There are thousands of online courses about how to start an online store. But do you really have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur? Do a reality check with us.
Entrepreneurship needs a certain personality and special qualities. Not everyone can be successful as self-employed, just think about all the people who failed once and never tried again. There are thousands of people around the globe who would like to quit the daily grind, but they cannot make the first steps. They don’t have the vital traits to succeed, so they do not even try, but this is totally fine. Not everyone is meant to be a freelancer. However, those who start an online store or any other online business will need above-average abilities to strive. Let’s dive in!
1. Persistence
People usually think that having a Shopify store will make them rich in a few weeks. They expect to experience the “from rags to riches” life story, but they soon will be disappointed. This is not how online sales work in reality. You can read here why most Shopify store owners fail. I would like to prepare you now for the hard facts. This journey will be complicated. You will work more on your own business than what you did in your 9-to-5. The road is sometimes tough and you will face many difficulties you are going to need to solve on your own or with limited assistance. What is more, now your own livelihood and your own budget are at stake, you are not playing around with some other company’s budget anymore. Persistence is a key quality because you cannot just stop and give up when you face a hardship every time. If you really would like to flourish. You will need to keep going, and you shouldn’t let yourself feel blue when something is not turning out as you expected. Keep your eyes focused on your objectives and you will reach them, even if the road is a bit rocky sometimes.
2. Resourcefulness
As you are digging deeper into e-commerce and market analysis you will find that you have more competitors than what you expected. Many will sell the same products and have the exact same style. What are you gonna do about this? Are going to ignore it and keep doing your things as you originally planned? If you said yes, well, it is a wrong answer. This is how you will stay just one in a million. We have already written another article about the recent hoax about drop shipping being dead. We really think this is not the case at all. There is still plenty of room for those creative minds who dare to go further than others and do not stop the first time they stumble across a difficulty. The trait of creativity and resourcefulness is essential. It is necessary to find different approaches to resolve certain issues that occur on the way.
3. Originality
Stop following others, and execute your own ideas. If you keep following the market leaders, you will always be lagging behind them. The quality of originality is far more than having original ideas. It is all about making them work. It is not enough to be a mastermind of solutions and new approaches, but you need to figure out your own way to deliver them to the buyers. Do not copy the website theme and content of others, or don’t follow the over-rated “advice” of gurus and coaches. Have you ever thought about why most of them don’t have their own store anymore? Because it is easier said than done. Anyone can sell you an idea, the complicated thing is to make it work.
4. Bravery
The quality of bravery and individuality go hand in hand with each other. You need to have the guts to implement your brand new plans, to take risks. If you always follow the beaten track because you are too afraid to fail, you will never create anything extraordinary. Doing everyday practices never resulted in breakthroughs or “hockey stick” financial reports.
5. Dedication
Do you really want that online store? Are you really ready to do everything for it to be a great hit? Before you start, you need to focus on the goals you want to achieve. Dedicate yourself only to your new business. If you keep going back to your old habits, your negative friends who said it was not possible, or to your previous job where you worked as an employee, you will lose your focus. Keep your eyes on your aims and objectives, and select which habits, pieces of advice, practices, and ideas are really the ones which can take you forward. Work every day to make your store better and to deliver the most powerful products or services to your customers.
6. Leadership
Leadership skills are vital to be an owner. First of all, you need to take responsibility for your actions. You are the one who is in charge and you have to act like that. You need to be decisive, and not hesitant when it comes to making difficult decisions. What is more, you need to act, behave and speak like a leader. Entrepreneurs should have a positive influence on people who they are surrounded with. If you have some employees, because your store is already big enough to have more people to work on it, you will need to lead them and assign jobs for them. You are now not only responsible for the complete business but your personnel as well. Leadership skills are inevitable when it comes to having your own store. Or think about a situation when you have to create new partnerships with another company, or when you hire a VA. You cannot just let them lead the way, you also have to be an active and competent participant in the activity.
7. Responsibility
As mentioned above, as an entrepreneur you need to be responsible for your actions and decisions. Did you make a bad decision which affects statistics negatively? Admit it and learn from it. This whole journey is not only about your store’s development but your own personal development as well. This is why it is so exciting. You mature together with your own service. Furthermore, when you have employees you are also responsible for their livelihood. There are so much more behind a business than just creating the store itself. Unfortunately, people don’t realize it because of the false statements they see and hear from different gurus and marketing messages. It is time to clear out the fog, to see clearly about being a Shopify store owner. You will have more responsibilities than what you expected at the beginning.
8. Analytical mind
Apart from all the soft skills mentioned above, you really need to be data-driven to succeed. Creating the statistics you want to focus on and making corporate decisions based on them is not as easy as it looks like. If you easily get distracted or lost in the jungle of numbers, you really need to do some practice, enroll for an online course or ask a professional to mentor you. Shopify helps you in a great way in this. All Shopify stores have their own statistics board, which is kept fresh every day. However, you need to calculate your profit, your marketing costs and ROI and many other expenditures, which are not shown in the Shopify Admin platform.
9. Negotiation qualities
A Shopify store owner will many times encounter with situations when they need to negotiate. Let it be with partners, with employees about their salary or with other service providers. You will need to approach people in these situations professionally, but with enough confidence, while not offending them personally or in any other way. Focusing on your own objectives and goals is important, but you should never be too aggressive or you should never force your ideas and expectations on other negotiating partners. If you push them too hard towards what you want without listening to what they have to say, they will back out from the deal.
10. Self-confidence
Being confident is key. It is just simply disillusioning when a leader doesn’t know what they want. Approaching others shyly, with the “lame-duck” handshake will leave a permanent negative mark on your first impression. And we all know, you only have one chance for a powerful first impression. Don’t ever let this opportunity to slip away. Present yourself and what you do with enough confidence to convince your partners about your role and authority. Eventually, you are a leader now, let others know about it.
11. High emotional intelligence
Studies show that average CEO’s have much lower Emotional intelligence than other employees or middle managers. Speaking from experience, this quality is really a deal breaker when you are working with other people. It has been found that the best company leaders and entrepreneurs are those who have high EQ, which is totally not related to the IQ. If you want your company or business to strive, you need to be socially sensitive to others’ non-verbal or verbal responses. The sad thing is that most people assume that we all have it, but unfortunately we don’t. We turned out to be a generation of people who communicate in order to speak and not in order to listen, and this is a great problem. If you indeed want to be successful, pay attention to others. To their small signals, gestures, postures, as this is what a real leader does to assess the situation correctly. Your serious deals can be doomed if you evaluate your partners wrongly.
I am sure if you follow these ideas and you start to develop yourself in a way to cover as many qualities from this list as possible, you will be a powerful and successful business leader. As highlighted at the beginning, entrepreneurship needs a certain personality and you just did the first steps by reading this empowering article.
