This of photo of successful entrepreneurs was taken at the Future 50 Awards gala event produced by SmartCEO.
You can imagine the energy in a venue packed with high achieving entrepreneurs as we celebrated the top winning companies.
I firmly believe in the power of goal setting. If you’re not on fire about your business right now, perhaps you need to find the right goal to focus on achieving. Winning a specific award is a great goal to start with. Enjoy today’s article on developing the 6 success traits to help you win big in your business.

6 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur what milestones do you want your business to achieve?

What would be some great wins for you?

For many of my clients, they describe their big wins as achieving awards like Inc. 5000 Award, Future 50 Award or the Philly 100 Awards.

Other types of wins I enjoyed were things like hitting my first Million dollar milestone in sales. Another great win for me was doubling my business 4 years in a row and selling 3 of my companies for an exciting profit.

What about you? What are your winning goals in your business?

What are you fired up about achieving?

Whatever your goals are for your business remember that ultimately, companies don’t succeed. People do.

I’d like to share what I find are 6 common success traits among the people behind winning businesses.

Success Trait #1. Sets specific, measurable goals.  As a business owner you have to know how to motivate yourself. Simply articulating that you are “just going to do the best you can” is not a measurable goal. Focus on making your goals results driven, so it is a clear objective assessment of whether you achieved the goal or you didn’t.

What is one goal you would be completely fired up about hitting this year?

Success Trait #2.  Knows the “WHY”  Setting specific goals answers the “what” you’re working to achieve. You also need to answer for yourself the “why”.  What will achieving the goal do for you? What will it allow you to have that you don’t have today? What will it allow you to do that you are not able to do today?

Perhaps you might be a new coach or consultant and your goal is to simply generate a $100K income this year.

Your personal why statement might be because that would allow you to work 4 days a week and enjoy work life balance without financial stress and worry.

What is the #1 change you want in your life right now that you currently do not have and why do you want this change?

Success Trait #3. Practices patience and discipline. Running a business is not easy. Running a successful business is even harder. Successful people know that even with talent, hard work, training and the best laid plans, achieving the winning results will still require patience and discipline through cycles of trying, failing, and trying again more intelligently.

Any time I hit a wall of frustration in working towards a new goal I remember the wise advice from the famous artist Michelangelo.

“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.”                        — Michelangelo 

What is one discipline in your business do you want to commit to practicing?

Success Trait #4.  Leverages your core area of competency.  The temptation for many small business owners is to wear all the hats. Sports teams could never succeed with this approach, so why whould it work any differently for business success?

Every player has a specific job and role within the team. In soccer, the striker would never lead his team well if he is trying to play defender, center forward, goalie and striker.

Successful business owners resist the temptation that just because they can do certain tasks means that they should do them. They don’t try to wear every hat and be the bookkeeper, the administrator, the receptionist, the office manager, sales manager, HR manager and the PR agent. If you have tried to do this I’m sure you found that it only diffused your effectiveness.

What then is your #1 core area of competency that you enjoy doing best?

Success Trait #5. Gets help on everything else.  Successful people solicit help in 2 ways. They seek the guidance and advice from a business advisory team of several experts or from one main person to serve as a sounding board, offer feedback, push back when needed and strategic advice.

Successful people also solicit help from others who they can delegate or outsource to.  Even if you are a solo practitioner like an attorney, financial advisor, coach or consultant you should be outsourcing to contractors to do tasks that do not fall in your core competencies.

What is holding you back from getting help?

Success Trait #6.  Hungry to learn.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing week and week out while expecting different results.

If there’s anything you can count on it’s change. Consumer behavior changes. The economy changes. The landscape of competition in your industry changes. Technology is always changing. Successful business owners would not have been able to thrive amidst the change curve if they were not people who were hungry to learn.

What is one thing you need to learn to help you respond successfully to a change or need that’s happening in your business right now?

In closing, remember again that companies don’t succeed. People do.

I shared 6 key questions as an important exercise for you to not only work on your business, but work on yourself.  I invite you to take a few minutes to share some of your answers below. I look forward to your comments.

Here’s to Your Success!

Blessings~

About Yoon Cannon: Top business coach Yoon Cannon has helped thousands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and sales teams achieve dramatic results in growing your business. Over the past 20 years Yoon has started 4 successful companies and sold 3 of them. She offers fresh insights as a seasoned business growth expert. Yoon delivers proven process for your sales, marketing and management development.  Grab free valuable gifts and resources at https://www.ParamountBusinessCoach.com  To book Yoon to speak at your next event email: YoonCannon@ParamountBusinessCoach.com To schedule a complimentary business coaching consultation call (215) 292-4947. 

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