I feel that as entrepreneurs, we accelerate our growth (personally and professionally) when we cultivate and surround ourselves with other entrepreneurs.
Personally, I’ve been in several networking, mastermind and peer/accountability groups. Currently, I’m in EO – Entrepreneurs Organization and have previously been a student at Strategic Coach, both of which I highly recommend.
And why wouldn’t we want to stock our company with a team of entrepreneurs/Intrapreneurs v.s. employees to help grow our business? One of my key phrases for our company DemGen, is that it’s all “co-created”, it’s not the workings of any one person. I’d go as far as saying I’m anti-employee. Sure, larger companies need people to follow a script, yet I believe there’s still room to support and encourage pro-active entrepreneurial thinking.
I thought of this when I was asked by our Marketing Goddess for an article about my experience, and specifically how many years I’ve been an entrepreneur. The answer was tougher than I imagined when I pieced it together over the years, yet the final official tally was 20 years which I skyped to her and then within a few minutes said…WAIT, I want it stated that most of my employment/corporate life was as an intrapreneur.
Then I said WAIT! to myself, I better do a little research on the technical term of intrapreneur. Definition of ‘Intrapreneurship’:
Acting like an entrepreneur within a larger organization. The term is derived from a combination of “intra” or internal, and “entrepreneurship.” Intraprenuers are usually highly self-motivated, proactive and action-oriented people who are comfortable with taking the initiative, even within the boundaries of an organization, in pursuit of an innovative product or service.
And while I still feel I’ve positioned my background accurately I would say that within the confines of the technical definition of “intrapreneur”, I was missing one critical element. That is, that I typically did not fully have the agreement and support of the companies I worked for to act intrapreneurially. In my view, I was basically bored with the confines of a typical job description and started to create additional value to motivate myself and keep the job interesting. In my employers view, I was often viewed as the trouble-maker or black-sheep of the corporate culture, stirring things up. I was disruptive, always achieved or surpassed my goals, had high-performing teams and more importantly created new revenue streams in those environments and continue to do so within DemGen,. Only now my actions are rewarded and usually appreciated.
I could write for days about this, and I won’t. What I DO want to write about is what sparked this stroll down memory lane.
Essentially, my current company, DemGen, sources intrapreneurial team members/collaborators and our job is to act intrapreneuirally for our clients. That is – we help them grow their business and realize their “ideal future vision for their business”. Intrapraneurs bring their capacity for action and innovation to the organizations in which they work, acting as inside forces for change.
Upon reflection of this, I now get that my team and I are equipped to work with this group of intrapreneurs. Whereas most traditional mindset companies and sadly even some entrepreneurial companies I know of are not. We understand, embrace and support them. Just as we do to help each other discover and work within our unique genius abilities. Interestingly, during my quick research I came across an article about former entrepreneurs looking for a job. There is significant data suggesting that potential employers favour candidates who have always been an employee over someone who has created or partnered within an entrepreneurial company. While the data didn’t surprise me, as having directly experienced this prejudice I have the opposite prejudice in that I’m cautious of bringing on team members without entrepreneurial experience.
To broaden the lens further, being an intrapreneurial team is what DemGen brings to our clients. This is what they are looking for and in fact if they are still looking for that “one” or a “few” select individual staff members, then they are not a fit or an ideal client for us and vice versa. We are looking for progressive entrepreneurs that understand how fast things are changing and understand the value we bring.
There are three types of companies that we support.
- Traditional brick and mortar
- Completely virtual
- Hybrid – blend of the two
We supply talent virtually, so I understand that Type 1. will require some traditional hires to staff their offices, while augmenting their team with our services in areas deemed unnecessary to have any or all in-house team such as sales, customer service, some areas of admin, phone reception, appointment scheduling, marketing/social media/web. Obviously Type 2. and 3. are easier and direct fits.
Are you actively engaging intrapreneurs (hidden goldmine) within your company?
© Gary Evans, DemGen Inc. 2013
