Dr. Eric George, Founder and CEO of ERG Enterprises. Nationally recognized thought leader on entrepreneurship, investing and leadership.
“Success is crashing and burning at least once, if not a few times.” Those were the words of a great mentor of mine, an accomplished serial entrepreneur. After three decades in his shoes, his words echo true to me. Entrepreneurs learn by discovering what not to do, as much as what works.
All the same, mistakes hurt. And if I can alleviate some of the pains of being an entrepreneur, then I see no harm in that. So, here are three mistakes I’ve seen many entrepreneurs make, but you can avoid.
1. Chase adversity instead of hiding from it.
The most successful ideas and businesses are often borne out of disrupting the status quo. Where there is adversity, there is opportunity.
I started Omega Hospital two decades ago to offer what major health systems didn’t at the time—a model that offered surgeons freedom, flexibility and control over their cases. We also designed a patient experience that incorporated the principles of New Orleans’ finest hotels. The result was a dramatically different healthcare model, one that challenged the monolithic systems of the region. I staked my reputation and finances so that my vision would pay off. And it did. The organization still thrives as only one of the last remaining physician-owned, freestanding hospitals.
To be successful takes a willingness to make smart bets that fly in the face of convention. That’s the essence of entrepreneurship and definitional to the discipline.
To make smart bets:
• Look for the formula. Identify the status quo that’s unsustainable; look for opportunities that intersect with your talent, interest and network, and start by looking for opportunities in your current market focus and adjacencies.
• Look for ache. Recognize that entrepreneurs make their money by chasing the problems that everyone else flees.
• Bet on value. No bet is smart if it doesn’t offer more value to the consumer than the current paradigm affords. Seek adversity when the opportunity is value-additive. Otherwise, seek a new challenge.
2. Prioritize ‘we’ over ‘me.’
I’ve come across plenty of founders who equated success with independent achievement and individual brilliance.
And their trajectories followed a similar narrative. Their companies never grew past their own capacity to solve problems, and their startups were tethered to the finite time they could spare. These founders never received a dollar from my investment firm. Because, as an entrepreneur, I know firsthand that companies scale not because of one person, but because of the time, talent and capacity of a collective group supporting the motions and engine of the enterprise.
Every successful entrepreneur has relied on an intelligent and capable team to achieve their milestones. They embraced a business philosophy of “we” over “me.”
I am so passionate about embracing the talents and expertise of others that I wrote a book on the subject, We: Ditch the Me Mindset and Change the World. It’s a philosophy that I’ve continued to rely on as a physician, serial entrepreneur and private investor to boot.
To embrace the we over me:
• Be willing to genuflect. Acknowledge that your strength as an entrepreneur is your breadth of knowledge, rather than depth of it. This enables you to keep a focus that balances the short and long view. Yet it requires you to depend on subject matter experts who know the inner workings of a wide range of aspects related to your business. Lean on them to learn from them. Empower them with voice, influence and authority to make decisions.
3. Cherish your time; don’t sell it.
Time is finite and far more valuable than money. And yet, many entrepreneurs sell their time explicitly or in effect. Explicitly, they price their services per hour. This financial model doesn’t scale. Again, it tethers it to the finite hours you and your team can spare.
In effect, their business ends up discounting offerings or accepting pilot projects because they haven’t done the hard work of building a scalable and reliable business offering. Many factors can contribute to this, including the lack of focus on a target customer, a compelling market point of view and much more—which go beyond the scope of this article but some of which are covered in a previous article I wrote.
To cherish time:
• Recognize its value. Time is your most precious finite asset and a force multiplier. Use it intelligently, and it creates the conditions to scale your enterprise. Exchange it for money, and it sets a low ceiling for your growth.
• Change your pricing strategy. Rather than marketing your services by the hour, charge customers by the outcome you promise to deliver. This is a weighty topic that’s too extensive for this article. But there are plenty of great resources on the subject. Simply run an internet search of “why you shouldn’t charge by the hour.”
Take a lesser path of resistance.
Trial and error are an invaluable tool for entrepreneurs. But there are plenty of mistakes to be made, so avoiding the three covered in this article could shorten your path to growing a successful business. While there’s not a strict formula for scaling your business, these lessons can provide the guideposts that help you find your way.
Good luck.
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