Anvil Corporation Job Description: Seeking a self-starter, someone who can work in a fast-paced environment, a person that can juggle many tasks at once, a self-driven, highly motivated leader, a great negotiator with superior communication skills, a sales force, basically superstars, ninjas, gurus and rockstars! Sound familiar?

As an entrepreneur and business owner that has won awards and outlasted the critical mark of living past five-years as new businesses… I have some insights on ‘my tribe’ as job applicants as new hires! Over the last few years I met many of my existing goals in running my own business and was seeking something different… working for others. So I decided to explore working inside a leading company as an ‘employee.’ Now I realize this is not nearly as sexy sounding as entrepreneur, founder, or owner but as we evolve our goals shift and evolve. I’m seeking a global company working with collaborative teams on innovative products and services that have a positive impact on people’s lives. This is almost verbatim the objective statement on my own resume here.

The unfortunate reality is that I quickly learned and it continues to be reinforced that many companies and recruiters frown upon and look down on hiring entrepreneurs and business owners for internal candidate roles. Even the term ‘intrapreneur’ is not widely appreciated in the modern business culture.

Some companies believe this group of professionals might be: too egotistical, unmanageable, unteachable, stubborn, spoiled, challenging and downright needy to work with. In my humble opinion (IMHO) I could not disagree more with these false beliefs and fears. Now I am sure there are some folks out there who fit this bill perfectly, but personally nothing could be further from the truth. We are hard-working, risk-takers who have dealt with failures and learned from them. So here are three areas of expertise companies will receive the added benefits of by hiring an entrepreneur / business owner as their next new hire employee!

Human Resources [HR]

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“Definition: Human resources is the company department charged with finding, screening, recruiting and training job applicants, and administering employee-benefit programs. HR responsibilities include compensation and benefits, recruitment, firing, and keeping up to date with any laws that may affect the company and its employees.”

— Google Search: What is HR?

As a business owner that has annually need to recruit, interview, hire, on-board, train and then manage the human aspect of all employees, team members or consultants-contractors… we specialists in ‘human resources.’ We’ve done all of this with little to no training or guidance but have learned much of it the hardest way through experience and trial by fire.

Other than writing a job description and interviewing candidates there is a great chance you may have more experience in this area, than the person who will be interviewing you at Anvil Corp. These skills are not taught in most MBA programs (as a grad myself) and are learned, as needed.

For those of us that have had to perform these aspects of the process all by ourselves… I can honestly say that we are skilled in this area via OTJ training. Now while this new role may not require your exact HR skills specifically… candidates will be highly familiar in working with your HR managers and surely appreciate the care and thoughtfulness of having one for support!

Sales Director [Biz Dev]

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“Definition: A Sales Director is a team leader charged with the task of managing a group of Sales Managers to be as effective as possible. ... The Sales Director position is typically a role at large organisations, where the job role is needed to keep big picture company goals running smoothly across a vast network. ”

— Google Search: What is a Sales Director?

As a business owner I have personally developed custom sales processes that worked for my business, we are sales professional ninjas! We’re skilled at managing and implementing the entire sales process from customer profiling, lead generation, prospect validation, proposals and quote preparation, customer service, invoicing/billing/collections and the list goes on. We’re the living embodiment of sales managers, and without us businesses certainly will failed in the first one to two years of operations.

If candidates are applying for roles outside of these core sales positions, it’s safe to say that your supervisor and new boss may not have these skills under his or her own belt to draw from. You will enter any position with the knowledge and experience for what is required to attract, sell, retain customers/clients over many years and understand the key importance of developing business relationships. Plus, your visceral understanding in one critical metric for any business… the lifetime value of the customer! This one attribute, (key performance indicator) often supersedes all other KPIs that you be asked to track in your new role. I have found many companies don’t fully understand the importance of or even how to track this key indicator. Inn this role you will be able to assist them in some aspect at Anvil Corp.

C-Suite Roles [CEO, CTO, COO, CFO, etc.]

“Definition: C-suite refers to the executive-level managers within a company. Common c-suite executives include chief executive officer (CEO), chief financial officer (CFO), chief operating officer (COO), and chief information officer (CIO).”

— Google Search: What is the C-suite?

Ok, I must admit I have never been a big fan of corporate titles; especially since nowadays people make them up as they go. I mainly considered myself the director, a founder and owner of my own businesses and chose an LLC structure or a DBA to be more useful (any less costly) than fully incorporating in DE. Only under very specific small audiences and event groups did I ever refer to myself as the CEO and never the President. But the importance here is not these titles… but the work we actually do behind the scenes juggling so many of these roles ourselves. Since most of my work was as a sole proprietor supervising contractors, consultants and vendors working under me… I was all of these roles into one. Communication and leadership were ever-present.

Being that I am focused in the marketing world, it was obvious that I was the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for the business and CEO effectively. I solely developed the marketing strategy, advertising budgets, creative plans and full implementation needed to succeed. I did all of this without the support of a wider leadership team to collaborate with or advise my decisions. Maybe now you can see why it can be lonely at the top.

As the financial manager or Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the company, I had to make critical decisions about how money was spent. This goes well above and beyond simply a profit and loss statement and taxes, but how to effectively spend the money received for a balanced budget and sustainable growth during lean times and growth spurts. This was no easy task and even with an MBA in sustainable business management managing the financials and budgets was challenging. Again, you can see why founders are stressed out.

We are also the COO, CIO, CTO and other critical c-suite roles all merged into one; we have to run operations, tech sourcing, and implementation of information technologies by deciding on which tools to leverage for our own growth. We make hard decisions with little information on what platforms, systems and processes will maintain and run our businesses. These experiences build true resourcefulness like nothing else can.

So to wrap up… if you’re now recruiting and receiving applications from any founders, entrepreneurs and former business owners feel grateful to have them apply. If they have decided to throw their hat into your ring, I can almost guarantee they are humble, generous and acutely aware about why they are choosing your company. They often surpass the common base requirements for; driven, motivated, self-starters who thrive in a fast-paced environment. These are core aspects inside our DNA as business owners. Consider yourself lucky to have any apply and be sure to interview… and then hire them! Let us know how it goes in the comments or on social media @zenhustlers across most channels.

Post by Jared Brick. To learn more about these experiences, skills, talents and network visit Linkedin.

Balance Blog

Entrepreneurs Crush It As Great New Hires

Human Resources [HR]

Sales Director [Biz Dev]

C-Suite Roles [CEO, CTO, COO, CFO, etc.]