Entrepreneurship, A Triangle of Values!

How to spot a successful entrepreneur? When examining startups that have made it -- one can safely say that they all inherit a very distinct set of values. The key to success is to align one’s enterprise to personal, professional, and social values in order for the business to thrive. Yet, what do those values entail?

Personal Values

Simply put, one needs to be a good human being before one can be are a good businessperson!

Personal values that an entrepreneur needs are attributes such as honesty, passion, determination, and confidence. No one likes to do business with people that are arrogant, selfish, dismissive and egotistic. 

Any business venture is a reflection of the entrepreneur's personal values, attitudes, and beliefs. And if you are working on having a great personality, it is certainly going to help your business to thrive.

Professional Values

Ethics in the business world are the domain of professional values. While personal values reflect on the entrepreneur's personality traits professional values correspond his or her ability to conduct themselves in the business environment. What matter is healthy competition, self-determined work environments and also doing the right thing by adhering to law and order.

Especially in places that are heavily influenced by corruption and deceit it is very important that one’s professional values reflect one’s own business’ measures in accepting or rejecting such undertakings.

Professional values guide an entrepreneur towards being a great team leader. It is important that employees are provided with opportunities to grow and to have the support to also fulfill their personal and social responsibilities towards their families and friends.

It is also important to think of potential customers or business partners as part of your company. What matters is to create win win situations. If you celebrate achievements you should include them because they were part of the journey. It is also important to equally fulfill the expectations of your customers and to provide vendors with required resources in order to remain part of your journey in the future as well.

Social Values

As a successful entrepreneur you must also adhere to social values and give back to or shape society. Businesspersons who look beyond business life possess great social values. As their business develops it creates value for society as a whole.

There are generally two ways of creating a high social value through your business. The first way is to create products or services that benefit society and provide solutions to problems that otherwise cannot be solved. The second way is to Invest more money into corporate social responsibility (CSR) by supporting a social cause that one believes in.

Doing a great service to society in whatever way possible will most certainly have ripple effects on one’s reputation. When the business is portrayed as responsible by looking towards the needs of society it is easier to get everyone’s attention, new potential customers and a positive image and brand. The result? Success!

The Triangle of Values

Only combined all these three values lead to business growth.

Entrepreneurship is a lot more than money-making. It is also about sustainability. As long as you keep your personal, professional, and social values balanced, you will continue to grow your business. The more actively you work on improving all three aspects of the triangle together, the quicker the results will be evident.

Our professional values support us in being a good businessperson. Professional values guide the way towards our business being reputable. Social values lead towards the society perceiving the business as socially acceptable. By internalizing all three values any business will become reputable and profitable as well.