Summary: Michael Gerber and David Blaise speaking at The ASI Show (many years ago!)<br> <br> One of my earliest business mentors, Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth Revisited and other business classics told me that "many people leave their jobs because they're tired of working for a jerk. Then they start their own businesses and end up working for a maniac!"<br> <br> This is so true. No other person on earth could force us to put in the time, energy and effort required to build and sustain a successful business. No one else could force us to give up a steady paycheck, work unreasonably long hours, and deal with the unpredictable income associated with most small business startups.<br> <br> If anyone else tried to do that to us, it would be illegal! But those of us who choose it, do so willingly. And we often start at a point where we lack both the knowledge and the skills necessary to do it successfully.<br> <br> The scenario is similar for commission salespeople. We eat what we kill. So if we kill nothing this week, we don't eat. And many of the people who tell us what to do may have never done it successfully themselves.<br> <br> <br> <br> This month, in the Top Secrets Inner Circle our focus is on "Breaking Free of Your Business." This means learning to overcome some of the challenges that chain people to their businesses and prevent them from delegating low-dollar tasks. So if you're ready to focus your efforts and free yourself from the tyranny of the urgent, it's time to take control of your business and your life.<br> <br> One of the most popular live training sessions I conduct is called...<br> Breaking Free of Your Business: The Entrepreneur's Path to Independence<br> I originally designed it to help move frustrated, overworked business owners from self-employed wage slaves to liberated entrepreneurs.<br> <br> But since then, I expanded it to include sales professionals whose incomes have also been limited by the increasing demands associated with having to perform low-dollar tasks.<br> Breaking Free from These Scenarios Requires a Path<br> It rarely if ever happens automatically or naturally, because most of the necessary actions are counterintuitive. We lock ourselves into endless catch-22s, telling ourselves that we can't do it all, but we can't afford help. Or, we want to hire people, but we can't find anyone competent or reliable enough to perform the tasks. Or the big one: that no one else can do things as well as we can.<br> <br> That may or may not be true. But either way, it's irrelevant.<br> <br> When the goal is to Break Free and create a business that can run without you -- or even to create a sales career that can be both lucrative and manageable -- things must change. And it's never about finding people who can do things as well as we can. It's about finding those who can be trained to do things better than we can. While first training ourselves on how to make that happen.<br> <br> In my Breaking Free training, I outline...<br> The Three Primary Functions of an Entrepreneur<br> The first step is identifying the best way to perform an important function. What's the best way to identify the types of clients you need to grow your business? What are the best ways to initiate First Contact with them? What is the best way to get them qualified in or out as quickly as possible? These are just a few quick examples.<br> <br> After identifying the best way to perform an important function, the second step is to proceduralize it -- break it down into easy-to-understand steps that could be followed by an employee of average skill. This point is critical, because if you count on hiring superstars only, particularly right out of the gate, you are very likely in for some serious disappointment.<br> <br> Many exceptional performers struggle to proceduralize things because we don't really think about what we do.
