MBA2586 The 7 Habits of Highly Unsuccessful Entrepreneurs (and How to Avoid Them)

0:00Success leaves clues, but so does failure. If you want to build a thriving business, it's not just about adopting the right habits. It's about avoiding the wrong ones. Today, we're going to break down the seven habits of highly unsuccessful entrepreneurs. These habits don't just hold you back. They sabotage your business growth. The good news, once you recognize them, you can take steps to eliminate them and turn things around. Let's get into it.

0:28Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome, where I give you practical business lessons three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business. Today, we're going to be talking about the seven habits of highly unsuccessful entrepreneurs, the behaviors, the mindsets, and what keeps so many businesses from reaching their full potential. I know these seven habits so well because I've experienced them. I had to break through these seven really bad habits. So I'm going to share with you those seven habits, how to avoid them if you can, or how to break through them.

1:02Starting with habit number one, letting fear call the shots. Fear is one of the biggest obstacles to entrepreneur success. Full stop. Why is this a problem? Well, fear of failure, rejection, uncertainty, this all leads to indecision and missed opportunities. In my experience, business is all about making a decision, taking action, and capitalizing on the opportunities that come to you. Opportunities are not so frequent. You have to capitalize when there is an opportunity. You can't just waste time and think about it and worry, what if this doesn't work? Playing it too safe often means you're not taking those bold steps you need to grow.

1:44No. Fear is this voice in your head that tells you you're not good enough, that this won't work, that you are not the authority. You're not an expert. So how do you break through? Let me tell you two things. Number one, you've got to reframe fear. You have to understand that fear is a part of the process. Taking small calculated risks are what business is all about. You have to learn from those setbacks. It's OK to make a mistake. Don't worry about it. You will fail. Guaranteed. If you're starting out with a business right now, I can guarantee there will be failure along the way. It's just a rite of passage.

2:17So just accept it and move forward. Number two, when you hear those voices, all that fear, all that doubt, you need to shut them up with data and research and information. You got to go out there and prove your business is right. Figure out, get some feedback from customers, validate your idea, get the data to prove those thoughts are wrong. Fear is a terrible business partner. Don't let it make the decisions. Habit number two, overthinking. Analysis paralysis keeps so many entrepreneurs stuck in the planning stage, or what I call being stuck in playing business. So many entrepreneurs, when they get started, they want to get all the answers before they take one step.

2:57They want to have all the information before they even take action. And that's the problem. That's not how it works. You get the answers when you take action. You won't know for sure until you try, until you do it. And the reason why I call it playing business is because a lot of people don't take action because of that number one problem, which is fear. They want to play around and do research and gather some data. And there's nothing wrong with that. But at some point, you have to take action. And when you don't take action, you just stay in that playing business mode. And the reason why they stay in this mode is because they're afraid to try and fail.

3:30But even those who break through and take action that overthink, it causes them so many problems down the line. Overthinking delays action and your progress. You'll never have all the answers before you start. Progress comes from doing and perfecting. Get this. You're never going to have all the answers, period. All right. Even after years and years and decades of doing business, I still don't have all the answers. I know enough to do what I need to do. So how do you avoid it? Well, the first thing I recommend is setting deadlines for decisions and sticking to the deadline. Like say you have to make a decision on choosing a website builder.

4:01Understand that you can't take action and start building your website until you make that decision. So set it in line by 6 p.m. today. I will have chosen a website builder and signed up. Focus on taking action, then iterate based on results. Guess what? It's not the right one. You can cancel. Usually there's a trial or a money back guarantee and try another one tomorrow. For example, when I launched my software company, Webinar Ninja, the first version wasn't perfect, but it allowed us to get enough feedback from real life customers using the product so that we can improve quickly and change the product.

4:29The beta version of Webinar Ninja looks nothing like today, right? With the version it is today. It's totally different because we just put it out there, got feedback, iterated, changed. If we need another piece of information to get you to stop overthinking, I know a lot of entrepreneurs. I've met so many successful ones, millionaires that have done incredibly well. And the ones that do exceptionally well, they're not that bright. They're not the sharpest knife in the drawer. That serves them because they're not thinking about things so much. They're just trying and iterating, okay? They're not overthinking, trying to get the perfect answer.

5:00Habit number three, not delegating. Trying to do everything yourself. This is a recipe for burnout and stagnation and limited growth in your business. This is a big problem because your time is your most valuable asset. And if you're buried in low value tasks, you're not going to grow your business. You're going to still be trading time for money. And that's not entrepreneurship. That's self-employment. That's you still being on the clock and not using your business as an asset that helps you build wealth. You got to let your business work for you, not the other way around. How to avoid it? Just start small.

5:34Hire a virtual assistant, a freelancer to take routine admin tasks off your plate. Delegate anything that doesn't require your unique expertise. I know if you say, I'm a control freak. I like things in a particular way. Train this person. If you still feel like, no, no, I need to do everything myself, then entrepreneurship, real entrepreneurship that scales and grows is just not for you. You either change, you accept the fact that you will be working for the rest of your life and trading time for money. That's really what you have to just accept. Do you want to trade time for money forever? Or do you want to change, grow, and start delegating?

6:07Sorry for the tough love, but that's something I had to learn the hard way. Great entrepreneurs know that asking who instead of how is key to scaling. Who can do this instead of how can I do this? Habit number four, treating their business as a job. This kind of builds upon the other one, not being able to delegate, but this is more in the mind. Many entrepreneurs fall into the trap of treating their business like a job instead of an investment. When you start a business, you're not starting a job. You're building an asset. You're building something that is going to create value for the world in exchange for value for you, which is going to earn you income.

6:44It's a machine that creates that for you. It works for you. So how do you create that machine? Well, you have to build that asset and you have to start seeing your business as an investment, right? Not a job. This means after your initial stage of building your business and you have idea validation and you have product market fit, you have some customers, you made like we say$10 ,000 is kind of that threshold. Okay, you have established that this business has some legs and you're creating a product or service that customers want. At that point, you now have a viable business. You need to start saying to yourself, okay, I can't just keep working harder and harder to try to grow this.

7:19You got to start working smarter. You got to be more strategic. You got to say, what other piece do I need in this business so that it can continue to make more money? So, for example, you're making$15 ,000 a year right now. You just got some traction now. You haven't hit the$100 ,000 mark. You haven't hit a million or anything like that. But you're like, okay, I'm making some profit. What do I do with that profit? Pocket it? No. I need to invest in my machine that makes me money. So, I got to go ahead and say, let me throw some money into marketing and do it wisely. Maybe I should spend that on a copywriter to write me a better copy for my sales pages just so I can convert at a higher percentage.

7:52Maybe I got to hire that VA that Omar told me about to free up my time that's doing admin tasks. And now I can focus on big revenue tasks that bring in the money. You start seeing it as an investment. How can I invest more into this company so it can make me more? Build systems, delegate, and focus on scaling this business. Don't get stuck. Don't just stop at one point and say, okay, this is all I can do with the time I have. That's a job, not a business. A good way to look at it is that you got to go from being the star player of the team to being the coach, to being the team owner. As the owner of the team, you don't dribble the basketball, you don't pass the ball, you don't kick any goals in, but you still win because you have this incredible asset that brings all this joy to so many people and makes you money.

8:34Way more money than what the star player gets paid. Habit number five, thinking small and acting big. Some entrepreneurs are stretching themselves way too thin. They try to appear bigger than they are instead of focusing on real growth. What does this look like? It looks like spending money on superficial things like a fancy office or expensive branding that they can't afford yet. Maybe a fancy car so then people show up to a meeting. They're like, oh, wow, nice car. They think they're successful. But their actual business is not strong and they're not building a big business. What you want to do is the opposite.

9:08You want to think big and act small. Be scrappy. Spend less than you're making always. Live within your means, within your business. I'm not talking about your personal life right now. I'm talking about within your business, be frugal in the beginning until you are making money hand over fist. And then you can start spending a little bit of money on a nice fancy couch in the office. Focus on being successful, really successful being small. Focus on the foundation. Focus on the fundamentals. Prioritize delivering value to your customer. Big success comes from mastering the small details, not pretending you already made it.

9:39That is a really, really a short-lived kind of charade you're going to be doing because you just can't do that forever. It's not sustainable. And that leads into habit number six that you want to avoid, poor cashflow management. Three out of four companies go out of business because of cashflow management, because of money, because of the numbers. Without clear cashflow management, your risk of overspending, running out of funds, missing growth opportunities, not knowing where your money is at all times is a recipe for disaster. And it will catch up with you if you're not on top of your money, on top of your cashflow.

10:12This is why one of the number one things I teach is making sure you know your numbers. You know your revenue. You know your expenses. You know your profit margins. You know your growth. You know your cost per acquisition for customer. You know your net versus gross profit margin. And this is not complicated. I've actually created a spreadsheet, a P &L sheet that you can use to track all these numbers month over month. And if you want to download it, it's free. Just go to 100mba.net slash templates and you can download my own P &L template. This is the one I use to run all my businesses. Knowing your numbers is not optional.

10:46Don't say I'm not a math person. I don't know. No, it's not optional. It's survival. Okay. You need to know your numbers and it's very simple. It's very easy. It's not quantum physics. You can do this and it's just basic math and there's no arithmetic. You need to know all the formulas are in my sheet. It's the difference between struggling and then eventually going out of business, being at statistic three out of four companies or thriving, knowing your numbers, being confident, not being stressed out. Finally, habit number seven that you want to avoid, not changing, not growing. And I'm talking about you.

11:16Your business will only grow as much as you do. If you stay stagnant, so will your business. Entrepreneurs that don't evolve, that don't grow, that will invest in themselves, they become the bottleneck of the growth of the business. The business will only grow as much as you will grow. If you want to build a billion-dollar company, you got to become a billion dollar thinker, a billion dollar entrepreneur. What are the skills you need to have that a billion dollar entrepreneur has? What books do you have to read? What courses you have to take? Who do you need to be around? What conferences do you have to go to?

11:48If you haven't grown in the last year, last two years, last three years, I can almost guarantee your business didn't grow. Because no matter what market you're in, if you're not growing, you better believe your competition is growing and they will overtake you. So how to avoid it? invest in yourself. It's the best investment you can make. And I know that you know this because you're consuming this podcast, but I want you to go another step further. Get a reading habit, 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes at night. Take some courses, seek mentors, get around people that are doing and growing, learn new skills, challenge yourself to step out of your comfort zone.

12:20Growth comes from discomfort, just like in the gym. When I transitioned from being a solopreneur to leading a team, whether it was here at the$100 MBA or my software company, Webinar Ninja, I had to learn how to manage people, how to build systems, how to think strategically, that personal growth unlocked new levels of success for our business. Because ask yourself, where is the success going to come from? It's going to come from decisions, it's going to take from actions. Who's making those decisions? Who's taking those actions? You are, right? Who is the one that's telling your team, hey, we need to do X, Y, Z, get it done.

12:46How do you know what that is if you're not growing, if you're not getting better? So the best investment you can make is in yourself. Your business depends on it. So to wrap this up, unsuccessful entrepreneurs aren't held by external factors. They're held by themselves. They're held by the habits that sabotage their progress. So here's a recap of the seven habits I want you to avoid like the plague. Letting fear call the shots. Overthinking and not taking action. Number three, not delegating your task. Delegation is a part of growing your business. Number four, treating your business as a job, not an investment.

13:18Number five, thinking small but acting big. Number six, poor cashflow management. And number seven, not growing and evolving as an entrepreneur. If you recognize you have any of these habits, the good news is you can change them. Awareness is the first step and you've already gone past that step with this episode. So make a commitment to yourself that you're going to work on these things. And if you haven't come across these yet, look out for them. Thanks for tuning into the$100 MBA show. Again, if you want my free P &L sheet to be able to calculate your numbers and be on top of them and not be a statistic, Just go to 100mba.net slash templates.

13:53Download all our templates via that link. You can just leave your name and email address and we'll send it to you. Thanks so much for listening to the$100 MBA show. I'm Omar Zinhome. If you want more practical business lessons to help you get up, start that business, grow that business, scale that business, go ahead and subscribe. Whether you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or on YouTube, you're watching on YouTube, hit subscribe or follow right now to get our next episode. Again, we publish Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss a beat. Thanks again.

14:19And remember, you have the power to change everything. Change who you are, change where your business is going, change your life. You just got to take action. You got to commit, make those decisions and know that, hey, it's all going to happen because I decide to. Thanks so much for listening. I'll check you in the next episode.