This book has a useful message for businesses in the infancy stage: when someone who is good at something wants to start their own business, they will eventually have to STOP doing what they are good at and start building a business -- a very different skill set. I give the book four or five stars for the principles to be gleaned (though I do have some qualms about his insistence on hiring barely adequate people, not the best people, which seems to be in contradiction to "Good to Great," which emphasizes the importance of quality workers doing what they do best).
However, the unabridged version has SO much padding in it, it became grating fairly quickly. Gerber could probably have said what he needed to say over the course of two CDs, not seven. He runs on and on, beating his points to death. I found myself skipping ahead quite a bit. Since it's an audio CD, I might have missed something useful, but I couldn't take the pedantic, overkill I was being subjected to. A typical example: "Jim and Bob own a business together. Sometimes Jim does the books. Sometimes Bob does the books. When Jim doesn't do the books, Bob does. When Bob doesn't do the books, Jim does. When they hired Al, either Bob, Jim, or Al did the books. When Bob or Jim didn't do the books, Al did. When Al or Bob didn't do the books, Jim did." And so on and so forth. It was either skip ahead or crash my car into a wall to end the mental anguish this style of speaking/writing caused.
So, useful info mixed into the dregs. I recommend the abridged version. |
The E-Myth Revisited CD : Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to do about it Books In Print, Audio Books.