Which Type of Entrepreneur are You?
After years of engaging with SMEs, and I can safely say that there are basically 3 types of entrepreneurs today:
- The Cockroaches
- The Deer
- The Wolves
The cockroaches are the lone rangers. Able to survive in any tough environment, they are the kind to not be shocked even if a customer wants a quotation in 5 minutes. They survive in a very tough and dirty environment, they are typically the ‘everything also can’ but unfortunately for them, their life isn’t very long.
The deers are smart and ambitious. They see a wide range of opportunities and they will take full advantage of every opportunity. They typically run without any sense of direction and they are very proud every time they escape from danger. For them, they’re just like Chipsmore – now you see them, now you don’t.
The wolves never hunt alone, they move in a group. They are the type of entrepreneurs who believe in the power of collaboration. The 1+1=3 or more, if you will.
In Malaysia, starting a business today is not difficult. Once you’ve got a good idea, you can crowd-fund your idea. Head over to UNIFI for marketing solutions, Common Ground for working space, BNI for local and international networking, Qu-exchange for financing and iCOMMUNITY for a business coaching. Simple isn’t it? The ecosystem is already there.
The hard part comes when you want to scale and grow your business. Hence many entrepreneurs turn to events, talks or workshop to seek inspirations and solutions. Here’s my question to you. What do you do after attending these? What course of action is missing in most people?
Step Up Your Game
Action is what separates a champion from the average person. Hearing success stories is one thing but these are not your stories. You’re not memorising the story to inspire others, you’d want to apply it into yourself and your business! For example, you visit a booth at the event you saw BNI’s booth, and u visited the booth, gotten the flyer, and you leave, you thought “maybe I will check out with other people first”, or you wanna brows the website to find out more before you make enquiry, but??? they are already there? why can’t you just spend sometimes and hear from the horses mouth?? I mean Malaysian are sometimes very shy, they always worry about how people judge them, or worry that what if they hard sell and you don’t want to buy?
Let’s us think deeper, if we know action is what separated a champion from the average people, why majority of us don’t take action? what are we afraid of? what is stopping you from taking action? costs? benefits? time? complexity??
There are basically 2 reason why people don’t take action.
1st. the feeling of fear and inferior (like the cockroaches), always in the dark, afraid of the spotlight, they don’t know the unknown. they always hide somewhere, not wanting to be noticed, fear to be the first to take action, coz they are so worry about how people look at them, they scared of how people judge them. They worry that they become a joke, a laughing stock, coz people alway wait and see, Malaysian are very safe nation, we don’t simply act, we think and think and think before we act, you be the first to act? are you nuts? and some may even feel that “why take the first risk, we observe first, and we improvise…..” OMG
I remember on one of our meeting, my good friend Marcus Teoh took out RM100 and said “the first to come to the front, get this RM100”, guess what? it took quite a while before we see someone rush to go up and grabs the RM100, and majority of us were still wondering, thinking and dreaming “is that real?”, “must be a trick right?”. see?? everyone see the same RM100, but majority chose to observe, wait and see, but only the first to act will gets it. Imagine if now Marcus bring out another RM100, you think it will be the same? noooooo, all will rush to him, or even beat him out to get all his RM100. why?? They chose to act, as the outcome is supported with evident, a confirmed outcome, of course everyone will act. but then you now have to compete with so many people.
The fear of taking action and make a mistake is the biggest huddle in learning. We are so afraid of making mistake, to the extend, we hated it, hated it so much till we become so risk adverse.
The other reason why people don’t take action is this “I know it all” symptom. These is just like the Deer, very proud and arrogance, they know almost everything under the sun, you tell them about A, they can continue with B, C & D. You go to them very excited sharing with them about your finding, the will tell you “Ya, I know this long ago….”, sounds familiar right?
Our brain is a container with limited capacity. we fill up information/knowledges since we were borne, and years after years, we “think” we are smarter, and also indirectly, we find it difficult to accept new ideas and knowledge. The resistance of taking in new knowledge is what causes the “I know it all” symptoms. agree.
Well, the legendary Bruce Lee said, you need to empty your mind, be water, but I said “You need to empty your cup”, because if you don’t, you won’t be able to take in more water, just like our mind, if we don’t throw away old thought, we won’t be able to learn new thing. So, as an entrepreneur, you need to empty your mind, be water, but in learning, you need more water, so be an empty cup. coz if you don’t throw away old thoughts, new ideas will not work, imagine a cup of dirty water, no matter how much honey or vitamins you put it, it’s still dirty water.
In this highly competitive market, it’s almost impossible to work alone, whether you are tough like cockroaches or smart like a deer, you got to believe in collaborative network and community power. Attending events is good, but what happened after that? you need something more long term, someone that you can talk to when you faced challenges.
Remember, you want to be a champion, you must do what other average people don’t do.
We all know SME is the largest employers of this country, and we contributed so much to the economy, and it’s the future of the economy (be it locally or globally), and why are we always dreaming of chasing for big clients or big projects? we are very fragile, any mistake make by 1 customer/project can kill us, why not we starts to look into the SME segment, there are hidden treasure and ample opportunities that we have yet to discover, let’s starts to explore this together. SME community is definitely the way forward for all of us.
Yes, we maybe small, but we are mighty as well, we may not be doing well today, but let’s learn from each others.
It’s ok to be at terrible situation, it’s ok to be broke now, it’s ok to make mistake and be in disaster now, But it’s not OK if you stop doing anything and blame the whole world except yourself. My teacher once said “every master was once a disaster’, and I say “every disaster is our teacher’, lets learn, take action and move forward.