If business owners have learned anything in the past three years, it is that they had better “get a grip” on their businesses in order to survive the consistently unpredictable market.
According to Mike Paton, implementer of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), when you feel like you aren’t running your company but your company is running you, it’s time to get some help to regain control of your business.
In March, Mike Paton spoke at the NWPCA Annual Leadership Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. With over seven hundred business leaders in attendance, Paton’s talk, titled Get a Grip on Your Business: Six Keys to Getting What You Want from Your Entrepreneurial Company, demonstrated the EOS framework and how the tools can assist business leaders in managing their company.
Gino Wickman developed and refined EOS twenty years ago and began sharing it with the world. The company he founded for that purpose, EOS Worldwide, has grown to include more than 650 professional EOS implementers around the world, and together they’ve helped the leadership teams of more than 20,000 companies leverage the EOS Tools to run better businesses and live better lives.
Throughout their years of work with entrepreneurs, they discovered two common themes: “not enough of them are getting what they want from their businesses” and “far too many people who own successful businesses are frustrated.”
Paton acknowledged the five most common and completely normal frustrations many business leaders share:
1 – You feel like you are not in control of your business.
2 – You feel like there’s not enough profit despite investing economically, emotionally, and all of your time.
3 – You feel frustrated by some of the people in your organization.
4 – You have the feeling that you are hitting the ceiling. You seem to be growing, then you become stuck and can’t seem to get unstuck.
5 – Because you feel stuck, you try every method and technique, creating a “flavor of the month organization” as you constantly try to fix things.
As Wickman began to look at the “root causes” of these common frustrations, he also determined that about 95% of businesses felt this way. What were the 5% of entrepreneurs who weren’t frustrated doing differently? He discovered, simply, that “Truly great businesses were great at six things,” which became the Six Key Components of EOS Model: vision, people, data, issues, process, and traction. The majority of Paton’s presentation focused on the first component of the model, vision.
“The vision component is about getting everyone in the company crystal clear on where you’re going and how you plan to get there,” stated Paton. They are so clear on the vision that they know the plan and want to help. That is a company with a strong vision component.
As an EOS implementer, part of Paton’s job is helping a leadership team answer eight key questions that “define the company’s vision and plan – who you are, what you love to do or are best at, where you are going long term, and how you plan to get there.” Paton addressed the first four questions regarding a company’s vision.
The first question that helps a company define its vision is, “What are your organization’s core values?” In other words, think about specific qualities that describe the type of people you want to build your company culture around. If you think of the three “superstars” in your organization, what qualities do they have that would be beneficial if everyone in your company shared those same attributes? According to Paton, these core values should become so important that you have to “live and breathe” them so you can build your culture around them.
When discussing the people component later in his talk, Paton described simple, practical tools that help companies attract people who share their core values and repel those who don’t fit. When teams hire, fire, review, reward and recognize people using those tools and their Core Values, it helps build a culture of like-minded people working hard to achieve a common vision.
Secondly, think about “What is your organization’s core focus?” Other companies refer to this as their mission or vision statement. Paton defined the core focus as “the sweet spot for your organization.” In other words, “What kind of work does your business love to do and is great at?” asked Paton. When your leadership can identify the sweet spot, you can all be aligned when presented with situations that do not line up with that core focus. You can decide whether or not it would make sense for your company to move in that direction once you all understand the core focus. It helps you avoid making decisions that seem exciting and “shiny” in the moment but leave you wondering years later why you all moved forward when they were not aligned with your focus.
The third question Paton addressed is, “What is your 10-Year Target or Core Target?” Figure out what the “big goal” for your company is. What is a long-term goal that will help you get from your business what you are not currently getting? This could be anything from growth to improved profitability to more relaxation. Be specific on what it would look like to achieve that goal in the long term, whether it is a number (like revenue, profit, or the number of customers positively impacted) or another specific, qualitative objective. While most teams settle on a 10-Year Goal, the Core Target can be anything between five and thirty years out.
The fourth question is, “What is your marketing strategy?” This helps the leadership team align together within the company vision to bring the long-term goal into the marketplace. To begin thinking about the strategy, you have to first identify the target market or ideal customer. The leadership team needs to think demographically, geographically and psychographically. In other words, WHO are your ideal customers, WHERE are they and HOW do they think? What types of people or companies are perfect fits for your organization?
Paton recommended spending “100% of your proactive selling and marketing time only targeting those kinds of organizations because life is too short to try and build a relationship with a company that just makes you miserable when you have to work with them every day.” When everyone is aligned with the strategy, all departments will happily work together toward the common goal.
In order to attract those businesses to work with your company, Paton suggested coming up with “three uniques” – the three attributes that, when taken together, make you “different and better than the competition, but only in the minds of the target market.” The third part of a company’s Marketing Strategy is its “proven process,” a one-page visual representation of how you take care of your customers. When the leadership is clear and aligned on its target market and the message it uses to sell to that market, it helps the organization get a much greater return on its investment in marketing and sales.
The fifth question that helps a company clarify its vision is, “What is our organization’s 3-Year Picture?” In other words, he explained, “Where do you need to be in this organization three years from now to feel like you’re on track to achieving your company’s long-term vision?” The leadership team needs to agree on specific measurables (i.e., size, scope and financial performance) and a set of specific strategic deliverables that define the company the leadership team is committed to building over the coming three years.
With the answers to these first five questions clearly defined, the leadership team turns its attention to the company’s plan to achieve its long-term vision. That starts with a 1-Year Plan – a set of key measurables (like revenue, profit, and other important performance metrics) as well as three to seven goals for the year. Once that plan is set, the team breaks the year down into four quarters to keep the team accountable and make sure they continue to work toward achieving the 1-Year Plan, 3-Year Picture, and longer-term vision for the organization. Paton suggested designating each of the “quarterly rocks” to one member of the leadership team, so that one team member accepts personal accountability for completing the objective.
The final question Paton helps teams answer is, “What are your organization’s long-term issues. These are new ideas, opportunities, problems challenges and obstacles that the team has made the tough decision not to address right away. By putting them on the company’s issues list, the team can focus on what has been prioritized and trust that it will have a chance to address these issues in the not-too-distant future.
Once the leadership team has agreed on the answers to these eight questions, Paton helps them get the company’s vision and plan “shared by all.” He does that by teaching the leadership team to present to the entire company, each quarter, a “quarterly state of the company” message. This involves sharing how the organization did in achieving the prior quarter’s objectives, what the status of the objectives is presently, and where the company is headed long-term. The goal is to “create a ninety-day world for the organization where every quarter you’re letting the people in your organization know what we’re trying to accomplish, how we plan to get there, and you’re giving them an opportunity to want to grab a shovel and start digging to help you achieve what you’re trying to achieve.” By giving everyone in the organization a crystal-clear picture of the company’s vision, where you are and how you are going to get there, they will want to help.
Paton’s role as an EOS implementer is to teach business leaders to become illusionists. While you may not be able to physically levitate, theoretically levitating above your business can help you “look down on the way things are working with an open mind and a critical eye.” When you feel stuck because of your business’ lack of progress, it is difficult to see what is really happening and make positive changes. Paton’s goal is to help business leaders “see with objectivity and criticality and really start to make things change.”
You can learn more about the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and find resources and worksheets at www.eosworldwide.com. More specifically, you can find Mike Paton’s page here: https://www.eosworldwide.com/mike-paton.
