As my blog title suggests, I coach executives who want to become, or are already becoming, entrepreneurs. I focus on this market because I know it so well–I am one of them. That doesn’t mean I have done it perfectly or that I don’t struggle with entrepreneurship. I sure do struggle. My sales are up more than 400% YTD over last year. The market segment that I started addressing three years ago for my special events catering business has mushroomed so that I now routinely have multiple jobs a day. As I look at the work schedule for the upcoming 30 days, I just pray I stay healthy.

Thinking about my situation, which I hesitate to call a problem because, after all, 400% is 400%, I signed on for a webinar/teleconference from the folks at E-Myth. I remembered from reading the book by Michael Gerber a few years ago that the core message revolves around learning how to work on, rather than in, your business. The idea is worth repeating here, from the E-Myth website:

“The ‘E-Myth,’ or Entrepreneurial Myth, is the flawed assumption that people who are expert at a certain technical skill will therefore be successful running a business of that kind.

  • “I want to be my own boss”
  • “I want to make more money”
  • “I want to have have more time to enjoy my life”

Most small business owners assume that owning their own business will deliver on these goals.

It’s a common misconception that because someone understands the nuts-and-bolts technical work, they will similarly understand how a business providing that sort of product or service should function.

From the E-Myth point of view, small business owners struggle to achieve success because they are working in their business when they need to be working on their business.”

So simple and yet…

I had an E-Myth coach, Susan, all to myself for yesterday’s call and she was very helpful at diagnosing the difference between my vision of what I want from my business and the impediments to getting to the vision. Susan was surprised that I am generating as much revenue and profit as I do with no full-time employees. I explained that I intentionally do not have employees on payroll because part of my vision is for a simple business. For the most part, I have opted to have referral partners to whom I can parcel out jobs. The downside is that partners have their own agenda and schedules and may not be available when I need them. So maybe I need to rethink whether it would be best for me to employ someone to handle all aspects of marketing and lead-generation and another person to handle operations, while I focus on on something called “strategy” and “the big picture” as well as doing the financial and business planning to get the business from here to there. Maybe I want to avoid that really hard work and I kid myself that being the ultimate technician, in Gerber’s parlance, is what I should be doing. Entrepreneurs, if you are listening, advice and war stories are welcomed.