Image by: Eric Schmidt
By: Giovanni Fields

Being an entrepreneur is akin to converting to a religion. You start off small and wide eyed at the bottom ranks until over time you slowly start to gain knowledge, experience and the fortitude necessary to withstand all the hardships that you are destined to encounter. And as an entrepreneur, there will probably be a lot of them. Although the road to becoming an established entrepreneur is tough, you will realize that this particular craft is capable of being polished and groomed into a well-oiled machine.

Knowledge, experience, and the courage to withstand pain and adversity while leaping forward will often times come as you go. But you’re probably wondering if there are some ways you can dictate whether or not you can better yourself on your own without the mileage and roadwork. Well, luckily for you, there are a number of traits you can harness in order to become successful, so if you’re curious as to what they are then look no further.

#1) Innovation

The ability to spot an opportunity and to have the curiosity and inventiveness to imagine something where nobody else has touched upon is what entrepreneurship is all about. To have the ability to take something that us niche and or underused and develop it into a marketable brand before sending that product to the front-lines is innovation. Innovation is key to developing yourself as an entrepreneur not only to bring something new to the market that hasn’t been discovered, but also to distinguish yourself from all your competitors.

For every Coke, there’s a Pepsi, and for every Mac there’s a PC. So what makes your particular brand so special that you can convince consumers from other established businesses to tread your waters? Ask yourself that question and shift your viewpoint of your service to an objective point. A key component to being an entrepreneur is to sell yourself before you sell others. Yea it sounds silly, but how can you convince other people that what you have to offer is worth considering if you can’t even convince yourself? Keep this in mind before you take that leap forward and if you find yourself eventually becoming obsessed with your own product, then you’re heading down the right path.

#2) Tenacity

To be certain in uncertainty is a necessary trait for anybody investing their time, money and energy into building a successful product and or organization. Only those who are able to charge through multitudes of obstacles for years to come will be able to find their intended market and overshadow the inevitable mistakes you would have made. It’s a race to the finish line, and without tenacity, or sheer will power and determination then you might as well call it quits before you waste any more time or money, because those who have polished those traits will certainly be the first at the dinner table.

Failure will come and go as you rack up the mileage as an entrepreneur. Developing skin thick enough to brush off the failures one encounters is essentially how all millionaires are birthed. It’s because their tenacity was unmatched, and when the doubters bleated cries of protest, those with this critical trait turned a blind ear in their direction and forged ahead.

#3) Passion

You may be getting into the world of entrepreneurship to build a fat bank account, but in order for that to happen, whether you’re in love or the product or not, you’re going to essentially have to become obsessed or passionate about what you are servicing. You have to believe that the product you are servicing will change the world.

Haven’t you ever seen one of those sham-wow infomercials on television about the overenthusiastic guy who sells the fancy towels? Yea, me too. And I bet, like myself, you were desperately wondering how a person can be so enthusiastic about a towel. Well, to us it may just seem like a plain old towel, but to the guy who is investing his entire life to making sure one of those gets in every household, it’s something that he believes will improve the quality of everyday life.

A person that is seething with passion—like the sham-wow guy—upon presenting his product to the masses will be more likely to captivate the audience into a purchase than a guy who is languid in his approach. All this goes back to the last topic, which is convincing yourself that your product is the best in the market. Even if it isn’t, become delusional and make yourself believe that nothing else anybody has to offer can even compare. And if you’re lucky, and are blessed with a silver tongue then your delusion may just rub off on your target audience.

#4) Confidence

 Confidence in yourself and the service you are offering is an ideal entrepreneurial trait. Like stated above, you have to become delusional enough to make people believe that your product will better the quality of their life. You have to exist to defy conventional wisdom and have the stomach and smarts to be aggressive in your approach to marketing your product. And in order to be successful, you may even have to break some rules.

Risk taking activities will be a result of excessive confidence, and while these risks certainly have a chance for failure, they also have a shot at exposure as well. Failure will come and go, but success often times has a much longer life span.

Being an entrepreneur is no easy trade, and an often time is a high risk, high reward sort of development. As an entrepreneur, we’re sure you’ve had your ups and down over the years. Feel free to share your trials and tribulations in the comments section below!