an idea from a note on a page to a fully operational and scalable company. However, combine the success of your business with making a lasting impact in the community, and your rewards can be boundless.

Move forward with purpose and service. Create a positive impact on society and develop a social venture that helps more than just those who buy your product or service. Realize that a successful business is not just one that has a positive balance sheet each quarter, but one that also helps others in need and makes the world a better place to live in.

The post Social Entrepreneurs: What Are They And How You Can Become One appeared first on Startup Oasis.