





Are you an entrepreneur or a business person? Entrepreneur is such a commonly used word these days that it's now typically used for anyone who starts a business. The difference between the two is that a business person can take an unoriginal idea and run a successful business with it, an entrepreneur invents the idea, investing time energy and money into a startup in the hope of huge success.
Entrepreneurs typically take big scary risks and seek to change the world with their ideas, often leaving the idea of making money far down the list. Whilst a business person focuses on the process of running an efficient business, minimising risks and focusing on sales, operations and profits.
There is no doubt in my mind where I fall in this question of entrepreneur or businessman. My very soul drives me to pursue massive goals and sometimes unrealistic dreams, and if I end up disappointed, I simply try again. Understanding this side of my personality (and believe me I've learnt the hard way!) has helped me to become more of a businessman, something that is essential for any small business owner. Learning the fundamentals of running a business is key to the foundation of any business owner, and yet often I find that people starting out in business for the first time seem reluctant to apply themselves to some of these basics.
"There is no doubt in my mind where I fall"
In the BLAM office we've been working on some great training courses to help our partners learn some of the skills we've applied to build our businesses over the years. However, there are loads of resources available to small business owners out there that can help turn people with a desire to be successful into genuine business people!
A willingness to learn and an ability to put into practice what has been taught are essential abilities for the (percentage wise) few of us that actually end up running a successful business for the long term. Make no mistake, these skills are not easy and it takes passion, drive and perseverance to apply them, and that's before you even start improving the product or service that is specific to the business!
Where to start in finding help? To help find the right resources that fit with the skills you need to learn, one of the best places to start is the Chamber of Commerce. I've been a member of the chamber for 15 years now and still access their resource on occasion that comes for free as a member. Not only that, they run networking groups, events and training sessions on all manner of subjects from book keeping and IT to sales and marketing.
Next, most mainstream banks offer plenty of support to new business owners both online and through their business managers. The quality does seem to vary and I personally haven't got a lot of faith in most of them, but over the years I have worked with a few people in my bank who have been really helpful in accessing resources that they offer. Barclays have recently been running some free seminars with some great entrepreneur guest speakers along with lots of links to useful resources in your local area.
There are plenty of other organisations out there that offer all sorts of benefits to new business owners. I would encourage you to ask around at networking events and talk to people that you know in business to see which are the ones that fit with your personal business situation.
In order to continue with our own resource development we are about to launch an app on Apple and Google app stores, for partners, that has a large resource that will be helpful for your business. Within this is a quiz section that will test your business acumen on the basics, through to the more complicated areas that we cover in the knowledge base.
So, if the answer to my first question was "entrepreneur", make sure you have the skills to be a business person too, otherwise your business journey could be short lived!
Yours,
Grant