As an entrepreneur, I THOUGHT I work for nobody but me – wrong!
For many of us calling ourselves an ‘entrepreneur’, we often ‘work’ for other higher entities to run our business smoothly.
Franchisees work for their franchisor
As a franchisee, you work for your franchisor – You follow guidelines; You pay your franchisor a royalty; You market your store and your franchisor’s brand. Wait, wait, wait! How? why? Well, it IS, technically, their brand! You just lease the brand name… you pay for the lease in term of franchise fee, remember? You don’t own the brand. Period.
Viral marketers work for the company they affiliated with
Affiliate marketings, MLMs, and other related viral marketing activities promote the company that own the affiliate system. Yes, you can be wealthy through viral marketing, but you actually make the company you affiliated with even wealthier.
Search engine marketers and online business owner work for Google!
No matter how hard you try to deny, face it. You work for Google! You bust your gut days in and days out market your websites and blogs and use SEO (search engine optimisation) techniques and services available to get a better Google PageRank, because the higher the PR, the higher the traffic, which means, more $$$ to you – And, oh, remember AdSense? There! you work for Google.
Other business activities that actually need somebody else to make your business works
You have created better shaving blade, but you need shaving device to put our blade in. You own good products, but you make your living entirely as an eBay Seller. You grow crops, but you need a marketplace to sell them. So many examples, with one conclusion – most of us doesn’t really enjoy the perk of doing business and dictate the market – we NEED others to survive; We ‘work’ for them.
I don’t want to work for anybody! I want to work for myself!
Well, again, face it. The reality is, not many among us is a pure, hardcore, entrepreneur. Put those guys – including authority names such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett – and the likes out of the equation, then you can find you and me there – working hard to put our business afloat, and hopefully, on autopilot (on passive income) – with the help of other, greater, entities (a.k.a. marketplaces, other companies, etc.)
How to work for ourselves
I have some obvious pointers on how to work for the sake of ourselves, but hey! It’s half dream, half reality – just try shooting for the stars!
- Own the system – own the affiliate system, own the franchising system, create automated business system – just… create it, own it, and let others work hard for you!
- Create a widget or an invention that hacks society lifestyle pattern – create a breakthrough that change people live their life – like the Internet. Like the Apple iPod. Like the Microsoft Windows. Like LED. Like flexible display that can be rolled up as small as a pencil. Like nuclear weapon (If Einstein lived today, what would he do to the bombs?).
- Be a Venture Capitalist – Those businesses NEED you and your money badly.
- Be a good-doer, philantrophic businessman or social entrepreneur – A lot of you is needed in this ill world.
There’s there. Who do you work for today?
Ivan Widjaya
Work for social bookmarkers and directories :)