Successful entrepreneurs assist in inventing novel products, create jobs, and help bolster the local economy. In short, successful businesses help make the world a better place to live in. They often have larger-than-life ideas, which culminate from their out-of-the-box thinking.
Everyone has ideas but entrepreneurs execute them. Business success is not just limited to a great idea. In fact, how you execute that idea is what determines whether you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur.
Moreover, in today’s fast-paced and forever-changing world, success has a lot to do with your ability to ascertain and prepare for the future. It is about foresight, acceptance, and adaptability. This involves everything from having the right attitude to being up-to-date with the latest trends and ensuring you’re building a business for the future.
For example, consider a domain name—an extremely small detail that most entrepreneurs wouldn’t pay much attention to. However, those who’re future-thinking know the importance of new domain extensions and have already adopted them.
Consider domain names such as www.stronger.tech, www.thedrug.store, and www.getbaked.online. New domain extensions such as .TECH, .ONLINE, .SITE, .SPACE, .STORE, .UNO, .FUN, etc. offer meaningful and relevant domain names that can help businesses stand out and carve their own unique niche in the online marketplace.
While every entrepreneur’s journey is different, here are a few traits that all future-thinking entrepreneurs have in common.
Be creative
The path to running your business starts with a great idea. To be successful, you need to always think of better ways of doing things. Think about the voids in the market and think about how you can innovatively fill this gap.
The founder of Virgin Airlines, Richard Branson, once said, “I’ve gone into business, not to make money, but because I think I can do it better than it’s been done elsewhere. And, quite often, just out of personal frustration about the way it’s been done by other people.”
This quote sums up the entire purpose of entrepreneurship and successful businesses. Entrepreneurs need to have a burning passion in them, to make things the way they want them to be, and at the same time, create value for the world and society.
READ: 5 Low-Cost Branding Tips for Your Small Business
Be passionate
Being passionate is perhaps one of the most vital characteristics of budding entrepreneurs. This passion in itself will help you and your business to be on a track for success. Without passion, there is nothing worthwhile to push you through the tough times and to motivate you to perform better. The lack of this basic character trait can make a huge difference.
Successful entrepreneurs often are extremely dedicated to their small businesses, and they love their work immensely. Similarly, to own a thriving business, you have to be confident in yourself, your ideas, and your business venture. You need the fire in you to do whatever it takes to become a successful entrepreneur.
Be motivated
Steve Jobs once said, “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
This quote helps us to understand the importance of perseverance and being motivated. Entrepreneurs use their passion to motivate themselves, which allows them to put in long working hours on their business.
There will be a time when you will be left astray and clueless as to what to do next. There also might be times when you will be close to breaking point. In situations such as these, you have to ask yourself, why did you start this venture in the first place? You need to draw inspiration from your journey up until now and keep hustling.
Be optimistic
There will be tons of moments in your entrepreneurial journey where you will have to ask yourself: do you see the glass half-full or half-empty?
Successful entrepreneurs, no matter how dire the situation gets, focus on the bright side of their lives. They never dwell on the negative aspects of the past, for that matter. Instead, they keep on thinking about going ahead with their head held high.
When entrepreneurs are confronted with obstacles, they do not perceive them as problems. Instead, they view them as opportunities. Entrepreneurs can scale to new heights if they can let their challenges fuel their passion.
Be goal-oriented
Entrepreneurs have their vision set on the future and they keep moving ahead, even if the situation at the time seems a bit bleak. They know what they’re chasing and all of their day-to-day activities are aimed at accomplishing their goals.
Similarly, if you have a strong vision, it can propel you onto a trajectory for success. Consider setting a north star for yourself—a goal that motivates you to keep hustling, and at the same time, guides you to achieve it.
Be persuasive
You need to know how to conduct business to be successful in your business venture. If you are a social person and learn the tricks to get people talking to you, you can be a great entrepreneur.
In particular, when you start your business journey, you need to gain insights from others on your business idea. If your idea is novel and something the world has never seen before, then it’ll be your communication and persuasion skills that can help you get any investments or offers.
This is the very reason why entrepreneurs need to have persuasive skills to be able to sell their business idea effectively—both to investors and customers.
Be flexible
Most entrepreneurs start as solopreneurs—a one–man show. In this phase, you will not have the funds to hire additional staff members or even equipment. This is the time where you’ll have to learn multiple things and wear various hats. This may involve being the social media manager and the accountant all in one day.
Successful entrepreneurs adapt to unfamiliar situations seamlessly. They will learn anything that their business requires them to, be it building a new website, sending out an invoice, or even distributing flyers.
This flexibility allows them to grow their business exponentially in the long-term.
Be resourceful
In the brutal world of business, entrepreneurs today need to be resourceful and not shy away from challenging situations. There are going to be days in your startup journey where you’ll need to get certain tasks done but may not have the resources. Situations such as these test the resourcefulness of the entrepreneur—how to get more done with less.
Successful entrepreneurs try to make the best use of the resources available to them. They learn the tricks on when to be frugal and when to invest keeping the long-term growth in mind.
Be adventurous
A huge aspect of building a business is taking risks. Having the skill to take calculated risks can take your business from one stage to another.
This is similar to the spirit of being adventurous. Can you take a decision that seems risky? Do you have what it takes to deal with negative consequences? It’s a tough quality to develop but it’s what separates just entrepreneurs from successful entrepreneurs.
Be decisive
Last but not least, you need to be firm in your decisions. Being decisive is perhaps one of the most important traits of an entrepreneur. Firm decisions backed by actionable insights will always assist you and your business is growing swiftly and scale to new heights over time.
Start your own entrepreneurial journey
The skills mentioned here do not complete the list in any way. These are just the right set of skills that will benefit you in your entrepreneurial journey. A majority of entrepreneurs are driven by their urge to leave a legacy behind, help the society, or build something great.
No matter where your motivation stems from, starting a business from scratch is more like raising a baby, teaching it to talk, walk, and finally run. This type of fulfilment is difficult to find in any of the other professional pathways. So, make sure you are all geared up with the right set of skills and qualities to make your business venture a successful one.
Alisha Shibli is a Senior Content Marketing & Communication Specialist at Radix, the registry behind some of the most successful new domain extensions, including .STORE and .TECH. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.
