Not everyone is cut out to be either a sales person or an entrepreneur. I speak from personal experience. I have worked in a number of positions in my life where I was involved with sales functions (but not a salesman myself) or had the opportunity to acquire a business. But I was not ready or willing to take the risk.
To me, that is what separates out successful sales people and entrepreneurs from others. They were willing to take the risk and even fail if need be, if at the end, there was success.
Recently, a Montreal-based company, Psychtests, (in conjunction with Bill Wagner, author of "The Entrepreneur Next Door") conducted a large-scale study which found that successful businesspeople tend to possess certain key traits that differentiate them from others.
The study looked at a test which covers seven key business traits: self-sufficiency, conscientiousness, drive, social skills, optimism, risk taking and networking ability.
When comparing female vs. male entrepreneurs, men were more driven than women (score of 67 vs. 62 on a scale from 0 to 100), while women had better social skills (70 vs. 67) and tended to be more optimistic (72 vs. 67).
"Entrepreneurs clearly have a personality pattern that places them distinctly apart from others," asserts Ilona Jerabek, president of Psychtests. "To be able to wager your life savings on what often seems like a pipe dream to others takes a special type of character, and our data shows this. For example, 72% of test-takers who are entrepreneurs indicate that they are quite comfortable taking monetary or work-related risks, compared to 54% of the rest of the test-takers in our sample.
"Entrepreneurs also tend to describe themselves as being more ambitious than regular people. This says a lot. They know that they are different from others."
Furthermore, 41% of entrepreneurs (compared to 27% of non-entrepreneurs) rated themselves as being very good at making conversation with others.
The results also found that 34% of entrepreneurs (compared to 20% of non-entrepreneurs) stated that they find it easy to sell things or ideas to people.
Entrepreneurs tend to be self-sufficient as 44% (compared to 29% of non-entrepreneurs) said that they are perfectly comfortable carrying through on ideas without depending on anyone else.
Finally, 43% of entrepreneurs (compared to 34% of non-entrepreneurs) believe that you absolutely must take risks in life in order to be successful.
"Starting a business involves a lot of ambiguity, uncertainty and responsibility. Those who jump into it strictly to make money, gain power or be in charge of their schedule end up blindsided by the realities of what it's really like to build and run their own business," said Jerabek. "It isn't easy and it isn't for everyone."
Those who wish to take a condensed version of the test to assess their entrepreneurial potential can go to
