Your Inner Entrepreneur

Why doesn't everyone take their ideas to market?

Friday evening I sat in a conference room among students at Misericordia University attending the 8th Annual Entrepreneurship Institute. Prof. Jeff Babin, Wharton School, Univ. of Pennsylvania said, "If you ask yourself if you should start a business the answer is no, you are not ready yet". Entrepreneurs have a compelling burning desire to do what they do and their business happens as a result of the innovation, relationships, energy and vision they have and can't help.

The fact is the most recent published research from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2008 National Entrepreneurial Assessment for the United States of America reported 8.7% of adults 18-99 years of age were entrepreneurs. Certainly since the study was published, the economic downturn is said to have spurred increased entrepreneurship. But, if less than 1 in 10 owns a business, where does that leave the rest of us?

It leaves us to find what I call our inner entrepreneur.

Does everyone have an inner entrepreneur? How do we know? Though I personally know many people without one iota of entrepreneurial spirit, many people have one or more of the 7 characteristics Joe Hadzima, Senior Lecturer, MIT Entrepreneurship Center outlined in Seven Characteristics of Highly Effective Entrepreneurial Employees

• Ability to deal with risk
• Results oriented
• Energy
• Growth potential
• Team player
• Multi-tasking ability
• Improvement oriented

Employees with these characteristics enable companies to forge ahead, be innovative and grow. They act as business owners, have immense pride in and potent passion for what they do. They own their talent, continually seek to develop it and continually look to stretch themselves to see over the horizon to the next challenge and success.

I recently had a conversation with G.L. Hoffman about his new book, Start Up 100 Tips to Get Your Business Going, and speaking to young entrepreneurs in northeastern PA this coming fall. G.L. said that when he speaks he is often asked for the top 3 or top 5 lessons he has learned doing start ups. He decided to put his tips and thoughts for entrepreneurs in book form (another product offering from the GLH line of solutions).

As I read the book, I identified with much of it and the rest of it made me think. What jumped out at me was that many of the tips in this book, written for entrepreneurs in the dictionary sense of the term, are also highly applicable to the employee entrepreneur.

Start Up answers why story tellers are needed and why trusting your instinct is so important. It talks about blaming others, having fun and getting comfortable asking for advice and help.

If you put the right spin on these they easily turn into 100 tips for career management for your inner entrepreneur.