In the world of boxing, if an opponent knows what to anticipate from his opponent, he has an edge. In war, if a country anticipates which side the enemy’s going to attack from, the country has an edge. If you, as an entrepreneur know the challenges you’ll face, you’ll also have an edge. My goal is to give you an edge over other entrepreneurs unaware of these ten challenges every entrepreneur will face.
10 Challenges Every Entrepreneur Will Face
#1: Sacrificing the 9-5 Salary – 0:38
First, you have to be prepared to sacrifice your 9 – 5 salary. Having a salary is warm and fuzzy. It’s a nice, comforting pillow. As a 9 – 5 employee, you have a salary and benefits such as health insurance. You know that no matter what, worst case scenario, you make your five or eight grand a month. As an entrepreneur, your salary goes out the window.
#2: Capital Management – 1:05
The next of the ten challenges every entrepreneur will face is capital management. What do I mean by capital management? That’s the time clock on how much you’ve saved compared to your expenses. You constantly hear the clock ticking, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. If you manage your capital well, it allows you to stay in business long enough to make it as a business owner. It doesn’t matter if you’re a real estate agent, technology company out of Silicon Valley, or if you run a liquor store; you have to know how to manage your capital to stretch it out as long as possible
#3: Processing Issues – 1:40
Next, processing issues. As an entrepreneur, you have to process many unknown issues you’ve never experienced before. You’ll often say, or think, “I never knew. . . ” It’s going to happen. So if you don’t know how to solve for x, you’ll have a hard time. You need to anticipate that there will be many unknown, unanticipated issues that you need to solve that no one tells you about ahead of time.
#4: Team Building – 2:33
The next of the challenges that every entrepreneur will face is team building. How are you going to put your team together? How good of a recruiter are you going to be? Are you good at bringing in solid talent? You’ll face the challenge of building a team when you realize you can’t do it all. And it comes down to how well you build a team.
#5: Vision – 2:55
Next, is casting a vision others want to belong to and be a part of. You have to constantly cast a vision of where you want to be a year, three years, five years, ten and 20 years down the line. Everyone around you believes in the vision based on how you cast it. If you can’t cast the vision, you’ll lose the best type of talent.
#6: Loneliness – 3:27
Next, you will be lonely. There will be many lonely nights. There will be many days where you’re going to sit there by yourself saying, “I don’t know if this is going to work out.” At times, you’ll have no one to call. No family, friend, girlfriend, husband or wife. You can’t complain to any of them because YOU decided to become an entrepreneur. Nobody forced you to become an entrepreneur. You decided. And the last thing you want to hear is, “I told you not to do it!” So there will be a lot of lonely decision-making processes. You’ll experience a lot of lonely mornings, lonely nights, and lonely weekends.
#7: Taxes and Lawyers – 4:12
The next of the challenges every entrepreneur will face is taxes and lawyers. You pay taxes on a new code as an entrepreneur. You will need a CPA that knows how to transition you from W2 to being an entrepreneur. You’ll also need lawyers to protect your business and advise you on how to structure your company. For instance, you need advice on LLC, S Corp, C Corp. This means you’ll need to speak to lawyers and CPAs in ways you probably never have before. They’ll tell you things you’ve never heard before. You may be tempted to sit there and act like you know what you’re talking about, but you have no clue what they’re saying. You don’t want to admit it because they’ll charge you more, but you need to ask. Say, “I don’t understand. Can you please explain this to me?”
#8: Many Different Hats – 5:00
Next, you’ll wear many different hats. You’ll be a salesperson one day, clean the kitchen the next day, and file paperwork another day. You have to do it because no one else will. You have to answer the phones sometimes, and get back to texts you probably shouldn’t as the CEO, because you have to wear a lot of hats.
#9: Knocked Out – 5:27
Next, people will want to knock you out. You’ll have to deal with people that want to put you out of business. And you’ll say, “How brutal is this? You can’t be this cold.” But it’s the world of business. You’re taking a piece of business away from them, and they want to put you out of business.
#10: Lifestyle Change – 5:47
Listen in here for the last of the 10 challenges every entrepreneur will face – lifestyle changes.
So those are the ten challenges every entrepreneur will face. If you have any other challenges that I didn’t mention, comment on the bottom and share your challenges with us. And if you’re facing any of these challenges right now, let us know which challenge you’re currently facing as an entrepreneur.
And by the way, if you haven’t yet subscribed to our YouTube channel, click on the button below to subscribe.