The Emyth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It.
You can find the print version of this book here.
Contents:
What is the emyth all about?
Michael E. Gerbers’ big idea within the emyth book is: small business workers generally work in their business versus on their business.
He goes on further to say there is a fatal assumption amongst entrepreneurs:
“if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does that technical work.”
This is not true, and can be the beginning of the end of your small business.
To get around this and create a growing business that you love, you need to identify the three “people” that we all have inside of us, or at least should have within our company as a whole.
- The technician
- The manager
- The entrepreneur
The Technician
The technician is the person who does. They are a do-er. Therefore, if you run a marketing agency, the technician is the one who creates social media strategies for clients, or presents brand strategies.
The technician lives in the present, they prefer to do things one at a time, and get the job done right. The technician isn’t interested in ideas, instead they are interested in how to do it.
Take a minute to quickly write down what the technician would do in your company.
The Manager
The manager is pragmatic and relies on order within the company. Hence, if you run a HR software, the manager would look after the systems and processes involved in onboarding, hiring, operations, etc.
They see the problems where others may see opportunity – but only to keep the business safe and orderly. They live in the past, looking at what could have been done better and how to stick to the status quo.
Take a minute to quickly write down what the manager would do in your company.
The Entrepreneur
The Entrepreneur is the one will all of the ideas. They live in the future. They are happiest when left free to their own devices, to think about “what-ifs.” The entrepreneur is the innovator of the company.
So, if you run a legal practise, the entrepreneur would be looking at ways you can disrupt the legal services market, improve motivation across the company, and would come up with the most creative marketing strategies.
Take a minute to quickly write down what the entrepreneur would do in your company.
Great, so now we know the premise of the book, but how do we apply this to our business?
Emyth: Apply this to your business
At Cooper Financials, we worked with the Emyth team through their coaching program. It was insightful, encouraging, and completely levelled up how we run our company and serve our clients.
If you don’t have the time or free capital to spend on this program, not to worry, instead you can learn from us. Here are our biggest take-aways and some questions you can work through with your team.
Start with why – everything else should follow.
- Why did you start your business?
- What is most important to you in your life?
- What is your biggest life goal? (note: this is probably not “make lots of money” or “own a business that goes to IPO.” Instead they encourage you to think deeper. Maybe it’s “provided for my children” or “be respected in my community.”)
- What are your personal values?
- What are you business values?
- Are they the same? If not, why not?
Spend your time wisely.
- Remember the three personas, technician, manager and entrepreneur. As a business owner you should not be spending the majority of your time as a technician, instead you need to spend as much time as possible “on” your business rather than “in” your business.
- What does a typical week look like? It could be worth keeping a time sheet for a few weeks to determine the break-down.
Have a strategic objective.
- This one seems so simple, yet many business owners do not have a specific goal they are trying to reach. Remember this should be intertwined with your “why” and goals in your personal life.
Put processes around everything.
- We use a system called Confluence to note down all of our procedures. That’s from technical client work, to onboarding an employee, to how we write our blog posts. Because of this, we are able to provide consistent high quality work.
- Do you have a specific way that you do things? Perhaps it is all in your head right now? Try to write it down – you’ll be surprised how much you store in there.
Outsourcing is your best friend.
- There are some area of expertise that yourself (or your entire leadership team) do not poses, or do not have the time to do – outsource this instead of trying to learn everything. It will make your life a lot easier and your work more efficient.
- Sometimes this can be outsourcing to a person, other times this can be outsourcing to a technology. For example, we use ClickUp to outsource our task management. Instead of having a PA, we just login to our task management system and know exactly what we need to do that day.
Take some time today to think about how you could level up your business by applying the fundamental principles from Michael E. Gerbers book, The EMyth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It.