Michael E. Gerber
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Busines ses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
“An instant classic, this revised and updated edition of the phenomenal bestseller dispels the myths about starting your own business. Small business consultant and author Michael E. Gerber, with sharp insight gained from years of experience, points out how common assumptions, expectations, and even technical expertise can get in the way of running a successful business.”
This is a review by my wife, who is my resident non-fiction and business book reviewer. She got quite a bit of enjoyment out of this one I think, since she kept going back to read it, and was laughing at times. We borrowed it via Scribd, but it’s not good enough to justify a paperback copy for a reread.
Let’s start from the beginning. I like to read everything in order, including the Foreword. Sometimes the Foreword in these types of books really set the scene, but the one in this book was pretty much useless. Jumping into the Introduction then – it was good because it outlined what was going to be covered in the book quite well.
Thankfully, the book then got into the meaty bits of information that I was there to read. The first Part of the book: The Emyth and American Small Businesses included the phases of business, which I found interesting. I much enjoyed the first half, although at times it seemed repetitive.
The main takeaway from this book is that you need to work on your business, rather than in it. The author refers to working in it as being a technician; you’re already an expert in the industry, and it’s simple to deal with each problem that comes up by yourself, rather than delegating or training your staff. It’s easy to fall into this trap of ‘I can fix this problem’ and then get distracted from working on the actual business. While other books I’ve read describe this phenomenon, this book was much more helpful because it gave specific guidance of how to work on your business. eg. having a Standard Operations Procedure (SOP) or an Operating Manual.
However, some of the strategic direction and aim was kinda useless. eg. ‘make sure you have a clear primary aim’. That’s great, most business books have this, so it’s nothing new.
The Part towards the end of the book talked about systems processes. Which was fine, it covered a number of good systems, but the problem was that it was sales focussed (a major drawback of most business books). It asked questions such as “What’s your numbers?” meaning new business numbers / how many appointments have been booked. Unfortunately that’s useless to someone who doesn’t work in sales. Not everything is about sales! Honestly I lost interest in the sales section. Some ideas about other benchmarks to help manage your current business would have been useful.
Who should read this? Anyone who has a small business. The take home message was that just because you’re an expert in your industry, but don’t always work in it, you need to step back and work on it. You need to train your staff for how you want things to run, and how you see the business. You need a vision and a plan, and your staff need to know it as well. I’m not going to read it again, so 4 stars from me.
Just because you can write, that doesn’t mean you should write. Equally, even if everyone else in your family has written a memoir, that doesn’t mean you need to. There needs to be something unique or exciting, some motto that someone else can gain from your life. This book had none of this.
Part guidebook, part travel diary, this book explored backpacking with two young children in tow – and that it can be done! One thing that made no sense to me was that the family had a whole heap of debt, and basically had nothing at the end of their trip. Yet they were sure their jobs would still be there when they got home? I couldn’t imagine going overseas with so little cash that a flight out might actually could have been impossible. Also, the last chapter jumps forward a year, and I felt cheated that I didn’t hear about how they readapted to living in a Western society.
This book is firmly in the business non-fiction category. So, it’s actually a review by my wife (with edits from me for clarity and order). With that being said…
There are dot point summaries at each chapter end to make sure you’ve gotten the main points out of the chapter. This book isn’t going to be a complete reread, but it’s worth having as a reference book for flicking through when I need inspiration.
This book was both interesting and problematic. I wasn’t really sure what to do with the information I learnt beyond that forensic science is really cool! once again, I loved the blood splatter analysis. It reminded me fondly of a 
I fully admit that I don’t follow politics and I specifically ignore the news because I find it quite depressing and frustrating. Thus, although I was aware of the ‘Greta phenomenon’ happening, I wasn’t really aware of the specific circumstances about it. This book won’t give you those either. What it will provide you with is a thoughtful commentary by Greta’s mother on some of the challenges of raising a neurodiverse child.
The cover, as you can see, is a business guy head desking on top of a meeting agenda. I figured I’d just skim over it and then read the other bookies waiting in my bedroom. A trusted business friend recommended it to me – otherwise I wouldn’t have picked it up on my own. Once I had it, I thought I might get more insights into meetings.
I wanted this to be new and innovative, but in the end I actually felt disappointed. I’ve read a similar novel/memoir in the past that still stuck with me. What really frustrated me about this was that it had a ‘fearless new talent’ but the writing itself wasn’t that amazing. It seemed to reply on shock factor, and speed, in order to keep the reader interested.
This memoir almost moved me to tears with the hopelessness and frustration that leaked out of its pages. How could no-one help Lucia when she was obviously in so much pain? Surely bleeding from the vagina should always be treated as serious. I guess that this was some years ago, when endometriosis and Crohn’s Disease were poorly understood, and even more poorly treated.