Who is a Business Person?

The question looks very simple but I felt the answers available in the environment does not satisfy the thought factory.

I checked the web for the meaning of business person. The results I got were the following.....

1. A businessperson (also businessman or businesswoman) is someone who is employed at usually a profit-oriented enterprise, or more specifically, someone who is involved in the management (at any level) of a company. The term businessperson almost always refers to someone with a "white collar" occupation.

2. A person engaged in business

3. a person engaged in commercial or industrial business (especially an owner or executive)

When I checked the authoritative dictionaries such as Cambridge/Oxford etc the result was the same.

These three definitions look very academic and does not enthuse .

I asked this question to at least a score of common people from varied demographies. The common theme running through their musings was '.... a business person is always profit oriented.... a business person has profit making in his or her blood..... at any cost the business person ensures the profit..... ......... ' It went so on.......

A professor from a Business School gave an interesting definition.. ' a business person is one who is engaged in an economic activity for gains".

The word 'economic activity' in the definition incites and a feeling of satisfaction flashes in me. Still I feel something is missing.

The common factor in most definitions was the 'profit' and obviously the profit here is the business person's profit.

For the time being I abandoned the analysis of the term 'business person' and browsed some Business quotes...... I felt many of the quotes are not connected to business, still they are classified as business quotes. But I found some quotes very interesting and they are listed below.

business quotes

A lasting buisness is built on friendship

A lasting business is built on friendship

Alfred A. Montapert

Business, that's easily defined - it's other people's money.

Peter Drucker

Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.

Henry R. Luce

Do not trust people. They are capable of greatness.

Stanislaw Lem

Every young man would do well to remember that all successful business stands on the foundation of morality.

Henry Ward Beecher

People will buy anything that is 'one to a customer.'

Sinclair Lewis

Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them.

W. Edwards Deming

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

Confucius

The quotes by Alfred Montapert, Henry ward, Sinclair Lewis, Edward Deming and Confucius gives me insights. But the quote from Peter Drucker seems very frivolous, may be he has quoted it in a lighter mood.

My search lead to yet another interesting article http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13110436

The heading of this article answers our question " who is a business person? ' the heading is "Manners maketh the businessman". This article is worth reading though it ends in a pessimistic note. After reading the article do not forget to come back to the blog ' Business & Leadership insights.... inspirations" http://margatreya.blogspot.com/

Then my search went on to another term Business Developer. There too I was presented with information explosives. Some collections I am sharing here.

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" Business development is among the foremost concerns of any organisation, and a a manager, much of your attentionwill be devoted to developing and exploiting the business opportunities that are presented to you and your company.

Business development and making your organisation successful is reliant on good knowledge of best practice and management theories.

Business development management involves asking yourself some searching questions. Are you prepared to change to realise the vision created by your business development strategy? What must your business excel at? How does that affect processes, people and customers? What does the planning and controls the implementationof the business development ideas, answering to which goals, actions and measures?

Perhaps most significant of all, you have to decide whether to be radical rather than incremental - are you revelutionery in your skills as a business development manager or are you more evelutionary?

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I felt, my search for a practicable definition of a Business Person is leading me nowhere and I felt I have to rely on my experience and hard work. I am forced to provide a definition for the term as one of the axiom that guides us is ' Every person can be a business person".

For the time being I will settle for the following definition..

A business person is one who attracts, creates, satisfies or retains a customer / customers for a mutual gain.

Every person in the organisation can be a Business Person!

This stance opens a floodgate to me and new possibilities in business world are visible for me. Hope you too get this.

Become a business person, enjoy and create wealth!

Contributed by : Sasikanth Prabhu