It seems like everyone is jumping on the entrepreneurship bandwagon.
I think it’s the lure of making big money through business as well as the fanatical worship of Kiyosaki and gang that makes everyone want to quit their day job and become an entrepreneur (and the fact that being gainfully employed is no longer something people are proud of).
Last Saturday, we were invited by a friend to his friends’ new shop. Accordingly, this foursome had pooled together their resources to start a creative art centre for kids. It’s a licensee programme under a local art college.
This shop was in a spanking upmarket place in Penang, about 10 minutes’ drive from the Penang Bridge. We arrived and immediately were confused. Who were the bosses of the place? Who’s who exactly?
We spent the next 20 minutes chatting to our friend, who had travelled from KL to be at his friends’ shop launching.
The owners(whom we later found out from this friend of ours) had no idea of customer service. I was left to wander by myself around the shop and read the posters put up on the walls. No one came forward to pass me a brochure about their creative art services (what if I had a kid? Wouldn’t I be a prospect, ripe for picking?).
But no, no such thing.
I looked around and saw some brochures on a table. I picked them up and thought of passing them along to my friends who had children.
On second thought, why should I? Even though I was a friend of their friend, any person who walks through their shop is a prospect even if they may not have children. It’s not hard to understand this logic as people know other people and like I said, I was ready to become their “ambassador” if only they came up to me and introduced their services to me.
Who knows whom I may speak or meet later that day or even in the weeks ahead?
Did they get my business card?
Did they ask me whether I would be interested in their services, and if I weren’t, did I know anyone who would and could I pass their brochures out to my interested friends?
So they really wasted their opportunity. Just because I did not walk through their door with kids in tow does not mean I may not be a good referral.
Sometimes entrepreneurship does not mean having the ability or capital to open a business. More than ever, it is a mindset which defines you as an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurs see opportunities and never waste any. They go further and push further. It is the mindset which separates real entrepreneurs from wannabe’s.
That’s why if you’re an entrepreneur, you’re not a “business man”.