Employee or Entrepreneur?

How do you view your job? Are you an employee or an entrepreneur? It might not be as simple to answer as you think. Never-mind whose name is on your paycheck, this is more than that. To be honest, I have been answering this question the wrong way for most of my career. I’m not suggesting that you need to stop taking direction from your boss, but rather that you might need to offer more to your boss and your ORG than ever before.

Oxford Dictionary Definition:

Entrepreneur the activity of setting up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit.

Employee a person employed for wages or salary, especially at nonexecutive level

Faron proposed new definition:

Entrepreneur or Employee The activity of taking ownership of your career and your role, just as if you are the business owner or a member of ministry board, even to take on personal financial risk

Even though I’ve been a contented, hard-working employee, during 30+ years in Christian radio… As I look back, I realize that I often had an employee-mindset, not an entrepreneur. For some reason, I detached myself from any responsibility outside of my area. I guess I thought that was somebody else’s problem.

Maybe times were different back then?

Maybe that’s a cop out?

If the station I worked at could not afford a consultant or research, I would shrug my shoulders and move onto something else. That’s not an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur makes suggestions to his employer about alternative ways to get his or her hands on any kind of research and consulting. There are ways to do this. Can you barter?

If the station I worked at wasn’t getting any calls during their fundraiser, I assumed there is nothing I can do about it. An entrepreneur always believes there is something that can be done about it.

If the station didn’t have any budget for training, I didn’t get any training. I never once thought that I should self-fund my training so that I could grow in my career.

It’s my station. It’s my audience. It’s my ministry. It’s my responsibility. (You know what I mean. It’s certainly God’s ministry, but He wants me to do my part.)

I’ve worked for several entrepreneurs who were also employees. Here’s one: In 2017, we hired CJ Lusk from mainstream radio and we knew he had a lot to learn about Christian radio. There are things that you can and cannot say on Christian radio, audience sensitivities, and certainly CJ was going to need to learn how we do on-air fundraising. It was a big learning curve. CJ was a quick study. Within a few months, he already had learned the audience preferences. We could tell almost immediately that the CJ and Joy Show was going to be a great fit for Christian radio. But what I never expected was how CJ would embrace fundraising. By the time he was on the air doing his second fundraiser, he was approaching me saying things like, “I think I have cracked the code for how to get more people to call,” and “I’ve been researching how to do better fundraising by watching re-runs of Deal or No Deal on YouTube. I have found some secrets to keep the audience engaged even after several hours of fundraising.”

CJ embraced the idea that on-air fundraising is a big part of what it takes to be successful in this format. CJ was an entrepreneur.

Here are some signs you’re acting more like you’re an employee that an entrepreneur:

• You despise fundraising, even though you work at a listener supported station
• You have never paid for any training out of your own pocket
• You never pay for any expense at work out of your own pocket
• You are happy with your station just the way it is and don’t want to change anything about it.
• You show up a few minutes late and leave a few minutes early.
• You use the phrase “that’s not my area” or “that’s not my problem”

Genesis 1:28 The Message Bible:

God created human beings; he created them godlike, He created them male and female. God blessed them: (and said) “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!

So, apply this to your career… “Prosper, reproduce… take charge!”

So, how do you view your job?

Faron Dice is a 35-year CCM radio veteran. He currently serves as National Director of Radio and Artist Engagement for OneChild.