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● Entrepreneurs are those with the skills and capabilities to see and
evaluate business opportunities. They are individuals who can
strategically identify products or services needed by the community, and
have the capacity to deliver them at the right time and at the right place.

Entrepreneurs are agents of economic change; they organize, manage,

and assume risks of a business. Some of the good qualities of
entrepreneurs are: opportunity-seeker, risk-taker, goal-setter, excellent
planner, confident problem solver, hardworking, persistent and
committed.

● Entrepreneurship is not just a simple business activity but a strategic

process of innovation and new product creation. Basically,
entrepreneurship is both an art and science of converting business
ideas into marketable products or services to
improve the quality of living.

● Entrepreneurial competencies refer to the important characteristics that

should be possessed by an individual in order to perform
entrepreneurial functions effectively.

Personal Entrepreneurial Competencies (PECs)

● Hardworking: One of the important characteristics of a good

entrepreneur. Works diligently

● Confident: Have self-reliance in one's ability and judgement. They

exhibit self-confidence to cope with the risks of operating their own
business

● Disciplined: Successful entrepreneurs always stick to the plan and

fight the temptation to do what is unimportant.

● Committed: Good entrepreneurs assume full responsibility over their

business. They give full commitment and solid dedication to make the
business successful.

● Ability to accept change: When you own a business, you should cope
with and thrive on changes. Adaptable

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● Creative: An entrepreneur should be innovative to stay in the business

and in order to have an edge over the other competitors.

● Has the initiative: You must put yourself in a position where you are
responsible for the failure or success of your business.

● Profit-oriented: An entrepreneur enters the world of business to

generate profit or additional income. The business shall become your
bread and butter. Therefore, you must see to it that the business can
generate income.
●
Listed below are the important skills of a successful entrepreneur:

● Excellent planner: Involves strategic thinking and goal setting to achieve

objectives by carefully maximizing all the available resources.

● Possesses people skills: This is a very important skill needed to be

successful in any kind of business. Refer to effective and efficient
communication and establishing good relationship to the people working
in and out of your business.

● Sound decision maker: Successful entrepreneurs have the ability to

think quickly and to make wise decisions towards a pre-determined set
of objectives.

ENVIRONMENT AND MARKET (EM)

● Constraints are factors that limit business growth, hence reduce the
chance of generating profit. One of the best ways to evaluate
opportunities and constraints is to conduct a Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis

● SWOT Analysis is a managerial tool used to assess the environment. It

is used to gather important information which is then used in strategic
planning Strengths and weaknesses are internal in an organization.

● Opportunities relate to the market, new technologies, and the external

factors such as government policies, climate, and trends.

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● Threats replace what the competitors are doing. It also includes legal
and other constraints.

● Product Development refers to a process of making a new product to be

sold by a business or enterprise to its customers. Product development
may involve modification of an existing product or its presentation, or
formulation of an entirely new product that satisfies a newly defined
customer's needs, wants and/or a marketplace.

● The term development refers collectively to the entire process of

identifying a market opportunity, creating a product to appeal to the
identified market, and testing, modifying, and refining the product until it
becomes ready for production.

● Needs in business are the important things that an individual cannot live
without in a society. These include:
1. basic commodities for consumption,
2. clothing and other personal belongings,
3. shelter, sanitation and health, and
4. Education

● Wants are desires, luxury and extravagance that signify wealth and
expensive way of living. Wants or desires are considered above all the
basic necessities of life.

● Concept development is a critical phase in the development of a

product. In this stage, the needs of the target market are identified, and
competitive products are reviewed before the product specifications are
defined.

Concept Development
● 1. Identify customer needs: In this stage, the information that can be
possibly gathered are product specifications (performance, taste, size,
color, shape, lifespan of the product, etc.). This stage is very important
because it would determine the product to be produced or provided.

● 2. Establish target specifications: Based on customers' needs and

reviews of competitive products, you can now establish target
specifications of the prospective new product and/or services. A target
specification is essentially a wish-list.

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● 3. Analyze competitive products: it is imperative to analyze

existing competitive products to provide important information in
establishing product or service specifications.

● 4. Generate product concepts: After having gone through with the

previous processes, you may now develop a number of product
concepts to illustrate the types of products or services that are
technically feasible and will best meet the requirements of the target
specifications.

● 5. Select a product concept: Through the process of evaluation between

attributes, a final concept is selected. After the final selection, additional
market research can be applied to obtain feedback from certain key
customers

● 6. Refine product specifications: In this stage, product or services

specifications are refined on the basis of input from the foregoing
activities.

● 7. Perform economic analysis: Throughout the process of product

development, it is very important to always review and estimate the
economic implications regarding development expenses, manufacturing
costs, and selling price of the product or services to be offered or
provided.

● 8. Plan the remaining development project: In this final stage of concept

development, you can prepare a detailed development plan which
includes list of activities, necessary resources and expenses, and
development schedule with milestones for tracking progress.

Finding Value
People buy for a reason. There should be something in your product or
service that would give consumers a good reason to go back and buy more.
There must be something that will make you the best option for target
customers; otherwise, they have no reason to buy what you are selling.

The value you incorporate in your product is called value proposition.

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● Value proposition is a believable collection of the most persuasive
reasons why people should notice you and take the action you're asking
for.

● Innovation is the introduction of something new in your product or

service. This may be a new idea, a new method, or a new device. If you
want to increase your sales and profit you must innovate.

Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

● Unique Selling Proposition is the factor or consideration presented by a
seller as the reason that one product or service is different from and
better than that of the competition.

How to discover your USP and how to use it to increase your sales and
profit:

● Use empathy: Put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Always

focus on the needs of the target customers and forget falling in love with
your own product or service. Always remember, you are
making/providing this product not for yourself but for the target
customers to eventually increase sales and earn profit.

● Identify customer's desires. It is very important for you to understand

and find out what drives and motivates your customers to buy your
product or service. Make some effort to find out, analyze and utilize the
information that motivates the customers in their decision to purchase
the product or service.

● Discover customer's genuine reasons for buying the product.

Information is very important in decision making. A competitive
entrepreneur always improve their products or services to provide
satisfaction and of course retention of customers.

Generating Ideas for Business

Some people come up with a bunch of business ideas that are not really
feasible. There are two problems that arise; first is the excessive generation of
ideas that can forever remain as a dreaming stage and the second is when
they don't have ideas and don't want to become entrepreneurs.

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Here are some basic yet very important considerations that can be used
to generate possible ideas for business:

● 1. Examine existing goods and services. Are you satisfied with the
product? What do other people who use the product say about it? How
can it be improved? There are many ways of improving a product from
the way it is made to the way it is packed and sold. You can also
improve the materials used in crafting the product.

● 2. Examine the present and future needs. Look and listen to what the
customers, institutions, and communities are missing in terms of goods
and services.

● 3. Examine how the needs are being satisfied. Needs for the products
and services are referred to as market demand. To satisfy these needs
is to supply the products and services that meet the demands of the
market.

● 4. Examine the available resources. Observe what materials or skills

are available in abundance in your area. A business can be started out
of available raw materials by selling them in raw form and by processing
and manufacturing them into finished products.

● 5. Read magazines, news articles, and other publications on new

products and techniques or advances in technology. You can pick up
new business ideas from magazines such as Newsweek, Reader's
Digest, Business Magazines, "Go Negosyo", Know About Business
(KAB) materials, and Small-Industry Journal. The Internet also serves
as a library where you may browse and surf on possible businesses. It
will also guide you on how to put the right product in the right place, at
the right price, and at the right time.

Key Concepts of Selecting a Business Idea

Once you have identified business opportunities, you will eventually see that
there are many possibilities available for you. It is very unlikely that you will
have enough resources to pursue all of them at once.

You have to select the most promising one among hundreds of ideas. It will be
good to do this in stages in the first stage, you screen your ideas to narrow
them down to about few choices. In the next stage, trim down the choices to

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two options. In the final stage, choose between the two and decide which
business idea is worth pursuing.

Branding
● Branding is a marketing practice of creating a name, a symbol or design
that identifies and differentiates product or services from the rest. It tells
them what they can expect from your product or service and it
differentiates your offerings from other competitors.

Branding is one of the most important aspects in any business. An

effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive
markets.

Here are simple tips to publicize your brand:

● Develop a tagline. Write a statement that is meaningful, impressive,

and easy to remember to capture the essence of your brand.

● Design a logo. Create a logo symbolic of your business and

consistent with your tagline and displace it strategically.

● Write a brand message. Select a key message to communicate

about your brand.

● Sustain a brand quality. Deliver a promise of quality through

your brand.

● Practice consistency. Be reliable and consistent to what your brand

means in your business.