Think about the role you play in your small business—not the title on your business card, but what you actually do. Are you a manager one minute, a receptionist the next? When there’s a problem with shipping or facilities or finance, are you the one racing to put out the fire? If any of this rings true, you’re not...
Do you remember your mindset back when you decided to start your own business? You were good at something, and you knew it. Why spend your time doing that something for someone else when you could have the freedom of being your own boss? But then you got wrapped up doing the work of the business—doing the graphic ...
When facing the unique challenges in your business, where do you even begin? In our many years of coaching business owners, we’ve learned that whatever the challenge, one thing is always true: the solution starts with you. If your business isn’t working or serving your life the way you want it to, how can you chan...
If there’s one experience, more than any other, that small business owners across every industry share, it’s how hard it is to get your people to do what you want them to do, the way you want it done. Every owner has a picture of the best way to produce results in their business. Every employee comes to your compa...
As an enlightened business owner, you understand the importance of doing market research on your prospective customers. For example, you want to know where they're located, any common characteristics they may have and, ultimately, as much as possible about how they think - their needs, wishes, and motivations. The...
If your business is big enough to have managers and possibly even “departments” then you are probably familiar with the phenomenon of a silo structure. When you have reached the point in your business growth that you have hired managers and the reporting structure has become identifiably vertical in each area, or ...
Working ON your business is the skill that every business owner needs to build to create a thriving company that doesn’t depend on you to produce results. Turning what you know how to do really well into systems—step-by-step processes—that others can use effectively is something that anyone with the desire can lea...
Most small business owners we speak to about growing their companies spend the majority of their time making, selling or delivering their product or service. They know how to do the work the way they want it done, but they struggle getting other people to do it according to their standards. And when there’s a job ...
Every small business faces challenges. Every business owner must deal with issues and problems in the course of building and running a successful operation. In many ways though, the challenges—and advantages—in a family business are unique.
I’ve never known a business owner who didn’t feel they needed to spend more time working on their business and less time working in it. But so many find it difficult to make the time to do it. If you’re predominantly a Technician in your business, someone who spends most of your time making, selling or delivering ...
“How do I get my employees to do things the right way?” This is one of the most common questions we get from business owners. And the simplest answer is this: You need to show them what the right way—your way—is. With strong management, you design the systems your business needs to grow a high-performance team, on...
What’s your biggest business challenge? Whether it’s poor sales, employee issues or something more personal, every business owner can identify at least one pervasive problem that seems to hold the whole company back. So it’s natural to try to bring in an outside expert to help resolve your frustrations—but what ki...
Imagine what kind of workplace your business would be if your employees thought to themselves: "I’m excited about my work.” “This is a place where I can achieve my goals.” “I feel safe. It’s okay to make a mistake, and I will learn from it.” “I have some great ideas on how to improve things. I can’t wait to share ...
Business owners often come to us for help building a business model prototype—what we call a franchise prototype. They’ve read about the concept in The E-Myth Revisited and feel that it’s the key to getting what they want: a business that gets the results they desire at the standard they expect—without relying so ...
This year, I’m celebrating my 40th Anniversary at EMyth. I joined the company as an entry-level salesperson in 1982 at the age of 29. I’d just moved to northern California from the East Coast in search of a new direction after leaving a PhD program at MIT in public policy. As a graduate student, it dawned on me th...
Most companies organize around personalities rather than around functions. That is, around people rather than accountabilities or responsibilities. The result is almost always chaos.
The E-Myth Revisited proposes that owners of businesses that are not working should start again. This time they need to translate their vision into a management system, and to control their unpredictable employees through this system. I agree completely with this philosophy. My question is concerned with the pract...