How To Transition From Employee to Business Owner

3-Minute Read

There is nothing wrong with being an employee. The main drawback that I hear from most people about it is that the income potential is extremely limited, or it is a job that they do not like to do.

If you are an individual that is interested in making more money than a static paycheque, then owning a business is probably the best option for you. As we know, being an employee means that one will have a paycheque that may remain at the same pay grade or number for one or more years. Any increases to the pay cheque number is probably about 1 or 2% per year, and with inflation, this means that a person is essentially not getting a pay raise at all because last year’s pay has the same purchasing power as this year’s pay if the inflation rate is also about 1 or 2%. In other words – If inflation increases by 1% or 2% this year, and you have a pay cheque increase of 1% or 2% every year, it means that you did not get a pay raise at all.

Sometimes, this is the reason why individuals decide to leave the employee route and become entrepreneurs or businesses owners. There may be other reasons, of course – One may decide that they were never cut out to be an employee. They want to be able to decide the direction and fate of the business enterprise they belong to as the chief decision maker, or as mentioned earlier, they do not like their job – or any other type of reason.

Therefore, if any of this describes you, and you are currently an employee, you may be wondering: How do you transition from an employee to becoming a business owner? The answer is in your mind set. The mindset of an employee is not the same as a business owner. Therefore, you would need to know the business owners’ mindset and determine whether you have it.

You may have heard about business ownership mindset before, however, I believe the ideas below will give you something that delves deeper into the business owners mindset:

• You are open-minded: Business ownership is a whole different ball game from the employee world, obviously. There is a lot to learn besides following a particular job description. One would need to be open to doing business activities that does not fit their typical ‘job description.’ This is quite exciting, though, as it is an opportunity to do new things.

• You are a risk-taker: There is no entrepreneur without a trace of risk taking in them. It is the risk of setting out to make income without being sure whether there will be any income made. In an organization where one will get a paycheque as an employee, whether or not a project worked out, such risk does not necessarily exist, unless the employer closes shop due to financial difficulties. On the other hand, as an entrepreneur, risks like this are always present, and the employee transitioning into the business owner world needs to be prepared with the risk taker mind set.

• You are a student or learner at heart: An entrepreneur is a learner, otherwise, they have already signed their ticket to failure. If unable to take instructions from others that have walked the path where one wants to walk e.g. reading their books, taking classes from them, listening to their advice, etc, then perhaps the entrepreneur route is not the right one for that person.

• You are a leader: of course, the entrepreneur must have a leader mindset. They are leading the business they have founded into success through their decisions. They must have a leader mentality that is able to drive results, and even, motivate others to achieve the results they want to see.

• You are die-hard: An entrepreneur is resilient. Failures are their learning tools. They bounce back from unsuccessful ventures and try again. Such a mindset is actually a success mindset because it is essentially indicating that success is achieved when failures are learnt.

With these five simple summaries and mindsets, I hope you are able to analyze the mindset of an entrepreneur that you, perhaps, may want to achieve! Leave a comment below if you have any thoughts on what an entrepreneur’s mindset should be.