The E-Myth, A Review And Opinion

The E-Myth is a great insight to what American Small Business owners think and how they have operated, and mostly the erroneous thinking of many small business owners. According to Gerber, "The greatest business people I have ever known is that they have a genuine fascination for the truly astonishing impact little things done exactly right can have on the world." There are over 1 million small businesses started annually, statistically 40% will be out of business by the end of the first year, and over 5 years 80% will be out of business. That seems almost alarming to me and truthfully these statistics could possible keep me from pursing the dream of self-employment.

Small business have four basic ideas which to keep in the back of their minds and strategic planning. The first idea is that of the E-Myth, that small businesses are started by entrepreneurs risking capital to make a profit. The second is the Turnkey Revolution that not only changes the way business is conducted globally, but who goes into business, how they do it, and their likelihood for survival. Thirdly, is that the Business Development Process is deemed to be essential to the success of a small business. Lastly, is that the fourth idea is that the Business Development Process and Turnkey Revolution should be systematically applied in a step by step method. These processes become predictable to produce results if given the proper time and attention.

Your business is a distinct reflection of who you are. If your business is to change, and it must in order to continually thrive, you must change first. Entrepreneurial dreams of grand scale last only for a moment, and then reality sets in that you realize a moment later, the feeling was gone. Many have nice romantic dreams of entrepreneurship, but in the end, the costs lie in the belief that many businesses were, in fact started by entrepreneurs when it was the technician who has actually begun the business. Many small business owners experience Entrepreneurial seizure that is spurred by an instinctual feeling or set of circumstances that push one to move forward in their life on their own. However, many owners make a fatal assumption that if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a technical business that actually conducts that technical work. This is the root cause of most small business failures. The technician suffering from entrepreneurial seizure takes the work they love to do and turns it into a job. All entrepreneurs feel exhilaration, terror, exhaustion and despair.

Inside the owner are three people; the entrepreneur, the manager and the technician. I found it to be amusing; however true, the analogy of the fat and skinny guy, one of the many sides of your personality should not attempt to make choices for the other. However if a person could find the comfortable mix, it could bring a harmonious balance to the surface. It is important to understand each of the facets of the owner; the Entrepreneur who continually dreams for the vision of the company, the Manager who manages the system and operations for the survival and success of the business and lastly, the Technician who will be the one to actually understand the process and want to do things.

In order to bring these things together the owner must be a visionary and not limit themselves to being the technician, but finding the perfect balance of all three to continue growing their business.

Like life, a business grows in phases; infancy, adolescence, and maturity. However, as mentioned in the book, most mature business start out with that style of business plan and operate accordingly. Many of the smaller business never make it to the maturity stage due to a lack of vision, and limited availability to dare to dream. It is a temptation, as a small business owner, to shrink back into the "small" or infant stage when things become unmanageable. Then there are the adolescent businesses that will either grow until they burst or just shut the doors. The mature company is the model that can outlast them all and continue to thrive.

One of the things to consider is the Turn-Key Revolution which provides us with the ultimately balanced model of a business that works. In this philosophy, it is believed that the true product of a business is not what it sells but how it sells it. It is best to create a business that is systems-dependent, rather than people dependent. The plan is systems driven, and systems are operated by people, rather than the people running the business. The system transforms a business into a machine or an organism driven by its parts working together towards a realized objective. Once the owner has learned the system, he is then given the key to their own business. The entrepreneur is the medium through which the vision takes form in the real world, to the manager, it provides order, predictability that is so important to their life, and to the technician, it is a place where he is free to do what they love, technical work and for the small business owner, it provides the means through which all three personalities can be fulfilled in a balance while creating a business that works. I particularly appreciate his point that "your business is NOT your life, but only part of it, and it should not rule it, but be managed appropriately".

The model will provide consistent value to your customers, employees, suppliers, and lenders beyond their