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Title: The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber ISBN: 0-88730-728-0 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 12 April, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.36 (113 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Sift through the mush and find directly actionable tools
Comment: After acquainting myself with the liberal employment of conversational formatting and forcing myself through sections that almost completely overwhelmed me with the "touchy feelies," I've completed this book with a sense it represents a terrific vehicle for delivering clarity and value for many small business owners.
I enjoyed the easy-to-grasp discussions around three hypothetical personality types required in a successful business: the "manager," the "entrepreneur," and the "technician." While simplistic, these are certainly easier to remember than Myers/Briggs and other like profiling systems.
I value the fact I was able to describe these profiles to those who had never read the book and it triggered an energetic discussion on corporate balance and team orchestration. Anyone who has tried in vain to verbally impress upon their co-workers the value and learned facts of a Myers/Briggs profiling will appreciate this. Am I an INTJ, ESFP, or an INTP? I can't remember.
Enlightening actionable is the author's recommendation one begins with an org chart of their company at some point in the visualized future and works to formalize and document each job's responsibilities. Additionally, discussions about the "franchise prototype" resonates to many who would be most benefited by this book. In short, showing parallels between small, disorganized companies and large successful franchises such as McDonalds is compelling.
One final comment: Gerber assumes that many in small business hate it and want to do something else with their lives, such as flying kites or something. He believes that unless you sell your company for a profit you've wasted your time.
I disagree. He ignores the fact some start businesses as a lifestyle, and enjoy it at its current state, not seeking to create the next McDonalds and become millionaires. I suspect his position reflects the fact he pays his bills by consulting small businesses, and his statements coercively impress upon the reader his position is the most correct one.
Rating: 5
Summary: Will shape the future of your business and your life.
Comment: I have read The E-Myth many times over and have found the Franchise Prototype system absolutely amazing. I am now 26 years old and in the last 4 years have built 2 very successful companies. Being in business for yourself is not about making money. It is about fulfilling a part of yourself. Understanding the principals in this book will change the way your run your business and give you balance to your life. That is what it is all about you know. Balance. Understanding why God placed you on this Earth and making sure you spend time to stop and smell the roses. If you take what Michael says in this book to heart and apply it's principals to your life your business will never be the same. Trust me from the experience in what this book has done to my past business and the power that is pushing my Statewide Business Brokerage. I would easily pay 1 million dollars for the knowledge and understanding I have learned from this book. Thank you Michael for leaving a legacy with me that will reshape my family tree.
Rating: 4
Summary: Eye Opener!!!
Comment: Pros: Easy read, exposes pitfalls, many helpful ideas and many paradigm shifts, excellent!
Cons: Challenging concept for my business of one. No Index.
This is an easy read that took me two days to get through. It's simple, repetitive and just the way I like it. But by no means simplistic. To me, it is well written, when the author gets their ideas across quickly and makes them seem easy. The book gets personal about the author as it tries to relate itself to the reader, yet shows a sense of writing maturity in it's simple delivery of so broad a topic. It also gets personal about you as you discover that your business is a reflection of you.
A mixture of experience and facts, blue prints and rules told in a conversational story with a semi-fictional character. This style of using a third party character to clarify and reinforce the ideas worked well with me. It helped balance and pace the lessons with a fine sense of timing and added perspective. The book is informational, motivational and even funny at times.
Gerber sets the stage by prefacing the four ideas that are the basis of the book's lessons. He identifies and compares three personalities being The Entrepreneur, The Manager and The Technician in us and shows us how and why most businesses fail. He identifies phases of the entrepreneurial business as infancy, adolescence and maturity and the pitfalls of each. He covers six rules on how to shift from working 'in' your business to working 'on' it. And goes over the three activities to help it evolve being, Innovation, Quantification and Orchestration, systems to blueprint your business. He covers the Business Development Process and to think of how to turn it into a franchise that is a saleable Turn-Key business. He then explains the seven steps to developing your business, which he covers in detail but some didn't inspire my confidence, as they are large subjects in themselves. Like, 'Your Marketing Strategy' or Your People Strategy'. But they do develop a framework from where to start and the questions to ask yourself. He constantly helps focus us by asking excellent thought and direction provoking questions.
The book packed with many useful ideas and principles if you decide to buy into them, however is also a way for him to sell his services. By occasionally positioning his company or website as a source of answers to some of the questions the book poses is a great form of self-promotion, however they may be disguised in a story. Some thoughts that came to mind while reading were, why not just find and utilize a mentor? Success leaves clues. I struggled with the though that all businesses are started with one thing in mind and that is to sell it for a profit. The book has many paradigm shifts like this one that challenge us to look at our companies in a different light. Only when I realized that I didn't have to sell my business (If I happened to build an IBM) did I understand the idea. I'm still struggling with finding a compelling vision of how to turn my particular service business of one into a salable entity. Maybe I need to visit his website and enlist in the services he offers. Maybe I just need to find a few successful role models within my business. I will read it again in a few weeks.
I would have liked to see an index in the back to help find needed references quickly. Maybe a future publishing might get one?
A healthy experienced perspective and a plan to help build a successful business life.
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