My Book Reviews : The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
I can not remember who suggested I read this book, but I am forever grateful! Not only for the content but that I read it way before we opened The Hatchery. The two biggest takeaways are that he points out the three main hats a business owner wears and the importance of processes businesses should run on. Here is my overview and how we implemented certain aspects into The Hatchery!
“To The Manager, then, The Technician becomes a problem to be managed. To The Technician, The Manager becomes a meddler to be avoided. To both of them, The Entrepreneur is the one who got them into trouble in the first place!”
Michael Gerber - The E-Myth Revisited
The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician
If you’re a solopreneur you will find that you wear all three of these hats throughout the day. You are in charge of the vision of the company, head of HR, and head of unclogging the toilets. While you may have to be all of them, you may not be very good at two of them. A lot of times someone starts a business because they are working for someone else and feel they can “do it better".
Let’s say you’re a handyman for a small team. You are the best dang handyman out there. You show up on time, you know the ins and outs of every project, you have the best customer service, and you love what you do. One day you decide you’re going to quit and open up your own handyman business, woohoo! You do all the legal things, name your business, set your prices, and start advertising. You start to land some customers and, of course, are delivering the best customer service in town. Because of your great customer service you are getting a couple of referrals a week. You’re blown away by how easy this is and you continue to grow!
A few months later it hits you. It’s 9:30pm and you’re sifting through a pile of papers on your desk looking for that scratch piece of paper you wrote a proposal on, so you can call the customer back. While searching, you come across a late payment for your business license renewal because you started to pay it last week and then the phone rang. Your voicemail is full and your social media notification pops up letting you know you haven’t posted anything in a while. Oh, and your truck is overdue for an oil change. STOP the madness! You just wanted to be of service for people and complete their honey-do lists!
Okay, I’m not going to lie my heart is beating fast just writing this because I have been there. We’re really good at being the entrepreneur, or the manager, or the technician. But, not all three. The first thing is being real with yourself and being okay with that. I know that I am a visionary. It’s so hard for me to sit down and work on quickbooks for 3 hours or to remember to change the light bulb that has been out for 3 months. Knowing my strengths has helped me know what tasks I have to delegate so they will actually get completed! For the tasks that we can’t yet hire out, keeping our processes and procedures updated helps us know exactly what to do and when.
Processes and Procedures
The author wants to help reduce the percentage of small business failures and he asserts that this is done by creating tried and true processes and running your business like a franchise. No, McDonald's doesn’t scream sexy and yummy, but you can bet anyone off the street can be hired for the burger line and they will succeed. That’s because McDonald's knows down to the minute when to flip the burgers and exactly where to place the pickles. And, you know when you order a hamburger in Texas and a hamburger in New York it’ll taste the exact same way - and there is something to be learned from that.
Is that the case for your business?
Before we opened Raigan and I sat down and created a process for on-boarding a new member. We didn’t have any members at the time, but per the author, we wanted to create a process for when we did. From the potential member filling out a form on our website to sending a 1-year anniversary card - we had it all lined out. When then both looked at the list and assigned who would be doing which part so that we could play to our strengths. As you may assume, this process was not set in stone. With each new on-boarding experience, we adjusted the process.
Why do I encourage you to do these before you open? While you don’t think you have the time beforehand, I promise you have more time now than you will when you have a full customer load and 337 other items coming in. It’s much easier to adjust a process than start it from scratch! How do I know?
A couple of months after opening The Hatchery we started hosting events. People were loving them and we loved providing them. So of course, we started adding more. A couple of months later, we were doing 3-4 events every single month. We could line up the speaker, create the marketing material, host them, and follow up with attendees with our eyes closed. The only problem…we had never taken the time to create a full process. Raigan and I ebbed and flowed with each task perfectly month in and month out (just don’t ask us about July of 2018). Well, the day came where we had a new employee that had never witnessed an event, but was now expected to take on some of the tasks to create one. Sh*t. It took almost a day and a half to sit down and create a step by step process for one of our events because it was 6 pages long! Don’t forget this is all while the normal daily to-dos were piling up. Lesson learned!
“Documentation is an affirmation of order.” - Michael Gerber -The E-Myth Revisited
If you’re still not convinced to create your processes and procedures, imagine taking a 2 week vacation. Or God forbid you break your leg and end up in the hospital. Would your business be able to run with your there? Would your employee be able to know exactly who to call when the internet goes down or what to do when a customer comes in to return an item? As a business owner it can be hard to give up control of some things, but just imagine what it would be like if you could walkaway for a day and know it can run without you!
I hope you found this helpful and I hope it has encouraged you to go buy the book or rent it from your local library, so that you can set yourself up for success!