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If You Cannot Be An Entrepreneur, You Should Be An Intrapreneur Not An Ordinary Employee

Feature Article If You Cannot Be An Entrepreneur, You Should Be An Intrapreneur Not An Ordinary Employee
FEB 4, 2017 LISTEN

A lot of young people in every nook and cranny are becoming entrepreneurs. Few of them possess the right mindset and attitudes of a true entrepreneur. Funnily enough, many of them are not really entrepreneurs but rather mere businesspeople. The fact that you started, are running and earning income, does not necessarily make you an entrepreneur. Some people who claim to be entrepreneurs are actually not entrepreneurs; they are businesspeople who only make money. Remember, there is — what I call "the entrepreneur spirit" — which every real entrepreneur exudes, though there are degrees or levels. Besides, many folks are poor candidates for entrepreneurship, i.e. they cannot become entrepreneurs. Why? They are naturally unable to accommodate "the entrepreneur spirit." That is why I would encourage them to grow into intrapreneurs not ordinary employees. I will elaborate on why and how later in this article.

Now back to the issue of "the entrepreneur spirit." There are a gazillion definitions of an entrepreneur, yet most of them are given on a superficial level. But if you understand "the entrepreneur spirit," you can define an entrepreneur correctly. Alright, "the entrepreneur spirit" is the mindset and attitudes of a person primarily filled with purpose, passion, risk-taking, innovation and impact — everything else is secondary. For any self-acclaimed entrepreneur who is lacking in these supreme attributes is not a genuine entrepreneur but a fake one. My motivational book, "Control Your Own Destiny," even greatly explains them all. Interestingly, risk-taking and sometimes, passion, are the areas entrepreneur-struck wannabes often fail at. Well, if you cannot sacrifice something extremely important and start really, really small in order to go nuts about it, you cannot become a successful entrepreneur.

However, you could try intrapreneurship rather than ending up as an ordinary employee. An intrapreneur is an entrepreneur and has "the entrepreneur spirit," but he or she works for an entrepreneur's business, which is usually not his or her brainchild. The entrepreneur is the brains behind the business and would oversee it from start to finish. The intrapreneur is the chief associate of the entrepreneur in the course of the business idea. So if you do not have what it takes to found a business from scratch as an entrepreneur, you could become an intrapreneur. You would have to identify a friend or anyone who has established a business as an entrepreneur, and help him or her build the business. Do not think of or expect to receive salaries like an ordinary employee throughout the hustling years of the business. Focus on sacrifices, hard work and vision. If you have some money, you should invest it in the entrepreneur's business.

Most importantly, you ought to negotiate with the entrepreneur regarding the terms and conditions of ownership in the business in an appropriate and eventually legal way. It is also advisable to become the COO of the business, because it gives you first-hand knowledge and experience of the business, and it makes you the second-in-command in the entrepreneur's business. The two greatest advantages of being an intrapreneur over being an ordinary employee are: firstly, you would be a senior management executive and mostly a big shareholder in the business unlike an ordinary employee who only earns a monthly salary. Secondly, you would hardly be fired, wrongly or unjustifiably, from the entrepreneur's business. Yes, because you have a considerable share in the business's financial success, so you can sue them if you have a favourable case. Forget the Steve Jobs phenomenon in Apple; even if you lose the power struggle, you could decide to quit the business and sell your significant shares in the business to start another business like Steve Jobs did. Note that, you would be really miserable if you were fired from your job as an ordinary employee.

Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook worth over $1 billion, is a great epitome of an intrapreneur. On her Wikipedia profile, it revealed that, "...In March 2008, Facebook announced hiring Sheryl Sandberg away from Google for the role of COO. After joining the company, Sandberg quickly began trying to figure out how to make Facebook profitable. Before she joined, the company was "primarily interested in building a really cool site; profits, they assumed, would follow." By late spring, Facebook's leadership had agreed to rely on advertising, "with the ads discreetly presented"; by 2010, Facebook became profitable. According to Facebook, she oversees the firm's business operations including sales, marketing, business development, human resources, public policy, and communications..."

Source: sirarticle.blogspot.com
Written by Sir Article, Founder and CEO of Sircle Communications.

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