Having helped several individuals and organisations with their businesses, in various capacities, I’ve learnt a lot about the psychological attitude of different people towards their business or careers. I’ve also learnt a lot about people’s attitudes towards the concept of a business, and the idea of a career or job. What I’ve found is that most people can’t really tell the difference between the two.
It’s all the more scary with creative and social entrepreneurs, who are usually inspired to go into a business based on a fantastic idea to apply their professional skills in an independent manner. Some people call this “freelancing”. Whilst it’s not necessarily a bad intention to start with, the problem arises when freelancers start thinking of themselves as entrepreneurs, but fail to think like entrepreneurs.
This difference in mindset can make or break the sustainability of a business or organisation, for various reasons that many business experts have written a lot about over the years. Here’s my simple and succinct version of the big idea:
An entrepreneur is someone who starts and runs a venture or enterprise, which provides an effective and valuable solution to a particular problem. The entrepreneur will either offer that solution for a price, or distribute it by some other means for whatever motivation. The freelancer, on the other, hand endeavours to provide a valuable solution to a particular problem using their own skills, expertise and experience.
The distinction is that the entrepreneur creates an enterprise that offers solutions, whereas the freelancer simply creates a job for themselves, in an effort to be their own boss. The entrepreneur goes to work on their business, whereas the freelancer simply goes to work in a business they happen to have started themselves. The entrepreneur works on their venture so that the success is dependent on the effectiveness of the process and independent of any individual’s time input. The freelancer works in their own business, whilst their return is almost always a function of their time.
I’ve met plenty of people who have argued, and will continue to argue, this distinction. This isn’t a matter of judgement about what’s better. I’m obviously not against selling individual skills and expertise – I do it myself!
However, the indisputable fact remains that if you’re looking for perpetual business success and freedom, you need to make sure you’re building a business, and not just creating a job for yourself. You can own a business, but a job will always ultimately end up owning you.
This is also a fair warning to many who start off with true entrepreneurial spirits and intentions, but get swept away in the operational technicalities of their work, and ultimately end up in the job of managing director, and hating it! This is something I constantly keep a check on myself. I hope that over the next few months and years Sketchpad Ideas proves to be bigger and more important than me or any one individual or group.
For more information about this, and to learn so much more about going to work on your business not in it, I highly recommend you check out Michael Gerber’s book The E-Myth Revisited
If you want some personal assistance to make sure you’re working on your business in a strategic way, and not involuntarily creating a job you hate out of something you love, get in touch.
