Entrepreneur Traits: 7 Qualities Every Successful Entrepreneur Needs
Developing the entrepreneur traits that all successful entrepreneurs is necessary if you want to follow the path to freedom. If you want to become an entrepreneur, then it’s only logical to model the entrepreneurs who have successful started a business.
A few of you who read these articles are already successful business owners. Many of you who read this are just starting out in your entrepreneurial journey and have yet to make a dime. And even more of you dream about becoming a successful entrepreneur and having complete financial freedom.
Besides the few who’ve made it, the rest of you have a long way to go. That’s perfectly okay. We all start somewhere. Hell, even when I think that I’ve “made it”, I realize there are levels to this.  And even though I enjoy the money coming in, the levels to entrepreneurship and success go beyond money. If I was doing what I do for just money, I never would have made any, let alone gotten this far.
More than just need for money
What’s my point? Look, financial freedom is amazing. However, the desire for money isn’t enough to become a successful entrepreneur. It’s not a bad thing. We need money in this world. Unfortunately, that’s a reality. However, some of the guys writing to me think their desire for money will carry them far. And then after a few months of working on their business, they still haven’t made money. And they write to me asking why.
Because the desire for money isn’t enough. It’s good to want money and get financial freedom to control your life. But you must have other qualities when starting a business.
Successful isn’t just having money, but more importantly success is also having freedom, achievement, and fulfillment. These are the 7 traits of successful entrepreneurs that you’ll need if you want to be successful:
- Purpose
- Creativity
- Confidence
- Adaptability
- Leadership
- Perspective
- Dedication
1. Purpose
Every man needs a purpose. And for a successful entrepreneur this is even more so. Being an entrepreneur requires that you have a reason for doing what you’re doing.
Your purpose needs to be something you love, something you’re good at / can get good at, and something you can make money with. Entrepreneurs can start a business as the physical manifestation of their purpose.
When you have a business that you love, sells a service you’re great at / or a high quality product, and it can be profitable then your business will be successful.
What’s the reason for your business? It must be making peoples lives better in some way. When you have a purpose that you create for your life, and create a business, the business now has 2 meanings. The first is to fulfill your own purpose, and the second is to provide value to the world.
2. Creativity
Creativity, or now popularly called innovation, is one of the necessary traits of a successful entrepreneur that you must develop.
You’ll need to creativity to stand out in the market. Meaning you’ll need a product or service that is somehow unique, or you’ll need a unique marketing strategy, or both. Your business may be re-inventing the wheel or maybe it doesn’t. If you’re creating a personal brand and you’re doing coaching, personal training, or web design, it’s not like you created the field. However, you can have a unique approach, and in this way you’ll be leveraging creativity to be successful.
How can you stand out? Be real
For example, I have a book on confidence I sell. But I don’t run ads of me talking to girls, going to the gym, or driving around in an expensive car like you’ll see elsewhere on the internet.
Instead, I just write good content, build my own brand based around real advice, and then people come to my website. While people could buy someone else’s confidence book, they buy mine because they get value from my advice.
My marketing strategy isn’t to copy everyone else and sell a dream with ads.
Instead, I blog when everyone tell my blogging is dead and I make YouTube videos when everyone tells me it’s too late for YouTube. And guess what – I get traffic and amazing clients.
My creativity is simple. Provide great content that is missing. Instead of showing girls, cars, or money, I just provide real advice. Then I let the guys who resonate with what I say and actually apply to their lives and improve find me. And it’s worked out well.
3. Confidence
Speaking of confidence, it’s one of the entrepreneur traits you need to be successful. Confidence is your belief in your own value. There are 3 types of confidence. Type 1 = Competence at a given skill, like speaking, boxing, tying your shoe, etc.  Type 2 = Ability to Learn or adapt. For example, if you know you’re not good at something, but know you can get good at it, then you can still be confident in it. Type 3 = Intrinsic Value. This is your belief in own value, regardless of anything else.
Most successful entrepreneurs have all 3, and most have at least Type 3, which is the most powerful. But if you don’t have intrinsic value (Type 3), then at least get competence (Type 1). Which means get good at whatever service you’re providing. From there, you’ll have at least a base level of confidence which is needed if you’re going to be a successful entrepreneur.
4. Adaptability
Your ability to adapt is absolutely essential. A successful entrepreneur must be able to take on unforeseen challenges and be able to overcome them.
When you first start your business, there will be many potential threats to your success. Things won’t work exactly how you want them. It might take a while to get your first paying client. Your website might crash, your ad campaigns may yield bad results.
There will be constant challenges you must overcome that you didn’t previously strategize against. However, each time you overcome them, you become more confident and powerful.
5. Leadership
Successful entrepreneurs are leaders in their own right. Whether you build up a business and lead a bunch of people, or you lead yourself as an solo-preneur, you must be able to lead.
Leadership styles may vary from person to person. You can be introverted or extroverted. Introverts are good at reflecting and must get good with communicating, while extroverts are good at communicating but must get good at reflecting. In reality, both terms are limiting in how they define you.
But regardless, leadership is one of the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs that you must develop. Even if you just work for yourself, you must take initiative to get clients or create a product.  You’re going to lead your clients through whatever service you’re providing to them. You’ll need to discuss with them the plan of action, how you’re helping them, and once you do, how they can continue to get positive results.
Of course, if you’re hiring employees, then you’ll need to provide leadership to them as well. It’s all about setting expectations, giving them the tools to succeed, keeping them accountable, and rewarding them for the time they put in.
6. Perspective
While other entrepreneurs traits may be thought of as empathetic or caring, this isn’t necessary. Some entrepreneurs are ruthless and only care about their own gain. Yes, some entrepreneurs can be caring, loving, and want to make the world better.
Yet, being empathic isn’t one of the traits of a successful entrepreneur per say. Yes, there are empathetic entrepreneurs that want to help other people and feel their pain.
It’d be good if more entrepreneurs were like this. However, empathy isn’t one of the common characteristics of successful entrepreneurs.
Perspective is one of the successful entrepreneur traits you need.  Entrepreneurs are able to see the perspective of others. Now, people with empathy also have perspective.
Perspective doesn’t require Empathy
But perspective doesn’t require empathy. This is the key difference. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.
Meaning perspective is for sure one of the entrepreneur traits you need to be successful in starting a business.
Perspective is being able to understand others people positions. Empathy is being able understand the feelings of others and having concern for them. An empathic person doesn’t need to feel the feeling – that’s sympathetic person – but they still have concern for other people.
Basically anyone who can look at things from a bird’s eye can have perspective. But only people who actually care about the well being of others can have empathy.
Look at the most successful entrepreneurs and world leaders
For example, there are many billionaires and successful politicians who have no empathy for the common person, but they have perspective.
They are able to see how the common man lives and what motivates him. The elites can clearly understand why you do what you do, and then can adjust their strategies accordingly. However, they may or may not actually care about your well-being.
This is the dark side of entrepreneurship and success. I encourage all of you to have empathy for others and not only try to have the traits of a successful entrepreneur but to also be a good person. That being said, when one looks around at the uber successful, only few are good.
The truth is that you can have empathy (and be default have perspective), but only perspective is needed. I elaborate on this point in particular because when you look around you, you’ll see those in positions of power so seemingly care, yet their actions say otherwise.  And that’s because while it’s good to have empathy to be a good person, perspective is one of the essential entrepreneurs traits, not empathy.
7. Dedication
Whatever business you’re building will take countless hours. It will take dedication to make it anywhere.
If you’re building a personal brand, it will take years of creating content before you blow up. Even if you’re getting clients in a service business, it will still take months of work. And to get to the point of making 6-figures and living well, it will still take a few years at least of grinding.
Which is why dedication is one of the traits of a successful entrepreneur that you must develop. Dedication is simple. You simply decide what you’re going to do, and keep on working towards it. You don’t stop. Moving forward and putting in the work is the only option.
If you dedicate yourself to anything, including entrepreneurship, you will be successful in time.
Successful entrepreneurs aren’t commonÂ
Anywhere from 80 to 90% of businesses fail. That’s because there aren’t many successful entrepreneurs. All of the people who failed lacked the entrepreneur traits listed here.
Most of them didn’t
- have a strong enough purpose
- weren’t creative with their approach
- weren’t confident in what value they provided
- didn’t adapt to the market
- lacked optimal leadership
- had no perspective on their clients
and most of all didn’t stay dedicated to their business. While it can seem disheartening that so many businesses fail, let it be a lesson to you. You can succeed. There are plenty of successful entrepreneurs who weren’t the smartest in their market or even in the overall economy.  But they had the entrepreneur traits of purpose, creativity, confidence, adaptability, leadership, perspective, and dedication.
If you develop these traits of a successful entrepreneur then you can also win in business.
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