Book Club #37: The E-Myth Revisted by Michael Gerber

The Entrepreneurial Myth, or E-Myth for short, is a term coined by Michael Gerber that describes the misconceptions that most beginner entrepreneurs have when they start on the road to creating their own business. Gerber has parlayed his success with the first book, The E-Myth, into an entire series that either simplifies or dives deeper into the concepts of the E-Myth, even delving into specific career fields and industries.

The E-Myth Revisited is an attempt to update the original book and provide more concise answers for the beginner entrepreneur. The primary focus of the author is to answer what to do when your passion project is no longer your passion.

The Apex Book Club previously covered Michael Gerber’s book Beyond the E-Myth, about building a business so that it is ready to sell at a time of your choosing, specifically because it is built to be scalable and therefore a prudent investment opportunity for any potential buyers.

Before we scale, we must be personally satisfied with our investments in the business, whether they be financial, energy, or time investments.

What does a business owner do when they have lost the drive to grow the business, and it is yet to have become marketable to buyers? They look inward.

The E-Myth Archetypes

Creating a business typically arises from a desire to work for oneself or turn a passion into a profit. Of all the books written about starting your own business, 99.9% of them would agree that you need to maintain passion for what you are doing to overcome the ups and downs of owning your own business.

So what is the secret to keeping passion in a business that will envelop so much of your daily life?

You need to understand the three archetypes of a business owner that exist, define which type you want to be, and then act accordingly. That means hiring others to fulfill the remaining roles of the business.

If you choose to be The Entrepreneur of the triumvirate, you need to be prepared to handle driving the business forward as your primary responsibility. But you also need to have a capable Manager to manage the business and a skillful Technician to make things happen from the nuts and bolts side of the business. Otherwise, you will find yourself wearing many hats and looking great in none of them.

Working to Live and Living to Live

Most business owners don’t get into a business to work more hours for less money than they may have made in their previous careers as employees. They want to create and build a successful business that provides for them financially and gives them the freedom to live a life not chained to a desk or a storefront.

One only needs to look at the meteoric success of Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek to understand that people of an entrepreneurial mindset are looking for less time at maintenance work, and more time doing inspiring work. Or maybe they just want to get away from the people or roles they don’t like.

Simplifying your business start-up can be achieved by either buying into a franchise or buying an existing business that has been proven as a good investment. You remove the need to design an entire business strategy platform from scratch, saving hundreds of hours that would be better spent on the profitability of the business, or life outside of the business. Yes we are brokers who want to help you buy and sell businesses, but many of us have built businesses ourselves so we know it’s almost always better to buy than to build.

The E-Myth Revisited is a very helpful book for those who have started their own business but are questioning what they have gotten themselves into. The key focus of the book is to help you take a breath, delve deep into what you want your role to be, and then delegate the rest through either employment, partnership, or a renewed drive and purpose.

If you are looking to skip the start-up and buy into a business that has already proven itself, give us a call. It’s what we do.