What Does It Mean To Be A Small Business Owner?

Am having a prolonged lightbulb moment as I read Michael Gerber's The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It (See all Business & Investing Books)

All of us have three personalities inside: the Technician (T), the Manager (M) and the Entrepreneur (E).

T has a particular skill and excels at using it e.g. baking pies, writing articles, life coaching.

M is great at systems, order, discipline, putting things away in neat little boxes.

E is about dreams, visions, innovation, the future.

All three need to be in balance for a business to flourish.

The trouble starts when the Boss is either T or M.

T just wants to bake, write, coach. She is interested only in the Work and has only a hazy idea of where the business is headed. She cares little for staff, capital, cashflow, inventory, public speaking, marketing....All those things can be outsourced to someone else. T thinks everyone and everything are in her way.

M wants to impose order on everyone and everything. If something does not fit neatly in a pigeonhole, M gets upset. M hates chaos and loves predictability and control.

E has the biggest perspective of the three. E is all about the future. Doing things differently. Deciding what kind of company she wants to create, then working backwards to match the reality to that vision.

E first asks "what business would create products people want and are happy to pay for, produce profits, allow me to live life the way I want, enable me to contribute back to the community...without me necessarily being tied down to working in the business?"

Last week, I had a Skype chat with a primary school friend and college mate who is in the consulting/training/coaching industry. We had a fantastic hour swopping notes and experiences, and promised to meet online again in a month. I think I gained far more from it than she did, as she's so much further along in the journey. Some promising opportunities were explored as well, which is very exciting.

The discussion caused me to re-evaluate my coaching business in a fresh way. I realized that what I want more than anything is to coach motivated individuals, and to keep getting better at it so that my hourly fee rises over time.

But I don't necessarily want to do it as a small business owner, because then I would have to work hard to free my M and E elements to do what they are meant to do. I am quite contented to be an excellent T, and to affiliate myself with an organization that can support me in doing this.

Another alternative would be to learn client attraction marketing strategies and set up a system that brings me a regular stream of clients from which I pick and choose who I want to work with. This means instead of attending networking events to meet new people, I leverage on technology to connect me only with people who are looking for my services and the benefits I can give them, and who are willing and able to pay for the services.

Hubby says (in his usual "I told you so" way) that he's always believed I should start off by joining a company that delivers training and coaching, and learn while getting paid a salary.