Hey Square Readers, You voted and chose The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber as our Square Readers Book Club book for May & June 2024! Here’s a quick s...
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Hey Square Readers, You voted and chose Worth Every Penny by Sarah Petty and Erin Verbeck as our Square Readers Book Club book for March & April 2024! Here’...
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Hey Square Readers! Are you looking for a new way to level up your business skills and have some fun while you're at it? Then get excited, and get ready to r...
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Group Hub Activity
Hey Square Readers,
Welcome to another round of the Square Readers Book Club! Today we’re starting our next book, The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber!
Thanks @ChocoRee for letting us know that there's also a podcast episode by the author called ‘Beyond The E-Myth’ Framework Explained with Michael E. Gerber, that goes into a lot of the high level concepts of the book.
This book is all about the E-Myth, how it leads to business closures, and how to overcome it.
The E-Myth, or Entrepreneur Myth, is the idea that in our society entrepreneurship and starting a business is seen as this glory-filled, magical, noble thing. That running a business leads to nothing but freedom, happiness, and profit. It’s the idea that anyone who loves or is good at doing something, can and should open their own business. That it’s easy. But in reality, none of that is necessarily true, and that mindset is what leads to the majority of businesses failing.
The author writes, of someone starting a business, “The business that was supposed to free him from the limitations of working for somebody else actually enslaves him. Suddenly the job he knew how to do so well becomes one job he knows how to do plus a dozen others he doesn’t know how to do at all… The work that was born out of love becomes a chore, among a welter of other less familiar and less pleasant chores… [Everyone] experiences exactly the same thing. First, exhilaration; second, terror; third, exhaustion; and, finally, despair. A terrible sense of loss—not only the loss of what was closest to them, their special relationship with their work, but the loss of purpose, the loss of self.”
As we start reading the book, let’s kick off our conversations with a baseline of how you perceived entrepreneurship before opening your business, and what the reality of it has been like for you.
So let’s talk:
What inspired you to first open your business?
Has owning and running your business been like you imagined? What’s the same and what’s different?
What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced when running your business?
For some extra fun, share a selfie of you with the book here in the comments!
Don’t forget to:
View and Subscribe to all threads about this book
RSVP to our Live Discussion
Happy reading,
Pesso
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Hey Square Readers,
We hope you had a great time reading Worth Every Penny by Sarah Petty and Erin Verbeck with us. We had some really great discussion threads, and a wonderful live video chat discussion! Thank you all for participating and making the Square Readers Book Club a welcoming and helpful place.
So we’re here now to bring it all together with a full book and discussion summary, with the parts that you all found to be the most important. And if you didn’t get a chance to read the book, here’s a chance to get the shortened version. Let’s dive in!
Book Summary
Worth Every Penny by Sarah Petty and Erin Verbeck is all about how to break out of the pattern and pressure of discounting your prices, and to instead lean into increasing the value for your customers.
The trend to lower prices can come from the desire to either to appease or attract customers. The book goes into the theory and practical strategies to build up your business to charge what you're worth and have your customers happy to pay a higher cost because your business is worth every penny you charge.
They demonstrate this through what they call the Boutique framework, through offering specialized products and services, creating a well defined brand, pricing yourself correctly, having an over the top customer experience, and marketing everything well.
Discussion Summary
We used our Book Club discussion threads to take the theories from the book and see how you all put them into practice in your businesses.
We kicked things off with a baseline conversation before reading the book, about how customers perceive the value of your product and service offerings. This set the groundwork for the framework in the book.
Next we laid out the basics of the Boutique framework. We broke down what being Boutique actually means, the advantages of framing your business in this way, and how to use this filter to run business decisions through as you go. Readers shared how they view their competition, and how they see this framework working for their business.
The authors break up the rest of the book into four main sections, which we covered with separate discussion threads.
We dove into the meat of things, detailing the benefits of branding your business effectively. We explained that branding is more than just your logo, but also your customer perception. We talked about how important it is to be consistent in your branding, and to make rules in order to maintain that quality. Readers talked about their own experiences with creating and maintaining their branding.
After that, we moved onto the next piece of the framework, providing incredible offerings and customer experience for your customers. They say that the offerings you provide should be unique and provide a high value, reflecting your passion and expertise. The service you provide should reinforce that, thrilling your customers with a high touch and personalized experience. A big discussion point from readers was around taking responsibility for and fixing customer issues, even if it wasn’t your fault, in order to create a better customer experience. Readers also jumped into how they set boundaries to make their lives easier as business owners.
The next element of the system is around pricing your offerings accordingly to cover your expenses, make your business profitable, and reflect your value. One of their main points is to not discount your prices in order to attract customers, but instead focus on adding value and standing out. Readers shared their philosophies on discounting in their businesses, and how they bring more value to their customers.
Then we got into some of the author’s strategies around marketing and selling, where the authors recommend focusing on targeting a smaller section of customers that you actually want, rather than mass market advertising. They then say to sell without pressure or manipulation, again focusing on explaining the value of your offerings, and lead with honesty and integrity.
And finally we finished off our discussion threads by talking about the impact that implementing strategies from the book has had on your businesses, with folks sharing the benefits they’ve felt.
Live Discussion
We held our Live Discussion on Tuesday April 30th. If you’d like to catch up, you can watch the recording here:
It was a really great discussion, and thanks to everyone who joined us! We kicked off with sellers sharing how impactful this book has been on their business, and how they were inspired to implement the ideas in their work.
We started talking about branding, with some sellers sharing tips like using Canva and Splice for their design and video editing.
One seller shared the story of rebranding their business, and how the book encouraged them to go deeper to get a better understanding of what their business would stand for and how to get that message across. They shared the sentiment from the book, that branding is more than just the colors and logo, but rather it’s experience, packaging, greeting, quality, and more. They shared that if experience & quality isn’t thrilling, then the color doesn’t make a difference. We also dove into when and how to change, or not change, your logo and visual identity in order to keep things updated but still not lose brand recognition.
We also talked about how folks handle complaints and questions about price, which one seller gave the story of how they show and explain the value. Another seller said that they stopped doing craft fairs because of the tendencies of the customers there to bargain and minimize the value.
Another seller discussed their journey of planning to open a new business, and how the book helped provide considerations going into the process. They shared that they learned a new level that they hadn’t thought of before, and will be more conscious of things and put more thought in.
Overall, it was a wonderful call, and we hope to see even more folks in the next one!
Next Book
We’re starting our next book, The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber, on Monday May 6th, with the next Live Discussion on Tuesday June 25th. We hope to see you there!
Your Thoughts
I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on this book and overall the experience of our Square Readers Book Club!
Was this book’s framework helpful? What did you get out of it?
What are you looking forward to with the next book?
It’s never too late to jump into any of our discussion threads and join in on the conversation!
Paying it Forward
If you’re all done with the book and are looking for something to do with a copy you bought, I highly recommend paying it forward. Give it to another local business owner, or donate it to a local used bookstore, community center, library, Little Free Library, or anywhere else, so someone else can benefit from it.
Thank you so much for all of your participation and discussion throughout the last two months! A big shoutout to some of our most active members: @CareyJo, @Bronze_Palms, @DLRosenberg, @KaosXtecH, @Stacelyn24, @TheRealChipA, @bonny, @rtfulk, @MudFire_Deanna, @Doran, @Smellthis1919, @Jimjam, @SavasFineArt, @JUYBoutique20, @Anjoli, @ChocoRee, @andrnesha, @TerriK, @scastrotattoo, @BrianaJo, @saltydazehair, @Gissel_Ivette, @TonyTone712, @139beautyco_llc, @Ipromise, @KellyMurray, and more!
We hope you read the next book with us and join us in the discussion threads!
Can’t wait to read more with you,
Pesso
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Hey Square Readers!
Thank you so much for joining our Square Readers Book Club!
Don’t forget to click Join Group at the top of our Book Club Group Hub.
I would love to learn more about you all, so here's a space to introduce yourselves and to meet some fellow Readers.
So tell us a bit about yourself here in the comments.
Tell us:
Your name & location
Your business name (and website)
What you're hoping to learn and gain from Book Club
Your favorite book (business or fun)
A picture or two of you or your business
And of course feel free to reply to each others’ intros, especially those nearby or in the same industry as you.
Looking forward to meeting you all, and reading with you,
Pesso
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Hey Square Readers,
You voted and chose The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber as our Square Readers Book Club book for May & June 2024!
Here’s a quick summary:
“Small business consultant and author Michael E. Gerber, with sharp insight gained from years of experience, points out how common assumptions, expectations, and even technical expertise can get in the way of running a successful business. Gerber walks you through the steps in the life of a business—from entrepreneurial infancy through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective: the guiding light of all businesses that succeed—and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise. Most importantly, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business.”
We’ll start reading on Monday, May 6th, so get ready and pick up a copy at a local library, bookstore, Amazon, or anywhere else!
We’ll have discussion threads being posted throughout the next two months, and a Live Discussion Video Chat at the end of June. Head over to this post to help us pick a day and time for this book’s Live Discussion Video Chat!
Don’t forget to:
View and Subscribe to all threads about this book
RSVP to our Live Discussion
We can’t wait to read with you!
Pesso
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- The E-Myth
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Hey Square Readers,
What’s better than reading books? Talking about books with the Square Readers Book Club!
In addition to our text thread discussions, we will be wrapping up our book with a live video chat discussion.
Our next book is Worth Every Penny by Sarah Petty and Erin Verbeck, so join us as we dive into this book!
This Live Discussion Video Chat will be on Tuesday April 30th at 4pm (Eastern US & CA). Make sure to update your Time Zone to see the correct time for you.
RSVP and say you are attending in order to get reminders about the event.
Square Readers Book Club
Live Video Chat Discussion
Tuesday, April 30th
To register, sign into your Seller Community account and click the "I will Attend" button to the right.
How do you register?
Note: Both steps below need to be completed to successfully register for the webinar.
RSVP as ‘YES’ to confirm your spot!
Click the button below and use your Square login email address to complete registration on our webinar platform:
Register for the Event
Don’t forget to:
Join the Square Readers Book Club Group
View and Subscribe to all threads about this book
Can’t make it? Don’t worry, an event recording will be distributed and published on the Seller Community where you can view at your leisure.
We can’t wait to read with you!
Pesso
Note: This virtual event is being used to record photographs and/or video footage in connection with the Square Seller Community.
By attending this event, you authorize Block, Inc., its successor, affiliates, subsidiaries, assignees, licensees to capture, record, and distribute the photographs and/or footage, including your voice, image, and likeness via any medium now known or hereafter devised, throughout the world, for any purposes whatsoever without the compensation, credit, or other consideration. If you do not wish to be photographed or recorded, please do not attend, or ensure that your camera view is turned off. Thank you for your cooperation.
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