Apr

18

I Like Visibility

April 18, 2008 |

Browsing through my archives in my other blog I found this article (November 2006). Great thing is that I did took the jump into starting my own consulting practice. Now I feel I have more visibility within large companies than the one I did when I was an employee of a large company.

I Like Visibility

And it is easier to get in smaller companies.

I like the work I do to be felt across every single employee in the company –and recognized too! Ideally, I want every employee in the company to recognize that their paychecks depend on me.  By the same token, I would like the work of every employee on a company to have a possitive effect on my paycheck.  I also want the opportunity to do what I am best at doing and doing it with gusto — while learning a variety of ancilliary skills that can broaden my experience and my ability to execute.  To me, that is a description of an ideal work environment.

Sounds ambitious? Not so. That is the feeling, and often the impact you have in a small company. The best employees - those who cause the most impact to sales, production, or process improvements – are recognized and remembered by anyone. Your first name becomes a trademark in the company. You are the one and only - at least in one area of expertise and accomplishment.

You do not need to be in sales to be felt. You just need to do something so important that the company would not survive without you: and in small companies this is something achievable. The engineer with the grand idea that changed the company. The operations guy who changed the office layout into a more productive and comfortable one. The marketing guy that launched the campaign that raised sales by 10%.

The problem: In large company you have to be in a very high level management position to create this impact. Small companies haven’t showed me the money lately. The large company of dubious reputation that I work for shows me more money. I haven’t received a very high offer from a small company.

The potential solution: I am willing to go to a small company for less salary, any good small company, as long as I get a significant ownership on that company. I want to have a piece of the company that I am helping build again.

The question is: How do we get to that solution? How do we get a company that offers a significant amount of ownership in exchange for success?? How do I get an opportunity to create massive ammounts of cash through ownership and direct involvement??

It is not so simple as it sounds.  Many startups offer stock options.  The quantity is either small, since they are already close to going public, or huge - with an uncertain future.  An about-to-IPO company is interesting, but not because of their options.  In a very young company, with large ownership potential I can live with uncertainties, but you have to minimize the risk by trusting this company’s products and their management team’s ability to take the company public — or sell it.  Otherwise, a large grant of options is not worth the paper they are printed on.

The other alternative solution is just to start my own thing.  Doing your own business provides visibility where it matters: to those who need value.  Clients pay for products or services that they feel worth of it.  The business generated indicates you in what areas you are best at.  Plus, you can have all of the other benefits of the small company.  In the end, that is what I did.


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