Customer Reviews

The E-Myth Contractor: Why Most Contractors' Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book is a watered down version of the E-myth Revisited, which is a good book. The E-Myth Contactor - is a summary of M. Gerber's program with "contractor stories." There is no true insight into the contactor industry. My guess is this is the 1st of many books focusing on specific industries. My advice is to skip this book, just purchase Gerber's E-Myth Revisited & make the connections yourself.

This book is filled with wonderful ideas and philosophies. They all make sense and seem to put you on the path to the realization of your goals. The problem is that not all the keys to making the ideas work that you could actually put into practice are provided in the book. The idea of the book seems to be to get the reader excited and then point them to a web site where one can sign up for classes (at a healthy fee) to learn the fundementals of the systems and how to put them to use. The limited scope of the book was no doubt designed to provide the author, Mr. Gerber, with more income than he receives just through book sales. I would be very cautious before getting hooked because the "rest of the story" is provided in a lengthy process that is quite expensive.

I enjoyed the original E-Myth very much, though it was painful too as I recognised all my own mistakes in business over the years. I found this particular volume just a tad too new-age in places for my own liking. It is also, like so many small (the book, that is) business-help books, a little on the glib side, making the issues out to be rather easy to solve whereas entrepreneurship is somewhat more challenging in reality, and not quite as formulaic as the author might have us believe. But there's still a lot of truth in it too, and it is easily read, with some good lessons to take from it. Certainly worth both the purchase price and the time it takes to read.

I thoroughly enjoyed the E-Myth Revisited. I thought there was a lot of good material and direction for me to follow.

I was excited to see that the author was coming out with a contractor version that I hoped would fit my company even better. I was disappointed to find that it really wasn't much more than the first book, somewhat refocused.

Between reading the two books, I contacted the company to see about using their consulting services. It became clear to me that the principles presented in the books, which they ask business operators to live up to, are not implemented in the E-Myth company very well at all. - Very disappointing.

This book repeats a few of the strategies presented in "The E-Myth Revisted", trying to point them at the contractor. Unfortunately, except for a couple of good ideas from that book, there is nothing here but fluff and pep talk. At one point, I think you can actually tell where material was cut-and-pasted from the sister book about medical practices, where they accidentally forgot to change "practice" to "contracting business".

If you found some chapters of the "The E-Myth Revisted" to be a bit fluffy for you, you can count on an entire (although short) book of it here. Very dissapointing and not particularly useful.

Gerber's books on the EMyth should be required reading in MBA schools and should be provided free by all CPA's of the world.

He describes how you need to work ON your business (developing franchiseable systems) rather than IN your business (as a worker).

This book extends that theme for contractors. There is alot of new material here that updates previous versions. I was able to read it quickly in an afternoon... even after extensive underlinings. I went to his web site and researched other books here on Amazon.

Overall, this should be recommended reading for any entrepreneur, particularly those that have been in business for several years and are frustrated.

This was the first E-Myth book that I had read - mostly out of curiosity as I had heard references to E-Myth and therefore wanted to be informed. What I liked is that this book is short and to the point - you can finish within a couple hours, so not much of a time investment is required. There are many good observations here and some good advice, however I do not agree with everything.

The E-Myth refers to the fact that many individuals who start a new business are technicians and not true entrepreneurs. They continuously work for their business and not on their business. It allows them to gain an income from the business, however the business is not reaching it's full potential. Although this book is geared towards tradesmen (carpenters, electricians, general contractors, etc.) it just as readily applies to individuals in other professions as well such as engineers, accountants, consultants, etc. I have witnessed the technician vs. entrepreneur aspects firsthand and it is an easy trap to fall into.

Although I appreciated the systems thinking aspect of this book, it did seem a bit too process oriented for my liking. Process does have it's place, however it should not take the place of independent thought and original problem solving - the hallmarks of a true entrepreneur. In my opinion the advice within this book may benefit a corporate audience or franchise more than a specialized intellectual property business.

Overall this is a good book to get acquainted with the E-Myth philosophy with minimal time investment. Worth a read especially if you suspect that you, or someone you know, may be trapped in a technician mindset and needs to transition to an entrepreneurial mindset.

If you're starting a business, any business, the contents are a must for you. It looks outside the box and makes you think from the correct prospective of a business owner. I agree with the previous reviewer stating that it is just a "hook" to get you to buy into the more expensive, and extensive, e-Myth program. Take this book for what it is. Lots of good learning tools.

I enjoyed this book. It really gets you thinking about how your business should be operated and opened my eyes to how little I was paying attention to the most important aspects of running my business. I hope to start implementing many of these ideas right away in my business.

I bought this book as a gift for a friend in the contracting business.
I'm a huge fan of the original E-Myth and E-Myth Revisited books.
My friend was telling me how he wanted to systematize the business he was in and I told him I thought he should read The E-Myth.
I vaguely recalled that Michael Gerber had written a version of The E-Myth for contractors. I came to Amazon and found what I was looking for.
Unbeknown to my friend, I purchased The E-Myth Contractor for him.
I read the book before I presented it to him. To be honest, I was a little disappointed in the book. I felt the book was light on substance and that the original versions of The E-Myth were much more in-depth and thought-provoking.
I gave the The E-Myth Contractor to my friend and explained my reservations to him.
When I spoke with him about a week later I asked him his opinion of the book.
To my surprise, he was very happy with it and was glad I gave it to him.
My conclusion would be that if you're not familiar with Michael Gerber's work and you happen to end up with this book, then by all means read it. It may change your perspective on your business. But if you have to make a choice between this book and The E-Myth Revisited, then it's no contest, get The E-Myth RevisitedThe E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It. It's the kind of book that will change forever the way you look at not only your business, but all businesses.