Approaching Entrepreneurialism Through Psychology and Semiotics

An entrepreneur, in essence, also needs to be a good marketer, in the sense that she needs to have a definite and intuitive idea of the market in which she will be conducting her work, and the type of impression she needs to make on the minds of her target group in the market.

Most entrepreneurs learn marketing through observation of other marketers, trial and error, testing and iteration. I argue here that marketing concepts have a deeper basis in philosophy, and that a new marketer who realizes the capacity of the philosophical basis will be able to carefully choose, design, measure and adapt the process through which her target audience perceives her product.

In the first part this essay I have taken the liberty of indulging in a comparison between the artist and the entrepreneur, drawing assistance from what, in a post-Freudian psychoanalytical understanding, can be termed as the “Persona”.

In the second part, I have mapped out a logical linkage between strategy development, impression on the perceived market and acceptance by the market. I believe that following the logical flow is essential for understanding the market oriented aims and objectives any aspiring entrepreneur

In the third part, I have sought to indulge in a discourse of an entrepreneur’s ideal aims and objectives through a traditional dyadic approach of semiology – which is the study of signs and sign processes, signals, symbols, labels, likenesses, analogies, metaphors significations as a part of the process of communication, by stressing on the need for an entrepreneur to master communication through prudence, discretion, intuition and internalization of experiences.

Finally, I have sought to establish a connection between the psychological and linguistic concepts used in this essay and the existent concepts and ideas prevalent in the field of marketing.

1. The Entrepreneur, the Artist and their Like Persona: the Need for Impact, Influence and Impression

Following Carl Jung’s definition of the “persona” which we shall shortly come to, this “target group” can be referred to as the “others” and the “impression” needed to be made can also be referred to as “definite impression”. In this essay I intend to search for an existing philosophical and psychological connection between an entrepreneur’s obligations to the market and the “definite impression” which she needs to make upon the “others” to be successful.

Persona, as Carl Jung asserts, is “a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual”[1]. Let us put the second aspect, i.e., that of concealment of the true nature aside for now and focus on the first aspect of the Jungian understanding of persona – the one that talks of the ‘mask, designed to make a definite impression upon others’.

In essence, the both the artist and entrepreneur are creators. Uniqueness or novelty is an essential criterion for both in their respective fields. The artist has to create a new work of art taking existing forms and elements and applying her own skills, and the entrepreneur has to create a new service, or a product and even a new marketing strategy applying her own expertise, prudence and judgment. Let us see how they are similar in terms of a Jungian understanding of the Persona.

Let us put special emphasis on the terms “design”, “definite impression” and “others”. We can perhaps safely interpret, without much semantic gymnastics, that this design is extremely important for certain categories of people, the two most prominent among them being artists and entrepreneurs

They have one thing in common: their work involves making a “definite impression” on the “other”, and each has a definite target-group.  Let us, as an axiom, consider this target group as “the other” for each of these categories:

For an artist, the “other” is the group of her perceivers. If her artistic expression fails to make a “definite impression” among her perceivers, they would refuse to invest time or money to gain access to her art. Novelty and uniqueness are essential for an artist. Hardly anyone give her any credence as an artist if she cannot present anything that does not exist within her scope, field or genre. Of course, as the popular saying goes, nothing can be created out of nothing. So, the artists job is primarily to take the existing elements, constructs, concepts and elements from within (and at times, beyond) their field of work and apply a technique or a set of techniques to generate something new, through an unique tenor, style and approach.

Now, let us look at the situation of the entrepreneur. So, who is an entrepreneur? Several definitions of the term “entrepreneur” and “entrepreneurship” has been put forth by philosophers in the last two hundred years. Of these, the one which might suit the purpose of our present discussion is the definition of “Entrepreneur” as made by Schumpeter in 1964: “Entrepreneurs are innovators who use a process of shattering the status quo of the existing products and services, to set up new products, new services”[2]. She is similar to the artist in the sense that she takes existing products, services and approaches and uses her skills and techniques to create something novel and then present the same to her target market.

But this is not where it stops. Their works have to find a sustained audience or a market. For this, what matters is “impact”, i.e., the effect the artist’s creation and the entrepreneur’s innovation has on the targeted group of perceivers and buyers, i.e., on the “others”.

2. Strategy Building, Impression on the Market and Acceptance therein: a Simple but Essential Map

Let us focus solely on the entrepreneur for the rest of this essay:

For the entrepreneur, the “other” is thus the target group of the buyers of her products, ideas and services – which can be a niche one or a broad one. She must make a “definite impression” on them through the novelty and usefulness of her products, services and ideas along with her approach and presentation, or else they would refuse to invest time or money on her products and services. This impression depends on her capability of impacting the cognition and understanding of the “other”, i.e., of her targeted market, through the innovativeness, novelty and usefulness of her product, service or marketing strategy/stratagem. Impacting the “other” in a positive way would enable her to develop a sustained market base. For this, it is rather obvious that her approach, innovation and style need to be fresh, useful and convenient for the “others”.

Let us get back to the three terms we started with: “design”, “definite impression” and “others”. So where do we incorporate this into the entrepreneur’s persona?

These three elements are interrelated and they cannot be discussed separately. What is needed for an entrepreneurial persona for success is a well fleshed out “design” which would make the “definite impression” on her target group, one that is needed so that the target group does not shy away from investing on the products and services. The entrepreneurial persona always seeks out ways and means of making this “design” in a way which would make the necessary “definite impression” on the buyers of her products: a well planned design makes the kind of “definite impression” which is necessary for the buyers to accept her innovation, an ill-made “design” fails to make such impression or impact.

An admittedly over-simplistic representation of this idea would be as follows:

“good design” = “good impression” = “acceptance by the others, i.e., the target group”.

Thus, in order to know what the “good design” will be, an entrepreneurial persona must learn, largely through practice, experience and intuition, how to make the desired “good impression”, i.e., the necessary impact on the buyers’ psyche. A successful entrepreneurial marketer develops this prudence and panache of making a good or positive “impression” or “impact” on the minds of her target group (the “others”) through intuition, trial and error and experience.

3. Signifier and the Signified: A Sausserian Approach to Understanding the significance of Impact Building

Every entrepreneur marketer seeks to internalize the process of impacting her target market-base, i.e., to create and sustain a favourable impression pertaining to the product or service she has to offer to the market she has targeted. This lies at the core of understanding the market and developing and streamlining marketing strategies accordingly.

There are many ways by which this concept of developing a sustained and favourable impression or cognitive/psychic impact can be approached. One methodical, though somewhat conventional, approach that might prove helpful is that of Saussurian semiotic tradition of “dyadics”.

Now semiotics, for the uninitiated, is the study of interpretation of signs with respect to the meanings they convey. According to the tradition of Semiology developed by Ferdinand de Saussure, the relationship between signs and their meaning is dyadic – consisting only of a form of the sign (the signifier) and its meaning (the signified). According to Saussure, this relationship is regulated and shaped by social norms[3].

Let us imagine two persons: Ms. Entrepreneur and Ms. Other. Let us also imagine two towns: one named “Signifier” and the other named “The Signified” and a road joining these two towns. Ms. Entrepreneur will have to guide Ms. Other from town “Signifier” to town “Signified” along the road and she wants to impress Ms. Other with her guidance in a way that would make Ms. Other come back to Ms. Entrepreneur for this or other similar journeys time and again. So what will Ms. Entrepreneur do? She will have to ensure that Ms. Other finds both the journey and Ms. Entrepreneur’s guidance convenient, interesting and engrossing. Now, the challenge for Ms. Entrepreneur is to find out a method by which this journey can be made interesting for Ms. Other. For this, she will have to have an idea of the road joining the two towns and also of the tastes and ideas of Ms. Other. Only then will she be able to ensure a journey for Ms. Other will the later will find comfortable and attractive and will thus seek similar guidance from Ms. Entrepreneur in similar future journeys.

It is clear from the above depiction that for an entrepreneurial persona, the challenge, especially with regards to reaching out to the “other”, i.e., to her targeted market base, is to approach the “design” in such a manner that the signifiers, i.e. the “sign”s used in the design are fleshed out in a way that would help the “others” reach the “signified” – i.e., the meaning/s and sense/s intended to be conveyed through those signs – with clarity and conviction of purpose.

Given that this “pathway” – one through which the “others” will be led from the signs to their wholesome meaning – is governed by existing social conventions, an insightful understanding of similar social conditions is essential for the entrepreneurial persona. Such understanding and insight is acquired and developed through knowledge, reasoning, experience and intuition – all of which are essential tools for the entrepreneurial persona to prosper through consistent generation of innovative products, services and marketing schemes. This perception is essential for the entrepreneur so as to guide the “others”, i.e. – the targeted market base – efficiently and make their journey from the signifiers to the signified an easy and yet an intriguing and adventurous one – something that will attract their attention and rightfully earn their interest. Once these “others” are attentive and interested, their “acceptance” of the novel entrepreneurial idea, product or service becomes an obvious corollary.

In short, nothing can impact the cognition of the targeted “others” more than ensuring such a comfortable, convenient and yet adventurous journey along the roads, tunnels and conduits that lead from the signs (signifiers) used in the “design” to their meaning (the signified). An entrepreneur needs to ensure such a journey through dexterous marketing strategies. Only then can she successfully reach out to the “others” and develop a sustained and loyal market – be it a niche one or a broad mass-based one. This is perhaps one the most foolproof approaches to successful entrepreneurial marketing.

4. Conclusion: A Connection between these theoretical concepts and the prevalent practical notions of marketing

A discerning reader who is in possession of some ideas on marketing might have noticed by now that what I referred to as the “Persona” of the entrepreneur is akin to the concept of “Positioning” in marketing. In lay terms, this is where the entrepreneur stands. Positioning is the perception of the entrepreneur or her brand in the collective psyche of the target market.

Again, what is referred to as the “Others” in the Jungian understanding which we have discussed earlier is, obviously, the “target market”. The “target market” is, in lay terms, the group of customers to whom the entrepreneur pitches her products to. It is nothing but a conglomerate of potential buyers. The buyers, of course, being a part of the society, are governed and regulated, both explicitly and implicitly, by prevalent social customs, mores and norms; and their principles, tastes, ideas, choices and decision making varies accordingly. An entrepreneur, just like an artist, needs to perceive, comprehend, familiarize herself with these social norms in order to pitch and sell her innovation accordingly. This can be through structured market research or through any other way, depending on the characteristic social, economic, political and cultural features of the “target market” and also on the nature of the entrepreneurial venture, i.e., on what the entrepreneur has to offer. In order to be successful, it is essential for an entrepreneur to figure out the right ways and methods arriving at such perception, comprehension and familiarization.

As you might have noticed, even Saussure talks of the social norms in his theory of dyadic semiosis. As I have mentioned earlier, according to Saussure, the nature of relationship, i.e., the linkage between the signifier and the signified is governed by existent social norms and hence the entrepreneur needs a thorough conception of the existent social norms prevalent among its target market so that she can ensure a smooth, fluid and smart “journey” of the “other”, i.e., of any ideal representative of the target market from the “signifier” to the “signified”. Now, this “signifier” is nothing but the overall marketing strategy, which also serves as a map for the entrepreneur as she guides the ideal representative of the target market in her “journey”. Ms. Other, in our example, is one such ideal representative of the “target market”. In Sausserian Semiology, the “Signifier” connotes signs, signals, labels, likenesses et cetera. In marketing, this can be a wholesome combination of the elements which are used in impact building and brand image development. Such elements include product descriptions, logos, pricing strategies, brand imaging, and every other ingredient that goes into the concept of “brand development”, i.e., in the process of projecting a certain desired image of the product in the collective cognition of the target market. A skilled entrepreneur can successfully develop a bunch of signifiers, which, when taken together, can create a favourable “impression” or impact – through proper projection of the brand image – in the minds of the members of the target market and thereby successfully project an element of desirability as far as the image of the brand is concerned. In short, the basic requirement for entrepreneurial or any other form of marketing is to impress the target market. Our analysis supports this obvious assertion.

The “signified”, on the other hand, connotes the “aspirational stage” – the desire they will fulfill once they consume what the entrepreneur has to offer. Thus, what I referred to as the “journey” between the signifier and the signified is nothing but the transition which the target market undergoes from perception of the image of brand to its consumption. A good entrepreneur or any good businessman projects an image of her brand into the psyche of the target market through a bunch or bundle of signifiers in such a way that the target market wants to consume the product.

After such a projection of a favourable image of her brand, the task of the entrepreneur is to ensure an attractive and comfortable transition of the ideal member of the target market from brand perception to product consumption. This transition is what I have referred to as the “Journey”; the smoother this transition is, higher is the level of market satisfaction and higher the level of market satisfaction is, more favourable are the chances of the innovation – now converted to a marketable offering – to last in the market. A high level of market satisfaction leads to further development of a favourable image of the brand and thus, a sustained market for the innovated product is created. This transition, besides having to be smooth, also needs to be one that attracts the attention of the target market. In colloquial terms, the entrepreneur needs to ensure that her target market gets its “kicks” and “thrills” out of this transition. It is only then the target market will be, to use a clichéd phrase, “hungry for more” and they will want to come back to the entrepreneur for more of such “kicks” and “thrills”. It is only by ensuring such a smooth and attractive transition from image perception of the target market to consumption of her offering by the target market that the entrepreneur can increase the size of her “target market” and such increase in market size, if sustained, will lead to growth and profitability of the brand which she has created out of her innovation. That is why I have stated earlier that an entrepreneur needs to ensure that the “journey from the signifiers to the signified [needs to be] an easy and yet an intriguing and adventurous one”.