Types of Wealth Creators

The government initiative could help to make the culture in the UK be even more enterprising than it is already.  However there are aspects of the messages going out that should be of concern to everyone.  The words Enterpriser/Enterprising and Entrepreneur/Entrepreneurial are used throughout the documents that the Government and the Make Your Mark campaign and others use to promote the initiative.  In practice there is a great deal of difference between the Entrepreneur and the Enterpriser and indeed these are not the only types of people who create wealth.  There are people who are technically oriented whom we call Technical Professionals, and who may invent a new process or product but are not themselves business oriented.  They usually go into partnership with a company who can exploit their product or set up a company with a team of others with more commercial skills.  Then there are wealth creators in companies who rise up through the corporate ranks and contribute significantly to the growth of the company and actually become wealthy themselves.
 
In the context of the Government Enterprise initiative there is a need to differentiate between four types of people who are entrepreneurial.
 
Type 1
People with an Expert set of attitudes are not so attracted by personal risk or by commercial challenge. They see value in getting the processes right and often have a focus on achieving high quality in what they do. They may prefer a functional role where they can use their technical knowledge and expertise.

Serial Entrepreneur

Whilst the Serial Entrepreneur goes it alone and makes decisions intuitively the Enterpriser will do a management buy out or set up a business with other people who will all provide different expertise and share the risk.  The Serial Entrepreneur dislikes or even ignores business plans whilst the Enterpriser will be very analytic and uses planning to manage the risks.
 
The Serial Entrepreneur is driven, extremely hard working and totally focused on the business they are developing.  This makes them very boring to have dinner with as they tend to only want to talk about their business.  Serial Entrepreneurs tend not to enjoy or take holidays whilst the Enterpriser will schedule in R&R.
 
One of the interesting aspects of a Serial Entrepreneur is that they do not accept that they have ever failed. Yet they start on average five businesses before they make it big.  On the other hand, Enterprisers will readily accept the "F" word to describe lack of success of their previous ventures. However, they tend be less resilient than Serial Entrepreneurs and will usually only try once or twice to start the business before giving up.
 
So why does it matter to make a distinction between the different types?  Our research and experience of working with Entrepreneurs has shown that Entrepreneurs are created by being marginalized in their youth.  They are driven by the feeling of injustice to themselves or very often to their families.
 

Mind of the Millionaire

So we see, for example, that almost half of the Entrepreneurs that we tested on the BBC television programme "Mind of the Millionaire" are dyslexic.  Many famous Entrepreneurs such as Branson, Charles Schwab and Lord Heseltine are dyslexic.  This can marginalize children from their peers and make them very frustrated and determined to show the world that they are just as good if not even better than other people.  The children of immigrants are often entrepreneurs. They may have seen their parents whom they believe to be intelligent and skilled having to take menial jobs in their new country and this creates in them a strong sense of social injustice.  The children may also feel marginalized by the society around them and this reinforces their determination to get out of the "humiliating experience".  Entrepreneurs are not more intelligent than the general population whilst Enterprisers very often are and far more likely to have a University degree.

Motivation

So if they are driven by different motivations and they work in very different ways then we have to first identify what type of Wealth Creator the person is. We can then provide different kinds of training and support to them to help them make the most of their potential. It is even more complex as Women and Men are different as Serial Entrepreneurs, Enterprisers, Corporates or Experts and they need training and support in different ways.
Entrepreneurs are not trainable but what we can do for them is help them run the business once they have set it up. Whereas Enterprisers are open to the classic business training including the MBA.
 
There is also the issue of accountability.  Who is accountable when the Government and its agencies encourage young people to risk their money and their time and the person fails because they were never suited to go this route?  We have found that the majority of people who come to us saying that they believe they are Entrepreneurs and are going to risk their resources to start a business are totally unsuited to go down this path.  We are able to assess the most likely way that the person can create wealth but for most people the route forward is to get a job and progress as far as they can up the corporate ladder.  We say to the Prime Minister that it is important to distinguish between hype and realistic possibilities when encouraging people to risk their assets and their reputation.  To many people failure can be very damaging psychologically.
 
The Implications to You 
Understanding your working style and personality can be one of the most invaluable life lessons. If you can understand how you might fit into an organization, whether it is as the founder or the corporate executive, you will save yourself a lot of time and effort. The financial and personal rewards could be enormous.