5 Steps to Transition From an Employee to an Entrepreneur

Gone are the days when you saved seven different versions of your resume, one for each slight variation of the many job postings you monitored. You likely shudder at the thought of smiling through the multi-step recruitment whac-a-mole of the screening call, the hiring manager interview, the five-person panel interview, and then the final interview with the hiring manager’s manager. And say goodbye to enduring your former employer’s sappy All Hands meetings and, yes, sayonara to those awful annual performance reviews.  

You’re now an entrepreneur—with paying clients and your days as an employee are behind you.

Here are five things you should do to ease your transition from being an employee to an entrepreneur.

Shift to An Entrepreneur Mindset

You’re now an entrepreneur and you’re no longer driven by the company’s sales and other objectives; you now focus on your company’s objectives. For example, you likely already made decisions about the types of services you’ll provide, your target market, your revenue goals, and the broader mission of the company.  Once you’ve launched the business, you’re getting your footing on how to attract clients, how to refine your sales processes, and finding ways to provide streamlined services.

Your mindset has to shift because, as an entrepreneur, you must be fully invested in the overall growth and stability of your company and persistently pursue your business goals until you reach them.

Educate Yourself About Your Industry

Your perspective on your industry will also likely change. As an entrepreneur, you are focused on industry trends, your competition, new resources and innovations you may need to integrate into your business, and who the thought leaders are. In fact, you may position yourself to become a thought leader.

You may also join professional organizations and attend relevant conferences as a representative of your business. These are obviously great opportunities to develop new business relationships that could lead to collaborations or new clients.

Create Processes and Systems

Over time you will realize certain tasks are repetitive, time consuming and may not be the best use of your time. This is when you will need to create processes and systems to create efficiencies in your business. For example, if you hire interns or an assistant, instead of training the new intern each time, you can instruct the intern to review the written processes and systems that have been created and to ask any questions.  Two additional benefits of having processes is the reduction of costs and errors.

Ramp Up Your Personal Accountability

You will need to be self-driven and be self-disciplined to continually provide value for your clients, find new ways to create value for new markets, determine the best approach to promote your services, and consistently promote your products and/or services.

Get to Know and Track Your KPIs

Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be developed for an industry, a company, a project and even an employee. There are also financial KPIs, operational KPIs, business development KPIs, marketing KPIs and more.

These critical indicators serve as a rubric for your company to help you measure if your company is meeting its objectives. According to Gitnux, the KPIs for an independent consulting business include lead generation, number of current clients, revenue growth, average project duration, profit margin, client satisfaction score, project completion rate, and return on investment.

I hope these 5 steps help in your transition from an employee to an entrepreneur. Have any others to share? Feel free to send me a note at [email protected].

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