In Profitable Problem Solving

And once you maximize your role as an Intreprenuer… how make sure you get the right reward for your accomplishments.

First ask yourself, are you an Intreprenuer?

Not sure? Assume YES if you answer the following questions affirmatively:

  • Do you have a history of driving innovation on behalf of your employer?
  • Are you a rock star employee constantly finding new ways to create value for customers and clients?
  • Are you able to succeed while your colleagues seem bogged down by your company’s best practices and business process ?
  • Are you comfortable taking risk to achieve a goal?
  • Do you see opportunity when the rest of the employees in your company see obstacles?
  • Do you often think about starting your own business and launching your own entrepreneurial endeavor?

Help Wanted…Employers are looking for a brilliant Intreprenuers?

If you think you are an Intreprenuer, congratulations, you are in good company.

Even more exciting, you have a cool connection to entrepreneurs. Often, the entrepreneurs that drive economic value by launching their own business concepts sharpened their industry expertise, business acumen, and market intelligence as an Intreprenuer. To understand the factoid associated with this claim, we turn to one of my favorite blogs, startupbros.com. Will Mitchell estimated that 75% of today’s entrepreneurs worked as an employee in their industry for more than 6 years before taking the big leap and launching their first company.

Intreprenuers stop short of launching their own company for a number of reasons. I have interviewed hundreds of Intreprenuers to understand how they drive value for the company they represent. While this is not an exhaustive list, check out a few of the reasons Intreprenuers offered as an explanation for stopping short of their dream to open their own company:

  • “I can’t afford to go without a paycheck
    Unable to capitalize their entrepreneurial endeavor in a manner that covers their existing salary and personal expenses;
  • “I have too much responsibility to risk my family’s future
    Need for benefits to cover their family and inability to tolerate an interruption to existing benefits;
  • “It seems overwhelming to think about getting the company off the ground
    Lack of confidence that they can pull together the operational requirements to fulfill orders and grow the business; and
  • “I have a unique idea but I don’t know how to build and protect a prototype
    Uncertainty about how to get started and properly protect their invention and intellectual property during the start up process.

What if you didn’t have that salary or those benefits? What if you lost your job?

To the extent that these responses suggest that the stability of employment creates a stall in entrepreneurialism is an interesting research question. The US Small Business Association conducted a study during the last economic recession to detect the possibility of a causal relationship between unemployment and entrepreneurialism. If you’re interested in reading the full study, hit the SBA site here. If you want the short answer, it seems that yes, the research does confirm unemployment spurred entrepreneurialism in a number of the industries measured in the study.

Why do companies want to keep their Intreprenuers happy?

The majority of executive leadership interviewed for my book, Profitable Problem Solving™, indicated they seek to hire and retain Intreprenuers because these rock star employees generate high amounts of productivity, habitually innovate products and process, and bring a contagious optimism to the company culture.

How do you maximize your role as an Intreprenuer and make sure you get the right reward?

What are the top 3 things you can do to maximize your role as an Intreprenuer and make sure you are rewarded?

PROFIT 6 steps

  1. Use a consistent approach to planning and organizing your Intreprenuerial endeavors. Make sure to introduce your projects to your superiors in a smart, organized business manner. Executives love business plans! If you don’t have an approach that works well for you, consider using the PROFIT steps introduced in Profitable Problem Solving™.
  2. Make sure you communicate the value of your Intreprenuerial accomplishments in an enterprise fashion. In other words, speak like a CEO! Don’t minimize the value of your accomplishment by quantifying gains or savings based on your own results; rather, express the value as if many others in your company can replicate the success and the value can be extrapolated to an enterprise value. If you need a tool for this, check out Factor 10 Results™ and the free tools available for you to calculate your own enterprise value.
  3. Build a portfolio of your Intreprenuerial accomplishments and use this to promote your value within the company. Employers will use the collection of accomplishments you have as a basis for providing recognition, more responsibility, and an increase in income. What can you do to help make this a reality? Simple. To maximize your opportunity for reward, you should keep the portfolio up to date, gather testimonials, and use enterprise value to describe your positive impact to the company.
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