In business, there are no guarantees. There is simply no way to eliminate all the risks associated with starting a small business – but you can improve your chances of success with good planning, preparation, and insight. Additionally, a professional coaching program can promote your opportunities and enhance the chances of entrepreneurial success.

During the initial phase of an entrepreneurial endeavor, besides recognizing the own weaknesses and working on them with the assistance of a professional coaching team, it is essential to know oneself and to discover the virtues that one possesses.

By answering the following four generic questions, it is possible to identify the characteristics that determine our capacity to develop and maintain an entrepreneurial project:

• Am I a self-starter?
• How good am I at making decisions?
• Do I have the physical and emotional stamina to run a business?
• What are my unmet objectives?

The answers to the questions posed above will allow you to compare your profile with the ideal that is based on the 10 required virtues for entrepreneurial success.

1. An elevated entrepreneurial spirit

In your hands rest the responsibility of dreaming ideas, developing projects, organizing your time, and dealing with all the details involved in the projects.

2. To be an opportunity-seeker

A problem is nothing but an opportunity dressed up in working-clothes.
Successful people pay attention to the problems, transform them into opportunities, and decide which opportunities are worth of being pursued as a business model.

3. To be creative and innovative

Everybody possesses creativity, it can be enhanced through the permanent practice, and it applies to any activity, independently of its characteristics.

4. To be highly motivated and self-confident

All your efforts and the long working-hours will benefit you directly, generating the desire for motivation and personal achievement.

5. To have the capacity of planning and organizing

Several researches indicate that a lack of planning is the major cause of failure of companies. A good organization of the finances, human resources, strategic design, schedules, and production can prevent many difficulties.

6. To take on calculated risks

To start a new business is exciting because it involves taking risks. The owners of ideas, dreams, and newly born companies are constantly forced to make decisions, very often instantly, without the possibility of consulting anybody else and under permanent pressure.

7. To be persistent: to accept failure as a learning process

To own a company can be very exciting. However, it also requires a lot of dedication. Can you spend 12 hours of daily work for six or seven days a week, every week?
Managing a company is an endless source of challenges and learning opportunities.

8. To seek for information and advice from experts

The entrepreneurs have to establish working-relations with a large variety of people, including coworkers, clients, salesmen, and professionals like lawyers, public accountants, or external consultants. This issue should be considered as an essential tool for personal and entrepreneurial growth and development.

9. To have a positive perception of the future

The leadership in a company may wear one out emotionally. Some entrepreneurs rapidly wear themselves out by taking over all the responsibilities of success of their undertaking. To have a consistent vision helps to endure the slow and exhausting periods.

10. To be passionate and proactive

It is necessary to be an active agent of change, to be passionate, to take the initiative, and to confront uncertainty in order to be successful in the labor market.
A proactive person does not expect others to make decisions for her: she acts with determination, anticipates the problems, engages in the operative levels, and constantly creates new opportunities.