Entrepreneur vs Business Owner

They're almost two different animals. An entrepreneur has a heart to produce results with whatever creative challenges they have. I feel that a business owner is more profit based and has a head for business. I guess you could say it's a heart V. head thing.

Just my opinion, but in my mind this is how I see it:

Entrepreneur = visionary

Business Owner = does what needs to be done

I feel a business owner could be successful at something they don't necessarily love, whereas an Entrepreneur is always creating and pushing the boundaries

A. ENTREPRENEUR:

He or she possesses:

1. An Idea

2. A market niche

3. The desire to control individual destiny

4. The willingness to learn how to run an enterprise

5. Ability to work hard.

6. The desire to build unique entities that are individually their own

B. BUSINESS OWNER:

The person or persons registered on the Articles of Incorporation with the state as the rightful holders of employer and tax I.D. numbers for an enterprise when it is registered to become a business.

DIFFERENCE:

A may = B but not always.

There are silent partnerships, financing arrangements, operating agreements and other circumstances whereby the entrpreneurial drive behind an enterpirse is not vested in the owner.

Holding companies and similar corporate identities make owners removed from the entrpreneurial level and public companies sell stock making the stock holders owners in businesses.

Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway's entrenrurial niche, in fact is finding entrpreneurs and good long term investments that pay off.

Most business owners start there businesses because they are very good at what they do! They run the business and are more technical in nature with a large leaning to opertional duties in the business as well as all getting involved in all aspects of the business from Admin, Accounts, HR, Strategice Development, Personal Dev, IT, Marketing and Sales etc

An entrepreneur is somebody who is "opportunity obsessed". He has the ability to take the opportunity, look for recources to exploit the opportunity and most imortantly if a team is needed an entrepreneur has the ability to identify people who compliment his weaknesses with the aim to build a profitable enterprise that can be sold or harvested for a capital gain. An etrepreneur will then seek out further ventures with similar aim.

Personally I think entrepreneurs and business owners represent two very different populations but there is some overlap (represented by an intersection if they were represented in a ven diagram).

The big differences I've seen can be summed as:

Business owners are focused on execution.
Entrepreneurship are focused on vision.

Additionally, entrepreneurship is a way of looking at the world that is more about creation, innovation, and (re)imagination and less about P&L and the operating aspects of running a business.

There are plenty of examples of entrepreneurs who have started successful businesses but rarely do they stick around once their vision has been realized.

Big companies are beginning to see the value which entrepreneurs can bring to a business and there is a big push in corporate America to foster Intraprenuership within big corporations. I think this trend will make great strides to blur the lines between the 2 further and make businesses more entrepreneurial.

I guess my final comment would be that even though the two may be different in all the ways mentioned, both of them need to imbue similar aspects into their journey to really succeed - Passion, Motivation, Know their North Star, Know Why they're on that Path, be able to Grow Professionally as well as Personally and so on. So they may be differently orientated, but still need the same impetus's in their own individualistic way.

As A Small Business Owner ... What Keeps You Awake At Night?

Well, to be honest, as a small business owner I have to admit that nothing keeps me up at night, I have learned that worrying accomplishes nothing, and I do my problem solving and strategic thinking during the day then let it go at night.

There will always be difficult situations or problems that arise that cause distress and need to be dealt with, issues with clients or customers that are way beyond the norm, like if you are being sued or you are suing someone.

Anything to do with money, revenues, taxes, payroll, cash flow and the like if there are problems in that area and that tends to be dependent on existing and new business. For without customers you have no revenue.

The other thing is your employee satisfaction, productivity, loyalty and camaraderie. If there is dissent or friction in the office, if employees are sabotaging another, it can be hell on earth. When employee issues arise, they can cause big headaches.

So these are the areas that would be the cause for consideration if they are not going well.

The Biggest Mistake That Small Business Owners Make

I know that there are a lot of options here. But if you had to narrow it down to just one mistake that is keeping small business owners from reaching their potential what would it be?

Her's one take ....

Before becoming a small business owner most of them are directed by society through schooling and the corporate business world. In both there is orientation, training, a boss (a teacher or a supervisor), rules and regulations, policies and procedures, evaluations; in essence there is a structure they must conform to. They are told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.

Then they go into the world of the entrepreneur. There is no orientation, training, rules and regulations, etc. There is no structure. They do not have a boss. Nobody tells them what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. Instead of everything being created for them, they have to create it themselves.

Unfortunately the direction they received in school and in the corporate business world is very limited in it's value of helping them to be successful as a small business owner. Everything in school and the corporate business world is based on linear processes happening one after the other. In the entrepreneurial world things don't happen in a linear fashion and everything is happening simultaneously. They also are responsible for everything instead of just their cubical. This creates confusion and overwhelm to the small business owner and they end up being in a constant stage of reaction instead of planning.

The difference in being an entrepreneur is that the business is them and they are the business, unlike the corporate world where they are just a cog in the machine.

Those that try to help the small business owner get this situation under control through methods of consultation, etc. usually come from the same background and push the expertise they gained in their cubical in the corporate business world. Again, very limiting.

If there is a silver bullet to how to be a successful small business owner why do we have thousands of books on the subject? Why isn't there only one? Because it's how each author was able to make-it but that doesn't mean everyone can make-it in the same way. Everyone is looking outside of themselves to find the answer.

The answer is inside of each of us. Whatever is going on inside of each of the small business owners will manifest in their businesses. For example, you usually don't find a very disorganized business owner having a very organized business.

Before we went into society, when we were little children, we knew what we liked and we knew what we didn't like. In fact, if someone tried to make us do something we didn't like, we got very upset. We also worked in a way that was natural to us. We didn't have to ask how to do something, we just went and did it.

Then we went into the Borg. Remember the Borg in the TV series Startrek, The Next Generation? The Borg was the gigantic cube that went around the universe sucking everyone into it and in doing so, they lost all of their individuality. That's what happens to all of us when we go to school and the corporate business world.

In the world of the entrepreneur the business owner has to know who they are, why they want to play the game, and why they want to win. They can not hide in a cubical. They have to really dig deep and find what they are passionate about, what really matters to them, where they get their energy from and be doing what they would be doing, even if they won the lottery.

Without this awareness and being able to harness the energy and power from that awareness, they are like a lost ball in tall weeds.

So the biggest mistake they are making is not finding their authentic self. This is not easy to do by yourself. They need to find someone that has done it and can help them as well.

An entrepreneurial business is created from the inside of the business owner out into the business. In a corporate business it is created from the outside in.

"Believe that things will work somehow out... follow your intuition
 and curiosity... trust your heart even when it leads you off the 
well-worn path... You have to trust that the dots will somehow
 connect in your future... The only way to do great work is to love 
what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't 
settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find
 it... Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They 
somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else 
is secondary." - Steve Jobs, Apple

The Stress Of Being A Small Business Owner

Business owners, especially small business owners, are notorious for over-working even though they know they can do better if they relax.

Starting a small business is often like being hired for several full-time jobs simultaneously.

As the owner, you are the marketer, HR specialist, Sales person, accountant, and so on and so forth...

At the initial stages this might be inevitable, especially as funds are often times limited. But in order to grow your small business, a key skill is essential .... to be able to delegate.

It is not easy to learn how to delegate. As an entrepreneur, it is hard for you to accept that someone else can actually do some of your tasks just as good asyouI can.

The key for success though lies in finding and trusting people who can actually do things better than you.

Once you develop this skill, and are fortunate enough to build a growing team of wonderful people with so many diverse talents, you'll be able to spend more time with your family and friends, travel, turn off the phone (!), enjoy nature, great food, and the company of your spouse or significant other.

Now maybe this sounds too simple .... but you get the point.

Feel free to share as replies how you relieve the stress of your Small Business.

Is it Just Wrong or an Opportunity Waiting to Happen?

I was chatting with a client recently about how hard it is sometimes to recover and move forward after something has gone wrong. Getting over the sensation of having been ‘wronged’ or of being the party who’s committed the ‘wrongful act’ is a process all by itself that, in business, can slow progress to a screeching halt while everyone tries to avoid the pointing fingers. My client said something powerful: ‘people would rather admit things are imperfect than admit to being wrong’. In business, however, the political nature of participants who are competing for attention, recognition or limited pats on the back is often to either assign or avoid blame. The result of either of these efforts is to ignore the more important focus which is the one from which all could gain: what didn’t work, how can it be avoided going forward, and what can we learn as a result?

In the meantime, real resolution to the problem is still waiting; slowed or avoided because no one wants to admit to being wrong. If you, the motivator-in-chief, can recognize that in imperfection is the opportunity to improve, there may be a key to moving things along, avoid the need to accuse and speed improvements. Not so easy to do yet it sure beats the alternative poisoned environment. While you’re wondering if this is how things are done at your place of business, consider these questions:

1. Is your business environment one in which people are rewarded for an innovative attempt or only some recognizable success after the attempt? While the latter may have some immediate, quantifiable whooppee impact, the former will net you an employee who’ll keep trying to make things better for you and your business.

2. Is assigning blame for what went wrong more powerful than seeking process improvements? The former may puff up an ego while the latter may continue to build a business (and may puff multiple egos, if that’s meaningful for you.)

3. Do your employees compete with each other instead of other companies in your category of provider? While this might be useful in a strictly sales environment, in every other way it diminishes the greater growth and productivity that can come from shared resources and support.

4. Do you have a file of mis-steps taken by employees that you’ll dust off during the ’someday-in-the-future’ annual review? If you’d like to learn just how much you might be missing on the power of well-designed performance reviews, just shoot me an email with ‘performance’ in the subject line.

I wonder which of these environmental norms will lead beyond ‘imperfect and getting better’ and which will keep you in the ‘wronged’ sensibility?

Got the World on a String or Its Weight on Your Shoulders?

Small business owners are often faced with challenges of priority that can tie a knot no stomach should ever experience. They believe they’re completely responsible to their business when in fact the reverse is true: their business owes them everything. They believe their most important role is in perfecting their product when, in fact, their true product, their enterprise, often begs for attention. They believe that unless they’re engaged in ‘doing’ they’re not truly working. And yet, if they’re not engaged in ‘thinking’, ‘dreaming’ and ‘envisioning’ they’re ignoring their most important task: planning the development and health of their business. They believe they need to attend to daily tasks when, in fact, they must attend to all the tomorrows of their enterprise. They think it’ll take less time to just ‘do it myself’ rather than train an employee. In fact, by ‘doing it myself’ they’re prevented from doing the work only they can do while handling tasks a $10/hour employee could do. They go into business to have more time and freedom and then become slaves to a needy master: their business.

Is the way it’s supposed to be?

Not in my play book. Owning a business is a vehicle, one of many, to help achieve the bigger vision for your life. Yet somehow, that vision can become subverted along the way and the owner – maybe you – loses the many sources of joy and accomplishment that could be derived from all the other elements of your life. Instead of enjoying the rewards of business ownership, life becomes a brief escape from enslavement to the enterprise to which you now feel wholly responsible. Can this change? Yes!

Here’s how:

Step 1: recognize that your life is far bigger, richer, varied and flexible than your business.

Step 2: learn how to shape the business to be consistent with and responsive to the bigger priorities, values and goals you have for the rest of your life.

Want a major wake-up call to see how far from your life priorities your business has taken you? Just shoot me an email – andrea@coachinginsight.com – with “how far off track am I” and I’ll send you a tool to let you figure it out and decide what you’ll do about it.