Jimmy’s House

Ok, well, it’s not exactly new but you can’t live without it.  Not everyone wants to sell it to you but if they have integrated it into their product then you may just spend money with them.

What is this new product?  Well, I’ll get to that at the end.  Until then let’s see if you can figure it out through the course of this post.

Let me introduce you to my new board of directors.

Chuck Bowen Small Business Coaching

Kevin Miller Brand and Positioning Coach (discover your purple cow)

Dan Miller Business, Career and Life Coach

Dave Ramsey Financial Coach

Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, so I read THIS story at Yahoo.

You can read it if you want but I’ll be glad to sum it up real quick for you. Washington wants to give another 15,000,000,000.00 (billion but you need to see the zeroes) to banks and ‘encourage’ them to loan that money to small businesses to help us out.

So, the same people who forced banks to loan money to people who couldn’t pay it back are now going to force banks to loan money to people……who…..might….not…..be….able….to…..pay…..it….back.

Look, if your business has to borrow money to make payroll then maybe you don’t have a business. How in the world does a company, who can’t make payroll without financial assistance, plan on paying back a payroll loan? Look, I’m speaking from experience here. I tried to borrow money once to help me make payroll. That worked for about a month and then something strange happened. I got a bill! Imagine that, those crooks wanted their money back! To this very day I’m making interest payments on payroll from two years ago!

Borrowing money to ‘fix’ your business is just hiding the problems. Let me explain. Last spring I decided that I was going to save my company. After listening to Dave Ramsey I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to borrow myself into profitability. I won’t go into great detail here because the details are boring. I’ll just say that I cut everything I didn’t need to keep the doors open. I completely quit borrowing money. I spent hours and hours digging through my P&L statements trying to figure out where I was losing money. I had to make A LOT of hard choices. It included cutting my income in half and therefore causing us to move out of our brand new home. By the end of last year I was able to cause a $150,000.00 swing in our P&L statement. I did this on the exact same revenue as the year before. There is no secret formula for this kind of success. It’s exactly what Dave teaches. As a business owner you have to figure out how to get your business to live on less than it makes, too!

I paid $1,000.00 a month to match my employees Social Security and Medicare contributions last year. Do you realize how much money that is? For a small business in this slow down that is a lot of cash. Why is it Washington is willing to hand out 15B to a bunch of banks but won’t let me keep a portion of MY money! It’s because they want control of that money. They don’t think I’m smart enough to know what to do with it. Washington thinks I’m an idiot.

Well, I’m not an idiot. I did something with my business last year that Washington, with all their statistics and their big offices full of help, can’t seem to do. I balanced my own budget and made my business live on less than it makes.

Washington, get out of my way and stop offering ‘help’. I have work to do…

This weekend while in Franklin, TN I was able to stop by Brentwood, TN and stop in at Dave Ramsey’s offices.

Because of some work being done around the building I wasn’t able to see Dave while he was on the air. I didn’t realize this but right as you walk in the front door of his building they have these large glass windows where you can watch Dave while he’s on the air. Frankly, I was shocked at this fact. I can’t imagine being on the air and trying to help someone while people are watching me from a window and taking pictures. Here is what I think it comes down to.

Dave LOVES what he is doing. He is doing what God called him to do. When he is helping someone I believe it is effortless. Dave is doing the work he loves. When you can take what you love and do it for a living you will find yourself having a hard time telling when you are at work and when you are at play. In fact, here is Dan Miller’s favorite quote.

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both. -James A. Michener

Anyway, Dave paid for the building with cash that he saved up over a 5 year period. I just love that. He is 100% committed to staying out of debt forever. Well, this week I’ve been listening to Dave live, which I rarely do. I usually just podcast him. Well, he got a call from a guy that had spent a couple of years getting out of debt. Dave was really excited for the guy and then the guy did it, he told Dave that he found this great house (what would be his second house) that he wanted to borrow 200k for. I could hear the disappointment in Dave’s voice. Well, I couldn’t resist so I sent Dave an email. I had a pretty strong feeling that he would read my comment on the air and I was right. Incidentally this is the second time Dave has read one of my emails on air. The first time was February 29th last year at ,ironically, the exact same minute in the exact same hour as last year. Here is Dave reading my email and commenting.

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Most bad days I have around here can be traced back to my debt. Believe me, I have A LOT of debt I’m working through right now. When you are in business you have so much to deal with on a daily basis. A bunch of debt hanging over your head will effect your decision making. When you have a lot of debt in your business you give a certain amount of control of your company away to your creditors. I really identify with Dave when he talks this way. You can’t show me something I’d be willing to go into debt to have either.

I’m sick of it, I’m done! I’m not doing this anymore! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Debt is the slavery of the free. -Publilius Syrus (Roman author, 1st century B.C.)

Nothing happens unless first a dream. -Carl Sandburg

I had the incredible pleasure of spending this last weekend at Dan Miller’s House. Now, if you are a big Dave Ramsey fan then you already know who Dan Miller is. For those of you who don’t let me explain. I’m not sure if there is anyone who has more of a passion to help people find the work that they love. Dan Miller is the author of 48 Days To The Work You Love and No More Mondays. Dan really believes that the work you are most likely to love is the work you create for yourself. Simply put, Dan is an expert on entrepreneurialism.

A lot happened over these two days so instead of trying to write it all out in one post I will try to take the two days and break them up into 2-3 posts. Please check back soon for further updates!

First, let me give you some proof that I was actually there!

Ok, you got me figured out. I just wanted to show off. That’s ok, I don’t mind admitting it. Well, I’m not done showing off yet…

That, my friends, is the office of a New York Times best selling author (sorry Dan, I couldn’t resist). I don’t feel so bad now.

Ok, so I’ve spent the last few days trying to figure out what I wanted to share first. I finally figured it out.

This was a very small intimate group. There were only a total of 50 people allowed to register for this event. There was a very wide variety of people there. We all had one thing in common. We all want to be in business for ourselves. We all believe that Dan and his group of coaches have the knowledge and experience to help each and every one of us reach our ultimate goals. For the majority of the first day we were separated into two groups and each one of us was given 15 minutes to get up, introduce ourselves, and talk about our specific business and get answers to some of the issues we are facing.

One thing that my entire group had in common was our desire to help others in our business. Every single person who got up made it very clear that ultimately, they wanted to help others. I believe that if you can integrate a passion to serve others into your business then you can create something that is truly special.

Well, that’s all for now. I have so much else I want to say but I need to break things up or I’ll start to ramble.

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to
enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and
with finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich
the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.
- Woodrow Wilson

One thing I’ll say about Dave, unlike many other talk radio guys (or gals) out there he doesn’t claim to know it all.  Because of that from time to time he will introduce his listeners to other people they can learn valuable lessons from.  One of the first people I learned about from Dave is Rabbi Daniel Lapin.  I am proud to call Rabbi Lapin my rabbi.  Now, before you start looking at me funny, no, I’m not Jewish.  As Rabbi Lapin would explain you don’t have to be Jewish to need a rabbi.  No, he would say that everyone needs a rabbi because everyone can benefit from being able to learn how the world really works.  How does Rabbi Lapin help everyone learn how the world really works?  By sharing with us ancient Jewish wisdom from the Old Testament of course.  As you can tell Rabbi Lapin is quite the interesting man.  He is an Orthodox Jew and created the “American Alliance of Jews and Christians”.  He has several great videos on his site which I would encourage you to go and watch.  I have a link to his site over on the right side of the page so hop over there a watch a little.  I think you’ll find him to be very insightful.

Well, let me move on to the main topic of this post.  I want to tell you about his newest book, “Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money”.  In this book Rabbi Lapin shares with us why Jews seem to be so disproportionately successful in business.  He takes some time in the beginning of the book to dispel several myths out there including but not limited to the myth that Jews cheat to get ahead.

Look, I’m not a fancy writer so let me just say this in simple James terms because that’s all I can understand myself.  I learned from this book that being in business and wanting to be successful at it isn’t evil.  If I manage to get some money it isn’t because I took advantage of someone else.  I didn’t mug some old lady or rob a kid of his lunch money.  I got that money because I served someone well.  See, if I don’t believe in the morality and dignity of business (commandment number 1) then how in the world can I expect to be successful at it?  If in my heart I think that business is evil and exists to take advantage of everyone then how can I expect to prosper?

Rabbi Lapin makes an interesting observation.  He notes that so often business and businessmen are the villains in movies.  Right now it’s more obvious than ever.  Not even a day is going by right now that we aren’t told how evil everyone on Wall Street is.  A year or two ago those guys were everyone’s heroes.  People all over America were trusting these men with their retirement/investment accounts.  These guys who were in charge of multi billion dollar mutual funds.  It was their job to make sure they purchased stocks that were growing.  In return they were paid and paid very well.  Nobody was complaining while things were going well.  Here recently things aren’t going so well and now all these men are just so evil.

In this book Rabbi Lapin explains that we are all in business for ourselves.  Some of us just have one customer, our employer.  We have to believe that we participate in a moral activity if we are going to be successful in that activity.  We have to believe that we are taking part in creating wealth.  Not only for ourselves but for everyone around us.  My business creates a lot of wealth.  My mechanic receives wealth from me because he services 4 vehicles.  I give wealth to all my suppliers.  My employees get wealth from my company and they in turn give wealth to the utility companies or to the local restaurants.  Yes, business exists to create wealth, not take it from others.

I took these ten commandments and listed them on a special page HERE. Please review them. I think you’ll find them very interesting. He also has his own radio show in San Francisco on KSFO. Just click on “Sunday” and click “Download” next to either 1pm-2pm, 2pm-3pm or 3pm-4pm. On Sunday’s when the Raiders play the second game of the day he is preempted but other than that he is taking calls and sharing his views on all kinds of things. Consider yourself warned, he is VERY conservative, but he is also very thought provoking.

Here is a video of Rabbi Lapin with Pat Robertson on CBN.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2823870820965510420

Dave, I love your “Get out of debt plan” but how do I convince my wife/daughter/father/son to do this with me?

At least a couple of times a week I hear this type of phone call on Dave Ramsey’s radio show.  Most of the time he tells them that they need to share how this program has changed their life.

I can tell people how great the Dave Ramsey plan for financial peace is.  I can tell them that “Dave says this” and “Dave says that”.  If you aren’t already a fan then spewing Dave-isms at someone is probably not very powerful.  A few weeks ago we were at a school function and I got a chance to talk with someone who was kind of on the fence with all this “Dave Ramsey” stuff.  Well, as all of you know once you open the door for me to start talking about something I’m passionate about you better be ready for me to just run right in and that’s exactly what I did.  This time I didn’t just start throwing Dave advise at her.  I was actually able to share how my new way of looking at money has affected my life.

The fact is that right now Julie and I are building a great story.  It’s not been an easy path at all.  We are in the middle of so many changes.  These changes hurt and are really causing us to have to hold closer to each other and our God than ever before.  I know one thing for sure; once these hard times have passed and we come out the other side successfully we are going to have one inspiring story to tell.

Today I got to tell my story to the most unlikely of people.  Today, three members of Dave Ramsey’s company came to our home to shoot some video to be used at a special conference in Nashville.  They are going to be honoring our real estate agent who is the real estate ELP for the Kansas City Area.  We stood around in our driveway and I was able to share with them how all of this has affected my life this year.  I shared some things with them I still haven’t shared with a lot of people.  You can just tell that they LOVE their job.  Dave has said it many times and they said it to me today.  Dave Ramsey and his team sell H-O-P-E.  Some of you reading this right now understand what I’m talking about and honestly, some of you don’t.  If I tried to explain to you where me and my business was at the beginning of this year you would be freaked out.  If I hadn’t tuned into Dave earlier this year I know for a fact my business would not exist today.  I didn’t just get great advice from Dave and subsuquently all the books I’ve read this year.  I also got HOPE.  I really believe I can do this.  I really believe that a simple guy like me can have a successful business.  I really believe that with hard work and determination anyone can do anything in this great country.

It was such an encouragement to get to visit with these three men today.  I feel like God sent them to me as a reminder that I am on the right path.

If there is hope in the future there is power in the present.
-John Maxwell

In my 18 years of working I have not had one day where I thought to myself, “Everyone should get to experience what I feel today”.  I’ll have to admit that I’ve felt that way more than once in the last few days.

I started my business almost five years ago.  At no time during these five years have I felt that if anyone else got to live my work life they would some how be jealous.  I think it’s because everything is so up and down.  My emotions don’t even rise and fall on a weekly or even daily basis.  It’s more like an hourly basis.

Lately, news of any kind has been negative.  I’m not talking about my business necessarily.  I’m talking more about the news, as in tv and radio.  It’s so easy to find yourself discouraged with all the negative talk out there.  Every day, despite all the negative news about how our economy is in the crapper, I get out of bed and go to my business.  I smile as I walk in the door believing that some how, some way this day will be better than it should be.  Most days I’ll get a hand full of negative news and a hand full of positive news as well.  Some how the negative news pulls me lower than the positive news lifts me higher.  I will tell you this though, no matter how bad I feel, deep down in my spirit I know that all it takes is one phone call for my day to turn around.  I go to work every day hoping and praying for that one phone call.  Some days I get that one phone call and some days I don’t.  It’s the hope for the phone call that keeps me going back every day.

To combat all the negative input that you can’t get completely away from I’ve turned to a myriad of self help audio pod casts.  From Dave Ramsey (shocker, I know) to Zig Ziglar and Joel Osteen.  They all have one major theme in common.  Don’t give up!  Yeah, I’m starting to think that theme is at the heart of all self help out there.  I’m sure it’s pretty common to just give up.  God knows I’ve wanted to several times this year.  It’s that belief in the one phone call that keeps me going back.  That and the hope that someone out there does actually need what I offer.

Well, let me get to the reason you need to be me today (the last few days actually).  As I reported in my last post (two and a half months ago!) we were severely underbid on a large project.  I really believed in my heart that this other company was going to make a mess of this project and we would get to do it anyway.  This project got underway a couple of weeks ago.  I checked in with the customer and they reported everything was going just fine.  I assumed from that conversation that all was lost and I needed to realize that I now have a new competitor in the area.  Well last Wednesday I get a call from the customer and they are in trouble.  The company that underbid me had made a complete mess of things and they needed us to step in and take over the project.  They needed us to get started right away and of course we have.

Why do you need to be me today?  Because, I sat right in front of that customer and told them they were making a big mistake picking this company over mine.  I told them this was a job for experienced professionals and they were in for a bad experience.  They basically waved me off as being over dramatic and went on their own way.  Well here we are several weeks later getting to be the knight in shining armor.  In just two days the end customer is amazed at our skill level and is already demanding we be the company to handle her work from now on.  Somehow, “I told you so” just doesn’t quite cut it, you know?  I have to admit that this is a huge boost to my ego.  In times as tough as this customers are harder than ever to keep or even get.  To be able to stand in front of someone and really feel you are the best in the city at what you do is something that words don’t even come close to describing.  We all like to feel that we are the best at what we do but I think we all also doubt ourselves from time to time.  It’s nice to her someone besides your friends and spouse say it.

Having said all of this I leave you with a quote I heard on Dave’s show today.  It’s so very fitting.

I Do Not Choose to Be a Common Man

It is my right to be uncommon—if I can.

I seek opportunity—not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.

I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed.

I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.

I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat.

It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say, “This I have done.”

By Dean Alfange

______________

*Originally published in This Week Magazine.
Later printed in The Reader’s Digest, October 1952 and January 1954.

The Honorable Dean Alfange was an American statesman born December 2, 1899, in Constantinople (now Istanbul). He was raised in upstate New York. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I and attended Hamilton College, graduating in the class of 1922.

Last week I got a chance to put to use what I’ve learned from Dave and what Ira Glass shared with us in my last post.

In business you get to make choices every day that steer your ship. Some of them end up making you money and some of them have the potential to cost you money. It’s not always a very clear decision.

I’ve spent most of the last two years trying to fine tune my pricing. Most companies in my industry (service and manufacturing) aren’t real scientific with their pricing. Now, I’m talking about small manufacturing companies like all the cabinet/countertop companies in the area.  If you are a Mary Kay salesperson or maybe own a small collectibles shop it’s not too tough to decide how to price your products. You know what you’ve paid for your products and you just have to decide what margin you want to make and you just tack that on.  That doesn’t guarantee anyone will purchase your products but at least if your sales are low you can adjust your margin and see if your sales activity go up or down.  You can keep doing this until you find the sweet spot.

Most business in my industry don’t price their work this way.  It’s not very easy.  You have to figure out ahead of time how long a job is going to take in labor and materials and add your margin on top of that.  It’s taken me most of the last two years to to get my pricing as accurate as it is today.  Whether it’s cabinet installing or countertops when I bid a job I figure out my labor hours and materials cost and multiply that by the margin I want to make on that particular job and that’s how I get my price.  Before, I would just charge so much per part that we had to handle or so much per cabinet.  This worked okay but it still wasn’t based on exactly how much expense I would have in that job.  I’ve even been advised to just ‘add thirty percent to every job and ‘hope’ to make a profit at the end of the year’.  I can’t believe someone told me to do that.  That’s pricing your product by the ‘guess method’.  That doesn’t sit very well with me at all.  I’m done guessing.  I’m ready to actually aim at something specific and try with all my ability to actually hit it.

How does this tie into the ‘Choice’ concept from Dave?  Well, I’ve chosen my profit margin.  I’m not willing to deviate from that number on purpose.  Now, I may misfigure a job or run my expenses so tight that we could miss our margin target but at least I’m intentionally aiming at something.  I’ve also chosen to believe all the experience I have in this industry and I can trust my judgment on how long something is going to take.  Once you’ve picked your profit margin and decide to live by it you have to actually focus on the rest of your business.  You have to focus on your effeciency.   You have to focus on your customer service and customer satisfaction.

Now for the ‘Crap’ side that we learned from Ira in my last post.  This is where I ran into trouble last week.  I got the chance to bid a very large project.  This project is worth thousands in revenue.   The problem is that someone undercut my price.  They didn’t just undercut me slightly either.  You see, if I lose a job by ten to twenty percent then I can go back to my numbers and see if I can trim something or if maybe I overestimated how long the job may take.  No, I got underbid by fifty percent!  Well, for someone to underbid me by that much is a warning flag to me that this other operation has underestimated the complexity of a job.  They aren’t very likely to make money on this work.  The money that the do make will be short lived as they get their 1099 at the end of the year and have to pay an extra seven to ten percent in taxes.  I probably won’t have to fight them next year that’s for sure.  This project turned into crap that I had to kill.  I made a decision that I wasn’t going to get into a bidding war with this operation.  I knew what I was going to have to charge to make a fair profit on this job.  Getting underbid by that much told me this whole situation was crap and it was okay to walk away from the fight.

That’s one thing I’ve learned to accept this year.  I’m not going to be cheaper than everyone else on every job.  Between my dad and I and all my installers we find ourselves with over sixty years of experience in this work.  I’ll trust that experience over some other two-man operation whith obviously little to no experience.  I labored over this decision for a week.  I finally realized that all I can do is just give MY best price.  I can’t control whether or not my competitors make smart decisions.  I have to believe in the choices I’ve made for my company.  Eventually you have to decide that there’s more to your company than just price.  You are never going to win in the long run if you are going to spend all of your time trying to be the cheapest.  That’s a battle that no one wins.  It’s my belief that you win in the long run by building your reputation beyond price.  How else will you be able to bring in new products and services if you haven’t proven that you can provide your current products and services above and beyond just a fair price?  No, you have to be good at every area of your business if you are going to build a world class company.

Last month Rob over at ElectroLund introduced me to Ira Glass of This American Life.

Well, I love radio story telling so I went and did a youtube search for Ira Glass. Now, why I went to youtube to find out something about a radio guy is beyond me but I’m glad I did. I found this really good video of him talking about story telling and how they find good stories and how hard it is to find good stories. Let me share his video with you and then comment on it.  Pay special attention for his commentary from the 1:45 point and on.

Ira talks about being able to kill something that is not going to live up to the standards they have set for their show.  He says that all radio productions are trying to become crap and without failure there is no chance for success.

After hearing him say this I felt an instant connection with him.  He’s a small business guy too.  If you own a business with less than 500 employees then you are considered small business.

I believe that everything wants to become crap.  Without constant work and attention to everything my business wants to become crap.  Without a daily walk with God my faith wants to become crap.  Without care and upkeep my home wants to become crap.  Without working on my marriage it wants to become crap.

It’s human nature to want something for nothing.  It’s hard for us to not do nothing and hope for positive results.  When we do nothing things become crap.  If I ignore my marriage it will become crap.  If I ignore my spiritual walk it will become crap.  If I ignore any area of my business it will become crap.

Ira believes that by fighting against crap you will get lucky.  This is the only thing he says that I’d have to disagree with.  I don’t believe in luck of any kind.  Isn’t there a quote that says luck is opportunity meets preparation?  I don’t believe that hard work produces luck or increases your chances to receive luck.  I think luck is for the faithless.  Luck is for those who spend $1 a week hoping the lottery will save them from financial doom.  Luck is for those who believe life is the spin of the wheel of fortune.  We don’t do luck at my business, we do hard work and preparation and then look for opportunity.

I think we can learn something from Ira that is applicable in our personal and professional lives.  Fight the crap!  See it coming and kill it, even if it is your idea and you can tell it’s crap.  It’s ok to admit to your failures.  If you fail then it means you were willing to take a chance.  It means you weren’t willing to just stand on the sidelines and hope things would work out in your favor.

Kill the crap and learn from it!

Every year over 1,000,000 people in America start a business of some sort.  Statistics tell us that by the end of the first year at least 40 percent of them will be out of business.  Within five years, more than 80 percent of them, 800,000, will have failed.  The rest of the bad news is, if you own a small business that has managed to survive for five years or more, don’t breathe a sigh of relief.  Because more than 80 percent of the small businesses that survive the first five years fail in the second five.

In 1999 I went back to work for my dad.  At that time he and I decided I would try to purchase Alco Cabinet from him.  Ever since then I’ve had a desire in my heart to own my own business.   Purchasing Alco from him never happened but I have, with dad’s help of course, started my own company.

From the first day I started my business I knew that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life making countertops.  My passion was to own a business, not be stuck working in one.  As I looked around I saw only a few examples of what I wanted my business experience to be.  Most of the business owners I knew spent ton’s of hours weekly working for their business.  The trim guys I knew who owned their business also trimmed houses.  The plumbers I knew who owned their own business plumbed houses.  The re-modelers I knew who owned their own business also had to work remodeling homes.

Well, if you aren’t thinking it to yourself by now I’ll say it for you.  James doesn’t want to do physical labor.  There, I’ve said it out loud.  It’s the truth.  If starting a countertop business means making countertops for the rest of your life then why start your own business to do it?  I can go to another countertop company in Kansas City and get a job making countertops.  Sure I can make more money owning it myself but not that much more.  It sure won’t be enough more to make up for the difference in stress.  If I’m going to own my business then BUSINESS is what I want to do.  I also want owning my own business to translate into at least 3-4 times as much income as just working in that industry would pay.  Otherwise why do it?  Do you want to know something?  There isn’t anything wrong with thinking this way.  Do you want to know how I know that?  I know that because I read The E-Myth Revisited.

E-Myth has taught me that it’s ok that I feel this way.  This simple reinforcement of what I already felt in my heart was enough to re-energize me in this business that I own.  It has given me new hope in what I’m doing on a weekly basis.  Let me give you some points from this book.

Let’s first look at the definition of E-Myth.

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.

Through the course of this book I’d say you will read that line or one very similar to it at least a dozen times.  It is the core message of this book.  The fact of the matter is that most business owners are drowning in the stress of trying to own their own business.

The introduction of The E-Myth contains four ideas that, according to itself, if you understand and take them to heart, will give you the power to create and extraordinarily exciting, and personally rewarding, small business.

Idea #1 – There is a myth in this country-I (Michael Gerber) call it the E-Myth – which says that 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 the creation and development of a small business, can be the secret to any business’s success.

Idea #2 – There’s a revolution going on today in American small business.  I (Michael Gerber) call it the Turn-Key Revolution.  Not only is it changing the way we do business in this country and throughout the world but it is changing who goes into business, how they do it, and the likelihood of their survival.

Idea #3 – At the heart of the Turn-Key Revolution is a dynamic process we at E-Myth Worldwide call the Business Development Process.  When it is systematized and applied purposely by a small business owner, the Business into an incredibly effective organization.  Our experience has shown us that when a small business incorporates this process into its every activity and use it to control its every activity and uses it to control its destiny, that company stays young and thrives.  When a small business ignores this process – as most unfortunately do – it commits itself to Management by Luck, stagnation, and, ultimately, failure.  The consequences are inevitable.

Idea #4 – The Business Development Process can be systematically applied by any small business owner in a step-by-step method that incorporates the lessons of the Turn-Key Revolution into the operation of that business.  This process then becomes a predictable way to produce results and vitality in any small business whose owner is willing to give it the time and attention it requires to flourish.

Well, If I learned anything from this book it’s that owning your own business isn’t a simple process.  Not if you want to achieve something that blesses you instead of curses you.  Not if you want to create something that lasts.

I could go on for quite a while with everything I learned from this book but I don’t want to bore you any more than I already have.  Let me just say that I feel like The E-Myth has given me some clear direction in which I need to move if I’m going to make this thing work.  It’s time for my business to have a full time staff member working tirelessly to build a world class company.  I gladly take that challenge because I know it’s what I’ve been called to do.

E-Myth Worldwide is a company that Michael Gerber created in 1977.  Since then and as of the writing of this book in 1995 they have assisted over 25,000 small business owners with the implementation of their Mastery program.  The Mastery program provides you with a Mastery Coach to assist you in creating systems for your business to work with.  Compared to what it cost me last year to use IPA (don’t get me started) it’s pennies on the dollar.  It’s also NOT a crash course in business.  I can get 5 years of help from this company for the price of 3 weeks from IPA.

In my opinion the best thing I can do for the future of my company is educate myself.  It’s the business side of what we do that will move us past our competitors.  Yes we need to be good at what we do.  I have some of the best skilled people in the city, I truly believe that.  Unfortunately it’s going to take more than that for us to become a world class business.  We can’t just assume that because we are good at our products that we will outlast our competition.  We have to be good at everything business does.  We have to prepare for big, if we are going to be able to handle big when it happens.

You can visit the E-Myth site from my links on your right.