Addressing the E-Myth
Knowing your trade ≠ knowing how to run a business. They’re two different jobs, and most owners only ever trained for one. Every small business owner learns that the hard way, usually within the first month.
There are a million things that can blindside new entrepreneurs and continue to handicap even the most seasoned of owners as they scale their business taking away both TIME and FOCUS. Accounting, marketing, SOPs, human resources, data analytics, and of course - the buzzword of the decade - AI. The list could go on, but you get the point. Nobody can be a TRUE expert in both the industry specifics AND all of the technical points of business. Even if you are someone who considers yourself a “jack of all trades”, everyone has their stress points. That one thing that you just never have time for, causes you undue stress, or just flat out don’t want to do.
And we all know how the saying goes: “Jack of all trades, master of none.”
The Personality Problem
As Michael E. Gerber presents in his book “The E-Myth Revisited”, 80% of businesses fail within the first 5 years, and 80% of those survivors fail within the next 5 years.
Gerber gets the true root of the issue front and center: the small business owner has to be three different people at the same time.
Entrepreneur
The you that started your business
Future-focused
Dreaming about the success that could be.
Often conflicts with the “how” and day to day demands
Manager
The planner
Lives in the past
Solves the “how” problem with systems and processes
Often conflicts with unrealistic dreams that become headaches in action
Technician
The worker
Works in the present
Implements and executes the plans made by the Manager
Often has to route back to the other personalities because nothing in theory ever truly works perfect in practice, at least not the first time.
To give you a picture of what this looks like, let’s use the example of marketing your business.
Entrepreneur you envisions success, your product or service on every phone, ads on TV, testimonials from customers spreading like wildfire about how you changed their lives with your product.
Manager you then sits down and realizes “global phenomenon” may be a bit more than you can chew, so you start building out a target audience. You do research into the demographic and start to assemble a content strategy: where are you going to post, what are you going to post, how much are you going to post, so on and so forth.
Finally Technician you sits down and actually starts the social accounts, creates the content, posts the content on a schedule, and replies to comments.
Then the feedback loop begins starting back over with the entrepreneur looking at analytics to dream up adjustments in strategy, innovative content, etc.
Awesome! Now you have a fully functional content machine that promotes your brand without any hiccup!
Except… it doesn’t usually go so smoothly.
If you are anything like 99% of small business owners I have worked with, you resonated heavily with the Entrepreneur, but I kind of lost you talking about the Manager and Technician.
Every person is different in this regard, but there are very few individuals who are truly proficient in all three areas. Inability to effectively dream, systematize, AND execute will lead to inefficiency at best, absolute failure at worst. Any weak link in that chain will quickly manifest itself in your business and the issue will only get worse as you grow and scale.
Gerber’s Solution
Now, how do we overcome this issue?
Gerber presents the solution of the Business Format Franchise. When you purchase a franchise like Chick-fil-A, you don’t only get the right to sell their signature chicken but you also get access to a blueprint of how to run their particular business that all but guarantees success if followed. How else could they be so consistently good at quickly knocking out a nightmare lunch rush drive-through line across thousands of different locations?
He presents some general systems and formats that function as a sort of franchise playbook which can be used to focus your small business.
The issue with this process is it still requires you to become a master of being all three: Entrepreneur, Manager, and Technician. Even when following a strict playbook with a franchise, it may take away some of the need for the expertise of the Manager and Technician mindsets but it doesn’t address your primary issue: your TIME and your FOCUS.
Plus, if you started your own business in your industry, you likely elected to do so because you had bigger dreams. Dreams of succeeding your way not being restricted by some formula. You saw a gap that nobody else seemed to fill and only you and your vision can truly capitalize on it. You didn’t buy a Chick-fil-A for a reason. That’s where we come in.
Our Solution
Fulcrum functions not as a replacement for any of the three, but as a lever.
A fulcrum doesn't move anything by itself. You do. We sit down with you, learn your vision on a personal level, and then build the systems and processes around it - together - so the Manager and Technician work stops eating the time and focus that belong to the Entrepreneur.
I am a Manager and Technician by nature, not a dreamer. I thrive in making systems and processes a reality and then doing the work necessary to bring those systems to life. Being the visionary, risk taker, and person at the helm? That's all you. That's why you started this thing. We cover each other's weaknesses.
You keep the dream and the driver's seat. We make sure the machine underneath it actually runs - and we don’t stop at advice. The systems and processes are the Manager side. The Technician side is real, working tools built for your business: dashboards that show you what’s actually happening under the hood, automation that takes the busywork off of your plate, and the technical expertise to keep you on the cutting edge instead of scrambling to catch it. Built with you, custom to your vision, and yours to use and keep.
If that sounds like the kind of leverage you've been missing, let's talk: contact@fulcrumbusinesssolutions.com