This blog is based on “The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It”
(by Michael E. Gerber)
I read this classic book, “The E-Myth Revisited”, and these are just some of the valuable strategic themes I’ve picked out of it.
The reason many small businesses stay very small and don’t fulfil their potential is that they are set up and run by a “Technician”. The Technician knows how to do the technical work but gives little thought to the equally important roles of the “Entrepreneur” and the “Manager”. These can be different people in your team or elements of our personalities. To successfully run a small business, all three roles must be present.
“You were a bookkeeper or a poodle clipper; a drafts-person or a hairdresser; a barber or a computer programmer; a doctor or a technical writer; a graphic artist or an accountant; an interior designer or a plumber or a salesperson. But whatever you were, you were doing technical work.” (Michael Gerber)
The blend of the Entrepreneur’s vision and The Manager’s pragmatism, together with the Technician’s technical skills are needed to build a successful small business.
Michael Gerber says that the Entrepreneurial Myth, which he calls the E-Myth, is that most founders of businesses may think of themselves as entrepreneurs but very often they are merely technicians.
“A mature company operates on a broad perspective, an entrepreneurial perspective, a more intelligent point of view, so that it works not because of you but without you. A business has to be able to survive and grow without you,” says the author.
The Entrepreneurial Model suggests that a new business must start with a focus on the customer, not with a picture of the business to be created: ”It understands that without a clear picture of that customer, no business can succeed.” This is what marketing is all about, placing the customer at the centre of everything.
