Jun
11
Pie-Making 201: How The E-Myth is Screwing Your Business
This is a guest post from my creativity and business coach, Charlie Gilkey. It’s one of the most relevant posts I’ve read in a very long time. You should read it. He gets a real bio at the end.
Things started out great. You had this creative thing that you loved to do. It was fun. And then you figured out that other people wanted your thing, too. YAY!! So you started selling your thing.
Then things went to shit.
In The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber tries to address why things went to shit. (Naomi’s note: E-Myth is one of those books everybody tells you that you absolutely must read before you start a business or your wife will leave you and your dog will die.) He talks about Entrepreneurs, Managers, and Technicians; he discusses who should be doing what and when, all told using Sarah’s “All About Pies” as a case study. It’s a great read, but it leaves one not-too-small question unanswered:
What if you just want to make pies?
A traditional business coach would tell you that you never should have got in the business of selling pies if you just wanted to make pies. But, since you are selling pies, you’d best hire some folks to help you make the pies, then a manager to help you manage those workers, then hire some marketers, then…then…then…until you’ve got this huge group of folks around you selling your pies.
If you sold remarkable pies in a good location and had the rest of your business infrastructure in place, you’d probably make a lot of money selling pies. But you – as in the business owner you – still wouldn’t be making the pies.
Thanks for nothing, coach!
HaHa! That’s Why I Got Into Online Business…
Unfortunately, many online entrepreneurs find themselves in the same situation. An online business is still a business – meaning you have to sell stuff that people want to buy. It’s still something that takes time to build, as it takes a while to figure out what people want to buy, how to create that stuff, and then how to sell that stuff to them, although Naomi’s doing a great job making this a lot simpler for the rest of us.
For what we’re talking about here, there’s not much difference between brick and mortar businesses and online businesses; whether your pie is a physical pie or an informational pie, you’re still in the business of selling pies. But there’s a dark side to all this marketing and business-growing jazz that a lot of people don’t talk enough about: in the process of figuring out what people are wanting to buy and getting that stuff to them, it’s really easy to forget about the stuff you want to make.
You’d be surprised how many successful online entrepreneurs get to the point where they start asking themselves that same question: “What if I just want to make pies?”
If You Like Lemon Pie, Make Some Lemon Pie
Luckily, I’m not a traditional business coach and I’m not going to tell you that you never should’ve got in the business of selling pies. I’m also not going to tell you that you shouldn’t worry about the pies your customers want to buy. What I am going to tell you is that you have to make some pies for you.
I will warn you: the pies you make for yourself may not sell. That’s fine. No one else may want to try them. That’s fine, too. And it will seem like an incredible waste of time and energy that you could be spending on making pies that will sell. That’s not fine. (It is important to not beat yourself up for feeling that way, though.)
If you lose the pie-making passion you started with, it will start to creep into other facets of your business, in time.
Your correspondence won’t carry the energy it once did.
Networking will become a chore and not a chance to talk about pies.
Your mind will change about giving away free pies because each pie will have a price tag associated with it.
You won’t want to make the pies that you’ve scheduled yourself to make.
In short, you’ll go from making a living from making pies to selling pies as a job.
The only thing it costs you to do what you want to do is time. You’re in a type of business that’s particularly well-suited to changing things up when needed – it’s not like you have a storefront, physical inventory, a boatload of employees, and five-figure monthly overheads. Making some pies for you will cost you a few hours a week, but it’ll reward you with a renewed passion and energy in your work.
So yes, sell the pies that your customers want. Build a team around the process, if (and only if!) you need them to help you with other things so you can make your pies. But remember that the single most important asset of your business is you, and your wants and needs are more important than the wants and needs of your customers. You need to make the pies you want to make. You need to enjoy what you’re doing. You have to be your first customer in the morning and the last customer at the end of the day.
The condensed version: Remember that you got into business because you liked making pies. You will have to sell pies – some of which you don’t want to make – but you’re selling pies so that you can make the pies you want to make.
Charlie Gilkey is my creativity coach. He is also just about the coolest and smartest person I know. Read his blog to find some sense in the crazy fucked-up madness that is being a creative businessperson. Seriously, read it. The only one who loses if you don’t is you.
I sooooooo experience this on the photography side of my business.
But I gotta tell ya. I have tons of people go on and on telling me I just *have* to do weddings. I hate shooting weddings. So I don’t do it. (OK. I compromised. I’ll 2nd shoot for another photographer. So all I do is go on the day, shoot, and turn the photos over. But that’s it.)
Sometimes, you just have to know where the line is….that thing that will kill the thing you love.
But yes. You gotta do the stuff people want in order to do the stuff you want.
This is one seriously awesome post, Charlie!
All the best!
deb
Just around the time I signed up for Naomi’s Speakeasy, I was starting to go through a process of defining an additional business model for myself. (In a turn of events, my house was burgarlarized, and my laptop went wherever the theives went. So, I’ve resorted to pen and paper and started all over doing the work on the kick ass emails. I’m scared answering this email on my day job, but I am convinced I need to be working on my Plan B.)
Although I truly love helping folks work through their wardrobe and lifestyle issues, I could not see how I could make money at it.
But everyone loves my graphic design, desktop publishing and administrative abilities. This business model translates to me eventually becoming a virtual assistant. I keep trying to get away from it, but now I am beginning to see it as a viable way to make money (and work for myself) while honing my Styleosophy (wardrobe and lifestyle) Superpowers. It’s all a form of assistance, and for me, I know I am great at providing it.
Like Deb said, I will do the stuff people want, in order to do the stuff I want.
Mmmmmmmm…..Pie……….
“in the process of figuring out what people are wanting to buy and getting that stuff to them, it’s really easy to forget about the stuff you want to make. ”
So very true. I’ve been so focused on marketing my business and promoting my workshop this week, that I don’t think I’ve even Tweeted about anything related to organization or productivity (my personal pies). That seems wrong, and I’ve resolved to work on it today & tomorrow.
Brilliant!!! Terrific post, thank you for that reminder to stay true to ourselves while going about “earning a living.”
Wonderful! I have definitely been looking at the pies I’m doing now and thinking that, perhaps, I’d like to be making some cookies instead — so this is timely to help get me motivated on getting that cookie site up and running, as it were.
And by pies, I mean design. And by cookies, I mean art. And by… wait, no, I’m out of metaphors now. Nevermind.
I just sent a pie recipe to my newsletter. There is pie in the zeitgeist today.
Thanks tons, Charlie, I do remember having exactly that question when I read (or tried to read) E-Myth.
“Make some pies for yourself.” That is really wise. Thank you.
You know, it shouldn’t surprise me that you, Charlie, would hit on the exact thing that peeves me about the E-Myth Revisited. In fact, an awful lot of business advice seems to lever off of telling small biz folks how they should feel (or what their ambition should be). Thanks for doing the opposite.
And, thanks, too, Naomi, for getting Charlie to post.
Google nailed this pretty well with their 20% time policy (you can spend 20% of your time working on whatever cool project you like) – that’s probably one of the reasons they’ve done so well at attracting smart people.
The e-myth is definitely one of the most overquoted books in history. If I hear one more person say “you need to work ON the business, not IN the business”, I may be sick.
I like the E-Myth. I do. I like the part about processes because they are important. Working with Charlie, he was all up in our craw about our processes… what’s your client intake process look like? What’s your affiliate process look like? Do you guys have a blog posting calendar (what?! are you serious… a process so Wendy and I don’t bump into each other?)
But the one thing I’ve never liked about the E-Myth is that not everyone’s biz fits into the franchise model. And I think because the book is so focused on “getting your franchise on” it leaves out all the important parts that Charlie writes about here.
For being a brainiac process guy, Charlie sure does have a heart. Knowing what you want and doing a little bit of what you love everyday nurtures the energy that drives the processes.
Thanks Charlie for sharing your perspective on E-Myth. And thanks Naomi for introducing me to Charlie!
When asked if I know what kind of pies my customer wants, I most often respond with, “Don’t know – don’t care right now. I’m making this kind of pie cuz I like it. Those who like this kind will buy it and the rest won’t. I’m ok with that. If I wanted to make someone else’s pie, I’d go get a damn job.”
I am quite sure I’m responsible for an increase in my business coach’s consumption of Tylenol over the last year…I’m sure I’ve made his head hurt more than once. But I’m coming from 20 years of employment where I was only making the pies the customers liked. I’m tired of other people’s favorite pies.
Thank you, Charlie, for this post. It’s good to know I’m not just being contrary.
When I first started doing what I do people weren’t buying what I had fun making. But they did start to buy the stuff I kind of liked making. So it’s a good compromise.
And through the business of people buying the stuff I kind of like making more people are getting to know me and are starting to buy the stuff I really like making.
I don’t want it to get so big that all I’m ever doing is organising other people to do the fun stuff though. That’s why I left the corporate world in the first place!
I knew it was the beginning of the end for my Professional Organizing business when I turned clients into numbers only – ie how many in the hopper to produce how many clients and how many subcontractors needed.
Blah, blah, blah…
Now as I build my second business I’m careful to keep the passion for it while marketing and building clientele. Still, I’d be happier than bride on her honeymoon if I could find someone to partner with who’d do all the selling and other management type stuff while I come up with new products and deliver on the ones I’ve already created.
One of the first questions I ask new clients is what do they want their business to be like. And a I’ve had a couple who just wanted to be able to spend a few hours a week working on their business because they loved it. They never wanted it to grow to the point they had to hire staff or outsource or any of that. Some of them just want it to be a profitable hobby (although the tax office then calls it a business, but that’s a different discussion altogether!)
I was talking to a client just yesterday about a couple of her businesses that she has. One of them is very community service style and she wanted to develop it to the point it was paying for itself. Only problem was that because of the service and niche it was targeted at, monetising it wasn’t going to be easy. A bit more discussion and she realised that she didn’t have to monetise it – because she had other niche markets and business sites as long as overall they were being self-sufficient it didn’t matter if that particular one was run at a loss.
I like E-Myth, however I don’t agree with all of Gerber’s ideas. But hey, no one person has all the answers, it’s a book and we can pick and choose which nuggets of wisdom to take away from it.
I read this blog post carefully. Twice. I’m wondering why the author chose to trash the e-myth in the title. Certainly they do not go on to present a serious case of how the “e-myth is screwing up your business”.
More accurately (if you agree with the position of the writer), it could have been titled, “How your lack of perspective is screwing up your business”. Or whatever you think is screwed up.
The point here is that the book and the man (Michael Gerber) are offering information. I do not believe that you should become an E-Myth Zombie. Not with anyone’s information.
Use what works for you – leave the rest. That’s my 2 cents.
By the way, Naomi – I’m really enjoying Marketing for Nice People!
Thank you, I needed to hear this.
I began my site because I wanted to share ideas about the artsy craftsy woo woo things that helped me get through midlife comparatively sane. Then I felt I ought to explain why midlife comes up and hits us so hard, and as a result of this more academic research and teaching, building the site has become work. It also pushes the day I get to start explaining the artsy craftsy woo woo things further and further over the horizon.
Time to give over part of each day to the stuff that sets me on fire and put the ‘ought tos’ back in perspective!
Brilliant! The irony is that a lot of people’s passion really does turn into a prison once they go into business for themselves. Bring Charlie back for more guest posts.
Now, off to sell more pies!
~Drew
@PR_Results
Thanks to Charlie’s brilliant post for a significant dose of validation of my frustrations with the E-Myth mindset.
Iain nailed my annoyance with people telling me I need to work “on my business, not in it.” I went into business on my own because I love to work IN it, after all.
And I don’t think my business(es) fit the franchise model at all, as Mynde pointed out. I don’t plan on selling franchised versions of my business, ever. Not even one.
And Melinda put her finger on another one of my pet peeves: The E-Myth says the only thing a business can do is grow. That may work for a certain group of business owners (maybe even the majority), but I really don’t ever want to grow to the point where I’m managing employees. Really. Never.
Which doesn’t mean I don’t want help with certain business processes. Working with a kick-ass VA is a completely different thing from “hiring” someone (VAs aren’t employees), and yes, I’d love to be able to grow to the point that I can do that. For Alex, who mentioned wanting someone to take care of certain management and organizational stuff, I think finding the right VA to partner with on specific business areas might really pay off.
Bottom line is that the E-Myth definition of success (which seems to be growing to the point where you can sell the business and go build another business to grow and sell, ad nauseam) just doesn’t match my definition of success (I’m still working on it, but it involves doing what I love to sustain me, and providing enough value to others that I’m also financially secure, which doesn’t mean becoming Donald Trump). Which is pretty much Charlie’s point.
“But I’m coming from 20 years of employment where I was only making the pies the customers liked. I’m tired of other people’s favorite pies.”
I’m glad I’m not the only one. Nice to hear someone else say it out loud. Business can be wearying over time. Sometimes I feel like the blogosphere is all 30-somethings and since I’m done with my first career, I can’t relate to their enthusiasm. At first it’s all about mastery and competition. Later those become 4-letter words. (new software? just kill me now)
But the article is timely for me because I’ve just hit that point where I wanted to let “selling” influence “making,” but it has destroyed my motivation. Good thing I caught it in time. And by the way, using 20% of my time for what I what to do isn’t enough any more. I’m at a different stage in life, afraid I will run out of time…
If you lose pie-making passion, “Networking will become a chore and not a chance to talk about pies.” I hadn’t thought of networking as a chance to talk about pies — love this perspective. Thanks, Charlie!
Wonderful post, thank you so much. I especially liked your list of what happens when we fall out of passion with our work (under the “lemon pie” section above.)
However, I want to question your final point:
“You will have to sell pies – some of which you don’t want to make – but you’re selling pies so that you can make the pies you want to make.”
I question the assumption that you HAVE to make some pies you don’t want to, in order to make a living.
I offer this different possibility to live by:
1. List out the pies you would LOVE to make
2. Of those types of pies, which ones are you best at making right now?
3. Now, of those pies you’d LOVE to make and are GOOD at making, which ones are selling like hot pies/cakes right now?
4. If none, then give those pies a new name, or description, so that it WILL sell like hot cakes.
Result: you get to make pies you love, and are good at, and they sell like hot cakes. And meanwhile, you can practice on other pies you’d love to make so you get good at them too.
But anyway, thank you Charlie Gilkey and Naomi Dunford for your valuable posts that help many of us make and sell pies we enjoy :)
p.s. there are many ways to make your pies sell like hot cakes, as I’m sure Naomi / Ittybiz can teach you. One of the ways is: give out free samples of the best pies you love to make!
Naomi, great post. My wife and I are just going through this kind of thing right now. We don’t want our passion to drag us down, so we fear moving forward on business ideas. Thanks for this post!
This really hit home, especially the two statements, “What if you just want to make pies?” and “sell stuff that people want to buy”.
I’m in the process of setting up like my tenth or fifteenth “ittybiz” and have been reading your blog a lot. I’ve been self employed since… 1972 or so?? (Age of 11.) Have been consulting for the last 20 years & am getting a bit tired of it.
Anyway, I like making pies but I like getting other people to make their own pies even more. So I created a product to help people do that. Anyways, you’re blog has been a great source for some thought provoking material. Thanks for that!
Charlie, once again you’ve got some great advice to offer up. I see so many people jump into building their “online empire” but don’t seem to realize that you won’t just be sitting back with a glass of wine, while the money rolls in. There’s actual work involved.
Me, I like helping people to learn how to make and sell those pies ;-)
~kat_taf
This is exactly why my first business didn’t work.
I got too much into making the business run, I forgot the passion or the love I had for making and designing stuff. In fact, I forbade myself from “making pie.”
I will take this lesson to my next business, while not letting the Technician run it all, which is the opposite end of this “pie-making” spectrum.
Making pie and selling pie has to balance each other out, while not forgetting why we are making pie in the first place…
For those of you who may have heard of the E-Myth, or possibly even read the book, you might appreciate this:
http://www.e-myth.com/cs/user/print/post/revisiting-the-e-myth
Best,
Todd
Woot! Thanks Todd, great link! I’ve never said those two statements, but I love the blog and articles there. Never knew it existed.
Interested in your thoughts.. Does 37signals or E-myth have the right philosophy for business start-ups today? http://www.purlem.com/blog/?p=38
This hit the nail on the head. Right now I am trying to get a photography business going for myself and while I go through the process, I’m creating blog posts that are leading up to some information products I plan to release (hopefully sooner than later). I had a moment of truth on Sunday, yes this past sunday. I wanted to do more than just fine art photography and get into photographing people.
Just like Deb (in the first comment) everyone talks about weddings. It’s true that wedding are cashcows. But how would I feel? I went out on Sunday to try and do a freestyle photoshoot of people downtown. I couldn’t ask anyone except the organizer for a art show at the covent garden market. We were talking with him about the show and selling art. I realized at that moment my desire to bring milk crates full of photographs I’ve taken – fully matted and wrapped ready for sale. I don’t know how much money I could make or if anything at all. but It’s something that I want to do and bring my art to people.
I decided that it’s totally okay that I’m moving slowly into portrait work. I plan to use the art booth as a gateway.
Great post and really confirms my thoughts from sunday.