The entirety of this post comes from Michael Gerber’s best-selling book, The E-Myth Revisited. If you’re involved in small business at all, I highly recommend picking up a copy here.

When to Get Help

Adolescence begins at the point in the life of your business when you decide to get some help.

There is no telling how soon this will happen, but it always happens, precipitated by a crisis in the infancy stage.

…

Every small business owner who survives seeks help.

…

Someone with experience.

Someone with experience in your kind of business.

Someone who knows how to do the technical work that isn’t getting done – usually the work you don’t like to do…

And just about everybody tries to find someone to do the books! Because if there’s anything most small business owners hate to do – and therefore ignore – it’s the books.

And so it is that you bring in your first employee – Harry, a sixty-eight year old bookkeeper who’s been doing the books since he was twelve years old, in the Old Country.

Harry knows the books…

There is nothing Harry doesn’t know about your kind of business.

And now he’s yours.

The world suddenly looks brighter again…

There’s a critical moment in every business when the owner hires his very first employee to do the work he doesn’t know how to do himself, or doesn’t want to do. In your business,Harry is that person. And this Monday morning is that critical time.

Think about it.

You’ve taken a big step. The books are on Harry’s desk now rather than yours.

And what’s more, Harry is about to become the only other person in the whole world who knows the real story about you and your business.
Harry is going to take one look at the books and know the truth.

Harry, your very first and most important employee is about to find out your secret you’ve been hiding from everyone else in your life: that you don’t know what you’re doing!

The question is, what’s he doing to do about it?

Will he laugh?

Will he cry?

Will he leave?

Or will he go to work?

And if Harry won’t do the books, who will?

But suddenly you hear the quiet, systematic cluttering of the calculator keys from Harry’s desk.

He’s working!

Harry’s going to stay!

You can’t believe your luck.

You’re not going to have to do the books anymore.

And in a single stroke, you suddenly understand what it means to be in business in a way you never understood before.

“I don’t have to do that anymore.”

At last you’re free. The Manager in you wakes up and the Technician temporarily goes to sleep. Your worries are over. Someone else is going to do that now.

Kahuna Accounting can be your Harry. Except we cost a lot less and have a lot more experience and power than one person. If you’re interested in getting some help with a job that you don’t want to do, give us a call.