Abstract
We all have dreams, but transforming those dreams into a business and becoming a successful entrepreneur does not come easily or naturally to the majority of us. Gerber guides us through the steps in order to make a successful transformation from a dream to a successful business.
Why take Gerber’s advice? Many consider him to be among the top entrepreneur educators in the world. Gerber has over 30 years of experience helping tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and business people. Ken Blanchard, a leading business management expert and co-author of The One Minute Manager shares his praise for Gerber. Blanchard revealed, ‘I had so many Aha! moments while reading this book that I simply could not set it aside until I had absorbed every word’ (p. xxvi).
Gerber’s honesty is compelling. He shares the real emotions that he has experienced with success, failure, and everywhere in between. He gently guides us through the process of creating and defining an impersonal dream into a successful business. This requires not only skill, but the ability to know one’s limits. Gerber acknowledges how entrepreneurs need to accept a significant amount of criticism and have the patience to persevere despite that criticism.
In Part 1, ‘The Preparation’, Gerber describes a unique conversation with his mother. At this point, Gerber is 69 years old, and at his ripened age, feels lost as to his next destination. His mother provides clarity to his dilemma and wisdom for his direction. Her advice was to seek the answer within and recreate the energy that he has displayed for many years. As he begins his new journey, Gerber felt the need to establish the rules for new entrepreneurs. He does this by defining five key realities of an entrepreneur. The first Reality is ‘An entrepreneur is an inventor, although few inventors are entrepreneurs’ (p. 9). The other realities are similar by portraying the entrepreneur as the creator of businesses and how everyone has this innate ability. This is followed by the Four Dimensions of the Entrepreneur Personality, the Dreamer, the Thinker, the Storyteller and the Leader. Gerber defines and explores each personality in its own section.
In addition to these descriptions, Gerber utilises a unique technique he titles ‘Stop and Focus’. This method directs the reader to look deeper for the transition of their dream into a reality using analogies and questions to emphasise key points. These sections add practicality to the lesson by insuring the reader truly internalises the message or approach before progressing to the next chapter.
In Part 2, ‘The Dream and the Dreamer’, the drive behind the develop- ment of business systems came after Gerber attended a meeting with his friend to help understand why a business is not converting more leads into sales. After much questioning and conversation, Gerber’s epiphany moment came when he realised the customer did not want the advertising his friend was promoting, but wanted sales. He shares his awakening, 30 years after his successful E-Myth book series. Gerber takes us through his journey of developing the Dream Room and shares the emotional highs and lows of transitioning the Dream Room into a viable entity. Gerber clearly focuses the reader to the ‘impersonal dream’ which is not about the entrepreneur or the business concept, but the customer and only the customer.
In Part 3, ‘The Thinker and The Vision’, Gerber leads us to involve the practical side of making the dream into a reality. This is the function of the Thinker. Gerber describes the Thinker using a ship as a reference, ‘does what’s needed to get it ready to sail’ (p. 73). The Thinker would be the equivalent of the ships engineer who needs to consider the logistics, management, and details in preparation for the voyage. During this process, another aim is to define and develop the Vision of the business which includes the strategic objective for the business. Gerber directs us to create two Visions, one for the dreamers’ life and the other for the business. The combination of these two Visions creates the driving force for the company to grow.
In Part 4, ‘Storyteller and the Purpose’, the passion, vision, and strategic objectives are brought together. As an example of the Storyteller, most sales people have several presentation messages committed to memory and repeated with regularity to anyone who will listen. However, the difference is the emphasis for passion that Gerber adds to the message. Gerber’s message involves channelling the passion of the Dreamer combined with the Vision and Purpose into a personal message. It is very important that this message make sense, flow smoothly, and be artfully delivered over and over again. The Storyteller’s message must be continuously revised so to create an even more compelling story that will be embraced by the listener.
In Part 5, ‘The Leader and the Mission’, much is dedicated to Gerber’s new development of the concept of leadership. This concept involves defining Leadership before a company has been created. He divides Leadership into five essential skill sets and also differentiates between the various functioning leadership positions such as a marketing leader and a financial leader. Gerber goes on to describe a real problem regarding employee turnover in the restaurant and service industry. The employee attrition rate can range from 80 to 120 per cent annually and up to 300 per cent in the fast-food industry. After the problem is clarified, Gerber goes to work defining his solution strategy and why the fast-food restaurants should embrace it.
Gerber uses a fictional interview for the COO (Chief Operating Officer) position of his new fictitious company to illustrate the concept. The interview is designed to reveal if the candidate would be a good fit for the position according to the essential skill sets defined by Gerber. In addition, the candidate would need to display the same passion as Gerber for the company. He shares his personal list of ten core leadership beliefs (p. 166). It is an admirable list that can be adapted to improve the success of most businesses.
Gerber brings a unique flavour to the business start-up model that is a departure from the traditional business plan. Anyone can utilise his methods, regardless of educational level or business function. It all starts with the Dream and the Vision and grows from there. I was truly enlightened with the three skill sets found in the model for training young Hispanics in the Who Is Manny Espinosa? program. This is a great example of using social entrepreneurship to make a difference in the world with skills sets defined that have universal and lasting benefits. The fictional program targets young Hispanics in the San Diego urban area. It provides them with an intensive six week training program to develop critical skills required by businesses looking for reliable entry level employees. The cost of the program is paid for by the businesses, many of which are in the fast food industry and experience a very high turnover. This is home run material from Gerber.
Some deficiencies in Gerber’s book are the references to the McDonald’s turnkey model without any citations. Some might say a turnoff is the book’s appearance of having a commercial slant, quite often directing the reader to one of his businesses, especially the Dream Room. One other area that may leave some readers feeling short-changed is the how to lists. These lists are very common business suggestions coupled with flowery phrases of how one must be inspired with no additional clarification regarding how that inspiration might be achieved. For example, Gerber brings a refreshing look at the traditional delivery of customer service and by changing it to customer commitment. This unique concept may need to be taken with a cautious approach. With customer commitment, he claims you make an ‘outrageous promise to your customer that you keep every single time’ (p. 90). The reader might possibly ask: What is an outrageous promise? What does it look like? Does it involve doing whatever the customer wants regardless of the potential downside to the business? This is one area where the book falls short on practicality and needs concrete examples to help the reader understand how to make an outrageous promise without compromising fiscal soundness.
This book should be considered for all entrepreneurs, future entrepreneurs, and students studying entrepreneurship who would like a different approach to creating a business versus the traditional business plan. Those who teach entrepreneurship classes should consider the four dimensions and five realities of the entrepreneur as part of a foundation model for their students. In addition to entrepreneurs, professors teaching business courses in marketing, management, and leadership would also benefit from the development of the Storyteller and Leader by the redeeming principles Gerber outlines. The book does not have empirical evidence, however, I believe if you would ask business owners that Gerber has worked with, one could argue that it does add to the level of knowledge for entrepreneurship.