5 Mistakes to Avoid as an Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship is a land of risk and reward where most of your traditional work boundaries have been removed. No one tells you how to work, how long and how hard to work or how much you can make. There are, in fact, a million advantages to the freedom of entrepreneurship.

However, there are also an equal number of pitfalls that this same freedom creates. One of them is that entrepreneurs have the "freedom" to think they are doing things right, when in fact they are doing them wrong. Here are five common mistakes to avoid on your own entrepreneurial journey:

1. Chasing the wrong success

If you are not careful, you can fall into the trap of believing that certain material items make you "successful." That a certain lifestyle is what success looks like. Often, people try to buy their way to success and happiness, only to find out that they don’t even want what they were pursuing.

To conquer this trap, make sure to think about and write down what success means in your perfect world. Be conscious about what you are aiming at, and take consistent steps to reach it.

2. Improper communication

It is comfortable to feel confident and assume that you are communicating properly -- with employees, contractors and mentors -- but the bottom line is that many of us don't. What you intend to say, and the impact you intend to make, when communicating with staff, for example, may not be the right words or have the right impact at all.

To avoid this mistake, make sure to speak using facts, leaving out the emotion those facts may invoke. Have your employees take personality tests, so you know ahead of time how they will communicate. They may need more detail from you than you normally communicate -- or less -- but knowing is the first step.

3. Poor 'servant leadership'

"Servant leadership" is a buzzword right now; however, many business owners don’t understand what it entails. Servant leadership means not allowing others to walk all over you. It is not about creating an environment of dependency on you. Often, subservient leaders are ones that need others to need and rely on them.

To solve this pitfall, you need to practice true servant leadership. Servant leadership means providing an environment of service. It means doing what is best for your employees, which might include firing them. Serving your staff well requires setting them up for success by training them properly and holding them to a high standard.

4. The customer is always right

This is a common misconception that can leave you worn out and exhausted. Operating your business as if every customer is "right" can confuse your message and train your customers how to treat you and your staff. You may end up serving a select minority instead of a majority.

Instead of the philosophy that the customer is always right, take on the mindset that the customer is always honored. Customers should be treated with honor and respect, but sometimes they are just wrong. So, be clear on who your target is and serve that person well.

5. Chasing money instead of freedom 

When money is tight, it is a breeze to think that money and freedom are synonymous. This can lead business owners down the wrong path and often put a lid on their income. Chasing money can lead to an unlived life, getting us to chase the wrong things. Money should be a byproduct, not the focus.

Make choices in the long term, toward freedom. Train yourself out of a job, and your income will have no bounds. Focus on short-term monetary gains, and you will never have true freedom. Instead, focus on the strength and growth of your business, and you will have money. You will also experience freedom and finances through growth and proper training.

Avoiding these pitfalls will have you cruising toward success. So, move with proper purpose. You may need to reevaluate and adjust often, because being a few degrees off in the beginning leaves you open to the risk of being miles off in the end. But make the journey. And be blessed on your journey.

Zechariah Newman

7 Dark Truths About Entrepreneurship

When you’re thinking about taking the plunge and becoming an entrepreneur, for the first few weeks and months of your entrepreneurial journey, the prospect of being your own boss and investing in your own enterprise is exhilarating. You read stories about overnight successes and other business leaders finally feeling fulfilled in their work and think that you’ll experience the same level of success or fulfillment as soon as you get started.

While these positive and exciting elements of entrepreneurship are certainly true and make the job worthwhile, you have to remember there’s also a dark side to entrepreneurship. It isn’t all fun and games, and those “overnight successes” are almost invariably the product of exhausting behind-the-scenes work and years of practice and failure.

Related: Success Comes When You Stop Playing Games

Before you get too excited about being an entrepreneur, temper your expectations with these seven dark truths:

1. You won’t make money right away.

Raising capital for your business is tough, and usually serves as a financial eye-opener to hopeful young entrepreneurs who think business ownership leads to quick profits. The truth is, for most businesses, the first few years of operations are spent getting your infrastructure up and running. You’ll spend more than you’ll generate in revenue, and as a result, you probably won’t receive a paycheck for several months. You’ll have to rely on your personal savings or reserves for basic living expenses and hope things pan out in the future.

2. Your personal life will suffer.

No matter how optimistically you charge into the role or how committed you are to prioritizing your personal relationships, they are going to suffer as you continue building your business. You’ll be working long hours, sometimes at home, and you’ll be on call for resolving business problems on nights, weekends and holidays. You’ll be distracted almost constantly, thinking about the problems your business is facing, and the financial stress you’ll bear will take its toll on your relationships.

3. Trying to juggle everything will take its toll on you.

As CEO of your own business, you’ll wear many hats. You’ll do some of the work you love to do, but you’ll also be an administrator, a supervisor, a technician, an HR manager and a marketer all at the same time. No matter how excited you are to take on these responsibilities at the beginning of your time as an entrepreneur, this constant gear shifting will inevitably wear you down.

Related: 3 Vital Things to Consider Before Starting a Business

4. Your emotions will get the better of you.

There will be times where your emotions well up and get the better of you, even if you try to suppress them or find a healthy outlet for them. You’re too invested in your own enterprise for this not to happen. You may feel depressed and discouraged about your progress, or fearful that you won’t make a profit in a reasonable amount of time. When your emotions get the better of you, you’ll feel miserable and you’ll make worse decisions.  

5. Nothing will happen the way you think it will.

Your business plan might carefully detail out every step you envision for the first few years of your company, but no matter how much research you’ve done, you won’t be able to predict everything. Even the things you can predict won’t happen exactly how you envisioned. As an entrepreneur, you’ll be forced to adapt, sometimes in ways you don’t want to adapt.

6. You’ll make decisions that will haunt you.

As an entrepreneur, you’ll serve as the primary decision-maker for your company and you’ll have to make hard, stress-inducing decisionsthroughout your tenure. Some of those decisions will stick with you, even if you make the logically correct one. You’ll have to change company direction. You’ll have to part ways with partners. You’ll have to sacrifice part of your vision for the company. You’ll have to fire people.

These decisions are never easy, but must be made, and they will haunt you.

7. You are going to fail.

Your entire company might go under. If it doesn’t, there will be some other failure, massive or minor, that will interfere with your plans and compromise your vision. Failure is an inevitable, and essential, part of entrepreneurship, though realizing this rarely makes it easier to accept. The obstacle of failure is ever present and always daunting when you’re leading a business, and working through that failure is too much for some. However, the ability to recover from failure is what separates super successes from the rest.

I’m not trying to talk you out of becoming an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is, and should be, an exciting and rewarding endeavor for anyone who chooses to pursue it. Instead, my intention is to help a new generation of self-starters prepare for the sometimes harsh realities of business ownership so they can better understand the obstacles ahead of them and realistically prepare for the journey.

Related: Using Your Entrepreneurial Values to Avoid Burnout

Jayson Demers

Why More Millennials are Bullish on Entrepreneurship

Optimism is back in a big way among U.S. entrepreneurs, especially the millennial set. According to a new global report, the wounds of the Great Recession have healed and more Americans are willing to take a shot at being their own bosses.

More young people, ages 25 to 34. are starting businesses in the United States, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor released Tuesday by Boston-area Babson College, compiling data from 73 economies and more than 200,000 respondents around the world. In 2014, 18 percent of Americans in that age group were starting or running new businesses, compared to 15 percent in 2013. This is the report's 16th year.

What's more, rates of entrepreneurship in the U.S. across all age groups climbed to nearly 14 percent last year, from a post-recession bottom of 7.6 percent in 2010. Babson entrepreneurship professor Donna Kelley adds the report's data are highly comprehensive in terms of early stage start-ups because researchers are monitoring people who are starting companies while they are still working other jobs.

Fifty-one percent of the working age population in America sees good opportunities to launch businesses according to this year's report, up from 47 percent in 2013, Kelley said. More people are also starting businesses because they want to, rather than because they have to, she points out.

"It's very motivating, and the rate of failure is also slightly declining," she said. "There may have been lingering hesitation, and some people had been wanting to hang on to their jobs. Banks also are more likely to lend, and there are more support systems that may not have been there during the recession."

Optimism among American entrepreneurs has also been increasing in the National Federation of Independent Business' monthly index, which hit its highest levels since October 2006 in last month's reading, bolstered by a sunnier outlook post- midterm elections, according to the conservative industry group.

For Jason Rappaport, now is as good a time as any to be an entrepreneur. In fact, he said he can't imagine doing anything else.

"I couldn't find meaning in something that I wasn't making myself," he said. "There are things that are very important to me, that I don't see other people doing."

Rappaport, 25, started his Philadelphia-based company Squareknot in 2013, which allows users to make collaborative online guides, adjusted to their own preferences.

"I feel strongly that part of being an entrepreneur is making it happen, even when the cards are stacked against me—time doesn't matter," he said. "Right now it's cheaper and easier than ever to build products."

The fact that there are fewer barriers to entry is one factor boosting entrepreneurial optimism globally, Kelley pointed out, with technology a leading force in this shift. Optimism levels climbed globally, with the exception of Europe, where entrepreneurs are feeling less certain about opportunities.

"People can start businesses on their own and be a part of the value chain that doesn't require you to hire employees," she said. "You can open a retail store on your own today thanks to technology."

Kate Rogers