THE ENTREPRENEUR-IN-THE-MAKING ASSESSMENT
Without further ado, we’ve come to the final piece of the puzzle. The following assessment will enable you to decide if you’ve got the required entrepreneurial DNA.
This assessment will only work if you answer these questions of your own free will, with no outside influences. Above all, you must be honest with yourself. If you aren’t, you’re only hurting yourself.
This is not like a driving test, where you get a pass/fail result. It’s an assessment of whether or not you have the traits of an entrepreneur—based on your opinion, no one else’s. You’re ultimately the judge and jury.
THE ENTREPRENEUR-IN-THE-MAKING ASSESSMENT
Please read each statement and answer truthfully. Do you agree that the statement describes you? Please be very honest with yourself.
Again, this isn’t a pass/fail test. It’s an assessment. The higher you score, the more likely that you’re an entrepreneur-in-the-making. A good rule of thumb is a score of 90 percent probability or higher. Also, remember the entrepreneurial range. A lower score might mean being self-employed is still a strong option for you; it may just be in more of a lifestyle business.
You can download the Entrepreneur-in-the-Making Assessment or fill it out online at e-leap.com.
You can find other great assessment/profiling tools that can help you continue to validate that you have some of the fundamental entrepreneurial traits.
One tool to determine if you have some of these entrepreneurial characteristics is the Kolbe A™ Index. This profiling tool helps you understand in which of four modes you naturally put your instinctive energy: (1) Fact Finder, (2) Follow Thru, (3) Quick Start, and (4) Implementor. It gives you a score of one to ten in each of these areas, ten being highest. For the sake of this book, we’ll focus only on the Quick Start mode. Entrepreneurs tend to be “high Quick Starts,” scoring eight, nine, or ten in this mode.
Amy Bruske, the president of Kolbe Corp, describes a high Quick Start as someone who is innovative, a risk taker, and a change agent. High Quick Starts improvise, ad lib, and experiment through trial and error, being willing to fail if necessary. They have mind-sets that look toward the future, and want to create change for change’s sake. In our conversation, Amy said that a person seven or higher in Quick Start “creates things that don’t currently exist or makes major changes to what does.” You can learn more about the Kolbe A™ Index by going to Kolbe.com/a.
Another profiling tool is called Culture Index, and it’s a bit more complex than the Kolbe A(TM) Index. Culture Index, Inc., cofounded by Gary W. Walstrom, measures seven different work-related traits. They’re labeled A through D, EU, L, and I. For the sake of this book, we are going to focus on only the A and C traits.
In each trait, you fall into a range of “sigmas,” ranging from 1–6. The higher your A trait and the lower your C trait, the more likely you have some of the characteristics of an entrepreneur-in-the-making. Incidentally, my A trait is in the sixth sigma, and my C trait is in the first sigma.
Jason Williford, managing licensee of Culture Index Dallas/Ft. Worth, explains the higher your A trait, the more dominantly proactive you are and the lower your C trait, the more you lack patience. The combination of these two traits creates a forward drive in a person that must move quickly.
He explains that if you don’t have these traits, no matter how hard you work, you’ll lack the risk tolerance, relentless pursuit, and drive to succeed. You can learn more about the Culture Index Program by going to cultureindex.com or contacting Jason Williford at jwilliford@cultureindex.com.
SUMMARY
At this point, I hope that you have a determination with absolute clarity. Either you have all of the traits of an entrepreneur, or you don’t. If not, I hope I’ve convinced you not to take an entrepreneurial leap.
If this is the case, I genuinely hope you find the clarity freeing and validating. Finding your true calling is a process of elimination, and you’re now one step closer to knowing what yours is.
I would also suggest that if the entrepreneurial spirit appeals to you but you don’t have all of the characteristics, you might consider joining forces and partnering with an entrepreneur. They always need to be counterbalanced by an “Integrator,” someone who fills an equally vital role in growing an organization.
An Integrator is someone who helps an entrepreneur run the day-to-day affairs of the business and execute the plan. This vital role is also known as COO, Number Two, or Right-Hand Person. For more information on becoming an Integrator, read my book, with coauthor Mark C. Winters, Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business. In addition to teaching entrepreneurs how to get to the next level, Rocket Fuel also explains the powerful Visionary/Integrator dynamic that makes most companies successful, along with teaching Integrators how to be great at their job.
For everyone else, if you’re now convinced—despite all the conditions and requirements I’ve explained—that you’re an entrepreneur-in-the-making, let’s get to work. The next step—part II—is showing you a glimpse of what your life as an entrepreneur could look like.