Book review: What a book on entrepreneurship can teach healthcare marketers

A friend recently recommended the popular book, The E Myth Revisited, which is subtitled “Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work, and What to Do About It.” As a small business owner, I was obviously intrigued by this successful book, as well as the impassioned recommendation with which it came. What I found was a compelling outline of business success and failure, which applies to most small businesses. I also found myself thinking of how the book could bring value to healthcare marketers, despite its obvious orientation toward small businesses.

The premise author Michael Gerber uses to launch the book is that 40% of all new small businesses fail in the first year, and 80% by the fifth year. The primary reason, he argues, is that those starting a small business have a skill, and they equate expertise in that skill to expertise in business, what Gerber calls the “Fatal Assumption.”

“The Fatal Assumption is: if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does technical work…two totally different things!”

His point is that the skills needed to run a successful business are completely different from those needed to provide a product or service within that business. Later, Gerber lays it out this way:

“The commodity isn’t what’s important,” says Gerber, “the way it’s delivered is.”

This thinking is parallel to our belief that to gain more than incremental marketing results, healthcare marketers need to stop focusing on the commodity – the doctor’s credentials, new technology, internal processes – and develop the experience that surrounds that commodity. We call it our donut model, where the center of the donut is the product or service provided – a screening, an MRI, surgery – and the outside of the donut is the experience patients receive. The analogy we use is Starbucks. In the center of the donut model is the coffee sold at Starbucks, the product. The outer ring of the donut model is the experience Starbucks provides: the inviting environment, the music, the service, the sense of place. Why do people go to Starbucks? For the coffee. What has made Starbucks one of the most successful brands in the world? Everything but the coffee (it’s good, but not that great!). It’s the experience they provide that keeps customers happy and loyal.

How can healthcare marketers (and leaders) put the lessons found in The E-Myth to work in their organizations? First, by viewing the services they provide as small businesses, which makes the challenges seem a little more manageable. And second, by remembering that patients won’t value the commodity you provide – the actual clinical procedure – as much as they will value the way in which you provide it. Focus on that experience!