Routes to Entrepreneurial Success
A recent business publication featured a profile of a young man, Andrew Dixon, in Concord, NH who started his own business providing a variety of services to small businesses in the area. These include paper shredding, courier and delivery services. It is of particular poignance in this case because the young proprietor has autism. The piece positioned the young man as an “entrepreneur,” a term I’ve heard applied to a wide variety of individuals from Bill Gates to well, Andrew.
If you really are an entrepreneur, you probably don’t need to be told how to be one, and you probably couldn’t care less what the personality types best suited to entrepreneurship are. You’re too busy growing your company to worry about it. On the other hand, if you’re thinking about starting your own business – as many are these days –
one source of guidance is 4 Routes to Entrepreneurial Success by John Miner.
His study of entrepreneurs might be just the ticket either to get you going toward your dream, or keep you from walking off a cliff of self-delusion. Either way, it will have earned its keep.
The Oxford American Dictionary defines entrepreneur as “a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks.” So there’s an element of risk involved as well as suffering the slings and arrows of running a business. Miner divides entrepreneurs into four categories: Personal Achievers (self-starters), Supersalespeople (people who need people), Real Managers (growth specialists), and Expert Idea Generators (original thinkers). Seems to be everyone I’ve ever met thought they belonged in the last category. He also describes two additional groups, The Complex Entrepreneur and People Without Patterns. In each case he offers insights into the styles that make up each category to help you determine your place – or lack if it – in the entrepreneurial pantheon.
The author’s advice on how to be successful (short form: be yourself) reminds me of a family joke I like to share from time to time—the story of the little ant who really wants to be a cricket. He runs off to play with the other crickets and before you know it he’s been arrested for drunk and disorderly in a cricket bar. When the mommy ant comes down to bail him out she tells him, “See? It really is best to be yourself after all!” That’s a variation of the original version, but you get the idea.
After suggesting we be energetic, learn the business, set goals and be flexible, Miner makes a point often lost on small business owners: “Be a problem solver. Tackle any problem, manage any crisis, and do it personally. (Emphasis mine. ) Be where the action is. Remember that the business is a larger reflection of you.” Some small business owners like to apply that last idea when things are going well, but duck behind key staff when they’re going poorly.
The author’s take on each of the four styles of entrepreneurship are based on his study of more than one hundred established entrepreneurs, most of whom (79) achieved some level of growth. He illustrates the various management types with absorbing case studies and offers a self-assessment test you can use to find out where you stand on the entrepreneurial scale.
Another comprehensive resource is Zeromillion.com, a web site devoted to the care and feeding of entrepreneurs. A main feature is an entrepreneur’s library with 21 categories of business help from business cards to business plans to web sites. There’s a while paper, “Building 1000’s of Links to your Site,” and there’s an e-book with interviews of entrepreneurs, CEO’s.and more.
There’s also Entrepreneur Magazine (entrepreneur.com) which is a bit franchise heavy, but also carries lots of how-to for aspiring entrepreneurs. So what are you waiting for? Go get’em!
