One business management course that I completed argued that personality factors don’t count - only strategy counted. If you adopted the right strategy, you succeeded in your business. And success makes for a confident personality. An “entrepreneurial” personality was an after-effect, not a prerequisite.

The strategy suggested by that particular course had just two elements - selecting a niche business and focusing on the current bottleneck in that business. You selected a niche business that was related to your filed of knowledge. Practically all fields offer possibilities to develop a product or service that people need.

At any time, there would be one major bottleneck that prevents the business from growing. Identify that bottleneck and focus on overcoming it. Once the current bottleneck is overcome, another bottleneck would become critical for growth. Turn your attention to the new bottleneck.

Soon, you would begin to learn the ropes of your business. The business too would have begun to grow, and grow fast.

Personality Factors

Psychologists have come to the conclusion that there are only five major personality factors. These are:

Extraversion/Introversion Extraverts are eager to keep engaged with the outside world and derive energy from social contacts. Introverts prefer to keep to themselves and need to be alone to recharge their batteries.
Agreeableness/Disagreeableness Agreeable people have an optimistic view of human nature and are cooperative and friendly. Disagreeable people are unfriendly, suspicious and uncooperative.
Conscientiousness Careful and orderly, conscientious people are able to control their impulses and do their “duty”.
Neuroticism Neuroticism is characterized by emotional instability with negative feelings like anxiety, anger and depression dominating the person’s thinking.
Openness to Experience Intellectually curious and sensitive to beauty, open people tends to have unconventional and individualistic beliefs, unlike closed people who prefer to stick to accepted views.

Psychologists also say that except for one or two, these personality factors do not have a physical basis. Your environment is the main factor for the kind of personality you acquire.

Personality and Business Success

People with very different personality traits have succeeded in business - extroverts and introverts, agreeable and disagreeable people and so on. Sometimes the success had been due to luck or the existence of an effective mentor.

Small Business Administration of USA lists the traits of successful persons as below:

An eye for opportunity: Find a need and quickly satisfy it

Independence: Enjoys being his/her own boss

An appetite for hard work: Doesn’t mind working long hours with little pay

Self-confidence: Demonstrates extreme self-confidence in taking risks

Discipline: Resists temptation to do what is unimportant for what is essential

Judgment: Ability to think quickly and make wise decisions

Ability to accept change: Thrives on changes and business growth

Make stress work for them: Focuses on the end and not the process

Need to achieve: Drives toward personal success

Focus on profits: Knows business success is measured by profits

(See sba.gov)

A look at these traits indicates that most of them are acquired habits, rather than fundamental personality factors (except perhaps conscientiousness - listed as discipline and hard work above). You can cultivate habits by deciding to acquire them and then comparing your daily actions against desirable habits.

Or rather:

Find an unfilled or incompletely filled need in your community

Organize quickly to satisfy that need and

Focus on it till you have learnt the ropes.

You might soon find that you are acquiring the right habits and gaining confidence. On the other hand, if you select a competitive, me-too business, the difficulty of achieving desirable results might turn you into a frustrated person with very negative feelings.

Conclusion

While conscientiousness, a fundamental personality factor, might indeed have a strong impact on small business success, other personality factors might not. The strategy of selecting a less competitive niche business and then focusing on it long enough to learn all the ropes will lead you to success.

Gopi Nathan is an experienced business management professional who now helps small businesspersons sell their products or services on the Internet. See his website http://www.promotional-writing-services.com for a compact package of online marketing services.

Tags: agreeableness, bottleneck, confident personality, conscientious, conscientiousness, emotional instability, extraversion, introversion, introverts, learn the ropes, negative feelings, neuroticism, niche business, optimistic view, overrated, personality factors, small business success, two elements

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