Determine the characteristic traits and skills of successful entrepreneurs that differentiate them from other business managers. The company i choose is Guerlain ( the perfumer)
Answer
Guerlain is an old perfume brand known across the world for it's famous fragrant whose headquarters is in Paris. The company started out in the 18th century with the owner, Pascal Guerlain, selling perfume from a store, four generations later the brand became the oldest and most successful perfume worn by presidents and royalties. Entrepreneurial personalities and aspects are very important for an entrepreneur when reflecting on motivation and mindset and how individual personalities can affect decisions made in a firm. Different entrepreneurs have different personalities and these differences can be seen from the success of major companies in the world (Briot, 2011).
Guerlain enterprise was a family business for four generations where with each successor; the company was made to be better than with the previous successor. It is therefore evident that the heirs had similar personality traits that steered them into making the family company the best in the world. The following traits and personalities were researched from the heirs of Guerlain and were found to be common in all of them:
The ability to possess a unique brand name to identify with and allow people to connect with the brand, the most important trait of all. Getting a brand name for a starting company can be a challenge but this was never an obstacle for Pierre Pascal Guerlain in 1828 as he had identified the perfect name for his brand. Guerlain brand since its formation, has always had the pricing power, a personality that has enabled the company to high margins and maintains future cash flow. The brand has also shown its love for what it does through the love and art used in designing the perfumes by the owners who were creating the products (Strauss, 2013)
Guerlain brand has been passed on from generation to generation without any bankruptcy, which means that family members respected the business instead of seeing it as a piggy bank to withdraw money whenever they feel like. These important personalities exhibited in the Guerlain line of business allowed the firm to prosper for many generations (MacGrath and MacMillan, 2009).
Such aspects of personalities made it possible for the company to have the motivation and the right mindset to venture into the future. The mindset of a successful entrepreneur can be different and unique for instance, Guerlain’s ability to achieve customer satisfaction enabled it over the years to have a local market for its products. Another important motivation exhibited was the ability to use networking to build the business as well as understanding the power of the Guerlain brand, which in this case was a powerful brand that required proper direction to head to the future (Dittrich, 2017).
Jean-Paul Guerlain, the last successor of this brand felt that it was important to sell the company to another line of business, as he had no successor of his own to leave the legacy to. This is a very important mindset where the focus is put on the wellbeing of the company and nothing else and can be seen when Jean-Paul decided to hand over the brand to another brand.
References
Briot, Eugénie. 2011"From Industry to Luxury: French Perfume in the Nineteenth Century." The Business History Review 85, no. 2: 273-294
MacGrath, R. and MacMillan, I. (2009). The entrepreneurial mindset. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.page 243-289.
Strauss, M. (2013). Pictures, Passions, and Eye. New York: Halban. page 40-106.
Dittrich, S. (2017). Etrepreneur mindset. [S.l.]: Books on demand. page 57.
