THE E-MYTH REVISITED NOTES
WHY?
A lot of successful people recommend this book and the concepts in this book about businesses should benefit my life, whether it's stocks or starting my own business.
NOTES
The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or a curse, then I am as guilty of being an ordinary man as the next guy, and on occasion have ascended to the warrior state.
In the 25 years of life, I have experienced near financial and business disaster as well as incredible victories, have created new companies to expand my dream, vision, purpose and mission beyond what is included in this book, have seen my marriage collapse and with it lost control over my company, without even a glimpse of what is going on wit it. At the same time, I discovered what power I do possess, why it is important, and why in the end, everything depends upon my determination to live my life authentically, to pursue my vision unceasingly, and to live it to the fullest of my being.
My experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren't so because of what they know but because if their insatiable need to know more.
The problem with most failing businesses I've encountered is not that their owners don't know enough about finance, marketing, management, and operations they don't, but those things are easy enough to learn, but that they spend their time and energy defending what they think they know. The greatest business people I've met are determined to get it right no matter what the cost.
Chapter 1: The Entrepreneurial Myth
Picture the typical entrepreneur and Herculean pictures come to mind: a man or woman standing alone, wind blown against the elements, bravely defying insurmountable odds, climbing sheer faces of treacherous rock all to realize the dream of creating a business of one's own.
The legend reeks of nobility, of loft, extra human efforts, of a prodigious commitment to larger than life ideals. Well there are such people, my experience tells me they are rare. Of the thousands of business people I have had the opportunity to know and work with over the past two decades, few were real entrepreneurs when I met them. The vision was all but gone in most. The zest for the climb had turned into a terror of heights. The face of the rock had become something to cling to rather than to scale. Exhaustion was common, exhilaration rare. But hadn't all of them once been entrepreneurs? After all, they had started their own business. There must have been some dream that drove them to take such a risk. But if so where was the dream now? Why had it faded? Where was the entrepreneur who had started the business?
To understand the E-Myth and the misunderstanding at it's core, let's take a closer look at the person who goes into business. Not after he goes into business, but before.
For that matter, where were you before you started your business? And if you're thinking about going into business, where are you know?
Well, if you're like most of the people I've known, you were working for somebody else.
What were you doing? Probably technical work, like almost everybody who goes into business.
You were a carpenter, a mechanic or a machinist.
You were a bookkeeper or a poodle clipper, a drafts person or a hair dresser, a barber or a computer programmer, a doctor or a technical writer, a graphic artist or an accountant, an interior design or a plumber or a salesperson. But whatever you were, you were doing technical work. And you were probably good at it. But you were doing it for somebody else. The one day for no apparent reason something happened, it might have been a feeling that your boss didn't really appreciate your contribution to the success of his business.
Inside your mind it sounded something like this: “What am I doing this for? Why am I working for this guy? Hell, I know as much about this business as he does. If it weren't for me, he wouldn't have a business. And dummy can run a business, I'm working for one.”
The thought of independence followed you everywhere. The idea of being your own boss, doing your own thing, singing your own song, became obsessively irresistible.
Once you were stricken with an Entrepreneurial Seizure, there was no relief. You couldn't get rid of it. You had to start your own business.
In the throes of your Entrepreneurial Seizure you fell victim to the most disastrous assumption anyone can make about going into business. The fatal assumption is: if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does that technical work. And the reason it's fatal is that it just isn't true. In fact it's the root cause of most small business failures! The technical work of a business and a business that does the technical work are two totally different things! But the technician who starts a business fails to see this. To the technician suffering from an Entrepreneurial Seizure a business is not a business but a place to go to work.
The real tragedy is that when the technician falls prey to the Fatal Assumption, the business that was supposed to free him from the limitations of working for somebody else actually enslaves him. Suddenly the job he knew how to do so well becomes one job he knows how to do plus a dozen others he doesn't know how to do at all. Because although the Entrepreneurial Seizure started the business, it's the technician who goes to work.
And suddenly, an entrepreneurial dream turns into a technician's nightmare.
The technician suffering from an Entrepreneurial Seizure takes the work he loves to do and turns it into a job. The work that was born out of love becomes a chore, among a welter of other less familiar and less pleasant chores. Rather than maintaining its specialness, representing the unique skill the technician possesses and upon which he started the business, the work becomes trivialized, something to get through in order to make room for everything else that must be done. Every technician suffering from an Entrepreneurial Seizure experiences exactly the same thing. First, exhilaration, second terror, third exhaustion, and finally despair. A terrible sense of loss not only the loss of what was closest to them, their special relationship with their work, but the loss of purpose, the loss of self.
Chapter 2: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician
No, The Technician isn't the only problem. The problem is more complicated than that. The problem is that everybody who goes into business is actually three-people-in-one: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician. And the problem is compounded by the fact that while each of these personalities wants to be the boss, none of them want to have a boss. So they start a business together in order to get rid of the boss. And the conflict begins. To show you how the problem manifests itself in all of us, let's examine the way our various internal personalities interact. Let's take a look at two personalities we're all familiar with: The Fat Guy & The Skinny Guy.
Have you ever decided to go on a diet?
You're sitting in front of the television set one Saturday afternoon, watching an athletic competition, awed by the athletes' stamina and dexterity.
You're eating a sandwich, your second since you sat down to watch the event two hours before.
You're feeling sluggish in the face of all the action on the screen when, suddenly somebody wakes up in you and says “What are you doing? Look at yourself, You're Fat! You're out of shape! Do something about it!”
It has happened to us all. Somebody wakes up inside us with a totally different picture of who we should be and what we should be doing. In this case, let's call him The Skinny Guy.
Who's The Skinny Guy? He's the one who uses words like discipline, exercise, organization. The Skinny Guy in intolerant, self righteous, a stickler for detail, a compulsive tyrant.
The Skinny Guy abhors fat people. Can't stand sitting around. Needs to be on the move. Lives for action. The Skinny Guy has just taken over. Watch out things are going to change.
You have a new lease on life and by Monday night, you've lost two pounds. Tuesday night you get on the scale another pound gone.
On Wednesday you can't wait to get on the scale. You strip down to your bare skin, shivering in the bathroom, filled with expectation of what your scale is going to tell you. You step lightly onto it and look down. What you see is nothing. You haven't lost an ounce. You're exactly the same as you were on Tuesday.
Dejection creeps in. You begin to feel a slight twinge of resentment “After all that work? After all that sweat and effort? And then nothing? It isn't fair” But you shrug it off. After all, tomorrow's another day. You go to bed, vowing to work harder on Thursday. But somehow something has changed.
You don't know what's changed until Thursday morning. It's raining. The room is cold. Something feels different. What is it? For a minute or two you can't quite put your finger on it. And then you get it: somebody else is in your body. It's The Fat Guy! He's Back! And he doesn't want to run. As a matter of fact, he doesn't even want to get out of bed it's cold outside.
All of a sudden you find yourself in front of the refrigerator. Food is now your major interest. The marathon is gone, the lean machine is gone, the sweats and barbells and running shoes are gone. The Fat Guy is back. He's running the show again. It happens to all of us, time and time again. Because we've been deluded into thinking we're really one person.
And so when The Skinny Guy decides to change things we actually believe that it's I who's making that decision. And when The Fat Guy wakes up and changes it all back again, we think it's I who's making that decision too. But it isn't I. It's we.
The Skinny Guy and The Fat Guy are two totally different personalities, with different needs, different interests, and different lifestyles.
That's why they don't like each other. They each want totally different things.
When you're The Skinny Guy you're always making promises for The Fat Guy to keep. And when you're The Fat Guy, you're always making promises for the Skinny Guy to keep. It's not that we're indecisive or unreliable, it's that each and every one of us is a whole set of different personalities, each with his own interests and way of doing things. Asking any one of them to defer to any of the others is inviting a battle or even a full scale war.
Well this is the kind of war going on inside the owner of every small business. But it's a three way battle between The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician. Unfortunately it's a battle no one can win.
The entrepreneurial personality turns the most trivial condition into an exceptional opportunity. The Entrepreneur is the visionary in us. The dreamer. The energy behind every human activity. The imagination that sparks the fire of the future. The catalyst for change.
The Entrepreneur lives in the future, never in the past, rarely in the present. He's happiest when left free to construct images of “what-if” and “if-when”.
The Entrepreneur is our creative personality always at its best dealing with the unknown, prodding the future, creating probabilities out of possibilities, engineering chaos into harmony.
Every strong entrepreneurial personality has an extraordinary need for control. Living as he does in the visionary world of the future, he needs control of people and events in the present so that he can concentrate on his dreams.
The managerial personality is pragmatic. Without The Manager there would be no planning, no order, no predictability. The Manager is the part of that goes to Sears and buys stacking plastic boxes, takes them back to the garage, and systematically stores all the various sized nuts, bolts, and screws in their own carefully identified drawer.
If The Entrepreneur lives in the future, The Manager lives in the past. Where the entrepreneur craves control, The Manager craves order.
Where The Entrepreneur thrives on change, The Manager compulsively clings to the status quo. Where The Entrepreneur invariable sees the opportunity in events, The Manager invariably sees the problems. The Manager builds a house and then lives in it, forever. The Entrepreneur builds a house and the instant it's done begin planning the next one. Without The Manager there could be no business, no society. Without The Entrepreneur, there would be no innovation.
The Technician is the doer. “If you want it done right do it yourself” is The Technician's credo.
The Technician loves to tinker. Things are to be taken apart and put back together again. Things aren't supposed to be dreamed about, they're supposed to be done.
If The Entrepreneur lives in the future and The Manager lives in the past, The Technician lives in the present. He loves the feel of things and the fact that things can get done.
As long as The Technician is working, he is happy, but only one thing at a time. He knows that two things can't get done simultaneously, only a fool would try. So he works steadily and is happiest when he is in control of the work flow.
As a result, The Technician mistrusts those he works for, because they are always trying to get more work done than is either possible or necessary.
To The Technician, thinking is unproductive unless it's thinking about the work that needs to be done.
As a result, he is suspicious of lofty ideas or abstractions. Thinking isn't work, it gets in the way of work. The Technician isn't interested in ideas, he's interested in “how to do it”. To The Technician knows that if it weren't for him, the world would be in more trouble than it already is. Nothing would get done, but lots of people would be thinking about it.
Put another way, while The Entrepreneur dreams, The Manager frets, and The Technician ruminates.
The Technician is a resolute individualist, standing his ground, producing today's bread to eat at tonight's dinner. He is the backbone of every cultural tradition, but most importantly of ours. If The Technician didn't do it, it wouldn't get done.
Everyone gets in the Technician's way. The Entrepreneur is always throwing a monkey wrench into his day with the creation of yet another “great new idea”
On the other hand, The Entrepreneur is always creating new and interesting work for The Technician to do, thus establishing a potentially symbiotic relationship. Unfortunately it rarely works out that way. Since most entrepreneurial ideas don't work in the real world.
The Manager is also a problem to The Technician because he is determined to impose order on The Technician's work, to reduce him to a part of “the system”. But being a rugged individualist, The Technician can't stand being treated that way. To The Technician “the system” is dehumanizing, cold, antiseptic, and impersonal. It violates his individuality.
The fact of the matter is that we all have an Entrepreneur, Manager, and Technician inside us. And if they were equally balanced, we'd be describing an incredibly competent individual.
The Entrepreneur would be free to forge ahead into new areas of interest, The Manager would be solidifying the base of operations, and The Technician would be doing the technical work.
Unfortunately out experience shows us that few people who go into business are blessed with such a balance. Instead, the typical small business owner is only 10 percent Entrepreneur, 20 percent Manager, and 70 percent Technician.
If it's that within each businessperson there are three personalities, rather than just one, can you imagine what a mess that makes? If one of you wants this, and another of you wants that, and a third wants something entirely different, can you imagine the confusion that causes in our lives? And it's not only the personalities inside each of one of us that confuse us but all the others we come in to contact with as well: in our customers, in our parents, in our friends, in our spouses, in our lovers. If this is true, and all you need to do is discover whether it is or not is to take a look at yourself from day to day, as though from above, as though from someone else, to observe yourself as you go through the day you would see the different parts come out. You would see them playing their respective games. You would see how they fight for their own space and the sapce of all the others and sabotage each other as best they can.
In your business you would see how one part of you craves a sense of order, while another part of you dreams about the future. You would see how another part of you can't stand being idle, and jumps in to bake, and to clean up, and to wait on customers, the part of you who feels guilty if she isn't doing something all the time.
In short you would see how the Entrepreneur in you dreams and schemes, The Manager in you is constantly attempting to keep things as they are, and The Technician in you drives the other two crazy. You would see that it not only matters that your personalities are not in a balanced relationship with each other but that your life depends on gaining that balance. That until you do, it's a war! And it's a war no one can win.
You would also see that on of your personalities is the strongest of the three (or four, or five, or six), and that she walways manages to control the others. In fact, if you watch long enough, you'll being to understand how devastating the tyranny of your strongest personality is to your life. And you'll see that without balance, without all three of these personalities being given the opportunitiy, the freedom, the nourishment they each need to grow, your business cannot help but mirror your own lopsidedness.
So it is that an entrepreneurial business, without a Manager to give it order and without a Technician to put it to work, is doomed to suffer an early, and probably very dramatic, death. And what a Manager-driven business, without an Entrepreneur or a Technician to play their absolutely critical roles, will put things into little gray boxes over and over again, only to realize too late that there's no reason for the things or the boxes she put them into! Such a business will die very neatly.
And that in the Technician driven business, without the Entrepreneur to lead her and The Manager to supervise her, The Technician will work until she drops, only to wake up the next morning to go to work even harder, and the next, and the next. Only to discover, long after it's too late, that while she was working someone moved a freeway through the store!
An entrepreneur does the work of envisioning the business as something apart from you, the owner. The work of asking all the right questions about why this business, as opposed to that business? Why a pie baking business rather than a body shop? If you are a baker of pies, it's easy for you to decide to open up a pie baking business. But that's just the point. If you are a baker of pies and are determined to do entrepreneurial work, you would leave your pie baking experience behind you and engage in the internal dialogue with which every truly entrepreneurial personality is wonderfully familiar.
You would begin to say to yourself, it's time for me to create a new life. It's time for me to challenge my imagination and to begin the process of shaping an entirely new life. And the best way to do that anywhere in this whole wide opportunity filled world is to create an exciting new business. One that can give me everything I want, one that doesn't require me to be there all the time, one that has the potential to be stunningly unique, one that people will talk about long after having shopping in it the very first time, and as a result of that delightful experience, will come back to shop there again because it has such a special flavour to it. I wonder what that business would be?
So the work of an Entrepreneur is to wonder, to imagine and to dream. To see with as much of herself as she can muster the possibilities that waft about in midair someplace there above her head and within her heart. Not in the past but in the future. That's the work the entrepreneurial personality does at the outset of her business and at each and every stage along the way. I wonder. I wonder. Just as every inventor must. Just as every composer must. Just as every artist, or every craftsperson, or every physicist must. Just as every baker of pies must. I call it Future Work. I wonder is the true work of the entrepreneurial personality.
CHAPTER 3: INFANCY: THE TECHNICIAN'S PHASE
It is self evident that businesses, like people, are supposed to grow and with growth comes change.
Unfortunately most businesses are not run according to principle. Instead most businesses are operated according to what the owner wants as opposed to what the business needs.
And what the Technician who runs the company wants is not growth or change but exactly the opposite. He wants a place to go to work, free to do what he wants, when he wants, free from the contrainsts of working for The Boss.
Unfortunately, what The Technician wants dooms his business before it even begins.
To understand why, let's take a look at the three phases of business's growth: Infancy, Adolescence, and Maturity.
Understanding each phase, and what goes on in the business owner's mind during each of them, is critical to discovering why most small businesses don't thrive and ensuring that yours does.
The boss is dead and you, The Technician are free at last. Finally you can do your own thing in your own business. Hope runs high. The air is electric with possibility. It's like being let out of school for the summer. Your newfound freedom is intoxicating.
In the beginning nothing is too much for your business to ask. As The Technician, you're accustomed to "paying your dues" So the hours devoted to the business during Infancy are not spend grudgingly but optimistically. There's work to be done and that's what you're all about. After all your middle name is Work.
And so you work. Ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day. Seven days a week. Even when you're at home, you're at work. All your thoughts, all your feelings, revolve around your new business. You can't get it out of your mind. You're consumed by it, totally invested in doing whatever is necessary to keep it alive.
But now you're doing not only the work you know how to do but the work you don't know how to do as well .You're not only making it but you're also buying it, selling it, and shipping it. During Infancy, you're a Master Juggler, keeping all the balls in the air.
It's easy to spot a business in Infancy, the owner and the business are one and the same thing.
If you removed the owner from an Infancy business, there would be no business left.
It's even named after you Joe's Place, Tommy's Joint, Mary's Fine Foods so the customer won't forget you're The Boss.
And soon if you're lucky all of the sweat, worry and work begin to pay off. You're good. You work hard. The customers don't forget. They're coming back. They're sending in friends. Their friends have friends. They're all about Joe, Tommy and Mary. They're all talking about you.
If you can believe what your customers are saying, there's never been anyone like Joe, Tommy, and Mary. Joe, Tommy, and Mary are just like old friends. They work hard for their money. And they do good work. Joe is the best barber I ever went to. Tommy is the best printer I ever used. Mary makes the best corned beef sandwich I ever ate. Your customers are crazy about you. They keep coming, in droves.
And you love it!
But then it changes. Subtly at first, but gradually it becomes obvious. You're falling behind. There's more work to do than you can possibly get done. The customers are relentless. They want you they need you. You've spoiled them for anyone else. You're working at breakneck speed.
And then the inevitable happens. You, the Master Juggler, begin to drop some of the balls!
It can't be helped. No matter how hard you try, you simply can't catch them all. Your entusiasm for working with the customer wanes. Deliveries, once early are now late. The product begins to show the wear and tear. Nothing seems to work the way it did at first.
Joe's haircuts don't look the way they used to. "I said short in the back, not on the sides" "My name's Fred, that's my brother and I never had a crewcut!".
Glitches start showing up in Tommy's printing, typos, ink smudges, wrong colors, wrong paper. "I didn't order business cards, I ordered catalog covers" "Pink? I said brown!"
Mary's best tasting biggest stack of corned beef in the world suddenly looks like pastrami? Another irritated voice calls out: "Where's my pastrami sandwich? This is corned beef!" And yet another "What are these garbanzo beans doing in my meatloaf?"
What do you do? You stretch. You work harder. You put in more time, more energy.
If you put in twelve hours before, you now put in fourteen.
If you put in fourteen hours before, you now put in sixteen.
If you put in sixteen hours before, now you put in twenty. But the balls keep dropping!
All of a sudden, Joe, Tommy, and Mary wish their names weren't on the sign.
All of a sudden, they want to hide.
All of a sudden, you find yourself at the end of an unbelievably hectic week, late on a Saturday night, poring over the books, trying to make some sense out of the mess, thinking about all of the work you didn't get done this week, and all of the work waiting for you next week. And you suddenly realize it simply isn't going to get done. There's simply no way in the world you can do all that work yourself!
In a flash, you realize that you business has become The Boss you thought you left behind. There's not getting rid of The Boss!
Infancy ends when the owner realizes that the business cannot continue to run the way it has been, that in order for it to survive, it will have to change.
What that happens when the reality sinks in, most business failures occur. When that happens, most of The Technicians lock their doors behind them and walk away.
The rest go on to Adolescence.
When a Technician turned business owner is suddenly confronted with the reality of her situation, a sense of hopelessness can set in. The challenge can seem overwhelming.
There's nothing wrong with being A Technician. There's only something wrong with being a A Technician who also owns a business! Because as a Technician turned business owner, your focus is upside down. You see the world from the bottom up rather than from the top down. You have a tactical view rather than a strategic view. You see the work that has to get done, and because of the way you're built, you immediately jump to do it! You believe that a business is nothing more than an aggregate of the various types of work done in it, when in fact it is much more than that.
If you want to work in a business, get a job in somebody else's business! But don't go to work in your own. Because while you're working, while you're answering the telephone, while you're baking pies, while you're cleaning the windows and the floors, while you're doing it, doing it, doing it, there's something much more important that isn't getting done. And it's the work you're not doing, the strategic work, the entrepreneurial work, that will lead your business forward, that will give you the life you've not known yet.
There's nothing wrong with technical work, it is, it can be, pure joy.
It's only a problem when The Technician consumes all the other personalities. When The Technician fills your day with work. When The Technician avoids the challenge of learning how to grow a business. When The Technician shrinks from the entrepreneurial role so necessary to the lifeblood, the momentum, of a truly extraordinary small business, and from the managerial role so critical to the operational balance or grounding of a small business on a day to day basis. To be a great Technician is simply insufficient to the task of building a great small business.
If your business depends on you, you don't own a business you have a job. And it's the worst job in the world because you're working for a lunatic! The purpose of going into business is to get free of a job so you can create jobs for other people.
The purpose of going into business is to expand beyond your existing horizons. So you can invent something that satisfies a need in the marketplace that has never been satisfied before. So you can live an expanded, stimulating new life.
You can't have a business and just expect to do the technical work. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't ignore the financial accountabilities, the marketing accountabilities, the sales and administrative accountabilities. You can't ignore your future employees' need for leadership, for purpose, for responsible management, for effective communication, for something more than just a job in which their sol purpose is to support you doing your job. Let alone what your business needs from you if it's to thrive: that you understand the way a business works, that you understand the dynamics of a business, cash flow, growth, customer sensitivity, competitive sensitivity, and so forth.
If all you want from a business of your own is the opportunity to do what you did before you started your business, get paid more for it, and have more freedom to come and go, your greed - I know that soudns harsh but that's what it is your self-indulgence will eventually consume both you and your business.
The exciting thing is that once you let go of your Technician side, once you make room for the rest of you to flourish, the game becomes more rewarding than you can possibly imagine at this point in your business's life.
CHAPTER 4: ADOLESCENCE GETTING SOME HELP
Adolescence begins at the point in the life of your business when you decide to get some help.
There's no telling how soon this will happen. But it always happens, precipitated by a criss in the Infancy stage.
Every business that lasts must grow in to the Adolescent phase. Every small business owner who survives seeks help.
What kind of help do you, the overloaded Technician, go out to get?
The answer is as easy as it is inevitable: technical help. Someone with experience. Someone with experience in your kind of business.
When things get crazy at your business and you run around like a lunatic/mad man. You're hopelessly, helplessly at a loss. For you to behave differently you would need to awaken the personalities who have been asleep within you for a long time- The Entrepreneur and The Manager - and then help them to developer the skills only they can add to you business.
But The Technician in you won't stop long enough for that to happen.
The Technician in you has got to go to work!
The Technician in you has got to catch the balls!
The Technician in you has got to keep busy. The Technician in you has just reached the limits of his Comfort Zone.
CHAPTER 5: BEYOND THE COMFORT ZONE
Every adolescent business reaches a point where it pushes beyond its owner's
Comfort Zone - the boundary within which he feels secure in his ability to control his environment, and outside of which he begins to lose that control.
The Technician's boundary is determined by how much he can do himself.
The Manager's is defined by how many technicians he can supervise effectively or how many subordinate managers he can organize in a productive effort.
The Entrepreneur's boundary is a function of how many managers he can engage in pursuit of his vision.
As a business grows, it invariably exceeds its owner's ability to control it - to touch, feel, and see the work that needs to be done, and to inspect its progress personally as every technician needs to do.
As the business grows beyond the owner's Comfort Zone as the tailspin accelerates, there are only three courses of action to be taken, only three ways the business can turn. It can return to Infancy. It can go for broke. Or it can hang on for dear life. Let's take a look at each.
Getting Small Again.
One of the most consistent predictable reactions of The Technician turned business owner to Adolescent chaos is the decision to "get small" again. If you can't control the chaos, get rid of it.
Go back to the way is it used to be when you did everything yourself, when you didn't have people to about, or too many customers, or too many unpayable payables and unreceivable receivables or too much inventory.
In short, go back to the time when business was simple, back to Infancy.
And thousands upon thousands of technicians do just that. They get rid of their people, get rid of their inventory, wrap up their payables in a large bag, rent a smaller facility, put the machine in the middle, put the telephone by the machine, and go back to doing it all by themselves again.
They go back to being the owner, sole properietor, chief cook and bottle washer, doing everything that needs to be done, all alone, but comfortable with the feeling of regained control.
And all of a sudden you are struck with the reality of your condition. You realized something you've avoided all these years. You come fact to face with the unavoidable truth: You don't own a business, you own a job! What's more, it's the worst job in the world! You can't close it when you want to, because when you leave there's nobody there to do the work.
You can't sell it when you want to, because who wants to buy a job?
Your dream is gone, the only thing left is work. The day-to-day grind of purposeless activity.
Finally, you close the doors. There's nothing to keep you there anymore.
According to the Small Business Administration, more than 600,000 such businesses close their doors in the United States every year.
The true question is not how small a business should be but how big. How big can your business naturally become, with the operative word being naturally?
Because whatever that size is, any limitation you place on its growth is unnatural, shaped not by the market or by your lack of capital even though that may play a part but by your own personal limitations. Your lack of skill, knowledge, and experience, and most of all, passion for growing a healthy functionally dynamic extraordinary business.
In this regard getting small is, rather than an intentional act, a reaction to the pain and fear induced by uncontrolled and uncontrollable growth, both of which could have been aniticipated provided the owner had been prepared to facilitate the growth in a balanced, healthy, proactive way.
So if the natural disposition of every business is to either grow or contract, and it is, there is no denying that then 'getting small again' is the natural inclination of the Technician turned owner to shrink from the unknown, to shrink from the business she has created, to contrain the business from creating demands on her to which she feels hopelessly inadequate to respond appropriately.
In short businesses that get small again die. They literally implode upon themselves.
Your job is to prepare yourself and your business for growth.
To educate yourself sufficiently so that, as your business grows the business's foundation and structure can carry the additional weight.
And as awesome a responsibility as that may seem to you, you have no other choice, if your business is to thrive that is.
It's up to you to dictate your business's rate of growth as best you can by understanding the key processes that need to be performed, the key objectives that need to be achieved, the key position you are aiming your business to hold in the marketplace.
By asking the right questions, such as: Where do I wish to be? When do I wish to be there? How much capital will that take? How many people, doing what work, and how? What technology will be required? How large a space will be needed, at Benchmark One, at Benchmark Two, at Benchmark Three?
Will you be wrong at times? Will you make mistakes? Will you change your mind? Of course you will! More often than not. But, done right, you will also have contingency plans in place. Best case, worst case. And somtimes you will simply fly by the seat of your pants, you will go with the flow, follow your intuition.
But all the while even while you're guessing, the key is to plan, envision, and articulate what you see in the future both for yourself and for your employees.
Because if you don't articulate it, I mean, write it down clearly, so others can understand it, you don't own it! And do you know that in all the years I've been doing this work with small business owners, out of the thousands upon thousands we've met, there have only been a few who had any plan at all!
Nothing written, nothing committed to paper, nothing concrete at all.
Any plan is better than no plan, because in the process of defining the future, the plan begins to shape itself to reality, both the reality of the world out there and the reality you are able to create in here.
And as those two realities merge, they form a new reality, call it your reality, call it the unique invention that is uniquely yours, the reality of your mind and your heart uniting with all the elements of your business, and your business with the world, shaping, designing, collaborating, to form something that never existed before in exactly that way.
And that is the sign of a Mature company. A Mature company is started differently than all the rest. A Mature company is founded on a broader perspective, an entrepreneurial perspective, a more intelligent point of view. About building a busienss that works not because of you but without you.
CHAPTER 6: MATURITY AND THE ENTREPRENEURIAL PERSPECTIVE
Maturity the third phase of a company's growth is exemplified by the best business in the world. Businesses such as McDonald's, Federal Express and Disney.
A Mature business knows how it got to be where it is and what it must do to get where it wants to go.
Therefore, Maturity is not an ineveitable result of the first two phases. It is not the end product of a serial process beginning with Infancy and moving through Adolescence.
Companies like McDonald's, Federal Express, and Disney didn't end up as Mature companies. They started out that way! The people who started them had a totally different perspective about what a business is and why it works.
The person who launches his business as a Mature company must also go through Infancy and Adolescence. He simply goes through them in an entirely different way.
It's his perspective that makes the difference.
His Entrepreneurial Perspective.
A Technician's Perspective differs from the Entrepreneurial Perspective in the following ways:
1) The Entrepreneurial Perspective asks the question: "How must the business work?" The Technician's Perspective asks "What work has to be done?
2) The Entrepreneurial Perspective sees the business as a system for producing outside results for the customer resulting in profits. The Technician's Perspective sees the business as a place in which people work to produce inside results, for The Technician producing income.
3) The Entrepreneurial Perspective starts with a picture of a well defined future, and then comes back to the present with the intention of changing it to match the vision. The Technician's Perspective starts with the present, and then looks forward to an uncertain future with the hope of keeping it much like the present.
4) The Entrepreneurial Perspective envisions the business in its entirety, from which is derived its parts. The Technician's Perspective envisions the business in parts, from which is constructed the whole.
5) The Entrepreneurial Perspective is an integrated vision of the world. The Technician's Perspective is a fragmented vision of the world.
6) To The Entrepreneur, the present day world is modeled after his vision. To The Technician the future is modeled after the present day world.
The Entrepreneurial Perspective adopts a wider, more expansive scale. It views the business as a network of seamlessly integrated components, each contributing to some larger pattern that comes together in such a way as to produce a specifically planned result, a systematic way of doing business.
With the Technician's perspective, however the scale is narrower, more inhibited, confined principally to the work being done.
As a result, The Technician's business becomes increasingly oppresive, less exhilarating, closed off from the larger world outside.
His business is reduced to stes that fail to take him anywhere other than to the next step, itself nothing more than a replica of the one before it.
Routine becomes the order of the day.
Work is done for work's sake alone, forsaking any higher purpose, any meaning for what needs to be done other than the need to just do it.
The Technician sees no connection between where his business is doing and where it is now.
Lacking the grander scale and visionary guidance manifest in the
Entrepreneurial Model, The Technician is left to construct a model each step of the way.
But the only model from which to construct it is the model of past experience, the model of work. Exactly the opposite of what he neds if the business is to free him of the work he's grown accustomed to doing.
THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MODEL
The Entrepreneurial Model is a model of a business that fulfills the perceived needs a specific segment of customers in an innovative way.
The Entrepreneurial Model looks at a business as if it were a product, sitting on a shelf and competing for the customer's attention against a whole shelf of compeiting products (or businesses).
Said another way, the Entrepreneurial Model has less to do with what's done in a business and more to do with how it's done. The commodity isn't what's important the it's delivered is.
When the Entrepeneur creates the model, he surveys the world and asks "Where is the opportunity?" Having identified it, he then goes back to the drawing board and constructs a solution to the frustrations he finds among a certain group of customers. A solution in the form of a business that looks and acts in a very specific way, the way the customer needs it to look and act, not The Entrepreneur.
"How will my business look to the customer?" The Entrepreneur asks. "How will my business stand out from all the rest?"
Thus, the Entrepreneurial Model does not start with a picture of the business to be created but of the customer for whom the business is to be created.
It understands that without a clear picture of that customer, no business can succeed.
The Technician on the other hand, looks inwardly, to define his skills, and only looks outwardly afterward to ask, "How can I sell them?"
The resulting business almost inevitably focuses on the thing it sells rather than the way the business goes about it or the customer to who it's to be sold.
Such a business is designed to satify The Technician who created it, not the customer.
To The Entrepreneur, the business is the product.
To The Technician, the product is what he delivers to the customer.
To The Technician, the customer is always a problem. Because the customer never seems to want what The Technician has to offer at the price at which he offers it.
To The Entrepreneur, however the customer is always an opportunity. Because The Entrepreneur knows that within the customer is a continuing parade of changing wants begging to be satisfied. All The Entrepreneur has to do is find out what those wants are and what they will be in the future.
As a result, the world is a continuing surprise, a treasure hunt to The Entrepreneur.
To The Technician, however the world is a place that never seems to let him do what he wants to do, it rarely applauds his efforts, it rarely appreciates his work, it rarely if ever appreciates him. To The Technician the world always wants something he doesn't know how to give it.
The question then becomes, how can we introduce the entrepreneurial model to
The Technician in such a way that he can understand it and utilize it?
The answer is unfortunately we can't.
The Technician isn't interested.
The Technician has other things to do.
If we are to be succesful at this, what we must do, instead is to give the undeveloped Entrepreneur in each of us the information he needs to grow beyong the limitations of The Technician's Comfort Zone so as to experience a vision of a business that works.
What we must do instead is to provide out inner entrepeneur with a model of a business that works, a model that is so exciting that it stimulates our entrepreneurial personality, out innovative side to break free of The Technician's bonds once and for all.
What we must do, instead is to discover a model that sparks the entrepreneurial imagination in each of us with such a resounding shock that by the time The Technician wakes up to the fact it will be too late, The Entrepreneur will be well on his way.
But at the same time, if the model is to work, if the model is to awaken The Entrepreneur within each of us to begin to rebuild our businesses around the Entrepreneurial Perspective they so desperately need to flourish, The Manager and The Technician need their own models.
Because if the Entrepreneurial drives the business, the Manager must make certain it has the necessary fuel for sustenance, and that the engine and chassis are in a good state of repair.
If The Technician is to be satisfied, on the other hand, there must be a model that provides him with work that satisfied his need for direct interaction with every nut and bolt.
In short, for this business model of ours to work, it must be balanced and inclusive so that The Entrepreneurial, The Manager, and The Technician all find their natural place within it, so that they all find the right work to do.
CHAPTER 6: THE FRANCHISE PROTOTYPE
The success of the Business Format Franchise is withotu question the most important news in business.
Over the course of one year, Business Format Francises have reported a success rate of 95% in contrast to the 50 plus percent failure rate of new independently owned businesses. Where 80% of all businesses fail in the first five years, 75% of all Business Format Franchises suceed! The reason for that success is the Franchise Protoype.
The Franchise Prototype is the place where all assumptions are put to the test to see how well they work before becoming operational in the business.
Without it the franchise would be an impossible dream, as chaotic and undisciplined as any business.
The Prototype acts as a buffer between hypothesis and action. Putting ideas to the test in the real world rather than the world of competing ideas. The only criterion of value becomes the answer to the ultimate question "Does it work?".
In the Franchise Prototype the system becomes the solution to the problems that have beset all businesses and all human organizations since time immemorial.
The system integrates all the elements required to make a business work. It transforms a business into a machine or more accurately because it is so alive, into an organism, driven by the integrity of its parts, all working in concert toward a realized objective. And, with its Prototype as its progenitor, it works like nothing else before it.
At Ray Kroc's McDonald's, every possible detail of the business system was first tested in the Prototype, and then controlled to a degree never before possible in a people intensive business.
The french fries were left in the warming bin for no more than seven minutes to prevent sogginess. A soggy french fry is not a McDonald's french fry.
Hamburgers were removed from the hot trays in no more than ten minutes to retain the proper moisture.
The frozen meat patties, precisely identical in size and weight, were turned at exactly the same time on the griddle.
Pickles were placed by hand in a set patter that prevented them from sliding out and landing in the customer's lap.
Food was served to the customer in sixty seconds or less.
Discipline, standardization and order were the watchwords.
Cleanliness was enforced with meticulous attention to the most seemingly trivial detail.
Ray Kroc was determined that the customer would not equate inexpensive with inattentive or cheap. Nowhere had a business ever paid so much attention to the little things, to the system that guaranteed the customer that her expectations would be fulfilled in exactly the same way every time.
The Franchise Prototype is the answer to the perpetual question "How do I give my customer what he wants while maintaining control of the business that's giving it to him?
To The Entrepreneur, the Franchise Prototype is the medium through which his vision takes form in the real world.
To The Manager, the Franchise Prototype provides the order, the predictability, the system so important to his life.
To The Technician, the Prototype is a place in which he is free to do the things he loves to do, technical work.
The Franchise Prototype is the model you've been looking for. The Franchise
Prototype is the model of a business that works. The balanced model that will satisfy The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician all at once. It is being used at McDonald's, Federal Express, Disney Land etc.
CHAPTER 9: WORKING ON YOUR BUSINESS, NOT IN IT
It is critical that you understand the point I'm about to make. For if you do, neither your business nor your life will ever be the same.
The point is: your business is not your life.
Your business and your life are two totally seperate things.
At its best, your business is something apart from you, rather than a part of you, with its own rules and it own purposes. An organism, you might say, that will live or die according to how well it performs its sole function: to find and keep customers.
Once you recognize that the purpose of your life is not to serve your business, but that the primary purpose of your business is to serve your life, you can then go to work on your business, rather than in it, with a full understanding of why it is absolutely neccessary for you to do so.
Think of your business as something apart from yourself, as a world of its own, as a product of your efforts, as a machine designed to fulfill a very specific need, as a mechanism for giving you more life, as a system of interconnecting parts, as a package of cereal, as a can of beans, as something created to satisfy your consumers deeply held perceived needs, as a place that acts distinctly different from all other places, as a solution to somebody else's problem.
Think of your business as anything but a job!
Go to work on your business rather than in it, and ask yourself the following questions:
How can I get my business to work, but without me?
How can I get my people to work, but without my contanst interference?
How can I systematize my business in such a way that it could be replicated 5000 times, so the 5000th unit would run as smoothly as the first?
How can I own my business, and still be free of it?
How can I spend my time doing the work I love to do rather than the work I have to do?
If you ask yourself these questions, you'll eventually come face to face with the real problem: that you don't know the answers!
And that's been the problem along!
But now it should be different. Because now you know what you don't know.
Now you are ready to look the problem squarely in the face.
The problem isn't your business it never has been.
The problem is you!
It has always been you and will always be you. Until you change, that is.
Until you change your perspective about what a business is and how one works.
Until you begin to think about business in a totally new way.
Until you accept the undeniable fact that business, even a very small business like yours, is both an art and science.
To successfully develop a serious business you need a process, a practice, by which to obtain that information and, once obtained, a method with which to put that information to use in your business productively.
0 notes
New Post has been published on Weblistposting
New Post has been published on https://weblistposting.com/college-students-use-cellphone-apps-for-healthy-residing/
College students use cellphone apps for healthy residing
Wirelessfty-8 percentage of phone users inside the U.S.A. have health apps downloaded on their phones, in step with a study conducted via Dr. Paul Krebs, an assistant Professor in the Branch of Populace fitness at Big apple College’s School of medicine.
Cellphone Apps
“I exploit apps centered on exercising,” Parrish said. “One is a Nike+Run Membership app, and one is called SWORKIT. The Nike app might be my favorite due to the fact it’s far the quality jogging app that I have located. I use it because it has honestly right accuracy in tracking how a long way I have run, and it maintains a magazine of all my preceding runs and mileage.”
“(The app) enables me to preserve tune of my upgrades and shortcomings,” Parrish said. “It tells me when I’ve beat my fastest time or after I ran my slowest. it is sincerely fine to have this statistics accessible. I’d say I run extra because I have this app. Being capable of manipulating my time and space permits me to experience running greater.”
BYU facts structures scholar Jessica Connor additionally uses fitness apps.
“I like using the activity and fitness apps,” Connor said. “I exploit them on my Apple Watch, and they motivate me to stand up and circulate greater for the duration of the day. The activity app (hooked up to iPhone by way of Apple) additionally motivates me to take the stairs more regularly.”
“The main health app I exploit is known as Sleep Cycle,” Ashford stated. “For years there have been weeks wherein I couldn’t sleep at all, and I used to be continuously locating myself tired. I wanted to peer why and discern out a manner to restore it … I’ve used the app (Sleep Cycle) to improve my first-rate of sleep on the grounds that I began using it approximately seven months in the past.”
“I’ve gotten better, more efficient sleep, and that I don’t experience almost as tired during lectures,” Ashford said. “using the app has also helped my grades pretty a chunk, as I’m now better about when I do my homework and never falling asleep in magnificence.”
Y Be SuitWireless Co-Director Jessica Davies recommends a variety of health and nutrients apps to help her clients create a more fit lifestyle. Davies generally indicates MapMyWirelesstness and Nike+Education Club to enhance health habits and MyWirelesstnessPal for nutrients.
“While human beings start monitoring their weight loss plan, they commonly research a lot,” Davies stated. “frequently people begin to recognize that you can not make up for a terrible diet with the workout. it’s miles very smooth to eat 500 calories, however now not so smooth to burn that many calories thru exercising. it’s far critical to get both your weight-reduction plan and exercise in order.”
“In our application, a lot of our customers are seeking out a person to keep them accountable to their dreams,” Davies stated. “This is the health teach’s job, however, it additionally enables to have out of doors guide from pals, the the circle of relatives and even cellular phone apps.”
15 Suggestions to buy Used cellphone Without Spending Huge
If you are planning to buy a telephone but have small finances on your tight pocket, then you could want to choose up a used smartphone in place of a new one. However, shopping for a used phone can be a piece problematic if you don’t have any enjoy in any way about this “discipline”. You can not simply move up there to the telephone shop and make a random purchase Without even checking the entire condition of that phone very well. And if you got the wrong tool, it might end up a curse for you.
You would possibly get an amazing searching used the telephone with a really perfect case cowl without any scratches on it, however, to procure no clue that perhaps its inner hardware or its screen interface may not paintings anytime soon because there had been a few important damages inner of the cellphone due to the preceding owners. This is why it’s absolutely important so that you can avoid this type of cell phone to your own right.
Speak about used smartphones, most of the people suppose that used smartphones basically suck only for the sake that they may be second-hand smartphones. Properly, the reality is, no longer all used smartphones which you discover around the marketplace are some damaged telephones that don’t work anymore. In truth, some of this form of telephone still works just as tremendous as a new one. So it is beside the point anymore to say that the first-class of second-hand smartphones could be that terrible.
Well, if you have made the very last selection and are flawlessly sure that that is the proper time for you to shop for your first ever used cellphone, then these are 15 useful Tips that optimistically can be your first guidance whenever you’re planning to shop for used smartphones within the future.
1. Run a Quick Scan on the Case cover
The primary factor to note from a cellphone is simply its case cowl. Therefore, whenever you meet some used smartphones on any shop, make sure which you always run an intensive Scan of the device. Try to see if the device has any physical defect or scratch across the frame of that device. This ought to be finished so one can recognize greater approximately what that tool has been through in the beyond when it become nevertheless utilized by the preceding owners.
2. Ensure that the Case cowl is Unique
Used smartphones are generally plagued with the belief that their case covers will inform you everything approximately their situation. Nicely, That is so wrong. You cannot judge the overall satisfactory of used smartphones just by looking at how smooth its chassis or how perfect its display. There may be a huge opportunity that the vendor already covers them up with some new third birthday party case covers that glaringly will lead them to seem like new phones, proper?
Consequently, as a clever patron, usually equip yourself with the mindset that the dealers ought to always update the Original but damaged case cowl with some new 3rd birthday party chassis on the way to make sales.
3. Make sure that all the bodily Buttons paintings flawlessly
physical buttons constantly become the fragile element on any cell phone that has a tendency to be damaged without difficulty in the event that they had been pressed so normally through the owners. It’s why, when sorting out any used telephone on the store, usually make sure that everyone the bodily buttons, do not forget, they all, can work flawlessly, with none hiccup. The great element to do That is by using urgent every physical button over and over once more. If you see that There is any button that gives a susceptible or put off response (from time to time it works, once in a while, it would not) or maybe doesn’t paintings at all while you press it, then the pleasant
4. Constantly Check the display screen Sensitivity with the Consumer Interface
The subsequent element to test from a used telephone is the screen surface and the sensitivity of its User Interface. In this procedure, usually, run a radical Test if There’s any scratch around the screen and make sure that the contact screen nonetheless works flawlessly. Take a look at the touch reaction from each corner of the display screen till the middle area. Perform a little combined and random gestures at the screen time and again once more, from:
5. Check if There may be Any Glitch or Weird Colors Duplicate at the display screen
Except for its sensitivity, the other essential component to test on the display screen is the show. typically, used smartphones were dropped for several times by means of the previous proprietors. Therefore, it is certainly crucial to be able to see the entire location on the display to check if There is any glitch or Weird line on coloration Replica around the screen. If you see any of these, then the display screen isn’t always fine.
6. make sure that the Battery remains Pretty correct
There is no question that battery is one of the most crucial factors in smartphones. maximum of contact screen telephones, even the brand new iPhone, have vulnerable battery existence (aside from Samsung or Motorola flagships of direction). Therefore, it’s surely essential to always run a Check in this region on every occasion you want to shop for used smartphones. To name of few, you may do such things as playing excessive overall performance three-D video games or watching movies/motion pictures to make certain that the battery is still in a circumstance, if no longer notable. If the battery drains Quite quickly even whilst you simply open the pix or listen to a few songs (which are not definitely strength eating sports), then There’s something wrong with the battery.
7. Check if the Camera’s Shutter Key (if There may be Any) still Works
some of s the smartphones generally have the physical shutter key for shooting pix/videos, even though it is able to get replaced with the on-display screen virtual button. But, on a few phones, There may be a feature that lets you capture pics with shutter key even if the screen continues to be locked (e.G., Sony Xperia S, and so on). It is why, although you may not use it very frequently, continually do a Short Check in this shutter key by means of pressing it again and again again simply to make sure that this button nonetheless works flawlessly.
8. Make sure that the Cellular and Connectivity nevertheless paintings extraordinary
Connectivity is the alternative critical detail on phone. Without this area, your used phone could be Pretty much vain for you. You cannot surf the net, download stuff or connect the apps to internet. Therefore, usually run the Test of this connectivity function by using browsing the web with the pre-set up browser or another apps that require 3G/4G and c084d04ddacadd4b971ae3d98fecfb2a connectivity on that used cellphone.
9. Take a look at the Bluetooth, NFC or another Off-line Connectivity
these connectivity features can be virtually vital inside the destiny because you want it or no longer, you may want Bluetooth and could use it very regularly to percentage contents like pictures/tune/films/documents with the other gadgets, whilst NFC is likewise truly crucial for the future’s cellular price. Consequently, never neglect to continually run the fast Check on Bluetooth, NFC or other several offline connectivity features at the telephone.
10. Test the Sound first-rate of the Speaker
Making a telephone call is the reason why cell smartphone is invented in the first place. Without it, your cell phone shouldn’t be known as-as a smartphone. It’s why, if this selection does not work well, then your used phone might be useless within the future. So it’s also clearly important to constantly run the Test of this feature by using Making a random name on different gadgets and listen if There is something incorrect with its sound nice, sign or its loudspeaker.
11. Try to Send Textual content Message
Normally, if the Mobile connectivity still works great, then There’s a huge chance that you can also Ship Textual content messages with that phone. But, do not get over excited and sending one Text message wouldn’t hurt, right? that is on your personal excellent.
12. Check the Sound first-class of the phone, With and Without a Headset
Most of cellphone users usually don’t open wide the loudspeaker when paying attention to music or looking motion pictures. They commonly use a headset for most of activities that have sounds in it, like video games, movies, track or something. However, in an effort to make certain that the entirety is excellent, just spend a few seconds or mins to check if the loudspeaker nonetheless sounds super or no longer.
13. make sure that the Charging Port Can still Charge the smartphone
Charging port is also the other maximum crucial aspect on telephone. If the charging port doesn’t paintings and can’t Charge the device well, this will be absolutely dangerous for you within the destiny. In recent times, maximum smartphones’ charging ports are not just assembled with glue, but on a few smartphones, this part is integrated deeply with solder. So be sure to constantly Check the charging port of the device by means of plugging in/out the telephone with the charger and notice if There may be slightly delay reaction on battery bar at the display screen whilst being charged. Your phone is Quite a good deal vain if it cannot be charged.
14. Check the microSD card slot (if There’s any) to peer if it nonetheless works
Despite the growing recognition of massive inner storage smartphones, maximum cellphone users nevertheless think that microSD card slot as a definitely critical detail on smartphones. This kind of customers has a tendency to pick out of getting a cell phone with a small inner garage but can be expanded an in addition to external microSD card. Therefore, If you’re making plans to shop for a microSD-card-enabled telephone, it’s recommended for you to check if the card slot nonetheless works outstanding or not. You don’t need to shop a for a phone with little garage that can’t read outside microSD card, do you?
15. Ask the seller if the telephone is already Prison-damaged or Rooted
Jailbroken iPhone or rooted Android telephones is probably an amazing thing or terrible issue. If you are a tech savvy User, then it’s a great issue due to the fact you can still do heck lots of technical stuff with your cell phone even Without the assistance of retailer. However, If you are non-tech-savvy consumer, you really need to invite the vendor concerning this facts. Specifically for iPhone, which you can need to invite the seller to revert again your used iPhone to a non-jailbroken model, so you can nevertheless convey it competently to the official Apple keep if There’s something wrong together with your iPhone.
0 notes