An entrepreneur is a person who owns a small business and staffs it as needed to meet customer needs. Entrepreneurship means that a business owner will focus on creating a market for his/her products or services based on a business plan. This focus on testing a business idea requires an entrepreneur to decide early on if he will assume the role of small business manager or hire another person to oversee daily operations.
To decide if you will manage operations, study your personal strengths. If your talent lies in working with customers or developing your products, that's where you invest your time. A big part of small business management is creating policies and procedures to guide daily operations. Some small-business managers shape these protocols based on prior experience and education.
Also, studying your instincts. Understanding the specific market you have chosen for your products or services will help you adjust policies and procedures and business strategy.
Small business managers help entrepreneurs bear the risk inherent in experimenting with a business idea. An entrepreneur opens an existing business concept in a new location or sector of the market, or she tries to take some market share away from competitors. Alternatively, she creates a new market with a novel business idea. Small-business management requires knowledge of how to develop the market by marketing one or more products to customers and convincing them that your company gives these products value.
Both entrepreneurs and small business managers must bear the uncertainty of consumer demand for product and service offerings because business sales can be feast or famine.
Managing a small business requires choosing the right organization for business operations. A tax adviser suggests what type of corporation, sole proprietorship or limited liability company to form. Organization concerns how to develop infrastructure to support production and distribution. A manager consults with a business owner about which human resources, technology, financial resources and physical resources to invest in. A good manager handles the details of organizing resources on a daily basis to keep costs low and maximize high-quality outputs for customers.
Small-business management requires planning. Some entrepreneurs take advantage of resources at a small-business development center. At a minimum, becoming an entrepreneur should include consulting a business checklist. If you write a business plan that addresses all or most of the questions in a checklist, you have a better chance of success.
If you decide to delegate the management of small business operations, you can trust your manager to implement the specific details of the business plan in an incremental way, building infrastructure with available resources.
