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286 reviews for:
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
Michael E. Gerber
3.78 AVERAGE
286 reviews for:
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
Michael E. Gerber
3.78 AVERAGE
informative
slow-paced
This is a quick and clear book that helps small business owners see where they want to go, where they are, and the systems they’ll need to create to get them to achieve their goals. I’m excited to implement the strategies here and get clarity in my own business.
Recommended to me... wow, is this for real? Especially but not limited to his own hagiography in the middle of the book. And based on that, I didn't really understand what was the set of skills that brought him to become a small business expert in the first place. I don't think I have time to write anything else about this book, the several one star reviews here already say it better than I could possibly do.
Crucial for anyone thinking about starting a business
informative
slow-paced
It felt like overnight MBA school. Or better.
A 5-star through and through. I never got my MBA. I've build a 6-figure business after resigning from my long corporate career, and I'm never going to go for the MBA, but listening to Michael Gerber's E-Myth Revisited book, I feel like I just went to overnight MBA School.
I listened to the book at 1.5x the speed over several flights and learned SO MUCH and I feel that even if you are a pro small business owner, you'll get a lot out of this book.
This is among my top 5 business books mainly because of the highlights below:
1. A lot of story and entertaining especially with Michael's entertaining, brilliantly paced narration.
2. The stories he tells are unforgettable - they make a great business point - and hilarious. i.e.) the fat guy vs the skinny guy in your head, the barber story, the technician, manager and entrepreneur battling it out, Sarah - the case study - hiring Harry and the downfall of that relationships and so on.
3. You learn so much about creating fool proof systems that would work without depending on who bought the business (if it's a franchisee). Gerber argues that if you have a prototype, such as The Franchise Prototype, then you have a system that makes your business work!
4. You get inspired, motivated, and learned how to run a small business in such a way that you can still love your life, love your work, make money and not be owned by it all.
5. This book was not your typical dry, boring, stiff business book, thank God! It spoke from a place of passion, soul, and true enthusiasm and yet it had tons of pragmatism in it.
6. Gerber's personal story, which he shares with openness and vulnerability. I loved it.
7. And pay attention to where he shares the main reason we fail in small business: It's that we bring our chaos into the business, so that we end up creating the worst job in the world, because we refuse to change!!!!
Some of my most favorite quotes from the book - and there were so many:
"The purpose of going into business is to get free of a job so you can create jobs for other people. The purpose of going into business is to expand beyond your current horizons so you can satisfy a need in the marketplace that has never been satisfied before, so you can live an expanded stimulating new life."
"Don't go working on the commodity, work on the business."
"We must ask: How must the business work for it to be a great business, to match our vision, to give us the lifestyle we dream?"
"In the business format franchise, the hamburger wasn't the product, McDonald's was!"
"How do you build s business that works effortlessly and predictably so that you can build the life you love? How do you get free of your business to live a fuller life? Your business cannot control you. You control it."
"Working ON your business, not IN it."
"The primary purpose of your life is NOT to serve your business. The purpose of your business is to serve your life."
"How can I run my business doing the work I Love to do rather than the work I Have to do?"
"Business, even a small business such as yours, is both an art and a science. And you need a process, a practice, a method and a system that works. "
"Practice the craft until the jewel appears one day. It is the work raised to near perfection that connects the crafts person to her art. Do it until the jewel appears when mastery is achieved."
"Life is what this business is about! Let business be your personal transformation."
"Great people create their lives actively while everyone else is waiting passively to see where their life takes them. Difference is living fully and intentionally or just existing."
"Keep the curtain UP at all costs, to be open, to be awake, to give up false beliefs."
"It's not your business you have to fear losing. It's yourself. It's you you're trying to find on the other side."
"The product is what your customer feels about your business, the experience of doing business with you."
"Selling is not closing. Selling is opening by going thru the questionnaire process and finding out what all you can offer him or her."
My biggest takeaway: "The entrepreneurial dream is a yearning for structure, for form, for control, an escape from chaos, and for something else as well: a yearning for a relationship between ourselves and the world in a way that is impossible to experience in a job!" Now he speaks my language. Hope you found this review inspiring enough to go read the book NOW!
A 5-star through and through. I never got my MBA. I've build a 6-figure business after resigning from my long corporate career, and I'm never going to go for the MBA, but listening to Michael Gerber's E-Myth Revisited book, I feel like I just went to overnight MBA School.
I listened to the book at 1.5x the speed over several flights and learned SO MUCH and I feel that even if you are a pro small business owner, you'll get a lot out of this book.
This is among my top 5 business books mainly because of the highlights below:
1. A lot of story and entertaining especially with Michael's entertaining, brilliantly paced narration.
2. The stories he tells are unforgettable - they make a great business point - and hilarious. i.e.) the fat guy vs the skinny guy in your head, the barber story, the technician, manager and entrepreneur battling it out, Sarah - the case study - hiring Harry and the downfall of that relationships and so on.
3. You learn so much about creating fool proof systems that would work without depending on who bought the business (if it's a franchisee). Gerber argues that if you have a prototype, such as The Franchise Prototype, then you have a system that makes your business work!
4. You get inspired, motivated, and learned how to run a small business in such a way that you can still love your life, love your work, make money and not be owned by it all.
5. This book was not your typical dry, boring, stiff business book, thank God! It spoke from a place of passion, soul, and true enthusiasm and yet it had tons of pragmatism in it.
6. Gerber's personal story, which he shares with openness and vulnerability. I loved it.
7. And pay attention to where he shares the main reason we fail in small business: It's that we bring our chaos into the business, so that we end up creating the worst job in the world, because we refuse to change!!!!
Some of my most favorite quotes from the book - and there were so many:
"The purpose of going into business is to get free of a job so you can create jobs for other people. The purpose of going into business is to expand beyond your current horizons so you can satisfy a need in the marketplace that has never been satisfied before, so you can live an expanded stimulating new life."
"Don't go working on the commodity, work on the business."
"We must ask: How must the business work for it to be a great business, to match our vision, to give us the lifestyle we dream?"
"In the business format franchise, the hamburger wasn't the product, McDonald's was!"
"How do you build s business that works effortlessly and predictably so that you can build the life you love? How do you get free of your business to live a fuller life? Your business cannot control you. You control it."
"Working ON your business, not IN it."
"The primary purpose of your life is NOT to serve your business. The purpose of your business is to serve your life."
"How can I run my business doing the work I Love to do rather than the work I Have to do?"
"Business, even a small business such as yours, is both an art and a science. And you need a process, a practice, a method and a system that works. "
"Practice the craft until the jewel appears one day. It is the work raised to near perfection that connects the crafts person to her art. Do it until the jewel appears when mastery is achieved."
"Life is what this business is about! Let business be your personal transformation."
"Great people create their lives actively while everyone else is waiting passively to see where their life takes them. Difference is living fully and intentionally or just existing."
"Keep the curtain UP at all costs, to be open, to be awake, to give up false beliefs."
"It's not your business you have to fear losing. It's yourself. It's you you're trying to find on the other side."
"The product is what your customer feels about your business, the experience of doing business with you."
"Selling is not closing. Selling is opening by going thru the questionnaire process and finding out what all you can offer him or her."
My biggest takeaway: "The entrepreneurial dream is a yearning for structure, for form, for control, an escape from chaos, and for something else as well: a yearning for a relationship between ourselves and the world in a way that is impossible to experience in a job!" Now he speaks my language. Hope you found this review inspiring enough to go read the book NOW!
This is really, really good. Boy, I wish I had read this a few years ago. There is so much truth in running the business v. being the business. The next time around will be better. ;). I would absolutely recommend this book to 1) a Maker-entrepreneur and 2) all startups with no business experience. There are nuggets for everyone, but it definitely rings true of some of my more artistic small business clients in the past.
This is a book written by someone who clearly admires technical skill but lacks the imagination to say anything genuinely worthwhile. The language is verbose, corny, and occasionally attempts to be poetic, but the core message is just capitalist bullshit. 100 pages of straight-up recycled psychology of the Eric Berne degree. Also, I’d bet my bottom dollar Sarah doesn’t exist, has never existed and is, instead, a manic-pixie dream prop in the neoliberal fantasy where the author (a dude!) lectures a woman (who bakes pies!) about running her business properly.
There’s also a completely unhinged moment where he compares getting a slightly unpredictable haircut to suffering Burnt Child Syndrome, which, in reality, describes the trauma children experience when their caregivers alternate affection and neglect. According to him, a barber not replicating the exact same experience every time is basically the psychological equivalent of abusive parenting ?
There’s also a completely unhinged moment where he compares getting a slightly unpredictable haircut to suffering Burnt Child Syndrome, which, in reality, describes the trauma children experience when their caregivers alternate affection and neglect. According to him, a barber not replicating the exact same experience every time is basically the psychological equivalent of abusive parenting ?
If you’re a moron who has never critically thought about anything ever, this book is great. Although even you might take issue with the obviously fabricated anecdotes and dialogue involving Sarah (“she kicks the oven door yelling “Damn! Damn! Damn! All I ever wanted to do was bake pies! And now I have to run a business!”” … or whatever)