Good Entrepreneurial Habits That Turn Bad

Good entrepreneurs are all about managing change, but too many forget that they have to change themselves as their dream evolves. Most begin by doing the product development, marketing and sales alone, but struggle making the transition to hiring and coaching others, defining repeatable processes and focusing on future strategy.

The challenge is to move from doing the work to managing the work and leading others. It doesn’t matter how dedicated and capable you are, there are only so many hours in a day, and as your business scales, you need to count on others for help. Certain habits, including key ones below, served you well in the early days, but can easily lead to your demise as the business grows:

Trust your gut, and ignore negative people.

Now you have real customers who can quickly turn off hundreds of potential customers if you ignore their feedback. Now it’s time to make decisions from analytics, customer reviews and financial results, rather than letting your passion and perseverance convince you that customers will soon see it your way.

Nurture loyalty and trust only with a core group.

As your business grows, so must your circle of relationships. Your trusted circle must now be expanded to include new partners, customer advocates and peer business executives. You can’t demand total loyalty from all so you have to learn to accept criticism without being defensive.

Happy to work and live on your own terms

Many entrepreneurs gave grown to prefer the relative quiet and isolation of their garage, and their ability to set their own schedule. As an executive, the business will demand your attention on a 24-hour basis and you must interact with employees and customers every day to keep the momentum going.

Love to solve tactical problems and let strategy evolve.

Investors and alliances are looking for partners who have a strategic focus, and can find the right consultants to solve their tactical issues. Strategic thinking reduces tactical problems as the business grows, so great entrepreneurs learn to change early from tactical to strategic thinking.

Take pride in your ability to get things done yourself.

Ability to tackle any challenge personally and get it done, serves early entrepreneurs well. As the business grows, you must learn to hire and train employees and utilize outsourcing in non-core areas to keep up with the volume and detailed expertise required. It’s a big change.