Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur is someone that starts their own business. It’s a big decision to make so before you quit your job, do some soul searching. The reality is entrepreneurship isn’t for everybody. Find out if you have what it takes…

Use this ten point checklist to discover whether you’re a natural entrepreneur:

1. Passion: You’ve got to be passionate about the product or service you want to offer. If you want your own clothes line for example, you have to eat, sleep and breathe fashion.
2. Authority: Are you the person everyone comes to when they need advice on a specific topic? If you’re an authority on it, you probably know it like the back of your hand. This could save you a lot of stress because you will be able to focus on the other business aspects like finance and marketing instead of trying to understand the product or service as well as the business elements.
3. Achievement: You’ve got to want to achieve your goals and achieve results because just plodding along probably won’t bring you much success.
4. Persistence: You must be able to overcome obstacles. Determination is very important when you have your own business – it’s all about making it happen despite the challenges.
5. Competitive: You’ve got to want to do better next time or get more clients, or make your product the best out there. Without that kind of drive, you will fail to motivate yourself to continue through the hard times. Entrepreneurs view failure as a learning curve, or a means to get to success. They don’t beat themselves up when they fail.
6. Hard-working: Having your own business is tough. At the beginning, you will be doing multiple jobs to get your business going, jobs you probably won’t like necessarily. If you’re not willing to roll up your sleeves and get whatever it takes to be successful done, you won’t get very far!
7. Flexibility: Things change all the time, you must be able to adapt and keep going. Entrepreneurs need to be creative with their problem-solving in order to overcome obstacles.
8. Influence: Entrepreneurs are influential people. They influence others and events by making decisions.
9. Autonomy: If you want to be independent and be in control of your own destination, you can tick this box.
10. Confidence: Entrepreneurs are sure of themselves and trust their instincts. Without self-assurance, you wouldn’t take calculated risks, even when they don’t have all the information they need.

If this long list of attributes describes who you are, you have entrepreneurial blood in you. Just be sure to get an objective opinion from a few people so that you don’t influence your own opinion. Now find out if you are ready to start a business.