Archive for Entrepreneurism
Entrepreneurship & Well-Being
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If you are not familiar with it, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index tracks and measures the emotional, psychological and physical health of Americans across all sectors. Their website is a fascinating current and historical snapshot of our country. From their data, many important lessons can be learned about us – individually and collectively.
Recently, Gallup-Healthways published a report that demonstrated that entrepreneurs have the highest overall well-being of any occupational group – despite the fact that business owners work longer hours than any other category. The research shows that working long hours doesn’t actually diminish one’s well-being with the exception of those who are not really engaged in their work.
The Gallup-Healthways report further breaks down the well-being ranking into six sub categories:
- Work Environment. Entrepreneurs score 16 percentage points higher than the next highest occupation. The ranking is based on job satisfaction, the ability to use strengths at work, and the level of trust and openness in the work environment.
- Basic Access. This metric is based on access to basic needs, such as food, shelter, healthcare, and a safe, satisfying place to live. Entrepreneurs placed fourth in this category, trailing Manager/Executives, Professionals, and Clerical.
- Emotional Health. Interestingly – but perhaps no surprise – those working in the Farming/Forestry sectors lead this category, followed by Professionals, Manager/Executives, and Entrepreneurs.
- Healthy Behavior. This sub-index measures four behaviors strongly linked to physical health: eating healthy, smoking, regular consumption of fruit & veggies, and frequency of exercise. Again, Farming/Forestry workers lead this, followed closely by Entrepreneurs.
- Physical Health. This measures nine items that indicate chronic or daily illness. Construction workers rate in a statistical tie with Manager/Executives, then Professionals, Sales, Installation, Farming/Forestry, followed by Entrepreneurs. This is the category where Entrepreneurs rank lowest in the survey.
- Life Evaluation. This measures where people evaluate their present and future lives on a scale of 1 to 10. Entrepreneurs rank fourth in this category, trailing Professionals, Manager/Executives, and Sales workers.
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Capital, Confidence and Concept
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Conventional wisdom says that starting your new business is risky, although these days “risk” is a relative term.
It turns out that working for someone else is risky, too – as so many people have discovered in the past 18 months. Evidently, joining a union for the perceived promise of stability doesn’t remove that risk, and neither does working for the government.
In the presence of the risks of entrepreneurism, there are, however, two things you need to bring to the table in some combination when you make the leap to start your own business: Capital and Confidence. The need for these two elements exists in a constantly evolving, symbiotic dance because the amount of either that is available at any given moment varies. In a general sense, the less capital you have, the more cajones you need to survive.
Nevertheless, many small business epitaphs have been written by entrepreneurs who had an abundance of both, but who lacked a solid, well-thought-out concept of what they were actually doing. In other words, a bad business idea – or a good business idea executed poorly – has the power to trump everything else when it comes to achieving ultimate success.
The concept of concept is multi-faceted. You can have a general idea of something that might make a successful business model and still have absolutely no idea how to actually make it work. Which is why it makes sense to test your assumptions, build a good support system, increase your business skills and knowledge, and continually adjust your plan as you move forward. That is a powerful reason why business coaching makes so much sense for first-time entrepreneurs and new business owners.
Of these three elements – Capital, Confidence and Concept – the risks of entrepreneurism are only alleviated by improving your concept. Contrary to the assumptions of many first-time entrepreneurs, having what is perceived as “sufficient” capital doesn’t remove the risks at all – it only defines the amount of risk. And, confidence – although absolutely essential to any entrepreneur – can actually increase your risk if it isn’t appropriately balanced by the other two pieces.
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Assess Your Abilities and Resources
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Because starting your own business is a risky thing to do, it is important to come to grips early on about the potential risks you face. By facing those risks head-on, you can make an informed decision about whether or not you are willing to accept those risks. It also gets you thinking about ways you can reduce that risk.
Here are some important questions you can ask yourself:
- Do you have the financial resources you need?
- Can you afford to put your financial resources at risk? Can you afford not to?
- Do you have enough experience and skills necessary to go into business? If not, do you have access to the experience and skills of others?
- Do you know enough about your market to assess its needs and be able to sense and adapt to its needs?
- Do you have the tenacity that entrepreneurship requires?
- Do you have the discipline you will need to be accountable to yourself about your own performance? Read More→
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Entrepreneurs Tale of the Tape
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The numbers are compelling, but perhaps not surprising: entrepreneurs make our economy – period. Our economy isn’t driven by social programs, or by AIG/Lehman Bros/Morgan Stanley/General Motors or any other combination of banks or big business. The concept that “What’s good for GM is good for America” has been turned on it’s head: “What’s good for America is good for GM”! And, what IS good for America? NEW BUSINESS CREATION! Read More→
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- Capital, Confidence and Concept Conventional wisdom says that starting your new business is risky, although these days "risk" is a relative term. It turns out that working for someone else is risky, too - as so many people have discovered in the past 18 months. Evidently, joining a union for the perceived promise of......
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We Believe in Entrepreneurism
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Zogby Interactive conducted an interesting poll of Americans to see where the nation is placing its faith in a better future. “Who will lead us to a better future?” Here are the results:
- 63% – Small business and entrepreneurs
- 52% – Science and technology leaders
- 38% – Family and friends
- 36% – Ourselves
- 32% – Non profit groups
- 31% – The government
- 21% – Big business
- 13% – The media
These findings shouldn’t surprise us. Capitalism provides inherent economic freedom and opportunity. Because of that economic freedom and opportunity, capitalism connects us to our hopes and dreams.
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Business lessons from snow camping with Boy Scouts
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This weekend I spent Friday and Saturday in the company of 11 young men and 4 adult leaders on an overnight snow camping expedition in the mountains.
This involves digging a cave in the middle of a snowfield, and spending the night in it. For us, the temperature dropped to about 5 degrees. I’ve done this before, but that doesn’t mean I am acclimatized to January nights at almost 10,000 feet. Like all such adventures, we had a mix of success and failures. On the ride home today, it got me thinking about some of the comparisons between our experience and entrepreneurial business.
Here is my list:
- Leadership is a huge key to success. All other things being equal, it is ability of the leader to inspire, drive, motivate, organize, build confidence in, respect, and appreciate his team makes the difference between success and failure. Last night I watched a wise and experienced scout leader use all of those tools to keep a wet, tired and shivering young man not give up and feel good about his decision.
- If you are in a difficult or tenuous situation, you are much better off keeping the troops well fed. A positive distraction, well timed, can do wonders for the attitude of everybody. The difficulty of the task may not change, but at least your approach to it is positive and healthy.
- Don’t let someone who has not already walked down that particular path make the key decisions alone. It results in a finger-pointing frenzy.
- The value of insulation cannot be overstated. Those who were too quick into their snow caves without providing themselves with adequate protection from the cold and wet beneath them were soon sorry. It was a little thing – that didn’t take a lot more time or effort – that made all the difference. In business, asset protection planning is the same way.
- It can get dark and cold well before you are ready. Planning with foresight is essential.
- If you are haphazard in your planning and execution, it takes a long time to clean up after you.
- At the end of a task, there is tremendous value in taking time to de-brief, press team members for input on what they have learned or would do differently next time, and to emphasize key performance points and standards.
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Your next boss could be you! Prepare now to start your own company
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In this article, Ms. Ward discussed 7 steps you can take while you still have a job to prepare to start your own company now. You’ll have to check out the article for the details, but the steps include:
- Cinch in your spending appetite
- Check into home refinancing
- Maximize your credit card portfolio (which does not mean max out your credit cards!)
- Review and correct your credit history
- Complete your financing homework
- Test drive the entrepreneurial life
- Talk to entrepreneurs themselves
If you see the writing on the wall at your company, and are thinking of spreading your wings into the business world as a result, this is a quick, but worthwhile read.
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