Since you are in mid-career, you have acquired skills and developed personal characteristics that can be important to your success as a business owner. Listed below are fifteen skills and personal characteristics that we feel are essential for success in any type of business. How do your own skills and characteristics measure against these? List each one and rate your ability with either a 10 (high), 5 (moderate), or 0 (low). The ideal total score would be 150. If yours is less than 100, you might want to rethink your goal of becoming the world's newest tycoon.
1. A Vision
Every successful entrepreneur we have ever met had a vision. Inside themselves, deep down, successful business people believe they can make a difference, be the best, or lead the way. They see their destination. They light up when they talk about what they are doing. Money was never the number-one reason for starting the business. It may have been high on the list, but it was not number one. Neither was being one's own boss. Again, it may have been high on the list, but it was not the first. Number one was a vision of doing something, building something, or making something better.
2. Persistence
A vision is not enough. You must also be willing to tough out the rough periods that come to every business. These include insufficient funds to meet payroll or other debts, the inability to meet production deadlines, problems with personnel, and just plain lack of business.
3. Ability to Handle Stress
Stress comes from a feeling that everything that can go wrong will: everyone wants delivery yesterday; the bank will loan you money only if you don't need it; federal, state, county, and city taxes and permits drain your cash; the competition is always one step ahead of you; and your employees won't show up on time.
You can do something about some of these things, but others are out of your hands. If you waste your time worrying about the things you cannot change, you will not have enough energy left to change the things you can.
4. Knowing How to Take Risks
Successful entrepreneurs take risks, but they usually take measured risks. A measured risk is one that has been thoroughly assessed. The odds of the worst-case scenario have been examined and found acceptable; the decision is made to go ahead. Successful entrepreneurs take risks that many others would not take. They are more comfortable with risk than most people.
5. Seeing the Big Picture
You know the old saying "He can't see the forest for the trees." Too many people get so caught up with the details of everyday life that they cannot see what is going on around them. To be successful in business, you need to be able to take advantage of trends in your business or in the world around you. Depending upon the kind of business one owns, current events or political situations in this country or overseas can influence success or failure.
6. People Skills
Too many people want to become entrepreneurs because they are themselves difficult employees. They do not take orders or instructions well, thinking they know the right and only way something should be done. They usually are intolerant of anyone who holds different ideas or values. They do not get along with supervisors or coworkers. The answer, they think, is going into their own business.
Wrong! You can't get away from people. Your customers are people. Your employees are people. You must be able to motivate and maintain a good working relationship with employees. Equally important are the people skills you need to handle your customers. Without customers, you do not have a business. You must be able to attract and keep them through understanding, warmth, and sincerity.
7. Knowing Your Limits
A good understanding of your skills and strengths is essential for building a successful business. Too many entrepreneurs try to do everything in order to save money or have control. As a result, some things are done very poorly. As a mid-career changer you may have business skills, but you need to know your strengths and weaknesses. From this information, you can learn in what areas you need professional help (such as bookkeeping) and what characteristics you seek in employees.
8. Effective Networking
"Business is people," according to Mark McCormack on his audio tape 'What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School.' He says that he learned the hard way that all business is based upon people and relationships. This is especially true when you are first starting out. It does not matter whether you are a cabinetmaker or a marketing consultant; the first work you get will most likely be due to relationships you have already established.
Even as your business grows, most of your best customers will be the result of networking relationships. You build up a network of business acquaintances before going into your own business, and you continue to develop and expand it as a business owner. Word-of-mouth referrals are the best way to build a business.
9. Hard Work
Some people go into business for themselves thinking they can work fewer hours or take time off at their whim. This is a big mistake in thinking! How can you possibly work less when you have everything you own-your house, cars, and all other major assets-mortgaged to the hilt to get the financing you need to go into business? With this kind of pressure, you work long hours during the day and worry about everything all night. We have never met a single successful business person who worked fewer hours during the first five years of building a business than they did for a former employer.
10. Good Listening
How do you become marketing driven? By listening to your customers. Your market is the collective wants and desires of your current and prospective customers. Successful entrepreneurs talk to and listen to their customers.
11. Time Management
When you start your own business you will be doing the work of at least three people, but it will feel like twenty! If you are doing the work of three people, you have to be efficient with your time.
The single most important time management technique to learn, if you have not already mastered it, is multiprocessing. Multiprocessing is doing several tasks at one time. A practitioner of this concept recognizes that there is a difference between the amount of actual time it takes to finish a task and the amount of clock time required. For example, printing a letter from a word processor may require three minutes of clock time but only ten seconds of actual work time. The remaining 170 seconds can be spent doing something else, perhaps sorting expense receipts.
Multiprocessing is a must for the business owner. Don't even think of starting your own business unless you have it mastered.
12. Organization
To survive in business, you have to be well organized. Your friendly government watchdogs require it, as do your customers. Employees become frustrated without it. If you run a production business, you cannot deliver on time without it. You cannot service customers well in a retail business with employees unable to find anything.
13. Willingness or Ability to Work with Computers
It does not matter what business you are starting in today, career counseling or horse training, you are going to have to be computer literate. The minimum you will need to know is word processing and record keeping. You cannot compete without these aids. Don't cringe and abandon all thought of going into business because you know nothing about computers. The hardest step is walking into a computer store and confessing to a man young enough to be your son that you are a computer illiterate. Once you have done that, the rest is easy. We know from experience!
14. Solid Financial Knowledge
Banks know that the difference between a successful doctor and one whose practice fails is not their skills as physicians, but knowledge of finance. The same is true of anyone who goes into business.
You can hire a professional to handle these matters, but you cannot depend upon that professional to do everything for you. You must be aware of your tax responsibilities. You must be knowledgeable about cash flow. You must have a handle on inventory management. You need to have enough knowledge and information to make competent decisions regarding the allocation and investment of your money.
15. Creativity
Equal to marketing awareness, creativity is the most talked-about skill requirement for entrepreneurs. You need to be creative in business because your competition is, and because your customers demand it. You always have to be looking for new ways to build, package, or sell your products and services. Customers like something new and different. It takes creativity to remain fresh and to stay ahead of your competition.
Creativity is learnable. It simply requires looking at the world differently from how you do now. Creativity guru Mike Vance, who worked with Walt Disney for years, says: "Creativity is the making of the new and the rearranging of the old in a new way."
You may not think of yourself as creative. Perhaps you have not given yourself credit for the creativity you have. How many times have you looked at something and said, "Wouldn't this be better if they had just made it like this?" or "Wouldn't this be better if they had added that to it?" Thinking of improvements with "this" change or "that" addition is creativity-"rearranging of the old in a new way."
On Your Own or Work for Others?
Before starting out on your own, evaluate where you stand on the list of essential skills and personal characteristics. Did you score at least 100? If not, are you sure you have the right skills and characteristics to go into business for yourself?
You may have the vision and the desire, but do you want to take the risk? Do you feel confident enough to go into business knowing that if you fail, you may lose some or all of the assets you have accumulated? Where do you want to start? Should you buy a franchise, buy an existing business, or build a practice?
If you have the vision, know where you are going to start, and want to take the risk, you are indeed a person with the kind of courage and spirit of adventure it takes to go into business for yourself.
