2.3 The qualities of a successful entrepreneur  (Page 2/4)

• Makes use of purposeful strategies to convince other people.
• Self-confidence:

• Has a firm belief in personal capability.
• Acknowledges personal abilities to complete particularly difficult tasks successfully.

3. What follows is an extract from a certain Mr Chin’s story of success.

Study it and see if you can identify any of the afore-mentioned characteristics as part of Mr Chin’s outlook on life.

Mr Chin – The Story of an Entrepreneur

When Mr Sophonpanich was born on Friday, June 24, 1910 at Wa Sai in Thailand, it was difficult to imagine that he would become one of the richest men in Asia, and be the symbol of the Thai banking industry for one generation. The name, Mr Chin, came from the last four letters of Sophonpanich.

Mr Chin was born poor, the son of a sawmill clerk. He left Thailand when he was five and spent twelve years as a young boy in the poverty-stricken Chua Toa District in China. There was never enough food for him and his four sisters. He only had four or five years of formal education, and half of this time was spent working in the fields. Whenever it rained, he was called out of the classroom to till the softened soil.

From this humble beginning he grew up to earn the honour of “Titan of Thai Finance”, after building Bangkok Bank to become a major financial institution holding a 30 % market share in the overall banking system of Thailand.

How did he do it?

Throughout his life Mr Chin was an achiever. In whatever he did, he did not only do his best, but the best. He was always trying to figure out how to do his work one step better than anyone else, resulting in his excellent performance at any job. He showed his character even at a very young age.

At the age of 15 he worked as an apprentice for a village chemist in China. He learned the names of all the medicines in the shop, which resulted in the owner of the shop trying to persuade him to become a doctor! He chose other things instead, like furthering his studies. On returning to Thailand at the age of 17, Mr Chin worked as a cook in a wood shop at Yosse.

He then worked as an indentured labourer assigned to clean the shop, load wood onto horse carriages for clients, and to help the shop owner. While working at the shop, Mr Chin would write letters in Chinese to his family in China. His employers saw his beautiful handwriting, and made him a clerk. It was perhaps at this time that he developed his sharp memory, which was later to become one of his greatest assets in banking. As he sold wood, he had to be able to work out the measurements of all types of wood for each customer and the calculation had to be done in his head!

He was a modest man who disliked too much consumption. He had a long-term view of things. This is shown by his investing the amount he had won from a savings pool. It allowed him to open his own bookstore in Pattanakorn. Many young men at that time would have spent the same amount on pleasurable goods. Mr Chin was ambitious and always looked towards the future. His small business grew to become the leader of Thailand’s department store businesses, as his four-storeyed shop offered a wide variety of products (from stationery to construction materials), selling different types of items on each floor.