We just celebrated the 4th of July which is about our country’s independence and freedom. As entrepreneurs, we celebrate freedom every day. I know we tend to feel stressed and overworked a lot so it’s important to remember and appreciate why we chose this path. Today I’d like to reflect on the many freedoms of an entrepreneur.
- Freedom to chart our own course. You have heard my stories about my years of working in corporate America and I know that many of you have had similar experiences, whether it was working for a corporate law firm, the government or the Fortune 500. Within all of those environments, unless you’re at the very top, the direction of the organization is set by someone else. It can be quite frustrating when you observe an opportunity in the market but you just can’t turn the big ship around quickly enough to take advantage of it. Now our ships are a little smaller, but they’re incredibly nimble and we can adjust our sails to be at the right place at the right time to take advantage of opportunities and nibble away at the market share of our corporate counterparts.
- Freedom to hire who we want. I’m a big proponent of getting the right people on the bus. Sometimes that means hiring someone who may have skills a little different than what you initially thought, but you know they’re the right cultural fit, have the right attitude to learn, and will be committed to the success of your company. In the corporate world, you need to get approval for a position opening, create a very firm job description, spend what seems like an eternity waiting for HR to post, screen, and send you a shortlist of candidates who may or may not feel like the right fit. Then once you and a few other people interview, you select a candidate and you need to wait again until HR creates an offer that is balanced against the thousands of other people who work for the organization, negotiate with the candidate, and then wait for their notice period with their current employer. That process can take months and meanwhile, you and your team feel like they’re drowning in work. Except it’s corporate so they don’t always feel that same passion to get the job done as you do. Today’s job market is getting a little crazy for many businesses and we need to move faster. Personally, I’m grateful for the freedom to hire who I want, when I want, provided that the numbers of the business support it.
- Freedom to charge what we want, even if it’s zero. When you work for a big company, the prices for products and services are set and you need to run it up the flagpole, as the saying goes if you need to discount, and you’d better have a darned good business case to support the ROI of that decision. The market may have moved and your services may be worth more or less than they were a few months ago, but back to the challenges of turning a big ship around, it’s not always easy to make changes. If your prices are too low, then clearly the company is leaving money on the table. If they’re too high, then your sales team finds themselves feeling frustrated when they repeatedly take clients through the sales process only to reach the end and lose on price. As an entrepreneur, I’m grateful that I can not only set prices that are fair for my clients and support putting the right level of effort into the work we do but also that when we decide to do pro bono work for an underprivileged small business, we can just do it.
- Freedom to work with who we want. We also have the freedom to choose our clients. This is an important freedom that not every entrepreneur takes advantage of as they build their business. Clients who are the wrong fit can be a drain on your resources, demotivate your team and kill your financials. One of the most important steps in your sales process should be to check how well the client fits your delivery capabilities, and whether they seem like a company who is the right cultural fit for your business. When you work for a big company, you need to work with whichever clients are handed to you, and not all of them will behave in a way that will make them your favorites. When you run your own business, you can decide who you want to work with, and even fire clients if they turn out to be a bad fit, choosing to invest in those clients ready and willing to grow with you and refer you to others.
Building a business on our own terms is likely why most of us chose this path. We saw an opportunity to do things differently. We wanted the freedom to create the kind of business that would make us proud, to work with smart people we get along with, to price our work fairly, and to help others in need. All of these freedoms would not be possible without the basic freedoms this great country of ours provides, and for that today I’m grateful.
In the words of entrepreneur powerhouse Damon John, “Align yourself with the right people, forge the right relationships, and you’ll set yourself up for the long run. We all want the freedom to make our own decisions.” And that’s the power of being an entrepreneur.
We’ve taken the right first steps by launching our business and aligning with the right people in our network. Now it’s up to us to forge stronger relationships.