Most entrepreneurs are merely technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure. Most entrepreneurs fail because you are working IN your business rather than ON your business.
Michael GerberRead
I've said it for four decades - work 'on' your business, not just 'in' your business!
Interpretation
Focus on building and strategizing your business rather than just managing daily tasks.
This quote emphasizes the importance of taking a step back from the daily operations and instead concentrating on the growth and development of your business. It suggests that business owners should spend time on strategic planning and overall vision rather than becoming overly engrossed in routine tasks that are less impactful in the long run.
In practice
During a business seminar, I quoted Gerber to emphasize the importance of strategic planning.
Most entrepreneurs are merely technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure. Most entrepreneurs fail because you are working IN your business rather than ON your business.
The only choice that leads small business owners to real success in their endeavors is the one that requires real thought. Understanding and building the systems they need within their company to afford them a framework of organization that can scale the business from a company of one to a company of one thousand.
Quit being 'busy' and start actively owning and operating your company, and you'll be able to understand where the money is coming from and how to make more of it.
Most people who go into business for themselves and, therefore, believe they are entrepreneurs, are doomed to struggle because they don't have a true Entrepreneurial Perspective. They have a Technician's Perspective.
The entrepreneur rarely thinks in terms of what he or she wants, but dreams about results - always results and nothing but results - that can solve someone else's problem or contribute to making someone else's life better.
Here's the problem with phones - they are a ready-made diversion from the considerably harder work of growing a business.
If you understand cause and effect, it brings about a set of insights that leads you to a very different place. The knowledge will persuade you that the market isn't organized by customer category or by product category. If you understand the job that consumers need to complete, you can articulate all of the experiences in that job.
Ultimately, what any company does when it is successful is merely a lagging indicator of its existing culture.
If customer ignorance is a profit centre for you, you're in trouble.
It's so important for startups to get their culture right at the start. They need to feel unique and that they are on their own important mission in the world.
I think I've realized that business and being polite [don't] match. You can be fair, but me being polite was not me being fair to myself.
One thing more dangerous than getting between a grizzly sow and her cub is getting between a businessman and a dollar bill.
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