Earlier this year (I believe it is March or April) I completed the book “The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It” by this man called Michael E. Gerber. Its a fairly old book, released in 2004 (gosh… how old was I back then? Probably still fighting over a lollipop with other babies back in the kindergarten… )
This book was ranked #1 on Amazon in Marketing for Small Businesses. Gotta say it deserves that title.
But I must first make it clear that this is definitely not a marketing book. I would say it is a “strategy planning” book for small businesses. That is a more accurate title for the book.
Let me get straight to the point so that you can just get the best part of the book without actually spending the time reading it…
Gosh. This is just too good to be true…
According to Michael E. Gerber, in every single business there are 3 main roles:
- The Entrepreneur
- The Manager
- The Technician
These 3 persons must all be doing their roles properly to make the business flourish.
So what are their respective roles?
- The Entrepreneur: Focusing on the future: planning ahead, dreaming, having big visions and maybe even unrealistic goals
- The Manager: Focusing on the present: managing people, fulfilling orders, negotiating with business partners, making day-to-day deals, and generally putting off fire as they arise here and there
- The Technician: Focusing also on the present, but in the way of doing the actual work, for example, say if you own a bakery, this is the person who creates the formula, mixes the dough, and bakes the nice, hot and tasty bread that everybody loves.
Businesses that fails are businesses that are lacking in one (or more) of these 3 areas. And this, I think is just very accurately put. I always try to check with myself if I am able to get all of these 3 downs and always see which part I could be improving on.
A little bonus (you know I always overdeliver) tip I personally use is to try to delegate some part(s) of the three roles to others. Because your time is limited. We could not do it all. If someone try to do it all they are likely ending up being a small, local brick and mortar store and unable to grow beyond that (this point is also found in the book), because time is finite. There is a problem with scaling up the business.
Hope this helps! The realisation I have reading the above point in the book definitely helps me a lot.
R. L. —> hungry and gonna get some food