The Automatic Business

After reading through the book ‘The E-Myth Revisited’ by Michael E. Gerber ( by the way I highly recommend this book ), it has shown me that although most people go into business in order to achieve financial freedom, what they have got themselves into instead is financial slavery !

Most small businesses that are started up today will eventually die within the first 5 years ( and the one’s that do survive normally aren’t making that much money either). The problem is most people go into business with the idea that our boss is an idiot and that even a monkey could run a business. Although you may think that your boss is an idiot, wait until you get into business (where your employees will also probably think you’re an idiot ). However, the main point to remember when we are to start a business is to create a business which would be able to run with or without your supervision. We should think of every business undertaking as if we were to franchise it.

In a franchised business, everything has been well documented and the procedures have been streamlined. In this sort of business, anybody, given enough training, could run it and still make a profit. This is because the founders of such a business have gone through great effort to ‘systemize’ their business. This is also why franchises are sometimes referred to as turn-key businesses (like starting up your car with your keys).

Therefore, the main focus of any budding small business owner, if he/she wants to be successful, is to systematize their business to run with or without them. Remember, we should be working ON the business not IN the business, and systematisation can help us to achieve this mantra.