Wantrepreneurs are content consumers

People that work to grow their business generally fall into one of two camps: entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs work with their plan, and wantrepreneurs just hope that things work out along the way. Both can succeed, but the odds are much higher for one over the other.

It reminds me a bit of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s famous quote of “A goal without a plan is just a wish“.

The challenge is that coming up with a plan isn’t always easy. As I’ve built my company, I’ve struggled many times to understand how to create the plan for the next step of the journey. Working through my thoughts (in places such as this blog) has helped tremendously.

In the book “The 1-Page Marketing Plan“, author Allan Dib says it like this:

“One of the major distinctions between successful entrepreneurs and “wantrepreneurs” is that successful entrepreneurs are predominantly content creators whereas wantrepreneurs are predominantly content consumers.”

Now, consuming content can be a great thing. That’s what you’re doing right now, and I spend a lot of time every day consuming content through books, podcasts, social media, and other platforms. If I stopped there, though, I’d be holding myself back.

While there are exceptions to every rule, I’ll bet that when you think about the entrepreneurs that you look up to, most of them are avid content creators. In my case, I create content for two main reasons:

1. To teach myself. The best way to learn something is to teach it to others, so publishing in public on here forces me to refine my thoughts before I share them.
2. To be seen. I’m not looking to go big on social media or anything, but staying top of mind is a great way to attract new business.

One side benefit of the content creation that I do is that it forces me to be a better consumer of content. If I’m low on ideas to write about, it’s usually because I haven’t been reading enough. I read more to write more, and I write to help sharpen my skills as a business owner.

If you run a business of almost any kind, creating more content will likely be one of the best things you can do with your time.