Home Based Business: The Electronic Myth Revealed

A couple of years ago I read “The E-Myth Revisited”. It was an entertaining revelation that helped me change my approach to business. I realized that I couldn’t do what I wanted to do because pieces of the business puzzle were missing. Anyone thinking of running a business from home should read this book.

The “E-Myth Revisited” was written by Michael Gerber to help small businesses. The term E-Myth is a term coined by Gerber to refer to what he calls the business myth. It tells the story of a bankrupt businesswoman who is in the position of losing her dream and her business and what happens to turn it around. In doing so, he explains why most small businesses fail and what they can do to succeed.

His premise is that most entrepreneurs fail because they’re just not really entrepreneurs, they’re technicians. And a technician by Gerber’s definition is anyone who works for someone else and provides a set of skills in exchange for money. By this definition, almost everyone is a technician, from the haircutter to the orthopedic surgeon, because they all work for someone else. They do not own the business and probably do not make any of the decisions related to the business.

In the story he shows how the typical technician thinks that just because he has the technical skills for a particular business, he believes he can be a successful entrepreneur. Actually, running a business involves much more than just knowing how to do the technical side. And if he starts a business on his own, he must wear all hats, from CEO to accountant, salesman, marketer, etc. The bottom line is that you need a system like McDonald’s or any franchise business where every part of the business is well defined and runs like clockwork.

That is why network marketing companies must work well, because each part is well defined and everyone can know what to do. But most of these businesses continue to fail because they are being run by the lone entrepreneur. If you really want to be successful in MLM or network marketing, you have to organize like MacDonald’s and you have to become a member of a team. When your home business is part of a team, then every part of the business can be taken care of and everyone can be successful.