Entrepreneur vs. Small Business Owner
Entrepreneur - Someone who organizes a business venture and assumes the risk for it.
Small Business Owner - Entrepreneur
About a month ago I decided that I was going to take a big step in my personal development and start to really write code. I came up with an idea for a service, picked a platform and a language (python on google app engine), and got to work building v1.
After a great month of utter frustration, joy, API integrations, and AH HA moments I launched my site. Now comes the hard part, sales. I’m not a sales person, but I know that for the service I’m offering the best way to get people to sign up is to do direct sales calls, so that’s what I’m doing.
I worked on my pitch for a while (it involves assuring whoever answers the phone that I am NOT trying to sell them something, only ask them a few questions about how they currently solve a day-to-day office problem), and then started making calls. And that’s when I noticed something interesting…
Sales calls that start like this “Hi, my name is August and I am a small business owner…” typically end with the receptionist (or whoever answers the phone) getting rid of me as quickly as possible.
Whereas calls that start like this “Hi, my name is August and I am an entrepreneur working on a new start up…” have a high probability of getting me transferred to a manager or decision maker of some sorts.
To be honest I was quite surprised by this difference. While I do consider myself an entrepreneur I also consider myself to be a small business owner, and in general look upon the title “small business owner” with greater respect. In fact, when I listen to people like Jason Fried, the WooThemes guys, or Gabriel Weinberg speak I admire them for being small business owners. They are operating the type of small, profitable businesses that I want to be operating.
So what is it about calling myself an entrepreneur that gets me almost immediate access to decision makers at a company? And why, when I introduce myself as a small business owner (a position that everyone from our nation’s politicians to our local newspapers revere as the backbone of our national economy) are excuses made and phone calls ended?
Does it say more about who is answering the phone, or has the term ‘small business owner’ simply lost its luster only to be replaced by a sexy french word entrepreneur? *I’m saying it with my sexiest french accent right now*
I’d love to hear your opinion on this. Do I have a skewed perspective (I’ve only made about 60 calls), or is there a general shift away from the use of the phrase small business owner? If so, why?
I’m not sure 60 is really a large enough sample size, but that is a very interesting result. I guess when you think small business owner you think of the guy running the local copy shop, or non-franchised coffee shop. When you think entrepreneur you think something sexier – like web technology. I might have to think on this a bit, as I’m Dir of Business Development for a small business, err entrepreneurial software company
Unrelated question, what led you to GAE, versus Ruby on Rails or something else? I’ve got some web ideas I want to implement, and I’m pretty much at the same state as you. HMTL / CSS I get, I can tweak and edit existing php code ok, but have never written anything from scratch. I find myself sort of paralyzed trying to decide between php, Ruby, or Ptyhon. GAE had never occurred to me, so thanks for confusing me even more 
@COD my reason behind choosing python and gae was pretty simple. A year ago my wife and I launched a startup (Lenguajero.com) and used google app engine. In those days I couldn’t have told you a single thing about python or gae, but having worked on it for the past year I at least understood some of the fundamentals so it was easier for me to get started with actually diving into the real code work.
We’ll see how this little experiment of mine goes, if it doesn’t show much promise in the next month or two of work (I do sales for about 4 hours a day and code for four hours a day), then I think I will try something new using Ruby on Rails. For a first project though I think it is about just choosing something and going with it. GAE has some drawbacks, but it is really easy for even someone like you or me to get up and running with limited tech skills.
I suspect the difference is in the perceived upside potential of the relationship. The news media has been conditioned to think of “startups” and “entrepreneurs” as being backed by VC money and taking shots at really big targets. Even if 98% of these bids fail, the ones that succeed are mentioned in headlines stating “So-And-So raises $500,000,000 and promises to be the next big Whatever.ly”
On the other hand, when you think of the small-business owner at the copy shop down the street, you see an upside of maybe expanding his one shop to three shops. The downside is that he’ll welch on his bill if money gets tight.
Who would you rather do business with?
Complete conjecture, but:
Being a ‘small business’ invites the question of why you are small. If the product is so great, why haven’t you grown? It implies that whatever you are doing is not industry standard, will not become industry standard, and may potentially leave them in a bind when you fold. The best case outcome for the decision maker is that your product will be good and everything will work, a strictly medium outcome.
Whereas being ‘an entrepreneur working on a new start up’ provides an implicit answer to all of those questions. They’ve never heard of your product because it’s new. You’ve not grown because your still growing. And though it’s not an industry standard today, it might be next year. The best case outcome for the decision maker is that your product will be the next big thing and they will look like a visionary for getting in early.
Obviously you could be a small business that’s about to grow or which has a high-quality but niche product. And most startups fail, so there is certainly more risk there. But one implies a lack of massive success, and the other implies the potential for massive success.
( I’m currently in the process of turning my small business back into a startup. )
the “small-business owner” term has multiple connotations. if you use it in political/business terms, you’ll think something respectable and the backbone of america idea. however, if you relate “small-business owner” to business pitches, people associate that with pyramid schemes and want nothing to do with it.
“entrepreneur” is fresh and is version 2.0 of the term, “small-business owner” IMHO
“You too can be an independent small-business owner!”
Since you mentioned him, I suggest you read Jason Fried’s new book, Rework.
Also, why do you start out sales call by defining yourself as a “small business owner” or “entrepreneur”?
Why don’t you say, “I’m with a firm that (solves this problem, provides this unique service, etc.)
Also, it might be fascinating for you to read about the April Pew Trust study that ranks “small business” as the most trusted group in America, sorta like “apple pie” and “mom.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/listen-government-small-business-trusted-group/story?id=10454669
@Rex That’s really interesting, thanks for the link. I’m not really sure why I was defining myself at the beginning of the call (I’m definitely not an experienced sales person), it just seemed natural given that I was “asking” for them to give me some of their time and expertise on how they solve a day to day issue. I’ll definitely try your line on Monday when I make more calls.
I’ve read most of Rework, and have been a big fan (like everyone else) of 37signals for a long time.