The Entrepreneur That Knows: Turning Intellectual Capital Into A Business (Part Two)

Intellectual capital, or the intangible assets of a business which include its people and their knowledge, their relationships, and their processes, is becoming more and more recognized as one of the most valuable assets that a company has. They are known creating tremendous value and can make all the difference between a thriving, surviving, or dying business. The days of us living in an economy where we are known for just making or doing something are over. There are many people who are living extremely comfortable in a career that is based on what they know.

Like many workplace issues, this one can also translate into entrepreneurship. As I said in Part One, every job is originally created by an entrepreneur. About 90% of employers in the US are small businesses and plenty of them started out as solopreneur ventures. If corporations can cut checks for knowledge workers for countless reasons, then yes, entrepreneurs can certainly get paid for what they know.

There are so many ways entrepreneurs, such as consultants and coaches, bring value to their customers through what they know. A few are included below:

1.      Lack of Resources

The saying is true, “you don’t know what you don’t know”. Whether you’re working business to business or direct to consumer, the most common reason why your clients will come to us is that they are currently lacking your resource. Lacking your resource doesn’t matter if it doesn’t contribute anything because, obviously, not everything can add value everywhere. However, if your intellectual capital is going to give them a positive ROI both now and in the future, help them achieve their goals, and impact their sustainable competitive advantage, then they probably need you. That need might be a something they’ve already addressed and they are proactively approaching you. On the other hand, that need might be something you identify and you educate them on during the sales cycle. Either way, the lack of a resource you have available is what’s going to help make a customer pay up.

2.      Objectivity

Lacking the resource entirely isn’t always the issue. Sometimes, they have an internal resource but your intellectual capital is still needed because of the different perspective you bring. An organization may have members on staff with similar knowledge as you. However, there are also factors such as being socialized to the organizational culture, having personal relationships with colleagues, and other aspects of them being a part of the company that interfere with their ability to bring a unique and objective experience to the organization. Internal resources obviously bring value to the organization in ways that makes sense to have a person in the company with the knowledge and skillset to be there for the long-run while you are just there for a certain amount of time. However, your objectivity can bring insight, perspective, creativity, and innovation that can’t always be found with internal resources.

3.      Approach

Similarly to objectivity, your approach may be much more different than an internal resource or another external resource which was previously used. How you go about your customer interactions, disseminating your knowledge, and implementing your best practices might be very different than what has been done before. In fact, if your approach proves to be much more effective, that in itself is value added to the customer. It may not be that your knowledge is completely new to the organization but your work-style itself can certainly give you the advantage as a resource.

4.      Experience

I discussed this lot in the first part of this series. Your professional experience, your education, and your investment in your professional development usually are the most identifiable way to distinguish yourself in your field. In short, these are your credentials and they can potential open doors you wouldn’t have the opportunity to knock on without them. They make you competitive, not just because you have them, but because the blend of them is probably not the same from one person to another. Additionally, your personal experiences can bring you a long way. Everyone loves a juicy, compelling story of hard work and resilience. But even beyond that, your personal experience shape your view of the world more than anything and can give you a perspective on things that cannot always be found in a text book or a seminar.

5.      Your Results

By the end of the engagement, you client is going to want some results. This is the one thing that probably matters the most to them. They want to get what the paid for and, in many cases, more than they paid for. For some customers, money becomes no object so long as they get the result they are looking for. Your ability to provide results consistently is what can not only separate your clients from their competition, but it can also separate you from your competition. Your ability to give results is the way to measure the value of your knowledge and how you can implement it. The truth of the matter is your value is really in your results and, as an entrepreneur providing knowledge, your information is really just a means to an end.

Starting a business based on sharing knowledge truly has a place in our rapidly-changing economy and for a number of good reasons. While knowledge resources have impacts that are both qualitative and quantitative, they are probably even more valuable than we even realize. Entrepreneurship based on what you know is not “fluffy”, it’s real and there’s a huge potential to build a sustainable enterprise on intellectual capital.