Have you ever wondered why street vendors and the likes seem to put a whole lot more effort into their work when compared to people who work in the offices?  One of the reasons is that the street vendors know that every action that they make affects their pocket directly, a key aspect of entrepreneurism.  You can see them smiling more, being more active and even being more aggressive than office bearers.  Office bearers usually think that their actions are not directly linked to their pockets and as a result (on average) do not put in as much effort as the vendors.  I would want you to take what I am about to type below seriously.  I want to show you what could happen to you should you embark on entrepreneurism after having slacked on the job for years.

Learning Curve:  There are other benefits of being an employee besides getting your paycheck.  A business is a guinea pig waiting for you to exploit it.  You can test your own theories and views on the firm and its customers and see how the theories work.  You can also learn about how your employer does business identifying the pros and cons of doing business in such a way.  This will help you when you embark on entrepreneurism as you will not have to guess or start from scratch.  The only way you can make this work is to work hard and make the most use of your time at the office.  Let us say you are in customer service, you can test your theories on a firm’s customers and see how they work.  This will save you time and money when you get into entrepreneurism as you will know what to do.  It will also give your own business a better chance of surviving as you will make less mistakes.  If you slack at work you will not be able to do all this and it will affect your pocket directly should you get into entrepreneurism.  In the worst case scenario your ‘slackertude’ will be carried over into your own business and you will suffer financially.

Psychological Programming:  One thing that most people do not realise is everything that they do at work on a daily basis is slowly embedded into their bone marrow if I can put it that way.  Your mind is trained to behave in a certain way and after a number of years it becomes very difficult to change how you behave.  If you are used to being late for work and you have been doing this for years what makes you think that you shall change overnight when you embark on entrepreneurism?  This will affect your bottom line as your new customers might become disgruntled at your lack of punctuality for example.  Let us say you were not good with customers when you were an employee.  Will you suddenly change and become a customer care superstar overnight?  Think about it and start to change now if you are slacking on your day job.

A Weak Network:  A critical success factor for many startups is the strength of your networks from the beginning.  A good source of that would be your previous employer’s customers.  These customers will have a good idea of how you do business and would willingly give you a good recommendation to potential customers or they could even give you your first bits of business as well.  This would be critical to your survival as no one else might not be willing to give you a chance considering the fact that you will not have a track record.  It would also present a cheaper way of entering the market as you would not have to incur costs so as to advertise to these customers.  Your current employer might also be a good source in terms of networks.  If you slack on your job you might end up in a situation were the employer either does not give you good references or will actually bad mouth you because of your lackluster performances when you were on the job.  If you do not have a good network your chances of survival as a startup might become very slim.

You Can Lose Your Current Job:  In a lot of cases an employee builds his or her business while they are still an employee of another firm.  An advantage of this is you have peace of mind as you work on your new venture.  You get to pay your rent and other bills and as a result you have less pressure.  You can take more time and pay attention to detail resulting in you launching a better firm.  If you lose your job however, you will have to rush into business or spend more time looking for another job.  Either way your own business will suffer as you might launch half-baked products as you try to get back on your feet as quickly as possible.  If you slack on the job you might hurt your own business so be the best that you can be at work.

These are just a few examples of how slacking on your current job will affect you should you start your own business.  Being an employee is like being a child because whatever you learn and how you act on your job will follow you as you grow in business.  Give yourself a good foundation by doing the best that you can on your job.  What are your thoughts on this topic?  Do you have more to add or subtract to this line of thought?

Thanks

Ruvimbo