Can You Pass the Entrepreneur Quality Test Pt.2?

So, you want to be an entrepreneur. In my last blog post, I started with a series of questions and I will do the same in the second part of this blog post to refresh your memory. If you have not read part one of this blog post, I suggest you read it to receive a better understanding of the process of developing entrepreneurial skills.

Do you have what it takes to be your own boss? Do you possess the skills to meet the prerequisites of an entrepreneur? Starting a new business is both exciting and rewarding, but it is also full of challenges. The level of commitment that you will need should not be underestimated. Setting up your own business requires your full commitment and nothing less. Can you extradite your time, energy, money, skills and knowledge with no sure-promise that you will succeed? An impressive quality of an entrepreneur is the ability to do things without being instructed. Initiative is the ability to be resourceful and proactive, rather than adopting a passive “play the waiting game to see” approach.

The Business Industry Standard Assessment

As a business owner, you need fundamental information and core skills to execute your ideas to ensure that your new business survives the long term. You should start by assessing your own skills and knowledge in the area of business you are pursuing. This will help you decide whether you need to be trained on new skills or draw on outside help by delegating, recruiting or outsourcing. How you rank yourself on the following key business skills, which are necessary to be a successful entrepreneur, is critical.

Key Business Proficiency Topics:

• Financial Management – This includes having a good grasp of cash flow planning, credit-management and maintaining good relationships with your bank and accountant.
• Product Development – The ability to make long-term plans for product development and identify the people, materials and processes required to achieve them. In order to make such plans you will need to know your competition and your customers’ needs
• People Management Skills – This includes managing recruitment, resolving disputes, motivating staff and managing training. Good people management will help employees to work together as a well-functioning team.
• Planning – The ability to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your business and plan accordingly.
• Marketing – A positive marketing approach will help you set up, oversee sales, and marketing operations, analyze markets, identify selling points for your product and following these through to market.
• Supplier Relationship Management – The ability to identify suppliers and positively manage your relationship with them.
• Sales Skills – Without sales, your business cannot survive and grow. You need to be able to identify potential customers and their individual needs, explain your goods and services effectively to them, and convert these potential customers into clients.

Market Study Verification

You need to research your target market and your competitors carefully. A common misconception is that entrepreneurs who fail simply lacked sufficient funding or did not put the right team in place. In many cases, new businesses fail because they did not spend adequate time researching their business idea and its viability in the market.

There are certain criteria you can use to establish this:

• Does your product or service satisfy or create a market need?
• Can you identify potential customers?
• Is your product or service unique, distinct, or superior to those offered by competitors?
• What competition will your product or service face – locally, nationally and globally?
• Does your product or service comply with relevant regulations and legislation?
• Can you sell the product or service at a price that will give you sufficient profit?

Market research can play an important role in answering many of these questions and increasing your chances of success. How much research you do will depend on the time and funds you have available. If you are low on funds, use what I call the poor-man’s-marketing survey. You can casually canvass the opinion of friends, talk to industry contacts and colleagues or survey the public about whether they would use your product or service. The more information you have, the better positioned you will be to make your business idea a success.

In addition, you need a financial commitment assessment. Securing the right financing for your new business is crucial. If you decide to launch your new business without enough funding behind it, keeping it afloat will prove extremely difficult. You need to be honest about your start-up capital reserves.

I do not mean to scare you off from your entrepreneurial endeavors; I just want you to be informed. Well, did you fare well or is it farewell? The choice is yours.

Recommended Reading:

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