Can you discern the differences between businessmen and
entrepreneurs? In vocabulary, both are synonymously similar. Both have to form a company, start a
business, sell products to customers and pay their dues. But it does sound better when you’re known as an entrepreneur rather than a
businessman. Nonetheless, a so-called entrepreneur would stay a businessman, if
he lacks substance in being an entrepreneur.
Businessmanship is
not a word, but entrepreneurship is. So,
what is entrepreneurship? Once, I asked a college student majoring in Finance
and Economics; and he just stared blank at me. Of course, anyone can consult
Google and find a bunch of answers, but if I did it that way, then my blogpost
would look placidly plain, wouldn’t it?
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| Typical businessman |
Some friends compared me with one of our common friends, and
asked why am I more successful even though we are almost in the same industry?
My reply amused them. I said, while we both started small, I applied businessmen
practices to achieve the results of an entrepreneur; while he, an MBA graduate,
did it the reverse way.
A businessman’s approaches are calculative; he will be frugal
when the resources are limited in order to survive but he would never sacrifice
the vision. Just like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos, if a garage is
good enough for an office in the beginning, then it is an office.
Unlike businessmen, money shouldn’t be the only lure to
start a journey for an entrepreneur. Yes, you can act like a calculative
businessman, but you have to develop a mindset maintained like an entrepreneur.
The right mindset is more crucial than a recipe that a step-by-step guide tells
you on what to do to become an entrepreneur.
Would you have everybody sit down for a proper meeting, or you’d
go straight to tackle a problem even without one? Do you fancy a SWOT analysis
before anything is fundamentally laid down, or passionately jumpstart something
that is instinctively right? Would you prefer a first-class report that
will score you an A academically, or you would do a first class job even
without a report? Would you choose to collect customer feedback from disseminating
well-designed questionnaires, or you’d rather breathe in tandem with your
customers? These, are the questions.
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| What is entrepreneurship? |
To run an MBA-like enterprise, you may look professional, yet
you could end up as just a businessman, if the luxurious pack that contains all
kinds of tools, equipments, methods, strategies and skills eventually shrink to
merely an objective on your monthly balance sheet.
All the expensive formalities that come from the business books may
not yield you the anticipated results if ones don’t pursue the core concepts,
but hunt only for the details. And the few cores are in fact spiritual, rather
than physical substances.
A businessman cares more in making money; an entrepreneur cares in a
larger perspective, including humanitarian community and social responsibility.
A businessman is nearsighted; focuses mainly on a monthly sale. An entrepreneur
is visionary; stresses on research and development. A businessman trades to
trade; an entrepreneur builds to trade. A businessman considers employees as costs;
an entrepreneur treats them as assets. A businessman strategizes on
exploitation; an entrepreneur believes in human resource development. A businessman
turns himself into a selfish rich man; an entrepreneur brings wealth to the
society at the same time.
