Are you an entrepreneur? Do a quick search and you’ll get many definitions and suggestions of how to be an entrepreneur. My definition: an individual with passion, ability, and propensity to take risk to start their own business. The news has been abuzz with colleges stating MBA students want to be entrepreneurs versus investment bankers. Make sure you do what you want with your MBA degree, and if being an entrepreneur is it I hope to at least give some ideas.
James Stephenson with Entrepreneur.com writes about 25 characteristics of an entrepreneur:
- Do what you like
- Be serious about your venture
- Plan everything
- Manage money wisely
- Ask for the sale
- Customer is #1
- Be a shameless self-promoter
- Project a positive business image
- Get to know your customers
- Use top notch technology
- Build a diverse business team
- Be a known expert
- Create competitive advantage
- Invest in yourself
- Be accessible
- Build a good reputation
- Sell benefits to all stakeholders
- Get involved with community
- Grab attention through marketing
- Master how to do negotiations
- Design workspace for success
- Be organized
- Take time off
- Limit the number of hats worn
- Follow up constantly
Wow, all if these characteristics can be sub topics in themselves. I’ll try to follow-up on each in the future to generate more ideas.
Entrepreneurial articles on Medium.
Zalyia L Grillet 1/3/16
Kevin de Asis 12/27/15
Dave Schools 5/30/15
Ali Mese 1/27/15
Ev Williams 12/5/12
(Photo courtesy of Entrepreneurship Forum)
