The Entrepreneurial Seizure Revisited

Michael Gerber, on p. 17 of The E-Myth Revisited; Why Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It. (New York: Harper Business, 1995)expands on what this does to the person who gets "afflicted" by an entrepreneurial seizure:

The technician suffering from an Entrepreneurial Seizure takes the work he loves to do and turns it into a job. The work that was born out of love becomes a chore, among a welter of other less familiar and less pleasant chores. Rather than maintaining its specialness, representing the unique skill the technician possesses and upon which he started the business, the work becomes trivialize, something to get through in order to make room for everything else that must be done.

I interviewed a representative of a small manufacturing firm south of Madison, Wisconsin, in 2003, in conjunction with a consulting firm I was designing. They said none of them was making any money. They had to pay ever higher wages to their employees. To conserve funds they were manning the phones and doing all the office chores. They were working longer and longer hours and not seeing any benefit.

[They were suffering from one of the worst things about business, devoting their lives to support the business rather than running a business that supported their lives.]

I was asking them about what price to charge, and they said the problem wasn't money it was time. It was just two difficult for any of them to take time away from what they absolutely had to do.

Does this sound like you? What do you think? I'd like to know. Share your experiences. Post to this blog.

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com

Michael Gerber's "Profound Idea #1"

Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited; Why most Small Business Don't Work and What to Do About It(New York: Harper Collins, 1995),p. 3, gives us the first of four of what he calls profound ideas:

There is a myth in this country--I 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.

When I first read this I about fell off my chair. In fact throughout the whole book, I felt he was speaking directly to me.

I might add a little here. Applying the understanding of the E-Myth to a small business is important. It's important also to understand why that is a myth. Wikipedia, the free, on-line encyclopedia, defines "myths" as, in part, "stories that a particular culture believes to be true.

To this particular point, once I was talking to a software designer I met at a Chamber of Commerce networking event. I asked him why he went into business. He said he'd been working for a software firm for 7 years with no raise. His boss went out and hired another programmer for a salary higher than his. He got mad, told his boss to shove it, figured that since he was a good programmer he could succeed on his own. Was he an entrepreneur? Maybe, but I would think that Gerber would say definitely not.

Are you interested in this? I'd like to know. Post a comment.

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com