Working at a “corporate” type job is blasphemy to an Entrepreneur. But I must say from personal experience that there are huge advantages to working for a corporate company, even as an Entrepreneur. There are both life and professional lessons to be learned in the process.

Over the past 2 years I have had the privilege of working for a fantastic company 1on1 Marketing. One of the best experiences of my life! After having just recently left the company to move on to other opportunities I wanted to share with you some important lessons I learned there that have changed who I am forever.

1. Solving Problems Is Really About Solving People Problems

I know, I know. You’ve probably already read this in a little book called Switch. Maybe I stole a chapter from that book for this blog post. But it’s true. My corporate job taught me through experience that “what seems to be a situation problem often times is actually a people problem.”

Learning how to not only deal with people, but more importantly inspire them and help them through problems is a major key to surviving in the corporate world. A very powerful weapon for any Entrepreneur.

2. It’s About Experience Not About Where or If You Graduated

It still amazes me how we have created a system in this country that scares young people into thinking that if they don’t get a college degree, they are doomed forever professionally and therefore financially. This is just simply not the case.

If you have a skill that a company needs you will get the job. Period. And if you are willing to work, study, and fail faster and harder than everyone else around you than you will be promoted quickly and often within that company.

3. Never Stop Doing What Made You Successful

Often times companies will grow to a certain point and then come to sudden halt. A peak in growth if you will. Why does this happen? There are hundreds of reasons quite frankly and hundreds of books have been written about this.

One major lesson I have learned is that many times companies stop doing the small simple things that once made them successful. Sounds simple and almost common sense. And it happens more often than you might think.

4. The CEO Must Be An Absolute Rock Star!

I was lucky to work with a fantastic CEO and CMO over the past 2 years. Because of these two people I was able to learn and grow at rates I could never have imagined. This is a huge key to a successful business. If you are going to run your own business… you better be prepared to become a flat out super star! Anything less will lead to average results and failure.

5. Risk Taking Must Be Rewarded

This is difficult for small business owners. How do you trust your people to the point where you trust them to take risks? I don’t have the answer to that question. All I know is that you have to take risks in order to grow. And just like anything else in business, in order to “scale” your business you have to be able to “scale” your risk taking.

6. Learning How To “Win Friends & Influence People”

The old book by Dale Carnegie is as true today as it was back in 1936 when it was first published. Your ability or lack thereof to influence people in a positive way will be a determining factor in your Entrepreneurial success. And in order to influence someone positively you must become their friend.

But let me be more specific here; learn how to influence people so that they can take your good idea and 1st) convince themselves that it was their idea and 2nd) see the idea through all the way to delivery.

7. Culture. Culture. Culture.

1on1 Marketing has a fantastic culture! This culture was created because the company from it’s beginnings put a huge focus on hiring what they called “the right people.”

Whoever your “right people” are, make sure you define what “right people” means and go after and hire those people. Doing so will create the type of culture that best embodies who you are as the founder and the goals and aspirations you have for your business.

8. Don’t Lose That Entrepreneur Spirit!

I don’t care if you are Steve Jobs, stay at a Corporate Job long enough and you might lose that Entrepreneur spirit if you’re not careful. Processes, procedures, meetings, documentation blah blah blah. 8 hours per day of this can turn you. Change you.

To prevent this make sure you are taking risks regularly. Put your job on the line. My favorite thing to offer to executives was “let me do (blank) for 30 days and if it doesn’t work you can fire me.” Be ready to back it up though!

9. There Are Great People All Around You. Connections Worth Having.

The connections and friends alone make it worth having a corporate job for a few years. Close friends. Future business partners. You get the point. On top of that you never know how those connections will become valuable to you in your future. Or more importantly how you may be able to help those people sometime in the future.

And you get to increase your Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter following.

10. Success = Building Up Small Wins One After The Other

Corporate jobs often present you with massive sized problems that take months or even years to tackle. While some may look at this as a waste of time, there’s a very important lesson to be learned here. The lesson of stacking up small wins.

The only way to tackle a massive problem is to get small wins 1 at a time, and let the momentum of those small wins build up over time before you’re able to eventually solve the problem. Well guess what? This is also how Entrepreneurs succeed!

Conclusion:

It’s easy for an Entrepreneur like you and I to have a very negative mindset while at a corporate job. I think its important to maintain a positive attitude and to try and correlate your work efforts with your long-term personal goals. Doing so will help you get much more out of your experience and will only make you a more powerful business man/woman in the long run.

So if you are at a job right now or are looking to take a position somewhere, ask yourself this question regularly:

What efforts at my day job will or can help me meet my long-term Entrepreneurship goals?

Asking yourself this question regularly will help you keep yourself aligned with what you want to do long-term and more importantly who you want to become long-term.