Embracing agency entrepreneurship to work on the business, not in the business with Michael E. Gerber

Hey, everybody. Drew here. You know, we are always looking for more ways to be helpful and meet you wherever you’re at to help you grow your agency. It’s one of the reasons why we’ve produced this podcast for so long, and I’m super grateful that you listen as often as you do. However, there are some topics that are better suited for quick, hyper-focused answers in under 10 minutes. That’s where our YouTube channel really comes in. For quick doses of inspiration, best practices, tips and tricks, head over to youtube.com/the at sign Agency Management institute. Again, that’s youtube.com/the at sign or symbol.

And then Agency Management Institute, all one word. Subscribe and search the existing video database for all sorts of actionable topics that you can implement in your shop today. Alright, let’s get to the show.

Welcome to the Agency Management Institute community, where you’ll learn how to grow and scale your business, attract and retain the best talent, make more money, and keep more of the money you make. The Build A Better Agency Podcast presented by a White Label IQ is packed with insights on how small to mid-size agencies are getting things done, bringing his 25 years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant. Please welcome your host, Drew McLellan.

Hey, everybody. Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute back again with another killer episode of Build a Better Agency. I’m super excited about this conversation. I will admit I am Fanboying Justice Smidge as I get ready to walk into this interview when Michael Gerber, who wrote the E Myth Revisited, when he and his people reach out and say, Hey, we’d like to be on your podcast. That’s a good day, I gotta tell you, that is a really good day. I was, I was very excited and I’m very excited about this conversation. I, like all of you are very familiar with Michael’s body of work, the E-Myth Revisited, and all of the books surrounding the idea of what the E-Myth is all about.

Most of us quote him on a regular basis. I know here at a MI, we talk about it all the time. We need to be working on the business, not in the business as business owners. And every day, Danielle and I and all of our fa, our adjunct faculty folks are talking to agency owners about getting out of their own way and stepping up into the role that is uniquely theirs as the business owner. No one’s doing your job if you’re doing somebody else’s job, if you’re leading the biggest account, If you are still art directing, If you are developing websites, whatever, whatever your skillset is, whatever that technician skillset you have is, if you’re still doing a lot of that, what it means is no one’s actually running your business or you’re running it in the margins that you have around getting the work done.

And the problem with that is, is we all run to the fire. When a client bell rings, we run to that fire like firemen to put out the fire for them, which is what we’ve been trained our whole lives to do. But as entrepreneurs, as business owners, we have to stay above the fray of that and be able to run and design the business that we want to own. And that’s what e Myth is all about. And, and so I am super excited to dig into this with the man who invented the concept and who has taught all of us this concept. I, I can’t imagine there’s more than a handful of you that either have never heard of Michael Gerber or have not read at least one of his books.

He’s just that prolific in the business. C he’s been around for decades, and his advice is as true today as it was when he wrote that first book. And so I am really excited to dig in. And what I’m hoping to get out of this conversation on behalf of myself and all of you is what gets in the way. I feel like a lot of us are sort of straddling the fence that we have one leg firmly in the working on the business side, but the other leg is firmly in the working in the business side. And it’s not that, it’s not that we can’t do both, but should we be doing both? And is it really the best use of our time and talent? And so I wanna explore all of that with him and see what he has to say.

So I don’t wanna waste any more time. I wanna get right into the conversation. So without further ado, let’s talk to Michael. Michael, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us.

I’m delighted to be here, Tru, and thank you.

I, I have to tell you, this is a bit of a surreal moment for me. I have, I probably quote you to our clients every single day. I am such a huge believer in the work you do and the idea that that business owners need to work on their business, not in their business. And I work with agency owners every day that struggle with that concept. So I am, I am so delighted to have you on the show and have you help us sort of see the opportunity that many of us are missing by being too in the business every day. So thank you so much for being with us.

The absolute delight, and thank you for sharing my message. That singular message, work on it, not in it to all of the people you speak to every week. Yeah. Every year.

Yeah. You probably are one of the most quoted business authors, probably on the planet, I suspect. So for the two people in the audience that, that are not familiar with your book, talk to us a little bit about sort of the origin of E-Myth and what prompted you to write the book and share your ideas to begin with. I mean, the, the book’s been around for a while. The concept is universal and will live on forever. But what, what was the impetus to all of it?

It’s interesting, and it’s interesting because of your agency members, I’ll call them. Yep. Years ago, and I’m saying years ago in the mid seventies, my brother-in-law owned an advertising agency in Silicon Valley. And one day A came to me and he said, Michael, I got a problem. We generate leads for our clients, but they can’t convert them into sales. And I don’t know what the problem is, but you talk about when you were a kid and you sold it encyclopedia, and you tell this story about how you sold encyclopedia and it so put me Oh, so magically, because you described it so effectively, you answered an ad and you responded to this manager of an encyclopedia Americana office, and you got there and he gave an interview opportunity for the nine or 10 or 11 guys who showed up for that ad.

Right?

And he said it so brilliantly, you said, and then he said to you, Michael, you intrigued me. I’d like you to do something for me. And he, you said he handed you a script, and he said, this is a 15 minute script. Hmm. I want you to go home. I want you to memorize it. And when you do, I want you to call me. And I’ll then schedule a time for you to tell it to me. So I chuckled myself. Now, I chuckled on myself because I’d been studying the saxophone from the age of 11.

I went by bus from Anaheim, California to Hollywood, California to meet with master saxophone teacher. His name was Merle Johnston. And I spent an hour in Merle Johnston’s studio being beat up every Saturday, find a very key part of what he beat me up to do, was to memorize things, memorize this, memorize this, memorize this, memorize. And so I’ve learned how to memorize things, memorize barley, Parker memorize.

You get my point? Yep. Yep. So I went home and I memorized that 15 minute script that night. So I called him the very next day, and he laughed and he said, Michael, you’re the only one who has ever memorized that script so quickly. So I am a bit challenged by it. He said, but come and share it with me. So we scheduled an appointment the next day. I went in and I did the script, right. And he, he said, that was perfect, but now do it this way.

He said, and then he made an inflection, as I’m doing right now, an inflection on the various phrases within that script. He said, I’m recording that. Take that home, memorize that. So I went home. I listened to his phrasing, which is a critical part of saxophone playing, right? Just as I’m doing now, sadly, for the very reason that I’m doing it now.

And I memorized the phrasing. I called him back. I went back in, I repeated what I’d memorized, and he was enchanted by it. He said, okay, now you’ve memorized the little bit I gave you, memorized this. And he gave me the entire script. I went home. Two days later, I had memorized it, called him back, made the appointment, went back in. And he was so inspired by it. And he said, good. Now memorize this. And he then gave me the emphasis right?

In the whole script. Went home, did that, went back, congratulations, Michael. You asked my test. Now I’m going to take you in the car with four other guys on the street to knock on doors to do it. And that’s what he did. And that’s what I did. Yeah. And it was so challenging. Drew, I can’t even imagine. Right? Him on the street, knocking on doors, calling on strangers, had never done this before.

I’d never even imagined I would end up doing this before. But I did, in the first week. I made my first sale, the making of that first sale. Drew was the most imaginably high experience I’d ever had.

I can’t even imagine.

Not alone. The next sale and the next sale, and the next sale. And the, so Ace said to me, Michael,

Yeah, If you couldn’t sell that, would you visit? Right?

Right. Would you visit one of my clients and see what’s missing? And he said, ACE, I don’t know anything about high tech. I don’t know anything about business. He said, Michael, you know more than you think you do. Just do it. Do me a favor. I said, okay, ACE. So the next day, ACE drives me out to meet with, I’ll call him Bob, I don’t remember his name. And introduces me to Bob. Bob to me. He says, fellas, I’m gonna be taken off for an hour. Michael, get to know Bob.

Bob, get to know Michael, and let’s see what happens. And Ace takes off. So Bob looks at me kind of strangely. He said, Michael, what do you know about my business? I said, nothing, Bob.

Right.

He said, well, what do you know about my product? I said, less than that, Bob. So Michael, If you don’t know anything about my business and you don’t know anything about, Hey, private, how can you help me? And that’s what I said to Ace Bob. But here we are. We got an hour to kill. Right? Right.

That’s right. Let’s find out. Let’s, let’s fill some time. Right.

Right. And so we did. By what? By me asking Bob questions.

Yeah.

Well, it didn’t take long for me to figure out, drew that Bob didn’t have a selling system. Bob had experienced salespeople. He hired because they were experienced salespeople.

Right.

And they also understood technology. So he figured if they know how to sell and they understand the product, they’re gonna be successful selling for me. And they weren’t. And so I learned what was missing in Bob’s business, Bob’s agency, in the first 10 minutes, Bob didn’t have a selling system.

Right.

Bob didn’t even know what a selling system is.

Right.

And so when the guy, Bob asked me, well, can you help me me create such a thing? I said, sure, Bob. So on the spot, Bob retained me as his consultant, his sales consultant. And Ace picks me up. He said, what happened? I said, Bob just hired me. He said, I hired you to do what he said, hired me to create a selling system for him. He said, Michael, you don’t know anything about business. You don’t know anything about Bob’s business. You don’t know anything about my business. I wonder, well, can you do that? And I said, yeah, but I know about Sales Ace. That’s why you asked me to meet with Bob.

Right? And I know that selling is the system, or it isn’t sales, and I’m gonna create his selling system. And lo and behold, that was the first job I’d had in business of a business nature. And that’s what I did. I created Bob’s first selling system. Which was what? Which was a script. Right? Literally a script. This is what you say. This is when you say it, this is how you say it.

This is why you say it, and so forth. It’s so suddenly Bob’s people were either there or they weren’t. Right? In short, they either memorized the script or they didn’t. If they memorized the script, they either said it right, or they didn’t. And if they didn’t, they were gone. But if they did, they were there. And suddenly Bob was converting the leads. Ace was saying him into sales. And it was a shock to, Bob was, he’d never done anything like that before.

They later called that Drew, working on your business, not in your business. Right. Which was what It was creating the script your salespeople use. But hear me, it was another thing as well, because as I became immersed in Bob’s business, and I don’t even remember what the product was, they suddenly realized Bob didn’t have a management system either. Bob didn’t have a marketing system either. Right. Bob didn’t have a financial system either.

In short, Bob didn’t have a system for anything. Right? Bob was doing it, doing it, doing it as all of his people were. But that’s because Bob wasn’t get this true. This is really important. Bob really wasn’t an entrepreneur. Bob was what I call in the E-Myth, A technician suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure.

Right? Right.

And when I did this for Bob, I then did it for a second client of ACEs, and then a third client of a, and then a fourth client of a, and it became Obies to me as I was doing that, drew, that Ace didn’t have systems

Either. Ace was like, wait, wait, wait, don’t turn the telescope. Right?

Right. And he got really resistant.

Yeah.

Because he didn’t want me to work on his business. He just wanted me to help them invert leads into sales.

So Michael, I think that’s what happens every day when business owners read your book, they read it and they go, yes, this is right. But then they look in the mirror and go, I don’t, I don’t know how to do it. I don’t wanna do it. Or some subsect. So what gets in the way, what happens in our reptilian brain or our, our predisposed ideas where we intellectually read your book and follow your teaching. We get it. We, it makes perfect sense. We get it, but we do not apply it to our own business. What, what are we doing that’s getting in our own way?

What was Ace doing?

What we’re doing and Ace was doing, and they’re all doing what you and I are doing right now. What we’re doing is doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it. We’re not working on it right now. We’re working in it right now. Right. You’re doing what you do. I’m doing what I do. But we’re not entrepreneurs when we do this. Hmm. We’re technicians suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure when we do this. And because of that, this comes so naturally to us, drew.

Right?

You do this so naturally you do this so well. This is your core capability,

Right?

What you miss is what you truly are there to do. And that is to design, build, launch, and grow a business that does that, so that that business can grow into an enterprise.

Yeah.

And when that happens, drew, you’ll not be doing this. Will Drew won’t be doing this. It will.

Yeah.

And when I say it, drew will have two offices. One, the one you are working in now, I’ll call that your hamburger stand. Right. Drew will have a corporate office. Drew goes to work every day in his corporate office. That doesn’t make hamburgers, that doesn’t make french fries, that doesn’t make milkshakes. You understand? Yep. What I’m saying. Yeah. I’m talking about McDonald’s. Right? When Ray Cro got the franchise rights to McDonald’s, he didn’t open restaurant.

He opened two companies. Yeah, you’re right. He opened the corporate office of is McDonald’s. And the operating office of is McDonald’s, the store and the corporate office. Re Crock worked in the corporate office while he worked on the store. But he had a manager who operated the store. He had technicians who work in the store. That’s the distinction. It’s called two Com. It’s called oldco. It’s called NewCo. Nuco is the company.

All of your clients need to be working on. Home Co is where it is right now. So we can have a great conversation about all of that. But simply said, the entrepreneur is the creator of it. The manager is the operator of it. You need to make the distinction between the creator of it and the operator of it. And that distinction is huge. Because until you get that, you’ll be doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it.

Let me give you, let me give you an example. So that’s how happened, I finally said, I gotta leave Ace. So Ace brought in a guy to take my place. That guy’s name was Tom Travisano. So Ace introduces me to Tom, hi Tom. Tom’s gonna take over my role. And so I share with Tom what I’m doing, right? And he says to me, so why are you leaving? And I said, you create my own business doing it. Tom didn’t say anything right? Then he said, well, that’s interesting.

I’d like to, I, I’d like to see more. So Tom in essence followed me around. Hmm. Watching what I was doing with ace’s clients. One day, Tom comes up to me and he said, Michael, this is gonna be challenging for you, but I don’t wanna stay. Stay here with Ace. I’m gonna go with you.

Oh, geez, I made interesting Thanksgiving dinner conversation.

I want to go with you. I don’t want to go with Ace. Right? I wanna go with you. And he did. Hmm. And we founded the very first small business coaching firm. It was called the Michael Thomas Corporation. It was Michael. He was Thomas.

Great.

He had a dream. I had a vision, I had a purpose. I had a mission to said to me, so Michael, what are we gonna do here? I said, well, what we’re gonna do here is essentially what you’ve watched me do in ace’s company. Understand we’re gonna be doing that differently here. The Michael Thomas Corporation is going to become the very first business development firm of its kind. We’re going to work with small business owners to teach them what I’ve been teaching ACEs clients to do, to work on it, not work in it.

And we’re gonna do that, Todd, by doing two things. One, we’re gonna work in it because we’ve got to at the very beginning, right? But while we’re working in it, we’re working on it to design, build, launch, and grow it so we can replace ourselves in it. Because our job isn’t to be there doing it, doing it, doing it every day. Our job is to create a system whereby others who replace us in it will be doing it every single day. Just like a McDonald’s hamburger stand. I said to them,

Yeah,

Ray Croc didn’t work in the hamburger stand. Ray Croc worked in corporate McDonald’s from the very beginning. Ray Croc never worked in the hamburger stent, never made a hamburger, never made a french fry, never made a malted. He created the system by which that work was being done, right? And he recruited, hired and trained others who were going to do it. And that had to be designed, that had to be structured organizationally. That had to be functionally scripted down to a T down to an I scripted pre single thing that’s done is a script.

This is how you do it. This is how you do it, this is how you do it. This is how you do it for free. Single thing that was done in that hamburger stand was, I’m saying a script.

Yeah.

And when I say a script, what I really mean is a process. And a process is really a turnkey system. So McDonald’s was a business format franchise, not just any franchise, but a business format franchise. It’s called the script. The script. The script, yes.

So I’m guessing one of the reasons why ACE Pushback and some of the things that our listeners are thinking about is, that’s great for hamburgers. ’cause they’re all the same, right? It’s a, you got the bun, you got the patty, you got the cheese, you got the whatever. But in our world, in marketing, everything we do is custom. And it’s different for every client. And it requires, it’s not a factory, it’s not a Wonder Bread factory. It is an artisanal bakery where we make something different every day because our clients are coming in with different problems and different products and services and all of that. So we need to take a quick break.

But when we come back, I want you to speak to the idea of how, when you’re not making hamburgers the same hamburger over and over and over again, but literally everything you produce for a client is unique to that client. How do you get over that hurdle? So let’s take a quick break and then we’ll come back and, and you can help us with understanding that, Hey, everybody, just wanna remind you before we get back to the show, that we have a very engaged Facebook group. It’s a private group just for podcast listeners and agency owners that are in the AAMI community. And to find it, if you’re not a member, head over to facebook.com/groups/baba podcast.

So again, facebook.com/groups/ba podcast. All you have to do is answer a few questions to make sure that you are an actual agency owner or leader. And we will let you write in and you can join over 1700 other agency owners and leaders. And I’m telling you, there’s probably 10 or 15 conversations that are started every day that are gonna be of value to you. So come join us. All right? We are back with Michael Gerber, and we are talking about E-Myth and entrepreneurs versus technicians that, as Michael says, has an entrepreneurial seizure. Many of you live in this world every day, where you, you get it, you know you need to be working on the business more than you are.

But it’s so hard to get out of working in the business. So right before the break, I posed the question, this all sounds great when we’re talking about McDonald’s and we’re talking about hamburgers. ’cause there’s only so many ways you can fry the patty. But the work we do is so custom and so specialized. And I think it’s one of the barriers or the blockades that keeps us from going from the intellectual. I’ve read the book, I’ve followed Michael for years. I totally agree with him for everybody’s business. But mine. Michael, what do you say to that?

Yeah. You understand that’s your preference. What you just described is what you believe is true. When I say bullshitter, yeah. In your advertising agency, in your agency, the most spectacular agency in the world would have a script. In short, this is how we position a company. Step one, step two, step three, step four. This is how you position your company.

Step one, step two, step three, step four. As we are doing that work, what I just described, you’re working on it, not in it. Because you’re writing your very own script. When you read a great book on positioning, it’s a script. When you read a great book on marketing, that’s a script. When you read a great book on advertising, that’s a script. When you go online to be mentored by somebody who has created an absolutely extraordinary way to get new clients, that’s a script.

So in short, every great agency to possess great scripts for our way to do what every one of our clients need to learn how to do. And that script is what you call differentiation. Differentiation is the key to great marketing. Learning how to differentiate is what you ought to be teaching every single one of your clients to understand. You don’t teach them how to differentiate in a different way.

You each them how to differentiate in your way then,

And the outcome is unique to them,

Of course. And suddenly, you’re a new kind of agency. And by having that new kind of agency, what have you done? You’ve differentiated yourself from every agency on the planet. Therein resides the McDonald’s of advertising agencies. So hear this very, very simply. There are eight distinct personalities of a great entrepreneur. They call them the dreamer, the thinker, the storyteller, the leader, the designer, the builder, the launcher, the grower.

Now, as you folks are listening to that, you heard what I said, the dreamer, the thinker, the storyteller, the leader, the designer, the builder, the launcher, the grower. Every, every great entrepreneur possesses those capabilities. The dreamer has a dream. The thinker has a vision. The storyteller has a purpose. The leader has a mission. The designer has a client fulfillment system. The builder has a practice, the leader has a business, and so forth and so forth.

The grower in enterprise, Hmm. Did you get that?

Yeah.

The dreamer has a dream. What’s your dream? The thinker has a vision. What’s your vision? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In our dreaming, we teach owners how to become entrepreneurs

By tapping into all of those parts of themselves.

You got it? Yeah. We teach owners how to become entrepreneurs. Why do we do that? ’cause they aren’t true. Hear me. The vast majority of agencies go outta business.

You’re right.

They go outta business. ’cause they don’t understand business. They go outta business. They know how. No. They may know how to write an ad. They don’t know how to run a business that writes ads.

That’s right. That’s our, that’s our work every day. You’re right.

Of course. That’s what you’re teaching, teaching, teaching. Unfortunately, they’re not getting, getting, getting, getting. Because all of the resistance in the world is built around. Yes. But yes, but yes, but true. Right? Yes. But Drew, that’s all what, that’s what the guy is saying. When you say, he read my book, he loves my book. Yes. But it doesn’t apply to us.

Right? Right. It’s good for everybody else.

But you gotta understand, every single small business client I have ever had in the 40 odd years we’ve been doing this, says that not just advertising agencies, physicians, contractors, real estate salespeople, real estate brokers, everybody, every single individual on the planet says what you just said to me. Yes, but Michael, yes, but Michael. ’cause everybody’s got their own thoughts about what they do. Nobody’s ever fought them to do what they do in the way that we’re teaching them what to do.

Just like no saxophone teacher on the planet ever did what Merle Johnston did. So how do we get past our own butt? You just make the commitment to, and then you become a student. You come to entrepreneur school. Entrepreneur school is very, very different. Drew from what you do every day. You understand when you’re doing what you’re doing, you’re a technician suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure. Get up to do it every day. You’re very, very good at what you do. You’re very, very good at what you do. But you don’t have a great business doing what you do.

Right? Drew ought to be doing that. Murray ought to be doing that. Right? You understand? Drew ought to be doing that. Murray ought to be doing that. Judy ought to be doing that. John ought to be doing that. Murray ought to memorize Drew’s script. But Drew doesn’t have a script, right? Drew is the script. ’cause Drew does what Drew loves to do and what Drew is very, very good at doing. But Drew is never gonna create drdo McDonald’s by doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it right.

None of your clients will. I hate to say that ’cause it’s challenging, but it’s true. Yeah. None of your clients will. So I am here to say that every single one of your clients need to learn how to create the McDonald’s of what they do. And I’m saying that Drews grew wonderful enterprise will be to take the system out to every single agency on the planet. All of them. It feeds them how to create their McDonald’s.

Their McDonald’s, to create their Big Mac, to create their Quarter pounder. You understand? Yeah. The product. The product, the product, the product as as opposed to being product you’re gonna design, build, launch, and grow a product that’s going to differentiate them from everybody else on the planet. That’s Drew’s product differentiation. I want you to look up on Google, the word positioning. Every single one of your clients knows the word positioning.

No doubt. Yep.

I want you to look up the word positioning. And what you’re gonna immediately do is you’re gonna find the genius of positioning. I’m not gonna tell you who that is. You’re gonna find the genius of positioning, and then you’re gonna get his book. You’re gonna read that book, it’s gonna blow your mind. It’s gonna blow your mind because it’s going to introduce you to the system by which great positioning is accomplished. Burn key, step one, step, two, step. You’ve got, you’ve got, you get it.

Yep. Yep.

Step one, step two, step three, step four. It’s the system stupid. It’s the system stupid. The minute you get that, drew, you’re gonna see therein resides the true opportunity,

Right?

For creating an immensely exciting product. And the immensely exciting product I’m talking about is the business itself. Because to the degree your agency owners create an immensely exciting product, their agency, they will certainly understand what the opportunity truly is. If you agency is an immensely exciting product that one day you’re going to sell it because somebody’s going to buy it from the one who buys it, isn’t gonna buy it from chump change.

You’re right.

Yep. They’re gonna buy it because it works.

So we do a lot of MA. We do a lot of m and a work. And without a doubt, one of the greatest factors of valuation is defined systems and processes. No doubt about it. You got

It. Yeah. You got it about it. That’s the work we’re talking about. So Drew, the great opportunity when you say yes, but Michael is to understand that the Yes. But Michael is the greatest single problem in the planet,

Right?

They might write, read the book, but they don’t relate to the book because they think what they do is what they need to know how to do. And it’s completely the opposite of the truth. Truth, design, build, launch, and grow a great growing company.

Yeah.

So as an example, where do I spend my time? I’m now 88. Where do I, where do I spend my time? I spend, spend my time not doing this. You do this simply because good at doing this, but primarily to invite people to engage in what I do, who lead do. And what I truly do is to design Michael E companies to transform the state of E-Myth worldwide. And when I say that to design the products within Michael E Bert, companies that transforms the state of small business worldwide.

So I said to you, I have a dream. I have a vision, I have a purpose, I have a mission. My dream is to transform the state of small business worldwide. And it was the dream Amm. And I started out with way back then in 1977. The dream hasn’t changed. The dream hasn’t changed. My vision is to invent the McDonald’s of small business development services. Are you kidding me, Gerber? What in the world does that look like?

I’m saying? Yeah, that’s a great question, drew. We could spend a couple of hours describing what that looks like, right? Because that’s what I’ve been working on to design, build, launch, and grow is is the story that lift at the heart of all this. I’ve been telling you something of the story, but understand the story is a script. And the script is vibrant. The script is alive. The script is what you read in my book. My book is the script, right?

And when you say, people read my book and they fall in love with it, but I’m saying they love the script, but they don’t get the point. The script is something you end up doing, right? Not something you just end up loving. The script is the very heart of my purpose. I’m the dreamer, I’m the thinker, I’m the storyteller. My script, my books are the story I tell and my mission. My mission is my leadership to take every small business owner on the planet out to discover their dream, their vision, their purpose, their mission, and then to go on to their job, which is their client fulfillment system, their practice, which is their business format, franchise, what I call the three-legged stool, lead generation, lead conversion, client fulfillment, the three-legged stool, the business format, franchise prototype.

Absolutely crucial. If you’re gonna go on next to the business and what’s the business, the business is nothing other than up to seven turnkey practices, plus a turnkey management system. And what’s the enterprise? It’s nothing other than up to seven turnkey businesses. It’s a turnkey leadership system. Do you get what I just said?

I, I do. And, and I know what people are saying is, okay, how? How, how do I do this? How

Do I do that? Yeah. That’s such a great question. How you do that is by joining me in the dreaming room, drew. And I’m gonna teach you and every single one of your clients how to do that. And ultimately, you are gonna do that. You are gonna teach every one of your clients how to do that. And ultimately they’re gonna do that. They’re gonna teach everyone how to do that. And as it begins to unfold, you’re gonna see why this is so crucial. Every single small agency on the planet, but hear me, every single one of them aren’t gonna do that.

No. Every single one of them aren’t gonna do that. Because every single one of them are gonna say, yes, but Michael, yes, but Michael, yes, but Michael. And then they’re gonna go their way and I’ll say goodbye.

Right?

I’m gonna say goodbye. Because they don’t understand it. They don’t understand that Ray Crock was a brilliant entrepreneur in what made Ray Crock a brilliant entrepreneur, was the way he started McDonald’s by acquiring the franchise rights from the McDonald Brothers to become the franchisor of McDonald’s.

Yeah.

’cause the McDonald Brothers didn’t want to. And so Ray Crock started at McDonald’s as the franchise or of McDonald’s by opening up two offices. Get this the agency, which is Hamburger store,

Right.

And corporate, which is McDonald’s corporate. McDonald’s corporate doesn’t make hamburgers. McDonald’s corporate makes franchisees.

Yeah. It is interesting that you talk about the McDonald Brothers because in my head then, then I go. So in other words, if we don’t wanna do it for our own business, somebody else will.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Somebody else absolutely will. But you understand that somebody who will, is going to grow exponentially, right?

Yeah. They’re gonna eat our lunch

And you’re not.

Right.

Because they’re gonna get it and understand, get it. Meaning they’re going to apply what they’re reading in my book.

Yeah.

Now you say something very interesting, drew, and everybody says it, Michael, I read your book. What they don’t understand is that I have published 34 books,

Right?

And so they say, I’ve read your book. And what they’re talking about is the E-Myth revisited. They’re not talking about E myth mastery. They’re not talking about the E-Myth manager. They’re not talking about the entrepreneur, the the awakening, the entrepreneur within. They’re not talking about beyond the E myth. They’re not talking about all of my books. And if they were to suddenly read all of my books, they’d suddenly come face to face with the reality of my books. And the reality of my books are really the core methodology or messaging that lives at the heart of entrepreneurship and ear to awaken the entrepreneur within, by transforming the state of small business worldwide, who inventing the McDonald’s of small business development services, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

They do that in the way that I do that. I teach that in the way that I teach that. But I don’t do that in a way to create a great growing company that does that. I left that behind. But you can, and when I say you can, I’m saying that everybody can, If you will. And I’m saying where there’s a will, there’s a way. I got the way, if you’ve got the will.

Yeah.

That’s what I’m saying. Every single client I’ve got the way, if you’ve got the will, that’s what my saxophone teacher was saying to me. You’ve got the way, if you’ve got the will, most of my students don’t have the will. He says, and that’s why they’re no longer my students anymore. He’s the only students who are gonna stay with me. They’ve got the will. They’re absolutely determined to learn what I have to teach them. And they won’t quit. No matter how partially I deal with them every week, they simply won’t quit.

’cause they know they’ve got to. Yeah. Because they know they’ve got to, they’ve gotta discover the one who wants to, Steve Jobs called it passion. I don’t know whether you’ve ever watched any of Steve Jobs speeches. Of course, yes. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. He talked about passion. What does Steve Jobs mean by passion? It wasn’t a passion to serve. It wasn’t the passion to do. It was the passion to create theme jobs was a world famous creator, theme jobs, passion aimed from the passion to create.

In Genesis, it says, born in the image of God. They add to that born to create. I add to that, born to create a world fit for God. Hmm. Great entrepreneurs are great creators. They’re not great technicians, they’re not great managers. They don’t like to do that, do that, do that. They like to create that, create that, create that. When you begin to understand that, you understand that’s the very first component.

The dreamer has a dream. And I ask you, what’s your dream? And I give you a lead on that. My dream was to transform the state of small business worldwide. Your dream is to transform the state of agencies worldwide. Yep. You’re right. Right? Yep. Now, you’re gonna do that by having a vision. What’s your vision to invent the McDonald’s of great agencies? What in the world is the McDonald’s of great agencies?

Well, it’s obvious, it’s turnkey. It’s a methodology. It’s a system by with which a great agency identifies itself on the planet through which a great agency produces a profound impact on its clients and so forth and so forth, and so forth and so forth. Your agencies, your clients will learn how to do that. And the learn how to do that, because they wouldn’t go any place else to learn how to do that, drew, because you are a master of that.

Yeah.

And you’re a master of that because you’ve designed, build, launch, and grown the system through which an agency incorporates that into their very being. And they’ll recognize each other. But because they’ll be different from each other, you understand? They’ll be different from each other utilizing a turnkey system to become different from each other.

Yeah. By his very design.

There you go.

Yeah.

And that’s the magic. Therein resides the magic. And that’s why you’ve been so inspired by my book. I say my book, you’re talking about E myth revision. Yeah.

Right. Well, your work, we’ll call it your work.

Yes. My work. That’s why you’ve been inspired by it. Because intuitively, you know it’s true.

Right?

Pragmatically, you don’t do it in time to add the pragmatic to the intuitive. As you add the pragmatic to the intuitive. Drew goes to work on Drew’s business in a way Drew hasn’t done yet.

Yeah. Right.

And as Drew do, and I’m saying that for every single person listening to us right

Now. For sure. Of course. Right?

Because it’s true of every single one of you. Suddenly world class isn’t just a word, it’s an

Yeah.

And you suddenly begin to see the design, build, launch, and grow of world class agencies to a degree no one has ever done before, ever. Because nobody’s ever understood it the way I’m speaking about it here before. Before now you have no excuse.

Yeah.

You got five folks.

I do. I do. I and I, and I only have 5 million questions left. And I know, and I know we have to wrap this up so you and I can talk offline about having you come back. But, but in the meantime, I do want you to tell people about the dreaming room and the opportunity that they can take to do that as, as we sort of wrap things up. This has been, I, I’m sure people are sitting there going, I have to do this. Okay, I get it. I have to do it. So let’s make sure that they know how they can learn how to do it. So with that, talk a little bit about the work that you now do at at the, at at 88. This is now your passionate work.

Tell us a little more about that.

I’ve been doing this passionate work for the past 10 years. I know I still own close to 50% of E-Myth, but I don’t do E-Myth. Well, what I do with the Michael E Gerber companies is to design eem myth at the future. So I’ve been doing only that right now. I am the technician doing it, doing it doing. But I only do this to introduce people to what I do. And when you talk about the dreaming mode, understand the dreaming room is part of what I call the eightfold path. And so I’m introducing the eightfold path to individuals just like you drew.

So you can introduce the eightfold path to the people you work with, and they can introduce the eightfold path to people they work with and so forth and so forth and so on. Right? Why to realize my dream, it transformed the state of small business worldwide. How do you transform the state of small business worldwide by transforming the state of entrepreneurial development worldwide? And what’s the outcome of all of that? To transform the state of economic development worldwide?

And so when you think about that, think about that as transforming the state of the planet. Because once you begin to understand economic development is the true product of all this. Spiritual development is the true product of all this creative development is the true product of all this. You suddenly see the size and substance of all this. It’s transformational. And so the dreaming room is really an introduction to creating a great growing enterprise.

They introduce the dreamer, the thinker, the storyteller, the leader, the designer, the builder, the launcher, the grower. And I do that in the dreaming room. And the dreaming room really is eight distinct separate steps that I do online over eight weeks with a client. Drew known any one of your clients, Murray, Jim, Jack. Jerry, why awake? The true entrepreneur within. And so in week number one, it’s 90 minutes long.

And I do this, the technician, Gerber is doing this right? For a very important reason to have you doing this for a very important reason, having Jerry doing this

Right?

While you, each and every one of you are creating the great growing enterprise,

You’re here to create, do it, create for yourself, and then do it for others.

Yes. Yeah. You got it. You got it. Yeah. You got it. Yeah. That’s critical. So the whole process by which I introduce every single one of your folks in the dreaming world is eight steps. One 90 minute meeting a week over eight weeks, where I awaken the entrepreneur within each and every one of you. 90 minutes, I’m live, just as I am here now talking about the dream, then the vision, then the purpose, then the vision between that 90 minute session, let’s say we do it every Friday morning for 90 minutes.

Every one of you can ask me questions. What do you mean by this? What do you mean by that? What do you mean by this? What do you mean by that? In the dream section? What do you mean by this? What do you mean by that? In the vision segment? What do you, et cetera. You get my point, right?

Yep.

The reality is they don’t have very many questions because they’re struggling with yes, but yes, but yes. But to the point is, at the end of this eight weeks, some are still struggling with yes, but, but some aren’t.

Right?

The some that aren’t want to go further. Therein resides the opportunity to be mentored directly by me, to go further, and by going further, what am I talking about? To become the ray crock of your industry. To become the McDonald’s of your industry, to understand what your bake Mac is, what your quarter founder is, what your french fry is different from their french fry and their french fry and their french fry. You understand what I mean? Yep. If you, if you’ve, if you’ve ever been to McDonald’s.

Yep. McDonald’s is a, McDonald’s is a brand. It’s a brand. It’s a visual, emotional, functional, and financial brand. Get me, when I say visually, emotionally, functionally, financially, you can see McDonald’s, you can see the golden arches. Golden arches isn’t just any golden arches, McDonald’s golden arches. That’s right. See them. That’s right. Yep. You see them?

Yep. Absolutely. Of course you do. Right?

Everybody does.

Yep. All over the world.

All over the world. And it’s visual,

Right?

It’s everywhere.

Yep.

Think about this. Drew Ray Crock never graduated from high school. Ray Crock never went to college. Ray Croc was 52 years old when he started McDonald’s.

That’s crazy.

Ray Croc started McDonald’s because he got the franchise rights to McDonald’s, the McDonald Brothers. ’cause Ray Crock was selling them molded milk machines. And he said, ’em, they wondered, what are these guys doing with all these molded milk machines? Nobody buys eight molded milk machines.

Right? Right.

I one, so he drove to San Bernardino, California to see what they were doing, but he didn’t go in the store first. He just watched from outside of the store lines of people knowing up to get their bag. Finally, after that subsided, he went in to introduce himself to the McDonald Brothers. And they said, what in the world are you guys doing?

Right? Right.

Never seen lines of people in front of a hamburger stand before. They walk in the door, they get what they get and they leave. They said, oh, we’re so glad you asked us that question. And then they enthralled Ray Croc by showing him the system.

Yeah.

And Ray Croc said, If you ever franchise this, and they said, no, we started to, but we didn’t want to.

Yeah.

They said, come outside and let me show you at the top of that hill. That’s where we live. So we live up there and we come down here, we live up there, and we come down here, we live up there, and we get, ’cause we come in to work in our business. Yeah. Every day. And that’s what we do. And nobody else can do it like we do. Ray Kroc said, but you got a system for doing it. And they said, yeah, we’d love to use the system.

Yeah.

And Ray Kroc said, can I have the franchise rights to do this? They looking kind of puzzled. And they said, well, let us think about that. So Ray Kroc said, think about that. I’m gonna stay here in town for a week or so. Think about that. Say yes. Let me do that.

Yeah.

They ultimately said yes. So they gave Ray Croc the franchise rights to McDonald’s by the agreement they created. Ray Croc went back to this Plains Illinois to open his first store. But Ray Croc didn’t work in the store. Ray Croc opened a corporate office, the very first corporate office of McDonald’s down the street. Ray Croc then visited the store in which he had a manager and employees work on the store’s system. Right. To improve the way the store did.

What the store did. But he didn’t make burgers and he didn’t make fries. It did get that true. He didn’t make burgers, he didn’t make fries. It did.

Yep.

And it was the system that ultimately he replicated in the very first franchise store he created.

Yep.

This is how you do it. This is how you do it. This is who you are, are this is McDonald’s

And undereducated in his fifties. If he can do it, we can do it.

Anybody can. Yeah. That’s the beauty of it. Everybody can, that’s what I’m trying to sell and tell very smart agency clients. Right? Anybody can, and if you’re as smart as you think you are, my God, you can do this like crazy.

Yeah.

Because it’s the system stupid. And once you get that, it’s the system stupid. You then say, yeah, but Michael, how do I do that? And I’m saying, join me in the dreaming room. It’s a $10,000 investment. I’ll spend the eight weeks with you by the time we’re done that eight weeks, you’ll get it or you won’t. If you get it, you’re on your way to building your McDonald’s, your brand of agency, unlike any agency on the planet. And every single one of you will be building your brand. Not his, not mine.

Every single one of you will be designing, building, launching, and growing your unique product, which is your unique company, which is the way you transform the state of whomever you are specializing in. Because understanding, when I say specializing, we had published now 24 vertical market books. The EMyth chiropractor, the EMyth accountant, the EMyth attorney, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. They are my co-authors of those books. They specialize in reaching out to the market.

Right.

How many accountants are there on the planet? Rudy, you know,

A lot,

Many chiropractors, drew, you know? Yeah.

Yeah.

Who do you specialize in? The minute you understand the word specialize, you understand the word differentiation.

Right.

The minute you understand the word differentiation, you understand the word positioning. And that’s what I’m gonna teach every single one of your agency owners to do in a way nobody has ever taught them before. And I’m gonna do that with you, drew. But the I’m ready. First thing I’m gonna do is I’m gonna do that. Who you drew?

I’m ready.

So you’re gonna enroll in my dreaming room.

I am.

I’m gonna walk you through that. And as we go through that, drew, your imagination is going to flourish. Sure. Be saying, oh my God, he can be doing what Michael is doing.

Yep. And

I’m going to have Drew doing what Michael is doing, because then Drew is going to have your clients doing what Drew is doing. All of them aren’t gonna stay. Drew, hear me? They’re not all gonna stay. They’re not all gonna stay because they can’t let go of Yes. But yes, but yes, but yes, but yes. But doesn’t cut it through.

But we can give ’em the opportunity.

You got it.

Yeah.

Isn’t that exciting?

It is. Yes. This, this has been a great conversation. I, I could talk to you for another 12 hours, but so how do people go figure out how to join the dreaming room? How, where do should we send them?

Very, very simple. I’m gonna have Amethyst send you a link.

Okay.

You’ll put up the link and people will go on the link to enroll in the dreaming room.

All right. So everybody that it’ll be in the show notes, I will share it in the Facebook group. I will put it in the newsletter. So I will, I will get it out to all of you in all the ways that we communicate with you. So watch for that later. Hear

Me Drew. But hear me, this is very, very important. You are gonna be with me leading that dreaming room.

I’m in it, I’m ready.

You’re gonna be with me leading that dreaming. So the first one to enroll in the dreaming room is Drew,

Consider it done.

I’m gonna take you through the dreaming room and when we are done, you’re then going to enroll up to 21 of your members in the dreaming room. And the two of us, you and I are gonna lead it.

I, I would be honored to do that with you. That’ll be fun. And

When we’re done, then some of them are gonna wanna lead it.

Yeah.

It’s gonna create a revolution in the agency business.

I’m ready. We want, we, we wanna help as many agencies on the planet as we can. So that is, that is a beautiful way to do it. So I’m ready. So love

It. Thank

You Drew. Michael, thank you so much for your time and for your just effervescence about how passionate you are about this work and your commitment to helping people get past the Yes. But it’s, it’s inspiring and it’s exciting and it’s hard. Hard to I True. It’s hard not to wanna jump right in. So I am Consider me, consider me in Thank you so much for

Me. You got it. Thank you. A pleasure.

You bet. Alright guys, this is without a doubt, probably one of the most get off your rear end and do something different episodes in our 500 episodes. You can choose to do something different. You can choose to move past the yes, but I will get the links out there. You guys can participate in the dreaming room. You can learn how to, as Michael said, ignite that entrepreneur inside you and build something that has a legacy, that builds something that you can sell, that builds something, that allows you to truly deliver against the dream that you had the first day you started the business.

Remember when you were like, I wanna do it different than everybody else. I’ve worked for other agency owners, they don’t do it right. I wanna do it different. I have a vision now. You can put it in play and it can live beyond you. It can live or generations, whether that’s your kids or one of your employees or you sell it to somebody else. But this is the opportunity. So hopefully you are taking notes. Hopefully you are fired up. Watch for the link and come join us in, in the dreaming room. It’s gonna be fun. I can’t wait to learn alongside Michael and alongside you. So, alright, before I let you go, two quick things. Thank you to our friends at White Label IQ. As you know, they’re the presenting sponsor of the podcast.

They do white label design dev and PPC for agencies just like yours every day. They’re born out of an agency so they understand how to price and how to work with agencies and how to take great care of your clients. So check them out at White Label IQ dot com slash aami ’cause they got a special deal for you. And I love hanging out with you every week. Thanks for listening. Thanks for coming back. I’m gonna be back next week. I hope you will too. And I’ll see you then. So thanks for listening.

That’s a wrap for this week’s episode of Build a Better Agency. Visit agency management institute.com to check out our workshops, coaching and consulting packages, and all the other ways we serve agencies just like yours. Thanks for listening.