The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E Gerber
Notes By Kath Barker
If your business depends on you, you don’t own a business you have a job
Systems on “how to do it” – don’t just delegate and forget
What results is each team member accountable for – KPI’s/ACTIONS/RESULTS
Don’t get small again (easy option) – then you just “own a job”
Build the business from the Customer’s perspective.
Page 92
The Systems run the business
The people run the systems
A system that can be duplicated time and time again – systems need to be tried and tested and work
EVERY time
Train the team to run the systems, not how to do the job/task
At McDonalds they train the staff to run the systems NOT how to make hamburgers
THE ENTREPENEUR – The Franchise Prototype is the Vision
THE MANAGER - The Franchise Prototype is the Order and Predictability
THE TECHNICIAN – The Franchise Prototype is the Work
Page 96
THE FRANCHISE PROTOTYPE
It is a way of doing business that successfully and preferentially differentiates every extradordinary
business from every one of its copetities/
Without systems your business will control YOU!
Your business is NOT your LIFE
A businesses sole function is to find and keep customers
Your purpose it NOT to serve your business
Work ON your business not IN it
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Notes By Kath Barker
Play the Franchise Game - pretend you are going to franchise your business and duplicate it EXACTLY –
5000 times over!
Pg 98
1. The Model will provide consistent value to your customers, employees, suppliers and lenders, beyond
what they expect
2. The model will be operated by people with the lowest possible level of skill
3. The model will stand out as a place of impeccable order
4. All work in the model will be documented in Operations Manuals
5. The model will provide a uniformly predictable service to the customer
6. The model will utilise a uniform colour, dress and facilities code.
Innovation
Doing the “thoughts”
What you say
What you wear
Touch (elbow arm or back)
Ask “what is the best way to do this?”
Innovation is the signature of a bold, imaginative hand
Quantification
The numbers relating to the innovation
Start by quantifying everything you do in business
How many enquiries
How many customers do you see each day/morning/afternoon
Sales/week
Busiest day /busiest month etc
If you don’t know the numbers, you don’t know where you are now or where you are going!
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Knowing the numbers makes your business become alive with possibilities
Orchestration
Put your innovation into practice
Systemise it
Black & White – so “this is how we do it here- each and every time”
As long as it continues to produce results – if it stops working – CHANGE IT!
Innovation, Quantification and Orchestration are
the backbone of every extraordinary business!
The Business Development Programme
Composed of 7 distinct steps
Pg 136
1. Your Primary Aim
How do you want your life to look?
How do you wish your life to be on a day to day basis?
What would you like to be able to say you truly know in your life, about your life?
How would you like to BE with other people in your life? – family, friends, business associates,
customers, employees, people in the community?
How would you like people to think about you?
What would I like to be doing two/ten/twenty years from now or when life comes to an end?
What specifically would you like to learn during your life – spiritually, physically, intellectually,
technically, financially? About relationships?
How much money will you need to do the things you wish to do and by when will you need it?
KEEP THE CURTAIN UP AT ALL COSTS
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Notes By Kath Barker
Pg 149
2. Your Strategic Objective
A statement of what your business needs to do to help you achieve your primary aim
The vision of the finished product
Where your business is going, how it’s going to get there and the specific bench marks it needs to hit for
the strategy and plan to work
1st Standard - MONEY What will your Gross T/O be and Profit (pre and post tax)
How much do you need to live independent of work, to be free?
How much do you want to sell your business for?
The only reason to create a business is to sell it.
People will want to buy it because it works!
Ask yourself: When creating my Strategic Objective, will it serve my Primary Aim?
2nd Standard - AN OPPORTUNITY WORTH PURSUING A business to fulfill the financial standards of your Primary Aim and Strategic Objective
Ask yourself: Does the business alleviate a frustration experienced by a large enough group of
consumers to make it worthwhile?
It tells you what you need to sell and to whom
WHAT KIND OF BUSINESS AM I IN?
The commodity is what the customer walks out with in their hand
The product is what your customer feels as he walks out of your business
People buy FEELINGS
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Notes By Kath Barker
Chanel Fantasy
Revlon Hope
WHO IS MY CUSTOMER?
Central Demographic Model is your most probable customer – what is there age, sex, income,
family status, education, profession etc
Customers buy for particular reasons – although they are not rational
When you ask “is this an opportunity worth pursuing” – ask how many selling opportunities you
have & how you can successfully satisfy the emotional or perceived needs (customers
psychographics)
3rd Standard – THROUGH Ask specific questions
-
When will the prototype be completed – 3 years? 5 years? 10 years?
Where will you be located?
How will you be in business – retail? Wholesale? A Combination?
What standards will you insist on - reporting? Management? Cleanliness? Training?
Standards create the energy to produce results
Pg 158
Nurture your spirit!
Your entrepreneurial spirit – read Sarah’s story about finding her lost spirit
Pg 166
3. Your Organisational Strategy
Create an organizational chart
Don’t organise around personalities
Position descriptions on who does what
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Notes By Kath Barker
Organising your company
-
-
Start with the idea of the business being a corporation
Think of each person as a shareholder
Start with each person’s primary aim
Think of each person’s role outside of the company as Shareholders
Think of each person’s role inside the company as Employees
Create the Strategic Objective for the Company
Do the research, then meet again to discuss
Create an Organisational Chart
o Position Descriptions
o Position Contracts/KPI’s (accountability)
Decide who will be the CEO
See page 175 for an Organisational Chart
PROTOYPING THE POSITION
Replace yourself with a system
Focus on developing a business that works not on working in the business
ASK:
What would best serve our customers and give the person serving the customer the best
possible experience?
Test the systems to make sure they work!
An organizational chart creates order and logic
Make sure you follow the rules you have created with INTEGRITY!
PRIMARY AIM

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE

ORGANISATIONAL CHART
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Pg 187
4. Your Management Strategy
“The System is the solution”
-
You need a Management system
The system becomes the management strategy
The system becomes the solution to a problem
The system transforms people problems into opportunities
What is a Management System?
A system designed into your prototype to produce a marketing result
Pg 197
5. Your People Strategy
Create the “game”
Your people strategy is how well you communicate
There is no such thing as undesirable work, only people who find certain kinds of work undesirable.
People use excuses as to why they have to work & think of work as a punishment
People always have a choice – about work and about how they do the work
Make them understand the idea behind the work they are asked to do. The idea is more important than
the work itself
See Page 201 – The hotels idea broken into 3 parts
-
The customer is not always right, but it’s our job to make him feel that way even if he is not
right
Everyone is expected to work towards being the best he can possibly be at the tasks he is
accountable for, if not, act like you can, if you don’t want to act like that, then leave.
Business is a place where everything we know how to do is tested by what we don’t know
how to do and that the conflict between the two is what created growth & meaning.
Don’t look for employees, look for “players in the game”
It’s got to be more than a job
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Have clearly defined structure – this is the game strategy
People will do what you want when they buy into your game
PRIMARY AIM

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE

ORGANISATIONAL CHART/STRATEGY

OPERATIONS MANUAL
(This defines the work your people will do – the rules of
the game)
THE RULES OF THE GAME:
1. Never figure out what you want your people to do then try to create a game out of it
2. Never create a game you are not willing to play yourself
3. Make sure there are specific ways of winning the game without ending it
4. Change the game from time to time – the tactics NOT the strategy
5. Never expect the game to be self-sustaining. People need to be reminded of it constantly
6. The game has to make sense
7. The game needs to be fun from time to time
8. If you can’t think of a good game, steal one
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THE LOGIC OF THE GAME:
The game needs to be a Game Worth Playing
Fulfill a need in people, a sense of community
Integrity, intention, commitment, vision and excellence
These words become the actions to produce results within the game
Create a game where people do what they do in the best possible way they can.
Humans are capable of performing extraordinary acts – the least we should be able to do is run a small
business
PLAYING THE GAME:
The game needs to be carefully planned
Scripted
Exact
HEIRACHY OF SYSTEMS:
-
How We Do it Here
How We Recruit, Hire and Train People to Do It Here
How We Manage It Here
How we Change It Here
The “It” is what your customer comes to your business for (Revlon – Hope etc.)
Your “Best Way”
Pg 218
6. Your Marketing Strategy
This starts, ends, lives and dies with your customer
Forget everything you want – just focus on what your customer wants
Your customer makes his decision with his Unconscious Mind
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Notes By Kath Barker
Customers don’t make rational decisions
Don’t believe a customer if they tell you they “Want to think about it”
THE TWO PILLARS OF A SUCCESSFUL MARKETING STRATEGY
You can’t know what your customer wants as he doesn’t know what he wants!
Demographics and Psychographics are the essential pillars of a successful marketing programme.
Know who your customer is (demographics)
Know when he buys (Psychographics)
Psychographics is the science of perceived market place reality.
Find a perceived need and fill it
Each demographic group buys for very specific reasons
Marketing is a complex business!
Marketing must be taken very seriously
Speak your customer’s language
To work out your customer demographics and psychographics – ask them questions! Get them to fill out
a very detailed questionnaire
Work out your trading zone
Lead Generation, Lead Conversion, Client Fulfillment
Getting the customer to come back for more is the Primary Aim of every business
It’s less expensive to sell to your existing customers rather than to customers you don’t have yet!
THIS IS HOW WE DO IT HERE – AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN
Deliver the promise that no one else in your industry dares to make
Pg 234
7. Your Systems Strategy
A system is a set of things, actions, ideas and information that interact with each other and in doing so
alter other systems
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The glue that holds the business Prototype together
Three Kinds of Systems
Hard Systems – e.g. computer
Soft Systems - e.g. living things or ideas
Information Systems – Information about the interaction between the other two e.g. inventory control,
cash flow forecasting, sales etc.
Hard Systems - white boards, white walls, blue ink
Soft Systems – a selling system
-
Benchmarks
Scripting
Materials to be used with each script
The memorization of each script
The delivery of the script in identical fashion
Your people communicating effectively with every prospect
The Power Point Selling System – Structure and Substance
-
Structure is what you do
Substance is how you do it
The Power Point Selling Process
-
The Appointment Presentation
Its purpose is purely to make an appointment
Talk about the product not the commodity
-
The Needs Analysis Presentation
Repeat what you said in the appointment presentation to re-establish the emotional
commitment
Tell him how you would like to proceed to fulfill your promise to him
Establish credibility
-
The Solutions Presentation
If the sales person has followed the other processes effectively the sale will be made
This is the easy part!
Go over all the components then SHUT UP. The next person to speak makes the
purchase
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Notes By Kath Barker
If the process is followed the same way each and every time you will not have a selling person, but a
selling system – A SOFT SYSTEM
Information Systems
Information systems need to interact with the Soft Systems.
The information it needs to provide is:
INFOMRATION
BENCHMARK
How many calls were made?
1
How many prospects were reached?
2
How many appointments were scheduled?
3
How many appointments were confirmed?
4
How many appointments were held?
5
How many Needs Analysis Presentations were scheduled?
6
How many Need Analyses were confirmed?
7
How many Needs Analyses were completed?
8
How many Solutions Presentations were scheduled?
9
How many Solutions Presentations were confirmed?
10
How many Solutions Presentations were completed?
11
How many solutions were sold?
12
What was the average dollar value?
13
All this information can tell you so many things
-
Conversion rate between each of the benchmarks
Where sales people might need help
Who is using the selling system
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Notes By Kath Barker
The information is what holds your system strategy together
It tells you when and why you need to change
Everything in your business is intertwined – all the strategies are interdependent rather than dependent
on one another
When you hear something, you forget it
When you see something you remember it
But not until you do something will you understand it.
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