This book tells how to get your business to run without you. It shows how to work on your business, not in it. It explains how to get your people to work without your interference. It tells how to systematize so the business could be replicated 5,000 times. It shows how to do the work you love rather than the work you have to do.The E-Myth (Entrepreneurial Myth) is that businesses are started by entrepreneurs seeking profit. In actuality, businesses are started by technicians (employees) who dec...

About half a dozen important ideas buried in a mass of cloying, poorly written prose.The 268 pages dedicated to this text could have been cut to 60 and the book would have been better for it. As it is, prepare to skim.The author's habit of inventing characters that compliment him on his own ideas is a recurring and increasingly annoying technique. He also compliments his invented characters for their eloquence and drops repeated advertisements for his own company in the text. Classy.

If it weren't for the condescending, overly-simplistic, overly-drawn out, incessantly repetitive tone of this book, it would be good--it does have meaningful concepts, it just should have been twenty pages long. I've spent years working in consulting where process works when people don't. This book took sixty pages to suggest that the poor overworked technician hire help. Another fifty pages to explain that you need good processes so that you can hire low-skilled people. That you define a role a...

It felt like overnight MBA school. Or better. A 5-star through and through. I never got my MBA. I've build a 6-figure business after resigning from my long corporate career, and I'm never going to go for the MBA, but listening to Michael Gerber's E-Myth Revisited book, I feel like I just went to overnight MBA School.I listened to the book at 1.5x the speed over several flights and learned SO MUCH and I feel that even if you are a pro small business owner, you'll get a lot out of this book.This i...

This is a fine book showing some of the flaws of small businesses and why so many fail. The author uses a fictional small business owner who started a pie shop and running herself ragged. She has a great gift in making pies but is burning herself out. She was thinking about how she her job was making and selling pies when her business could and should be so much more.Successful companies don’t actually sell the products that they make. They fulfill an emotional need of their clients. For instanc...

The The E-Myth Revisited deals with two major misconceptions about running a business: that every small business owner is an entrepreneur and the assumption that working on your business is the same as working in your business. This book is an absolute must-read for business owners and while on occasion the writing is a little cheesy there are plenty of really important topics discussed in a clear, informative manner, which will help you grow your business in a productive and successful way.

I skimmed this book five years ago after hearing about it from some North Point staff members. I thought I understood the basic ideas, so for the last five years the book sat on my shelf. Until this week. I had a chance to listen to the book this week, and will likely add it as required reading for all our new staff members.Great lessons:1) Most people get into business (ministry?) because they like doing something and wish they could do it for themselves. Naively, they think they'll have more f...

This book is appears in all must-read-business-books-lists.Well, not on mine.While I agree that standardization of processes can go long way, the McDonald's of the world already exist. Trying to create another one, is as likely as to aiming to be the next Facebook.The way I work in the corporate world, and the way I see myself working in an enterprise of my own, isn't factory work, follow the manual and nothing but the manual, don't think just execute bogus.We're human working for humans, everyo...

Maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe, because I'm a writing teacher, this book bothered me more than it should have. To be fair, there are some good (though not groundbreaking) business ideas here, mostly common sense concepts that are good to refresh and reemphasize. But I found a few of Gerber's writing habits irksome. His needless repetition belittles his audience. His habit of belaboring a point by adding to it a litany of fragments that simply restate the concept was tiresome. His long, rambling,

I found this book poorly written and condescending. The formula Gerber prescribes for struggling small business owners could have been easily explained in a few bullet points without the endless anecdotes about "Sarah's Pie Shop" and annoying made-up terms. (Stop trying to make Turn-Key Revolution happen! It's not going to happen.)

I read this a few years ago. It was the text for one of my husband's business classes. He said it was a good book... and I said, "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?" (qualifies as one of the most rare phrases to escape his gorgeous lips) So I had to read it, see.It's actually pretty amazing. I'm betting I'll never start my own business, because the things I do tend to be less-marketable services and commodities. Reading, doing laundry, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer... Don't think you get paid for any of...

The principles in this book are very good, and I think Gerber nails the reasons why so many small businesses fail. The distinction between the roles of Entrepreneur, Technician and Manager are well thought out and reflect reality.The systems Gerber recommends putting into place are stringent, and I feel it would be difficult to transfer them to certain types of business - service businesses, and highly skilled technical businesses for example. It's very much geared to businesses that provide goo...

This book is an absolute MUST READ for anyone looking to start or manage a business. It's evergreen wisdom that will give you a nice foundation how to plan your business and the proper way to manage it. Even if you don't wanna start your own company this book will definitely help you understand more about business in general and how the structure of a stable company works. This is a really valuable book full of wisdom, don't miss out!

Wow I've wanted to read this for 5 years lol It was only until __ brought it to my priority to reads list that I made it happen.I feel like I can apply these lessons I learned from this book to my small business - to an extent. I didn't really need to read near the end where he talks about HR and dealing with your team because it isn't really necessary being a youtube vlogger :P But good knowledge all round.I like the beginning where he talks about how every new business owner wears three hats -...

"A life laking in comprehensive structure is an aimless wreck. The absence of structure breads breakdown" - Quote from The Third Wave, Alvin Toffler. So Mr. Gerber makes the point that in a broken world our businesses need to be the shelter from the chaos with what Mr. Gerber calls "Impeccable order".“The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them...

The general stuff was good. A lot of the specifics are born out of an older era of thinking. Just think of those few innovative companies that did away with the organizational charts. Think of those companies that laugh at it because it doesn't reflect reality. But is that because the idea of the chart is wrong or people just don't know how to make them properly. Perhaps the chart should be cut into a big jumble of different tasks all of which can be passed around like little bracelets. Your job...

3.5 Stars Very repetitive, but it has some good concepts to think about.

This book is one of the most highly acclaimed reads for small business owners. I started listening to it on CD a few years ago and then got distracted and just finished it recently. I got the gist of the message a few years back and it truly shaped my business and focus from that point forward.The E-Myth (Entrepreneurial Myth) is that businesses are started by entrepreneurs seeking profit. In actuality, businesses are started by technicians (employees) who convince themselves that they could be

I am a small business owner, or at least I thought I was before I read this book, but now I realise I'm not. Yes, I'm a self-employed English language teacher in Japan, but what I have isn't a business so much as a job. The crucial difference being what happens if you stop pedalling. If I did, the bike would quickly grind to a halt and topple over. That means I have a job. A business on the other hand is an institution (even a small one) that could be run by someone else. The real difference, as...

This book has held up better than you'd expect. I read this not as someone who plans on becoming an entrepreneur but someone who just likes a good business book that can challenge my old modes of thinking.That being said, it reads a little cheesy at times like it's written as a fable. And some of the advice truly is outdated. At one point Gerber cites the statistics on making a sale when human touch is involved and therefore you should make a point to have a small moment of contact or touch with...

Self-employment does not make you an entrepreneur.In this classic, Gerber highlights the three functions in a business: the Entrepreneur, the Manager, and the Technician. Self-employed people stay on the Technician-level and thus limit themselves.He then moves onto the three stages of business growth, Infancy, Adolescence, and Maturity and shows how the role of the functions change as you grow.Finally he outlines a Business Development Program, a practical Turn-Key system for putting his ideas i...

Hands down the best book on business I've read yet. You often hear the same generic motivational narrative and watered down advice over and over. This book was the complete opposite - it shows you the core of what a business really is and gives you practical advice on starting a successful one. A must read for anyone into entrepreneurship, and even if you aren't it'll give you invaluable advice on how to use systems to achieve results in your every day life.

This book definitely had a handful of REALLY good ideas. Unfortunately, they were buried by a couple hundred pages of horribly written gibberish. The E-Myth easily could have been condensed into maybe 50 pages, and it wouldn't have been so painful to get through. Gerber's stories of his conversations with "Sarah" are so over-the-top dramatic that I couldn't believe a word of it. Find a summary online, study the main points, and skip the book.

That was a painful read and a waste of time. The tone was condescending. I'd be more upset but the book was only 99¢. It was one giant advertisement for their consulting services. No actual answers or evidence to back up their claims.

Couldn't get past the repetition and corny dialogue.

This is probably the fourth or fifth time I have sat down to try to read "The E-Myth". My past attempts have always ended in abandonment, but this book is so highly regarded as a business classic that I decided to grit my teeth and to power all the way through to the end this time, no matter what.Having done so, I am confirmed in my belief that this book does not deserve all the praise it has been showered with. I remember now why it was so hard to finish - the book has a single point which it k...

There is some really good content buried in this book... But to find it, you'll have to wade through some sappy, cheesy, self-congratulatory dialogs with an imaginary owner of a new bakery business, plus a number of pseudo-philosophical nonsense rants on the beauty of life and business. Also, as you get deeper into the book, each chapter contains less and less valuable content, but more and more sloppy pitches for the author's consulting company; by the time you get to the marketing chapter, it'...

I've read this book 3 times now over the past 5 years... well, I read it once very thoroughly and marked it up with highlights and notes... then read/skimmed it the second and third times... truth is it drives me nuts when people invent characters/dialogue in these types of books, and it's even more annoying when the dialogue is unnatural. Grudges aside, it teaches excellent business principles and ideas and thus comes highly recommended for the ideas, just not for the writing style.

You could fit this entire book on an index card. The author kicks things off with two dimensional fictional characters having laughably ridiculous conversations. Just when you realize there that this book is tired and outdated, the author starts heaping praise upon McDonalds and IBM. Beyond disappointing. This was written in the mid 80s, and the god awful title should have been my first clue.

The book revolves around a central idea, that there exists a myth ("E-Myth") which states: "Small businesses are started by entrepreneurs risking capital to make a profit. This is simply not so. The real reasons people start businesses have little to do with entrepreneurship. In fact, this belief in the Entrepreneurial Myth is the most important factor in the devastating rate of small business failure today. Understanding the E-Myth, and applying that understanding to creation and development of...