No matter what people may proclaim, everyone in business is looking to achieve the highest possible level of satisfaction and financial success in their career. For best results, my advice is to think like an entrepreneur, even if you are a corporate employee. According to many studies, entrepreneurs tend to be happier, and over 80 percent of self-made millionaires are entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurial thinking in a corporate environment brings many positive career opportunities to the table, and many advantages to your company. I saw these highlighted well in a classic book, “Get Smart!” by prolific author and renowned business consultant Brian Tracy. He lays out seven thinking strategies for both entrepreneurs and employees that will make them business winners:
- Focus on the customers at all times. Corporate thinkers often become preoccupied with doing their jobs and following rules, not pleasing customers. Company people, whether employees, managers, or executives, can view customers either with disinterest or as problems. They don’t realize that customers are the source of all business payback.
- Committed to the success of the company. Many researchers conclude that more than 60 percent of employees at large corporations are not committed to their business. Entrepreneurial thinkers see themselves as self-employed and act as if they own the companies personally. They continually seek ways to be more valuable in this mission.
- Constant search for ways to increase sales and profitability. More sales are the only way to reach real business success. Entrepreneurial thinkers see their business mission as enriching the lives of customers, rather than being a better producer of products and services. Entrepreneurs relish change and new technology, which lead to new sales.
- Think like your ideal customer seeking value. Entrepreneurial thinkers describe their product or service in terms of the problem it solves and benefits to their customer, rather than more features and performance. The ideal customer is one who sees so much value that price is unimportant. Businesses fail when customers don’t see real solution value.
- Maintain a meaningful competitive advantage. For any company to be successful, it must dominate a market or niche. Corporate thinking is often focused on more products in more markets, with hope that the total impact will be greater than the sum of the parts. Entrepreneurial thinking is focused on dominating a segment of a competitive market.
- Continually evaluate the essential elements of the business model. In the corporate environment, the business model is a given, rather than a tool for tuning the business. Entrepreneurs continually review their model to reach new customers, optimize value received, improve marketing and sales, reallocate costs, and provide better service.
- More concerned with what’s right rather than who’s right. This is called zero-based thinking -- if we started over today, knowing what we know now, what would we do differently? Entrepreneurial thinking does not penalize mistakes and assumes learning. New ideas and methods for better results are embraced, no matter what the source.
At the very least, adopting these thinking initiatives in any company, corporate or startup, will allow you to grow in your career. Business leaders all understand the benefits of allowing their team members to take ownership of their roles. The risks they take, and successes, can be applied to processes throughout the business at a fraction of the cost of expert consulting.
