Meet the “tempreneur.”
Lynn Taylor at Womenentrepreneur.com has coined the term “tempreneur” for what she describes as an entrepreneur who also does temporary stints or project stints.
I believe that the year 2010 is a paradigm shift to this entrepreneur/temporary worker, where the person is an entrepreneur in that she seeks her own business, but she also seeks temp project work in conjunction with that,” says Taylor, workplace expert, CEO of Lynn Taylor Consulting.
Taylor categorizes a tempreneur as midway between a freelancer and a consultant. “A consultant comes into your company and tells you what to fix–and doesn’t fix it. A tempreneur will diagnose the problem and roll up her sleeves and do the fixing.
“Overall, it’s better to have your roll-up-the-sleeves talent in conjunction with the consulting talent,” Taylor says. “The more skills you have, the more valuable you are in the marketplace.”
As for freelancers, they’re “a little lower on the food chain,” Taylor says. “Freelancers are a little more junior in terms of their skill set.” And freelancers likely need more supervision than tempreneurs, Taylor says.
“The tempreneur is a new breed of worker; she’s where the opportunities stick, depending on the day, the month, the quarter. As a tempreneur, you have to figure out what is going to serve you best.” One month, she might shift more toward being a tempreneur, doing a series of projects because the opportunities are plentiful. The next month, she might shift more toward the entrepreneurial style, serving a long-term client in a more traditional manner.
Photo by marceloto.