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The E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It

What’s Your Business System?

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Sexy brunette operating transparent future touch interface. Sitting.

For the past year I’ve been trying to figure out what I’ve done wrong: Why, after 21 years, am I still one graphic designer working 1:1 with my clients? How is it possible to have a design business that runs without me? How is it possible to build a graphic design business that someone else wants to buy?

“You need to have systems in your business,” I’ve been hearing from anyone who calls themselves a business coach. It sounds great, and easy, but the minute I set off to “develop my system,” I’m faced with, “So, tell me, again. What’s a system?”

Returning to the smartest person I know, I asked Cliff Martin to explain what was a system? Having spent years in corporate America as a systems engineer and physicist, Cliff said that most people confuse processes in a business with the actual system, and then sent me off to read The E-Myth.

Developing My Systems

  • Building a successful business that’s more than a job means documenting everything I do and delegating. But, if I’m a one-person show, how is this possible?

Step one: Remove the “but.”

  • Figure out what makes my business unique and repeat if over and over again. “The system isn’t something you bring to the business. It’s something you derive from the process of building the business.” (The E-Myth)

Step two: Give my customer the same experience over and over again. Don’t deviate. Take myself out of the equation. When I see my business in my mind’s eye, it’s not me as my business. It’s me working in my business, or better yet, it’s somebody else working in my business so I can work on making my business bigger, and more salable.

Step three: Build a design business that someone else wants to buy.

OK. It’s time to get to work.

The Technicians Delimma

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man being shocked putting wires into an electrical socket

In another excellent discussion with my accountability buddy we talked about small business success. He recommended snagging a copy of ‘The E-myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It.” Have I mentioned this is the smartest guy I know?

A few days later, during a one-to-one meeting with a BNI member, the very same book was recommended after admitting that I really didn’t know where I wanted to take my business.

The universe was screaming at me by this time because a copy of “The E-Myth” was purchased months ago, and resided on my Kindle. The student was finally ready. Wow! What an eye opener.

I’ve always wanted a business, yet, the very idea of how to have a successful business, a really successful business has eluded me. All I do is work endless hours for less than minimum wage after the bills are paid. Fortunately, my bills always get paid. Embarrassing as it is to admit, I once “found” $5,000 that was not record during a particularly busy work period. But the most upsetting revelation came the day I realized my assistant was taking home more than me  — every week! And she was only working one 5th of the hours.

Then, I did the one thing The E-Myth says that most small, frightened, cash strapped business owners do. I fired my last assistant and went back to doing it all myself. If this business was going to survive I had to go it alone. Furthermore, as a creative, clients come to me for my graphic design direction and vision. They don’t come to my administrative assistant. Right?

My delusion went even further by convincing myself that after successfully selling my services and winning the job, plus coming up with a brilliant design solution my client loves, it’s ‘time to make the doughnuts,’  — alone. Each working day (7 days a week) I put my 20+ years and thousands of hours of computer experience to work to make my  design ideas come to life. Some days it’s with Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress, Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Other days the job calls for WordPress and HTML, plus Photoshop and MSWord. Then there are days it’s all of the above plus learning how to tackle yet another design challenge that building WordPress websites brings, like how to get the email opt-in box to display exactly where the client has requested: not where the WordPress template says it should go. All this for $5.00 an hour I lament?

That’s what a technician run and operated business looks like. According to “The E-Myth” it’s doomed to fail from sheer exhaustion. It’s not really a business it’s just what it appears to be: working my butt off for less than minimum wage.

The solution? Let the Entrepreneur and Manager take a larger role if I want a real business. One that not only succeeds, but a business that can be sold to another entrepreneur.