6 Emotional and Tactical Lessons for New Business Owners

Entrepreneurs like to tell stories from the mountaintop, looking back, about how they decided to make the jump, the precarious middle ground, the gritty climb, and the eventual glimmer of success before making it big.

And let’s be clear: successful entrepreneurs are inspiring. Hearing their stories can be encouraging and motivational.

But oftentimes, stories like these can gloss over the very real fear, missteps and failures along the way that taught them important lessons about how to be a business owner. Because earned success isn’t all victory laps and reminiscing – I would know. As a small business owner with nearly a decade of experience in franchising, I found (and still find) entrepreneurship a journey with hard lessons.  

For context, in 2017, I was staring down the barrel of a franchise business that was losing money after a slow launch and had recently been laid off from my corporate job. I was stressed, at my wits’ end, and knew I needed to reevaluate my approach. I also had a growing family, so failure was not an option. The lessons I learned during this period were highly formative and, in hindsight, fell into two clear categories: Emotional and Tactical. 

What I discovered was that the emotional lessons were all about mindset. These lessons forced me to zoom out and reevaluate who I was and what I thought it meant to be an entrepreneur (spoiler: it was not the image I had in my mind). The tactical lessons were all about business strategy — these came from trial and error.

Emotional lessons

1. Let Go Of Ego and Take Action. As a corporate executive with a background as a CPA and CFO, asking people in positions of power for money “help” was not on my bingo card. However, the reality of business ownership forced me to confront these issues head-on. Ultimately, I had to go to my business landlord and the bank to ask for extensions or payment plans to make ends meet while I got the business up and running. What did I discover? An immediate release. The action was simple, but the emotional barrier was real. I had to overcome my ego, letting go of the version of myself that controlled outcomes and fight for my business to move forward.  
2. Hope Is Not A Strategy. There’s no “ifs,” “ands,” or “buts” about it, entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Make no mistake, under the shiny veneer, business ownership is an all-out bare-knuckle fight. There’s a reason statistics on small-business failure in the first few years are easy to find. If you are worried that you don’t have the grit and determination to succeed, even (and maybe especially) if success looks different from what you originally imagined, then entrepreneurship is not for you. Making decisions and basing plans on what you hope will happen isn’t realistic. Hope is not a strategy, and it’s imperative that you have the sustained tenacity to dig deep and work hard despite challenges.  
3. Validation Comes From the Internal. Simply put, it’s lonely at the top. As soon as you become a small business owner, suddenly everyone is expecting you to make every decision, and everyone is coming to you. In my experience as a corporate employee, all of my validation came from external sources – bosses, stock options, raises, etc. – from other people or the organization. When you are a business owner, no one cares. Everyone wants something for themselves — the workers want a raise, the customers want a price cut, etc. No one is coming to you to give kudos. Self-initiative must be present, while validation has to come from within. 

Tactical lessons

1. Don’t Be Undercapitalized. When working with aspiring franchise owners, I constantly coach my candidates on this. I explain it with the concept of being “house poor” – you may have the big fancy house, but you’re not able to live your life because all of your assets are tied up in simply keeping the lights on. Going into business ownership undercapitalized is like that. If you have enough money to start the business but have no margin for error, then you’re setting yourself up for failure.  
2. Being IN the Business vs Working ON the Business. Being a business owner means every single part of the business is your responsibility. However, that doesn’t mean you have to micromanage every aspect. In fact, it means you need to learn how to put people and systems in place that allow you to zoom out and make big-picture decisions while daily operations run without your constant oversight. Remember, if you’re too busy working in the business, you don’t have the capacity to work on the business, and a successful business owner must be able to work on the overall business strategy. 
3. Hire For Weaknesses & Build Peer Relationships. Even though every aspect of the business is your responsibility, you aren’t going to wake up tomorrow and know how to do everything. For example, maybe you are a great project manager, but you hate/aren’t good at sales. While you can pick a business that minimizes the demand for sales, you’ll still likely need operational support. Be aware of these gaps in your skill set and hire valuable employees to fill them. Similarly, as the business owner, you don’t have any peers within your business – you’re at the top. However, when you hit an obstacle, you need to find a way through it. Build a peer group, such as fellow franchise owners, EO or YPO, etc., that you can reach out to when obstacles arise.  

At the end of the day, if you’re going into business ownership, there’s no way to avoid every landmine, even if you follow every bit of advice on this list. However, if you can use even a few of these lessons, you’ll be in a better position.