1 Great Secret: Work In and On the Business

In his seminal work The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, entrepreneur Michael E. Gerber quoted the U.S. Department of Commerce: Forty percent of all businesses fail in the first year. eighty percent fail within the first five years, and eighty percent of those that last the first five years fail in the second five years.

In 2023, according to the Small Business Administration, Americans started 5.5 million businesses. That means 2.2 million were gone by 2024, and another 2.2 million will close by 2028. That leaves 1.1 million, of which 880,000 don’t make it to the tenth year.

So, only four percent of the original 5.5 million business will live to see 2033.

Next year, I will complete five years as a full-time ghostwriter, which puts me in the top twenty percent. One major reason is that I have learned there is a difference between working in the business and working on the business. It’s a point Gerber makes.

The technical work of a business and a business that does that technical work are two totally different things!” (Italics are the author’s.)

Definitions are in order. Working in the business means doing the day-to-day duties, the tactical, or technical, stuff. Working on the business means building for the future, the strategy.

Gerber uses this example: A woman opens her own bakery. She’s in every morning at 3 making the bread, then greets customers when the store opens and manages day-to-day operations. But over time, the daily grind weighs on her, and one day she realizes she has a job, not a business. She has spent all her time in her business that she never took time to develop strategies to sustain the building on the business. There’s no efficient process, no marketing strategy, no analyzing trends, and no vision of where she wants to be in five years.

For a business to not only survive but also thrive, one must do both.

Working in the Business. For me, working in the business means I’m writing books, scripts, and speeches; doing the necessary research to do the writing, getting feedback from the clients about the writing, editing manuscripts, occasionally consulting, meeting and interviewing clients so I can do the writing, answering emails from prospects, scheduling new and follow-up conversations with prospects, invoicing, budgeting, monitoring cash flow, managing the pipeline, and a host of other day-to-day activities. Each ghostwriter will have his or her own list of tasks that have to be done.

Why Work in the Business? This might seem obvious, but I think it still needs to be said: You can’t have a business if you don’t work in it. Clients have needs; ghostwriters have to take care of them. For me, “taking care” means ensuring we click, interviewing and collaborating over time so I can capture the client’s voice, tone, and messaging. I respect that the client is the story expert, so I always defer on details that I can’t verify. I  always invite input on the contract, give the client final say on the title, and never hold any rights to the story.

I take the client feedback seriously and very often incorporate it. When I disagree, I explain how my disagreement usually stems from how the feedback doesn’t serve the story, distracts from the main message, or is inconsistent or not compelling.

Every ghostwriter must recognize what has to be done, and then get it done in service to the client and the client’s story.

Working on the Business. When starting out, ghostwriters need to define their niche, develop the core skills of researching, capturing voice, tone, messaging, etc., create a professional infrastructure such as a brand and contract details, build a portfolio, leverage their network, establish an online presence, determine value pricing, find the right strategy to overdeliver and manage clients effectively, and research trends to stay ahead of the competition.

It doesn’t stop when the business starts to taste a little success. It just goes to different levels. In my case, I meet weekly with my business advisor and discuss what’s going with various clients and prospects. He gives me tips on scripting, answering, and responding to unique and unfamiliar requests; recommends a client relationship management program that’s right for me and my needs, and teaches me when I do something wrong, ineffective, or counterproductive.

I meet the last Tuesday of the month (except December) with some of my business advisor’s other clients to discuss a theme around running one’s own business.

I also meet monthly with my search engine optimization firm. In these meetings, I summarize what’s happened with the new prospects (and whether they’ve become clients). They advise me about what kind of blog posts I should write and give me update on how well my keywords are doing, I.e., how many are on page 1 and how keywords have risen or fallen in the last month.

Why Work on the Business? You think the pipeline just goes on and on? It needs attention. That’s why I write blog posts (helps with SEO), research trends, monitor what artificial intelligence is up to, implement the strategies my business advisor gives (my favorites: control the narrative, get a CRM, always know why the prospect wants to tell the story).

I realize this concept of working in vs. working on isn’t specific to ghostwriting, but like with any business, ghostwriters who want to succeed must do both.

As a solo practitioner, that is challenging, but Gerber suggests asking the following question: How can my business function without me? Or at the very least, What are the aspects of the business I can’t do? Then work in the business with an eye toward answering the questions. Once you do, you’ll be well on your way having a business that runs independently.

This year, I took a critical step and have started considering the idea of hiring other people. Other ghostwriters have reached that point. I’m not there yet, but maybe one day…

Feel free to read and check out my other posts related to ghostwriting. Go to leebarnathan.com/blog.