In his book Traction, Gino Wickman present his system for running a thriving business, and coins it as the Entrepreneurial Operating System, often times referred to as EOS.
The EOS model breaks down six different components for business owners to master: Vision, Data, Process, People, Issues, and Traction. By following this system, you will begin to focus on what matters most in your business, set short and long term goals, solve problems efficiently, and grow a team that works with you towards success.
When I work with small business owners, I help them incorporate the parts of EOS that I feel will bring the most value, and help them grow. We may not complete each part of EOS when we work together, but we will dive deeper to understand each of the six principles of EOS, and work towards implementing the right pieces. I’ve broken down each principle below.
Depending on where you are at with your business, the Vision component may be the first or second item that we implement. (If you are looking to rapidly grow, I may have you assemble your leadership team as the first step in our process – more on that below). The vision component includes the following:
What is important to you, and what values do you want your team to display? Your core values will be referenced when setting business growth goals, hiring and firing employees, and introducing new services or products.
Why are you in business? What is purpose of your company? What is the point of having employees, or customers? When you can clearly articulate the purpose of your business to your employees or customers, they will know why they should partner with you.
Who is your target customer? (Hint: it’s not everyone) Clearly defining what you do, and who you do it for, will help qualify potential customers, create the right marketing material, and identify what services you may need to fine-tune or add as you grow.
The first step to setting goals will be to create an ambitious 10-year goal (that is in line with your values and your purpose), that seems just a little bit out of reach. From there, we’ll determine what issues are standing in your way to reach that goal. Then, we break it down into three-year and one-year goals that will move the needle enough to help you reach you 10 year mark.
At the end of our Vision setting work, you will have a clear and concise two-page business plan. This is something you will update ever year, and it’s a tool that you will reference frequently and share with your whole team. If you follow through the rest of the steps outlined below, your team should be able to nearly recite your two-page business plan from memory (mine can!).
At some point in every business owner’s life, they are going to have to make an important decision: do I go it alone forever, or do I hire help?
If you’re already working with me on business growth, then you’ve already made the choice to work towards more personal freedom, and it’s time to hire! We’ll work together to make sure you have the right team in place.
No matter your size, you’re going to need a team in charge to lead you toward the goals you set, and hold your business accountable to its culture and core values. Often times, putting a leadership in place before setting core values and growth goals can be beneficial. Or, you can develop and build your leadership team after you have your business plan in place. Your leadership team should be excited about your growth plan, and be there to support you and lead the rest of your team to success.
A defined organization chart will help you, the business owner, keep tabs on accountability without getting worn out. Before I implemented an organization chart in my business, I had nine – yes nine – people reporting directly to me. Talk about burnout! We’ll work together to put an organization chart in place so nobody questions who to go to with questions.
Traction talks about the “Get It, Want It, Have the Capacity to Do It?” principle, and we’ll work together to make sure you have this in place. Do your employees mesh with your core values, and can they get behind your purpose and goals? Are the performing the jobs that lend best to their strengths?
Perhaps one of the most difficult parts of being a business owner is knowing who to hire, and when to fire. Fortunately, by following the right processes this task doesn’t have to be as scary. It will still be hard, but you’ll learn how to approach hiring and firing from a position of what’s best for the business, and check your emotions at the door.
How do you objectively measure the health of your business? In order to move towards your one, three, and ten year goals, you will need to start paying attention to some data. Tracking your weekly income and expenses is a great start, but there is other data to track. For example, do you know how many phone calls you receive each week? How many qualified leads are coming your way? How many widgets your production team is producing?
We’ll visit each department, and set 2-4 numbers from each to track on a weekly basis.
Once you have a handle on what data to track, you need to set goals to keep you moving towards your target. I like to work backwards here – looking at the big picture, how much profit do you need to make this year? What does that translate to, in weekly projects? How many leads do you need each week to hit your project target? We’ll work together to set goals that are achievable, yet move your business to the next level.
When EOS is properly implemented in an organization, every employee plays a part. This means that every employee should be tracking something on a weekly basis, and reporting that to leadership. This number may go on a department scorecard, or on your main company scorecard.
There are typically 6-10 high level processes in every organization that we will broadly outline to start. These include things like the Employee Process (onboarding and exiting employees), your Production Process (how you do what you do), your Sales process (how you get new customers), your Marketing Process (how you get your leads), and your Accounting Process (how you bill for what you do).
Each of your core processes can be broken down into more concrete, smaller processes that run your day to day business operations. For example, if you are a website agency you may have a process for Website Design, or a process for Content Writing.
The process writing step in business growth is often the most difficult for the visionary business owner, whose mind is set on the big picture. But by breaking down each step of your organization, you will set yourself up for scalable growth.
IDS is an acronym for “I”dentify, “D”iscuss, and “S”olve – the process by which you will start to tackle issues one at a time, and solve them for good.
So often we get sidetracked when working on a project when an issue arises, only to stop what we’re doing and immediately start to solve the problem. I will show you how set dedicated time specifically for solving issues, so that you can continue on course without distractions.
As we move towards the Traction component in EOS, you and your leadership team will become expert problem solvers.
Your weekly meetings are not “just another meeting that could have been an email” – they will become the center of your new EOS-based business, and the most important thing to keep your team moving forward, together. I often recommend implementing the weekly meeting as one of the first steps in implementing EOS. This meeting follows a set agenda, every time.
Each quarter, we will visit your Vision/Traction organizer, and assess your issues and goals for the quarter. We’ll review your scorecard, and plan for the next 3 months. And, we’ll set “rocks” – large, measurable changes or additions to your business that will move you toward your annual goal.