Running a business is not for the faint-hearted. If you cannot deal with uncertainty, flee at the first sign of distress and are always thinking negatively; then you will definitely struggle running and managing a business.

Business owners have to be resilient and passionate. They have to be strong yet humble. They have no choice but to be self-reliant. All because they’re no longer only responsible for their own selves, but for their employees and their customers. They have to make sure money keeps coming in so that their employees have stable jobs. They have to make sure that the business doesn’t keep bleeding cash so that their customers have a reliable company to go to. They have to make sure the reputation of the business is more than what it is selling to its customers because at the end of the day, if a business has a bad reputation, how will it survive?

Let’s look at some characteristics of successful business owners.

Love what they do

Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group which controls over 400 companies once said that we spend most of our waking lives at work, so it’s important that we do what we love and love what we do.

I have never met a single successful business owner who is heavily passionate about what they do and the change their organisation is making in their respective spaces. All of the business owners who are crazy in love with their businesses do so because they are revolutionists who has seen a gap or a problem in their space and is doing something to either fill that gap or is doing something to solve that problem.

Loving what you do is so important because it will be what gets you through the hard days. Being an entrepreneur is hard work. It is not simply the instagram that we see day in day out. It is hard work, grit and a lot of sweat, determination and rejections. You must be ready for the good and the bad. If you don’t love what you do, how are you going to get through the hard days? How are you going to get through days where you only have $10 left in the bank account?

Be sure to love what you do!

Manage their time well and take their responsibilities seriously

They say work hard, play hard. Laura Crimi and Professor Lonnie Aarssen at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario found that there wasn’t really any empirical support to say that these two descriptors of motivation actually do tend to be found together. This prompted them to test the ‘work hard, play hard’ hypothesis. They found that people who work hard really do play hard – and this is backed by hard data from their study.

Successful businessmen and women not only dedicate their time at work purely to their business and spend their time away from work on re-energising, they also know how to manage their time wisely. They know when they need to put in that extra time and effort into their business, and when they can pull back a little and enjoy the fruits of their labour.

Don’t be someone who blurs the lines between work and play because you will exhaust and burn out pretty quickly. On the other end of the spectrum, don’t not take your business seriously and dawdle away at work because your business will suffer and it too will dawdle its lifespan away.

Take your responsibilities seriously and don’t waste your valuable time!

Become an expert in their industry and continually invest in themselves

Education is really the key to success.You should make sure you have the key foundations of marketing and business operations (from finances to human resources) down pat. A Diploma of Business online can help equip you with these skills and knowledge necessary.

You must also know everything there is to know about your industry, your service and/or product, your competitors and your customers. Don’t enter a market without having these bases covered.

Recognise the value of planning

If you don’t have a plan in place, you’re really planning to fail. I always tell everyone this. Don’t ever underestimate the value of planning. Planning allows for you to forecast and foresee the direction of the market, the trends happening, what your business will be doing for the next 12-months (at least) and what your goals are.

Manage money wisely

According to ASIC, majority of businesses fail due to strategic planning and lack of funds. It is crucial that you manage your money wisely. Spend like you’re poor and save like you’re rich.

Prepare your budgets and review your financial reports at least once a month, especially your profit and loss statements, your income and expenditure reports, as well as your budget projection reports. If you need help with figuring out how to prepare or read budgets, there is a plethora of credible online courses that can help you – so no excuses! Get your finances in order to boost your chances of building a successful business.

Hire people who are better than them

One thing that wise business people do is hire people who are better than them, and can do things better than them, especially in areas that they have little to no knowledge of.

Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, David Ogilvy – all great business people agree that it is critical to hire the best people. If you want an A-star business, you need an A-star team.

The organisation I currently work for only hires people through recommendations. They don’t put up ads. When they need to fill a role, they go out and speak to their staff, their contractors, their clients, their friends and acquaintances to tell them that they are hiring and to ask for recommendations.

They don’t believe in putting up ads. For some companies it works, for others it doesn’t. How you choose to hire your A-team is up to you but make sure they are all better than you. Hire people with insights and experiences that you don’t have so that they can contribute in ways that you cannot.