Microbusiness entrepreneurship and philosophy – in the same arena? I can see some of you scratching your head about this idea.

Philosophy is about pursuing wisdom in a disciplined methodology. For those of us microbusiness entrepreneurs who express our creativity and passion through our businesses, we are “applied business philosophers”, or at least, in my opinion. Like many disciplines, even the most scientifically rigorous, the deeper we reach, the more we begin to see how what used to be “science” gradually becomes “art”. Even scientists (a crowd I once belonged to – long, long time ago) begin to see that quality in their discipline that cannot be quantified, compartmentalized, or fitted into a nice model for display.

When I started out as an entrepreneur, I focused a lot of attention on the discipline and tactical execution of strategies. I was passionate about my mission, but sometimes I took that for granted and don’t appreciate just how critical this passion had been for the longevity and sustainability of my business. As I matured along my entrepreneurship journey, I still focused attention on the tactical, but I began to pay more attention on that igniting passion, that wisdom – dare I say “soul” – of my business.

I’m not sure if I’ve quite figured it out at this point, because I find myself a neophyte again, looking at entrepreneurship from a fresh perspective and with new appreciation of how little I know. Ironically, this is accompanied with a wealth of insight of how many assumptions I made about the way I structured my business or branded my business, and whether those assumptions matched reality.

For example, I used to focus on consulting and training as part of my business offerings. Over the past few years I’ve realized that this focus was part of my growth as a new entrepreneur, to have hands-on experiences working with companies and individual clients. I marketed or branded myself via educating others and sharing my knowledge. Now, I’m slowing WAY down (because now I have a toddler who demands my attention most of the day), and I’m going back to the basics and reshifting my focus on “educating and sharing” in two areas I’ve become interested in: personal leadership and transformational growth.

Microbusiness entrepreneurship is my vehicle for bringing my ideas of personal leadership and transformational growth to the world. The wisdom of educating and sharing that I had engaged in when I first became an entrepreneur is now paving a way for my next entrepreneurial journey.

What wisdom have you gained from your microbusiness journey?

Image by Jin Neoh

The following is an excerpt from a new white paper published today by The MicroEnterprise Journal and written by myself. To download the complete paper, click here.

Microbusinesses are generally defined as firms with fewer than five or ten employees. That sort of quantitative definition is useful in the context of getting basic information about them, such as their numbers, their industry sector distribution, their owner demographics, their annual receipts and their overall contribution to gross domestic product (GDP).

However, that definition does little to explain why it makes sense to view microbusinesses as a separate category of small businesses. Thus, in The Entrepreneurial Economy, I proposed an alternative, qualitative definition of a microbusiness:

A microbusiness is a small business in which no one employee performs a single function or task for the business, and all employees (including the business owner) have functional responsibilities in multiple areas of administration, production and management for the business.

This definition is useful in that it creates a set of parameters around which to view the operations of microbusinesses and to see, from a practical point of view, just how they differ from other firm size classes.

There have always been microbusinesses, of course. But the business form known as the microbusiness has evolved in significant ways over the past ten to fifteen years, assisted by technological advances, to events, and to changes in the consumer landscape.

As was discussed in The Entrepreneurial Economy, microbusinesses are defined less by their size than by the way in which their size dictates how they operate. Microbusiness owners have developed alternative business models that allow them to operate in their chosen industry sector in spite of their size. They are notoriously fast, frugal and flexible, usually willing to experiment and operated by people who are almost always determined to enjoy what they do.

While it is true that the size of a microbusiness is the deciding factor in the difference between the way they and larger firms operate as businesses, it is also true that being a microbusiness is, to a very large extent, a matter of the choices made by microbusiness owners.

They are not forced to run microbusinesses. There are all sorts of public and private sector service providers available to help microbusiness owners pursue more traditional small business growth trajectories, if that is what they want to do.

For that matter, they need not operate their own business at all. A microbusiness owner who feels that his venture is a failure because it has never grown beyond micro size does have the option of closing his or her firm and accepting a position in a more traditional work environment. Except in a particularly dire economic climate, they can usually find work of some sort and, in fact, doing so would often entail working fewer hours for better financial rewards.

From these observations, it seems reasonable to deduce that, for the most part, microbusiness owners run microbusinesses because they want to run microbusinesses. The microbusiness choice has to do with the goals and motives of the microbusiness owner, among which making money may number but would not necessarily be the top priority. And it is, in part, because money is not necessarily the only reason for running a microbusiness that their owners have evolved a distinctly different way of doing business than that of other firm size classes.

[There are plenty of folks who assume that microbusiness owners are simply having trouble growing their firms to a larger size along a more traditional growth trajectory. Recent firm size class trends, however, call that assumption into question.]

What do you think? Is the microbusiness choice really a choice? Or does it represent a failure of growth? Share your thoughts in the comments and let’s discuss!

Met with my business coach again yesterday … and he railed on me again. In a nice way, but I had it coming. This monthly outside scrutiny has become something I rely on heavily.

One thing I’ve learned at 37 years of age is that I haven’t learned much. This epiphany has changed my life. It causes me to look to my coach, my dad, my friends at church, my wife and anyone else I can, to learn and grow in my work and life. I don’t turn anyone down who is ready to offer me free advice (from the rich snob to the humble homeless man).

Though you may not think about it very often, outside scrutiny is required if you own a business or manage people. But you are so busy day to day that you don’t actually seek it out. Outside scrutiny has brought me:

• Fresh thoughts on my marketing plans (or lack thereof),
• Assistance with the consideration of new business lines of revenue,
• More effective ways to manage my time,
• Elimination of unproductive activities or ideas,
• Creation of new friendships and/or business contacts,
• Confirmation of who to hire and who to fire,
• Assistance with developing clarity in our firm’s methods of service to our clients,
• Knowledge about many things I’ve never had time to learn about,
• Contradictory relationships that make me sharper in my business knowledge and general understandings,
• Challenges to consider the time I spend with work vs. family,
• Relationships with people who can not enhance my business but certainly engage my heart,
• Suggestions on business books that enhance who I am as a leader.

There are many more (can you think of anymore?). I need this scrutiny and so do you. There is wisdom in seeking outside scrutiny – in fact your business and relationships depend on it!

Jason Blumer is a managing shareholder in Blumer & Associates, CPAs, PC, and author of the Thriveal blog.