Read time: 5:17 minutes  

Last year, both my companies 2x'd their revenues and 3x'd their profits.

This wasn't a result of: 
• Cutting costs (ours increased)
• Hella good luck (a good beard DOES help)
• Increased advertising spend (we spent none)
• Bold new strategies or increased service offerings (we trimmed services)

If I had to boil our success down to two primary drivers, it would be: 
✅ Hiring and empowering a great team
✅ Fully adopting EOS

I could write an entire book on hiring and empowering a great team - but I'm not going to do that today.

In today's edition, I'm going to focus on 3 reasons why fully adopting EOS was a major contributor to both my company's revenue and profit growth in 2023.

Let's dive in.

What is this EOS you speak of? 

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let's start by explaining what EOS is. 

EOS is short for the Entrepreneurial Operating System. 

According to the EOS website, the program is a simple set of concepts and tools that help you get what you want from your business. It helps you and your leadership team get better at: 

1. Vision - Get everyone in your organization 100% on the same page with where you’re going and how you plan to get there.
2. Traction - Instill focus, discipline, and accountability throughout the company so that everyone executes on that vision – every day.
3. Health - Help your leaders become a more cohesive, functional, healthy leadership team.

You can find out more about the frameworks, tools, and concepts that they use on their website HERE or by reading Traction by Gino Wickman.

I first heard about EOS because my firm has had several clients using it for years. They've had tremendous results. 

It was awesome watching our clients use the tools and hit their goals time and time again.

After a while, I had a lightbulb moment:
Maybe we should use EOS too! 

We signed up with an EOS implementer in December of 2022 and it's been amazing.

OK, cool. But how did EOS juice those sweet, sweet results? 

Great question - and it's one that I have spent some time reflecting on. 

I believe EOS has forced three specific things on my team that have been major contributors to our success. And I'm certain none of these would have been in place if we hadn't implemented EOS in December of 2022. 

Here are the three specific things that EOS forced into place for us:

#1: EOS Forced (Better) Goal Setting

I've always been a goal-oriented guy. So it isn't like EOS got me to set goals for the first time in my life. 

Where EOS leveled me up relative to goals was how it forces you to think bigger AND longer. 

One of the first exercises during EOS implementation has you sit down and think about a 10-year goal. 

Historically, I've not been a fan of goals that span beyond 1-3 years. I thought they were stupid because SO many things change in the course of just 1 or 2 quarters that it's impossible to know what your goals will be in 5 years, much less 10! 

What I learned through EOS is that a 10-year goal isn't so much about the goal itself. It's about knowing which direction you're sailing the ship. It's more about determining a bigger vision for the company so that your team and clients know where you're headed.

Along with your values, it's this vision that gets people excited to join your team and do amazing work for you. People want to be part of something bigger that they can contribute to. 

Absent a compelling vision and values, people just join your team for a paycheck - which is a lot like trying to attract clients by becoming the lowest-priced firm around. 

Once you have your 10-year goal in place (EOS refers to this as a BHAG), you set 3-year goals, 1-year goals, and quarterly goals (called rocks).

All of the shorter goals are built in service of the 10-year goal.

This clarity gives us confidence that we're working on the right things today that will result in big things tomorrow.

#2: EOS Forced Intentionality

EOS forced us to make sure that we were being intentional with our actions.  

It ensured that every daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly task we tackled was aligned with our overarching one-, three-, and 10-year goals. 

It sounds obvious that every task or initiative should be aligned with longer-term goals. 

But isn't it true that there are a million things that come up in business on the daily that are ultimately huge distractions? 

👉 New courses
👉 New vendors
👉 New software
👉 New strategies and ideas

EOS forced us to be much more intentional NOT ONLY about the THINGS we said yes to, but also WHEN we said yes.

This was a blessing to our team because I am extremely susceptible to shiny new things. 

EOS nipped that in the bud. 

#3: EOS Forced Accountability

Don't tell anyone, but as a leader, I've always struggled with accountability. 

Sure, I can (and will!) call someone out for missing a deadline. But I've always thought that "accountability" was more than just deadline management and hard conversations. 

But the truth is, I wasn't sure what it looked like.

EOS introduced accountability to our companies in a whole new way.  

At the heart of it all is the Accountability Chart. 

The Accountability Chart is like an Org Chart but with two key differences. First, the Accountability Chart focuses on roles (marketing, sales, operations, finance, etc.), not just on people. Second, the Accountability Chart lists out exactly what each role is accountable for.

Having an accountability chart has helped in 3 big ways: 

1. It brings transparency to who is responsible for what - from the CEO down to individual contributor vendors.
2. It quickly shows all the roles that are filled by more than one person. This helps identify the people who need help and what help they need. As an example, I realized that I was handling marketing, sales, content creation, and finance. Not good. It was a similar story for Gretchen. Now we have more people handling more roles so we can focus on higher-value activities.
3. Because of 1 and 2, I was able to better set and manage expectations for my team. It pointed out who was overloaded, who was underloaded, and how I needed to approach each.

EOS also builds out some other helpful accountability tools like: 
👉 KPIs
👉 same-page meetings
👉 weekly team meetings

These work together to provide times and forums to communicate expectations and tools to hold others (and yourself!) accountable.

Is EOS right for you?

EOS isn't a magic bullet or a quick hack. 

We've been using it pretty hardcore for over a year now, and we're just starting to see real results from it. 

Just like any other program, if you're not going to commit to using EOS daily, it's going to have limited value (I'm looking at you, gym membership). 

It must become a part of your daily operating system that you and your team commit to.

I also recommend using an EOS implementer. The EOS implementer is someone certified to help you install EOS in your company, guide you through the process, and answer questions along the way. 

Because they tend to be relatively expensive, the investment in an implementer gave me a bit of extra motivation to ensure we were using EOS consistently (more accountability). 

Both of my companies took off last year like never before because we had the right people working within the right system. EOS played a huge role by forcing us to set better goals, get super intentional about our actions, and install a new level of accountability in place.

Your Coach,
Michael