The ‘Employee’ Versus The ‘Entrepreneur’
By Pam Lawhorne
I have been an employee for many companies, managed companies for others and started several of my own companies. While I was an employee, I did not care about the bottom line or profit margins. As a manager I cared about the bottom line and profit margins only as it pertained to my job and my salary. As a business owner the bottom line and profit margins are the difference between whether I eat and have a roof over my head or don’t.
I have never really considered myself a “business woman”. I have always considered myself an entrepreneur. The definition for a businesswoman (yes it’s in the dictionary) is: a woman engaged in business. A person engaged in commercial or industrial business. Whereas the definition for an entrepreneur is: a risk-taker who has the skills and initiative to establish a business. A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture.
As you can see there is a major difference between a businessperson and an entrepreneur just in the definition. I applaud anyone who makes the effort to make something out of their life either by running a business for someone else or for themselves. But sometimes it’s hard to transform a ‘business person’ into an ‘entrepreneur’ because some business people have what I call “employee mentality”. Employee mentality is simply when a person wants to start a business but may be too use to having a structured environment where they have others who will take on projects or ’step in’ when something needs to be done.
When you’re transforming yourself into an entrepreneur the problem, in most cases, is there is no one who can step in for you. You only have yourself to count on. Often, when people go into business for themselves after being in corporate America running someone else’s business for years, they fail. Why? Not because they don’t know how to run ‘A Business’ but because they do not know how to run ‘Their Own Business’.
There are certain things that you will learn in corporate America that will most definitely apply to owning a business of your own but it’s hard to get people to understand that there are so many things that you have not learned that you will need to learn and learn quickly!
I think as people we are all creatures of habit. We get so use to doing things a certain way and get so comfortable that we are resistant to change. If you are looking to start your own business after years of being an employee for someone else, you will need to re-train you mind. You have to teach yourself to use what you have to make it work and learn whatever skills you are lacking along the way. You’ll need to remind yourself that you will have to take risk. Some will be calculated, some will not. The important thing is that you continue to re-train your mind so to know that it will require countless hours of sacrifice from you to make it work.
I don’t know of many entrepreneurs who are just staring out who work from 9-5, 5 days a week and take 2 weeks of vacation a year. They have no sick days, no holidays or even days for bereavement. So when you transition from being an employee to entrepreneur, just keep in mind that these are just a few of many sacrifices that you’ll have to make but the list is endless! The question is are you ready?
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically each day to your feed reader.
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.