What is Entrepreneurship?

For nearly a decade DE, Inc. has focused on helping small business owners prepare their businesses to operate without their direct day-to-day involvement.  We created an entire line of small business tools and small business training to assist with the process.  National, regional, and local organizations catering to small businesses have partnered with us to offer these tools.

I will admit, over the years I’ve struggled to communicate what we do.  Then at the end of 2010 I had my first “aha moment.”  It hit me that how you applied our tools and training was dependent on where you and/or your business were in the small business growth cycle.  The result of researching my hunch wasThe Small Business Growth Matrix.

The light bulb went off again while finalizing our strategy for an upcoming marketing campaign.  As I began trying to simplify the way we communicate how all the pieces we offer fit together the definition of entrepreneurship became crystal clear!

Entrepreneurship Defined

Think of the small business growth model as a map.  It is a map you follow to successfully grow a small business.  And the way that we’ve laid it out for you, the steps and their order as right there for you to follow.

While the growth model provides the steps, you must possess skills to accomplish the steps along the way.  In the Churchill and Lewis’ Harvard Business Review whitepaper The Five Stages of Business Growth, they report on the two sets of factors that directly impact business growth – owner and company factors.

The personal factors relate to leadership skills necessary to achieve the objectives for each stage of the growth cycle.  This is the “personal change” and growth that we speak to within our tagline.  As an owner, if you are not ready to tackle the things necessary at your stage of growth, then your business will suffer as a result.  So, personal growth is key to business growth.  This is why leadership topic is a major part of this blog!

To address the company factors that Churchill and Lewis speak to relates directly to management of the business.  Again, does the company have the systems, personnel, and financial wherewithal to accomplish what is required at their stage of growth?  Again, if you don’t understand these aspects of management your company will stagnate.  These are the management topicswhich we discuss within this blog.

We’ve given you the map.  We provide you with the knowledge, tools, and assistance to master the personal and business challenges you might face along the way.

How Do You Become an Entrepreneur?

Master the personal and business skills needed to navigate the map!!!  If you successfully accomplish this you can call yourself an entrepreneur.

What do you think?  Is it really that simple?  Notice I said simple.  That doesn’t mean it will be easy to get there.  In fact, I can tell you it’s very hard.  But if you want it bad enough it all right there for you in black and white.

In the weeks and months to come I will begin to unveil the piece of this realization in a systematic way that will allow you to follow along no matter you or your business’ stage of the growth model.  Additionally, a number of e-books, videos and tools are in the works that will also assist. If you’d like to be at the forefront of receiving these items I would recommend that you sign-up for our newsletter so that you receive notice as soon as these tools are available.

Thanks for you continued readership.  We look forward to assisting you on your journey toward entrepreneurship.