How to be a corporate entrepreneur by Sahar Hashemi

Monday, May 10, 2010 | Posted by: Fiona Cullinan
Categories: My big decision, Women in business | Tags: entrepreneurs, entrepreneur, tips, corporate, My Big Decision, customers, Bobby Hashemi, Sahar Hashemi, Pret a Manger, Coffee Republic

Sahar Hashemi is the co-founder of Coffee Republic, one of the most powerful women in British business and author of new book for entrepreneurs, Switched On . She’s also the subject of Grant Thornton’s next My Big Decision – coming soon. Here she talks about being an entrepreneur within the corporate environment.

“During the talks I was giving in companies on how I set up Coffee Republic, I began to realise that in our new landscape, the future of big companies is entrepreneurial. As one CEO told me, we want every employee to play a big part, to involve all of themself.

“So Switched On is about not taking on that company straitjacket, not becoming complacent, but using your position within a company as something wonderful. Because instead of being, say, a lone entrepreneur, you’ve got that support, you’ve already got the customers, you’ve got the office… build from that.

“Complacency happens easily, even to entrepreneurs – you get successful or you become comfortable, and you switch off. And once you’re in the comfort zone it sucks you in, it’s like a swamp, and it’s very difficult to leave. But if you do start to bring in 100% of yourself – things you do at home, at work, at play – no one can match it, because then you begin feeling energised by what you do, it engages your interest and stimulates your creativity.

“So some of my pointers would be:

1 Step into your customers’ shoes
There’s this idea that customers are a market segment. Companies discuss their ‘behaviour patterns’ – it’s rubbish, it switches you off. If you go along with this ‘us versus them’ idea, treating customers as a weird body of people to analyse, you become a grey-faced automaton. Whereas if you see, feel, be your customer, it switches on your personal self – and if you can’t be them, there are people you know who can be them, your sister, your kids, your family. Then what you do comes alive.

2 Cluelessness
When Bobby and I started Coffee Republic, we were clueless, and that was actually important, it was a good thing. We were unconstrained by any ‘this is how we’ve always done it’ mentality, which can be stifling, and we had no idea about the industry gossip. All we had was a vision of these coffee bars we saw in New York, and that gave us an enormous advantage. Sometimes, when we get used to doing something and we do it over time, we get into certain habits that restrict us from seeing something new. Being clueless and looking at things in a different way is quite wonderful, because the only way to get out of the rut and away from the daily grind is to get rid of the established thinking.

3 Bootstrapping
This is something all entrepreneurs do, because as an entrepreneur you start with little and have to make ends meet somehow. Which means we nicked our early staff from Pret a Manger because we couldn’t afford to train them. It means I ended up baking the muffins myself at home because there were no muffin manufacturers at that time in the UK. People have a tendency, after the boom, to think, ‘I haven’t got resources, I can’t do anything’. But, in fact, the lack of resources, like the enforced frugality then, makes you more creative, and it forces you to think more professionally.”

Interview by Glyn Brown.

FREE download of Elevate magazine
Sahar Hashemi also features in the forthcoming issue of Grant Thornton’s Elevate magazine for entrepreneurs, out in June. To view a PDF version of the current Elevate magazine, just register and download. To subscribe to receive future editions, either electronically or as a hard copy, please email your name, address and preferred format to elevate@gtuk.com

And watch this space for Sahar Hashemi’s My Big Decision