Small Business Failure

4 Irritating Habits of the Entrepreneur Next Door

Written by Ashwin Satyanarayana for Gaebler Ventures

New entrepreneurs often beat their chests about what they know and what they can accomplish. This can be annoying enough to want to keep you out of social circle or business networking. Here are a few hints.

We have all heard about euphemisms thrown about singing praises of entrepreneurs such as "entrepreneurs are the engine a capitalistic economy runs on", "entrepreneurs make economy churn", etc.

Not all is well with all the entrepreneurs, though. For every successful and humble entrepreneur, you will see a cranky one with irritating habits. Here are some of the irritating habits of some entrepreneurs who might just be next door:

I know everything.

This is one of the most irritating habits I have come across. I knew a fellow entrepreneur during my days of running my own business who used to claim that he knew everything - the entire gamut of information -- about business, venture capitalists, marketing, operations, human resources, material sourcing, manufacturing, and much more - about every other business. These are the guys who will monopolize any conversation that has anything to do with running, starting, or funding a business. Can you stand a chest beater?

I will be bigger than the biggest, tomorrow.

Here's another type of entrepreneurs who blow their own trumpets but have nothing to show for. They are barely able to cope with the intensity of running a business, struggling to make sales, unable to retain employees and don't even have a proper office to speak of. However, the talk comes out like a bullet off a shotgun. "In 6 months this business will be backed by a Venture Capitalist", "We will go public in our 3rd year of operation", etc. If you are really capable, you wouldn't need to talk so much, would you?

Yeah, I opened my shop; now they will come.

Just like we have lazy employees, you have lazy entrepreneurs too. These are the kind of people who see some sales during the opening of their business and then it all starts to fade. You wouldn't see another customer sauntering into the shop or office. No sale is ever made after that. Why? We have entrepreneurs who thought that hiding behind fancy laptops could make you money. Start a business, name it well, hire people and customers will come. Isn't that easy, is it?

Business, business and more business - nothing else matters.

For some entrepreneurs, all they can think about all day is how to make more money. In the pursuit of happiness, there is a certain limit you can go up to when it comes to money. After a certain point, more money won't fetch happiness. Try to determine where that limit is; spend some time with relationships that matter to you. Remember that when you build a business, you are building a legacy. However, you will carry none of this to your grave.

Ash has an undergraduate degree in engineering and an MBA from Ohio University. Today he is a corporate trainer, business coach and a freelance writer.

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