I went to a very mediocre business event recently that sold itself as, “A fast-paced, cutting-edge day, tailored to the needs of SMEs.” It was more like a school leaver’s guide to the Internet, at least, that was, until the final talk of the day.

They’d clearly saved the best until last as Penny Power came to the stage and silenced the theatre. She’s the founder of Ecademy.

Penny spoke of her passion for the Internet and how it’d enabled her to run her business from home whilst looking after her children. She listed plenty of personal new found gains and how she can now remain in touch with all her contacts until the day she dies (thanks to social media).

But what struck me most about her business roundup was how she categorised business leaders. People often say there are two types of people in the world, and they’re usually trying to narrow your thinking towards their central argument. As such it’s where I tend to switch off a little. But Penny’s take was refreshingly genuine:

a) the business change maker – is not content with the status quo, have an urge to do something and simply have to scratch it, find it impossible to conform when you know there’s a bigger or better way of things

b) the business trader – buy it, add a mark up and sell it. Find your suspect, prospect and then customer, then find more. Repeat.

If you could subscribe to this polarisation for a moment, which are you, the change maker or the trader? Are you on the side of the coin you want to be?