Personal Entrepreneurial Competencies

Entrepreneurs are people with skills and capabilities to see and evaluate business
opportunities. They are individuals that can strategically identify products or services
needed by the community and they have the capacity to deliver these at the right
time and at the right place.

Entrepreneurs are agents of economic change; they organize, manage and assume
risks of a business. Some of the good qualities of an entrepreneur are opportunity
seeker, risk taker, goal setter, excellent planner, a confident problem solver,
hardworking, persistent, and a committed worker.

Entrepreneurship, on the other hand, is not just a simple business activity. It is a

strategic process of innovation and new venture creation. Basically, entrepreneurship
is both an art and science of converting business ideas into marketable products or
services to improve the quality of living.

Entrepreneurial competencies refer to the important characteristics that should be

possessed by an individual in order to perform entrepreneurial functions effectively. In
this module, you will learn some of the most important characteristics, attributes,
lifestyle, skills and traits of a successful entrepreneur in order to be successful in a
chosen career.

Below are few important characteristics / traits / attributes of a good entrepreneur:

Hardworking: One of the important characteristics of a good entrepreneur is

hardworking. This means habitually working diligently for a long period of time.
Hardworking people keep on improving their performance to produce good products
and/or provide good services.

Self-confidence: Entrepreneurs have confidence in one‘s ability and own

judgment. They exhibit self-confidence in order to cope with all the risks of operating
their own business.

Discipline: Successful entrepreneurs always stick on the plan and fight the
temptation to do what is unimportant.

Committed: A good entrepreneur accepts full responsibility of everything in

his/her business. He/she gives full commitment and solid dedication to make the
business successful.

Ability to accept change: Nothing is permanent but change. Change occurs

frequently. When you own a business, you should cope-up and thrive on changes.
Capitalize on positive changes to make your business grow.

Creative: An entrepreneur should be creative and innovative to stay in the

business and in order to have an edge over the other competitors.
 Has the Initiative: An entrepreneur takes the initiative. You must put
yourself in a position where you are responsible for the failure or success of your
business.

Profit-Oriented: An entrepreneur enters into the world of business to

generate profit or additional income. This shall become the bread and butter for you
and for your family as well. Therefore, you must see to it that the business can
generate income.

Listed below are the important skills of a successful entrepreneur:

Planner: Planning is strategic thinking and setting of goals to achieve

objectives by carefully maximizing all the available resources. A good entrepreneur
develops and applies step-by-step plans to realize goals. A good entrepreneur knows
that planning is an effective skill only when combined with action.

People Skills: It‘s a very important skill in order to be successful in any kind of
business. People skills refer to effective and efficient communication and relation to
people working in and out of your business. In day-to-day business transactions, you
need to deal with people. A well-developed people skill can spell out the difference
between success and failure of the business.

Decision Making: Successful entrepreneurs have the ability to think quickly,

and to make a wise decision towards pre-determined set objectives. No one can deny
that the ability to make wise decisions is an important skill that an entrepreneur
should possess. Sound decision should spring out from given facts and information
and should be towards the pre-determined objectives.

Environment and Market

People who aspire to start a business need to explore the economic, cultural and
social conditions prevailing in an area. Needs and wants of the people in a certain
area that are not met may be considered as business opportunities. Identifying the
needs of the community, its resources, available raw materials, skills, and appropriate
technology can help a new entrepreneur in seizing a business opportunity.

To be successful in any kind of business venture, potential entrepreneurs should

always look closely at the environment and market. They should always be watchful
on the existing opportunities and constraints. The opportunities in the business
environment are those factors that provide possibilities for a business to expand and
make more profits. Constraints, on the other hand, are that factor that limit the
business to grow, hence reduces the chance of generating profit. One of the best
ways to evaluate the opportunities and constraints is to conduct SWOT (Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis.

SWOT Analysis is a managerial tool to assess the environment. This gathers

important information which in turn is used in strategic planning. Strengths and
weaknesses are internal in an organization. Basically, they relate to resources owned
by the organization, by the things that you have control over, and as well as to the
extent of its marketing.

Opportunities and threats exist in the external environment. Opportunities relate to

the market, to the development of new technologies, and external factors such as
government policies, climate, and trends. Threats relate to what the competition is
doing, as well as legal and other constraints.

Product Development

When we talk of product development, we are referring to a process of making a new

product to be sold by a business or enterprise to its customers.
 The product development may involve modification of an existing product or its
presentation, or formulation of an entirely new product that satisfies a newly
defined customer‘s needs, wants and/or a market place.

There are basic, yet vital questions that you can ask yourself about product
development. When you find acceptable answers to these, you may now say that you
are ready to develop a product and/or render services:
1. For whom are the product services aimed at?
2. What benefits will the customers expect from it?
3. How will the product differ from the existing brand? From its competitor?

Likewise, needs and wants of the people within an area should also be taken into big
consideration. Everyone has his/her own needs and wants. However, everyone has
different concepts of needs and wants. Needs in business are important things that
every individual cannot live without in a society.

These include:
1. basic commodities for consumption;
2. clothing and other personal belongings;
3. shelter, sanitation and health; and
4. education.

 Needs are essential to an individual to live with dignity and pride in a

community. These needs can obviously help you generate business ideas and
subsequently to product development.

 Wants are desires, luxury and extravagance that signify wealth and expensive
way of living. Wants or desires are considered above all the basic necessities of
life. Some examples of wants or desires: fashion accessories, expensive shoes
and clothes, travelling around the world, eating in an expensive restaurant;
watching movies, concerts, having luxurious cars, wearing expensive jewelries,
perfume, living in impressive homes, among others.

Needs and wants of people are the basic indicators of the kind of business
that you may engage into because it can serve as the measure of your success.
Some other good points that might be considered in business undertakings are the
kind of people, their needs, wants, lifestyle, culture and tradition, and social
orientation that they belong to.

To summarize, product development entirely depends on the needs and wants of the
customers. Another important issue to deal with is the key concepts of developing a
product. The succeeding topic will enlighten you about the procedure in coming up
with a product.

Concepts of Developing a Product

The process of product development follows the following steps:

A. Identify Customer Needs: Using survey forms, interviews, researches, focus
group discussions, and observations, an entrepreneur can easily identify customers‘
needs and wants. In this stage, the information that can be possibly gathered are
product specifications (performance, taste, size, color, shape, life span of the product,
etc.). This stage is very important because this would determine the product to be
produced or provided.
B. Establish Target Specifications: Based on customers' needs and reviews of
competitive products, you may now establish target specifications of the prospective
new product and/or services. Target specifications are essentially a wish-list.
C. Analyze Competitive Products: It is imperative to analyze existing competitive
products to provide important information in establishing product or services
specifications. Other products may exhibit successful design attributes that should be
emulated or improved upon in the new product or services.
D. Generate Product Concepts: After having gone through with the previous
processes, you may now develop a number of product concepts to illustrate what
types of product or services are both technically feasible and would best meet the
requirements of the target specifications.
E. Select a Product Concept: Through the process of evaluation between
attributes, a final concept is selected. After the final selection, additional market
research can be applied to obtain feedback from certain key customers.
F. Refine Product Specifications: In this stage, product or services specifications
are refined on the basis of input from the foregoing activities. Final specification as
the results of extensive study, expected service life, projected selling price and
among others are being considered in this stage.
G. Perform Economic Analysis: Throughout the process of product development, it
is very important to always review and estimate the economic implications regarding
development expenses, manufacturing costs, and selling price of the product or
services to be offered or provided.
H. Plan the Remaining Development Project: In this final stage of concept
development, you may prepare a detailed development plan which includes list of
activities, the necessary resources and expenses, and development schedule with
milestones for tracking progress.

Finding Value
People buy for a reason. There should be something in your product or service that
would give consumers a good reason to go back and buy for more. There must be
something that has to make you the best option for your target customers; otherwise
they have no reason to buy what you‘re selling. This implies further, that you offer
something to your customers that they will make them value or treasure your product
or service.

The value that you incorporate to your product is called value proposition. Value
proposition is ―a believable collection of the most persuasive reasons people should
notice you and take the action you‘re asking for.‖ Value is created by fulfilling deep
desires and solving deep problems. This is what gets people moving, what people
getsspending for your product or service.

Innovation
Innovation is the introduction of something new in your product or service. This may
be a new idea, a new method or a device. If you want to increase your sales and
profit, you must innovate. Some of the possible innovations in your products are
change of packaging, improve taste, color, size, shape and perhaps price. Some of the
possible innovations in providing services are application of new improved methods,
additional featured services and possibly freebees.

Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Unique Selling Proposition is the factor or consideration presented by a seller as the
reason that one product or service is different from and better than that of the
competitions. Before you can begin to sell your product or service to your target
customers, you have to sell yourself on it. This is especially important when your
product or service is similar to those around you. USP would require careful analysis of
other businesses' ads and marketing messages. If you analyze what they say or what
they sell, not just their product or service characteristics, you can learn a great deal
about how companies distinguish themselves from competitors.
Here's how to discover your USP and use it to increase your sales and profit:

Use empathy:
Put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Always focus on the needs of the target
customers and forget falling in love with your own product or service. Always
remember, you are making this product or providing for the target customers to
eventually increase sales and earn profit and not making this product or service for
you.

Identify what motivates your customers.

It is very important for you to understand and find out what drives and motivates your
customers to buy your product or service. Make some efforts to find out, analyze and
utilize the information that motivates the customers in their decisions to purchase the
product or service.

Discover the actual and genuine reasons why customers buy your product
instead of a competitor's.
Information is very important in decision making. A competitive entrepreneur always
improve this products or services to provide satisfaction and of course retention of
customers. As your business grows, you should always consider the process of asking
your customers important information and questions that you can use to improve your
product or service.

Generating Ideas for Business

The process of developing and generating business idea is not a simple process. Some
people just come with a bunch of business ideas but are not really feasible. There are
two problems that arise; first is the excessive generation of ideas that can forever
remain in the dreaming stage and the second is when they don‘t have ideas and don‘t
want to become entrepreneurs.
1. Examine existing goods and services.
Are you satisfied with the product? What do other people who use the product
say about it? How can it be improved?
 There are many ways of improving a product from the way it is made to the
way it is packed and sold.
 You can also improve the materials used in crafting the product.
 In addition, you can introduce new ways of using the product, making it
more useful and adaptable to the customers‘ many needs. When you are
improving the product or enhancing it, you are doing an innovation. You
can also do an invention by introducing an entirely new product to replace
the old one.
2. Examine the present and future needs.
Look and listen to what the customers, institutions, and communities are missing
in terms of goods and services.

3. Examine how the needs are being satisfied.

Needs for the products and services are referred to as market demand. To satisfy
these needs is to supply the products and services that meet the demands of the
market. The term market refers to whoever will use or buy the products or
services, and these may be people or institutions such as other businesses,
establishments, organizations, or government agencies.

4. Examine the available resources around you.

Observe what materials or skills are available in abundance in your area.

5. Read magazines, news articles, and other publications on new products

and techniques or advances in technology.
You can pick up new business ideas from Newsweek, Reader‘s Digest, Business
Magazines

Key Concepts of Selecting a Business Idea

In screening your ideas, examine each one in terms of the following factors:
1. How much capital is needed to put up the business?
2. How big is the demand for the product? Do many people need this product and will
continue to need it for a long time?
3. How is the demand met? Who are processing the products to meet the needs
(competition or demand)? How much of the need is now being met (supply)?
4. Do you have the background and experiences needed to run this particular
business?
5. Will the business be legal, not going against any existing or foreseeable
government regulation?
6. Is the business in line with your interest and expertise?
Your answers to these questions will be helpful in screening which ones among your
many ideas are worth examining further and worth pursuing.

Branding
It is a marketing practice of creating name, symbol or designs
 that identifies and differentiates product or services from the rest.
 It is also a promise to your customers. It tells them what they can expect from
your product or service
 it differentiates your offerings from other competitors.
 Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and what people
perceive you to be.

Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business. An effective brand
strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets.
The features of a good product brand are as follows: -
 Delivers the message clearly
 Confirms your credibility
 Connects your target prospects emotionally
 Motivates the buyer - Concretizes user loyalty

Here are some simple tips to publicize your brand:

.
 Develop a tagline. Write a meaningful, unforgettable, and easy to remember
statement that captures the essence of your brand.
 Get a great logo. Create a logo suitable to your business and consistent with
your tagline and place it everywhere.
 Write down your brand messaging. Select key messages you want to
communicate about your brand.
 Be true to your brand. Deliver your brand promise.
 Be consistent. Be reliable and consistent every time.

In generating business idea, you should first identify what type of business is suited to
your business idea. You should analyze and scan the potential environment, study the
marketing practices and strategies of your competitors, analyze the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and the threats in your environment to ensure that the
products or services you are planning to offer will be patronized within the easy reach
by your target consumers. Bear in mind these simple rules for successful SWOT
Analysis:

 Be realistic about the strengths and weaknesses of your business when

conducting SWOT Analysis.
 SWOT Analysis should distinguish between where your business is today, and
where it could be in the future.
 SWOT Analysis should always be specific. Avoid any grey area.
 Always apply SWOT Analysis in relation to your competition‘
i.e. better than or worse than your competitions.
 Keep your SWOT Analysis short and simple. Avoid complexity and over analysis.
 SWOT Analysis is subjective