80% of SMEs fail in the first two years of their establishment. This mostly is caused by the business owner lacking important factors that can help him or her to succeed in business.

When starting a business, there is a 50-50 chance of that business succeeding or failing. However, to succeed as an entrepreneur, you must have the following characteristics:

1. Passion

Having passion for what you do is what will drive you to work harder every day. As an entrepreneur, to succeed in your business, you must be consumed by the passion for what you do. Your business should be your life’s purpose.

Having passion for what you do will give you the drive to work harder, build your resilience and will influence the people around you to work hard towards a shared vision. With an army of believers on your team, there is assurance that dream will live on, long after you are dead or have exited the business.

2. Clear the business idea

Narrow your business idea to something specific. This will give you clarity of what your business is all about, how to package your ideas to deliver value to customers and who you need on your team.

A clear business idea will help you identify your market niche in an already existing market and optimize your service provision to ensure you dominate that particular market.

E.g. If you decide to venture in cellphone manufacturing, your brand can focus on the provision of cellphones with higher megapixels front and superior camera features than any other brand. This will keep your company on top of the game. This is how mobile phone companies like Samsung have been able to overtake companies like Nokia.

4. Consistency

Successful entrepreneurs are people who refused to give up in spite of the challenges they face. As an entrepreneur, you must build a discipline to constantly and continually work and refine your idea to distinction. Quitting too soon has led to the loss of many magnificent life changing business.

Most ideas take time to mature and materialize; as the creator, you must nurture your ideas to maturity which is the point at which the target market own it and become the key promoters of your idea.

Be diligent.

5. Courage

In order to be extra ordinary, attempt bigger things. Your goals and dreams should be big enough to scare you. For example, when Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft in 1975, they had a vision of everyone in the world owning a personal computer. At the time, their idea seemed like an impossibility since the available computer was a very big non-portable macro-computer.

A few years down the line their vision has become a reality and is making them billions of dollars annually.

6. Great ideas make life better

What you do should make a difference in other people’s life. Avoid focusing on only your own personal gain. Your business should be able to meet people’s demands and expectation and make their lives easier, cheaper and more efficient. A good example of this is the way mobile subscribers like Safaricom have been able to make communication easier and improve the way of life of millions of Kenyans.

Remember… Entrepreneurs lead the way!