E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do about It » (Updated)

Michael E. Gerber is the legend behind the E-Myth series of books, which includes The E-Myth Revisited, E-Myth Mastery, The E-Myth Manager, The E-Myth Physician, The E-Myth Contractor, and The E-Myth Enterprise. Collectively his books have sold millions of copies worldwide. Michael is also highly sought after as a speaker and consultant. He lives in Carlsbad, California.

In this first new and totally revised edition of the over two million copy bestseller, The E-Myth, Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. Next, he walks you through the steps in the life of a business -- from entrepreneurial infancy through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective: the guiding light of all businesses that succeed -- and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether it is a franchise or not. Finally, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. After you have read The E-Myth Revisited, you will truly be able to grow your business in a predictable and productive way.

Library Journal

Indicating that 40 percent of small businesses fail within their first year, Gerber, a small business expert, talks about how to be successful. In this revision of his 1986 book, he describes the "E-Myth," which basically states that a person with technical but few management skills can do well in business. Gerber describes developing a precise business system that produces consistent results because it has been tested and refined. He says that businesses thrive because of innovation, quantification, and orchestration. Visualize what is true success to you as a person, Gerber advises, and work from the ideal to the specific. While the author is a consumate salesman who reads his material in soothing tones, he offers too many abstract ideas and too few concrete plans. There is little useful content here.
-- Mark Guyer, Stark City District Library, Canton, Ohio