* This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive money from Amazon if you purchase through these links; there is no extra cost to you.
If you have a business coach or follow any of the numerous fantastic coaches online, you’ve surely noticed that they’re huge proponents of personal and/or business development books. This is for a very good reason. As an entrepreneur, regardless of your field, continuous growth and learning are crucial to your professional survival.
One of the gold-standard small business books, The E-Myth (or Entrepreneur Myth) was updated in 2009 and published as The E-Myth Revisited. In it, author Michael Gerber describes the dangers in how and why entrepreneurs usually start businesses. But he also proposes a solution.
In a nutshell, those who start businesses are good at what they do and long for more freedom and money and so decide to strive out on their own. Gerber describes this person as the “technician,” the doer or tinkerer who likes the details.
Unfortunately, we quickly find that the technician is in no way prepared to run a business. (Are you nodding your head at this? I was too!)
Gerber asserts that in order for a business to truly grow, evolve, and reach its full potential, two other people involved with the business. These are the “entrepreneur,” the dreamer and visionary, as well as the “manager,” who is the practical planner and organizer.
The kicker is that you DON’T need to hire two more people to make your business a success. You simply need to hone those entrepreneur and manager personalities within yourself and make sure they balance your inner technician! (Notice I said simply…not easily!)
Ok…how?
By setting up and organizing your business as if you’re going to replicate it (even if you aren’t); in other words, utilizing the franchise prototype. Forget any negative connotations you have of the word “franchise” here. It’s simply a way of systematizing your business so that it is successful and, most importantly, not dependent on you.
This is a hard concept for many, particularly the solopreneur. But it’s also intriguing. Imagine you WERE going to franchise your business. You would need to be able to hand over an entire system of doing your business.
Ready for some stats? We all know the supremely high failure rates of conventional business (80% in the first 5 years and 80% of the survivors in the next 5). Gerber claims those who follow the franchise format have a 95% success rate.
The E-Myth Revisited provides 6 rules for a successful, duplicable business, including demonstrating precision and order, capturing all work to be done in operations manuals, and providing consistent, predictable service to the customer.
Gerber also provides a top-notch 7-step business development program that covers every aspect of your business:
- Primary aim
- Strategic Objective
- Organizational Strategy
- Management Strategy
- People Strategy
- Marketing Strategy
- Systems Strategy
I didn’t love everything about this book, though. Gerber combines the invaluable education on business strategy and development with a lot of storytelling. Some may appreciate this but I thought it was a bit overdone. (Note: I listened to the audio version of this; if I had read a hard copy, it would be been easier to skip past the storytelling portions.)
For those who don’t love the systematic approach, The E-Myth Revisited can provide an excellent framework to grow your business. It’s fairly easy to see how implementing these ideas could help take your business to the next level.
Have you read The E-Myth Revisited or do you plan to? Please let me know what you think of it in the comments below!
* This post contained affiliate links, which means I receive money from Amazon if you purchase through these links; there is no extra cost to you.
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