A businessman and an entrepreneur are two words that are often interchangable. People often get the notion that when someone is a businessman, they are also entrepreneurs but this is not the case. Businessmen and entrepreneurs both own a business and make passive income. They both provide solutions to consumers and help with economic development. However, there are subtle and important differences between the two. In this article, we shall cover the following topics:
- What is a businessman?
- Characteristics of a successful businessman
- What is an entrepreneur?
- Characteristics of an entrepreneur
- Difference between a businessman and an entrepreneur
What is a businessman?
A businessman is a person who follows the traditional ways of business or follows existing ideas. Their aim is to increase financial profits and develop their own career. Businessmen calculate risk and conduct cost-benefit analysis. Their decisions are based on available and reliable information. Businessmen hire and manage people for the sake of meeting company objectives. For most businessmen, customers provide them with sales and revenues.
A businessman aims to beat competitors and increase market share at all costs. They do not waste time on unnecessary activities which are unrelated to their business. Overall, their objective is to become more profitable and successful.
Characteristics of a Successful Businessman
Running a successful business can be a daunting task. Not everyone can succeed as a businessman. You need to possess some traits in order to succeed. Here are 7 characteristics that every businessman should possess.
Work Ethic
One of the keys to becoming a successful businessman is work ethic. It may mean a lot of things to different people. Work ethic may include one’s sense of integrity, level of responsibility, and quality of work.
Passionate
Passion for your work is a necessity if you want to become a successful businessman. You must be aware of your corporate mission and vision and take it to heart. Being passionate means being excited to go to work because you truly believe in what you are doing.
Visionary
A successful businessman looks for innovative ways to get things done. They think outside the box to look for solutions that can make their operations more successful.
Dependable
Not only do your employees and partners depend on you but your clients as well. Your dependability will impact your business reputation. You can start by being punctual, being present at meetings, and successfully mastering the tasks of your assignment. When a job needs to be done, you need to make them think that you will get it done.
Motivated
Motivation is another important trait for becoming a successful businessman. It is key to your upward mobility and expansion. Also, if your employees see that you are unmotivated, it will rub off to them.
Resilient
As a businessman, you are bound to make mistakes along the way. It’s not avoiding them that is important but it’s how you bounce back from those mistakes. How you recover from failure will tell something about your tenacity as a business person. Take each mistake as a lesson, learn from it, and move on.
Inspiring
A businessman should serve as a source of inspiration to others. Be a role model to younger businessmen. Let them know that you are someone they can look up to. By doing so, you will encourage confidence in your team.
Takes risks
Successful businessmen are not afraid to take risks. They need to be strong in order to boost their business and increase revenue. To do this, you will need to take risks from time to time.
Takes initiative
To be a good businessman, you need to make sure that you push your team to work harder and better. Be the one to tell them what to do but do it in such a way that they will accept. It is best that you suggest new ideas than force them.
Work on your communication skills
You may have great ideas, but all that won’t matter if you are not able to communicate your ideas with your team. You need to make them understand what you’re thinking and what you want so they will follow you. Make sure to hone your communication skills.
What is an Entrepreneur?
An entrepreneur is someone who transforms an original idea or innovative product into a startup company. The goal of an entrepreneur is to realize the original idea and change the world rather than just get pure financial profits. They are more concerned with contributing to the improvement of social wellbeing.
Entrepreneurs base their decision on intuition rather than on calculated and reliable information. To realize their dream and passion, they take huge risks. They are not focused on beating competitors but more on improving the drawbacks of their idea. They are not time oriented but are willing to spend time on activities that are crucial to their idea, not on generating profits. As a leader, entrepreneurs serve as inspiration to people who help realize their innovative idea.
Characteristics of A Successful Entrepreneur
Becoming a successful entrepreneur isn’t just about your idea or your money. You may have plenty of cash to throw around but it doesn’t guarantee your success. If you want to become successful as an entrepreneur, you need to check if you have the following characteristics:
1. Self-Motivation
As an entrepreneur, you need to be self-motivated. You wouldn’t succeed unless you are able to push yourself. In entrepreneurship, you do not answer to anyone else. This means it can be hard to get moving without anyone to make you. Your dedication and commitment to move forward is important even if you don’t immediately receive a paycheck.
2. Understand What You Offer
Part of being a successful entrepreneur is knowing what you offer and how it will fit into your market. Whether it’s a product or service, it is important that it fits in. Thus, you need to know when is the proper time to tweak things a little bit. This means, you need to know whether your offering is high end, middle of the road, or bargain. This way you will be able to properly position yourself in the market.
3. Take Risks
As an entrepreneur, it is important to take risks. Playing safe will never work if you want to succeed with your venture. It’s not just taking any risks. You need to take calculated risks which are likely to pay off in the long run.
4. Networking Skills
Knowing some networking skills is important to succeed as an entrepreneur. Sometimes your connections will be vital to your success. Your ability to connect with others and recognize partnerships can make a difference in your success as an entrepreneur.
5. Basic Money Management Skills and Knowledge
Entrepreneurs are often seen as “big picture” people who don’t worry much about managing day-to-day activities. While you may have an accountant or other team members helping you run the business, it still pays to have basic money management skills and knowledge. Understand the principles of money management so that you will know where you stand and you can run your business on sound principles.
6. Flexibility
To a certain extent, you need flexibility as an entrepreneur. If it is necessary to make adjustments, be willing to do so. Stay on top of your industry and be ready to make the necessary changes in your processes and product as necessary. You also need to be flexible with your thinking.
7. Passion
To be a successful entrepreneur, you need to have passion for your work. You need to feel deeply about your product, service, or mission. By being passionate, you will become motivated when you feel discouraged and it will drive you forward. Passion will fuel your success as an entrepreneur.
Difference Between Businessman and Entrepreneur
We now take a look at the major differences between a businessman and an entrepreneur.
1. Motivation
The businessman is motivated by profit. Above all, they want to earn money. On the other hand, the main motivation of entrepreneurs is the ability to satisfy needs. They want to find a solution to the problem.
2. Address
Businessmen are profit oriented while entrepreneurs are service oriented. As long as people buy, merchants will sell low-quality products. However, the entrepreneur will constantly look for ways to improve his product in order to better meet the needs of his customers over time.
3. Trust
The businessman does not trust anyone. You are confident in yourself and believe you can succeed. But entrepreneurs believe in the power of team building. To be successful, you must learn to trust others.
4. Competition
The businessman is very competitive. He sees the competition as an enemy that must be eliminated. Entrepreneurs are cooperating. They focus on their competitors and try to find ways to partner with them.
5. Management
The businessman prefers to strictly follow orders and agree with their ideas. But, an entrepreneur will allow his people to share their thoughts and ideas with him and he is not afraid to act on their suggestions.
6. Solution
A businessman often decides for himself. But entrepreneurs prefer team decision making. Whenever faced with difficult business decisions, he negotiates with his co-workers, colleagues, and even his mentor.
7. Opportunity
An businessman just likes to look for opportunities to ensure minimal risk and good potential income. However, as long as there is passion, entrepreneurs will seek opportunities regardless of risk and potential income.
8. Innovation
A businessman prefers to provide goods and services that have proven profitable in the market. At the same time, entrepreneurs are not afraid to innovate, create new products and provide new services, they can offer the best solutions for products that are already on the market.
9. Desire
A businessman just wants to make money and make money year after year. An entrepreneur, in addition to making a profit, wants to surpass himself and become an industry leader. Driven by passion, it gets better year after year.
10. Purpose
When starting a business, businessmen just want to get their money back quickly and make big profits until they find new job opportunities. But, entrepreneurs always create a vision for every business they do. Even if that means giving up other good opportunities that may accompany you forward, you will be involved in this for a long time.
11. Risk volume
For an entrepreneur, the risk range is greater because he has introduced new business ideas.
Therefore, there is always a high risk, because if a new idea or strategy fails, your time, money and all resources will be wasted. Of course, learning new things for them is a process of failure.
On the other hand, if your idea is successful, then you will be able to lead the market, because you have no competitors.
But for a businessman, according to his nature, the range of risk is relatively small, because they always follow the principles of safety and their objective is profit oriented.
Always support those who can turn their efforts into profit opportunities. But there is also a downside: As you go down the existing path, you have to defeat several competitors.
12. Attitude towards employees and customers
Entrepreneurs are friendly and can always find partners who have never worked like a machine and are patient.
Entrepreneurs like people who have goals and are responsible for delivering value to customers through innovation.
A businessman has a dominant personality, he can act as a manager or an employer and always hire someone who is an expert in his field because he wants profit and business growth.
The entrepreneur has a friendly character, so his workplace is not limited. You want your idea to be successful, so you have no problem sharing the workplace with your colleagues.
He is also willing to change his position as needed.
But entrepreneurs have a different work style. On a large scale, they can separate departments or offices from colleagues and develop team relationships between employees.
Your goal is to make the company trustworthy and get more profit from a fixed position.
However, what entrepreneurs and businessmen have in common is that they contribute to the creation of productive jobs.
13. Expertise
Due to the compulsive nature of an entrepreneur, he is always willing to take risks and, in case of failure, he can overcome it and find a suitable solution.
But for a businessman, they will benefit from their own experience and formulate some expected strategies to cope with losses, but if they fail, they need more time to overcome failure.
14. Adaptability
According to the changing world every day, the business world will introduce new ideas, tools and machines every second.
As an entrepreneur, you are revolutionary, accept the latest developments with ease, and can weather daily changes.