Yeah. Awesome. Good stuff.
I got to ask, so what are you most excited to talk
about in regards to aligning leadership as we go through your vision?
Well, aligning leadership,
what I think is really significant right now is getting
clear about how much work the leaders have to do.
I mean, alignment is significant, and that's a part of it,
but also getting clear about how we can delegate
so many things to people so that we really have time
to do what our unique ability is, what we are best equipped to do.
I love that. I mean, I'm a big fan of the E-Myth and Rocket Fuel,
and so many great books that peak from Chip Conley as well,
that helped me realize how many systems, procedures, resources, etc.
If we take the time to pay attention to them,
we put our team into a better place to be able to
succeed with the things that they're supposed to support us on.
You've been an EOS implementer for how long?
Eight years.
Eight years now. That's fantastic.
We're going to be diving into depths of that with them.
For the visionaries who are listening in,
before we dive into that,
what are three resources or three books,
three videos, documentaries,
it could be any type of resource you want.
What are three that you would recommend visionaries pay attention to?
Well, number one is obviously is traction.
Traction.
I mean, traction is the guidebook.
It's everything you need to know if you wanted to implement it on yourself,
which is a strange thing to do.
But that's the book that tells everything about EOS.
Once you're clear about that in EOS,
one of the big things is this duo of visionary and integrator.
The book that tells you everything about that is Rocket Fuel.
You mentioned it. Rocket Fuel is the place where as a visionary or an owner of a business,
you are going to find the most relief
because the difference between a visionary and integrator is immense.
Visionary is generally at 30,000 feet,
has plenty of ideas,
and always is looking out in the future for where we're going to be.
The integrator is the one who's on the day-to-day is going to get those things done.
You're going to be in looked at,
just locked in with the visionary.
They're both working together and they just have different roles to play.
Rocket Fuel is a book for that.
Then the next one is the book about how managers learn to be a great boss.
Certainly, leaders on the leadership team need to be a great boss,
but also every manager all the way down to the organization needs to
learn how to be a great boss for the people that report to them.
It's a very simple book.
Anybody can take a look at it and learn how to do that,
and then follow it up with applying it every day in their management role.
I love that. Who wrote the last book?
Renee Boer, very good friend of mine.
Boer, awesome. That's super helpful.
Thank you. As a student of Rocket Fuel as well,
I'm having read that book and recorded
certain segments to send to clients to say,
please listen to this.
I do. I highly recommend that book.
The visionary integrator role,
there are people in business who are like a LeBron James,
who can play multiple positions in a business,
one to four, and LeBron James recognizes that it's not in
his best interest to play all of those positions,
especially all at the same time.
That's not what you do to win the game.
So I think we share some concepts in relation to that and inspiring visionaries to say,
you know what, maybe it would be a wise opportunity to attract
a team that can help me bring this vision to fruition.
So we're going to come back in,
we're going to dive into your vision in just a minute.
We're going to hit the break real quick and then we're going to
dive into what's your vision for those that you serve.
So get ready for an extra special episode.
All right. Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Calame.
I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and
guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.
Hey, what's up everybody?
Welcome into another episode of Vision Pros Live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Calame,
founder and CEO of First Class Business.
I am really excited to have Will Crist on stage today because he represents EOS.
EOS Worldwide is a company that was founded by
Gina Wickman and Gina wrote the book Rocket Fuel.
Rocket Fuel built on the backbone of the E-Myth.
The E-Myth is a book that I will tell everybody forever.
I regret not reading that book the moment it came across my desk.
I waited eight years before I read it because of all the book recommendations.
But as soon as I read it, I was like,
wow, this is life-changing.
The Rocket Fuel takes that torch from the E-Myth and starts putting in to place
a very granular plan and idea for how you can go about implementing it,
and did an excellent job of that series.
Now, we get to drink from the well of somebody who's worked very closely with
that organization and learn about organizational growth for
our visions and leadership and maximizing growth with these different types of systems.
Now, before I bring Will on stage,
we're going to talk about some of these sponsors.
Some of the great leaders that I've seen implementing these types of systems,
one is Melissa Gray of theLawSpot.com.
Melissa came on this show.
I was apprehensive to bring a lawyer on the show.
I know a lot of lawyers who are fairly condescending.
They don't necessarily have a vision beyond themselves.
Here's this nurturer who does have the legal backbone you need to protect your brands,
but at the same time, she understands entrepreneurs.
She understands small, medium businesses and able to relate.
She's also a mother and she takes that role seriously as well.
This is somebody that I was just like, man, I really want to see her succeed and win.
More importantly for who we serve,
I've worked with thousands of businesses.
Again, this is speculation,
but I would venture to guess that less than five percent of the businesses I've worked with,
had an active legal counsel ready to go,
knew who they would go to in the event of a tragedy or a challenge.
I would bet most of those individuals out of that five percent,
they probably didn't shop around too much because people
don't like to dive into legal matters and financial matters,
especially visionaries, you love to build.
My invitation to you is to include Melissa in
your research so that you put your business in a great position of supply and demand.
When you've researched and you've done
your due diligence in the front to find out who represents you,
then you're much more likely to be in a position where you
don't get hosed by your legal experiences that you might have.
Take it from a guy who went through a $20,000 trademark battle
back when we were running Restaurant Connect and I was there representing that company.
That was something that could have been avoided with the right legal counsel in place.
Now there's directional advisors as well.
Directional advisors is with Franklin Parker and Franklin Parker
has run the family home office for a billionaire.
In addition to that, he's also written some pretty amazing book.
He's written an amazing book,
Goal-Based Investing Portfolios.
In addition to the book that he has,
he's won all sorts of awards for
the types of publications that he's put out there for financial advising.
Now, I don't know about you,
but it's disheartening when there's a world full of financial advisors,
but if you were to venture to ask them how they're doing financially,
it would probably scare you.
Probably wouldn't be a question they want you to ask.
I don't necessarily feel that it's my best interest to work with
financial advisors who don't understand wealth and practice wealth principles for themselves.
I highly recommend again interviewing Franklin Parker,
figuring out who he is.
If you're in that position where you're looking to diversify
your wealth and explore your financial options,
then he's definitely somebody worth having a conversation with.
He's being tapped on the shoulder right now to be
the next podcast host for the CFA Institute.
They have 685,000 followers on LinkedIn.
I don't know many people who want to follow financial advisors or legal people.
It just tells you the power of the Institute.
If you haven't heard of it, look up CFA Institute,
and maybe you will see again one more token of credit to see why I recommend Franklin Parker so highly.
He's been a phenomenal leader to work with as well.
I love him like a brother at this point.
Then there's the water projects.
I will never use this microphone without promoting
some type of cause in the world that helps the 8 billion people who are suffering.
There are millions of people who don't even have access to clean drinking water like I do right now.
I won't allow myself to forget that.
I hope that one of you feels inspired to contribute to this process.
If you're not in a financial position to contribute,
your contribution could be in the form of tagging a friend who might be,
or sharing this message with others is
another great way to help and support those who are out there.
Now, if you have a cause that you'd like to see us support,
that we didn't mention or talk about,
just drop it in the comments.
There's not a competition.
There's 8 billion people out there who need a lot of help,
and we can do a lot of good by sharing those opportunities with
others and inspiring the world to help us give back.
One of the things I love about the water project though,
is that you get to see the project that you're contributing to,
and you get to actually see that project come to fruition.
They do an excellent job of documenting what they're up to.
They also do a great job of,
in my opinion again, of helping the community know how to
sustain those projects throughout time so that it's not just a one-time experience,
but it's something that will have a generational impact on those individuals.
I also recommend going and meditating on that.
Meditating, what could your contribution possibly have
contributed to the lifestyle of these individuals over the years to come?
Without further ado,
I'm going to make this part of the introduction brief because you guys
can all look this stuff up after the fact.
But I think it is important for people to grasp the concept of the EOS implementers.
What will Chris represents beyond the years that he's spent within this company,
the eight years understanding this process.
He also comes from a background of building other organizations,
and for 20 plus years,
20 plus adult years,
I'm not going to age him completely here.
But there's an amazing amount of wisdom that comes from people who are
decades ahead of where we're at and the online assets that they have to
present and help people gain clarity for these concepts allows
people to gravitate towards understanding things that might have felt,
might have put you in a position where it's like,
I don't know how to do that.
I'm out of my comfort zone.
I don't really get the whole systems aspect.
That's the whole point of bringing somebody like Chris into your life.
Well, thank you so much for being here and honoring us with your time.
We're excited to have you.
Sure. It's a privilege to be here. Lots of fun.
Absolutely. Diving in,
I'd love to know what's your vision for those that you serve?
What do you hope they accomplish or see on the horizon?
Well, it seems like lots of businesses that I work with,
almost all of them want to get a lot of money.
They have big goal about money and that's important.
That's what drives a lot of people.
What I want to see by the end of the journey that I take with my clients,
is I want to see everybody doing what they love doing.
Not doing what somebody else told me had to do,
ought to do, should do,
or what they think they have to do or ought to do or should do,
but what they really love doing,
the things that turns them on living in their unique ability,
as Dan Sullivan would say.
Number one, they're doing what they love doing.
Number two, they're doing it with people they love.
People share their core values.
People who are there to support them,
they can support the others,
and they're really enjoying the community that is this business.
They're doing what they love with people that they love.
They know that what they're doing in the business is helping
the organization make the world a better place.
There's a direct connection between what I'm doing and
how the business is making the world a better place.
There's a great fulfillment there and know that I'm making a big contribution.
Yes.
Doing what I love with people I love,
knowing that what I'm doing is helping the business to make a great contribution,
being compensated appropriately.
Yeah.
Then finally, having plenty of time for my other passions and my family.
Now, that's what I want from every company,
everybody in those companies that I work with.
Well said. That's up, down,
top to bottom or left to right.
However, somebody wants to paint the picture for how the organization chart looks like.
I love that you start with the reality too,
that the money is important.
That money is a resource and a vehicle.
I've seen how when money is such a great need in somebody's life,
because they're struggling to get by.
I saw this in Uruguay a lot when I was there for two-year mission.
It's hard to dream.
It's hard to realize that you have things that you want to do.
It's hard to appreciate the family time because you don't have
the core basic resource that Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs reminds us.
So artistically, like, wow,
okay, we've got to get those things met.
Then again, you paint a beautiful picture of what
success for an entrepreneur should ultimately look and feel like.
Thank you for doing that. I got to ask for you,
what's your vision for you?
I imagine it's a similar reflection,
but do you just mind going into a little bit more color for what that looks like?
Because I see your background too and I'm like,
I think you took that video.
I did. I took this video.
This is where I walk every day in Laguna Beach here.
This is one of the rocks right near the coast,
where I walk every day along the ocean.
My vision is I want to serve the companies that I work with because I
see using things like EOS makes such a huge difference,
not only in the company and the company success,
but in the success and the fulfillment,
the wholehearted experience of every person in the organization.
I've gone around and interviewed people all the way from the founder and the leadership team,
all the way deep into the organization and they all say the same thing.
They say, this has changed my life.
This is really helping me to be the person that I want to be.
That's my vision is continuing to help those companies help the people who are in the company,
in the organization, part of the community.
It's huge. It certainly makes sleeping at night far easier.
Those you're striving to provide for.
You're striving to make sure that of course clients are taken care of,
but when your team's not happy and there's internal conflict and drama,
or there's people who aren't fully bought into the cause,
they say the heavy is the head that wears the crown.
Now, as an entrepreneur, you worry about those people.
If you're not worried about them,
you're still feeling the pain of that too,
of what's going on with it.
But it's hard. How do you inspire entrepreneurs who are really struggling right now?
To believe in and have hope that that's possible.
Through questions.
Through questions. It starts off with, where do you want?
Where do you want to be? What's this about?
What are you trying to accomplish?
Out of that comes a number of ambiguities,
a number of false hopes and dreams,
things that they're not really connected to.
But I don't tell them,
I ask them questions about it.
Help me to understand this.
Tell me more about this.
How do you want to do this?
Here's how. Whenever I share with them,
I can share with them the experiences that I've had with other people,
but it always comes back to, and what do you want to do?
Yeah, I like that.
Questions are, they're a superpower for opening people's hearts and minds.
They can be used to coerce and manipulate people into submission,
and they can be used to empower people with answers.
How do you recognize the difference as an entrepreneur between somebody
who's after your wallet, after your money,
trying to, again, will you into submission,
and somebody who is genuinely assessing as a true consultant,
how you can best help a company with growth?
Well, one of the things that we say as implementers to each other a lot is,
if you have to drag a company in,
you're going to be dragging them around.
If you have to manipulate a company to become part of your practice,
then you're going to have to manipulate them over and over again to keep them there.
And so we don't drag people around, we don't drag people in.
We let people convince us that EOS is going to be a help
to getting them to where they want to be.
And it's, you know, we often recognize that we don't ever sell anything.
Yeah.
What we're really doing is asking enough questions to find out
if this particular company, this owner, this member of the leadership team,
if there's something that they are not getting right now that they want,
asking them, do you think that EOS could help you get there?
And that's where the engagement begins.
When they say, yes, I believe this, I believe you can help us,
what do we do next?
Yeah, I love that.
That's the difference between somebody who sells, right?
Selling at somebody and somebody who wants to buy.
Those are two different realities.
So I'll also promote US Implementer on this.
For those visionaries who are considering who to consult with,
one of the brilliance and values of working with a company that's well established,
right, like US Implementer is they don't have a need for your business.
That doesn't mean they don't want your business.
That doesn't mean that they won't work hard,
but it means that they're not so desperate that they'll take on anybody
as long as they can just coerce and convince you to do business.
Like they know that that's not in their best interest.
So I know a lot of business owners or visionaries who want to gravitate
towards the provider who needs the job so badly they'll do anything
to get the deal done.
And there's a level of toxicity in that relationship that transpires, hopefully fast.
Sometimes it takes a few years before they realize how deep of a hole they dug.
So really sticking on that theme, kind of diving into a dark subject,
well, what's the worst leadership experience you've ever had or seen?
That I've had personally or that I've seen.
It can be either one.
Whatever is going to help the audience most is really what we're going for here.
Well, I think the leadership examples that I have seen that are not helpful
are people who are afraid of their employees.
They don't want to share the vision with them
because they don't know what's going to happen if they share that.
Maybe they'll go tell somebody else and that'll hurt the owner.
They don't want to share their finances with them because, well,
if they know that we're making a profit, they'll want to come in
and ask for more compensation.
The reality is when you get the right people in the right seats
and you help them to understand how the business works,
you can be open and honest with them.
You can share your goals with them.
That's what I find so remarkable when people get beyond that scarcity model
and begin to live in abundance and find people that they can trust,
people who get what that position is that they're going to occupy.
They want it.
They're bouncing out of the bed in the morning
and they have the capacity, the God-given skills to do that job.
When you have those kind of people in the organization,
then you can begin to share with them where you want to go
and how you want to get there.
And you can share with them the results on a regular basis.
That's what...
It's the leaders who are not confident about that,
who live in scarcity, think they have to make it all...
They have to make it by themselves.
Those are examples of poor leadership.
Yeah. You know, I love that.
But I also love that one of the things that your company taught in Rocket Fuel
was it changed my perspective on the ownership.
And it changed my ability to articulate and teach my team members
about my role as an owner in a way that allowed them
to start holding me accountable better.
And they talked about the two business partners dividing the hats
that people wear or the responsibilities
so that you can then be accountable as an employee for the role, right?
Fireable for the role, you know, or trainable in the role.
And it really removes the ego of ownership.
And I was like, man, that is brilliant in and of itself.
And it allowed our communication as a team to shift dramatically.
Again, more people were able to buy into that concept of,
oh, cool, I can hold Jackson accountable for doing this.
And we really do need to replace Jackson in this role.
He is awful at this role.
I'm like, thank you. You guys get it now.
And I don't think I could have unlocked that without that book.
So the fear comes from multiple sides.
One, there's that greed aspect.
That's one side of it.
The other one is the man, we're not doing so well as a company, you know,
or people are going to leave if they if they worry about the instability
that we have as a company and how do we inspire them to stay and beyond.
But we're going to segment from that.
We're going to leave that with you, visionaries.
And we're going to segment right into the opposite question.
What is your best leadership experience or the best leadership experience
visionaries can learn from?
I have a number of them
because every client who we complete the journey with has made a huge
trans transformation, not only in their business, but also in their personal life.
I can tell you the story of one of my clients.
His father, his grandfather started the business.
His father wound up being the CEO.
And at one point he had to leave
and the son who had been running the manufacturing part of the of the organization
was asked to be the new CEO.
Now, when he met with me and a good friend of mine had had suggested
that looking at at what this new CEO was doing, that he might want to talk to me.
It took him about six months before he decided to pick up the phone and call me.
When he did, we got together and he said to me, you know, you know, well,
my watching my father run this company, he said every morning
there were the same 11 people lined up in the chairs outside of his office.
And one by one, they would go in and they would speak to him,
tell him what they did the day before and ask, what am I supposed to do today?
He said, I saw him do that over and over again.
And he said, you know, I know a lot about manufacturing,
but I don't know anything about accounting.
I don't know anything about HR.
I don't know anything about sales.
And, you know, I don't want to.
Can you help me?
Now, this was a guy who was was looking at having to work 60, 70 hours a week
just to learn about all of the things that people are going to be asking him for decisions.
Yeah. And we immediately when we started working, we usually do it.
We always do it.
Every implementation of EOS, we built an accountability chart.
Who is going to be on the leadership team?
Who are the three to seven people going to be on the leadership team
to make decisions about how to move forward based upon their expertise?
People who get that seat, they know what's going on.
The people who want to be there and people who have the capacity for it.
And as we begin to fill those seats with the right people in the right seats,
then he could begin to let go of all the anxiety he had about
what's going on in the accounting department, what's going on in HR,
what's going on in sales, because he began to put the not him,
but the leadership team working together began to put the right people in the right seats.
He could then delegate all the responsibility for
those particular areas.
And he wound up having plenty of time for his family,
took time off because he had a team there that was running the business with him and for him.
I love that. And that stacks on the E-Myth in a beautiful and different way
than what the E-Myth talks about.
And it reminds me of Richard Branson.
Somebody who, and now granted, he's been around long enough that I bet he has studied
all of his different departments and has a pretty good idea of what's going on.
Nonetheless, when the business owner delegates business ownership,
mindsets to leaders and spends some time training those leaders up on it,
or inherits a rockstar team of people who are integrators in the making,
like incubating, waiting to dive in and take full ownership,
they just need somebody who empowers them to do that.
Like you said, the pressure now no longer falls solely and squarely on that owner.
There's wisdom in both knowing what to do and in having the power and leadership to delegate it.
That's what I hear you talking about.
Good. And if you were to share, this was your last opportunity,
on earth to share a powerful lesson with visionaries.
What can other visionaries learn from your experience, Will?
Well, I think for visionaries and entrepreneur, the things that entrepreneurs do is they find
problems and they come up with ways to solve them.
So what I find so helpful as visionaries move out of that startup phase where their hair's on the
startup phase, where their hair's on fire all the time and everybody's got to do everything to make
it all happen, when they get to the place where they're ready, they can begin to breathe,
breathe financially, breathe emotionally, breathe in terms of the organization,
then begin to find people who really love doing what you want to be doing.
And the place that I find most excitement is companies that have a clear purpose
about how they're going to make the world a better place.
And so often, what happens is in trying to focus on that, that the dysfunction in their organization
makes so much noise that they get distracted from their purpose.
And it's really finding, EOS is one of a number of different organizational systems,
but it's finding an organizational system that will help you take that noise and turn it into
a whisper so that you and your organization can laser focus all of your resources, your time,
your energy on the purpose that you had.
That's what I see as really a very effective way of taking the entrepreneurial, visionary
activity and turning it into something that's going to really make a difference in the world.
Wow. That is profound wisdom.
You actually got me thinking in my heart and mind about the reality of me being a parent of four
children and how when we again, attempt to quiet the noise by addressing the noise itself,
the greater failures of parenthood come out.
Why? If I had just focused on the purpose of where we were going, what we were doing,
and hey, we're going to go and see that movie or we're going to go out to dinner,
we're going to go celebrate somebody's birthday, we're going to go to the ballgame or whatever,
then the quieting down could occur. It was far more effective to do that than when as a dad,
you're like, stop yelling, and then somebody cries, and then they're like, I didn't mean to
make her cry, but now you're arguing, and now it's like, oh no, everything's spinning out of
control because you've addressed the chaos. You've ultimately empowered the chaos to thrive.
And that same thing transpires in our businesses. And rather than diving into the drama of that
reminding people of what we're up to, what are we striving to accomplish as a team?
That's kind of what I hear you saying. Is that accurate or is there more to that?
Oh yeah. What we do in EOS is we ask people when you have an issue, which is the kind of chaos,
the kind of drama that you're talking about, when you have an issue, you're not going to be
in a chaos, the kind of drama that you're talking about. When you have an issue,
don't just come up with a solution. Don't just try to stop the problem. Stop before you do anything,
ask and use people with you to ask the question, what's the root cause here? What is causing this
chaos? What's causing the problem? And sometimes you have to dig, dig, dig down deep into the
organization to find out what is really going to happen here. Once we can agree on what the root
cause is, then we can brainstorm. We can bring up all the possible solutions to that root cause.
How can we change our organization? How can we change the resources? How can we change what's
causing this chaos? And one of the rules that we use in that is nobody gets to repeat themselves
about the solution they propose. Because if they do that, they begin politicking and it's like,
well, I'm the owner. Well, I've been here longest. I'm the most experienced. It doesn't matter.
Put all the possible solutions onto the table and we got them all out there. Then as a team,
pick one that you think will solve that root issue, the root problem to that issue,
and then go out and see if it works. Yeah. Nice. Those are all helpful systems.
What's causing the chaos? A large part of this is, again, learning to ask questions the way that you
talked about asking your clients questions. I know a couple of formulas for that. One of them,
tell me more about that formula. It's not the question. It's actually a statement, but it
reflects the question. What are some other ways that entrepreneurs can be inspired to dive deeper
where they may shy away from being scared of their employees and not talk?
Well, being open and honest is what we commit to in the process. Being open and honest with each
other, and that's not something that happens overnight. That's something you begin to work on.
Finding that trust with people. I think that begins with a shift from a scarcity model
to an abundance model. Believing that there's more out there than we can ever possibly use
that it's all out there. We have to tightly hold onto it and control everything.
This abundance is really important in helping people to find out, recognizing that everybody
simply wants to be heard and understood. Those are the two most important things in any personal
relationship. When you can actually do that, you're going to find out what people want.
When you're looking to place somebody in the organization, one of the three most important
things is finding out what they want and then helping them get that. It may not be in this
organization. It may be in a different seat, but when they get to the place where they can do what
they want, they're going to be so productive. Absolutely. Now, I'm going to project here.
Feel free to steer me. When it comes to maximizing growth, you talked about moving people
from the scarcity model to the abundance model. I connected that with, well, that's the area that
I want to go in and talk about then. Is that going to serve our audience best right now to dive into
how to recognize the scarcity model symptoms we might be facing and moving towards the abundance
model? Or is there something else regarding maximizing growth that you want to gravitate
towards, Will? Well, maximizing growth. Are you meaning maximizing the amount of money that we
get as resources and that we keep as profits? That's a good question. It could be. That's
one angle of that. To your point, there's lots of different angles on this that we could go down.
I'm not actually sure I would navigate exactly what our audience wants for that. I'm actually
steering back towards your phraseology of what... There's something that you said that inspired
me to go this direction about from the standpoint of first getting our leaders 100% on the same
page and where our organization is going. That's what it is and how it's going to get them there.
When I said aligning leadership, it was about, again, how do we get those leaders on the same page?
I figured that would lead to maximizing growth in all aspects of business. What are your thoughts
on that? Well, it begins with knowing what we want. Okay. Right?
It begins with knowing what we want. There's eight questions that we want to get answers to.
Everybody on the leadership team has to agree to the answers that the team makes. Eight questions
are pretty simple. What's our core values? What do we stand for? Who are we here? What is it that
causes us to want to get together regularly? What's our core value? This is not something
that comes in from the outside. It doesn't come from a book. It doesn't come from a great leader.
It's something we already are. We're going to discover what that is. What's our core values?
What's our core focus? What is it that we do that we can be the best in the world at? What do we do?
What do we actually do here? Define what that is. This is going to be the focus that we have,
and that's going to help us to eliminate all the shiny objects that come across, request
our resources. What is it we actually do? And who do we do it for? Get very clear about what's the
niche that we're working in. So what's our core values? What's our core focus? What's our 10-year
target? What's that one big thing out there that we're all aiming for? And when we can agree upon
that, then all of a sudden, there's a lot of things that don't have to be said anymore.
It reduces the kind of confusion or the political struggles that go on trying to get the company
to go here or there. We all agree on the leadership team, this is where we're going in the long term.
What's our core values? What's our core focus? What's our 10-year target? Then,
how are we going to get there? What's our marketing strategy? Who are the ideal clients for us?
What makes us different from our competition? What are the three things that totally separate us from
our competition? And what's our proven process? How do we take a prospect or somebody who's new
thinking about working with us, how do we take them all the way through to where they're a raving fan?
That's our vision. And when we can all agree on our core values, our core focus, our 10-year
target and our marketing strategy, we're in alignment. Now, I got to admit, every 90 days,
that alignment phrase, people get distracted. That's why we get together every 90 days and we take a
look at these eight questions again. And we make sure we're still in agreement. What's our core
values? What are examples? Are we using these core values to hire, fire, and then we can get
more values to hire, fire, celebrate, review people? What's our core focus? Are we staying on target
with what our core focus is? Are we getting distracted? What's our 10-year target? What's
our marketing strategy? Are we using these three things that separate us from our competition?
Now, that's the vision. And the other questions that we're going to be asking are,
what's our three-year picture on that way to the 10-year target? What's it going to look like?
What's our revenue going to be? What's our profit going to be? What are we measuring for this three-year
picture? And give me five to 15 things that actually going to look like, smell like, feel like,
paint that picture in technicolor. Because when we all agree on that, the chances we're going to
get there are hugely more possible for us. And once we have that three-year picture, that helps us
not only know our path, but it also helps us with one-year planning. So the next question is,
what is our one-year plan? What's our profit going to be? What's our revenue going to be?
What are the measurables going to be? And give me seven, not 23, 46, 58, just three to seven goals
for the year, because we know less is more. That also makes it possible for us to ask,
what are we going to accomplish in the next 90 days? By the time we get back together 90 days
from now, what's going to be our revenue for this quarter? What's going to be our profit?
What are the measurables that we're looking at? And what are the three to seven most important
things for the company to get done? And finally, what's our issues list? What are the things that
we know we are struggling with, that are obstacles, that are getting in the way, or possibilities that
are out there? Those are the eight questions that we ask. We call it the vision traction
organizer. It's a great strategic planning, but it's only two pages. Yeah, two extremely
powerful pages. I will add that is absolutely awesome. I appreciate you diving into that.
Well, and once we do that, then we share it with everybody, the entire organization.
Every 90 days, they hear about it again. And ultimately, everybody in the organization is
going to share in wanting to make that happen. Yep. Love that. Honors, I heard raving fans in there.
I'm a big fan of Ken Blanchard's book on that. And sharing this with everybody in the organization,
wanting to work towards those primary objectives, five dysfunctions of a team. And I agree with that
in there too. Great minds think alike. Great minds build from each other as well. Like two mathematicians
on a board who are so excited to see each other's formulas. And that's where Gino helped put this
together. Because what he was looking at, what he recognized, and I think a lot of us recognize,
that many of the books out there on great management and organizations for businesses,
they're really aimed at Fortune 500 companies or companies on the S&P list. But when you take a
10 to 250 employee company with a founder who's got a great vision for what's happening,
trying to do what a Fortune 500 company does is difficult. Yes. Not every company has a training
department. Not every company that size is going to be able to put the kind of resources or bring
in the consultants to do training. And so that's what caused Gino to look at every one of the
companies like Patrick Lencioni. You mentioned the, oh, what's your book, the E-Myth.
Looking around at good to great, taking all of these and helping to put them into a program
that's going to help a 10 to 250 employee entrepreneurial company succeed. That's what
EOS is about. That's awesome. And it's easy to see. It's awesome that you all know your target
demographic on that. First class business is striving to bridge the gap as well for the 1 to 10
employee range as well. It's a grueling process of pulling systems together, trying to simplify them,
while also helping people recognize the hard work that goes into these processes. No matter what
level you're at, life requires hard work. It's hard to be 400 pounds. It's also hard to be 180
pounds and 2% body fat. Both lives are going to be hard, but what do you want? To go back to your
principle, what do we want at the end of this? What do we want to achieve? Who do we want to spend
time with, et cetera? Our decisions ultimately compound, thank you, Darren Hardy, and guide us
to the outcomes that we have the opportunity and privilege to achieve, at least as first world
individuals. Well, I heard something the other day. I was talking with a friend of mine. He
mentioned EOS, and he said, you know, one of the things that gets in the way is a lot of people
look at EOS and say, I don't have time to add one more thing to my day. Right. That just looks like
one more thing to add. And I began to think about that. EOS is not something you add. EOS allows you
to subtract. It allows you to get really clear on what are the five things that your seat, your box,
your position in the company is responsible for, and letting the other things that are getting in
your way be delegated to people who have it in their box to get it done. Well said. We need that
reminder often. Go ahead. And it's not just one more thing. It is a thing that takes away so much
that you were confused about and thinking you had to do. So let's get out of 10 meetings a day,
10 meetings a week to get down to one or two meetings a week. Right. We, you know, ego is when
we feel we know best, right? What we need to do with our time and how we need to do it. And as a
business owner, right, who does know your business, you know your passion and what you're great at,
but as visionaries, if we're not spending our entire day on implementing systems, it might be
wise to hear what somebody who spends their entire day implementing systems recommends we do and what
we recommend that we let go of. And you mentioned the open and honesty. My mouse pad is this book.
The Effective Executive. And Dr. Peter Drucker in chapter two, Know Thy Time, gives an example of
how you can take your executive secretary, promise me first that you won't fire her, and then allow
her to document every minute of your day what you did and you will see how unproductive you are.
And I didn't have an executive secretary. That works for the president or whatever. But, you
know, I was like, I better, I guess I have to just learn to be super honest and open myself on this.
And I did. Well, let me take you one step further. One of the tools that we use is called
Delegate and Elevate. And so if you can imagine, just imagine a rectangle with four squares in it.
Right. And if you had a secretary or somebody who had recorded everything, sometimes it comes out
of your calendar, everything that you've done in the last month. Then everything is going to go
in one of those four boxes. One box is the things that I don't know how to do, I'm not good at, and
I don't want to do. That's the lower right hand side. The lower left hand side is things that I'm
good at, but I don't want to do. Up above is on the right is the things that I'm good at, and I like
doing. I want to do these things. And on the upper left is things I'm great at, and I love doing.
That's my unique ability. Most people spend most of their time in the lower left hand corner.
Things they're good at, but don't want to do. Like featuring you as a podcast guest, dang it. I hate
doing it. I'm just kidding. It is a very, very valid exercise. We take the time to evaluate these
opportunities. Some people call this sharpening the axe. You've delivered so much value to us
today. Well, I really appreciate it. Anybody who's listening right now, if you've got questions for
Will, you can of course connect with them on LinkedIn and elsewhere. You can also
comment those questions. We'll be happy to be proactive in responding to those. And on the
landing page, we'll leave for you the action steps that Will recommends taking in order to move even
closer towards implementing these systems and ultimately becoming the type of entrepreneur you
want to be. Solidifying clarity for those who are following you and then being able to maximize your
time with them. If you have a vision yourself, not to derail that too much, but if you have a vision
and you want to be on stage, you want to talk about how your vision helps people in their lives,
there's a button in the top right-hand corner that says be our guest. Don't hesitate to apply. We
want to feature you. You've got a holistic vision. You've got a great attitude as a leader. We want
you on this stage. We want to support you and get that message out to the world. Will, any final
thoughts you want to share before we wrap up? Well, people ask when's the best time to start EOS?
What's the answer? Oh, right now. Yeah, right now. Not yesterday. Right now and the present.
And not two years from now. And, you know, anybody can talk to any one of these 800 EOS implementers
out there and get a free 90-minute meeting where the implementer will show you everything that we
do in EOS. And you can use that on your own. You can use it on your own. You can use it on your own.
You can take it and implement on your own. Or you can see that this can help you in your business
with a professional implementer. But it's 90 minutes of time that you will learn a lot. You
and your leadership team together will learn lots. Yeah. We'll learn lots. Great value. I love that.
And you're going to have a hard time digging in deep enough with a consultant within 20 to 45
minutes to make any movement. Two, never waste your time with somebody, you know, whether it's 20
minutes, five minutes or 90 minutes. I mean, I'll be cognizant of who you're using that time with.
But going into a system where all the questions we just heard, being able to address that with a
professional, also critical. Because sometimes we make assumptions based on our own limiting beliefs,
on our own mindsets. And it's helpful to have a person who's practiced that and heard hundreds of
people go through this before as well. Recognize the patterns and help you see what patterns exist
there. Again, I'm done promoting Will for the day, but I am a big fan of you, Will. I'm a big fan of
Rocket Fuel and Gino and all the things you're building and business owners, entrepreneurs out
there. Take active steps. Take faith-based steps towards building what you need to build.
Have an excellent time building your vision and we will see you on the next episode. Take care,
everybody. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is
going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people
to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent
time building out your vision.