5 Traits That Make a Successful Business Owner – From a Person Who Sees a Lot of Businesses

Endless numbers of articles have tried to point to the exact personality traits of successful entrepreneurs and almost everyone knows that business ownership, no matter the size, is a challenging career choice. 

As a business advisor who has worked with countless entrepreneurs, there are several personality traits they have in common. They tend to be persistent, driven, type-A people that don’t look to others for acceptance. 

There are, however, certain traits that make certain individuals from this feisty group more successful than others.

Not Just Motivated, But Self-Motivated

It is very common to believe that entrepreneurs have cornered the market on work ethic.  This is not true.  There are plenty of hard working, motivated corporate employees that are achieving great things in the non-business owner world.  The real difference is self-motivation.  Being an entrepreneur can be lonely because the buck stops with you.  There is no one that is going to lay out goals or sales plans and chances are, unless you hire one, there isn’t a mentor or coach that can guide you. 

Self-motivation can be developed as a personality trait.  The development of that motivation includes many of the other things that make business owners successful.  They include things like learning gratitude, setting attainable goals, and the art of being accountable.

A Willingness to Learn from Failure

I lump this in with the acceptance of risks in an entrepreneurial life.  When you are your own safety net, it is necessary that you are comfortable with risk.  As part of that risk profile, there will undoubtedly be failures.  How you handle that failure will be an important part of a successful business. 

Of all start-ups, 25% of them will survive more than 15 years.  The reasons for business failures are too numerous to go into.  Some of them will be areas that can be addressed by careful planning or market understanding.  Others, however, will be impossible to plan for and a successful entrepreneur must be capable of recognizing failure quickly, learning from it, and moving on. They must also possess a sense of comfortability with the idea that they will encounter failures along the way.  Fear has a way of holding companies back from big moves and strategic planning.

Decisiveness

Theodore Roosevelt said, “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

Because business owners are often hyper-competitive and focused on getting things right, they can be caught in the dreaded analysis paralysis that can cause the business to not move forward, but also can deteriorate how the owner is viewed as a leader.  It is important to gather and use resources when making a decision; understanding the appropriate amount of information is the key.  A decisive business owner knows that there is never enough information to guarantee a risk-free decision.  A good entrepreneur weighs information and the competing cost of not acting.

When a decision is made, good business owners make them clear and final.  There is no waffling.  Wishy washy decision making is a business destroyer.  Waffling leaders tend to enjoy exploring opportunities and their consequences more than choosing a path.  They go off on tangents in order to explore some more ideas – many times leaving the best ideas in the dust.

Self-Awareness

It is very easy when you’re an entrepreneur to believe your own press clippings.  Part of the journey to become a business owner is to engage in constant self-promotion and positive thinking, without which you probably wouldn’t have a business at all.  There is a fine balance, however, between the in-your-head chatter where you tell yourself that you are capable and going on the right path and being self-aware enough to understand that you have faults.

Everyone has faults.  In order not to be the emperor with no clothes, you must be comfortable enough to understand what yours are and listen when someone is trying to explain them to you.  The best entrepreneurs understand their weaknesses and surround themselves with people that have complementary skills.

Constant Evaluation of the Situation

Andrew Soltis, the grandmaster of chess, once explained that computers win at chess because, unlike human beings, “Computers don’t have any sense of aesthetics or patterns that are standard to the way people play chess.”

A good entrepreneur is constantly evaluating their position and is ready to move, retreat, or rebrand – even if that move is not what is expected.  Great entrepreneurs know that things always change, and business will need to respond.  This way of thinking is something beyond creativity or strategy, it is a willingness to put it all on the line over and over again.  For some businesses, that may mean opening in a new geography or introducing a new product line.  For others, it may mean exiting the business that they spent their life building.  Good business owners are not constrained by the patterns of ordinary businesspeople.  They are willing to play chess like a computer.  The ability to pivot or quit (or sell the business!) isn’t always a negative.  It can be the result of good decision making.

There is no exact formula for successful entrepreneurs.  Great business owners come in a million different varieties.  Nevertheless, these are some key behaviors and skills that can make the journey easier.  Many of these will develop as both the business owner and the business mature.  Remember, anyone can start a business, but many will not succeed.