10 Must Required Qualities of a Businessman

Whether you have a new business idea and are planning to start your first business venture or you have been in the business for some time now, you have to look for certain business qualities and personality traits that you should have in yourself. After all, long-term success is not a result of chance and luck but is the product of dedication and hard work of the entrepreneur.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Business Employment Dynamics, about 20% of business fail in their first year and 50% of businesses fail in their fifth year and only 30% survive in 10th year. And the major reason of failure is not the money. According to the same report of Bureau of Labor Statistics as illustrated by Fundera, only 27% of founders with the employee are not able to access funds and out of that 27% only 43% founder think that money was the problem. That means only 11.61% of total founder thinks that money is a problem.

This data clearly shows that money is not the problem. The problem is the qualities to run a business, qualities of a businessman that helps him to innovate and acquire more knowledge in his field. Tese statistics are not to discourage you from doing your own business but to encourage you to work harder and smarter and to focus majorly on the qualities and personality traits that a businessman should possess to run a successful business.

Here is a list of some qualities of businessmen that you should ponder upon if you want to be an entrepreneur/ businessman who wants to be successful and is ready to enter the business world.

1. Crystal Clear Vision

Passion fuels the rocket but vision takes it to its final destination. The foremost quality that you need to possess before starting your business is to being very crystal and clear about your business idea. You should know what kind of business you are entering in, what kind of people you are going to deal, what kind of material you are going to use etc.

Many people have the notion that you can start a business if you have money. Yes, partially it is correct but having a clear idea is equally important. You should be clear in such a way that you should have everything regarding your business in written form with you. You should have a business plan consisting of your goals and how you will achieve them, on paper. If you have a clear frame of mind regarding the business concepts then you will certainly find some way to get your business started.

2. Having the Right Idea

Many people believe that starting a business is a perplexing procedure. They know that they want to start their own business but they do not know what kind of business they should start. There is never really a bad time to start a business. While thinking about the idea for your business you should keep in mind that your business is all about your customer and your clients. After all your customers are the people who will eventually decide whether your business will be successful or not.

Your idea should be different from what is already there in the market. Though it’s appreciated if you have new ideas but if you feel you don’t have any novelty with your ideas then you can start working on getting improvement in the existing products or ideas. You should think of such an idea that serves the humans for a long term and improve their way of living. If you can think of such an idea then you easily make a profitable business.

3. Ability to Make Quick and Bold Decisions

You should be proactive while starting a new business. Entrepreneurs face many decisions that need to be made every day. Along with decision making, you should also be an opportunist. You should know how to make use when an opportunity presents itself. And you should be quick in deciding it because an opportunity does not wait for very long. You should be prepared to handle everything that happens effectively. You should also be able to take the decisions without getting emotionally attached to it, for example, you should have the ability to fire an employee if he\she is not giving appropriate outputs.

The rise of Samsung Mobile and fall of Nokia Mobile was a clear example of making a bold and quick decision. During 2007 to 2011 market was just waiting for something new in mobile phones and Nokia was busy in selling Symbian phones and making profits but then android came in market. Samsung signed the deal with android and announced their 1st android phone on 27 April, and Nokia had not taken any decision to counter and thus failed in the market and Samsun became the new king of the mobile market.

If you have the quality to make quick and bold decisions then you are eligible to enter the business because many times it is not about making the right decisions but making the decisions alone is enough.

4. Ability to Handle Stress

Starting a new business and running it successfully is not a fairytale, it takes a lot of time as well as energy. You have to bear a lot of stress and strain while opening a new business. The stress is not only in the beginning phase of registration of a company but it goes beyond that. You, as the incharge of your business, have to handle many requirements in all the needs of the business and at times it becomes quite tedious when you need to complete all the part of various authorities such as looking for funding and at the same time managing the team, revenue and the sales.

You will have to take care of all the minute tasks and functioning of the company so the deadlines can be met and the customers remain satisfied. Even the decision-making process can be quite stressful, such as the conduct of the recruitment procedure and selecting the right team members for your team. So, it is very important that you have the ability to keep a cool head in tough situations and know management skills if you are planning to enter into the business.

5. Financial Knowledge

It is generally observed that many people start their business to get rich and earn money. However, there is nothing bad in wanting to get rich but you should keep in mind that you do not treat money as a physical quantity. As long as you keep thinking of money as a physical quantity you will not get successful. Money is not a physical quantity rather it is just a mere bank transaction. It keeps on getting transferred from one bank account to the other. So, do not rely on money as if it is a physical quantity. Along with this you also need to keep in mind the areas where you need to invest your money during the starting of your business. You should spend the money thinking of it as a way to either consume resources or advance company.

Warren Buffet believes that financial knowledge is the ability to manage your money for long term prosperity and well-being and this is a key quality of businessmen that everyone must learn.

6. Risk Identification and Management

Starting your business can be very dangerous and it involves lots of risks. Some risks can destroy your business whereas some others can cause damage to your business which can be very time consuming to repair. However, this does not mean that you always play safe. To become successful you need to take some risks. However, these risks and their effects should be well calculated in advance.

The way Mukesh Ambani invested his Rs 1.5 lakh crore in the market by his telecommunication startup Reliance Jio is the best example of risk identification and management. He figured out that cellular internet plans are very costly in India so he entered the market with free internet plans and got successful in getting 100 million users within 6 months.

7. Confidence and Leadership

Starting your new business means that you need to learn to lead a team. But to make others work according to your wish you need to first believe in yourself. You should have confidence in yourself and your abilities. Your self-confidence will result in a positive attitude and will give you the energy to go on even after failures and will also help you in making good decisions. Also if you are confident then you will be able to see the purpose of your business and focus on the big picture. This will eventually make you a leader that will lead the team inclusively and in the right direction.

You should be able to guide and inspire everyone in your team as your employees always look up to their boss for their inspiration. If you do not have the leadership skill then you can easily acquire it with consistent hard work. Confidence and leadership are two qualities without which you won’t be able to get your business started. You should know how to motivate and inspire people to give their best.

In Lokesh Tanwar’s words, CEO of Business Alligators

Leadership is not a game of right or wrong, nor a game of profit or loss, it’s a game of leading until you make your team win.

8. Problem Resolving Approach

Success is often defined as the ability to solve problems effectively. It is very obvious that you will encounter a number of issues and problems while initializing your business, no matter how thorough you are with your planning and working. Even small problems can become big if you are not able to resolve them effectively. People who are good problem solvers are best prepared to solve the problems of their customers. This results in having a good and consumer friendly company which will be successful in the future. So, if you have an approach to solve and deal with every problem without losing heart then you are eligible to start your business and sure to go a long way.

Monitoring the employee progress as well as the department progress versus your organisation goals is a problem-solving process to maintain the productivity of your company. For example, if the real sales revenue is less than the projected revenue then you need to evaluate the sales process that will help you to know the shortcomings in sales procedure.

9. Ability to Communicate Effectively

This is the most important skill because without this none of your other skills are going to work. Your decision making won’t matter if it is not communicated properly, your leadership won’t work if you don’t have good communication skills. You should know how to speak and your confidence in your business should reflect in your speaking. You have to be assertive and precise while speaking. And you also have to be persistent about telling others about your business. For effective speaking, you should have some prepared points about your project so that you don’t have to waste your time in preparing those on the spot. To make people understand and motivated for your idea, you must develop a sense of proper communication with the people.

Even Apple Inc became successful company because Steve Jobs had refined communication skills. You can have good ideas but if you are unable to convince others to take action then those ideas will not turn into successful products and services.

10. Always Be Organised

Being organised is a skill that is not only important for a person who is opening a new business but it is good for everyone in general. Being organised does not mean what file stacks you have but it is about managing the business. So, you need to have a system in place. Do not set unrealistic goals for yourself. Setting these unrealistic goals is easy when you are excited and positive about the outcome. But unfortunately, the odds of achieving all those goals are very low. So, take small steps at a time which will be more manageable and less intimidating.

It is observed that most of the successful people like, Jack Dorsey, CEO Square & Founder of Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO & co-founder of Facebook, assign less work to themselves each day. After each day you can ask yourself,” What good have you done today?” and you can then prepare yourself for a better tomorrow. You should always be organised and prepared as you don’t want to appear as a clumsy boss in front of your staff or your business dealers. Having organisational ability is the key quality to run a successful business and if you are well organised then it will be easy for you to start your business.