"If I'm the best, I'll get everyone else's customers." It's one of the most comforting myths in small business — and one of the most dangerous. Being excellent at your craft is what gets you started. It's not what keeps your business alive.

In this episode, Chris breaks down why skill and business survival are two different games, drawing on Michael Gerber's E-Myth concept of the "technician's trap" — the trained professional who assumes that being great at the work qualifies them to run a company that does the work. Statistics Canada's own research backs this up: the leading cause of small business failure isn't a weak product, it's inexperienced management.

Chris walks through what "good at business" actually means in practice — marketing, hiring, selling deeper to your best clients, and managing people — then shows exactly how business skill has beaten better products throughout history. Betamax had the sharper picture and lost to VHS's open licensing strategy. WordPerfect was the better word processor and lost to Microsoft's bundling. Gillette had the superior blade technology and lost market share to Dollar Shave Club's marketing and subscription model. And Kodak invented the digital camera — then chose not to build a business around it, and went bankrupt as a result.

If you're excellent at what you do but wondering why the business side still feels shaky, this episode explains exactly where the gap is — and what closes it.

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/