Are Entrepreneurs Made or Born?
In a paper that is about to be published and reviewed by peers, professors are concluding that entrepreneurship is indeed built into one's genes. That doesn't mean that entrepreneurship cannot be learned, but according to studies, there are strong elements of it built into one's very own make-up. Entrepreneurial professor Scott Shane and genetic epidemiology professors Tim Spector, Lynn Cherkas and Nicos Nicolaou say that the evidence suggests:
- The tendency to be an entrepreneur is heritable. (Heritability is the proportion of difference between individuals explained by genetic factors.)
- The tendency to identify new business opportunities is also heritable.
- The tendency to be an entrepreneur and personality traits of extraversion, openness to experience, and sensation-seeking have a common genetic component, as does the recognition of business opportunities and the personality trait of openness to experience. These patterns suggest that our genes might affect our tendency to be entrepreneurs by influencing the types of personalities that we develop.
Read the full blog by Prof Scott Shane at the New York Times
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though I usually put no faith in psycho studies. But I have always seen this difference and felt viscerally that this is true.
Craig Slavin in his franchise analysis of personality traits for entrepreneurial suitability is also tuned in to this belief.
This is worth while material.
Richard Solomon, FranchiseRemedies.com, has over 45 years experience with franchise litigation and crisis management. He is a graduate of The Citadel and The University of Michigan Law School
Yes, Richard, you are right.
We at Franchise Navigator are very tuned in to the fact that some people either have or don't have the right DNA for entrepreneurship and business ownership. It is clearly a gift. While some have it more than others, it is not something that is taught or learned in books or even practical application and work experience. A low entrepreneurial drive indicates the need for self-employment is just not important to the individual.
On the other hand, we have been able to quantify that very high entrepreneurial drive is incongruent with franchise ownership or following someone else's rules. In our behavioral profiling system, that element is displayed by the Accomplisher scores. Accomplisher scores above 89% indicate an individual's propensity to want to create rules vs. embrace another's rules or business model, which is a requirement in franchise ownership. We have found this to be true across almost 100 different brands and organizations.
Granted, certain skills can be taught and transferred to others. And, granted, some people are more "coachable" than others, but there are certain behavioral characteristics that just cannot come from or be injected by external sources. These characteristics come from within an individual's DNA and the subsequent values and rules they establish for themselves, whether it befor personal or professional applications.
We have also learned, after conducting approximately 14,000 behavioral surveys of existing and prospective business and franchise owners, that the "peripheral" vision that a high Accomplisher possesses is not something that is easily trained. What this means is that some people can "mentally" see how all of the business components function together while others only see portions or sections of it. This "vision" is also what enables some people to multi task and run complex multi-unit operations while others need to work on one thing at a time and then move on to the next.
We have all probably heard, at one time or another, that “salespeople are made and not born.” Well, I don’t completely agree with that. Some individuals who have very significant Influencer scores generally possess a natural talent for sales. Their value system, i.e. the desire to influence someone’s mind, decision or buying process, does not come
from training. Training is used to create the same type of skill in those individuals who do not naturally possess it and I believe the same is true for entrepreneurship.
Interestingly, the topic of human behavior is the very thing that will affect success or failure in a franchise system. A company could have the best business model; hire the best lawyers to draft the docs, retain the best real estate broker to find locations, etc., but if the business is not sold to the right type of individual it just won’t work as well as it could.
Craig Slavin
Franchise Navigator
craig@franchisecentral.com
Franchise Central LLC
Craig Slavin
Franchise Central
Franchise Architects
Franchise Navigator
847-465-0111
Anyone who have read alot of books on how to become financially independant will naturally try to get ahead. Who doesn't want to be financially independant? When you start out after college or not, you want to be able to leave something for your children. You also want to travel and be financially secure. Is franchising the way to achieve financial independence?
The answer to that, is to get in with really a good zor or not. A zor who will not gouge you and premeditate your demise. They have no remorse. Good zors will be honest. In today's world I am sad to say only 10% of zors are good. What does that tell you?