Some of the very qualities it takes to start a new business can actually cause problems in the operation once it is underway. The behavior patterns of the entrepreneur often include independence, stubbornness (sometimes to the point of bullheadedness), impatience, argumentativeness, and anxiety. These can be intensified by the uncertainties and extraordinary pressures of the early days of the business and can show themselves in alternating periods of elation and depression.
The entrepreneur wants desperately to achieve- for the business to succeed. The drive to be achieving and to create a unique enterprise is fueled along the way by the entrepreneurs boundless energy. This quality helps propel the venture forward. But the volatile entrepreneur needs to be cautioned against allowing personal and behavioral assets from becoming liabilities. There are two ways to deal effectively with this problem.
First, recognize that if carried to the extreme some behavioral tendencies will detract from your ability to run your venture well. This does not mean that suddenly you have to become a new person. It does mean that you will need a thorough understanding of yourself and the willingness to adapt your behavior to the hectic, confused, and emotionally charged environment of your fledgling business.
Entrepreneurs who do not just adjust properly typically exhibit negative behavior in these ways:
Reinventing the wheel. You may automatically reject techniques successfully practiced in other businesses. For instance, if you are into pocket folder printing business and want to try some strategies by designing some pocket folders according to your taste rather than on your customers taste, relying more on self confidence and not on the current trend, your business might fail to click. If as an entrepreneur you are convinced that you have a gift of perception and sound intuitive judgment, you may tend to insist on reinventing the wheel and perhaps use practices that may have failed elsewhere. You must research more before acting and implementing. Like, maybe the designs you are thinking for your pocket folders are already done by some but have no appeal to the customers. The activity is just futile and will be unproductive.
Overreacting to business problems. The high-risk environment of the new business and the compulsion to make the business successful often result in business owners overreacting to problems. A shipment of goods that does not arrive on time, faulty production equipment, a misplaced order, phone calls that are not returned in a reasonable time, the newly hired receptionist who does not show up for work, a graphic artist that do not commit to the deadline for the design of the pocket folders – they would all seem to happen at once. Thus, harried and impatient, you may react impetuously. You may damage future relationships with suppliers, customers, or employees by blowing up. Or your frenetic activity to solve an immediate problem may not keep the problem from popping up again.
You must cultivate an even temperament to deal with each problem on its own merits. The tardy supplier would not know that the receptionist did not show up. The equipment supplier would not know that you cannot locate an important order. You must approach each seemingly problematic situation with an eye to resolving it so it stays solved.
Dealing ineffectively with hired help. As your new venture struggles to its feet, all the personnel problems that plague older companies surface quickly. Entrepreneurial qualities conflict to some extent with the objective capability needed to select, hire, train, mediate conflict, and harmonize the purposes of diverse human beings. You are starting your business because you need to achieve personal satisfaction through marketing a new product or service. You did not get into business for the purpose of working with others. As a result, you are product and market have different orientation, and rightly so. While making your transition from entrepreneur to manager, this will be a difficult but most important area in which you should gain competence.
These are just a few of the potential liabilities you will face when you start your business. Be aware of them so you would not get deterred while you are trying to get your business set up initially.
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