What makes a good business person?

Entrepreneurship can take many forms. Whether you are launching your own company or working as a leader within a corporation, you are acting as a business person with the aim of your organization's profitability and success in mind.

In all business roles, there are certain attributes that will help you succeed. Read on to find out what skills you can easily adopt and how they will help you.

Organization

Keeping on top of things is essential as a business person. You will have much to think about constantly, and without organization you are likely to forget about tasks or feel overwhelmed with the amount you have to do.

Good organization will help you plan when you are going to work on your projects, will mean you keep track of important information and will see you be more popular with your colleagues who rely on you to be efficient.

Courage

To achieve your goals in business, you will need to take risks.

For example, courage is needed to take a new company from being an idea in your head into being a successful, real-life business. Risk is involved in the investment of time and even money you will need to input, as it may require you to make sacrifices without any guarantee of payoff.

But remember: every successful business that exists today has grown from the same position as yours.

If you work within an organization, you are still practising risk. Each of your business decisions affects the performance of the company and what your managers think of your work. Have the courage to experiment and be bold, though, and these areas might soar.

Perseverance

With risk comes the possibility of failure. This can be greatly disheartening and it can be hard to not give up. It is important to remember that every successful business has gone through failures but persevered to become what they are today.

Not giving up is key to becoming a good business person. A shift in mindset can also be useful; start to think of setbacks as lessons instead of negatives. Assess what your plan for a project, product launch or pitch was and what led to it not going as it hoped. Identify possible improvements and try again armed with the knowledge of what you have learned!

Ambition

Having ambition doesn’t have to be wanting to sell a million units or become CEO in the near future. Goals can be smaller and equally as valid.

If you run a store or work in sales, a great goal is to sell a small amount more than you did last week. If you work within a company, a goal can be to nail a pitch to your managers or put yourself forward for a promotion.

Achieving these short term goals is great in itself, but the added benefit is that each time you make a conscious effort to do so, you are taking steps toward your overall aims. If you have an idea in mind of where you want your career to take you or how much you want your business to grow, use this to motivate you in your everyday work.

Communication

Within most industries, communication is key. As a businessperson, it is a vital tool to build trust, build connections and build great working relationships.

Communication skills range from being able to present a great pitch to potential clients to being on top of emails with your colleagues. The latter is important because answering the requests of those around you will show that you care about their projects and their time, meaning they will continue to support you.

Open-mindedness

When working in business, what you end up doing might be different to what you planned.

For example, you might give a pitch to a potential client presenting a product you love, but they might only want to do business with you if they’re able to invest in a different one. It’s important to keep an open mind because opportunities you did not expect may end up providing much better outcomes.

You need to be flexible to adapt to changes in markets, even if this takes you off your planned course. Open-mindedness may also take the form of listening and responding to feedback on your work, as others detached from your projects may be able to see flaws in them you don’t.

Start your business journey with a program at Eton University.