Are You an Employee or an Entrepreneur?

If you are considering starting your own business, either a brick-and-mortar or Internet based business, you should take some time to study and learn about being an entrepreneur. There are fundamental differences between being an employee as compared to being an entrepreneur. Without a thorough knowledge of these differences you could be setting yourself up for failure before you even get your business launched.

The transition from employee to entrepreneur requires that you undergo something similar to a metamorphosis (remember the butterfly?) that will require you to change some character or personal traits. Here are just some of the traits you must change:

• Change in philosophy from security to freedom
• Conceptual ability to operate without money
• Ability to operate without security (no big organization or benefits to back you up)
• Focus on opportunity rather than resources
• Possess different management styles to communicate, and manage, different people
• Can manage people and resources that you do not directly control
• Are team and value oriented rather than pay or promotion driven
• Desire continual learning (you never graduate from this school)
• Aspire to generalized learning rather than specialized
• Have the courage to be responsible for your entire business

Look back at your parents or grandparents generation, or even to time before that. People had to develop almost all of these traits in order to survive. Farmers, such as my grandparents, had to know a lot, about a lot of different topics, in order to successfully plant, grow, harvest and sell if they were to be successful. They also had to be experts in weather, pest control, transportation and, yes, even parenting. In Robert Kiyosaki's book, "Before You Quit Your Job," he notes that if you could be a successful farmer, you also have the potential to be a successful entrepreneur.

Take a few moments to review the list above and to conduct a self-assessement. Where are your best strengths? Where do you need to do some work before you quit your job to become an entrepreneur? Mega-success is within your grasp as long as you understand the transitional steps you need to take and then take action to develop those skills and traits.

Copyright M. A. Webb, 2005. All Rights Reserved

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