Author
Michael E. Gerber
The small-business consultant who named the technician trap and told owners to work on the business, not in it.
1 book on BookYol
The story and the impact
Michael Gerber began consulting to small businesses in the 1970s and noticed the same failure in almost every one: a skilled person had started a company around their craft and become its prisoner. The E-Myth, in 1986, named the pattern, and The E-Myth Revisited, the 1995 rewrite, became the most-read small-business book in print.
He founded a consulting firm, E-Myth Worldwide, to teach the method, and wrote a series of E-Myth books for specific trades. The phrase 'work on your business, not in it' is his, and the franchise prototype, the operations manual and the three roles of technician, manager and entrepreneur are the vocabulary most small-business advice now uses without attribution.
The signature
Gerber writes in parable, a long conversation with Sarah the pie-maker running through the whole book, and repeats his few ideas until they land; readers either find the form patient or exasperating and take the ideas either way.