>>The
E-Myth - Page 3
Why? Why do so many businesses fail? Is it
because of the economy? Is it because of high interest rates?
Is it because of lack of sufficient capital? Is it because
a bigger business moved in next door, or is it just bad luck?
The fact is, it is none of those things. For every one thousand
business failures, you’ll find a handful of others that
succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations and under
exactly the same circumstances and in exactly the same business.
The difference is their point of view about
what a business is, and what one isn’t. The difference
is that these business owners were all entrepreneurs, and
that the vast majority of the people who go into business
in this country aren’t. And that’s what the E-Myth
is all about. It stands for the Entrepreneurial Myth. It’s
the mistaken belief that the vast majority of people who go
into business in this country are entrepreneurs, and it just
isn’t true. The vast majority of people who go into
business in this country are not entrepreneurs; they’re
technicians suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure. And
that is the problem with their businesses. Its not that they’ve
chosen the wrong business or a bad business, its not that
they don’t have enough money, or that it is a bad economy.
Or they can’t find and keep good people. It is that
they started their business with an absolutely unworkable
point of view.
A fatal assumption that every technician who
decides to go into business makes is that, if they understood
the technical work of a business, they automatically understand
how to run a business that does that technical work. So the
Carpenter becomes a Contractor, and the Mechanic opens up
an Auto Repair Shop and the Machinist opens up a Machine Shop,
the Beautician opens up a Beauty Shop, and the Printer opens
up a Print Shop and the professional opens a practice. Each
and every one of them, believing that because they understand
how to build a house, or how to fix a car, or how to run a
machine that they are automatically qualified to run a business
that does that work. And it simply isn’t true.
Running a business that builds a house, or fixes
a car, or runs a machine, is totally different than doing
the work. Doing the work is what a technician does. Creating
the business that works is what an entrepreneur does. And
that is the problem with almost every small business in the
world. The owner of the business is the technician suffering
from entrepreneurial seizure, who goes to work in his business
and creates a job for himself, rather than going to work on
his business, like an entrepreneur would, to create a business
that works. So his business ends up being the worst job in
the world, because he can’t leave it. Because, he built
the business around himself. Because in order for his business
to work he has to. And he doesn’t realize that it simply
doesn’t have to be that way.
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