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10th out of 238 books
—
397 voters
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
A completely revised edition of the groundbreaking bestseller that provides the key ingredients to developing a prosperous small business venture.
Paperback, 269 pages
Published
March 3rd 1995
by HarperBusiness
(first published 1985)
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Sep 23, 2012
Chad Warner
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
entrepreneurs, business owners
Recommended to Chad by:
Dean Whittaker, Entrepreneur Magazine
When I told a business owner at a local event that I had started my own technology services business, he recommended that I read this and learn how to "work on my business, not in it." I had heard the phrase and other mentions of Michael Gerber and The E-Myth in Entrepreneur Magazine and elsewhere, but after this personal recommendation I had to read it. This book is an eye-opening read for any small business owner.
The E-Myth (Entrepreneurial Myth) is that businesses are started by entrepreneurs...more
The E-Myth (Entrepreneurial Myth) is that businesses are started by entrepreneurs...more
This is a fine book showing some of the flaws of small businesses and why so many fail. The author uses a fictional small business owner who started a pie shop and running herself ragged. She has a great gift in making pies but is burning herself out. She was thinking about how she her job was making and selling pies when her business could and should be so much more.
Successful companies don’t actually sell the products that they make. They fulfill an emotional need of their clients. For instanc...more
Successful companies don’t actually sell the products that they make. They fulfill an emotional need of their clients. For instanc...more
"A life laking in comprehensive structure is an aimless wreck. The absence of structure breads breakdown" - Quote from The Third Wave, Alvin Toffler. So Mr. Gerber makes the point that in a broken world our businesses need to be the shelter from the chaos with what Mr. Gerber calls "Impeccable order".
“The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them...more
“The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them...more
I read this a few years ago. It was the text for one of my husband's business classes. He said it was a good book... and I said, "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?" (qualifies as one of the most rare phrases to escape his gorgeous lips) So I had to read it, see.
It's actually pretty amazing. I'm betting I'll never start my own business, because the things I do tend to be less-marketable services and commodities. Reading, doing laundry, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer... Don't think you get paid for any of...more
It's actually pretty amazing. I'm betting I'll never start my own business, because the things I do tend to be less-marketable services and commodities. Reading, doing laundry, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer... Don't think you get paid for any of...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
About half a dozen important ideas buried in a mass of cloying, poorly written prose.
The 268 pages dedicated to this text could have been cut to 60 and the book would have been better for it. As it is, prepare to skim.
The author's habit of inventing characters that compliment him on his own ideas is a recurring and increasingly annoying technique. He also compliments his invented characters for their eloquence and drops repeated advertisements for his own company in the text. Classy.
The 268 pages dedicated to this text could have been cut to 60 and the book would have been better for it. As it is, prepare to skim.
The author's habit of inventing characters that compliment him on his own ideas is a recurring and increasingly annoying technique. He also compliments his invented characters for their eloquence and drops repeated advertisements for his own company in the text. Classy.
10 likes · like · see review
The E-Myth Revisited – Why Most Small Companies Do Not Work and What TO Do About It
By: Michael E Gerber
Heard: October 2009
Reviewed: November 2009
In the E-Myth Revisited Gerber starts by explaining how many small businesses get started: A result of an “Entrepreneurial Seizure”. An Entrepreneurial Seizure is when a technician is annoyed by his present job and feels that they could do better by starting their own company where they would work “for themselves” doing the same type of work they now do...more
By: Michael E Gerber
Heard: October 2009
Reviewed: November 2009
In the E-Myth Revisited Gerber starts by explaining how many small businesses get started: A result of an “Entrepreneurial Seizure”. An Entrepreneurial Seizure is when a technician is annoyed by his present job and feels that they could do better by starting their own company where they would work “for themselves” doing the same type of work they now do...more
It appeared to me that the main purpose of this book was to attract customers to the author's training and consulting program for small business owners. Nevertheless, it was well worth the effort of reading this. There are some good insights here.
The Entrepreneurial Myth is that entrepreneurs start businesses, but in fact most are not started by entrepreneurs. People may be momentarily entrepreneurial, but most businesses are started by technicians.
Why most businesses fail is the Fatal Assumpti...more
The Entrepreneurial Myth is that entrepreneurs start businesses, but in fact most are not started by entrepreneurs. People may be momentarily entrepreneurial, but most businesses are started by technicians.
Why most businesses fail is the Fatal Assumpti...more
If it weren't for the condescending, overly-simplistic, overly-drawn out, incessantly repetitive tone of this book, it would be good--it does have meaningful concepts, it just should have been twenty pages long. I've spent years working in consulting where process works when people don't. This book took sixty pages to suggest that the poor overworked technician hire help. Another fifty pages to explain that you need good processes so that you can hire low-skilled people. That you define a role a...more
One of the worst titles for one of the best business books I've read in a long time. The "E Myth" stands for the "Entrepreneur myth" which, in Gerber's opinion, has caused many small American businesses to fail. Gerber believes that the notion that people of a certain type drive success in business, is pretty much dangerous bunkum. Systems drive business, and if you construct the right systems, the business will run itself. Of course, it's a bit more complex than that. In fact, it's a lot more c...more
I skimmed this book five years ago after hearing about it from some North Point staff members. I thought I understood the basic ideas, so for the last five years the book sat on my shelf. Until this week. I had a chance to listen to the book this week, and will likely add it as required reading for all our new staff members.
Great lessons:
1) Most people get into business (ministry?) because they like doing something and wish they could do it for themselves. Naively, they think they'll have more...more
Great lessons:
1) Most people get into business (ministry?) because they like doing something and wish they could do it for themselves. Naively, they think they'll have more...more
Read this on the recommendation of a photographer friend who has been able to run his business successfully. This book opened my eyes to practical implications of the oft cited fact that as a photographer, I am now a business owner. It forced me to take a hard look at how we structured our business and to evaluate how to install systems that will allow us to grow our business without being overwhelmed.
His BIG IDEA is that many of the individuals who start business are not entrepreneurs (people h...more
His BIG IDEA is that many of the individuals who start business are not entrepreneurs (people h...more
The E-Myth is an important read for inspiring entrepreneurs if for no other reason than to keep you on track with doing what’s important for your business. Specifically making sure that you are always working on your business.
The overall message of this book is for small business owners to have systems and processes in place for their business. The main model that Michael Gerber uses is the franchise model that ensures that companies like McDonald’s can operate anywhere in the country and still...more
The overall message of this book is for small business owners to have systems and processes in place for their business. The main model that Michael Gerber uses is the franchise model that ensures that companies like McDonald’s can operate anywhere in the country and still...more
Great book for me. I'd highly recommend it to anyone in a small business -- not necessarily to directly absorb and accept the advice from the book, but rather simply to have a fully thought out reference framework from which to accept and reject the book's premises deliberately rather than incidentally.
I do feel it's necessary to qualify the above praise with a comment on the book's style. The praise is for the content of the book. The content was good enough for me to tolerate the definitely-no...more
I do feel it's necessary to qualify the above praise with a comment on the book's style. The praise is for the content of the book. The content was good enough for me to tolerate the definitely-no...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Wow. “E-Myth: Revisited” should be on the list of required reading for anyone who wants to start a small business or feels trapped by their current small business. This book completely turned everything that I thought I knew (and I have an MBA) on its head – particularly the assumption that you had to start a business based on your existing competencies. You don’t. The chapter describing the “Entrepreneurial Seizure” seemed like it was written just for me. The basic premise of the book is that i...more
I want to give this one three and a half. I got one thing out of this book - and I think it was an important thing - that is the focus on the idea that while one's business reflects its owner's personality, it must operate independently of that owner to sustain itself. Other key points included a business needing to express a primary aim outside of the commodities it provides, and what the stages of infancy, adolescence, and maturity can look like for a company, and how it's important to start a...more
This book is INVALUABLE for any small business owner. I have worked in several small businesses and have seen the pitfalls described in this book at everyone. I have even worked at a well-known large chain, and the same things happened there too. Just because a business is large and successful doesn't mean it knows what it's doing. So this book gets four stars for content alone.
It gets zero stars on being well-written. Good lord, this guy needed an editor. Every statement you say is not so impor...more
It gets zero stars on being well-written. Good lord, this guy needed an editor. Every statement you say is not so impor...more
The E-Myth is a how-to/help guide for diagnosing the problems with small businesses and how to begin to solve them.
I was sent this by a business consultant who felt the IT company myself and my partner run is falling into the pitfalls described in this book - and in a way it is. However, I wouldn't say that reading the E-Myth was a eureka moment, which suddenly made me realise what we have to do in order to grow our business (because that is our issue, rather than simply running it).
It breaks...more
I was sent this by a business consultant who felt the IT company myself and my partner run is falling into the pitfalls described in this book - and in a way it is. However, I wouldn't say that reading the E-Myth was a eureka moment, which suddenly made me realise what we have to do in order to grow our business (because that is our issue, rather than simply running it).
It breaks...more
Simple read and inspiring. While there were a couple concepts that needed translating to my specific business and a few items that may go better with a grain a salt, I still give it 5 stars because it does simplify the complex framework that is running a small business. Many folks don't realize the hard realities that lead to business failure and this title does a good job of summing up what's really required to build something successful. If you're just starting your business or maybe you're qu...more
At its core, there are some good principles in this book. Unfortunately, they're buried in a pile of garbage. The dialogue between the author and Sarah (which makes up about 75% of the book) is long-winded and contrived and didn't add one single bit of value to the underlying messages. To make things worse, we're being funnelled to the author's business development program constantly. I would have appreciated more content coming from this alleged business development program, since as it stands...more
In Michael Gerber's follow up to E-Myth, Gerber has written one of the best business books that competes with classics like Jim Collins' Good To Great and Built To Last. E-Myth Revisited presents the facts about small business in the United States then leads you through a specific experience Michael Gerber had while consulting. Each chapter presents thoughts and ideas heavily cemented in principles that will encourage you to rethink your approach to business as an entrepreneur but also as a cons...more
A good book with a simple, but powerful message for businesses / entrepreneurs: take your personality out of your work and create business systems (or, in Gerber's thought process, franchises). Work _on_ your business (system) as much or more as you work _in_ your business. And the point of creating a good system or franchise, is for someone else to eventually buy it out from you (getting you enough money to retire or move on to the next project/business system/franchise).
The format of the book...more
The format of the book...more
In this first new and totally revised edition of the 150,000-copy underground bestseller, The E-Myth, Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. He walks you through the steps in the life of a business from entrepreneurial infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to the mature entrepreneurial perspective, the guiding light of all businesses that succeed. He then shows how to apply the l
...more
The E-Myth is of a class of airport traveler business self-help book that's ordinarily so far outside my orbit that I usually don't even have to avoid it. When two intelligent, trusted friends independently recommended this 20-year-old book within a week or two of each other, I eagerly picked it up.
I shouldn't have bothered. The E-Myth is a plodding, self-important, relentlessly pedantic book full of flat cheer and self-serving affirmations. I'm looking forward to hearing why my friends enjoyed...more
I shouldn't have bothered. The E-Myth is a plodding, self-important, relentlessly pedantic book full of flat cheer and self-serving affirmations. I'm looking forward to hearing why my friends enjoyed...more
"When you hear something, you will forget it. When you see something, you will remember it. But not until you do something, will you understand it." -Chinese Proverb
The Entrepreneur lives in the future, never in the past, rarely in the present.He's happiest when left free to construct images of "what-if" and if-when.
A Small Business is
A place that responds instantly to any action we take.
A place where we can practice implementing ideas in a way that changes lives
A place where we can begin to te...more
Recommended reading for entrepreneurs.
Notes:
Work on your business, not in it.
A company is supposed to grow and it will not grow if you only care about the technical work
Build the company as a set of systems that could be copied for repeatable success.
Clearly define and document every role and have an insight in every one
Your customers perceived need is more important than their actual need.
Experiment to make your systems better.
Measure everything so you know if what you are doing is working
Your...more
Notes:
Work on your business, not in it.
A company is supposed to grow and it will not grow if you only care about the technical work
Build the company as a set of systems that could be copied for repeatable success.
Clearly define and document every role and have an insight in every one
Your customers perceived need is more important than their actual need.
Experiment to make your systems better.
Measure everything so you know if what you are doing is working
Your...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
In this first new and totally revised edition of the 150,000-copy underground bestseller, The E-Myth, Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. He walks you through the steps in the life of a business from entrepreneurial infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to the mature entrepreneurial perspective, the guiding light of all businesses that succeed. He then shows how to apply the l...more
Work on the business, not on the work. Don't be a technician, be an entrepreneur. This book identifies the entrepreneurial challenge - one of systematization, not "doing the work yourself." The wide misunderstanding of this task leads to most small businesses failing, or driving their owners insane.
A classic in the field - annoyingly written with a smug and "I can't believe it's not butter!" style, but the concepts are so core to what the objectives of an entrepreneur are, that one would be remi...more
A classic in the field - annoyingly written with a smug and "I can't believe it's not butter!" style, but the concepts are so core to what the objectives of an entrepreneur are, that one would be remi...more
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| How do we add books from Audible | 1 | 6 | Mar 15, 2013 05:16am |
Michael founded the company that would eventually become E-Myth Worldwide more than 30 years ago to address a significant need in the small business market: businesses owned primarily by people with technical skills but few business skills, and no place to go to get meaningful help. Over the years, E-Myth has helped tens of thousands of small business owner clients to successfully transform their...more
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“Contrary to popular belief, my experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren't so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.”
—
6 people liked it
“With no clear picture of how you wish your life to be, how on earth are you going to live it? What is your Primary Aim? Where is the script to make your dreams come true? what is the first step to take and how do you measure your progress? How far have you gone and how close are you to getting to your goals?”
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1 person liked it
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Mar 26, 2013 10:10am