If you don’t have a customer you don’t have a business – Talk Marketing 041 – Piers Mummery

If you are thinking about being an entrepreneur; and lets face it in 2022 everybody is thinking about being an entrepreneur, you should check this out.

My experience is that running a business is unnecessarily and unpleasantly difficult but you dont have to have that experience because now you know about Pierso, The Entrepreneur’s Coach.

You are very welcome 🙂

00:00 Introductions
07:38 How are you qualified to talk to us about entrepreneurship?
16:43 What qualifies someone to describe themselves as an entrepreneur?
27:27 Does being an entrepreneur have to be stressful?
32:01 What is the formula for being a successful entrepreneur?
38:53 Why do so many entrepreneur’s fail?
43:06 What resources do you need if you are going to be a successful entrepreneur?
53:27 Do you have to be good at marketing to be an entrepreneur?
1:01:58 How should entrepreneur’s build teams?
1:18:10 What do you recommend people read if they want to develop as entrepreneurs?
1:24:08 Who do you recommend I speak to as part of the Talk Marketing series?

Martin Henley
How are you qualified to talk to us about entrepreneurship?

Piers Mummery
Well, how is anyone qualified to talk about anything? I mean, I think it’s really a question of learning. So I’ve been in the entrepreneurial circles, entrepreneurial world, for about 30 plus years. I started, built, sold, collapsed, you know, created about a 10 or 11 startups. I’ve always played in that small business world. So yeah, I think probably been doing this for 30 years gives me some sense of I know what I’m doing. I kind of realised sometimes when I talk to a lot of people, what I say, to me, is very obvious, but to other people, it doesn’t appear to be obvious, it’s quite complex. So I feel that you know, I just naturally understand how this works. I know how to start a business. I know what needs to be done. And entrepreneurism to me, the definition of that is finding a way to do things with limited resources. You just get used to it.

Martin Henley
Okay, interesting because it seems to me that the words the, what the definition of entrepreneur or entrepreneurial, has changed, it might be one of those Mandela Effect things where I think it used to mean something and now it means something else. I thought when I was growing up an entrepreneur was clearly, it was also about making money but there was also some kind of innovation, so it will be kind of like a new way of making money or developing new products and services. So Clive Sinclair, for example, was described as a an entrepreneur in the 80s. And he came up with this C5 thing, you know, and I suppose Alan Sugar and Richard Branson, and those people were entrepreneurs. Whereas it seems now that everybody is calling themselves an entrepreneur, like people who start a graphic design business call themselves entrepreneurs or print businesses, or a web company, it almost seems to me like, like the word entrepreneur, also now includes anyone who is a small business owner. What do you think?

Piers Mummery
Yeah, I think it’s interesting, I think it’s not necessarily a title, it’s way of thinking. So I don’t see people’s that, you know, a Managing Director, managers and directs business, an entrepreneur does not entrepreneurial business. It’s a way of thinking, it’s a mindset that goes with it. So I think when you refer to people like Sir Clive Sinclair and people out there, I see those more as innovators and inventors. So you invent something. And there’s plenty of history around people have invented things. Being an entrepreneur is about how you do things. It’s being lean, agile, bootstrapping, finding a way and developing all the traits, you need to achieve things. So in a home, you can be an entrepreneur, you know, so, right. I mean, I’ve got children. So for the parents out there, being a parent, you have to be entrepreneurial. There’s no rulebook, there’s no guide, there’s no this is how it works. You just find a way to to be apparent, and you do the very best you can. Some people are most people win, but a lot of them lose, you know, people don’t actually become successful parents. It’s a way of thinking. And I believe that’s what entrepreneurialism and it’s a mindset, and a concept.

Martin Henley
Okay, so. So that’s interesting. Okay, that’s really interesting, but I’m not necessarily any clearer on what actually … so an entrepreneur is somebody then who finds a way? Is that what you’re saying? So there’s an element of risk in this, there’s an element of innovation, but there’s an element in? Yeah, I’m sorry, I’m not quite understanding. I’m having to hold my microphone because today’s the day that my, my stand has given up. So if I let go, it kind of falls.

Piers Mummery
I agree with you. I think a lot of people say, you know, I can sort of a graphic design company and call myself an entrepreneur. To me, I see the word entrepreneur as the means to the end, okay, so it’s, it’s the process of enabling you.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?