A Life Spent Reading

First, let’s be clear about what this book is: a guide for entrepreneurs (which is what the “E” in the title stands for, not anything to do with the Internet) on how to make their small businesses function better. And there is some good advice in here. Michael C. Gerber’s insights into treating your business like a franchise, even if it isn’t one, the distinction between working on your business instead of working in it and so on are valuable and, I would think, pertinent to anyone who starts a business and then finds himself wondering how to get on top of it.

Unfortunately, this valuable message could have been condensed into about 50 pages — and the book tops out at almost 270. I have to say that I have rarely read a book in which the writing style was so obtrusively awful. Gerber uses three main techniques to get his point across. One is that about half the book is told in the form of an extended “fireside chat” he has with a client of his, a woman who ostensibly owns a bakery. The tone of this chat is so full of cloying 1950s paternalism that I wonder if he has any female readers at all. Even the choice of his “business client”… I mean, come on: a woman with a bakery? I guess a food business made things easier to explain, as Gerber holds McDonald’s up as the ultimate franchise prototype (and deservedly so), but could we not have something a little less barefoot and pregnant?

Technique number two is the One Sentence Paragraph. He uses this to such exclusion of anything more fully developed, this business book sometimes reads like a William Shatner novel. Okay, so business people don’t have to be great authors, but there’s a point beyond which stylistic peculiarities become a little ridiculous. And that point is passed very early on.

Finally, there is the mind-numbing repetition. Gerber seems to have an obsession with saying things three times or four times. Usually this is a stylistic affectation; it begins on Page 1, in the second paragraph (also the second sentence, of course) and two hundred and sixty-some-odd pages later, he’s still going strong. (Take a look at page 232, where six of the eight paragraphs start with “And”.) Often, however, the repetition appears as repetition of actual information, where Gerber seems to be trying to say exactly the same thing using as many different words as possible, just to make sure the reader gets the point. Consider this excerpt (p. 211):

“I’m beginning to see the connection between all these things we’ve talked about,” she said. “They’re all beginning to make sense. The puzzle is coming together. I can see the parts merge into an exciting picture…”

Imagine a couple hundred pages of this sort of thing and you’ll have some sense of what reading the entire book is like.

Final verdict: There is good information here, but if you’ve read the back cover you’ve gotten 50% of it already. Boiled down, it is this: 1. Treat your business like you intend to franchise it. Quantify everything, and write up rules so that any untrained idiot can step in and follow them. 2. Care about what you do. 3. Spend time working ON your business, so that later you don’t have to work IN your business.

Now, if any of that was unclear, or if you happen to be a masochistic type who enjoys mental torture, feel free to go out and buy the book.