How intrepreneurs can change your business

Everybody already knows how an entrepreneur, in the right place at the right time and with the right idea, can shake up the business world or create an entire industry from scratch. But what about intrepreneurs?

An intrepreneur is, in effect, an internal entrepreneur that can develop for or innovate within an existing company or business. While this niche profession is still just getting started, many companies are looking into hiring their own intrepreneurs to supercharge their development and enjoy a plethora of benefits.

Let’s take a look at how intrepreneurs can change your business for the better now.

INTREPRENEURS CAN IDENTIFY PAIN POINTS

For starters, intrepreneurs are particularly good at identifying different pain points that might affect your customers or employees. This is solely because they come at the perspective from an outside angle instead of looking at things from the inside, like you might if you’re a manager.

As a manager, you might be concerned with the bottom line or might prioritize a certain way of doing business. However, an intrepreneur can look at that same process and determined that:

• it’s not helpful for employees
• it actually lowers productivity
• there’s a better way to do some aspect of your business

Take the example of a particular way of ringing up customers with a cashier. An intrepreneur might be able to look at your current line and ringing system and come up with a better way of doing things just from seeing things at a different angle.

INTREPRENEURS CAN GATHER FEEDBACK FROM EMPLOYEES

Related to the above, intrepreneurs are much more capable of gathering unique and honest feedback from your employees. Even if you’re a great manager, there’s no doubt that employees don’t always share their full and honest thoughts with their employers. It’s just a matter of preserving their job.

But intrepreneurs are not their bosses (necessarily), and they might be able to get feedback that’s more useful to your organization without the filter that most employees normally use. You can then use this feedback to improve the employee experience or determine how your employees actually feel about your company when they aren’t in “PR-mode”, so to speak.

INTREPRENEURS AREN’T BIASED TOWARD YOUR ORGANIZATION

This general benefit is worth mentioning: intrepreneurs don’t particularly care about your organization the same way you or a founder might. This can be very valuable if you want raw and honest feedback about how you’re doing things and how your company can improve.

You should never surround yourself with “yes men”, and intrepreneurs are often the opposite of these guys. Rather than constantly flattering your ego or current business plan, intrepreneurs can coldly but helpfully point out places where you can improve and how your company is failing your main customer base.

All this is to say that getting the feedback and outside ideas from someone who isn’t trying to get a promotion in your company can be much more valuable than you think.

INTREPRENEURS CAN BRING OUTSIDE ADVICE FROM OTHER COMPANIES

Furthermore, intrepreneurs can be valuable since they can bring in outside ideas and advice from other companies and their own experiences. Many intrepreneurs might be freelancers or contractors that are hired on a case-by-case basis. They don’t necessarily stick with a single company.

To this end, you can pick the brains of intrepreneurs or ask for their unfiltered feedback. In doing so, intrepreneurs can give you advice about how to improve your company based on what works with your competitors.

Consider the example of a software company that hires an intrepreneur to improve their productivity. Said intrepreneur could provide some useful procedure points for software writing that you didn’t think about – because you didn’t know about it! But the intrepreneur did from their wider industry experience.

INTREPRENEURS CAN HELP YOU STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE

But perhaps the biggest benefit that intrepreneurs can bring to your company is the same innovation you would expect from a dedicated entrepreneur. If you hire an intrepreneur for your organization, they’ll be able to innovate your company from the inside out.

This helps you stay ahead of the curve and keeps you innovative compared to your competitors. It’s well-known that businesses that stagnate or which don’t constantly come up with new ways to push the bar higher fail eventually.

An intrepreneur, for example, can help you come up with:

• a new mobile ordering system
• a new customer base you didn’t consider
• a new product you can provide based on your current production lines

For instance, take a restaurant that traditionally only offers in-person dining. An intrepreneur could help the manager of that restaurant come up with a mobile ordering system to effectively double their revenue.

INTREPRENEURS WILL ALWAYS PUSH FOR PROGRESS

An intrepreneur can be very valuable to your company since they provide an impetus for progress. This is particularly important with older organizations that have a lot of inertia or tradition behind all of their processes.

Having an intrepreneur at your side will ensure that you don’t stagnate for too long and don’t avoid progress in favor of stability. For example, imagine that you’re a manager for a website building company. You’ve already developed a great product that is loved by hundreds of thousands people.

An intrepreneur won’t stop there. They’ll help you come up with new ways to better serve your customers or new products to expand into ancillary company branches. The growth and innovation you can expect from a skilled intrepreneurs is unparalleled.

INTREPRENEURS WILL KEEP YOUR COMPANY AGILE/RESILIENT

One last benefit you can expect from intrepreneurs is that they’ll passively prevent your company from falling into obscurity or irrelevance. As they continually push your company to evolve and progress, they’ll also make it more difficult for your company to falter, even during times of economic hardship.

A company that benefits from the innovation and fresh ideas that an intrepreneur can bring to the table will be adaptable, flexible, and capable of surviving just about anything. Is there any reason not to hire at least one intrepreneur for your company?