What makes a great entrepreneur?
You can tell a real entrepreneur as soon as you meet one. They share certain traits and characteristics. They have this can-do aura about them, real energy and magnetism, says Joanna Jensen
I’m often asked whether it’s possible to know that you are an entrepreneur.
The short answer is, no. You can have the best idea in the world, and it won’t take off. Likewise, there are people with profoundly mediocre new products or services who see them become huge successes. While the idea is important, it is how you bring it to market and the personal qualities you deploy to get it in front of everyone that will reveal whether you are a risk taker.
We might not know whether we count amongst them until we try, but you can tell a real entrepreneur as soon as you meet one. They share certain traits and characteristics. They have this can-do aura about them, real energy and magnetism. They are also world class salespeople. If they get caught wrong footed with a question, they’ll say; “Great question! I don’t know, I’ll come back to you on that” and they will.
This is because of a remarkable self-belief – and successful entrepreneurs have total self-belief. We can’t allow ourselves to have a crack in our armour. If you don’t truly believe in what you are doing, it’s as clear as day.
All entrepreneurs are constantly presented with tasks which will test their skillset, many of which they have never tried before, or have no knowledge about.
When I launched Childs Farm, I really became a Jack of all trades. Aside from the mundane tasks such as packing boxes of stock, I also learned how to negotiate with retailers and deal with investors. After spending many hours speaking with the Sage helpdesk, I became so proficient at bookkeeping that I could easily have stopped what I was doing and set up a bookkeeping firm for other SMEs.
Over-complicated
Most roles in business are not all that complicated. Humans often make things complicated because we fear the unknown, however it’s amazing what you can do if you just try.
By its nature, setting up your own business has a significant level of uncertainty and risk surrounding it. However the potential for catastrophic loss is never our focus. Our eyes are always on the prize: the goal of making the venture succeed whatever happens.
And entrepreneurs just make a decision. It won’t matter if it’s not 100 per cent right. It will be recoverable. The most important thing is to keep moving.
I know many entrepreneurs who are accused of being control freaks – me included. One of the most telling accusations is that we focus too much on the smaller details. But here’s the thing: the devil really is in the details. In the case of Childs Farm, ensuring the labels and the lid colours were identical mattered, so did the fact that the printed images aligned, and that the wording was clear.
High standards make exceptional products which generate trust and they should never be compromised.
Entrepreneurialism is all about delivering a service, or solving problems, with limited resources. I was doing that in each of my entrepreneurial ventures. A lot. Once you know what the issues are, you can start plotting the way through, or around, them.
Speak to any successful entrepreneur and you will discover it is a 24/7 endeavour. You will need to work when you don’t feel like it, but the good news is, you will want to work most of the time because you want your business to succeed, and you will be addicted to it.
Things will go wrong. A lot. And that is where resilience comes in, which is, in my mind, one of the most important qualities of an entrepreneur.
Every entrepreneur I have worked with has had bad days. Some of them are real shockers. But they are resilient, they pick themselves up and then find a solution.
Working in retail means constantly trying to get the ear, or the eye, of a buyer, along with probably 1,000 other brands in the same category. I spent four years trying to get the ear of one buyer. The buyer was clearly nonplussed by everything I tried and I’m sure was thinking of taking out a restraining order on me because I was so persistent. By 2017, when Childs Farm was the fastest growing brand in the category, they had to list us because they were falling so far behind their competition.
As a former investment banker, I’ve always been intellectually curious, never shying away from learning something new or doing the research to be better prepared. But when I created Childs Farm in 2010, my learning curve was practically vertical. I had to learn, I had to fail. Sometimes I failed fast but often my failure lingered way too long. Crucially, no setback was ever wasted, and now I can look back at them and see how they helped me on the road to success.
An abridged extract from Making Business Child’s Play: How to Build a Winning Brand by Joanna Jensen.