In order to be successful in whatever you wish to do, you need the right attitude and characteristics and demonstrate the right behaviours. The recent economic situation has led to many setting up in business for themselves but is this the right step for everyone? Is everyone suited to the role of entrepreneur? And are some people excluding themselves from taking this route because of misconceptions about what is required?

What are the characteristics of an entrepreneur? I suggest that, amongst other things, an entrepreneur is:

1. A Risk taker – this is critical. At some stage you will have to take one or more risks, the first of which will be the decision to set up your own business. If you’re not willing to take any risk, then you will not succeed as a businessperson. In the everyday course of the business, you will encounter a lot of problems and challenges which you need to decide the soonest.

Some risks are worth taking after careful evaluation especially if it’s for the good of the business. If you’re not a risk taker, then you’re not an effective entrepreneur and you’re bound to fail in your business undertaking.

2. Smart – being smart is another characteristic of an entrepreneur. You have to be clever, keen, honest and consistent in all your business dealings in order to win the respect and trust of customers and other clients. However, being smart is not the same as possessing an MBA. You don’t need high level academic qualifications to succeed in business. But you do need to be street smart, wise in the ways of people and of your chosen industry.

3. A leader – leadership is a characteristic that is hard to find among individuals. Not many individuals have the nerve to take the lead. You need to develop the confidence to be able to guide, influence, and direct people. Above all, leadership is about being effective, being able to choose the right activities to do, as well as being able to perform those activities efficiently.

To put it another way, being efficient is not enough; the bankruptcy courts are full of organisations that were efficient, but they were not doing the right things. The game had moved on and they hadn’t.

The other aspect is being prepared to take the lead, to innovate. Entrepreneurs are innovators, seeing opportunities that others don’t see, making connections that others don’t make.

4. A passion for your business – if you are not passionate about what you do, why should others be? And there’s a difference between motivation and passion – I am motivated to fill out my tax return but I’m certainly not passionate about it!

5. Honest and trustworthy – if you are not honest and trustworthy, you will develop very little repeat business which will then mean you are forever chasing new clients. And as word about you spreads, you will find it harder and harder to survive.

6. Be Able to Cope with Stress and Uncertainty – I know very few successful business people who didn’t wake up in the middle of the night in their early years, wondering if they can pay the mortgage. Most of us have had to chase payments from clients and deal with letters from concerned bank managers. And in the service industries, including consultancy, it’s easy to get into a situation where you are busy for 3 months and then have nothing; you were busy doing the work and had no time to sell.

7. Inquisitive – most successful business people I know are inquisitive about life, people, business, the world around them. They know their limits, so for example may choose to use a website designer, but often they are keen to learn new skills, to stretch themselves, especially in emerging areas. How many entrepreneurs who now blog quite happily and construct micro sites etc would have believed 5 years ago that they would have been doing it?

8. Have the ability to reduce complexity – the business world is full of people who like to complicate issues so that they can then sell their products and services as the solution to that complexity. As an example, look at the volume of sites selling reports, e-books and courses on how to make money from your website. They talk a lot of jargon; that way, if you don’t understand their language, they hope you will feel inadequate and buy from them.

In fact, the solution is simple: provide a quality product or service from a site with quality content. Attract a high volume of traffic and convert as much of that traffic as you can into business. Anything else is either merely ways of achieving those 4 things, or an irrelevance.

I’m sure that there are other characteristics, but these are the 8 that spring to my mind. What would you add to the list?