In 2013 I made the decision to not pursue another contract at the end of my current one. I did a lot of contract work in those days. I had my degree to finish and we were in the process of relocating from Nashville to Chicago for my husband's work. I decided to pursue some passion projects that had been sitting on my mental shelf for a while (if you follow me on social media you know what they are). It never occurred to me that taking the route of an entrepreneur would make going back into the corporate world so difficult. I thought, "I know other people who have done this successfully so why not?", I can always go back.
What I learned is that hiring managers and people in corporate in general seem to think that being an entrepreneur is a bad thing. They don't understand what goes into it. I have heard the term lazy in networking circles, and that some see it as "not a real job" or that it "must be easy" because "your husband earns the real money". Was I offended, absolutely! Why would someone say such a thing!? And then I realized that it is because they have never stepped into that arena.
Being an Entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart or the lazy. It is more work than I ever juggled at my corporate jobs (and I juggled a lot). It requires extreme self-discipline, time management, and lots and lots of hours per day. You have to be at the top of your game when it comes to managing your resources; how and where you invest your time, money, and mental energy. You have to educate yourself on the industry you are in and any that could potentially impact that business.
I will give you an example, in Chicago, I researched starting a distillery. I had to not only know about how to make the product, but I also had to learn about commercial real estate, branding (labels, colors, trade marking), marketing (social media, press kits, web design), distribution, licensing per state, transportation, warehousing, the tier system that basically controls how you get into a market and move within that market, investing, and loads of other offshoots that go into just getting your distillery going.
What it came down to is that in order to be successful you need to be a project manager. What do I mean by that?
You have to have a very good grasp of how to identify the working order of things, i.e.… the order of tasks, and the target dates, and be a master at documentation and tracking. You need to understand who your customers are, both internally and externally, your stakeholders, and what information they are going to need before they ask. You have to be able to balance the budget, identify potential potholes and at any moment be ready to present where you are in the process to business partners, investors, or clients. In essence, you have to be able to wear all the hats while continuing to pivot and learn.
Being an entrepreneur means being a project manager. It means running multiple projects simultaneously and knowing what phase each one is in and where they need to go next. So when you look at someone who is an entrepreneur, understand that they have all the skills and energy to run your projects as efficiently and effectively as you can dream. We know how to handle the crisis and keep everyone motivated, on task, and on time.
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