An Entrepreneur is a person who can visualize their idea and work on it. In simple words an Entrepreneur is someone who starts a company from Scratch. Such a person is the compilation of different persons, who if not an expert knows the art of managing business and all the activities, tasks related to it.
What is entrepreneurship?
It is the willingness, knowledge and will to develop, organize and run a business enterprise along with any of its uncertainties too. Entrepreneurship is a challenging journey as it requires you to innovate by identifying a need in the market and filling it using their knowledge, passion or expertise.The entrepreneurial vision is fueled by the drive, mindset & persistence of the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship makes a person self-sufficient and that person understands the importance of self-employment.
Characteristics Of A Good entrepreneur by Atul Garg?
Forbearance and ability to take risk- Starting any new venture involves a considerable amount of failure risk. The entrepreneur needs to be courageous and able to evaluate and take risks.
Originality and innovation- The idea should be original for it be a profitable business from the very beginning. The other way of starting a successful business is to find problems in the current way of doing business and solving them by innovating the process.
Far-sighted and productive- To be successful, the entrepreneur should have a clear vision of his new venture. Good improvising turns the idea into reality a lot of resources and employees are required. This the point where leadership quality is paramount because a leader imparts and guides their employees towards the right path of success.
Receptiveness- In a business, every circumstance can be an opportunity and used for the benefit of a company. For example, Paytm recognized the gravity of demonetization and acknowledged the need for online transactions would be more, so it utilized the situation and expanded massively during this time.
Malleable- An entrepreneur should be flexible and open to change according to the situation. To be on the top, a businessperson should be equipped to embrace change in a product and service as and when needed.
Complete understanding- A company owner should be aware of the product offerings, and knowledge of the latest trend in the market. It is essential to know if the available product or service meets the demands of the current market, or it is time to tweak it a little. Being able to point out your shortcomings and then altering them as needed, which is a vital part of entrepreneurship.
For one to become an entrepreneur he/she should possess self-confidence, awareness about the growing demand and changes in the market and must have the ability to access different situations, circumstances without being compromised by the fear of failure. If you want to be an entrepreneur, it requires you to have certain skills. Skills of an entrepreneur.
- Leadership: The skill of leading is all about motivating others and helping them discover their best skills. This process also instills the quality to master skills, which goes in hand with understanding people. When you know your team members and where they best fit, you are more likely to put them where they belong — and that means you can build a better company with a better output
- Good verbal Skills: Entrepreneurs should be able to explain, discuss, sell and market their goods or service. These skills are important to be able to interact effectively with your business team. Additionally, entrepreneurs need to be able to express themselves clearly both verbally and in writing. They also should have strong reading comprehension skills to understand contracts and other forms of written business communication.
- Skills for effective marketing: A business’s success or failure is very dependent on whether the business reaches the market (its potential customers), interests the market and results in those in the market deciding to buy. Many entrepreneurs who failed, started with an innovative good or service that could have been very successful with proper marketing strategy. Good marketing skills are necessary because they result in people wanting to buy your good or service— and are critical for entrepreneurial success.
- Interpersonal Skills: Entrepreneurs constantly interact with people, including customers and clients, employees, financial lenders, investors, lawyers, and accountants, to name a few. The ability to establish and maintain positive relationships is crucial to the success of the entrepreneur’s business venture.
- Basic Management Skills: The entrepreneur must be able to manage every component of a business. Even if entrepreneurs hire managers to attend to daily details, they must understand if their business has the right resources and if those resources are being used effectively. They must ensure that all the positions in their business are occupied by effective people.
- Personal Effectiveness: To handle the pressures of their busy lifestyles, entrepreneurs must have the ability to manage time well and to take care of personal business efficiently. Because first impressions are so important, entrepreneurs must also pay attention to such things as personal appearance and telephone skills. For example, think of the difference in the impression made by someone who answers the phone by saying, “Yeah?” versus saying, ”Computer Support Services, you’ve been connected to the Finance department. How may I help you?” Additionally, entrepreneurs benefit a great deal by being aware of their strengths and weaknesses.
- Team Building Skills: Because entrepreneurs usually assemble a team of skilled people who help them achieve business success, they must be able to effectively develop and manage the team.
- Leadership Skills: One of the most important leadership skills an entrepreneur must have is the ability to develop a vision for the company and to inspire the company employees to pursue that vision as a team. The expression “people would rather be led than managed” applies especially well to an entrepreneurial venture.
- Receptive Attitude: Having receptive attitude is one of those soft skills that can help you survive as an entrepreneur. With this skill, you are more likely to be willing to learn new things and move forward. If one thing doesn’t work (or stops working), you need to be flexible enough to try something else. It also helps when you are trying to manage different schedules. Your ability to have an agile mind and thought process can pave the way to success.
- Problem Solving: As an entrepreneur, you need to be ready to solve any problems that come your way and problems at hand. This process requires creativity, but you also need to have good analytical skills, you should be able to analyze the situation and look at it from different angles. Along with that, it’s important to find different, sometimes out-of-the-box solutions to different queries. The following is considered as one of the best soft skills for entrepreneurs and business leaders who need to overcome obstacles and challenges.
Many people have the wish of becoming an entrepreneur, but becoming an entrepreneur is not just about wishes. The same requires skills, vision, mindset and the ability to handle tasks. This probably will be your answer to; how can I become an entrepreneur, by Atul Garg?
Perseverance
The business owners are usually determined to get past obstacles and see a project through its completion despite setbacks. The same will allow them to proceed with their frustrations and problems and persevere their energy”. Provided the challenges of today’s complex business environment, this aptitude is at the top of the list
Self-assurance
Entrepreneurs show self-confidence and trust their instincts. This quality helps them through difficult times and pushes them to achieve tough goals. without this quality, people hesitate and aren’t so willing to take calculated risks,
Creativity
Another aptitude needed to be emphasized is creativity. This is particularly true when it comes to the ability of an entrepreneur to creatively identify business opportunities. Entrepreneurs instinctively see gaps in the market and can find unique products and services that meet a demand.
Tolerance and ambiguity
Entrepreneurs are comfortable with ambiguity, and capable of making decisions even when they don’t have all the information they need. For example, you might be selling products or services in a relatively unknown market. This level of uncertainty can be very stressful for most people, but entrepreneurs learn how to work around it,” he believes.
Attitude toward failure
Many business owners have a long history of failures and accept these as part of the learning experience. Rather than viewing failure as a catastrophe, an entrepreneur will learn from his or her mistakes and what to avoid the next time around. They’ll pick themselves up after a failure and start over.”
Action-oriented
Entrepreneurs don’t rest on the results of their past achievements and are driven to accomplish their objectives through concrete action. Entrepreneurs want to get down to work and won’t put off difficult tasks to accelerate their energy. That strong desire to tackle their objectives and see quick results often characterizes people who want to run their own companies.
It all comes down to why entrepreneurs are amazing, as defined by Atul Garg:
1. Positivity: they believe that they can do it. It is not about fooling yourself into anything, but the only way can they make it happen by believing that it will happen.
2. Reaching out to mentors: There are many successful people within your existing network, and you can also make new connections. Connecting with mentors helps you hear what it takes to be an entrepreneur.
3. Minimizing risk: Sometimes minimizing the risk is not possible, and that’s when other qualities of an entrepreneur come to use to evaluate the best way to move forward.
4. Give it due time: Ideas come fast but making them happen will take time. Even if all goes well, almost everything you do in business will take longer than expected. The entrepreneur must have the patience to apply the right strength.
5. Get others to believe in you: Successful entrepreneurs are great at selling their visions. You might have to convince vendors, partners, landlords, investors, employees, or a list of more people.
6. Prepare to fail: Do not fear failure. There is one thing for sure, you will fail before you succeed. Expect failure but don’t fear it. Think of it as a normal part of your business. It is necessary. It is good for your business. It teaches you. It helps you make the right decision the next time. It is super important that you don’t associate failure with quitting. Only those that take action fail and only those that take action succeed.
7. Pivot, rinse and repeat: Successful entrepreneurs are always adjusting. There are many reasons to adjust. Your customers might ask for a new software or, the recession might have put your best customers out of business. The price of raw materials might rise one day. Your business and its environment are dynamic. If you are good, you develop a keen eye for changes and make quick adjustments. Most businesses that fail do so because they ignore the world changing around them.
8. Focus on your customer: Your customer keeps you in business and puts you out of business too. If you listen to them, you can improve your products or services. If you ignore, they fire you. Customers don’t disappear, they go to your competitors. Reach out to your customers. Ask them questions. Ask what they like or dislike. Welcome negative feedback. Don’t be defensive about it. Negative feedback gives you a chance to improve.
9. Stay profitable: Staying profitable will solve many problems. The lack of profit could put you out of business even if you have record sales. Forget sales. Forget your revenue. Forget the total number of customers. Always be mindful of profitability.
10. Manage cash: Entrepreneurs that fail often confuse cash flow with profit. The two are not synonyms but antonyms. You can go bankrupt with record cash flowing into your business. To succeed in business, you don’t just need cash flow, you need positive cash flow. With positive cash flow happens when the cash funneling into your business is more than the amount of cash leaving your business. It is simple yet often ignored. The companies that ignore this end up with negative cash flow. This happens when the outflow of cash is more than your incoming cash. You should never allow negative cash flow.
11. If you will succeed in business, you must figure out how to deal with the unexpected expenses: It’s not that “what if it happens “, but “when it happens “. What if your best salesperson quits tomorrow? How long before you will replace him/her? Do you have a system in place, so when you hire a replacement they could manage? Systems are crucial to recovering from a disaster. Formal procedures are key. Identify the key parts of your business and think about what it would take to recover losing any of them. For example, if your company relies on your e-commerce website, develop a system to recover your site even if your current site crashes and your hosting company goes out of business within the same day. You don’t have to be paranoid about it but create systems of key parts of your company.
12. Forget the idea, act : You should never start a business based on a great idea. An idea is just that: an idea. It’s worthless. It is not going to help you succeed in business. Ideas won’t do; you need action to succeed.
13. Social Media: Being adept at taking advantage of social media trends is vital to any business trying to establish itself in a market. Social media evolves rapidly.
14. Relationship Building: Make friends (employees as well as customers) and build mutually beneficial relationships that will give you the potential for big new opportunities in the future. Be active with your community’s business organizations and collaborate with other businesses as much as possible.
At the end of the day, it comes to the benefits of being an entrepreneur. The benefits can be derived from the skills and characteristics as led down by Atul Garg.
