If you’ve been considering becoming an entrepreneur, you’ve probably spent time comparing yourself to lists of virtues that show you how great you’d be at this career. It’s easier to face the good things about ourselves than the negative. As difficult as it might be to face the reality that you might not be cut out to be an entrepreneur, it’s better to discover that before you walk away from a career or a benefits package.
You’d rather let someone else handle it
When you find yourself facing a problem, what’s your instinctive reaction? Dive in and figure out how to make it better, or walk away, figuring out that someone else will handle it?
As an entrepreneur, there is no authority higher than you in your business. Passing the buck is impossible. You might have the opportunity to seek out other expert opinions, but if things don’t get done, ultimately, that responsibility lies with you. If that makes you feel uncomfortable, this might not be for you.
You’re uncomfortable trying something new
As an entrepreneur, you’re always learning. You need to know enough about networking to understand what the IT company is telling you about your servers, and enough about marketing to communicate effectively with the content writing team, and enough about customer service to set goals for the service team that are achievable. To make more productive use of your time, consider setting up a weekly learning schedule that covers these essential areas, allowing you to be more proactive rather than reactive in your business decisions.
If you groan at the idea of sitting down with The Fundamentals of Accounting or Networking for Dummies to brush up before a meeting, you might be happier long-term on someone else’s team, rather than leading your own.
You’re in this for the quick cash
If you think that you can quit your job and cash in on an amazing opportunity you saw on the Internet, stop. Think carefully before you proceed. Running your own business almost always requires a significant investment of both cash and time, and usually takes a good long while to be profitable.
Remember the old saying that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is? Anyone promising you profit now, now, now, is probably making their money selling you a gimmick. Keep your job and your salary, at least until you’re stable enough to move forward.
You don’t see the point in marketing
If you think your business is so brilliant that you won’t have to do any marketing, think again. There is no business so necessary and so quintessential that it doesn’t need to tell its customers about its products and services.
The process of marketing is much different from what it was even ten years ago, and organic marketing is much more important than it was in the past, but marketing is perhaps even more important than it was in the past. Businesses are competing for attention in a world that seems ever busier, in an environment where customers have an unprecedented ability to filter the information they take in. If a company wants to be successful, it will need to find a way through those filters. That’s marketing.
You’re distracted by the new, shiny idea
Many entrepreneurs have many different ideas; after all, being inherently creative and oriented toward problem-solving is a key personality feature for many entrepreneurs. But if you can’t focus on one idea long enough to implement it, you’re going to struggle as an entrepreneur. Especially in the early phases of a business, a company needs to have a laser tight focus on one product, service, or idea; only as it solidifies that concept can it expand.
Doing too much at once is a sure sign of an entrepreneur who will struggle.
You abhor simplicity
The best and most successful businesses, at their core, started off as very simple companies. They had one mission, and they developed it until it was perfect. Could you imagine 10 years ago setting up wedding venues or moving services online? However it is possible now and it is in fact as easy as you can imagine. The method of delivering the product or service might have been complex, but the customer-facing presentation was easy.
If you can’t sum up your idea to yourself, there’s no way you’ll be able to market it to the customer. Elevator pitches are crucial for a good reason; they force focus and simplicity.
You just don’t need it
When you meet successful entrepreneurs, one thing stands out: there’s no way these people would ever have been happy or satisfied working for someone else. Many entrepreneurial success stories start with “I’d had it with everything to do with my career, and I decided to set out on my own.”
Successful entrepreneurs need the creativity, the pace, the self-determination in their lives. If there’s anything else you can see yourself doing and being happy, doing that is probably going to be a lot easier. But if you want it, and nothing else – maybe entrepreneurship is right for you.
