You don’t need to fit the herculean archetype of an entrepreneur to be one. Entrepreneurial skills and mindsets can be learnt. In this blog we explore six entrepreneurial skills and mindsets to help you take your business forwards.

business owner or entrepreneur?

What is an entrepreneur? In his book the e-Myth, Michael E Gerber describes the archetype of an entrepreneur as a Herculean figure ‘bravely defying insurmountable odds’. Someone decisive, self-confident, perhaps extroverted. As the book goes on to say, this idea of an entrepreneur is so rare to find in practice, it’s almost a myth.

The dictionary definition of an entrepreneur is more akin to ‘someone who starts a business, risking money for potential profit’. Quite a different picture… and one that arguably applies to all business owners. Herein begins the entrepreneurial mindset. Whilst we might not naturally think of ourselves as entrepreneurial, being an entrepreneur is inextricably linked with being a business owner.

Being a good entrepreneur requires a certain skill set. It’s a completely different skill set to the one that makes us good at doing the work of the business. The good news is that, just as with other types of skills, they are practical things that can be learnt. 

the entrepreneur works on the business

When most people start in business, they think about the work that has to be done. The marketing, the delivery, the admin. They work in the business, doing. The entrepreneur works at a different level. They work on the business, thinking about what needs to be put in place. They have in mind a picture of what the finished business should look like, and go about making that a reality.

the entrepreneur knows they cant do it all

When you run your own business, everything is yours and getting it right and the details matter. When we see something that needs doing, the feeling of wanting to jump in to get it done is really compelling. The problem is that we don’t leave time for the really important stuff. Ultimately, if we spend our time always being ‘the doer’, our business can’t grow. It will always be limited to our own capacity to sell and deliver work.

Instead of thinking about the task at hand and focusing on getting it done, we need to focus on the result we want and think about the best way to achieve it. When we do, we often find the best way isn’t for us to do it all. 

the entrepreneur looks out and sees abundance

Before starting in business, most people have experience of employment. What employment teaches us is that, broadly speaking, we get results (salary) from putting in time (hours). We subconsciously bring that way of thinking to business, and can be surprised when we don’t get the results we want. 

To get results in business, we need to deliver value. That means we focus on what people want and how we can provide it. The entrepreneur remembers this and maintains an outward focus. They weigh up whether there are enough people out there wanting what they offer. So long as they can see abundance - plenty of great business available - they continue. Once they can’t, they know they are in the wrong business, and move on.

the entrepreneur understands their numbers

If you’ve watched Dragon’s Den you know that the entrepreneur who doesn’t know their numbers doesn't last very long. You don’t need to be a gifted mathematician, but you can’t be phobic of numbers. The entrepreneur engages with their business numbers and is open to learning and building their confidence with them.

The bottom line is that businesses need to make money to survive and thrive. This doesn’t mean you have to be motivated by money, but you do have to be committed to making it. The way an entrepreneur makes money is by deciding where to invest their resources to get the best return. It’s quite difficult to do that without the number, and it can stop us from getting the result we want. We can be too slow to stop and try something new. 

There is something about putting the numbers to a business situation that can make the way forward really clear. 

the entrepreneur gets the right people on the bus

Having the right people with you on your business journey is critical. Ultimately business is a team game and we can’t be successful without one. If we think about our business as a bus, we as the business owner are the driver. We need to decide where we are going and how we’re going to get there, and we need to have the right people with us to help us on our journey. In our experience business owners who struggle to find the right team get stuck driving round the roundabout, constantly ending up back where they started.

the entrepreneur makes mistakes

Everyone in business will experience failure and have their fears challenged, but we can’t let the fear of making mistakes paralyse us. We need to take risks in business and by definition the outcome of risk is not guaranteed. When things don’t work out the way we expected (and they won’t always) it can be because of external factors, or it can be because we made a mistake. That is okay. Mistakes are part of business. Most likely we can learn something useful from it and move on.