Entrepreneur. Multipreneur. Entrepreneur.

Are not all entrepreneurs, in essence really multipreneurs? When looking for a definition of multipreneur I came across the following:

A multipreneur is a business professional that follows many passions and offers quality services or products that enhance other individuals and professionals personal and business lives.

Finding a balance in the juggling act of different job descriptions and responsibilities requires an entrepreneur to be ready for anything and prepared for everything. With business planning, market research, sales and financing on the go – being an entrepreneur is more than a full-time job. The comfort of a “9-to-5” is quickly lost on entrepreneurs, who realize that life happens at all times of the day (and night) and to succeed in this business world, you need to be committed.

Most entrepreneurs think about growing their businses by finding new markets, increasing sales or developing a new product or service. But what about starting somewhere else? Personal and professional development plays an important role in determining the viability of a business. Business growth and development are imperative to survival and often relate directly to growing the knowledge of the person running the company – you! At the beginning of March I had the pleasure of attending my first professional development event – a two-day course on design software. Realizing that I would be improving my technical knowledge, I did not realize the value-added of such a program. Two days out of the office, with no to-do list or schedule of events and I was able to step out of the drivers seat and be a passenger. Without the distractions of a typical work day I was able to take this professional development “break” for a personal development “reflection”. It is interesting how these two experiences go hand-in-hand, but given the chance to take a step back, I was able to critically reflect on my work ethic, personal goals and skill set and evaluate where my strengths, weaknesses and areas of improvement were, making me more effective, creative and knowledgable once I was back behind the wheel. As entrepreneurs in a competitive business market, we spend so much time sizing up our competitors, but how often do we have a look in mirror and evaluate ourselves.

If you were to invest 5% of your time and income per year in yourself, you would be able to expand your knowledge in a way that would help you see positive returns that would keep you moving at a high gear for many years to come. Things change fast and it is easy to fall behind very quickly. Unless you consciously put in the effort to stay on top of things, you will most certainly fall behind and get passed.

Keeping up is easier than catching up, and if you keep up, you can usually find a way to stay ahead of the traffic. When things gets busy with detours and roadblocks, this might require you to take off the multipreneur hat and instead be an entrepreneur and look within yourself for the best route. So, the next time you're looking for ways to grow your business, think differently - invest in yourself and see how quickly you go down the road of success.

Can your business link arms and touch its toes?

Organizations require well defined and structured operating systems to ensure they deliver to customers (internal and external) in an effective, efficient, and consistent manner. To make this happen, we first need to consider the factors that make up our operating environment. A healthy operating environment balances all of the following:

• Purpose - the real reason you exist
• Strategy - where you are now, where you are going, how you are going to get there
• Culture - stories, ritual/routines, symbols, org structure, control systems, power structure
• People and Interaction - core competencies of staff, communication, and human behaviour
• Metrics and Rewards - how is success measured and rewarded
• Structure and Process - how you do business

While the above primarily focuses on the internal operating environment, we shouldn't forget to apply it to the external environment as well. I wanted to emphasize the importance of integration and flexibility within this system, especially when the end result, for all businesses, is customer attraction and retention. I have a story to exemplify when an organization became protocol crazy and allowed Structure and Process to become disjointed from People and Interaction.

Griffen and Sabine were delighted. They had just signed for their first mortgage ($200,000) with a leading bank. Everything was in place. They could now start to establish a credit rating and settle in to their new life. Griffen then asked about a credit card. They should be able to get one. I mean they had all their accounts at this branch, all direct debits were being paid on time, and they had just signed for $200,000. Griffen and Sabine were not big spenders but they knew a credit card was an excellent tool for pushing up their credit rating (which must have been good – remember they just signed for a $200,000 mortgage).

The Account Manager plugged all the numbers into the computer and they waited. A ping was heard, the results had arrived. We looked at the Account Manager "I am sorry to say that you have been declined for $5000 credit limit". "What" Griffen said stunned "but we just signed for $200,000 mortgage – how can possibly be declined for $5000 on a credit card". Sabine interrupted "We don't need that much, we probably only require $2000 - can you approve that?”

They waited for the Account Manager to use his autonomy to override the decision and approve a credit card for us (on the back of the mortgage approval - remember they just signed for $200,000). "Unfortunately I can't - the mortgage and the credit card approval systems are in two different departments and I don't have the autonomy to make those decisions".
On one hand they were delighted to get them signing for a mortgage, but on the other hand they were happy to decline a credit card application. Is this a consistent approach?

At that moment it struck Griffen. The Structure and Process in one department of the bank was completely out of whack with another department even though they were serving the same customer. The People and Interaction within the bank as a Corporation was not integrated across all functions and the Culture was effectively saying ‘Around here we are not empowered to make decisions because the system makes them for us’.

Think about this situation for a moment – how would you as an organization have handled it? What does your outcome look like? Is every facet of your operating system interlinked to allow this to happen?

Needless to say Griffen and Sabine withdrew their mortgage application, closed their accounts, and moved them to a competitor. They are happy to report that they have a mortgage, a credit card, a line of credit, and several investments.

Ask yourself - what is the value detriment to your company if you lost a customer today because your business operating system was not balanced, integrated and flexible?

Your Priority is Not Someone Else's Priority

I am a get it done kind of person and when I ran my business before I had employees this was easy to do. When you have staff on the other hand, and when you have bosses even more so, this can be more of a challenge. There may be times when what is important to you and your role is not as important to other members of your team. So what does this mean for a small business owner?

It could mean that when you need an immediate shipment of product for a weekend sale event, your supplier may not be willing or able to make it a priority of theirs. It may mean that paying your bills is a priority for you, but your clients paying you on time may not be their priority. It may also mean that when you ask a staff member to help you with something it may not be a priority for them. In a team environment matching priorities is difficult but important, so how can you accomplish this?

1. First you need to ensure that you don't fall in the trap of 'my poor planning is your emergency'. If the only time you're asking your team for something is at the last minute then you can't expect them to be continually dropping their own tasks for yours. Make sure you giving suitable notice when you can.


2. Set timelines, deadlines or assign a priority to it when you ask the other person. Let them know where this fits on your priority list.


3. Come up with a priority system for your workplace - a 'how to get on someones priority list' system.


4. Have your corporate / business priorities clearly posted and distributed to all team members so they know what the long-term, short-term and day-to-day operational priorities are so that all team members are in agreement.

For a team to be effective at priortizing, each team member individually must have the ability to manage their time, prioritize their own tasks and strong communication skills. If you have a team and environment that can do this you should be well on your way to getting everything on your priority list done!