Are you daydreaming in your cubicle again? Pretty sure you could run this place? Thinking of running your own business is a common phenomena among aspiring entrepreneurs  – the mastery of ones life, the promises of  financial success, the ability to exercise your business skills.Its enticing.

Sounds great, and it certainly can be. But it is not for everyone. So what does it take to be your own boss? Do you have the commercial acumen required?

Qualities of an entrepreneur

So what better way  to figure out if you are cut from the right cloth but by exploring the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs ?

Successful entrepreneurs often display the following qualities and habits.

Unrelenting passion

How hot is that fire in your belly? You will have to have a serious fire in your belly before starting your own business. Passion here is spelt with a capital ‘P’ and you will need to draw on a bottomless pit of enthusiasm and motivation to pull this venture up the hill of success.

You should certainly not just be looking to ‘be your own boss’ in any old job. You should be looking to the a very specific boss of a business you would want to work in even if the pay was not that great – and getting it off the ground and keeping it afloat will need every ounce of that genuine excitement and passion to see your vision fruit.

Contempt for ‘following’

One of the more sneaking characteristics of someone ready to be their own boss is a rising contempt for following orders and working for others for a whole career. Many entrepreneurs will form over time a strong opposition to being an employee and day dream consistently about forging their own paths.

They see control in the hands of others, money in the pockets of others still and may have an under appreciation for the path their boss takes. Nothing starts the entrepreneur’s fire quicker than an inability to sit in a cubicle and work for the benefit of others.

Perseverance

You will need a massive bag of get up and go to be your own boss. Doggedness will be in high demand as you will find that you alone need to be the engine that makes this vehicle hum. All year.

Invoices will need chasing, employees need hiring and shaping, sales need to be chased with zeal, marketing channels need to be relentlessly engaged, bills need paying and accounting need handling. To achieve this, you need perseverance in spades. But it will pay off.

Entrepreneurial skills

Apart from the personality qualities of an entrepreneur – you also should be displaying a number of hard skills and experience to carry you through to becoming your own boss.

What kind of entrepreneurial skills and business experience do you need?

Financial acumen

Not necessarily a barrier to the right person, with enough skills or assets to snare key key investors or vital business loans, but the fact remains that money will be needed and it will be needed in quantity.

What can not be absent however is keen business acumen. Financial savviness will be a constant necessity and those with poor understanding of finances will be at a distinct disadvantage when tying to be their own boss.

Don’t let this be a barrier in itself though, with the broad ability to self educate through the internet and the proliferation of affordable business advisers and bookkeepers, you can overcome this hurdle if numerical wizardry is not a native skill.

If you have a passion, have a great business vision and know you can make this work, then accumulating financial skills can still be very much achieved.

Time management

A necessary and common skill among the most successful entrepreneurs out there is an innate ability to manage their time and use it like a weapon.

This doesn’t mean packing as many tasks into a day as possible – that’s just calendar stuffing. It means prioritizing tasks, blocking out excercise and sleep and family time, keeping money making tasks top of mind and understanding the urgency or lack of when it comes to tasks.

Doing a lot can be achieved by anyone who can deal with stress. Good time management however aims to eliminate not only dead space but also low value tasks that lead to stress and a lack of productivity. Successful entrepreneurs are almost always time management experts and not necessarily workaholics.

Bossing skills

Yeah I know, but it’s true. You need to develop or nurture your leadership skills. Very soon you will be a boss to a number of employees in a startup business.

What then? Not only will yo be managing yourself like a hawk, you will need to be a number of thins to a number of people.

You will need to train staff, delegate roles, discipline if necessarily and reward when appropriate. You will need to explain your vision and trust employees to follow through. You will need to lead with flexibility while maintaining a tight ship.

Leadership isn’t easy and that’s what it means to be your own boss. But the rewards? Let’s just say that cubicle you left wont be missed.