Entrepreneur
Should you be an entrepreneur? Are you an individual who, rather than working as an employee, wants to run a small business and assume all the risks and rewards of a given business venture, idea, or good or service offered for sale. Are you perceived as a business leader and innovator of new ideas and business processes. Here is a test I give to clients to try to answer these questions. The scoring is as follows:
- “Strongly agree or all of the time” answer score 5.
- “Agree or most of the time” answer score 4
- “Can’t decide or sometimes” score 3
- “Disagree or almost never” answer score 2
- “Strongly disagree or never” answer score 1
Here are the questions in the test:
- Are you a self-starter?
- Do you like being your own boss?
- Do you care about making money?
- Are you willing to work 60 to 80 hour weeks?
- Are you a good leader?
- Do you recognize good ideas and move on them quickly?
- Do you have confidence in yourself?
- Is a good standard of living important to you?
- Do you deal well with change?
- Are you well organized?
- Do you like to plan?
- Do you make decisions quickly and then carry them out?
- Do you have a lot of will power?
- Do you like competing?
- Do you have experience in the area you’re going into?
- Do you stay current with your marketplace?
- Do you like setting goals?
- Is taking the first step easy for you?
- Do you like to surround yourself with good people?
- Are you flexible?
Score each question and then tally the score. If your score is higher than 85 you should be a decent entrepreneur. 70 – 85 says your chances of success are pretty good, all things being equal. Less than 50% and you should spend time doing some personal development.
Nevertheless, there is also the “luck” and “being in the right place at the right time” factors. And therefore a lower score is not a definite indicator of failure just as a high score does not guarantee success.