August
2004
I have quoted directly from the book to capture some of the salient points. Enjoy!
The
E-Myth Revisited:
Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work &
What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
There’s
a kind of war going on inside the owner of every small business
...it’s a three-way battle between The Entrepreneur,
The Manager, and The Technician.
The
Entrepreneur personality turns the most trivial
condition into an exceptional opportunity. The Entrepreneur is the
visionary in us. The dreamer. The energy behind every human activity.
The
Managerial personality is pragmatic. Without The
Manager there would be no planning, no order, no predictability.
The
Technician is the doer. "If you want it done right,
do it yourself" is The Technician’s credo.
The
fact of the matter is that we all have an Entrepreneur,
Manager, and Technician inside us. And if they were equally
balanced, we’d be describing an incredibly competent individual....Unfortunately,
our experience shows us that few people who go into business are
blessed with such a balance. Instead, the typical small business
owner is only 10 percent Entrepreneur, 20 percent Manager, and 70
percent Technician.
The
Entrepreneurial Model
It’s
a model of a business that fulfills the perceived needs of a specific
segment of customers in an innovative way....The Entrpreneurial
Model has less to do with what’s done in a business and more to
do with how it’s done. The commodity isn’t what’s important - the
way it’s delivered is.
The
Entrepreneurial Model does not start with a picture of the business
to be created but of the customer for whom the business is to be
created. It understands that without a clear picture of that
customer, no business can succeed.
What
we must do is provide our inner entrepreneur with a model of a business
that works, a model that is so exciting that it stimulates our entrepreneurial
personality - our innovative side.
In
short, for this business model of ours to work, it must be balanced
and inclusive so that The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician
all find their natural place within it, so that they all find the
right work to do.
The
Turn-Key Revolution: a new view of business:
...the
primary purpose of your business is to serve your life...you can
then go to work on your business, rather than in it, with a full
understanding of why it is absolutely necessary for you to do so.
It
is in the understanding of value, as it impacts every person with
whom your business comes into contact, that every extraordinary
business lives.
The
Business Development Process:
-
Innovation:
Innovation continually poses the question: What is standing in
the way of my customer getting what he wants from my business?
For the innovation to be meaningful it must always take the customer’s
point of view....Innovation is the mechanism through which your
business identifies itself in the mind of your customer and establishes
its individuality.
-
Quantification: Begin by quantifying everything
related to how you do business. For example; How many customers
do you see in the morning, in the afternoon? How many people call
your business each day?
-
Orchestration: Orchestration is the elimination
of discretion, or choice, at the opening level of your business....Unless
your customer gets everything he wants every single time, he’ll
go someplace else to get it! Orchestration is the certainty that
is absent from every other human experience.
Your
Marketing Strategy:
When
it comes to marketing, what you want is unimportant.
It’s
what your customer wants that matters.
And
what your customer wants is probably significantly different from
what you think he wants.
What’s
in your customer’s unconscious mind?
Demographics
and psycho graphics are the two essential pillars supporting a successful
marketing program. If you know who your customer is - demographics
- you can then determine why he buys - psycho graphics.
The
challenge of our age is to learn our customer’s language. And then
to speak that language clearly and well so that your voice can be
heard above the din.
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