I hate being called an entrepreneur. I think it’s just another term to describe being jobless and scraping for money, like I’m doing now kinda.
Yet I do love being called entrepreneurial.
The definition of entrepreneur varies form every book I read but the amalgam I like is the description of someone creating value out of pretty much nothing. This includes upselling lemonade already mixed as a kid, to getting sponsors for the podcast.
I think entrepreneurial skills are extremely valuable since they teach you how to convince someone to buy your idea. This takes a huge amount of skill, and I have to say it took me 4 years and a lot of money before I was confident about this.
I could say since, in highschool, I was entrepreneurial, or I’d rather say, creative. I used to host dinner parties to practice my cooking and asked for tips to cover costs. I never made a profit and I didn’t care. In college, the product development competitions and a few entrepreneur competitions made me tap into that creativity even more.
Yet probably the acceleration of my creativity and entrepreneurial skills is where I started to just churn out products and convincing people to eat them at Isagenix. In tandem with the creation of My Food Job Rocks, this allowed me to be creative non-stop, which I absolutely loved.
After reflecting on my role in Isagenix, I realized I was following the steps of an intrapreneur. If an entrepreneur is using scare resources to create something of value, then using another person’s resources to create something of value is called intrapreneurship. Many companies sometimes do this, but most of the time, it gets overshadowed or not talked about. We get stories about Incubator Labs that fail, but not about the intrapreneurs that have changed the company.
One of the best examples I can give is Missy Schaaphok from Taco Bell, who convinced the whole company to become the healthiest fast food chain in the US. Her ability to quantify her achievements and make healthy products such as the power menu has helped her climb the corporate ladder.
I believe anyone can have entrepreneurial skills but it takes a mindset and a cultivation of risks to make that happen.
In this article, I’ll distill the steps it takes to become an intrapreneur so you can do this in your own company.
If you have a suggestion, do it yourself
Do you hate those guys who complain ALL THE TIME? It’s terrible because they won’t take the effort to fix anything. Don’t be this person!
As mentioned time and time again, the best way to become creative and innovative is to practice solving pain points. In general, people complain about pain, so it’s easy to find what’s wrong.
One recent example of this was at my old job. Whenever someone requested pricing, people got a different perceived answer. I was confused when I was looking at old purchasing files, that there were serval points that highlighted a pricing scale. In the document, raw material totals were one price, and then tooling costs were another. Not only that, but nobody knew the shipping cost, packaging cost, or the commission cost of the product. Most of the R+D team didn’t have access to the purchasing files so R+D had to send marketing the pricing for just the raw materials. There was one mishap where R+D only reported the raw material pricing and it wasn’t caught until finance told us that the product was unaffordable. Whoops.
So I made a PowerPoint and presented it to the decision makers. With the support of my manager, my best friend, and the CSO, we gathered all the important people in the room and played out that no one knew how the hell to price things.
I was ready to be proven that there was a system this whole time, but apparently, there wasn’t. It really opened up a lot of people’s eyes on the fact that no one knew the pieces it took to price things.
Unfortunately, people have big egos and will try and rip a hole in your logic. Many questions were asked about the complexities, and how every product is different but that’s not true. In essence, all products have the same building blocks. Just different values. No one has figured out a template.
It is also unfortunate that I left my job before we implemented the changes. There were a ton of meetings about this and I loved learning about things were actually priced.
Yet people now know it’s a big problem and it’ll take a lot of time to fix it.
Also, I know how to price products fairly now.
It’s Easy to Work Hard
I never felt like I worked very hard in my job because I loved what I did, and I wanted to make a difference. In Isagenix’s case, it was because I wanted to learn how to create great products. If you can’t do this in your current job, I really suggest evaluating if this is the right job for you.
There are two different types of cultures in the world of business. One culture is where everyone works hard and no one gets recognized and another is where no one works hard and they don’t want to because life is easy. I’ve had experiences in both.
Yet the secret of building up the status of an intrapreneur is to build rapport with the people at or below your level. Not only that, but proving you are actually efficient, do your work well, and get stuff done gives you a reputation that everyone likes. Building an army of employees who think you are a decent human being resonates to the top and can be very useful when the time comes or someone doesn’t like you.
Also, there is no benefit in being a jerk at work. People are jerks when they fear being replaced but if you get stuff done, then chances are, you’re irreplaceable.
The Resource Pillow
Consulting sucks because it takes a lot of work to order samples using a gmail account, send them to your apartment, and then use your 2 significant figure scale to weigh out ingredients.
With a company, you have all of these covered. It’s really the little things that matter. Not only that, but the stability of a paycheck, the amazing lab equipment and storage space, really makes a lot of the stress disappear.
Best of all, if a project fails while you’re in corporate, you probably won’t get fired.
There are two ways to get the resources you need to solve a problem. Either submit a plan or present a prototype. Both are indicators you are willing to put skin in the game and put effort in your work. People need to see a validation method that makes sense and depending on your company, certain things will work. We figured out pretty early on in my last job, that giving a higher level person an amazingly tasting product helped us a lot in bringing over new ideas.
Corporate Mentorship
Being mentored by the CSO has its advantages. If he trusts you, can get into a lot of meetings and use him as a trump card to get decisions done fast.
As many say, mentorship is extremely important in your career path. But how do you get a mentor?
A fan messaged me the other day about my article about mentoring in which I said that you should pay for mentorship. To some extent, I disagree about this. I think you should get a mentor any way you can and if it doesn’t work out, then no sweat. If you have to pay for one, leverage your value before diving in. Though I did not expect my first mentor in Phoenix’s business to go belly up, he taught me how to sell and charge high prices so it was worth it, I think.
I do think it’s ok to have a mentorship within the company, and perhaps it’s required to implement change. Heck, some companies force a program. I don’t like matchmaker mentorships but that’s because generally, I haven’t had much success in that realm. Certain parameters should be met before getting a mentor that can push you to change the company.
Criteria for corporate mentorship
- The mentor in question should be two degrees higher than you. For example, if you’re a technician, then you should be mentored by a manager. The higher your mentor is on the totem pole, the easier it is to get your ideas through
- The mentor in question should have the same mindset as you. Quirkiness is a good indicator actually. I got my CSO’s pop culture references when no one else did so he liked me.
- Your mentor should be something you want to be or learn more about. If you want to learn about purchasing, then meet with the purchasing manager
- The culture of the company should say they promote innovation. This doesn’t mean they innovate. You can use a lot of leverage talking about how you want to innovate the company
- It seems like private companies and small companies are the best way to become an intrapreneur.
If you dream of entrepreneurship but don’t think you’re ready, take baby steps and try and become an intrapreneur in your company. The risk is minimal and it’s good practice.
