SO YOUR AN ENTREPRENEUR – BUT WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY DO?
So your an entrepreneur, but what is it you actually do? You can’t be an entrepreneur if all you have done is set up one business…..that’s a business person. So what is it you actually do?!
So you sell Multi Level Marketing products, or truth be told you scout your friends and family and try to recruit them to sell MLM products and then cream 20% off the top. Your sir or madam are NOT an entrepreneur or even a business person, you are a recruitment rep.
So you set up a business, sit in your office and post pictures of yourself looking a bit busy on your social media channels….all the while spending money on rent, rates and utilities without a single client. Your sir or madam are NOT an entrepreneur and until you make money and manage to sell your ‘Service’ then you are not even in business, you are in debt.
Now, you can have an entrepreneurial mindset, you can have ideas that are entrepreneurial and possibly even a entrepreneurial spirit but unless you have built at least one successful (read that as profitable) business and then used that profit to start a new business that might be totally un related to the first business, then you are not an entrepreneur, you are simply in business.
It goes a little something like this:
Out of Work,Starting a business, being in debt, building your client base, making sales, being in business, making a profit, selling that business or using the profit to start another business whilst the original business exists on its own with very little input from yourself whilst you look after this new venture. Then my man, or women, you are an entrepreneur.
You are definitely not an entrepreneur by setting up a website, a few social media channels and spending more money than you are making. You are also not an entrepreneur if you are spending OTHER PEOPLES MONEY, that makes you employed.
How can you tell if you are in charge of the business? it is pretty simple. Ask yourself “Do you have to run things by anyone else before you make a decisions?”. The important words there are “HAVE TO” not do you out of kindness or consideration, but do you have to get someone else’s permission? if you do then you are not in charge and most likely this stems from the fact that you are using someone else’s money to run your business. Which makes you a business person but not an Entrepreneur.
An entrepreneur takes the financial risk, and reaps the financial benefits. Yes they can have investors but they will need to answer to those investors and pay them back with profit on top. Actually scrap that, that still sound like being employed to me, just a bit posher.
So before you call yourself an entrepreneur (and I am certainly not one at this present time) then ask yourself if you are deluded, and be happy to know that you are in business, and in the process of becoming an Entrepreneur if that is what you wish to do in the future.
Richard Willett
