Sole proprietor as engineer or business man.

[shacked]

A few times since I have started my business (residential structural) as a sole proprietorship, as I have been speaking with clients they have said that I was a business man. At the time I didn't put much thought into that label, until recently. My response should have been NO!

I am an engineer that provides my services. I do not have a web site or any marketing banter, with the exception of business cards. I rather despise the term, "business man" since I see that as a generic label that Western society gives someone that owns a business. When I hear the term business man, a picture of a person in a suit and tie carrying a briefcase comes to mind. A mindless fool chasing money instead of living life.

Just my thoughts.

Anyone care to expound on this thought?

 

[KootK]

I am a sole proprietor.

I would be flattered to be called a businessman.

My brother is a former accountant and a businessman in the truest sense of the word. And he has a take on this that I find convincing.

He says that I do not really have a "business" even though I am legally incorporated. What I am is self employed.

By his logic, a true business is one where the owners either have passive income generation or have the potential to have passive income generation in the future. His take is that, if the only way that I can make money is by doing the work, that's active income generation and, therefore, not really entrepreneurship. My brother cofounded a company that engages in natural resource extraction. Some weeks he works like a dog. Other weeks he just plays stick man on his laptop and waits for lunch to roll around. He makes about the same amount of money either way.

This is reflected in the situation that one encounters when attempting to sell a small engineering firm. If you are so small that the business likely dies when you do, you are probably just self employed and no one in their right mind would buy your business outright for any significant amount of money. At best, someone might agree to be your transitional successor and send a cut of the profits your way in exchange for the introductions that you make for them.

 

[human909]

I would say that description is accurate and your issue relies with you preconceived ideas of what a "business man" is. Sure in isolation the term "business man" conjures up images of suits and ties, briefcases, deals, money and the big corporate world. But that is a caricature.

In a strict and direct sense you run a business so you are a "business man". But I get your point. If your primary goal is simply to do engineering and get paid, then that is certainly a different goal from trying to run and grow a business.

There are heaps of nuances here. I've seen some young moderately experienced engineers start up their businesses hire a half a dozen people and get running. They are clearly focussed more focussed on the business side of things, likely driven by money and/or the desire to run a business rather than do engineering.

I know another amazing engineering who grew a business that spanned several states. He sold it all because he found himself spending too much time running a business with very little time left for his passion of engineering. He now just works for himself which is how he prefers it.

This is reflected in the situation that one encounters when attempting to sell a small engineering firm. If you are so small that the business likely dies when you do, you are probably just self employed and no one in their right mind would buy your business outright for any significant amount of money. At best, someone might agree to be your transitional successor and send a cut of the profits your way in exchange for the introductions that you make for them.

Hey! How did you know how I kickstarted my business?

 

[Ron247]

What would matter to me is what they envision a businessman to be since they used the term in conversation.

I have 2 habits when conversing with someone that have not educated me but have enlightened me. When someone renders an opinion on something, I ask why they think that. I like to understand why and hope I can learn something beyond the base opinion. In fact, I rarely care about the opinion more than the rationale. To my surprise easily 40% have no idea why they have an opinion on something, and many have extremely harsh opinions with no rationale behind it. My other habit is asking for a definition of something since I do know we use the same words but have different nuances in their meanings. "Fair" is one of my favorites to inquire about. There again, fair generally has a situational meaning but when questioned, their definition falls flat a lot when applied to other situations.

Look at some possible meanings of the word:
Businessman-you understand dealing with Clients
Businessman-you appear to able to successfully run a business
Businessman-you will lie when needed to appear to be able to run a business
Businessman-you are worried about the bottom line
Businessman-you are more about "selling the service" than professionally supplying the service
Businessman-you present yourself as more business than engineer
Businessman-9 to 5 and go home; i.e. business hours
Businessman-work as many hours as necessary

So, as I said, it matters what they mean when they say businessman. It is kinda like what hurts more, having an attractive person say you are ugly, or having an ugly person say you are ugly. I am sure each one has a different idea of "ugly".