Which Entreprepeur Type Are You

There are many hard working people / entrepreneurs all over the world, some who work hard and those that work smart.

I suppose in theory you could split them down into four types.

The Builder: Loves building a business; the type of business doesn’t matter as long as it can be built into a big enterprise.  ‘Builders’ like creating big brands, and having control over the day to day activities within their industries.  Put a ‘Builder’ into a company and within a short space of time they can determine what’s working, what’s not working, what needs to change. They are also very clever at getting employees to support their way of thinking.  Builders eat, sleep, and think strategy and are great at communicating their vision for the company.

• Strengths: Excel at raising money, putting systems in place, launching businesses successfully.
  
• Weaknesses: Temperamental, high output, and tends to leave a wake of relationship casualties behind.  Little interest in businesses that won’t become big earners. Builders tend to get bored easily

The Opportunist: The Opportunist is a risk taker. Opportunists want to be at the right place at the right time to make as much money as fast as possible.  Opportunist are individuals who if they are riding in a Hyundai of opportunity and see you riding in a Ferrari of opportunity, they’ll gladly jump into your car. Carrot driven, an Opportunist will work incredibly hard when the carrot seems big enough.

• Strengths: Motivated, extremely positive, huge work effort, natural born salespeople.  Failure is a minor irritation; an Opportunist can fail today, lose thousands of dollars, and wake up tomorrow eager to roll.
• Weaknesses: Impulsive, can quickly lose focus, prone to making snap decisions.

The Specialist: Specialists develop a skill and build a business around that skill.  Their business is based on expertise and the ability to deliver: Accountants, plumbers, doctors, writers, programmers, masons… all are Specialists.   Specialists tend to become entrepreneurs so they can be their own boss.

• Strengths: Focused, analytical, methodical, highly skilled.  Can start and run a business for twenty to thirty years or more.
• Weaknesses: Slow to see opportunities to expand, diversify, and grow.

The Innovator: Innovators don’t normally plan to become entrepreneurs; instead they normally play around with a program, or a concept and a business is then created around it.  The Innovator wants to stay in the “lab” and do more research and development.  Innovators want to create the next cool thing, not build the next cool company.

• Strengths: Innovative, creative, able to develop breakthrough intellectual properties.
• Weaknesses: Don’t know anything about business, management, finance…
  

Richard Branson for example is an Opportunist who is also a ‘Builder’ of excellent companies within several industries. Opportunists assume they are Innovators because they are typically among the first to jump on a new idea for making money.  But that’s not innovative, that’s opportunistic.  And many Specialists assume they are Builders because they have run the same successful business for ten years.  But unless you have built a multi-million dollar business — and could parachute into a different business tomorrow and quickly make it a success — you’re a Specialist, not a Builder.

Each type of entrepreneur has a unique strength and the key is to leverage those strengths.  Let’s say you’re a Specialist, you could align yourself with an Opportunist who can market and sell your services.  You’ll benefit from the Opportunist’s energy and creativity and the Opportunist will benefit from your ability to analyze, create systems, and deliver reliably and vise versa…… .

In short, always be who you are and leverage your strengths to connect with the people whose gifts complement yours.  When you do, you get to do more of what you love — and enjoy greater success in the process. If you try to do it all you will no doubt fail.

Yours Truly

ROY DERRICK