Treva Tribit Photography

The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber is written for the small business owner that is in way over their head. We were introduced to this book from a workshop hosted by Justin and Mary Marantz on their Spread the Love tour. The book slowly breaks the reader into the fact that the reader is not just a business owner, but that the reader holds many more jobs that just owner.

Starting off with three distinct job titles, Technician, Manager, and Entrepreneur the book begins to verbally lambaste Technicians for not engaging their Manager and Entrepreneur selves. It is also here where the author starts to introduce us to his version of a business spirituality. That the Entrepreneur is above all and is the future spiritual selves we all seek. It’s here we are also told, that you are working too hard, there is a better way, and if you weren’t being such a Technician with your head cut off you’d be happier and would escape your ultimate fate of the owner of a failed business.

Once you reach escape velocity of planet technician and see that what you need to be is an architect of your business, an Entrepreneur, then the author opens the door to more job titles. The Entrepreneur we are told transcends menial work, he delegates tasks, he sculpts a business out of cogs and rigorous processes, so that any one off the street can be put into place to fulfill any task. It reminds me of the philosophy mentioned in The Caine Mutiny where the lead character tell us that the only way to survive the Navy is to go numb and not think about anything, because if you think about what it is you are doing, you’ll go insane…but if you just do it without thinking that the process will guide you through it and soon you will be done with whatever menial repetitive task was asked of you. Further, “The Navy is a master plan, designed by geniuses, for execution by idiots.” and so too should your business be.

The book also takes us through several tales. One of a shop owner, who bakes pies, who is suffering from being a Technician. To the giants of the business franchise industry, like McDonald’s, and FedEx. To a heartwarming tale of the best hotel the author ever stayed at. Through this whirlwind, you’ll go back and forth between a shop owner who remembers being a little girl and not having anything to do but lay in fields and dream, to the author saying “Exactly. You need to not be a Technician, you need to get busy and do these other 6 or 7 or so jobs.” The disconnect between the two seems palpable, but to work 6 or 7 or so more jobs is the prescription for how the pie shop owner is to get out of the misery and drudgery that is the business that demands more and more of her time, life, and health.

Now, I have some experience to lend to what the author is recommending and you can decide whether or not this is the elixir for what ails your business, and for most reading this that will be a photography business. When the author says to write and proceduralize your business, this is no small order or task, especially when the comparison is often loosely made with the masters of franchise, McDonald’s. Having worked at McDonald’s when I was young lad, I can tell you that it’s no small thing to create an operations manual. Every McDonald’s indeed has such a manual, but the level of detail is vast, and it is indeed meant to be executed idiots, managed by lesser idiots, and owned by those who can appreciate the turn-key nature of the McDonald’s franchise and can rustle up a cool million and a half.

So just so you are clear, what you need to do, or start doing, in addition to all the things you have to do now, is to sit down. Then? Start drawing up why your business does what it does like no one else does and how it is you do it, and further, how you expect someone who walks in off the street to do it just like you do.  This is a level of organization that is beyond hyper organized, you very nearly to be an ISO 9000 document writer too, in addition to President, VP of Sales, VP of Marketing, CEO, COO, CFO, CTO, CPA, secretary, janitor, and photographer.

In short? You need to hire people and tell them what to do and how to do it. You’re quite literally insane if you try to do all of the jobs required. However, you can also get this advice if you go down to your local SBA. They have experienced small business owners who will help you through these things. They are there to help you. Guess what their advice is? “Hire someone to do that.” In fact, every question can and will be answered with “Hire someone to do that.”

The moral of the stories and book? If you aren’t “Hiring someone to do that.” or “Preparing to hire someone to do that.” you can just forget it. Your business will never grow to what you need it to be. Which is something you can walk away from and/or enjoy the profits from. If you were to disappear and thus your business would disappear? You aren’t a business you are a one man band…marching off a cliff. Or so we are told…

The book also ends on a newage-esque note of that profits and the business you run is the spirit you’ve been searching for all along. That sense of security and self you’ve been longing for is out there….waiting…seize it….it’s yours! All you have to do is run towards your future self if you would just let yourself. I am continually amazed, by those, who could easily fulfill this need by merely seeking Christ find every increasingly unique ways to do it…that somehow never satisfy…that leave you hungry. If you’re still hungry and can’t be satisfied might I recommend picking up a Bible instead of or in addition to this book.

Personally, I found some of the thoughts intriguing. I felt some of the scenarios eerily similar to our own and I also found some of the scenarios nothing like ours and the advice outright condescending. This book is a worthwhile book to read, but gloss over the business spirituality and the things that don’t apply to you, and you should be fine.

Obviously.

If you want more books that are of along the same lines of master plans designed by geniuses, I’d like to recommend the book “Built to Last”.

I give this book 3.8 stars out of 5.