For every person who starts a business of their own, or has a small business, Michael E. Gerber’s book, “The E Myth Revisited” should be a required read. I’m going to post once a week on ideas from this book. For those who have never read it, I’ll boil it down for you, although you should get a copy anyway, I’m only going to talk about the lessons, yet there is much more. Gerber is a wonderful story-teller. For those who have read it, this will be a refresher of a wonderful business-self-help classic that stands the test of time, and it is one of those few books that you find yourself reading over and over…
First, you have to get over the title. We’ve become accustomed to “E” as a prefix means “electronic”, as in “e-mail” and “e-books”, “e-trade” and “e-commerce”. This “E” stands for entrepreneur. Gerber writes that we hold to a myth that small businesses are started by entrepreneurs, risk takers, risking capital, their own or someone else’s. Brave beings standing stalwart, wind blown, with their dreams, confident and determined. Nope, it’s a myth.
No, typically, a small business is started when an employee of some else’s business has a brain fart. The mental conversation goes something like this, “Why am I working for this guy…I’m running his business (doing the work), I could be collecting the big bucks myself, hell, if it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t have a business, I want to have MY OWN business!” Scary… very scary.
In reality, the entrepreneurial spirit usually lasted only in this initial moment and in the flood of ideas that come at first to those who are so possessed. Gerber defines 3 types of people that start and run a business, or, 3 aspects of personality present in a business owner.
The first, already described, is the entrepreneur. The guy (or gal) with the crazy dream. Excitement, pure emotion, elation, a sense of freedom and the pure joy of creation.
The second is the technician. That’s the expert, the worker bee, who actually does the work of the business, the person who makes the product or service. He or she gets things done.
Then there is the manager. He/she manages the worker bees, keeps all the balls in the air, keeps it all working smoothly, oversees, translates the vision of the owner/entrepreneur into practicality. He or she brings order to chaos.
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I thought this book did have a very, very important point. That was that you can’t be the worker, the market researcher, the marketer, the finance and accounting guy all at the same time. This lesson is not easy to learn – it’s easy to understand the idea, but to actually be so convinced that you live the idea is much different.
I think I’m a combination of all 3 types of entrepreneurs. I imagine I will have to pick one and stick with it as my business grows however.
I’ve read Michael’s book. I highly recommend it. Thanks for the post.