Mixed Blessing Great entrepreneurial characteristics can cause great big problems.

The very characteristics that are the marks of a goodentrepreneur can also cause trouble in companies and personallives. Recognizing and understanding this can go a long way towardpreventing problems many entrepreneurs struggle with, says Joan B.Scheel, assistant state director of the Small Business DevelopmentCenter of Utah in Salt Lake City.

For example, entrepreneurs are notorious for being good atstarting but bad at running a business. "That's thedifference between the entrepreneur and the manager," saysScheel. "Entrepreneurs have a talent and gift for the creationprocess, but it takes a manager to organize the details.Entrepreneurs need to either develop their management skills orhire managers to run their companies."

Entrepreneurs are also frequently accused of being toooptimistic, which can set them up for failure. Their view ofreality gets skewed by their passion for their ideas. "Theyneed to step back and set reasonable goals, and then create apractical plan to reach those goals," says Scheel.