Self-Employment as a Career Choice for People with Disabilities
By Alice Weiss-Doyel Effective of Compensation, Inc.
The article contains excerpts from the forth-coming book on self-employment for people with disabilities, authored by Alice Weiss-Doyel. These excerpts are used with the permission of the publisher, TRN, Inc. PO Box 439, St. Augustine, FL 32085-0439. The book can be ordered by contacting TRN, Inc. by phone: 904-823-9800 fax: 904-823-3554 e-mail: trninc@aug.com
Self-employment is the preferred career choice for an increasing number of people with disabilities. Some of the potential entrepreneurs come to vocational rehabilitation departments and other human service organizations for:
- resources to accommodate their disabilities,
- business training,
- technical skills training,
- business and personal support services, and
- financial assistance.
Self-employment should meet the broad employment goals for people with disabilities: a salary commensurate with the work, employee benefits, and a career path for future growth. Coupling these factors with appropriate disability accommodations can produce long-term employment and self-sufficiency. Clearly, self-employment is not for everyone, able-bodied or disabled; however, it is appropriate for far more people than are currently being considered for it by the human service profession.
Are There Entrepreneurial Characteristics?
While there are some specific characteristics and capabilities that are found in many successful entrepreneurs, there is no set formula for predetermining self-employment success.
- The number of types and sizes of businesses
is so great that a single "profile" would not fit
all of these settings and situations.
- Different personality types can successfully
run the same type of business with different approaches and
different strengths.
- One person does not need to bring in
all of the attributes of running the business. Partners, employees,
and outside resources can, and usually should, provide some
of the capabilities in designing and running a successful business.
- Many of the capabilities can be learned
by a motivated person. Many personality characteristics can
change if the person wants success with his or her business.
In fact, the opportunity for individualism and innovation can
provide the motivation for these personality changes.
In the past small business experts thought specific personality characteristics determined if a person would be a successful entrepreneur. Lists of questions were used to ascertain if a person should become a business owner. However, there are serious problems with these lists of questions that make them useless, even detrimental.
- These lists of questions are not statistically
validated, even for healthy populations. There is no proof that
they predict the successful outcome of a business venture or
the capabilities of its owner.
- These lists are biased against people with disabilities. They have questions that are related to good health, strength, and/or endurance. People with disabilities will not have positive responses. However, we know that many people with disabilities find ways to overcome disability-related problems and create successful businesses. In a United States government report, Re-charting the Course (1998): "In spite of severe obstacles…the 1990 national census shows that people with disabilities have higher rates of self- employment than people without disabilities (12.2 % versus 7.8 %)."
At their worst, these lists become an easy way to turn down people interested in pursuing self-employment instead of looking for individual potential and determining methods of training to support success.
Today the small business experts believe that many people have the potential for entrepreneurial success, if they are willing to put in the time, effort, learning, and commitment that it takes to design and run a success business. To become successful as an entrepreneur requires dealing realistically with the financial prospects for the proposed business. It means having the willingness to research, listen, and learn about the market and the prospective business, so that projections for success have a firm basis. And it means taking the time that is necessary to do the planning and preparation right, before the business starts up as a full-fledged enterprise.
The Way to Determine Who Can be an Entrepreneur with Disabilities
Although there are many people who would like to start their own business, there must be a system to determine who is actually capable of opening a potentially successful business. The best method is giving prospective entrepreneurs the chance to determine for themselves if they can succeed.
Giving people a chance to succeed does not mean simply putting people into a training program or handing them money. It means teaching them about entrepreneurship in a step-by-step process. Given the proper information, training, and experience, they usually will make their own decision whether they can succeed or not. Since this is a step-by-step procedure, prospective entrepreneurs must put in considerable effort and show significant progress before proceeding through the more advanced steps of the self-employment process or receiving substantial financial benefits.
There is no downside to this procedure. People who learn about self-employment can either take the necessary steps toward entrepreneurship or they can return to conventional employment as a means of self-sufficiency. Either way, they will have learned about both the business world and themselves. If they decide on conventional employment, they will have acquired entrepreneurial skills that are sought today by many employers. Additionally, people who have been given this opportunity, but return to the goal of conventional employment, often work more positively to find a suitable job.
Goals of Entrepreneurship Training
Succeeding as a business owner requires knowledge and skills, whether they are obtained formally or informally. Some people appear to "innately" have many entrepreneurial capabilities, others gain them through life and business experience, while other people learn them through more formal educational programs. Business training takes people from where they are in the entrepreneurial learning process and continues their education. The entrepreneurial educational goals include learning:
- the hands-on processes for designing, developing, and managing the selected business.
- creativity, innovation, inventiveness, and applying these capabilities to the proposed business.
- methods to prevent or minimize problems that could potentially damage the business.
- problem-solving techniques for resolving difficult business problems.
- strategies to address the ongoing changes and growth of the business.
- what effects the entrepreneur's disabilities will have on the business, and what accommodations are necessary to put the business on a competitive footing with businesses owned by able-bodied persons.
Twenty-First Century Entrepreneurship Training
The old model for entrepreneurship training assumed that people who became successful entrepreneurs were born with the necessary talent, or learned it in childhood from their business-owner parents or their own experience in newspaper routes, baby-sitting, lawn mowing, or similar youthful business ventures. Therefore, the training programs and college courses emphasized what you need to do to create and run a business. They included courses on business plan writing and courses on a variety of business functions such as operations, finance, and marketing. However, most of the programs did not include courses teaching creativity, entrepreneurial leadership, communications skills appropriate to small business ownership, or collaborative efforts in business creation…in other words, how to be entrepreneurial.
Fortunately, the viewpoint of entrepreneurial training and education is changing fast as a much broader spectrum of people become entrepreneurs. Business planning and management are still part of a basic program. However, today many creative concepts and classes are appearing in entrepreneurial programs, emphasizing original and open thinking, collaborative efforts, developing an entrepreneurial mind-set, and finding new ways to address problems and opportunities.
How Human Services Can Support Entrepreneurship
Human service providers can participate in self-employment programs that provide prospective entrepreneurs with disabilities with access to the training programs and services needed to start small businesses. The self-employment programs, and complementary programs listed below, are best accomplished in collaboration with state vocational rehabilitation departments, business and economic development organizations (not-for-profit or government), other human services providers, and the local business community.
In addition to self-employment programs, human service agencies may provide:
- Supported employment training to either the business owner or other employees with disabilities.
- Transportation or other human services, which would assist the business owner in running the business.
- Customary human services, assisting the person with disabilities to live independently and productively. An organization can be instrumental in assuring that disability needs do not become overwhelming while the business person is developing and running the business.
- Help to ensure that the business person becomes integrated into the community for the benefit of the business, the community, and the individual.
- Contact community development groups to assist the business person in finding marketable products or services, finding potential customers, and possibly receiving loans or financial incentive.
Self-employment, by its nature, is a collaborative effort. All entrepreneurs work with natural supports system: vendors, employees, CPAs, business consultants, to name a few. When human service organizations join this support system for the benefit of an entrepreneur with disabilities, they are optimizing the chances of success and self-sufficiency for that person.
Human Services Gain by Participation in Entrepreneurial Endeavors
Government and nonprofit organizations that work collaboratively with businesses and economic development groups can learn for-profit business practices and apply them, where appropriate, to their own organizations. Working with entrepreneurs with disabilities offers the opportunity to bring these diverse organizations together for greater mutual understanding and growth as well as entrepreneurial knowledge.
Universities and their affiliates are teaching entrepreneurship to people involved with human service organizations. Cary Griffin of the Rural Institute (The University of Montana) developed a training course on Civic Entrepreneurship. Civic Entrepreneurship involves the social sector (rehabilitation and other human service organizations) bringing together the public (governmental) and the private (business) sectors to address community issues. Whereas, these sectors have often worked at arm's length, the growing global economy dictates that partnership and networks of diverse populations solve critical problems and leverage the wealth of the community. World class economies require world class communities that form economic alliances that benefit all sectors. Working in isolation is no longer an option as strategic alliances become the best method for solving complex problems such as unemployment, isolation, or bigotry. Economic and social alliances seek to raise the standard of living for all community members and the social sector represents a key catalyst in this amalgamation of skills, needs, and resources.
Examples of Civic Entrepreneurship include the development of Business Leadership Networks (BLNs) as sponsored by the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities. BLNs are formed by the social sector, generally the state Vocational Rehabilitation agency in league with other community rehabilitation agencies, and bring together public and private sector employers. Through the BLNs, the private and public sectors learn methods for hiring and retaining workers with significant disabilities, and the social sector supports this employment through its skill and resource development acumen.
Another example is microloan programs for entrepreneurs with disabilities. Rather than building another "separate but equal" loan fund for people with disabilities, the social sector in this case approaches a community business development center that is typically a mix of public and private funds. The rehabilitation organization provides information on issues of disability, Social Security, Medicaid/Medicare, and various social sector resources, and together with the community business development center helps expand their customer base and expertise to include individuals with significant disabilities.
Entrepreneurs with Disabilities Give Back to the Community
Entrepreneurs with disabilities, and their businesses:
- are taxpayers, providing funds for the community.
- provide services and/or products.
- provide jobs for the community.
- use the products and services of other local businesses.
- interact with the community, sharing themselves and their ideas.
- have more pride and self-esteem…adding quality to the lives of their families and friends.
Entrepreneurship for people with disabilities comes full circle, benefitting the human service organizations and the communities that support business development for people with disabilities.
References
(November 15,1998) Re-charting the Course: First Report of the Presidential Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities; Produced pursuant to Executive Order No. 13078. Copies of this report are available from the Presidential Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities web-site http://www.dol.gov. The Task Force is located at 200 Constitution Avenue, NW, Room S2312; Washington, D.C. 20210; 202.219.6081