Michael E. Gerber
business is actually three-people-in-one: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician. (Location 315)
Instead, the typical small business owner is only 10 percent Entrepreneur, 20 percent Manager, and 70 percent Technician. (Location 444)
But to the business it’s a disaster, because the wrong person is at the helm. The Technician is in charge! (Location 449)
But then it changes. Subtly at first, but gradually it becomes obvious. You’re falling behind. There’s more work to do than you can possibly get done. The customers are relentless. They want you; they need you. You’ve spoiled them for anyone else. You (Location 541)
working at breakneck speed. (Location 543)
And then the inevitable happens. You, the Master Juggler, begin to drop some of the balls! It can’t be helped. No matter how hard you try, you simply can’t catch them all. Your enthusiasm for working with the customers wanes. Deliveries, once early, are now late. The product begins to show the wear and tear. Nothing seems to work the way it did at first. (Location 544)
Because as a Technician-turned-business-owner, your focus is upside down. You see the world from the bottom up rather than from the top down. You have a tactical view rather than a strategic view. (Location 573)
You see the work that has to get done, and because of the way you’re built, you immediately jump in to do it! You believe that a business is nothing more than an aggregate of the various types of work done in it, when in fact it is much more than that. (Location 574)
Because while you’re working, while you’re answering the telephone, while you’re baking pies, while you’re cleaning the windows and the floors, while you’re doing it, doing it, doing it, there’s something much more important that isn’t getting done. And it’s the work you’re not doing, the strategic work, the entrepreneurial work, that will lead your business forward, that will give you the life you’ve not yet known. (Location 577)
“Don’t you see? If your business depends on you, you don’t own a business—you have a job. And it’s the worst job in the world because you’re working for a lunatic! “And, besides, that’s not the purpose of going into business. (Location 601)
“The purpose of going into business is to get free of a job so you can create jobs for other people. “The purpose of going into business is to expand beyond your existing horizons. So you can invent something that satisfies a need in the marketplace that has never been satisfied before. So you can live an expanded, stimulating new life.” Sarah said, “I hate to beat a dead horse, but what if I want to do the technical work in my business? What if I don’t want to do anything else but that?” “Then for God’s sake,” I said as emphatically as I dared, “get rid of your business! And get rid of it as quickly as you can. Because you can’t have it both ways. You can’t ‘have your pie and eat it too.’ You can’t ignore the financial accountabilities, the marketing accountabilities, the sales and administrative accountabilities. You can’t ignore your future employees’ need for leadership, for purpose, for responsible management, for effective communication, for something more than just a job in which their sole purpose is to support you doing your job. Let alone what your business needs from you if it’s to thrive: that you understand the way a business works, that you understand the dynamics of a business—cash flow, growth, customer sensitivity, competitive sensitivity, and so forth. (Location 604)
You can’t sell it when you want to, because who wants to buy a job? (Location 791)
an Entrepreneurial Seizure by a Technician who focused on the wrong end of the business, the commodity the business made, rather than the business itself. (Location 807)
“But all the while, even while you’re guessing, the key is to plan, envision, and articulate what you see in the future both for yourself and for your employees. Because if you don’t articulate it—I mean, write it down, clearly, so others can understand it—you don’t own it! (Location 943)
The Entrepreneurial Perspective asks the question: “How must the business work?” The Technician’s Perspective asks: “What work has to be done?” • The Entrepreneurial Perspective sees the business as a system for producing outside results—for the customer—resulting in profits. The Technician’s Perspective sees the business as a place in which people work to produce inside results—for The Technician—producing income. • The Entrepreneurial Perspective starts with a picture of a well-defined future, and then comes back to the present with the intention of (Location 1023)
Technician’s Perspective starts with the present, and then looks forward to an uncertain future with the hope of keeping it much like the present. • The Entrepreneurial Perspective envisions the business in its entirety, from which is derived its parts. The Technician’s Perspective envisions the business in parts, from which is constructed the whole. • The Entrepreneurial Perspective is an integrated vision of the world. The Technician’s Perspective is a fragmented vision of the world. • To The Entrepreneur, the present-day world is modeled after his vision. To The Technician, the future is modeled after the present-day world. (Location 1027)
Routine becomes the order of the day. Work is done for work’s sake alone, forsaking any higher purpose, any meaning for what needs to be done other than the need to just do it. (Location 1044)
The Technician sees no connection between where his business is going and where it is now. Lacking the grander scale and visionary guidance manifest in the Entrepreneurial Model, The Technician is left to construct a model each step of the way. But the only model from which to construct it is the model of past experience, the model of work. Exactly the opposite of what he needs if the business is to free him of the work he’s grown accustomed to doing. (Location 1046)
the Entrepreneurial Model has less to do with what’s done in a business and more to do with how it’s done. The commodity isn’t what’s important—the way it’s delivered is. (Location 1054)
When The Entrepreneur creates the model, he surveys the world and asks: “Where is the opportunity?” Having identified it, he then goes back to the drawing board and constructs a solution to the frustrations he finds among a certain group of customers. A (Location 1056)
Thus, the Entrepreneurial Model does not start with a picture of the business to be created but of the customer for whom the business is to be created. It understands that without a clear picture of that customer, no business can succeed. (Location 1060)
The Technician who created it, not the customer. To The Entrepreneur, the business is the product. (Location 1066)
The question then becomes, how can we introduce the entrepreneurial model to The Technician in such a way that he can understand it and utilize it? The answer is, unfortunately, we can’t. The Technician isn’t interested. The Technician has other things to do. (Location 1075)