'Focus Is Just as Important as Passion': How to Avoid Entrepreneurial Deficit Disorder in Franchising Learn how to avoid Entreprenurial Deficit Disorder—jumping from idea to idea due to boredom or the incorrect application of the entrepreneur's abilities — in your franchise
By Clarissa Buch Zilberman Edited by Carl Stoffers
Key Takeaways
- While passion is a driving force behind entrepreneurial success, it can lead to pitfalls if not accompanied by focus.
- Entrepreneurs who venture into franchising need to understand that these roles require different skill sets.
- Entrepreneurs often chase the excitement of new ventures, leading to a lack of sustained focus on their current business.
This is part 7 / 7 of The Multiplier Model: Section 2: Foundations For Success series.
The following excerpt is from franchise expert Mark Siebert's book The Multiplier Model. Buy it now.
While passion often drives an entrepreneur's success, it can also be their undoing — if that passion (which most of them have in abundance) is not accompanied by focus.
This can lead to something called an entrepreneurial deficit disorder. In other words, jumping from idea to idea due to boredom or the incorrect application of the entrepreneur's abilities.
Here's what to know — and some best practices to avoid it.
Being an entrepreneur and a franchisor is not always the same thing
I've also seen many entrepreneurs who struggle after franchising their business — once they realize that being an effective franchisor requires constant training and monitoring of the systems they created.
In this case, the entrepreneur's passion comes from creating a business rather than implementing it. To avoid this, you need to identify the source of your passion and then determine where that best fits within the organization.
Many times, that entrepreneurial spirit works best as the company visionary or as the face of the brand rather than as the day-to-day leader of the franchise organization.
To be successful in that case, entrepreneurs must be able to trust others to implement and monitor their original creation.
I tell people who are considering franchising that the most challenging part of creating a successful franchise is almost always coming up with the concept to be franchised.
Once the concept works successfully, the franchisor's focus, purely from a growth perspective, should be on duplicating the concept again and again and reinvesting the returns into the business.
Related: Want to Become a Franchisee? Run Through This Checklist First.
A bored entrepreneur is an entrepreneur in trouble
Without focus, passion can lead an entrepreneur to jump from one "great idea" to the next, all without successfully implementing any ideas. I have met many entrepreneurs with clear "grand slam" concepts who, instead of trying to improve their existing operations, decided to start something new from scratch.
Ideas for the next business venture come at entrepreneurs a mile a minute. Sometimes these symptoms can seem like attention deficit disorder, with the business owner jumping from one plan to the next.
Entrepreneurs are constantly looking for the adrenaline rush that comes from creating something new. Therefore, a huge problem awaits if an entrepreneur gets bored.
A bored entrepreneur may have built a business — but shortly after, they either want to completely remake it (in an effort to perfect it) or, even worse, decide to start a new business all over again.
Stay focused and carry on
If you are afflicted with entrepreneurial deficit disorder, you must learn to keep it under control — or it will cause you to lose focus and possibly harm your business.
Remember: One of the basic principles of the Multiplier Model is to start by building a "Money Machine" that provides a reasonable rate of return, and then replicating that business.
You will need a sustained focus on the same business for years to make this model work, but that's not to say you won't refine and change your business model as you grow. Constant refinement and evolving business models are essential for your Money Machine to remain viable. But if your business is providing strong and reliable returns, you cannot allow yourself to get sidelined by your next great idea.
Related: Is Franchising Right For You? Ask Yourself These 9 Questions to Find Out.
Get started with The Multiplier Model
Going from small business to successful startup to scalable growth takes more than just good luck. It takes a system. Over the last 34 years, franchising consultant and growth expert Mark Siebert has been sought out by more than 70,000 executives looking to expand their companies. Out of those 70,000, only 5,000 had the right systems in place to go from successful to scalable. In The Multiplier Model, Siebert discusses the factors that determine if an entrepreneur is ready to scale their venture — and the best ways to get started. Read more.
