Employees who make the leap to entrepreneur can fall into the trap of treating their business as a job they've created for themselves.
Treating your business as any other job -- except you get to be the boss -- undermines the enterprise.
"Rather than seeing the business as a separate entity from themselves that has revenue and expenses that include their salary, profit margins and income, they really see it as a situation where, 'If I'm charging $1,000 then I get to keep $1,000 minus a few things,' " says Wendy Vinson, president of E-Myth Worldwide.
"And that really is very much a technician or employee point of view, but they're trying to run a business that really has a whole other set of principles," she says.
Being inspired by the work they love can push people to take the leap into their own business. But running that business requires a different set of skills from the work they began. Sticking to the same mindset that makes a successful employee will not make a successful business owner.
Luckily, the set of skills it takes to run a successful business can be learned in classes, from books and from counselors at small-business resources such as SCORE, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting service to small-business owners and entrepreneurs.
Dreaming big comes naturally to most entrepreneurs, but business acumen is something that has to be honed and practiced.
