This is the second blog in a series of three blogs to discuss three different games of work. This blog discusses the work game entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs

An entrepreneur is almost always the person who starts a business and is the majority owner of the business. Entrepreneurs are really business owners in the first stage of business creation and development. Virtually all entrepreneurs want to advance to the business owner stage. Unfortunately, entrepreneurs become so wrapped up in the start up stages that they allow themselves to become the business. Many other entrepreneurs are lead to believe that the key to success is to do everything, and work long and hard hours as the center of attention entrepreneur. They try to do everything in the business, either because of ego, insecurities, lack of resources, lack of understanding, or any combination of the above. They are constantly working IN the business, and rarely, if ever allow themselves to work ON the business.

Most entrepreneurs operate within the conception, development and survival stages of the business, doing everything. They feel a need to become very self reliant, and to be the center of all aspects of their new entrepreneurship. Strong, dedicated, passionate, and constantly working are traits usually associated with entrepreneurs.

The rules to succeed for entrepreneurs are the same as for a business owner to succeed. However, the major differences are that a Business Owner will focus on the following all of these rules to success and Entrepreneurs will insist on doing other things and struggle, and most often fail. I am repeating the rules for success for the Business owner for clarity, but first and more importantly I am comparing the differences between how business owners operate within these rules and how entrepreneurs operate. When these differences are compared side by side, it becomes very apparent why people who start businesses would want to transfer out of the beginning entrepreneurial stage as soon as possible, or even better yet avoid the entrepreneur stage altogether.

I compare the differences first.

A. Business owners LEAD their business versus BEING the business as entrepreneurs
B. Business owners work ON their business versus working IN the business as entrepreneurs
C. Business owners clarify and communicate the true vision or purpose of their business, versus being the personality or center of their business.
D. Business owners focus on taking their business to the next levels of growth and prosperity versus focusing only on the daily details and struggling to just survive.
E. Business owners set a clear and very desirable role as part of their business to perform only the functions and duties the owner chooses, enjoys, and wants to perform versus having to do everything whether the entrepreneur wants to or likes performing them.
F. Business owners actually surround themselves with the people, outsourcing entities, and other resources to perform the other functions and duties the owner chooses to avoid, versus doing everything and wishing for or complaining about not having enough support.
G. Business owners take care of themselves to create their balanced life so the owner will have the stress free energy, time, and motivation to perform at peak productivity as the leader with much less time required, versus having to work long and hard hours to keep the business going as the must do everything core of the business, and at the expense of other areas of the entrepreneur’s lives.
H. Business owners are able to step away from their business to allow the business to perform on its own at an equal, if not higher, level without the business owner’s presence, versus being chained to the business as the do everything person that must be personally involved in activities of the business for the business to function.

Repeat of the rules to succeed for a business owner (and for how an entrepreneur can convert himself or herself into being a real business owner)

1 The owner must seek, take, and exercise complete responsibility for the success of the business.

2. The owner is the king or queen of the business. The owner leads the business.

3. The owner focuses his or her attention energies and efforts on the success of the business (not himself or herself)

4. The business must have a purpose for existence in order to survive and succeed. Generally this purpose follows the vision of someone, almost always the originating owner. This purpose must follow these rules. The purpose of the business is to produce products or services or both that GENERATE value into the world, normally better than others. A business without a value generating purpose will not survive. Making money is not a value generating process. The VALUE created by the products or services will ATTRACT money to pay for the value generated. The business becomes an organized group of people, energies, and assets that must be directed to one common goal, the purpose of the business, for the group called a business to succeed. The owner will want to keep the focus of the entire business on generating as much value as possible through the products and/or services of the business.

5. The owner will normally want to generate the purpose and vision of the business to create the reason for the business to exist. The owner will want to have a passion and personal belief in the business vision and the value of the products or services the business creates. Owners who have a true passion and belief in the purpose of the business will be able to recruit and lead others to follow and achieve the vision. However, owners who do not like, accept or believe in the business vision will not attract others to the vision. Others will recognize the lack of belief in the owner and will act accordingly.

6. The owner has total control over what he or she wants to do within the business. The owner will want to create his or her roll in the business to do the things he or she loves to do and avoid doing the things her or she dislikes doing so the owner is very productive, not stressed out by doing unpleasant things and has the energy to focus on leading the business to success.

7. The owner works ON the business so the business will operate with or without him or her. The owner will want the operation of the business and the resultant production of the products or services to generate the profits of the business in NOT dependent upon the owner’s presence or performance every time.

8. The owner surrounds herself or himself with people, assets, outsourcing resources, and other resources who fulfill the purpose of the business. The owner will want them to create the products and/or services and generate the values to meet the vision of the business. The owner recruits and accepts people, outsourcing resources, and others to produce the RESULTS the owner wants to fulfill and enhance the completion of the purpose of the business. Normally, the owner will want them to produce the desired results that the owner does not want to do himself or herself. The owner does NOT want to allow people to stay within the business who politic by stroking the owner or create diversions from the purpose of the business. The owner will want to keep the entire team focused on completing the mission of the business at all times, and better than done previously.

9. The owner is only paid from the profits of the business.

10. The owner can direct the business anywhere and towards different goals and purposes. The owner can add, change, or delete products and or services for the business to provide as the owner chooses, normally to enhance the existing or even new vision of the business.

11. The owner and the business have no limits to the size and degree of successes. As the owner grows and improves as a person so grows the business. The owner and business will have virtually no limits of growth and income potential. Look at Bill Gates and Walt Disney. Their businesses grew to monumental proportions.

Conclusion

If you are acting as an entrepreneur, you can easily see how, and better yet, you can now see what you can do to transform yourself into the successful and productive business owner you want to be. Making this transformation from do it all entrepreneur to business owner is vital to your business success and health, and vital to your own personal success and health. Making this transition on your own is possible, but will take a longer time with many false and erroneous paths. Using a personal coach to make this transition will prove to be a very quick, effective and efficient method, with few if any false erroneous paths