Personal Assessment to Become an Entrepreneur
To find out if you have what it takes to be a winner in starting your own business, you should check first your characteristics against those found in successful entrepreneurs. Think as honestly as you can about your behaviour and activities in the past and try to analyse if you are fit to be a manager.
Below are some entrepreneurial characteristics that may help you improve in order to strengthen your drive towards achievement.
Look back in your career. Think carefully about an event in the course of your work that you really like to remember. You can check on your papers in your presentation folders or portfolio on some of your certificates and awards to reflect upon.
What was there about the situation that you like to recall?
Was there a special challenge?
Tough problems that you had to solve?
Did you stick to the task at hand in spite of discouraging setbacks? And did you achieve the result you wanted?
State how you felt while working out the answers and how you felt when you accomplished the task successfully. For instance, you re project in school way back then was folder printing, and you were tasked to make the best design for presentation folders ever. Have you done it? Or have you let others do it for you?
If you have succeeded in your past problems and have dealt with it at your best, then you have that burning desire to be a winner. If you have failed many times and have doubted your ability, you need to re-orient your thinking and re-appraise your attitude before trying your own business.
Would you choose to invest at your bank in certificates of deposit at a 6 percent return or in an oil stock at a possible return of 15 percent? Or would you prefer to invest in the stock market, after careful and continued study of trends and projections, with a fairly good chance of making 10 percent through your effort?
Successful entrepreneurs usually choose the middle course in which the possibility for gain is reasonable and the outcome depends to a great extent on the skill and knowledge they can bring to the situation.
Have you ever taken advantage of your company s offer to pay your tuition if you took a course at night school to gain a skill you could use on the job? If you are self-employed, have you ever grasped the chance to make some extra money through recognizing and seizing an opportunity?
The new small business should be founded on a new exciting idea for product or service. Profitability comes from entrepreneurial innovation, as many economists have pointed out. But innovation can’t stop with the first idea. It must be practiced continually to ensure that the firm keeps a competitive edge. Therefore, as a small business owner, you must stay alert for ways to improve your product or service and to add new products and services to your line.
Alertness is a characteristic that can be acquired with practice. The person wanting to start a business should practice searching for opportunities. Successful search finds its rewards in continuing innovation, which is the foundation of profitability.
