AWAKENING THE

ENTREPRENEUR
WITHIN
How Ordinary People Can Create
Extraordinary Companies
MICHAEL GERBER

MICHAEL GERBER is the founder of business consulting company E-Myth Worldwide. He published his first
book, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What To Do About It in 1981. This
book has gone on to sell millions of copies and is now published in fifteen languages. Since that time, Mr.
Gerber has also published several other E-Myth based books including The E-Myth Manager, The E-Myth
Contractor, The E-Myth Physician and E-Myth Mastery.
The Web site for this book is at www.AwakeningTheEntrepreneur.com
 Awakening the Entrepreneur Within - Page 1

MAIN IDEA
Everyone and anyone has the potential to become an entrepreneur and to create a highly successful company. Great companies
always begin in the mind, heart and imagination of an entrepreneur before anything concrete happens in the real world. What
differentiates the success stories from the also rans is what happens after the spark of the new idea comes to mind. Successful
entrepreneurs turn their ideas into viable businesses all the time. The key is to know how to make this happen.
In particular, there are four dimensions of the successful entrepreneur’s personality which need to come into play during different
stages of the birth or creation of any new business venture:
$

Long-term
The four dimensions of 4 The Leader success
the entrepreneurial
personality
Viable
3 The Storyteller business

2 Workable
The Thinker
concept
New
1 The Dreamer idea

Blank
sheet
Value
If you can get a better understanding of the role each of these dimensions plays in the overall conception and then creation of a
successful business enterprise, you can awaken the entrepreneur within yourself and then go on to create your own business
masterpiece in the future.

Dimension #1 – The Dreamer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 2 - 3

Many times, a dream starts with an epiphany – the bright flash of inspiration where all of a sudden the
dreamer senses what his or her life’s work was meant to be. The dreamer stands on the mountaintop of
imagination and visualizes what could and should be. Dreaming is not all that highly valued in the business
world because it appears to lack substance but the simple fact is without a compelling dream to start the
entrepreneurial process happening, nobody would ever attempt anything new. The central challenge is to
come up with big dreams which move mountains and change the world.
Dimension #2 – The Thinker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 3 - 4
The dreamer suggests “what” should happen and the thinker then develops the “how” everything will work.
The thinker asks all the questions which will lead to the formulation of the business model. The thinker
focuses on matters of uniqueness, delivery, operating assumptions, costs and all the nitty-gritty details.
The thinker obsesses over what problem will be solved and how. When the dreamer and the thinker work
together, the end result is an idea which is more compelling and viable.
Dimension #3 – The Storyteller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 5
Storytelling is all about wrapping the idea up into a presentation which is memorable, compelling and
alluring. The storyteller takes the raw idea suggested by the dreamer and the down-to-earth delivery
systems contributed by the thinker and looks for the creative spark which always lies at the heart of a
memorable story. A good storyteller will then “road test” the idea to one extent or another trying it out on
different groups of people and taking note of how they react until the idea is shaped and polished into
something that rings true.
Dimension #4 – The Leader. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 6 - 8
The leader assumes responsibility for making things happen. In particular, leaders want to be held
accountable for progress and results. The dreamer suggests where to head. The thinker contributes the
framework for how to make that happen. The storyteller injects the enthusiasm needed to overcome inertia
and the leader then brings every element together and executes. Great leaders are focused, organized,
innovative and highly discriminating about what they do. They also are excellent communicators. The
leader takes the platform created by the dreamer, the thinker and the storyteller and gets it where it needs
to be.

The four dimensions of
the entrepreneurial 1 The Dreamer
personality
Many times, a dream starts with an epiphany – the bright flash of
inspiration where all of a sudden the dreamer senses what his or
her life’s work was meant to be. The dreamer stands on the
mountaintop of imagination and visualizes what could and
should be. Dreaming is not all that highly valued in the business
world because it appears to lack substance but the simple fact is
without a compelling dream to start the entrepreneurial process
happening, nobody would ever attempt anything new. The
central challenge is to come up with big dreams which move
mountains and change the world.
Before you can start coming up with an idea that will serve as the
foundation for a new business, you first need to understand and
appreciate the five realities which all entrepreneurs face:
The five entrepreneurial realities
1 Every entrepreneur is an “inventor”
2 Entrepreneurs don’t buy businesses; they create
3 The entrepreneurial bug is incredibly contagious
4 The only measure of success is growth
5 In reality everyone can be an entrepreneur
1. Every entrepreneur is an “inventor” – not that he or she needs
to come up with new products from scratch but more in the
sense entrepreneurs look at a situation and ask openly:
“What’s missing in this picture?” or “What can be done
better?” The entrepreneur then comes up with the genesis of
an idea for a business that will provide the product or service
which is required.
2. Entrepreneurs don’t buy businesses; they create them –
which means rather than using someone else’s systems,
they create robust and dynamic new companies from the
ground up. Business opportunities are for technicians or
managers who want to run something for themselves.
Entrepreneurs have to work on building something new.
3. The entrepreneurial bug is incredibly contagious –
entrepreneurs love to bask in the delight of people who are
exposed to their new idea for the first time. They crave the
accolades of happy customers and live for the opportunity to
build a successful business venture based on their ideas.
4. The only measure of success an entrepreneur uses is growth
– the faster their new business grows, the more successful
they feel. To get caught up in a slow- or no-growth business is
something entrepreneurs avoid like the plague. Every
entrepreneur wants to create a business that thrives.
5. In reality everyone possess the ability to be an entrepreneur
– to create a new business on the strength of an original and
very tightly focused idea. Not everyone will have the patience
it requires to develop the skills required to take a raw idea and
turn it into a lucrative business but everyone could do this if
they so chose. Entrepreneurs are made rather than born that
way and becoming one is a deliberate choice.
Awakening the Entrepreneur Within - Page 2
Dreaming, in the context of becoming an entrepreneur, isn’t
generally a one-off event. Certainly there can be moments when
a single event generates the spark that sets the entire process
going but most times more of a chain reaction is required. This
domino effect can have up to five different phases:
The Negative
The Awakening Reaction The Epiphany
1 2 3 4 5
Blank New
sheet idea
The Realization The Impersonal
Dream
1. The Awakening – finding some activity which sets your mind
racing as you see an opportunity which you’d never before
noticed. The awakening happens when you suddenly sense
there is a new and unexplored path to go down that just feels
right for you, not necessarily for anyone else. It is to notice an
entirely new and fresh opportunity.
2. The Realization – the sensing that you’re standing on the
edge of something which is big and important. Sometimes
you have to pause and take a step or two backwards to gain
the big picture perspective of what’s just happened. As you
realize something big is possible, your interest is piqued.
3. The Negative Reaction – which always arises when your
logical mind starts questioning what your imagination just
proposed. The dreaming part of your brain can think thoughts
without limitations but the logical part of your brain gets
worried whenever that happens mainly because it wants to
avoid embarrassment. Whenever you come up with a great
new idea, that will trigger some degree of internal conflict and
tension. Be prepared for that conflict and focus on how you’ll
move forward, not on what can possibly go wrong.
4. The Impersonal Dream – which means instead of worrying
about what you want, you start seeing your future customers
and how you can serve them better as a result of your new
idea. Entrepreneurs want to treat their customers better than
anyone else is treating them at the present time. What you
want personally has nothing to do with anything of
significance. All you want to do is focus on the unmet
customer needs you want to gear up to address.
5. The Epiphany – the sudden shock when you suddenly
visualize what your idea will produce when it has been fully
developed and encased within a system which will work
irrespective of the different people who get involved.
The whole point is entrepreneurs dream of changing the world
and then go out and convert those good intentions into solid
results. This is never the work of an idle moment or a casual
daydream. Instead, the idea will go through the five phases
mentioned above. It will be more akin to a roller-coaster ride than
to a lightbulb going on in your mind. Viable business ideas almost
seem to take on a life of their own independent of their initiator –
or at least that’s what you hope will happen. Dreams inspire the
passions and then entrepreneurs get to work making those
passions work in their favor.

“The Dream is what creates a new business. If it’s a great dream,
a great idea, it is about a great business. If it’s a small dream, a
small idea, it’s about an ordinary business. A small dream, a
small idea, creates a small business that will always be small.
Only a great Dream has the power within it to create a great
business. The great Dream may not actually be sufficient to
create a great business, but without a great Dream there is no
chance that you will ever create a great business. A great
business doesn’t have to be a big business, but it will have the
power to become one.”
– Michael Gerber
“I believe there are two ways to look at a blank sheet of paper.
The first way is that the blank sheet is the most frightening thing
in the world because you have to put down the first mark and
figure out what to do with it. The other way is to look at it and say,
‘Wow, I’ve got another blank piece of paper. This is the greatest
opportunity in the world because I can now let my imagination fly
in any direction and I can create whole new things’. I have spent a
good part of my life convincing people that the blank sheet is the
greatest opportunity in the world and is not frightening at all.”
– Marty Sklar, executive vice president,
Walt Disney Imagineering
“The entrepreneur dreams about results, always results, and
nothing other than results. The results are for someone else, not
for the entrepreneur. It is results that transform the world. And it
is a great Dream that creates results.”
– Michael Gerber
“The greatest crisis of our lives is neither economic, intellectual,
nor even what we usually call religious. It is a crisis of
imagination. We get stuck on our paths because we are unable
to reimagine our lives differently from what they are right now.
We hold on desperately to the status quo, afraid if we let go, we
will be swept away by the torrential undercurrents of our
emptiness.”
– Marc Gafni, author
“It is time to dream. It is time to care about something bigger than
you. It is time to imagine something sorely needed in the world –
the world you live in – that somebody would pay to have. It’s time
to look around you and ask yourself, ‘What’s missing in this
picture?’ Every place you look, if you look carefully and with
interest, you will find something missing in this picture. Services
aren’t being provided as promised. Products aren’t being
delivered as promised. Nothing is easy; everything is difficult.
Everywhere you look, people are doing without. Not without what
there is plenty of, but without what is unavailable to them. What’s
missing in the picture of your life? How many opportunities do
you see for you to transform into opportunities for some
customer? How many ways do you see to begin the pursuit of the
impossible?”
– Michael Gerber
“The E-Myt h says that technicians suffering from an
entrepreneurial seizure believe that because they understand
how to do the work of the business they intend to start, they are
automatically gifted with an understanding about how to build
and grow a business that does work. I call that the ‘fatal
assumption’. Fatal, because most small businesses that start
that way, fail that way. By believing that running a business is all
about work, most small businesses don’t work; the people who
start, run, and attempt to succeed in them, do work hard but fail.”
– Michael Gerber
Awakening the Entrepreneur Within - Page 3
The four dimensions of
the entrepreneurial 2 The Thinker
personality
The dreamer suggests “what” should happen and the thinker
then develops the “how” everything will work. The thinker asks all
the questions which will lead to the formulation of the business
model. The thinker focuses on matters of uniqueness, delivery,
operating assumptions, costs and all the nitty-gritty details. The
thinker obsesses over what problem will be solved and how.
When the dreamer and the thinker work together, the end result
is an idea which is more compelling and viable.
The thinker takes the raw dream and figures out exactly what
needs to be done and what needs to happen in order for
everything that’s desired to happen. The thinker maps
everything out so the pieces can come together. The thinker
turns a “great idea” into a “great reality”.
The process by which the thinker takes apart the dream and puts
it back together again in a workable format generally follows this
kind of pattern:
Break the idea Begin replacing
down into its generalities with
component parts specifics
6 7 8 9
New Workable
idea concept
Start talking Develop a
with potential business model
customers that may fit
6. Break the idea down into its component parts – figuratively
take your dream apart in your mind and study every minute
detail. Look at how you can improve or optimize each part of
the dream. Once you’ve worked through all the details
thoroughly, you can then put your idea together again and
see whether it’s better than when you first started. As you go
through the process of breaking down your idea, both your
creative mind and your logical mind will become involved.
You can then come back and build a world-class idea piece
by piece if possible. You can also start zeroing in on the key
issues which will need to be addressed in the days and weeks
ahead, such as:
• What will this new enterprise do?
• How will it add value for its customers?
• What will be the products and services offered?
• Why those offerings?
• How will the enterprise make money?
• Who else will need to be involved?
• What kinds of personalities will need to be in management?
• How will this be better than existing options?
• Will our competitive advantage be sustainable?
• What is our success model to emulate?

7. Start talking with potential customers – run your business
idea past them and gauge what their initial reaction is. This
will validate whether you’re targeting a problem they feel
intensely enough to pay to do something about it. Talking
with a few potential customers also gives you an opportunity
to learn what’s going on in their minds. This helps you bring
your idea down to earth so you can see it, touch it, feel it and
most importantly improve it. Talking with bona fide
customers also helps you get a feel for what will be involved
in actually serving those people. Your idea will begin to take
form as you talk and get feedback on what they’re thinking.
You’ll naturally be passionate about what you’re suggesting
so you can also see whether or not future customers will
share that feeling. Don’t forget to take written notes as you
talk with people so you can go back and reflect on their
insights at a later stage. Jot down all your impressions and
fresh ideas as you go along.
8. Begin replacing generalities with specifics – as your idea
becomes more developed and structured. Every raw idea is
of necessity vague and malleable. As the idea then becomes
more structured, it will begin to take on a life of its own.
Inspiration will start to be replaced by systems and structures
for getting things done. Start to narrow in on things and
specify what is needed rather than leaving things fuzzy and
incomplete and vague. Again, make sure you write things
down as you go. Just knowing that you’re recording every
idea that comes to you will increase the flow of fresh ideas.
9. Develop a business model that may fit – because the
business model lies at the heart of every successful
company. A business model doesn’t have to be complex to
be good. You simply describe how you will make money.
Note that at this point in the process, you’re not trying to come
up with a new and improved business model. Rather, your
intention is to fulfill your dream and the business model you
choose needs to be solid enough to convince yourself and
others your idea will be viable enough to be at least
self-sustaining. Your business model selection has to
answer the unstated question: “How are we ever going to get
this done?”
Business models can take many shapes and forms. To name
just a few options, imagine you’re considering setting up an
Internet business to sell information. To make money,
several business models are obvious:
■ You can set up a Web site and attract lots of regular
visitors and then sell advertising on your Web site to
interested third parties.
■ You can sell stuff directly to the people who visit your Web
site and make money that way.
Your choice of which business model to adopt will then color
and influence subsequent decisions and actions. Choosing a
business model changes your perspective whether you’re
aware of it or not. It means you concentrate on one type of
customer rather than another. It also orients your thinking to
one segment of the larger market, which is good. Great
business ideas link to solid business models. In many ways,
your business model will only be as good as your original
business idea. The strength or weakness of that initial
business idea will be founded upon your determination to do
things better than anyone else has ever done them before.
Solid business ideas are strengthened by the availability of a
viable business model.
Awakening the Entrepreneur Within - Page 4
“The E-Myth says most businesses and the people who start
them fail because they are doing the wrong work. I call this work
‘doing it, doing it, doing it’. The work of being the business, rather
than building the business. After teaching, coaching, training,
and mentoring over 60,000 small business clients in the E-Myth
methods, mind-set, and E-Myth process for changing that
condition into one that works, I have discovered everything we
have taught our clients at E-Myth, while essential for growing a
business once you’ve begun it, isn’t nearly essential enough.
What happens in a small and growing business after it’s been
started is only one small piece of the puzzle. It’s what happens
before one starts a business that’s the key, and most essential,
ingredient to business success. The realization that I’ve come to
is that the true start-up of a business is what happens before you
start up.”
– Michael Gerber
“The start-up is you and nothing but you. For you to be
successful at creating an entrepreneurial company, something
quintessential has to occur inside of you before you open your
business’s doors, something I call the Moment of Inspiration, or
that ‘sudden seeing’. The sudden seeing is the epiphany that
happens when in one inscrutable, revelatory instant, the world
reveals its secrets to you.”
– Michael Gerber
“You need to pay attention to your Dream every day. Especially
now you’ve invited your Thinker to help you left-brain it. The
Thinker is the left-brained side of the right-brained Dreamer who,
as a now intelligently emerging and evolving creator, is
beginning the rich, incredibly creative process of inventing your
new enterprise; what it does, how it does it, why it does it that
way, and how it makes money. You, as the awakening new
entrepreneur, are not only here to embrace your Dream, but to
protect it and defend it. All it has is you. Because all it is is you.”
– Michael Gerber
“As you can tell, when you move from the Dream Stage to the
Vision Stage of your company, the form of your company
becomes specific as opposed to general, and the specificity is
likely to beg you to ask more questions than you’re capable of
answering. Ask those questions! Never stop asking those
questions. The answers will shock you, or dismay you, because
you have no idea how you are going to do what your answers tell
you to do.”
– Michael Gerber
“You can never take too many notes. Write notes wherever you
are. Get a memo pad and call it ‘Notes to Myself’. Begin to write
down whatever, and I mean whatever, comes to mind. Just let it
all come out. Write, write, write, to release the flood of
impressions you are experiencing.”
– Michael Gerber
“Think kick-ass quality. Put that in your brain. Think about what
the words ‘kick ass quality’ mean in every aspect of your
business – visually, emotionally, functionally, financially. Make a
list of all the attributes your new company will possess. Keep a
pad by your side everywhere you go and take copious notes
under the categories ‘Visual, Emotional, Functional, Financial’.
Remember, creating a Vision is as much about dreaming as
creating a Dream is.”
– Michael Gerber

The four dimensions of
the entrepreneurial 3 The Storyteller
personality
Storytelling is all about wrapping the idea up into a presentation
which is memorable, compelling and alluring. The storyteller
takes the raw idea suggested by the dreamer and the
down-to-earth delivery systems contributed by the thinker and
looks for the creative spark which always lies at the heart of a
memorable story. A good storyteller will then “road test” the idea
to one extent or another trying it out on different groups of people
and taking note of how they react until the idea is shaped and
polished into something that rings true.
In order to get the help of the people you need to get involved so
you can grow your new business enterprise, you have to take on
the role of the storyteller. This is nothing to do with natural ability
but everything to do with communication and motivation. The
storyteller captures the essence of the dream and the rationale of
the thinker’s contribution and wraps both in an engaging
narrative which ideally moves people to get on the bandwagon.
In one sense, storytelling is an art form in and of itself. From the
context of acting as an entrepreneur, however, there are three
elements involved in storytelling of this kind:
Begin with who you are Keep your story growing and
and what you’re all about evolving as you learn more
10 11 12
Workable Viable
concept business
Expand and elaborate
your underlying story
10. Begin with who you are and what you’re all about – your
purpose in becoming an entrepreneur. By defining your
purpose in vivid terms and outlining the importance of what
you’re doing, you can talk about the impact you hope to have
on the world. This will engage people because you’re doing
something more interesting than business-as-usual. The fact
you have an urge to serve your customers and help solve
their problems will appeal. Everyone wants to make a
difference in the world – this is an integral part of the human
psyche. As people hear about your purpose, they will
become caught up in the unfolding drama.
11. Expand and elaborate your underlying story – act as a guide
rather than a censor. Let your story grow in importance and
significance as you talk with more people. Draft new ideas
and integrate them into an expanded version of your concept.
Engage your passions and the energy and enthusiasm of
those you interact with to come up with something you
personally feel very passionate about. Welcome the
opportunity to tell your story in every venue you can imagine.
Psychologists have long known a person becomes what he
or she thinks about most of the time so take a step down the
path towards accomplishing what you’re talking about. Keep
envisioning the story until it becomes everything you’re
focusing on.
Awakening the Entrepreneur Within - Page 5
12. Keep your story growing and evolving as you learn more –
which simply requires that you commit to creating a truly
great story. Keep reminding yourself you are in the driver’s
seat. The Dreamer, the Thinker, the Storyteller and the
Leader all depend on you believing you can do something
noteworthy. For your life’s mission to be accomplished,
someone somewhere has to accept final responsibility to get
everything done, and that person has to be you. Put yourself
on the line and make the right things happen.
“A great Dream is essential to building a great business. And a
great business is essential if you are ever going to beat the odds
of small business failure. It’s the only way to succeed. What’s a
great Dream? A great Dream is a great idea for a business that
blows people’s minds. A great Dream is what created
McDonalds, Starbucks and Federal Express. A great Dream is
what makes great businesses stand above all the rest.”
– Michael Gerber
“What is your Purpose? What is the importance of what you are
doing? What impact will it have on the people your business is
being invented to serve? How do you speak about the urge to
serve? Tell a story about it at your place of worship, at the
Kiwanis Club, at the YMCA. Tell it at a chamber of commerce
breakfast meeting. See yourself saying it; ‘I woke up one
morning with the urge to serve. I had no interest in serving before
that moment. I don’t know why, or what happened, but I was
suddenly called to do something new and different with my life.
To find something I could serve to make a difference in the
world’. That’s how a great story begins, it begins inside, inside
you, with an inspired moment, a thought, a question, a sudden
shift in attention. It starts with a feeling something is missing in
this picture. This is the time to pursue your Story.”
– Michael Gerber
“Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It’s like being
possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won’t let you. So
you have to get up and make it into something, and then you’re
allowed to sleep. It’s always in the middle of the bloody night, or
when you’re half-awake or tired, when your critical faculties are
switched off. So letting go is what the whole game is.”
– John Lennon
“I am certain the Google boys knew – and know – their story. I am
certain that Bill Gates knew and knows his, too. I am certain that
Frank Lloyd Wright knew his story. And that Gandhi did, too. I am
certain Picasso knew his story, and Einstein did, as well. I am
certain that George Washington and Benjamin Franklin knew
their stories, as did Mother Teresa. I am certain every single one
of the men and women who championed something of
significance in their life knew their story cold, and their lives were
a projection of that story. They were there to infuse their story
with their vitality, to manifest their story in any way they could.
The stories I speak of are everywhere you look! There are people
everywhere. Six billion of them. They do without. They will
always do without until the entrepreneur within you awakens to
their lack, to their longing, to their pain, to their frustrations. All
you need to do is look. To watch them and to get to know them.
That’s where your Great Story is. After all is said and done, you
are the only one who is going to make this Story come true. You
are going to make the decision to either create a Great Story or
not. It all comes back to you. Your contribution to the world will
not happen without you. Your invention will not be invented
without you.”
– Michael Gerber

The four dimensions of
the entrepreneurial 4 The Leader
personality
The leader assumes responsibility for making things happen. In
particular, leaders want to be held accountable for progress and
results. The dreamer suggests where to head. The thinker
contributes the framework for how to make that happen. The
storyteller injects the enthusiasm needed to overcome inertia
and the leader then brings every element together and executes.
Great leaders are focused, organized, innovative and highly
discriminating about what they do. They also are excellent
communicators. The leader takes the platform created by the
dreamer, the thinker and the storyteller and gets it where it needs
to be.
Once the dreamer, the thinker and the storyteller have each
done their jobs well, it’s then time for a leader to get involved and
make things happen. The concept of applying leadership even
before an enterprise exists may sound somewhat paradoxical
but without a leader coming onboard, the idea will never make
the transition from planning to reality.
A solid leader will have a number of personality traits:
• He will be committed to the dream, the vision and the purpose.
• He will have the tenacity to keep going.
• He will be capable of creating clear operating standards.
• He will have the ability to attract other quality people.
• He will embody all the desired values and standards.
In addition, the leader of a new enterprise such as this will also
need to have several other useful capacities:
• He will know how to produce results with little or no capital.
• He will learn how to produce results with little information.
• He will be able to learn to produce results with no experience.
• He will be happy to do what others consider impossible.
• He will be able to learn how to inspire people.
• He will know how to manage people without belittling them.
• He will learn how to communicate so well people buy-in.
• He will be capable of replicating successes over and over.
• He will learn from and rise above failure.
In short, you need a leader who is perfectly capable of becoming
world-class in your industry, and who compliments that potential
by having the requisite strengths in handling people and teams
as they work towards goals which are constantly evolving and
changing. He or she will need a strong grounding in business
basics plus people skills and marketing know-how.
Make selecting your leader
one of the most important Take your
decisions you make first steps
13 14 15 16
Viable
business
Let the leader start building Set your rollout
the DNA of your enterprise target date
Awakening the Entrepreneur Within - Page 6
Leaders are vital to the establishment of a new business
because they develop and then execute the formal action plans
required to make things happen. Again, a domino effect is in play
here. You need to work through eight distinct phases:
13. Make selecting your leader one of the most important
decisions you make – because it is. In practice, you’ll be
entrusting your leader with the entire financial and creative
future of your enterprise. Who he or she chooses to hire will
determine whether you sink or swim. Therefore, you need a
leader who not only agrees with your dream, your vision and
your purpose but also one who is enthralled with these
elements. If you decide to take on the leadership role
yourself, make certain you have the right stuff. To pull this off,
you’ll require:
■ Money management skills – an understanding of cash
flows, balance sheets, income statements, financial
forecasting, control of expenditures to budget, etc.
■ People skills – the capacity to attract and retain quality
people who can work to a high standard of performance.
■ Knowledge of the marketing, lead generation and client
fulfillment disciplines.
■ A deep understanding of your enterprise’s primary
customers.
■ The personal capacity to create a mission plan and then
implement it.
14. Let the leader start building the DNA of your enterprise – the
“goose that lays the golden egg”, figuratively speaking. The
DNA of any enterprise is its replicable systems at three
levels:
■ A self sufficient operating unit which generates its own
leads, converts those leads into sales and then fulfills the
customer order. This becomes your enterprise’s core
competency which can be scaled exponentially. All
systems need to be documented so they can be
fine-tuned and replicated later on.
■ A business management system is required which
enables the leader to monitor, control and then improve
the business practices over time.
■ An enterprise system which can aggregate the output of
multiple business units and apply the best practices which
emerge from these units across the entire company for
maximum effect.
In this manner, a highly successful business can be built from
the ground up by first finding what works well and then
replicating it over and over.
Apply your Let the enterprise
imagination to take on a life
execution of its own
17 18 19 20
Long-term
success
Let the mission Stand back and let
reveal itself the floodgates open

15. Take your first steps – begin with the end in mind. This will
feel a little tentative at first, but remind yourself nobody has
hands-on experience in what you’re trying to do until you start
trying to get things done. Let your leader start taking the
steps that move things forward with you walking alongside.
16. Set your rollout target date – the date on which your first beta
prototype can be made available. Obviously, the sooner is,
the better. Have your leader put together a lean budget to
launch the first version of what you want to offer customers.
The prototype won’t have all the bells and whistles you would
expect to integrate as you go along but it should be powerful
enough to validate the demand exists. It should prove your
new enterprise will be profitable, even in its developmental
stage if at all possible.
17. Apply your imagination to execution – the key to unlocking
the power and vitality of your entrepreneurial mind-set. Be
aware at this stage your imagination is the heart of your new
business enterprise. Your new company is the product of
your mind and heart so keep on injecting more energy and
passion into it. Approach this as if you were in the process of
inventing what will become your life’s signature work so make
certain everything is optimized and done well.
18. Let the mission reveal itself – or in other words throw out your
misconceptions and deal with all the details required to get to
the market. Loads of people try to claim expert status by
telling you what cannot be done. Keep reminding yourself
you don’t have to have experience in business to invent a
great business. Bill Gates had never started another
company before he built Microsoft. The Google founders had
never even left college before they came up with the central
idea at the heart of their enterprise. Martha Stewart, Richard
Branson, Debbie Fields and even the founders of Bill & Jerry
built their businesses from the ground up without any prior
experience and without any big money to back them. If you
have a dream, a vision and a purpose, a mission will reveal
itself while you’re in the trenches doing what you committed
to doing. Press on with the full confidence you actually have
everything you need to succeed so find a way to move
forward. Keep awakening the entrepreneur within.
19. Let the enterprise take on a life of its own – keep pushing until
you reach a point at which there is no way out. This may or
may not be a singular, solitary event but at some point, the
idea you gave birth to will assume its own life force. It will
reach a point at which everyone will start to take it seriously
rather consider it a curiosity which may or may not pan out. In
business this is often referred to as achieving “critical mass”.
It marks a point-of-no-return because once your enterprise
takes on a life of its own, nothing is going to stop it. Your
business will do what you’ve envisaged whether you’re
involved or not – which is quite a powerful thing to realize.
20. Stand back and let the floodgates open – let your enterprise
do what it was designed to do.
“We are awakening the entrepreneur within you to build a unique
Enterprise. An ‘Enterprise’ is a very large company. It will be
large, because nothing else will satisfy the Entrepreneur within
you. It will be unique because that is what entrepreneurs do.
‘Unique’ means it does something no one else does, or it does
something in a way no one else does it. But you have to start from
where you are. And where you are right now is an Economy of
One. There is just you. And that is where the Golden Pyramid
begins; with you, just you, an Economy of One.”
– Michael Gerber
Awakening the Entrepreneur Within - Page 7
The “Golden Pyramid” begins when you invent a new company
using nothing but your imagination. You start with a blank piece
of paper and come up with a small business that makes money.
The Golden Pyramid then suggests that if you can invent one
small company you can just as easily invent one hundred. All you
need to do is find something that works and then clone it a
hundred times with the appropriate control systems added.
Economy
of one
The Golden
Pyramid
Large commercial enterprise –
economy of a hundred +
The real secret of the Golden Pyramid is that there is no secret. If
you can build one unique business that works, you can build a
hundred. You can build a world-class company starting from
where you are today and using only the skills, capital and
knowledge you already have at hand. The mechanism by which
this happens is to invent a company that is scalable (like a highly
systemized franchise) and transformational (that makes the
world a better place).
The Golden Pyramid strategy is:
1. Identify your current skill base – what you already do so well
people are willing to pay you to do the same thing for them.
You will have a number of skills so pause and evaluate what
you’re currently very good at.
2. Make a comprehensive list – of every market niche you could
conceivably provide a service to based around your current
skills. These will become your customer categories so be
thorough.
3. Identify your trading zone – the geographical area where the
majority of your ideal customers live. For a bricks-and-mortar
business, for example, this may be people who live within a
ten minute’s drive from your location.
4. Pick the ten customer categories which appeal the most –
using whatever criteria you choose. Come up with a short list
of market niches you want to work with first.
5. From that short list, pick the single most attractive customer
category – the one customer category you want to target first.
How you choose is entirely up to you but you may consider
selecting whichever customer category is:
• Already growing rapidly.
• Demonstrating a compelling need for what you offer.
• Familiar and well known to you.
• Sizeable and still growing strongly.
• Big enough to warrant national expansion in the future.
• Closely aligned with your core capabilities.
• Reasonably unserved by potential customers.
• A combination of these factors.

6. Learn everything you can about this customer category –
absolutely everything there is to know. Imagine you are going
to write a doctoral thesis about these customers. Make a list
of what you need to know and then track down all the
information you can. Keep going until you know how these
customers think, where they live, what their homes are like,
what foods they eat, what clothes they like to wear, what
kinds of entertainment they seek – everything. You have to
know what frustrates them and what makes them get
enthusiastic if you’re going to be able to serve them well.
7. First design your client fulfillment system – from front to back
meaning from the first customer contact right through to
providing after-sales support and service. Take your system
apart, design each little piece and then reassemble
everything again and again until it comes clearly into focus.
Design your client fulfillment system and be able to describe
in fine detail:
• What the visual experience of dealing with you is like.
• The customer’s emotional experience.
• The actual functional experience, with all its parts.
• The financial experience.
8. Then design your lead conversion system – how you will turn
those who express interest in your offering into a paying
customer. Give this considerable thought. This system will
specify what happens when a prospective customer shows
up at your door or contacts you for more information.
Systemize this in detail rather than leaving things to chance.
Develop a flow chart of the points you would cover as you
walk that person through the sales process. Work on the
basis your prospective client doesn’t need to be convinced,
he or she needs to be cared for. How you achieve that is your
lead conversion system. Write it down, practice it, fine-tune it
and road test it. Once you have a robust conversion system
that works, you’re well on your way to success.
9. Next develop your lead generation system – how you’re
going to make people aware of what your business has to
offer. In most cases, this is a matter of making an implicit
promise to prospective customers that you’ve solved their
problem in a way nobody else has ever done before and you
want them to experience it. You need to let people know your
company has marshaled the resources required so they can
benefit from all the prepatory work you’ve already done. You
need to assure them what you offer is great value for money
and will produce a result they will love. You then specify the
vehicles by which you will get the word out and any validation
of your lead generation system which has already taken
place.
10. Test the effectiveness of all three systems – by building a
successful standalone pilot operation. Show that you can
generate leads, convert those leads into sales and then fulfill
the orders generated. Gather statistical data on each
system’s effectiveness and analyze that data each day. As
you fine-tune each of these systems, you’ll be building a
robust business model. At this stage, you’ll be the chief
executive office, the chief financial officer and the chief
marketing officer for your fledgling enterprise so look at your
operation from each of these perspectives. Keep doing this
until you get everything working like a Swiss watch.
Awakening the Entrepreneur Within - Page 8
11. Document your business – get everything you’ve learned
and all your systems down on paper. Document everything
as if you were going to sell a franchise and you want the
purchaser to be able to immediately get all three systems up
and operating effectively. Create an operations manual.
You’ve invested a lot of time and money in getting your
business to this stage so you have some very valuable
intellectual property and expert systems. Get everything
down on paper so someone else would know how to make
their similar business a success.
12. Create a partner agreement – perhaps with the help of an
attorney with skills in this area. Make certain what you
develop is completely legal but at the same time protects
your intellectual property.
13. Recruit your first partner – someone who wants to do what
you have already done. Train your partner on everything
you’ve learned from firsthand experience. Make it easy for
your partner to also bring in other partners in the future. Take
full advantage of the additional ideas and suggestions your
partner may contribute. Make certain your partner is at least
as successful as you are and hopefully even more so.
14. Train your partner thoroughly in everything he or she needs
to know – and document how you do this. Develop a training
system which you can use over and over in the future or
which others can use to get new people up to speed.
15. Build a robust business management system – a system
which will enable you to:
■ Monitor the performance of each of your standalone
business units.
■ Capture and document any improvements to your
business operating systems which come to light.
■ Gradually expand your core competencies into other
fields of interest.
16. Replicate your business – set up more and more standalone
operations each of which is a successful commercial entity.
You may find it helpful to organize your businesses into
districts or some other grouping.
The whole point of the Golden Pyramid is if you can build one
successful standalone business, you can build a hundred or
more. In fact, the greater the number of standalone businesses
which come under your umbrella, all kinds of other dynamics and
economies of scale start to kick in. The pyramid is all built on the
effectiveness, efficiency and brand worthiness of your first
business, multiplied by one hundred or more. And even more
strikingly, the Golden Pyramid strategy is self funding. You won’t
require huge chunks of capital to build your business this way –
which has always been the approach used by Wal-Mart,
McDonalds and Starbucks.
Note also the Golden Pyramid enables everyone to become
more entrepreneurial. You can encourage any of your partners
to build their own Golden Pyramids in different vertical markets
within your industry or in completely different industries. By
observing what you’ve done, they can do something
comparable. You may also wish to partner with them as they
build their own standalone organizations in other industries.
There are no limits to the possibilities except those you impose
yourself.