Some people are born to launch a business, and a natural entrepreneur could be ‘hidden in plain sight’, according to Mike Soutar, The Apprentice’s hard-nosed interviewer.
He’s best known for tearing into the candidates’ business plans, but this time he was speaking at the SME XPO in London’s Excel Centre. In his presentation, Soutar tasked himself with sussing out which of the five participants on stage have a knack for business.
Soutar’s job was to put the participants into one of three categories:
- Natural-born entrepreneur
- Entrepreneur in development
- Corporate professional
True to his interviewing savvy, he investigated the ‘candidates’ using the following rounds of questions. Have a go at the questions yourself and see what you think.
Round 1: Appearance
Round 2: Family, upbringing and early drive
Round 3: Risk, spontaneity and problem solving
Round 4: Personal philosophy, philosophy around success, fulfilment and motivation
Round 5: Post-success
The results
Round 1: Appearance
Soutar didn’t ask any questions in the first round; instead, he assessed the candidates’ appearance.
“You can you tell an entrepreneur from the way they stand; from the way they exude energy. Maybe even for the shoes that they wear,” said The Apprentice star.
He noticed that the chest of one participant is puffed out. “He’s confident, right?” then he noted the cheap watch. “He probably isn’t [an entrepreneur] as he doesn’t have any money,” he joked.
He also noticed that one of candidates ‘looks like a guy who works hard’. “Working hard is absolutely one of the attributes of any successful entrepreneur,” he said.
But it’s not just about physical appearances. Soutar was impressed when one of the candidates rested their name badge on a bottle on the table in front of them: “Like a true entrepreneur, he’s using the assets at his disposal. This is working smarter, not harder. He’s got this.”
Typical entrepreneur traits
Confidence, presence and a unique sense of style can be key markers in identifying an entrepreneur. However, as the audience discovered, appearance can be misleading.
Round 2: Family, upbringing and early drive
Soutar cited Need for Achievement theory, which found that business owners have a high need for achievement. “Entrepreneurs are often developed in environments that foster independence or early responsibility or economic pressure. Many of these people show entrepreneurial traits long before adulthood,” he added.
From this round, he was trying to understand the candidates’ environment, how they developed and their early conditioning.
Questions to ask yourself
- At what age did you become aware of money?
- What was the first memory you have of wanting something and what did you do about it?
- Did you come from an entrepreneurial family?
- Were you encouraged to follow your own path or pressured to stick to a set career?
Typical entrepreneur traits
Entrepreneurs tend to be aware of money earlier in life, often selling things at school to make a bit of cash. Theo Paphitis, for example, opened a school tuck shop at the age of 15.
Listen: Theo Paphitis: ‘My school showed me the door at 16 because I was a lost cause’
It’s no surprise that coming from an entrepreneurial family helps, too. If you have business owners in your family, you’re likely to be raised with values consistent with entrepreneurship, such as goal setting, risk-taking and adaptability.
Being encouraged to follow your own path from a young age lets future business owners explore their options and not feel pressure to stick to a ‘traditional’ career path, such as medicine or law.
Round 3: Risk, spontaneity and problem solving
Next, Soutar wanted to find out how comfortable the candidates are with uncertainty, what their creative confidence is like and how they solve problems.
Questions to ask yourself
- Would you describe yourself as lucky, determined or adaptable?
- Is there a period in your life where your determination pushed you through?
- Have you taken a risk that your friends or family thought was mad?
- Do you solve problems alone or with other people?
- Do you make decisions after lots of research or based on limited data?
- If you were working with somebody, how would they describe your decision-making?
Typical entrepreneur traits
As we’ve mentioned, certain traits suit entrepreneurs well, such as determination. Taking risks is commonplace as well, whether it be putting their savings into their business or putting their faith in a product that they believe in.
Sometimes these individuals make decisions that to others may seem foolhardy, but they’re determined to make it work.
Soutar said that making decisions in a structured way suggests a more corporate mindset – entrepreneurs don’t always make decisions based on data.
Round 4: Personal philosophy, philosophy around success, fulfilment and motivation
Entrepreneurs tend to believe in the locus of control theory – that outcomes are shaped by action, not by luck or external forces.
Questions to ask yourself
- What does success mean to you today?
- Who do you most admire and why?
- Make something meaningful and run it forever or create something big and sell it off?
- What do you feel makes a good day?
- What does freedom mean to you?
Typical entrepreneur traits
For entrepreneurs, success is characterised by achieving what they set out to achieve. They often admire others who have done the same. Having the freedom to find your own path, create and innovate are also important.
Round 5: Post-success
Finally, Soutar wanted to find out about the what the candidates would do with their success.
Questions to ask yourself
- You sell your stake in your company for £100 million. What would you do with the money?
- If you made your fortune, would you stop working, would you change direction or would you double down?
- If you were to build something new over the next five years, starting today, what would it be?
- What legacy would you like to leave?
- What would your 18-year-old-self tell you never to compromise on?
Typical entrepreneur traits
Business owners have a strong sense of purpose, whether that be building a company to sell it off and start another one, to help a specific group of people or to live a life that’s truer to their values.
The results
Soutar – and the audience – mostly guessed correctly about the on-stage candidates. If you answered the questions largely in-line with what an entrepreneur would typically say, perhaps you were born with it. Even if you didn’t, or you’re currently an employee, you may still have the entrepreneurial spark within you, as Soutar reflects on from his beginnings as a journalist:
“I didn’t think I was an entrepreneur. I had a corporate career. It was only when I got to a point within it where I thought, ‘There’s nowhere else for me to go,’ and I realised that I needed to set my own thing up and it was successful.
“But it was successful because that was the drive. In retrospect, I’d probably recognise that I was more entrepreneurially spirited through my entire career than I probably realised. I was always that person within a corporation who was the iconoclast, who was always pushing it, was always a bit unhappy. Not an unhappy person, but annoyed that we weren’t solving problems.”
He doesn’t want to risk demoralising anybody who isn’t a textbook entrepreneur, though.
“I’m always super wary of lionising entrepreneurs. I think having an entrepreneurial spirit is really important for absolutely everybody. So, by choosing our entrepreneurs [at the talk], we’re not saying they’re the best people. We’re just saying they’re the people that, we feel, are further along in their journeys to creating wealth, to creating innovation and to creating spectacular new things in the world.”
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