I have recommended this book far and wide and recently realized I have never mentioned it here: The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. I believe it’s a must-read if you want to become profitable as a business owner. Some people have told me they think it’s old-fashioned (yes, it is) or too systems-y or not personal enough. All true, but then I’m pretty systems-y, too, so I kinda liked that part.
This book has one big, and I believe critical, idea about why so many solo practitioners get frustrated: internalized conflict.
Gerber points out that every business requires three roles: Practitioner, Manager/Admin, and Entrepreneur/Marketing. (I’m para-phrasing heavily here.) Most people start a business because they love the idea of being a practitioner. But that does not a business make – or a profit earn!
In non-solo biz, different people or teams typically have those roles,and they often have conflict between the roles. When you go into solo biz, you assume all three roles and the inherent conflicts. You internalize all three roles – and those conflicts. Learning to see them independently and step into each of those is HUGE in going from “I just want to do X, but I’m not making any money” to “I have a successful X business.”
If you’re not willing to learn and perform the roles other than Practitioner, you might be able to create a hobby that generates some money, but you won’t have a sustainable business. If you really, really don’t want to do those other things, I believe you could be much happier working for or with a company that is great at those things. Or you could hire people to help you with the other roles. Both great options.
But that conflict between the roles… it’s there no matter what, especially if you try to reject any of them as valuable or worth learning.
So, and this is going to sound so non-coachy of me, where would you be more comfortable experiencing conflict? Internally, where you can learn, grow, and get personally frustrated sometimes, or, externally, where you can learn, grow and get frustrated with other people?
Either way, we get to learn and grow. I don’t believe that frustration among roles is completely unavoidable, but I do believe that we can become much better at recognizing the source of it. And that knowledge is the first step in mitigating it.
By Laurie Foley
I'm Laurie Foley and I help solo professionals like you discover your natural brand so that you can get clear, get noticed and get clients. Please request your free copy of The Inner Brandifesto, my popular guidebook full of brand-building exercises.
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Laurie, I love this article and it really describes a battle I’ve waged internally since setting out as an entrepreneur. I love doing what I do but am not great with the office admin or the marketing. I’m not yet able to hire other people to do it for me but don’t want to go back to the corporate world either, so I stumble along trying to do it all myself. Does “The E Myth” offer advice to help folks like me improve proficiency in areas they don’t naturally flourish?
That’s a great question, Kristen. Ultimately, his approach *is* very systemsy. If you imagined every business as if it were going to be franchised or ultimately sold, you’d be applying Gerber’s thinking. So in some ways, yes, I think he can help because I’m also a believer in systematizing what can be systematized. But he doesn’t really get into things like how to be a better bookkeeper or how to be a better marketer. Happily, there are lots of other books for that once we know where we struggle.
In your situation it might be worth asking which parts are causing you the most trouble right now and holding them up for examination and possible improvement. If you can break them down by seeing them in the different roles, a clearer path is likely to emerge.
Thanks for your comment, Kristen.
I loved this book 20 years ago, and have bought many copies as gifts. Even bought it as “books on tape” for a mechanic friend who had a long commute in to his shop from home.
The concept of someone who loves “doing” that gets stuck in a business was me in 1984, when I loved cameras and photo processing. I bought a business doing just that, and figured if I just kept “doing” all that other stuff would take care of itself. A friend of mine gave me a copy of this little book, and it changed the way I looked at business. (It also, eventually, convinced me to get out of the “photo” business — but that’s another story!)
Everyone in small business should read and understand this book.
It’s always interesting to me how it applies across so many disciplines. Thanks, DC!
Another approach to role conflicts for solo entreneurs is a team approach, where each member of the team owns her own business, but shares certain tasks with other non-competing team members.
I think it’s great when you can find those kinds of collaborators.
Thanks for this really helpful “Cliff Notes” on the key points from the book. I read the first version, and must have conveniently forgotten what I learned the first time around, because reading your words led me to a big “aha!” I’m great at the practitioner part, pretty good at the admin/financial stuff, and don’t really want to do the marketing. I’ve learned lots of useful info about how to market, but over time I’ve had to realize that I just don’t love doing it. However, if I want to stay in business, I need a different relationship with that role, not just “training.” This is something I often say to clients – you need a different relationship with X, not training about how to do X. Much harder to see in myself than in others! I like Kay’s idea, and am going to try using the energy and skills of the first two roles to bring more rigor to the third. The goal is not to love it, but to do enough of it so that I get to do the other more “fun” stuff!
Love your point about different relationship. My favorite re-frame for marketing, Jill, is to see it as education. More than anything, I’ve benefited from changing my relationship with marketing into something that connects with my love of learning.