BDI Pre-Presentation

PRE-PRESENTATION THINKING – SELLING THE ENTREPENEUR
“Entrepreneur, one who organizes and assumes the risk of a business or enterprise”. –Webster

If the people of the world were divided into entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial classes, the differentiator between the two would be the tolerance for and the aversion to risk. Webster uses the word risk as a key word in the definition of an entrepreneur.
We recognize that entrepreneurs are not always organizers of a business. They may buy or buy into a business, or they may inherit a business interest. The willingness to accept risk in an ongoing firm tabs this person as a person willing to accept risk in it’s various forms. The
entrepreneur does not relate risk acceptance to gambling for such a person feels absolutely certain of his ability to succeed and to stay in a success mode. Failure is a never thought.
To get to the starting line the entrepreneur checks off the ingredients for success: courage, stamina, knowledge and financial strength. If there are areas of uncertainty partners or associates who posses strengths in the entrepreneurs areas of weakness are recruited to join him and create a sound team.
Determined and confident the entrepreneur manifests not just an attitude of success, but of incredible success and failure is not an option. Strong, proud, capable of climbing any mountain and solving every challenge the entrepreneur becomes a victim of the Tarzan Syndrome.
Being healthy and born of sturdy stock, and an avowed careful driver, the entrepreneur barely admits to mortality and morbidity is dismissed as something that can only happen to other people. The entrepreneur being a risk taker, possessed with the Tarzan Syndrome can become an obstacle in selling the entrepreneur on securing adequate kinds and adequate amounts of disability insurance. The sales task is to bring to Tarzan that if he is impervious to all accidents and all sicknesses, he may feel the negative financial effects to the firm by having a partner struck down.