TV Entrepreneurs - Don't believe the hype!
27 Sep 06

It seems that entrepreneurs are everywhere you look on TV at the moment - but are we getting the real picture of what entrepreneurs are actually like?

Series like Dragon's Den, The Apprentice and Make Me a Million are just the first wave of programmes claiming to show us real entrepreneurs in action.

But UK entrepreneurship guru Steve Parks has one simple message - don't believe the hype:
"TV entrepreneurs are not representative of what all entrepreneurs are like - just of what entrepreneurs who want to be on telly are like."

He says that people with a dream of starting a business shouldn't be put off by thinking they don't have what it takes: "Just because you aren’t cocky and confrontational, it doesn't mean you can't build a successful business. I know many quiet, respectful multi-multi millionaires who no one has ever heard of - and they like it that way. Being a great entrepreneur and being famous are different things."

Steve Parks' latest book How to be an Entrepreneur (published by Prentice Hall Business on 27 th August priced £12.99), takes an honest look at what real entrepreneurs think and do to make them so successful .

He found that the factors that made the self-made rich successful were different from the stereotypes: "We have this picture that to be an entrepreneur you need to have been selling sweets to your mates in the playground aged 7, dropped out of school aged 14, and made your first million by the age of 20. This is just not the case.”

"Being a successful entrepreneur doesn't depend on your background or education. It depends on your attitude and certain skills that can all be learned and practiced - but most of all it depends on really, really wanting it."

is advice to budding entrepreneurs is to ignore the role models on the TV and learn from people they may know in their local community who have started and grown their own business – and then get down to the hard work of being a real entrepreneur: "Why don't you turn off your TV and go and do something more interesting instead?"

	How to Be an Entrepreneur
	Author	Steve Parks
	Pub Date	10 Aug 2006
	Price	£12.99
	Publisher	Prentice Hall
	ISBN10	0273708295
	ISBN13	9780273708292
		Click here for further information or to purchase How to Be an Entrepreneur.

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Elie Ball, PR Manager
t: 07803 392 710
e: elie.ball@pearson.com

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