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Don Hofstrand Reviewed, February 2006
Co-director, Ag Marketing Resource Center
Iowa State University Extension
dhof@iastate.edu |
Entrepreneurial skills are essential for the success of your value-added business. Firms that possess human resources with exceptional entrepreneurial skills have a long-term focus and are more likely to use their skills to take advantage of emerging opportunities.
Entrepreneurship involves seeking and trying new ways to develop and improve successful businesses. Entrepreneurship involves focusing on innovation, assessing risks/rewards of a new venture, searching for opportunities, and seeking new information. Use the 10 questions below to rate your entrepreneurial skills.
How would you rate your entrepreneurial management skills?
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1. Identify business opportunities. |
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2. Identify the skills you are good at and how to take advantage of those skills. |
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3. Focus on why opportunities will work rather than why they won’t. |
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4. Improve your situation as your industry changes. |
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5. Control your future rather than having it controlled by others. |
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6. Search for new and better ways of doing things rather than following the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” |
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7. Seek out new information and use it for personal gain. |
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8. Evaluate the riskiness of a new venture based on a careful assessment of the probability of success and failure. |
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9. Search for changes occurring in the industry and develop ways to exploit those changes for personal gain. |
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10. Evaluate new and emerging markets and identify how to take advantage of them. |
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