Independent thinking required for successful entrepreneurship

Independence. That’s why a majority of employees strike out on their own. Or so says a recent US survey put out by that country’s labour department. According to the survey there are more than 15 million self-employed people in America with independents representing one of the fastest growing sectors in that economy.
There is something glorious about being in charge of a small independent firm. The downfall is that sometimes the size of a small firm can preclude its effective exploitation of new markets; the advantage comes from knowing that your size allows for energetic experimentation.

Consider the growth of Elaine Singh, owner of a copywriting agency, “I believe that the reason for my success is that I have been able to align myself with some of the biggest advertising agencies in the business and created a win/win situation for us both,” said Singh. The 37-year-old is able to offer her specialised skills for a very reasonable price, the larger agencies embrace her because they can lower their employment and wage bill by cutting back on their health care, pension and other responsibilities.

Because of her firm’s size- Singh has one full time assistant and a part time accountant- she is able to continuously reinvent herself. She recently added photography and design to her list of services by forming strategic partnerships with other small firms. Singh is a believer in reinvention as the key to entrepreneurial success. “Reinvention is not about changing what is, but about creating what isn’t.” At the heart of Singh’s statement is perhaps a realisation that small companies in the new era need not be around forever and what matters most is the burst they may have in values creation rather than any dramatic claim of being around for 100 years.

Perhaps this may be the fundamental difference between the new enterprise and the old. Between the old firm and the new. The old enterprise viewed permanence as good. And set up vast building with glossy atriums to prove it. The glossier the atrium, well, the better the business. Atrium envy ruled. In the new enterprise there is no such envy because there are no such buildings. People are connected in wired quadrants that allows them to communicate, work and mange themselves in offices without walls and borderless communities. The size of the atrium is irrelevant, how high the mind can soar and what it can create in a short period of time are the determining factors.

In the new enterprise entrepreneurs like Singh recognises the need for a new reality, which does not surround exclusive bottom line issues. “If I focus on the bottom line and profits only I won’t be happy, instead I look around at other small business models and I would like to emulate those that place emphasis on their human community. Profits are vital but so too is the connectivity and the network.”
There are thousands like Singh running small firms, forming strategic alliances and setting their own strategies on how to function in the corporate world. There is no other alternative for Singh. “The idea of being a salaried worker in an organisation is unpalatable for me. There is just something about working for myself; I really, truly do love what I do.”

What a minimum wage paying job taught me.

My first job was a model /slash sales girl in a Canadian store called “Units”. It was the kind of store where you couldn't figure out what was sold. The clothes were easy knits, colourful, with no tight elastic band. They were stacked in cubicle and wrapped in plastic with cardboard backing so they could keep their form. The only time the customers knew the nature of the product was from a ramp stationed in the middle of the store on which - more frequently at the mall's busy hours- a bunch of sales associates would walk . If was a lot of fun! I was 19, it was a minimum wage paying job. I got no more than CDN $5.25 per hour. Still, we had some serious sales targets to meet. What follows are the three key lessons I learnt from the time I worked for minimum wages.

1. A Good Boss Will Notice Your Worth.
I was a West Indian in a foreign culture. You can bet that I didn't want to mess up. I was always the first to arrive and the last to fold the clothes back into their plastic wrappings. I treated customers, my boss and my colleagues respectfully but with a lot of Caribbean warmth. I took out trash even though it was not in my job description and was told that my personality caused the team to bond in ways they did not before.
After a few months, my boss called me into his office for my first performance review. He said that I had done well and that $.10 was the average raise for his employees. He asked what I thought I deserved. I replied that since I had done no more or less than what others did, I deserved the standard.
"Why" my boss pressed.
"Because what I am doing is not hard, you can easily find someone to replace me."

My boss increased my salary by $1.00 raise per hour. I was astounded. "I need to make sure you stay with us a few years more” he said, “so that the store across the street never has the opportunity to grab you.”

Lesson: Even when you think no one notices, someone always does

2. Sometimes a Few Good People Is All It Takes.

During the mall's busiest hours we had to make sure we were on the ramp constantly. The busyness of that activity generated the interest and sales peaked according to the activity on the ramp. But the effort required coordination between the girls showing the clothes and the sales assistants on the ground. Each model was assigned an assistant to help seal the deal. One day I was on the ramp and noticed that my sales assistant was overwhelmed with a surprising influx of customers So I picked up some of the slack. During my sets, I walked off the ramp, greeted customers, showed them the clothes, heightened their interest, sealed the deal before passing the sale on to the assistant. She was grateful and did the same for me several times over. We made an unbeatable team.

Lesson: By seeking solutions for the team and going the distance you win a tremendous amount of support and respect.

3. Connect With What You Are Doing and Do What You Love
I enjoy working hard doing things that I love. I was nineteen, I was around fashion, design, and working in another country. Who was I to complain about the wage. I know some people are prone to think: ‘I am not going to work hard given the pay I get’, instead they prefer to wait until they 'higher' position before taking on more. I never did, money never was my motivator, learning was.

Looking back, that minimum wage job taught me a lot. Now that I have my own communications firm, I practice what I learnt straight from the lessons of my youth, earning a minimum wage in Canada.