by Ronald Manalastas

Created on: August 03, 2009

If you decide to be self-employed, you are putting on the shoes of a business owner, an entrepreneur in its real sense. And there are 10 personality traits that you need to possess to succeed in self-employment. You must be:

1. Vision-directed

Having a clear vision of what you want to become is fundamental. This vision represents what you wish to achieve in pursuance of a dream, passion, ambition, or intent. It is what you love to do and where you expect to realize some appreciable gains. Vision sets your direction on the road to successful self-employment.

2. Extremely resourceful

As a small business owner, you are on your own and you do not have the luxury of resources. This is exactly the reason why you must have a hungry appetite for new knowledge before and during the actual conduct of your business. You must personally seek all information that gives you clear understanding of products, markets, competition, and other contextual issues. You have to know what you know and what you do not know to start the business right; this is the highpoint of being resourceful.

3. Highly motivated

If you lack the initiative, energy, and determination to organize for the execution of your self-employment goals, you will never reach your destination. You are bound to lose time-sensitive opportunities. Note that an entrepreneur is self-driven, always craving for productive work, and always committed to finish what needs to be done. That trait enables you to leverage on the agility of a small business.

4. Market-driven

Being market-driven means selecting the right customers you can do business with and pouring your best resources to satisfy them. It requires identifying and dominating the market niches where you enjoy key competitive advantage. It involves using your distinct capabilities to specific markets without sacrificing profitability.

5. Operationally focused

By the strength of your vision, you need to be operationally-focused to maximize your internal strengths. You must specialize on what you do best and have the callousness to ignore other opportunities outside your key competence. Otherwise, you become wasted as you operate too thinly across non-performing ventures.

6. Quality-conscious

You must be systematic and organized. You have to do the right things at the first instance, and achieve continuing improvement all the time. You must understand the importance of good planning, correct processes,

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