Michael E. Gerber - The E-Myth Enterprise

I love to read Michael Gerbers books. His attitude is challenging, his style is playful, and his content is insightful. His early gems The E-Myth, E-Myth Mastery, The E-Myth Revisited, and Awakening the Entrepreneur Within were pretty darn good, to say the least. But The E-Myth Enterprise might be his best book yet. Listen to what Michael has to say in his introduction:

Trust me when I say this: The E-Myth Enterprises you will come in touch with here are as uncommon a reality as winning the Olympics. Companies like these dont just happen; They are the outcome of passions intensely applied. Of perseverance impossible to fake. Of overcoming the relentless obstacles that are continually conspiring to make the impossible, impossible. To make the unfathomable, unfathomable. To make the difficult more than just difficult, but horrendously difficult. Of creating an original result in the world. In short, a free market system provides one with significantly more opportunity to fail than it does to succeed.

Hows that for challenging? He points out later in the book:

Service is an incomplete word because it says, The customer is king. But as it works out in real life, the customer isnt king except in the mind of the customer. To the employees, the customer isnt king; hes often a pain in the ass. To suppliers, the customer isnt queen; shes often a problem waiting to happen. To the lenders, the customer isnt king; hes often a drunk hanging on to a wagon, caroming into a wall. No, the customer isnt king to themthey are!

Hows that for playful? Throughout the book, Michael gets to the heart of what makes businesses tick:

There are three things that can be organized: time, space, and work. Despite what many believeand what most try to dopeople cannot be organized. Only the work people do can be organized. All attempts to organize people instead of their work do exactly the opposite of what organization is intended to do. Rather than order, it creates chaos. Rather than ease, it creates dis-ease. Rather than efficiency, it creates boredom. Rather than flexibility, it creates bureaucracy. Rather than room, it creates confinementWhen employed with skill, organization always produces a sense of great ease. When employed unwisely, organization always produces resistance. I have never seen a great business that does things in a businesslike way.

Hows that for insightful?

Is The E-Myth Enterprise just for people thinking about starting a business? No, but it sure would help. I read this book on a plane from Dallas to San Diego. After finishing a page, I would hand it to my wife, Margie, who cofounded our company with me and who has, by the way, a PhD in communication. She kept saying as she read, How do we get everyone in our company to read this book? Were celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of our company this year and Margie is worried that we have what is called educational incapacity. Our successand we have been successfulmakes us blind to new learnings and ways of thinking. And boy, is The E-Myth Enterprise all about that.

So read this book. Share it with your colleagues. And, as Michael Gerber challenges us, Stop sleeping! Wake up! Heed the final thoughts in this wonderful book by this brilliant, passionate man, Michael Gerber, who I am proud to call a new friend.

HOW PIG AND BEAR WENT INTO BUSINESS

Pig and Bear decided to go into business.

Well make lots of money! they thought.

Pig baked a bushel of potatoes, and Bear fried a heap of doughnuts.

They went to the marketplace early in the morning to get the best spots. Nobody was around yet. The morning was clear and chilly. Bear had a nickel in his coat. After a while he went over to Pigs stand to warm up a little.

How much for a potato? he growled.

A nickel for you.

Bear was about to say that hed just wanted to ask, but then he changed his mind. He fished for the nickel in his fur, took the biggest steaming potato in his paws, and crossed the road back to his stand.

The business is moving, rejoiced Pig. But since there were no more customers for a while, and he hadnt eaten since they started at dawn, he crossed over to Bears stand and bought himself a black raspberry doughnut for a nickel.

Bear was happy to have his first customer. He felt he should eat something before they started to flock. He went over to buy another baked potato. The move brought him luck. He had hardly finished when Pig was over for another doughnut.

The business slacked off again until Bear bought a potato. Soon Pig was over again, and Bear went right back to his stand with him to spend the earned nickel. Pig returned for a doughnut, and soon they were going back and forth until they sold everything.

They counted the money, but:

How strange, I only have a nickel, Bear said.

And I have nothing at all, said Pig.

They couldnt believe it.

We have sold all our merchandise, they kept saying, but we have no money!

But in vain they counted and recounted: they had only a nickel between them after the whole day of busy trading.

Adapted from Twelve Iron Sandals by Vit Hor? ej

If youve read any of my E-Myth books, you know me well enough to anticipate what Im about to share with you. If you havent read my E-Myth books, this book will come as a surprise.

The E-Myth Enterprise is a book about the business of invention. More importantly, its a book about rare people who I have come to think of as true E-Myth Entrepreneurs, people who were moved to re-create their world by inventing a business unlike any they had ever seen other than in their imagination.

Unlike any business you have ever seen.

Trust me when I say this: the E-Myth Enterprises you will come in touch with here are as uncommon a reality as winning the Olympics.

Companies like these dont simply happen; they are the product of deep, delirious imagining. They are the outcome of passions intensely applied. Of perseverance impossible to fake. Of overcoming the relentless obstacles that are continually conspiring to make the impossible impossible. To make the unfathomable unfathomable. To make the difficult more than just difficult, but horrendously difficult. Of creating an original result in the world.

I think you get what I mean. Dont try this at home, is what the warning reads at the bottom of the page. Unless youre determined to exceed, that is.

To exceed what? is the question.

Well, of course: to exceed the everyday. The normal. The obvious.

And if thats the case, this book tells you what it looks like when youre done and how to think about it in the process.

How to invent an E-Myth Enterprise.

How to invent a company that acts like one in ten million.

Welcome to the club. The E-Myth Club. The Michael Gerber Club. The club of great entrepreneurs.