Lately, I have decided to go back to the fundamentals of learning more about small business; to improve on how I run my own business and to gain knowledge in providing services to my clients other small business owners and entrepreneurs. I have chosen to read a textbook Small Business Management: An Entrepreneurial Emphasis by Justin G. Longenecker, Carlos W. Moore, and J. William Petty (all of ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Baylor University). As I run across books in your local bookstore or even in the local thrift store, I search them for books I would consider to be good reference books for small business consulting. I keep these books on hand to help me in helping others to accomplish my/their goals and find solutions to my/their challenges.
First and foremost for the sake of this article, let us define an entrepreneur as a person who sees a need in the marketplace and sets out to fill that need with a product or service. There are some entrepreneurs that have a talent, skill or passion and find how to best fit it into the marketplace and some entrepreneurs that see a need in the marketplace and find how to best fill that need.
With that established, I felt quite refreshed to read about concepts that I have been explaining to clients since the beginning of my business in 2005 defined and published in a book. More specifically, in my readings the question of entrepreneurial style surfaced. According to Norman R. Smith, there are 2 styles of the entrepreneur; the artisan entrepreneur and the opportunistic entrepreneur.
The artisan entrepreneur at first glance is the type of entrepreneur I have established my business to help. The artisan entrepreneur has a skill, talent, or simply a passion concerning a particular service or product. They set out to take their skill, service, or product to the marketplace as the natural next step. This can be applied to any number of businesses. The source of your product or service could be produced by vocational or technical training, a hobby, or a raw talent. Examples of this would include:
- Contractors such as plumbers, electricians, carpenters, HVAC technicians etc.
- Self-employed such as barbers and beauticians, physicians and attorneys.
- Thinking of the word 'artisans' in its truest sense, jewelers or jewelry makers, makeup artists, photographers, fashion designers would be other examples.
Of course I could list these examples on and on and in no means can it be limited to certain pursuits.
In contrast, the opportunistic entrepreneur sees a need in the marketplace and may not have any experience in that field but still sets out to fill that need from a business perspective. These opportunistic entrepreneurs usually have excellent business sense or are experienced in managing a business and apply general business skills to their new pursuit. This is demonstrated because they usually incorporate sound practices such as market research, record-keeping, and budgeting. However, the opportunistic entrepreneur may not necessarily have the related talent or skill used to produce the product. I am sure if you think about it, you know someone that falls in either category.
The two styles are contrast one another in that one has technical expertise and limited managerial skills: whereas, the other has limited technical skills and managerial expertise. Be honest with yourself, what is your entrepreneurial style? You can only be one or the other.
One of the chief observations an entrepreneur needs to make to be successful is his/her strengths and weaknesses. Be honest with yourself about yourself. Building your strengths and profit from them; but also, know your weaknesses and hire or partner with someone who can fortify you in that area. With either style, the solution to this paradox is to put the "right" people in place. The opportunistic entrepreneur seeks out the person with the needed talent or skill and hires them to produce the product or service to bring their concept into fruition.
The artisan entrepreneur is a horse of a different color. Due to their very nature, the artisan takes their business very personally. The artisan entrepreneur nurtures their business like their baby, doesn't find it easy to delegate, uses limited sources of investment, only uses traditional marketing strategies, does not plan very far in the future, and usually handles all of the sales themselves. It is not easy for an artisan entrepreneur to "let go". However, as stated above the artisan must come to terms with their weakness and that is the management of their business. The sooner they allow themselves to delegate responsibility and open the opportunity to be greater by sharing the experience, the sooner they can achieve their ultimate success. Dykes' Desktop offers small business consulting geared toward fortifying the artisan.