I find it surprising when someone discusses the advantages of entrepreneurship and mentions, "You don't have to work for somebody else."
This sentiment seems incredibly naive.
Amid this second round of entrepreneurship in my career, it's clear you certainly DO work for somebody else
In fact, if you serve multiple and varied clients, an entrepreneur works for more somebody elses than is ever typical in a corporate job. That's been the case for me without exception. Despite a variety of competing interests and priorities in the corporate world, it was easy to separate the one or two people I was working for versus all the other people who thought I was working for them.
Such clarity isn't necessarily there as an entrepreneur.
Serving a B2B market, I’ll admit that it's not always clear what is going on inside a client's four walls. It's easy to be on the outside and NOT looking in as internal politics, cumbersome processes, and questionable motivations slow down what should seem to go more smoothly and quickly.
I realized the other day, however, what people are really talking about as the "not working for someone else" advantage entrepreneurs have.
Talking with someone who works for a company that provides services in the B2B market, she was reflecting on a recent client interaction. The client hadn't provided solid planning information upfront. As a result, there was confusion about how vital processes and decisions would proceed. Her sense was that she, as the client contact for a relationship her employer held, couldn't set the client straight. She wound up biting her tongue on multiple important issues because it was a client. The best she felt she could do in challenging the situation was to offer two strong suggestions to attempt to correct the situation.
Having my own business, however, I'd have been in a different position to act. If pushing back to the client resulted in losing the business, I would be in the position to fully understand that impact and shoulder the full ramifications of it. As an employee, she wasn’t in a position to do that.
If you have someone paying you, you are working for somebody else whether as an entrepreneur or as an employee. Maybe what people really mean about not working for somebody else is that an entrepreneur can talk back and take action against the whoever is paying more effectively than an employee.
In that case, I'd have to agree with them. – Mike Brown
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