Are Entrepreneurs Born -- or Made? Research Says 'Born.' But There's a Catch.

Entrepreneurs, social psychologists and economic theorists have all speculated whether entrepreneurs are born or made -- in other words, whether you're predisposed to become an entrepreneur due to your genetic makeup, or whether that disposition comes from your environment, conditioning or other external influences.

For most entrepreneurial hopefuls, it’s comforting to think that entrepreneurs are made, that even if you lack the "right" DNA, enough practice, experience and conditioning can help you be a success.

But step away from that comfort zone, because research seems to indicate the opposite: Entrepreneurship rates, it turns out, especially rates of entrepreneurship success, are influenced more by a person’s genes than his or her upbringing and degree of nurturing. Fortunately for the majority of entrepreneurial hopefuls, however, there’s a catch.

What the research says

There have been many studies attempting to answer this question, and they've landed on each side of the argument. In the nature vs. nurture debate (looking at factors beyond entrepreneurship), the most effective studies have been those done on twins, because they naturally share DNA, but may have experienced different environments and upbringings. An important distinction here is that identical twins share 100 percent of the same genetic information, while fraternal twins share 50 percent.

One study that looked at entrepreneurial tendencies, specifically, was done by Scott Shane, a professor at Case Western Reserve University. Shane looked at hundreds of pairs of twins, eventually finding that the identical twins among them had much higher rates of “shared entrepreneurial tendencies” than their fraternal counterparts or subjects in the control group.

Further exploration of data, including the research of molecular genetics, has traced  this genetic heritability to four core entrepreneurial traits, each of which increases the likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur, while also being heritable:

1. The likelihood of starting a business. Genes can influence your probability of starting a business.

2. The ability to identify new opportunities. Your ability to identify business opportunities is similarly heritable.

3. The tendency to become self-employed. Related to but distinct from starting a business, self-employment is also a heritable probability.

4. Extroversion. Though extroversion by itself isn’t enough to motivate entrepreneurship, extroverts have an easier time making new connections, leading followers and engaging in a wider community.

A less formal survey of entrepreneurial beliefs found that just 1 percent of entrepreneurs surveyed believed that higher education played any role in shaping their entrepreneurial mindset. Conversely, 61 percent said their entrepreneurial characteristics had arisen from their innate drive.

The catch

What’s the catch here? All of these studies and surveys looked at entrepreneurs as a group; it paid no attention to how successful those entrepreneurs actually were. So, the takeaway here is that your genes play a role in your likelihood of actually starting a business, rather than whether that business will actually be successful.

In other words, just because you have a lower genetic likelihood of starting a business doesn’t mean you can’t start a business, or that the business won’t be successful. In fact, with significant drive and practice, you might be even more likely to succeed than someone genetically predisposed to starting a business -- especially if that person hasn't had as much real-world experience as you.

The role experience plays

Another study, from Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Kathryn Shaw looked at data from 2.8 million small businesses to determine rates of success based on previous experience. As you might expect, success rates were dramatically higher for entrepreneurs who had previous experience running a business.

This may seem like an obvious observation, but it’s important to consider in the discussion on whether entrepreneurs are born or made; it turns out that, regardless of your tendency to start a business, the real determining factor for success is in how much experience you get in an entrepreneurial role.

The two distinct questions we can ask

The first is: Are entrepreneurs born or made? This question looks only at a person’s probability of starting a business; and. according to research, entrepreneurs are more oftenborn.

The second is: Are successful entrepreneurs born or made? This question ignores the probability of starting a business, instead favoring the probability of success within a leadership position of a business. According to research, successful entrepreneurs are more often made.

What does all of this mean for you, the aspiring entrepreneur? If you want to dig deeper, you can look to your family members to get a loose, subjective gauge of your relative chances of starting a business; if entrepreneurship runs in your family, you’re probably more likely to start a business. If you have a burning desire to be self-employed, entrepreneurship may be innate.

More importantly, though, regardless of your heritage, your chances of making a business successful aren’t set in stone. Even the least genetically likely entrepreneurs can become successful if they spend enough time improving their skills, gaining experience as entrepreneurs and committing themselves to better ideas and self-improvement.

Jayson DeMers • VIP Contributor

Founder and CEO, AudienceBloom

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own..

4 Principles of Marketing Strategy | Brian Tracy

Marketing 101 a must watch ! Invaluable information from a master!

The new meaning of customer service

These days we’re surrounded by new technology. It has a huge influence on communications, transport and the way we go about everyday activities – for instance, the way we work, or shop. It also affects the relationship between companies and their customers. Customer service takes on a whole new meaning because consumers are no longer passive recipients but play an active role in communications and, increasingly, in the process of creating products.

Customers create the products

The days when products were developed behind closed doors and only revealed to customers in their final form are now long gone. Today’s consumers play an ongoing role in the development of new products. And not just when it comes to testing prototypes but also early on in the development of a product – for example at the planning stage. It’s the customers themselves who define the functions they expect from a system being newly developed, or which in their view constitute an “ideal service”.

A good example is crowdfunding where consumers support projects that they themselves want to use, participating in the creation of a product right from the design stage up to the moment when the end product of their collaborative input is made available to them. This is also the way that modern, open and dynamically growing companies operate; customer service takes the form of an ongoing exchange of information – a two-way communication during which the needs and expectations of consumers are explored.

Customers are sellers and brand ambassadors

Traditional advertisements that are scarcely credible and purely out to sell are a thing of the past. The claims of a good-looking TV personality or catchy billboard slogans are no longer convincing for switched-on consumers. Customers of today are unwilling to blindly accept everything offered by producers. Instead, they actively search for the products they want, compare available options and also check out reviews. They use information available on the Internet and act on the advice of friends and acquaintances. So what is the role of customer service in these cases? An absolutely crucial one.

Regular and appropriately tailored communication helps build a long lasting, positive relationship with customers. Everything starts with simple emotions – if people like a company they are inclined to trust it. They will be keen to buy its products and when pleased with the results will share their positive impressions with others. In this way a company acquires a following of loyal customers who at the same time act as ambassadors for the brand. They talk about it, review it and recommend it.

Two-way communication

On the subject of the evolving nature of customer service, it’s also worth noting that the distance between companies and customers is changing. Mutual relations are now significantly closer than before, and communications are two-way. Consumers these days actually expect to have an opportunity to voice their opinions. They’re conscious of how important these are – not only for producers but also for new consumers. They know the huge importance of every voiced opinion, whether good or bad. That’s why it’s important to make getting in contact with a company easy. When they buy its products they want fast and open communication.

They look for ways of getting in contact and, at the same time, convincing reasons to stay with a particular brand. A contact form on a website which gives a response at best several hours later fails to meet such expectations. In fact, it does quite the reverse – having to wait leads to frustration and damages relationships. The answer is fast, active forms of communication such as live chats or helplines, with consultants always available to respond to customers. It’s also worth noting that in customer service, it’s increasingly common to find “Customer satisfaction specialists” – because, today, it’s no longer enough to have customers; they have to be satisfied ones.

What is generally recognized as “high quality customer service” has dramatically changed over recent years. Relationships have evolved and become closer and more direct. The concept of a mass approach has almost ceased to exist – nowadays every customer expects to be treated individually. It’s vital to keep pace with these changes and meet the expectations of today’s customers, and this can only be done using modern tools.

Author Monika Kasperczyk

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Grant Cardone's Top 10 Rules For Success (@GrantCardone)

5 Sales Presentation Tips From a Self-Made Millionaire

A great sales presentation is challenging to pull off but practice does make perfect.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

If you sell things, then you must present things -- there’s no getting around it. Customers have to see what you sell, what it does, and how it can benefit them. I can’t count how many sales presentations I’ve done over the last 35 years, so I’ve learned a thing or two about how to do them correctly. Anyone who wants to increase revenue needs to learn to present better in order to make more sales.

Here’s how to present like a pro:

1. Avoid product knowledge mistakes.

There are several problems with this.

A) You know too little about the product.

B) You share too much about the product.

C) You don’t know enough about the competition.

You can never know too much but you can certainly talk too much. Become an expert with your product and be able to discuss features, advantages, and benefits better than anyone. When comparing products, know how your product is different, know the advantages, and know how to make sense of the purchase.

Build your product up so much that people quit thinking about the competition. Your greatest advantage in selling anything is to be more prepared than your competition.

2. Control your presentation.

My goal is to get complete control while presenting. The way to gain control is by getting an agreement. Get the buyer’s full attention, get the product away from other products so they aren’t distracted, and present the product while in full control. 

Assumptions are my way of maintaining an attitude and language of agreement. It is projecting ownership into the future. Be confident when demonstrating and create mental ownership. The word assume means to take for granted or as the truth. You make an assumption of the future and project mentally where you want to go.

You need to project ownership with words during your demonstration. Use questions that create mental ownership. “Which course will you be taking your new clubs out on?” Mental ownership precedes every purchase and a big part of how you control your presentation.

3. Find what the buyer values.

If you are selling me a home, you’d make a mistake if you started from the inside of the home to do the presentation. To me, the most important thing is how the home feels and looks from the outside -- the view. Sure, I spend most of my time inside, but if you are selling me you have to know what’s most important and start there. “Sir, what’s most important to you in a home? The outside? Good, let’s start there, does that sound good?”

Tell your customer what you’re going to do and get an agreement. Be interesting and reassure the customer with any concerns. Break your presentation down into parts. Know where you’re going to start and end. Always get permission to give the presentation, address the time (how long it’ll take), invite any questions they may have, and start in the same place every time you give the presentation. You want stability for yourself.

4. Avoid lazy mistakes.

The biggest mistake salespeople do is not doing a demonstration. Another mistake is not believing that the buyer will buy. You don’t think the buyer can buy because you over qualify the buyer. This is another mistake. A huge mistake many make is thinking the demo does not influence people.

Whether you sell homes or phones, a mistake is taking the product you sell for granted. You begin forgetting some of the biggest benefits of your product. Other mistakes include believing the buyer when they say the price is most important. Price is never the reason why people buy something. Some make the mistake of using slang that a buyer doesn’t understand. Every industry has these words and it turns people off.

Let’s count where it all goes wrong:

Mistake: demonstrating without tying down the advantages and benefits to the feature.

Mistake: You don’t use enthusiasm. You go through the motions.

Mistake: You don’t know the why -- the real reason they want the product.

Mistake: You don’t build mental ownership.

Mistake: You don’t demonstrate what the product is worth. You should be showing how it’s double the value. If you have a $100,000 product, you want to do a $200,000 presentation.

5. Anticipate objections.

You’re going to get objections when you try and do a presentation.

“I don’t need to try it on”

“I don’t need to see how it operates”

 “I know all about it”

 “I don’t need to see this”

Don’t shortcut the presentation because this is where you build value. Understand that these objections are reactions, not valid objections. To handle these, you have to be committed to your demonstration. You have to know that your demonstration will be of value to your client.

A great sales presentation is more difficult to pull off than many people realize, but it’s also easier than you can imagine once you practice enough doing it right. Nobody is born a great salesperson -- it takes training. Over the years I’ve codified how to sell and I want to help you turn the knowledge I’ve gained into revenue for yourself.


Grant Cardone • VIP Contributor
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The Best Sales Advice I Ever Heard ?

Are you getting in the way of your own sales?

How to Create Your Customer Avatar [FREE TEMPLATE]

• Buyer Persona
• Marketing Persona
• Customer Avatar
• Target Market

These are the phrases that are used interchangeably to describe the fictional, generalized representations of the persona that is most likely to buy from you.

It is critically important to the success of your marketing, sales, product development, and delivery of services that you have a deep understanding of who your customer avatar is. You've likely heard the phrase, "You can't hit a target you haven't set." This applies beautifully to the importance of having a clearly defined customer avatar.

Having a deep understanding of a clearly defined customer avatar will help you:

• Determine what social platforms they are spending their time on so you know where your business should be present and active.
• Be more effective in your advertising. Your marketing dollars will be well spent when you know where to advertise and who to target to maximize your exposure.
• Better connect with your avatar with your copy because you will have an understanding of their pains, pleasures, desires, and wants.
• Deliver and develop better products/services because you are able to anticipate your markets’ needs, behaviors, and concerns.

Creating your avatar

So, having a clearly defined customer avatar is important; the question is, "How do I create one?" The good news is, that creating a customer avatar is not difficult to create if you ask the right questions.

"What are the right questions?" you ask. You are in for some tremendous value because I have created a complete template to help you create your own customer avatar. This template makes it easy to compile all of your information, knowledge, experience, and research into one beautiful and presentable format. 

Download your customer avatar template now and begin the journey of successful marketing, sales, product development, and delivery of services that will knock the socks off your perfect customers. 

Now, you could download the template I have created and begin filling it out right away, but the most effective customer avatars are created with information based on market research as well as information that you gather from your current customer base. I would suggest that you take the time you need to gather the most accurate information you can to develop your avatar. Use surveys to capture feedback from your existing customers. Ask Your Target Market is also a great solution to survey a larger audience base. Adding a Custom Audience Pixel to your website is also a great way to track and learn more about people who have visited your website. Interviews are also a great way to capture valuable information. Interviews can allow you to dive deeper into the answers that are given by asking "why?" Asking "why" allows you to uncover the behaviors that drive them.

Multiple avatars

By now you might be thinking, "What if I have more than one avatar?" Having multiple avatars is perfectly fine. In fact, most businesses will have more than one ideal customer, especially if they offer more than one product/service. The best way to define your avatars is to tackle them one at a time. I would suggest that you start with the market that brings the most profit to your business (good idea, right?). Through this process, you may even find yourself realizing that your business is too broad and that you tighten up your product/service offering so that you can really develop your niche and position yourself to deliver your best to that market.

Negative avatars 

Creating a negative avatar can be as beneficial as creating your customer avatar. A negative avatar is a generalized representation of the persona that you don't want as a customer. Having an understanding of who you don't want to serve as a customer can sometimes make it easier to know who you dowant to serve as a customer. If you decide that you'd like to start here I would suggest that you think of that one customer that was a total nightmare for you to work with and document all of the things that made the relationship unsuccessful. The key here is to focus not on personal characteristics of why the individual was not easy to work with, but rather on the reasons why they didn't make a good fit for your product or service (such as pricing was too much, the probability of increased churn, or that they were not properly equipped to be successful long-term). 

Start defining your avatar

1. List out your avatars demographic traits: Examples of demographic traits are age, sex, education level, income level, marital status, occupation, religion, and average family size. This area of defining your customer avatar is typically easy to define.
2. Psychographic traits: Psychographic traits are a little more complicated and require a deeper understanding of your Avatar. Psychographic traits are based on values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyle. Examples of Psychographic traits are: wants a healthy lifestyle, values time with family, doesn't have much time, uses Pinterest to do home DIY projects.
3. Name your avatar: Naming your avatar humanizes the profile. If you are targeting both men and women you will want to create both a male and female name.
4. Put a face to their name: Find a picture online in stock photos that best represents what your avatar looks like visually.
5. Design a dossier: A dossier is a one-page collection of information about your avatar that includes the name, picture, information, and story about your avatar.
6. Write a story about your customer avatar: Image you are your avatar and you are journaling about the discovery of your product/service. What were they thinking before they bought your product? How were they feeling? Why were they feeling that way? What were they looking for? What were they hoping to solve or accomplish? How did they find you/hear about you? How did they feel once they purchased your product/service? 

Takeaways

At the most basic level, developing a customer avatar will help you become more effective in your messaging which will help you to cut through the noise in marketing today. Using your customer avatar in combination with a solid Lifecycle Marketing Strategy is a surefire way to explode your business growth. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you begin creating your customer avatar:

• Create a negative avatar first to gain clarity about whom you know you don't want to serve as a customer and who doesn't make a good fit.
• Give your customer avatar a name, face, and a personal story to bring him/her to life. Be as specific as possible, the more details you have the more you and your perfect customer will connect.
• Tackle one customer avatar at a time.
• Create your avatar based on market research and customer feedback rather than your own opinion and perception.

by Misty Kortes

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