The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
Michael Gerber writes that most small business owners fail to understand why they got into the business in the first place, but that if they take the time to work on their business, not in it, they can rise above the tyranny of work to find freedom and joy
Gerber says that business administration is not a problem if due attention has been paid to business design, and America has a perfect example of this truth: a franchise. It could be a fast food place on the street corner or a hotel taking up the whole block, but the odds are, there are many franchises in your neighborhood.
Gerber points out that while small businesses fail at a spectacular rate, franchises tend to succeed. The reason franchises succeed while small businesses fail, he writes, is that franchises have a system.
In order for a system to succeed, the people working at the small business have to believe in it and to want to follow the system. Hiring the right people is important, as is designing a good system.
Gerber says that the myth of the entrepreneur, the myth that gives his business its name, represents a fundamental misunderstanding about who starts a small business and why, “a misunderstanding that has cost us dearly in this country—more than we can possibly imagine—in lost resources, lost opportunities, and wasted lives.”
