Point of difference: entrepreneur and business owner

I'm often asked what the difference between business owners and entrepreneurs is. Entrepreneurs are business owners, yet these labels have very different meanings.

?The way I see it is that a business owner will start or purchase a business meeting a defined market need with a product or service that already has a demand, with its terminology known by the market. Then, businesses compete based on their service proposition or how they package the product to make it more attractive than others.?

?Whereas an entrepreneur is a person who sees a gap in the marketplace for a new service or need that is unfulfilled. In this space, the entrepreneur will need to educate the market on the product and service and how it meets the customer's needs differently.

?Entrepreneurs usually lead the way in terms of jumping on a trend that shifts as society changes. These trends are predictable as they show a shift in what people want to see in the world. Entrepreneurs see these trends and see how they can meet the new need in a new way.

?While the business owner can make good returns from meeting existing and known needs, the entrepreneur takes the greater risk and, as a result, will gain better returns when they succeed as they are in the market earlier and understand the need to a deeper level.

?Most entrepreneurs have made many mistakes along the way to success, and as a result, their offer is usually more complete and satisfies the market to a greater degree.

?The societal trends that are in play today are:

• From profit-led to purpose-led: People want to know the impact of their purchases more and more.
• From silo to integrated business models: People want the complexity of choice taken out of their daily decisions.
• From business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) to business-to-people (B2P): People are googling the people they are looking to do business with before they google the organisation. People and personal brands are becoming increasingly important when taking a product and service to market.

?Other trends in play make up the mix, and when entrepreneurs see the gap in their industry and market, they can take the risk, invest in a new way, and gain better returns.

According to Linzi Boyd from One Earth Global, trends can be broken into predictable patterns.

• 3% of the market sees the new trend and creates the change the market wants to see. These are the people who lead the way.
• 15% of the market then sees the trend and jumps onboard. These people then influence the rest of the market in the new way.
• A further 35% of the market then jumps onto the trend, and the product and or service is considered mainstream.

?For society to shift to a more sustainable way of doing business that gives back more than it takes, we need more entrepreneurs taking more risks to give back greater returns to their businesses, enterprises and to society.

?I consider myself both an entrepreneur and a business owner.? In society, we need both. We need the risk-takers to jump on the trends to do things differently, and we need business owners to jump on the ideas so they can expand for the benefit of the market and society.

In today's world, the key trend that brings all the current trends together is that of community. When businesses come together to collaborate rather than compete, we will see a genuine shift toward a better world.

?If you'd like to know more, join my Trends keynote next Tuesday 12th of July, where business owners, leaders and entrepreneurs will gain further insights into why change, what to change and how to change with greater certainty and less risk.

#entrepreneurs? #businessowners #trends #creativeinsights?