The E-Myth Revisited

Key takeaways

• Being good at a craft does not mean you can run a business built on it
• Every owner carries an entrepreneur, a manager and a technician who must be balanced
• Work on your business as a system, not just in it as a worker
• Design your company as if you will franchise it, even if you never do
• Document how things are done so ordinary people can deliver extraordinary results

Inside this bit

1. Why good bakers open bad bakeries

   Think of a woman who bakes wonderful pies, hears everyone say she should sell them, and opens a shop. A year later she is exhausted, resentful and losing money.

2. Three people inside every owner

   Gerber says every business owner is really three people fighting for control. The entrepreneur dreams about the future and wants change.

3. Infancy, adolescence and the turnaround

   Businesses grow in stages, and each stage has its own trap. In infancy, the owner is the business; customers come for the founder, and nothing happens without them.

4. The franchise prototype

   Gerber's most useful idea comes from fast-food chains. A burger franchise works the same way in Mumbai, Manila and Michigan because the founder built one perfect model and then copied it.

5. Innovate, measure, orchestrate

   How do you actually build such a system? Gerber offers a three-step loop.

6. Put it to work

   This week, write down what you want your life to look like in 10 years, then ask what your business must become to support it, because Gerber insists the business serves the owner's life and not the reverse. Pick one task you repeat daily and write a one-page guide so someone else could do it your way.