Guy Didn’t Mean Don’t Have a Vision or a Plan
With the start of the Perfect Virtual Manager, I’ve been talking a lot to bloggers. Even more interesting is that I’ve been not talking to a lot of them. I’ve noticed something about people who work outside of a traditional setting. We fall into two categories: freelancers and entrepreneurs. Some think they are one, and they’re really the other. Which one are you? Do you know that for sure?
Guy Kawasaki wrote a wonderful post in January called, Mantras Versus Missions. Thank you, Roger von Oech, for reminding me of it. You see, I think some folks do as Guy suggests — make a mantra — and unfortunately, they stop there. That’s not what Guy said to do. He was talking about replacing a mission statement with something more focused. His mantra was meant as a guiding force, not as a replacement for a business plan.
A person with fabulous skills and only a mantra is a freelancer not a solo entrepreneur.
The two think and work differently.
Do you know how to tell a freelancer from a solo entrepreneur?
Turn the page and I’ll show how.
How to Tell a Freelancer from a Solo Entrepreneur
In my conversations with bloggers who work alone, I found some distinct differences in the way they approach their work, in the way they talk about it, in the way that they relate to every part of it. I’ve found that two groups seem to stand out. I call the groups freelancers and solo entrepreneurs. Here’s how to tell the two groups apart.
- A freelancer is about the work. An entrepreneur is about the business.
- A freelancer is a doer. A freelancer knows the tactics. An entrepreneur is a negotiator, a visionary and a thinker. An entrepreneur builds strategy and is constantly testing it.
- A freelancer thinks the work is the business. An enterpreneur knows the business supports the work.
- A freelancer is disinterested in “business controls and necessities” — including thinking, budgets, invoices, business plans — that gets in the way of the “real” work. An entrepreneur understands that without those “business controls and necessities,” it’s not a business. It’s a job.
- A freelancer might want to grow a client base. An entrepreneur knows a business either grows or decays, and is constantly looking for ways to keep the growth managed and within reasonable risk parameters.
- A freelancer lives in the now with an eye to long term client relationships that might afford some security. An entreprenuer is looking to a vision of the business, now is a reflection of what the business will be.
- A freelancer often doesn’t invest in his or her own equipment, training, or help. Many freelancers don’t delegate low-level skills or tasks they don’t do well, because they think “poor,” rather than think investment. An entrepreneur knows that time is money, invests in future development and the business vision. An entrepreneur will pay for skills that he or she doesn’t have knowing that it is money well spent on quality and commitment.
- A freelancer works from day to day. An entrepreneur has a business plan.
Whether you work alone or in an enterprise, you probably think like one or the other. Did you find yourself in the group that you thought you would be? What is your opinion of the other? Both groups are necessary to make a business work. Looking deeper, we also need managers to bridge the gap between these two groups.
So, develop your mantra. Focus it well as Guy says, but don’t stay on the surface of his guidance or mine. Go deep. Make sure you know where you are and what you’re going for.
If you’re out on your own, or before you go there, are you a freelancer or a solo entrepreneur?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you think Liz can help with your business, your brand, or your blog, check out the Perfect Virtual Manager on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.
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I would consider a solo entrepreneur as someone who can make a business model and make it work for any number of situations and build an empire from his ideas.
I am a freelancer. I have all kinds of ideas with no way of building one into something that the public wants, let alone something they are willing to pay for. I can do odds and ends and make some nice cash for it, but nothing sustainable.
Entrepreneurs support families and manage health insurance and offer financial stability that freelance ‘duffers’ don’t. I’m not supporting my family with my blogs, computer repairs, or computer security lock-downs, but we can buy some nice stuff with it. 🙂
Hi Jesse,
It sounds like you have a great handle on the difference between the two. Your definition of an entrepreneur is one that outlines all of the scary parts. I remember when that was all I saw. Now I see mostly the fun parts. 🙂
I’m not sure I understand why you’re convinced why you can’t build your ideas into something the public wants. Argue for your limits and . . . 🙂
Hi Liz.
Great post, I mean great post. This is exactly the change I’ve been noticing in myself: this gradual shift from being a freelance to an entrepreneur. Up till a few months I was taking up routine projects and living a month-to-month existence as far as my business was concerned, but then one day I thought, I need something bigger, something stable. And now I’m going through exactly the same transitions you’ve mentioned above.
I’m not really convinced that I CAN’T, it’s just that I have spent so much time in the last 2 years ‘trying to think up my “big break” ‘ that I don’t want to give the impression that I’m unsettled.
I am very satisfied with my life now. I’m finally married, I have a wonderful 1st floor apartment in a safe neighborhood, my wife has a college degree and a 4-day week…and the list goes on. I am a happy man, yet my mind won’t stop churning.
I have something to offer the world, but I am constantly ping-ponging between being too wacky for something to work and too confined to come up with something viable. When I go back to taking college classes in the summer next year, I will catch up on some B.S. (no pun intended) courses at the junior college to avoid them at USF and then concentrate on getting a Bachelor’s degree in English. My employer will do tuition reimbursement, so there is another thing to be thankful for.
Gone are the days where I can afford (relationally) to sit around and think/daydream about being an entrepreneur. I need to do it concurrently with what I have on my plate because I need to be there for my wife and doing my job at work. eBay didn’t work, graphic design didn’t work, freelance computer services didn’t work, so I had to get a job. Now it has finally paid off in getting a family, but I must refuse to drop the idea that I can still do more.
Maybe that gives you some insight into my very convoluted mind. It is possible that I am bi-polar, but my shrink hasn’t come out and said that yet.
LOL 🙂
Hey, Jesse,
You sound down right normal to me. 🙂
A job is good thing while you’re coming up with that one right idea. What that idea needs is you inside other folks heads crawling around knowing what they need before they do. Watching what you do and when you think “gee I wish I had one of these” noticing when that’s something everyone else wishes too.
That’s when you know you’re onto something that’s getting viable. That’s when you can start putting the piece of a plan together and making something happen one little step at a time.
Doc Searls says everything he is famous for happened after he was 50.
Great piece Liz. It’s kind of funny ââ¬â this is similar to the topic of this week’s podcast of The Creative Venture. I compare freelancing to what I call a “studio business” (which is basically an entrepreneur) and the creative career.
BTW – I also give you props for our conversation on letting go.
Thanks Tony,
I love blogger synchronicity. Somehow we all seem to get to the same breakthroughs at the same moments. That’s something special.
I’m going over to listen to your podcast now. Thanks for leaving your link for everyone. You make us all smarter. 🙂
Hi Amrit,
Sorry you got stuck in Akismet moderation. I don’t like when that happens. 🙁
I know what you mean. I remember the transition well myself. It’s really exciting, isn’t it? 🙂
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time now. What pushed me over the top to write it is people who’ve asked about the the Perfect Virtual Manager. One group disappeared when I merely answered their email — even before the conversation started. It had to be how they looked at themselves and their work, because my response was always along the lines of “What would you like to talk about?”
I know what you mean about the difference between freelancer and entrepreneur. I finally got that when I read The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. (E for entrepreneur).
In that, he talks about the difference between the technician, the one who does the work, and the entrepreneur, the one who focuses on the business. Too many people (like me!) think that they can start a business by being the technician, and not thinking about the business strategy.
He says something like: a technician who starts a business isn’t an entrepreneur, he (or she) is just someone who had an “entrepreneurial seizure.”
I’m a mixture..
The main difference is that I don’t have a business plan, and don’t need one.
I know, I know, that’s sacrilege. But really: a plan is something with only one or two purposes. It either is how you are going to get to where you want to be or how you are going to stay there. Well, I’m already exactly where I want to be.. I am not going to grow, and in fact if anything I’m going to shrink as I move toward retirement.
So my only need is to keep things basically as they are, perhaps being a little less concerned about attrition than I would be if I were younger. But there’s no “plan” there, because in my business, things change too quickly.. how I make money today is very different from how I made it five years ago. There is no way I could have anticipated the changes that caused that; I simply need to be light on my feet and react to conditions as they develop..
Well, maybe that’s not 100% true: twenty-plus years of experience does let me see likely trends, and I do lean toward those possibilities. But my point is that I don’t formulate plans. I don’t say “Because virtualization is likely to move from servers to desktop I will do x, y and z to be ahead of the curve”. No – as I said, I might lean toward x, y and z, but I’ll keep my options open and be ready to move in any direction.
This works better for a one person business than it would for a larger organization, I think.
I guess my opinion is that some businesses lend themselves toward planning and some don’t. My plan is never to be hemmed in by a plan.
I said something like this to a fairly wealthy friend once. He snorted “That’s why you’ll never be successful!”. I laughed, because in my opinion, I have much more than he ever will. No, I don’t own the material things he does, but I live a very relaxed, mostly stress free life. I do what I want, when I want. I have lots of time off, lots of time for family and friends: to me, THAT is success. He has cars and boats and planes, ulcers, colitis, and a heart condition.. is almost never home, and when he does take a vacation his family complains that all he does is sleep..
Anyway.. may all of you get whatever it is you want, even if I wouldn’t want it myself 🙂
Tony,
In the weirdest way, I keep reading what you say and I hear a plan. Not what most would call plan, I agree. But the structure of what will work and what won’t work that establishes the parameters of what your business and what it will always be.
You have vision of what you want to me that is your plan. I think that’s what I’m trying to say.
As far as success goes, there’s no question in my mind that you’ve found your definition of that word and it suits you just fine. 🙂
I like how you look at the world.
By the way, no one said there is anything wrong with being a mixture. Not that I heard.
OK, but usually when we talk about business plans, we mean something written and rather definite.
My wealthy friend said “How will you ever borrow money for your business?”
I laughed again: “Why would I ever need to?”
Of course we were talking past each other. He conflates money with success; I don’t. Not that I denigrate money – it is important to have *enough*, but that’s usually a fairly small amount. Of course we have to take the future into account also, so you need more than what will meet today’s needs, but most of us really need far less than we think we do.
Let’s put it this way: it’s not worth killing yourself over money. Laughably obvious? Look around..
Well Tony, I read just last night in some business book that a plan on a napkin is more than most people have. I think in your case a plan in your head beats out that. I’ve read enough of how you reckon through things to know that you are standing on concrete not sand.
Sure would love to be at dinner some time with you and friends, talking about his for hours on end. 🙂
Great post Liz. You always find ways to make me look at things differently.
You probably know what I am, but I don’t. I’m going to read the post again and try to figure out where I fit.
Liz,
Wonderful post. I like your distinction between “freelancer” and “solo entrepreneur.”
I especially like your comment in reference to “Mantra madness.” I agree with you: mantras are great, but you’ve got to get out there and apply your smarts and get things done.
I think some people are looking for mantras in the same way that Dumbo was looking for “magic feathers.” The flying comes from the doing.
Best wishes,
Roger von Oech
Big Roy,
I think you probably know better than I do, but if you’re confused I’ll help you figure it out. 🙂
Thanks Roger. I’m glad to hear that you’re seeing a little of what I see. 🙂
Hi Liz,
Asked to choose between the two, I’m probably a solo entrepreneur in the making. If for no reason other than to satisfy curiousity, it seems necessary for any writer to know as much as possible about the art of our art as well as the business of it.
Carolyn
HI Carolyn,
Getting to know the business side of the writing is almost as fun as the writing itself. If you’re as curious as I am. 🙂
Tony, maybe it’s good for you, but some people aren’t happy with enough. I wouldn’t put down your friend so harshly about it.
Also, Liz, at some point I need to pick your brain about incorporating…
Hi Candice,
Funny you should bring up incorporating. Wayne and I just spent all of dinner talking about just that subject. Wow blogger synchronicity!
Liz,
Firstly sorry for not stopping by for ages. I’ve been tied up with a zillion different things.
Secondly, great article. It really struck a chord with me.
I’m unsure as to where I fit in the grand scheme of things as I feel I’m somewhere in the middle. I’m with Tony in a lot of ways.
Grrrr…wish I hadn’t read this at 2am. Another sleepless night 🙂
Mike
Mike,
No need for apologies, ever. 🙂
I’m always here and so are the pages.
We can talk about what you see when you’re awake and have had time to think. 🙂
Cool. I need to quit waffling between LLC and S-Corp and get all the paperwork filed before the end of the year.
(And figure out what to do with the assets I already have and need to depreciate for me as a sole proprietor, and how it gets transferred. Whee. The depreciation stuff I can get from my ex-accountant dad though.)
I should have incorporated years ago.
I know this you can’t LLC if there’s only 1 of you. There’s no point. The gov’t thinks you’re really a sole proprietorship. They call the LLC your alter ego and let the world go after you anyway.
Well, you can, usually for the purpose of doing business as a name, but for protection it’s pointless, yeah. I know a fair number of tech folk who keep them lying around for occasional consulting.
Of course, I still have to find a name. I’m dreadful at making stuff like that up.
Hey Candice,
I’m good at names . . . what’s the kind of name you’d like to have? 🙂
Therein lies the problem. I can nail down plenty of sorts of names I don’t want (things prefaced with e or i, containing words like IT or Consulting/Consultants/etc) but that are still a single-person deal. Vous comprendez?
I’m catching on . . . bet you don’t want things name after a city or a fruit or a person either. How about a color?
Hm. Color modifying something, maybe. Something springs to mind but it’s incredibly Unix nerd (and I do windows work too these days.)
Why am I thinking licorice and high heels?
SHOES!!!
Hee. Hate licorice, love high heels. (I’ve got these ones with pink pinstripes on them, too, they seem to fit your description.)
Pink Pinstripes Inc.
I like that.
I need to pack it in now. I’m wasted. Sweet Dreams. 🙂
Good night!
Well, Candice, I don’t think I’m being all that harsh.. 🙂
Incorporating vs. sole proprietorship: been there, done it all. Liz is right, a single person can’t get much protection.
My other comment on that is that accountants often push small business partnerships toward S-Corps, and that’s not always in your best interest. See http://aplawrence.com/foo-self-employed/incorporation.html
for my opinions on that. Basically my point is that you need to educate yourself: wrong decisions here can be expensive (as I well know!).
Tony, you’ve got a really annoying air of superiority in talking about your friend. “I’m better than he’ll ever be.”
And yeah, agreed on the research part. The family business is currently an LLC for various legal reasons. My folks are pleased with it, as it’s a pretty new legal structure still and it’s their first time with one. But we’ve still got a few corporations lying around.
The hard part is really that I’m already an existing business with profits and assets. If I were starting a new venture it would be simpler.
Just looked at your site, Tony. SCO. Man, I am so sorry you have to deal with that.
Ok kids, be nice.
Candice, I think you are reacting to something that isn’t there.
It’s my friend who thinks riches are the only path to happiness.. I think each of us needs to pursue whatever it is that makes us happy, and if that takes a lot of money, well, you’ve got to go earn it, don’t you?
I would definitely argue that simple pursuit of money without goals is not useful or advisable. But if you insisted otherwise, I would only wish you luck, not “look down on you”.
I do think there is something a little obscene about having way too much. On a scale of “screw everybody else” to “we are all our brother’s keepers”, I probably fall more toward the “brother’s keeper” end, but I’m also ready to agree that “too much” is something each person needs to make their own judgments about.
I seem to have made you angry? From your comment, I’d guess that you didn’t really look at my site because you think it’s about SCO – it used to be, but nowadays it’s much more about Mac and Linux and helping people move away from SCO.
Oh no, I’m just saying I’m sorry you have to work with it. I hate the stuff. (I spent a while porting a legacy app from it to Linux, actually.) The more people we can get off of that dreadful operating system the better. 😉
Your original comment just rubbed me the wrong way, is it really.
I guess I’m a “solo entrepreneur” – primarily because I detest the word “freelance.” In 30 years of working independently the term has most often been a negative. As I often say ââ¬Åââ¬ËFreelanceââ¬â¢ is a nasty little word. It seems to imply an individual doesnââ¬â¢t have a ââ¬Ërealââ¬â¢ job, canââ¬â¢t get a job, isnââ¬â¢t truly professional in their field, and is willing to work for ââ¬Ëfree.ââ¬â¢Ã¢â¬Â
Hello Jeff,
Welcome!
When I was young and watching writers from afar, the idea of freelancing was romantic. When I became a freelancer, the glamour wore off with in about 3 weeks, but I was able to make a nice living in my field. Then I became a publisher and learned what most freelancer were like . . . and came to understand what you are talking about — I found out why I had so much work when I was freelancing. 🙂
I congratulate you on your thinking. I know many excellent freelancers now. But I also agree, they work incredibly hard and put up with a lot. Nothing about what they do is free.
Hi Liz,
Sorry it’s been a while, been very busy! 🙁
Anyways, I was wondering, could freelancing be a good stepping stone to becoming a solo entrepreneur? As a freelancer, you get to build contacts, practice your skills in time management and discipline, and can schedule free time for small-scale ventures.
Perhaps skilled people without money to invest can build a nest egg through freelancing, then “retire” to start a business.
Something like that. 🙂
I agree, Rico,
In fact I think in the creative world, that’s how most solo entrepreneurs get there — they freelancer first, and while they’re doing that, they pick up the skills they need to run a business.
And the money too. 🙂
An entrepreneur needs doers and other people. A freelancer does not. And they are not mutually exclusive states of being. An inventor, for example, could be both. An online web application creator could also be both, slinging websites on the “side” while his real creation was being developed, perhaps in collaboration with others.
I feel the best entrepreneurs will also be most the most technically savvy doers in their fields. They will be able to contribute the most to society in this fashion and, by knowing the limitations of the craft, the best able to see a vision of what is possible.
The measure of this is not the bottom line: it is the extent to which a vision has been followed. That vision is personal.
Hi John!
Welcome!
As you’ve figured out, this post was to get folks thinking about their mindset regarding their view of their work.
I sure agree with your point that we can take on both roles. We need to be aware that each follows a different sort of thinking about the “work” to be done. 🙂
I think I’m a bit of each. I need to be both in order to accomplish all the things I need to accomplish on a daily basis.
I think I’m a little more of an entrepreneur. If I had a big enough budget, I’d hire out a lot of the work I do to freelancers.
Hm, an interesting debate. I feel like more and more people identify as being somewhere in the middle