Can EOS Help Build a Business That Runs Without You?

00:00:02:12 – 00:00:07:22
Speaker 1
Welcome, everyone. To the fractional operator. I’m Mike Nelson from hourglass SaaS.

00:00:08:00 – 00:00:29:07
Speaker 1
one of the things about making decisions in your business is you can only make decisions based on how good the information is. And one of the chief engineering design characteristics of hourglass is to give you great information about what’s happening inside of your business, especially when it comes to what is kind of the largest cost of goods sold.

00:00:29:07 – 00:00:43:10
Speaker 1
And a lot of the service companies, which is labor. So, check it out. Hourglass. Ask.com. Enough with the commercial. Let’s get to the real meat potatoes. Here we got Dave Borland, iOS integrator. Welcome, sir.

00:00:43:12 – 00:00:46:14
Speaker 2
Thank you guys. Glad to be here.

00:00:46:16 – 00:01:06:09
Speaker 1
I’m glad you’re here, too, as we were discussing before the show. I think it’s it’s wild to me that every once in a while, I run across someone that is not familiar with iOS. And that’s bonkers. So, I’m really excited to have you on here to talk about us. What it is, what you guys do,

00:01:06:15 – 00:01:22:06
Speaker 1
you know, we should probably also mention about you and, and maybe if you want to just real quick, kind of give us a little bit of your background. You kind of have a fractional history behind you, right? Like you’ve done, quite a few things. Been very successful in your business career before going to iOS.

00:01:22:06 – 00:01:25:17
Speaker 1
So maybe just, you know, give us the quick rundown of the resume there.

00:01:25:19 – 00:01:44:11
Speaker 2
Yeah. Sounds good. I started my first business at 26. My dad had been a, and it’s entrepreneur. He worked for Big company, one of his telephone companies. And, we, went to the Olympics. Well, we moved to Lake Placid. We didn’t go to the Olympics, but we moved there. And, after the Olympics, my dad worked there.

00:01:44:11 – 00:02:00:21
Speaker 2
And then after he started his own business. And I just saw this idea of, like, trajectories of what you could do, with your time. At first, it sounded like it’s a lot of fun, right? Just be your own boss. Right. And then, you know, what I didn’t see as a kid was all the work that, you know, just it’s.

00:02:01:02 – 00:02:30:00
Speaker 2
You know, what you could do. Either time equals work. Right? And so there’s. I’d be like, you get to a point where, you know, hopefully you don’t have to, but you spend a lot of time doing that. And so as an, as a kid, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. And so this idea of, jumping into a business, and just had the mindset of two, it’s like, like you, you’re like this idea of, like, sometimes what you do, you get bored, and so you try something new and it gets either gets good or doesn’t.

00:02:30:00 – 00:02:50:07
Speaker 2
You cut bait or you don’t like, what are you ready to do? And each time. And so, this idea, over time of just like, starting businesses and see if they work, and either slow and steady wins the race or, or you’ll learn what you you shouldn’t do first. Sometimes. And this is before what I do now.

00:02:50:07 – 00:03:15:15
Speaker 2
Right. There was no system. It was just kind of like, you know, you were told you just plug and chug, just go, yeah, you know, works it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, you do that and over time some of those, some of them fail. You have that anxiety. The 2:02 a.m. thoughts, all that stuff. And then one day, somebody hand me this book, called the in this actually.

00:03:15:17 – 00:03:40:12
Speaker 2
And it’s, it’s no that one and that that’s. Yeah. Systems and processes. The cake. Pie lady. I can’t remember her name in that book, but yeah, I was I was a pie lady and learned about that and started doing that system and realized systems were good. Brought in some, some people who were coaches for me. And, you know, how do I be a real how do I learn to lead people?

00:03:40:12 – 00:04:05:11
Speaker 2
Like, how do you do that? Right. So a business and leading are two different things, you know, and so, learned over time that there’s so many roles to fill. And we come functions in the business right now. But, you know, so many things. And it was this idea of like, you can’t do everything, however, right you are, you’re going to be that one guy.

00:04:05:13 – 00:04:26:08
Speaker 2
Call it, you know, blue car startups. You know, this one guy in the van? He’s he’s the best handyman. He’s the best. Whatever. But he doesn’t have people, and he’ll never have, you know, and, because he doesn’t trust them, and it just, you know, he just wants to keep it small because it’s hard to do all the things beyond, like what a one person can do.

00:04:26:10 – 00:04:48:23
Speaker 2
And so this, this concept of over time of, figuring out like, how do you how do you do everything? Well, you have to hire people. It sounds like his idea of like, well, I can’t afford full timers. And so over time, you start these businesses, and, one of my businesses was, you know, this do web development.

00:04:48:23 – 00:05:07:04
Speaker 2
So you’re constantly working for other people in a fractional way, essentially trying to help with personal websites and then web marketing and the kind of marketing in general. So you sort of they’re fractional marketing people for a while. And so learning about that, we never call it fractional, you know, just kind of like you’re working, you just have a client.

00:05:07:06 – 00:05:25:07
Speaker 2
Yes, all of those things. And so, you know, realizing that I love the idea of helping others in a lot of others as opposed to just my little, you know, if you just had a business that was just constantly just, you know, selling coffee or so I don’t know, like the same thing every day, the same place.

00:05:25:08 – 00:05:49:15
Speaker 2
You’re learning about other people and you’re using your brains, the people who can use their brain for multiple people with that, regardless of industry, sometimes, you know, just freeing for me, it’s just amazing. So you kind of story that so multiple businesses started up, some failed, some succeeded. I learn about this thing called EOS. And if you want to talk about any of us right now, but.

00:05:49:15 – 00:06:13:09
Speaker 1
I, I definitely want to talk about you at us. And, you know, it’s really funny is before I found EOS, just like you, I found Doctor Gerber’s book The Myth. Right. And like, that was the first business. But like I had read, I mean, I was a personal development junkie, you know, so I was reading all the books I was reading, you know, four four Hour Workweek with Tim Ferriss and, you know, all the books.

00:06:13:11 – 00:06:36:20
Speaker 1
And then someone handed me in it and I read it, and, I was like, oh, this is amazing. This is exactly my problem, right? Because I was the technician. I was the guy that I was great at doing the thing, but I had no idea how to scale that. And I kept trying and kept failing and, you know, like, at one point in time, I remember I tell people I’ve got hey, Mike disease and what that was.

00:06:36:23 – 00:06:52:14
Speaker 1
Every two minutes, one of my team members was going, hey, Mike, and asking me for direction and asking me how to do something. And it was just all day, every. So I’m trying to do my job, and every five minutes I get, hey, Mike and I had to make a decision, or I had to show someone how to do something or coaching through what we’re trying to do.

00:06:52:14 – 00:07:01:18
Speaker 1
And then. And then I found traction. Someone gave me a copy of traction. Yeah. And that so that’s my segue to EOS. Let’s talk about.

00:07:01:18 – 00:07:23:07
Speaker 2
Here is awesome. Same thing happened to me because we were doing a different system. So the email thing was great. So we’re doing that systems processes. But somebody’s missing. And so somebody handed me a book Rockefeller Habits. Yeah. Three or doing that. So we self-empowerment. It’s a word we use. Right. And and we had somebody try to help us through that a little bit.

00:07:23:09 – 00:07:32:07
Speaker 2
This wasn’t working. Wasn’t. It’s a great system, but it’s just a little too complex. Some. And then somebody goes, hold on. This book traction will be the one. I’m like, oh great, another system, another.

00:07:32:07 – 00:07:34:17
Speaker 1
One for me.

00:07:34:19 – 00:08:02:06
Speaker 2
What is how do you spell this word EOS anyway? So it was you know, what’s traction. What’s my what’s what is it a traction system. Is that what’s the CEOs think. So. Traction is the book of course about EOS. And so EOS, what I learned was, beyond. But the things like, math will do, which is really about, you know, getting out of, the weeds and into a franchise model, if you will.

00:08:02:08 – 00:08:33:08
Speaker 2
This is this is about a vision that somebody cast maybe in their heads. Maybe they said it out loud. Maybe it’s changing because it’s Tuesday, you know, or whatever. Yeah. Having a vision that’s shared by others. It’s keyword. Right? Shared. And then executing. So EOS is the system of execution. It’s really getting all of this human energy working in the same direction, a toward a vision, executing and accountable toward that vision really just executing smoothly.

00:08:33:08 – 00:08:56:18
Speaker 2
And then the last part is healthy. We call it vision traction and healthy health. It’s this you’ve seen it with companies. Sometimes it’s this, just world where it’s like, you know, we know hate each other, but there’s some sort of undercurrent of something going on. There’s not telling the truth. Something’s going on there. A lot of turnover.

00:08:56:18 – 00:09:04:03
Speaker 2
Morale is low. You know, just that kind of like at five. You know what? Even the owner doesn’t want to come to the work to work from. Right?

00:09:04:05 – 00:09:04:16
Speaker 1
Right. Yeah.

00:09:04:18 – 00:09:24:06
Speaker 2
So that that system was the focus handed. We started we needed a massive turnaround in this business that we were at. We had merged a couple of companies together and we’re all like minded, but also everybody was in charge of everything. It was horrendous, you know, like 30 people running around doing stuff and six or. I don’t agree.

00:09:24:07 – 00:09:44:23
Speaker 2
That was a lot of odors. I lost track of how many orders? It’s like what is going up? So we we implemented the system at a huge turnaround. It’s not meant to be a turnaround. System submitted, like going faster, but it wasn’t stuck. We were like, my wife would say, hey, would you be interested in, a check this week?

00:09:44:23 – 00:09:51:13
Speaker 2
It’s, Yes. Great. Give me 10,000. I need to put it in the bank or the business.

00:09:51:13 – 00:09:52:11
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:09:52:13 – 00:09:55:01
Speaker 2
Oh, I thought we’re getting paid, like. No, no.

00:09:55:03 – 00:09:57:00
Speaker 1
No. Oh, no.

00:09:57:02 – 00:10:20:14
Speaker 2
That’s not how it’s working. So we we implemented a system, and it was like six month. It was like a million, almost $1 million turnaround for us in the small business. That’s huge. Needed to make some hard choices, but ultimately a vision traction healthy and then sold that thing. This is 20 into 2014, early 2015. You know, you have that burnt out kind of like do your thing, get out.

00:10:20:16 – 00:10:46:04
Speaker 2
And then one of my, clients is, hey, that thing you guys did, what was that called? And can you do it for me? And it was, oh, I’m. I’m just hanging out watching the prices, right. What? Yes. I never planned ready. It was like I had this planned to have this business. It was great. Or, you know, it was like you could buy it at, like, okay, that opportunity came up, and then you know what?

00:10:46:04 – 00:11:11:04
Speaker 2
I’ll do it. I’ll try it. So, learn the system to, you know, how to how to coach on it and then did it for them and they sort of referred me to people. And, and now it’s I think there’s almost 100 companies I’ve done this for. So talking about fractional right. This is like, yeah, of, helping companies install a system, you know, coach and train teach it.

00:11:11:04 – 00:11:32:09
Speaker 2
First of all, because it’s not mine. You know, it’s been did coach facilitate accountable you know, that kind of ability partner. And then you get out. So it’s this idea of for a time you’re their coach. You’re not their coach forever. But you could be. But most people, you know, they they get it at some point doing it.

00:11:32:09 – 00:11:53:22
Speaker 2
They got it. They’ll have you in once in a while. But it’s like this idea of, yesterday, for example, was in the business. It’s a financial advisory wealth management place. I don’t know how I can spell AUM and I can spell these words, I don’t know, right? It’s like, yeah, how do we move money from here to here?

00:11:54:00 – 00:12:16:13
Speaker 2
I don’t know, tell me, tell me. And so I don’t need to know. I’m not I don’t need to be the expert in the room. But I do need to, for that day, basically take them down, you know, lead them toward, making sure they’re working in the same direction. So ownership, not ownership, but leadership teams that are with me and for that day.

00:12:16:18 – 00:12:34:22
Speaker 2
And I don’t own the company, but the idea of like, hey let me on the room. Yeah. And gets you guys to say hey tell me about what is it you really want. Right. So, I’m not a, I’m not a psychologist, but sometimes I play one in the conference room, so it’s, and it’s oh so much fun.

00:12:34:23 – 00:12:43:15
Speaker 2
But idea of being able to do what I do, to help companies, you know, get what they want, really? To get the owner to get what they want. But through a leadership.

00:12:43:17 – 00:12:57:12
Speaker 1
What is, talk us through the the process that you take organizations through read. I know that you if someone’s going to bring you on as the integrator right. It’s integrator is a term that you guys use. Venture.

00:12:57:12 – 00:12:58:11
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:12:58:13 – 00:13:05:09
Speaker 1
So if someone’s going to bring you on as the integrator, like what’s what’s the first step, second step, third step, what does that typically look like.

00:13:05:11 – 00:13:14:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. So so so there’s two two words. I was just a not to confuse you. So implementers of Coach Integrator would be the person inside the business.

00:13:14:23 – 00:13:19:03
Speaker 1
Roger that okay. Yeah. So that’s all I get I get the two of those confused sometimes.

00:13:19:03 – 00:13:37:03
Speaker 2
It’s a it’s a silly. Yeah that I yeah I would I do the same thing. So the process like I said do it to that process you go through with me. So the idea of first is the, the concept of us is we’re help first period. Right. So if somebody says, hey, Dave, I’m thinking about the CEOs things.

00:13:37:03 – 00:13:55:08
Speaker 2
A book called traction, it’s the how to manual, right. It’s the how to so you can self implement it. One of the things that I’ll do with somebody and I’ll say, hey, look, I’m spending some time together, just me and that maybe the owner. But ultimately your leadership team should see this. So if you’re going to implement it, you can do it yourself.

00:13:55:13 – 00:14:13:10
Speaker 2
You have an implementer doing it right. And there’s that. That’s the process. What are the other and that we call it a 90 minute meeting. So it’s not a sales pitch, but you give them this the tools and the and the, the process and everything, but you give them the tools like here’s, here’s this tool. Tell us what you’re experiencing.

00:14:13:13 – 00:14:30:20
Speaker 2
You’re didn’t give it to them. And it’s like getting, you know, getting this stuff. Who went to Home Depot and got plumbing stuff, you know, it’s like, and here’s the videos and do all that, right? Some people like, yeah, I’m all in. I’ll do my own thing and see how it goes. It’s some people go, yeah, that’s that’s not really.

00:14:30:21 – 00:14:48:18
Speaker 2
Could you do it could do it for us or with us. And so, the process from there. So you learn about the system and they say, yeah, that’s the system’s good. By the way, is the coach good? There’s other, I’m not the only one in the world doing this. There’s another 800 of us around the world.

00:14:48:20 – 00:14:54:11
Speaker 2
There’s bound to be somebody better than me. Somewhere I haven’t found. Good. Yeah.

00:14:54:13 – 00:14:58:06
Speaker 1
I mean, see one yet, but I’m sure they’re like.

00:14:58:06 – 00:15:21:20
Speaker 2
I get that, they’re a little. I don’t know if you can see this, but, and, like, that’s not cool. You know, but the idea of, doing it. So the process works like that. So once you say, yes, I work with a leadership team, and we do this, multiple sit. We call sessions, and you work through, the first day, which is super practical.

00:15:21:20 – 00:15:44:19
Speaker 2
It’s not like, hey, where do you want to be when you grow up? I know stock core values and cool stuff like that. We get right into, like, hey, what’s the structure look like? Here’s tool. Like, what’s that look like? We call it accountability chart. It’s like what all the functions you have as a business and you think about like this idea of, any function in a business, like start with I’ll call the visionary.

00:15:44:19 – 00:16:06:02
Speaker 2
Right. So the, the mastermind, we’re gonna go out. Someone’s got to run. That’s run the company. Whether you call a CEO, we call integrator. Is that I word, there’s got to be marketing leader, a sales leader, an ops leader. Got to have finance. Maybe somebody else. You know, there other leaders, and you’re like, yeah, but there’s only ten people in the company I met.

00:16:06:04 – 00:16:28:17
Speaker 2
Like, okay, so you’ve all you and but your minions, is that what you what do you do when you take shit? And they’re like, I don’t think yeah, I joke or I check in every two seconds. I can never take a vacation. Okay, so you’re that high lady from, your email. That’s what you do? Yeah. Okay.

00:16:28:19 – 00:16:46:21
Speaker 2
Is that what you call it? Typically? No. And so we start that very first tool. It’s so eye opening right away, it says, what are the functions? And then what’s the 4 or 5 things that function is, is, is responsible for. And then who. And we put a name in there. If he just says Mike Nelson everywhere.

00:16:46:21 – 00:17:10:17
Speaker 2
Bong bong bong bong. And you go, well, I don’t want I, I’m not good at sales. I’m looking at marketing or I’m good finance. Cool. Does anybody on this team here good at those things? Sometimes they are and sometimes are not. And so, good news. We’ve discovered an issue and we could solve it. Right. And so that that is the very first tool we do.

00:17:10:19 – 00:17:31:12
Speaker 2
The second tool we, we get into, we talk about things called rocks. I’ve heard that term from Stephen Covey or any of these people that, you know, talk about what’s the most important priority you have in the next 90 days? We have how to solve issues for real, not like tactically. Call that customer, you know, tell them this the next time it happens, I’ll tell my customer this and do that.

00:17:31:13 – 00:17:48:02
Speaker 2
This will this will be like creating a process, like the math again. You know, what is that? How do we do this for the next person? This happens. So how do we continue to solve issues forever, strategically, even tactically, but strategically that they don’t come up again when they do? We know what to do about something about it.

00:17:48:07 – 00:18:07:11
Speaker 2
I kind of said we do that day one numbers, we call it scorecard, you know, this KPI sort of thing, what I call your measurables, we call measurables. But that idea of like, what are the 5 to 15 most important things you have that you’re going to want to track every week? That’s a leading indicator. Money in the bank is cool.

00:18:07:11 – 00:18:27:15
Speaker 2
But what are the things you’re saying I gotta have X leads okay X leads drives what that’s going to drive. Proposals. Great. And then you have sales. Got sounds like three numbers. Maybe two of them leading, one lagging. Great. Well tell me more. So we build that day one and then they go and they do the meeting structure that we teach them.

00:18:27:15 – 00:18:51:09
Speaker 2
By the way, we teach meeting structure that day to. And them go for a month and they do it and they struggle and they do it. They struggle. They serve a little less each time we get together a month later. And how do we go? What’s going, what’s working, what’s not? Maybe reteach it tool they’ve started to bastardized a little bit or do something different with then move on to the fun stuff.

00:18:51:09 – 00:19:12:03
Speaker 2
Hey, now let’s talk vision. But let’s get to that. What you’re trying to get to do two days of that over, total 60 days for these first three days, you set them up and then they go into execution mode, which is quarterly. And so every 90 day, you can do something for 90 days. I mean, you can if you have diligence and execution that disappoint.

00:19:12:05 – 00:19:29:16
Speaker 2
And then you get bored or tired or something happened and you can only do it so much. You said you, you do and you do it again. You do it again, you do it again. And you have a team that starts to build these people that we said, Mr. Nelson’s and every one of those boxes. And then they’re like, how do we find who’s that net?

00:19:29:17 – 00:19:54:07
Speaker 2
Who’s the next marketing person? Who is. Yeah. Do you have a real sales leader versus a doer? Should you put that on the issues list and solve it this quarter, like find someone, what’s that look like? Right. Short term, part time fractional full timers. One of you, you know, what’s that you like? And so ultimately, what I come in, this is idea.

00:19:54:07 – 00:20:10:09
Speaker 2
What I love about this is seeing, like, you know, I can imagine I know grandkids yet, but if I did, when I do, you know, you going to see them grow up, but you don’t see them every day. You see maybe a quarter or a year, and you’re like, you pinch their cheek and you’re like, how tall you’ve gotten.

00:20:10:11 – 00:20:13:23
Speaker 2
It’s sort of like that. I feel that way every quarter with these clients.

00:20:14:01 – 00:20:19:01
Speaker 1
That’s hilarious. That’s amazing analogy. Yeah.

00:20:19:03 – 00:20:26:23
Speaker 2
That’s crazy. I actually feel like I need to reach out, but I don’t. I stop myself from actually touching or.

00:20:27:01 – 00:20:28:20
Speaker 1
Actually physically pinching their cheeks.

00:20:29:01 – 00:20:30:01
Speaker 2
They frown upon that.

00:20:30:03 – 00:20:31:09
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:20:31:11 – 00:20:52:17
Speaker 2
But, but yeah, they see they see growth. Emily. And during that quarter, I will get involved if necessary, you know, that kind of thing or, you know, observe and I’ll talk you through it. So it’s not like I’m gone. God. But I’m not in there for a full day. The idea of to get them self-sustainable. So at some point they don’t meet me typically by a couple of years.

00:20:52:19 – 00:21:07:13
Speaker 2
Yeah. Some people kick me out who can kick me after they want if you want to, and they don’t even pay for it. That’s that’s how it works with us. So any of us. If you had me into today, like, that’s a lot. And we got no value, then you just don’t pay the day. We’re stop.

00:21:07:16 – 00:21:13:18
Speaker 2
I stop using the if it’s it’s not working. So it’s kind of an iOS thing. Yeah, yeah.

00:21:13:20 – 00:21:16:04
Speaker 1
Well, it sounds like you’re standing behind what you guys do.

00:21:16:06 – 00:21:22:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. I haven’t yet to have somebody do that. Maybe because I look, I don’t know what it is.

00:21:22:00 – 00:21:23:22
Speaker 1
I look sad, they feel sorry.

00:21:24:00 – 00:21:48:09
Speaker 2
Bro. Take the truck. But, you know, they really don’t. They? Ultimately, it’s when it doesn’t work. It’s either they’re not working it like anything, and they decide not to do it because it’s either too hard. So it’s actually a simple system. It’s a hard to do though. We’ll say that because you got to get in this mindset of, if I don’t want to do every role, but I want to make sure I micromanage every role, that’s is not going to be for you.

00:21:48:14 – 00:22:06:10
Speaker 2
You got to be open minded. You got to actually hear that you’re probably not the best at one of these roles or for these roles, out there, you know, getting somebody like that, this is I don’t, you know, trust kids these days. You know, it’s like every generation says that. Tell me more about where you can’t.

00:22:06:10 – 00:22:29:06
Speaker 2
Why you can’t find people. And what’s that look like when your competitor can? I’m just curious how that happened. And we talked to that. So being able to hear that, too, like, I feel like I’m scolding them. Not my job to make them feel good, affirm them when they’re doing well, but also be like, hey, I don’t suppose this is a problem for you.

00:22:29:07 – 00:22:46:14
Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s got to be that’s got to be hard to have those conversations with folks. I hear it from people all the time using the exact example that you’re giving with, I just can’t find help. I can’t find people. And it’s like, yeah, but you got 20 competitors in this market, and they seem to be doing okay, finding help.

00:22:46:14 – 00:23:08:21
Speaker 1
So like, maybe, maybe the talent pool is not the issue. Hey. Or. Right. Like maybe, maybe you’re the issue, but how how do you deliver that news without, you know, without being accusatory or, I would have a tough time. Dave. I’m. I’m a pretty direct guy. I’d be like, hey, quit your whining. You’re obviously the problem. Yeah.

00:23:08:23 – 00:23:10:06
Speaker 1
Probably wouldn’t go very well.

00:23:10:10 – 00:23:35:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, I will, I will say this about some people can handle that. Right. And you can do that quickly and some people don’t. And it’s oh, I didn’t. The guy has an ego, right. And rightly so. A lot of people have built businesses that are yeah, very, very strong businesses. And they did it by just I mean just with good power of their own, you know, everything, right?

00:23:35:19 – 00:23:56:02
Speaker 2
Just be here. Well, yeah. Yeah, that’s good work. Right. And then later becomes duct tape and twine, that they’re holding together, but they don’t know that, or they see that, but they still have the ego that they had when they, you know, just to say, I’m singularly going to make this business amazing. And you did, but you hit that wall, you hit that ceiling, whatever.

00:23:56:04 – 00:24:16:16
Speaker 2
And so being able to say that to somebody, sometimes it’s like, hey, ultimately, what changes if nothing changes? And they’ve heard that sentence before, perhaps. But it’s like, you know, I’m just going to keep plugging away. I that’s that’s one of the saddest days for me is when I hear that from somebody and this is okay, this it works for everybody, right?

00:24:16:18 – 00:24:41:05
Speaker 2
I have clients that don’t it doesn’t work. And is it iOS? It didn’t work. Maybe. I mean, it’s been used by hundreds of thousands of company. I mean, it’s a proven system, right? So yeah, just the gym not work when you can’t bench press 100 pounds after. Yeah. Of having a gym membership, I guess. No. Right. You’re just not using the tools.

00:24:41:07 – 00:25:06:15
Speaker 1
Correctly. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it’s wild. Obviously, you know, we’ve our other product or one of our other podcast, Blue Collar Startup, where we interview business owners all over the country. Some of them, by my standards, not by the government classification, but by my standards. Big businesses, you know, sometimes are doing tens of millions of dollars a year, sometimes over $100 million a year.

00:25:06:15 – 00:25:28:14
Speaker 1
And I can’t tell you the number of these businesses. I talk to them and they start saying certain things. And I’m and I’m like, you guys are using the OS, aren’t you? And every single one of them is, and they love it. And they all give iOS the credit that the system has allowed them to solve so many problems in their business, in many cases, get their lives back.

00:25:28:16 – 00:25:43:06
Speaker 1
Because like you were saying earlier, right? Like, you know, they got check in every 30s and they, they can’t go on vacation and, you know, and it’s, it’s really wild, that, you know, the sheer number of businesses that are using it and using it. Well.

00:25:43:08 – 00:26:05:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s it’s a me. You’re right. I, it’s rare that I hear somebody who doesn’t know iOS or doesn’t know about it at least, but it’s happens. But it’s, it’s it’s just it’s it’s amazing juggernaut. That it does work and I just it’s the orange. The primary logo colors orange. And so I kind of thought it’s maybe it’s easy for me to say that, but yeah, you’re hearing it too.

00:26:05:02 – 00:26:26:14
Speaker 1
I believe the orange she says that’s amazing. Yeah. Ugly towards now I want to. So you talked a little bit about how you kind of work with people and kind of what the, you know, you’re putting in structure. You’re you’re not you’re not there every week. You’re not, you’re, you’re, you’re doing what is it like full days or half days, once a quarter, something like that.

00:26:26:14 – 00:26:31:07
Speaker 2
Okay. Yeah. We spread it. Yeah. Spread it out a little bit. Full days with that.

00:26:31:09 – 00:26:54:13
Speaker 1
And I got to say, I have had the pleasure as an employee of being inside as one of these implementations has happened. Both with the company where I worked for, and I had a client that was implementing me OS that had me come in and, for part of the marketing discussion and those things, I really like, you know, it’s it’s off site.

00:26:54:14 – 00:27:13:06
Speaker 1
Right. So you’re trying to get everybody off site for the full day, get them out of the office, you get them in a room. A lot of stuff. A lot of stuff being discussed in those rooms. You’re covering a lot of ground. Yeah. As far as if I remember correctly, the the pie chart that you guys have, you focus, that is it.

00:27:13:06 – 00:27:15:13
Speaker 1
Six different topics.

00:27:15:15 – 00:27:17:21
Speaker 2
Six key components. We call that. Yes.

00:27:17:23 – 00:27:23:11
Speaker 1
Can we run through that real quick just to kind of give a little, a little, body to the message.

00:27:23:13 – 00:27:41:04
Speaker 2
Absolutely. So there’s six key components of any business. And you think about how you do this. And so this is kind of the questions I’ll ask them. So I’ll go in one at a time quickly. So first one’s top one’s called vision. So having a vision that is shared by all not to all the buyer all started with the owner perhaps.

00:27:41:06 – 00:28:02:10
Speaker 2
But it’s a shared vision shared by all we know how to get there and what to do. So kind of vision in our world we call that of each and cigar reuse laser three letter acronym, something called the world. And so it is, Vision Traction organizer. It’s a two page. It’s a two page, plan. So it’s like it’s super simple, stupid, easy to look at it.

00:28:02:10 – 00:28:16:22
Speaker 2
Understand? That’s the idea behind these things. That’s our plan. It’s not a 40 page document. So having that we have what’s in your head now. It’s not on paper. It we share it. But to that I mean by you start with the leadership and then go there. So vision the first component.

00:28:17:00 – 00:28:35:15
Speaker 1
Can you before you move on and not to get stuck in the weeds on it. But I know we do it as a company and I know a lot of companies do. We often confuse vision and mission. Yeah. Can you give me like a just a quick, description of what a vision actually should be?

00:28:35:17 – 00:28:56:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. So the vision would be where do we want to. We want to go, you want to be the world’s greatest X, right? So, the concept of a mission in this world. So we use vision. The VTOL vision, the whole thing is like, what do I want to be? What do we want to be? And then kind of the,

00:28:56:16 – 00:29:16:17
Speaker 2
What how do we do that? That mission, if you will, we call core focus. So it’s like, what are you, what are you the world’s greatest at and why? So the why is your mission, right? We have a mission to put a computer in front of every human on the planet. Microsoft, what they do great is that they’re, you know, the technology, right?

00:29:16:17 – 00:29:38:21
Speaker 2
Tesla. You could think of all these companies Amazon the that the company specifically has one singular purpose. You know, Jim call to call it the hedgehog concept mission. Right. So it’s we call it core focus. Just another word. Two words there. But, that idea. So vision, the whole thing, it’s like, what is the what do we want?

00:29:38:21 – 00:29:55:07
Speaker 2
And so I usually start when I start with somebody just on a call. Right. So if I’m having a call with you and you’re like, I got a team, I want to do this thing. Maybe then like, I want buy in. I would like buy it from your team. So like, well, I could talk and you could agree to to work with me, but then I’m your guy and I’m not their guy.

00:29:55:09 – 00:30:12:09
Speaker 2
Right. And so how buy it. So a shared vision is what do we want. This thing we had this company ABC whatever we want this thing to be and that’s vision. So then the mission is basically what do we focus on and why we do like we have a mission. What’s chick fil A’s mission. Right. You can you know it.

00:30:12:15 – 00:30:34:13
Speaker 2
What’s the mission of you know, so the mission of, you know, why was Disney a thing? Right? So it’s like, make people happy. That’s the mission, right? Vision is we’re going to have places all over the world, and we’re going to have entertainment things and television and. Right. Well, there are all sorts of cool stuff, but that’s the idea between those two hotels.

00:30:34:13 – 00:30:53:11
Speaker 2
I get it, it’s confusing. That’s why we try to confuse it by just saying total thing. What’s the vision of the company? What do you really want? And then core focus is what do you do and why do I say the words what and why? As you still create a mission statement, that’s all make mission same. Maybe, you know, corporate.

00:30:53:13 – 00:31:18:02
Speaker 2
We’re going to be shareholder value, blah, blah, blah, whatever that is. I think, you know, so when we build these things, sometimes people will have those. They’ll say they’ll somebody have created a mission statement, and it’s this four paragraph thing that nobody understands and reads, created by some lawyer or some place, to make it sound, you know, it’s all the constituencies they’d call it whatever big words that corporations use.

00:31:18:04 – 00:31:31:16
Speaker 2
Yeah. You know, instead of, like, we make really cool stuff. And here’s what it is. We. Yeah, it’s like, we love doing it. Great. We love saving the world. One whale at a time. Awesome. Do that. You know? So that’s that’s that that makes us all right.

00:31:31:16 – 00:31:39:15
Speaker 1
So visions the how it looks like what you’re building. Yeah. And and before I pulled you off on that tangent. So what’s the second.

00:31:39:17 – 00:31:59:08
Speaker 2
Second. Oh, yeah. So, so imagine it’s at, what’s that book? It was, Oh, gosh. I can’t think of the name of the, the game. The had a little. Is it 60 people can visualize this Trivial Pursuit, those trick, that Trivial Pursuit thing. That’s. Imagine if you’re one of those pieces of pie. That’s the second one.

00:31:59:08 – 00:32:23:22
Speaker 2
It’s called people. The people component. Nothing works without people. And so people are two parts, right. People. So they are your core value fits and in the right seats. So we talked about right seats earlier, like, what are all those seats that you have in a business, whether you’re one man band or 50 or 50,000, what are the big seats on the leadership team?

00:32:24:00 – 00:32:48:04
Speaker 2
And, do we have the right people in those right seats? And so there’s, there’s some real come to Jesus moments, and some people who are in a business that are not in the right seats. And we know that, they’re not or they’re not behaviorally the right people. Like, that’s we call that core values. What do you need to bring behaviorally every time, every day?

00:32:48:04 – 00:33:08:13
Speaker 2
You this is who you are. How I would describe you as a human on a Saturday when no one’s looking. That’s your core values, right? That’s that’s your behaviors. You’re bring all the time. You’re not only do you have those two things. So vision people how do I know the people doing their jobs. Well data. So that’s the third component.

00:33:08:15 – 00:33:12:23
Speaker 2
It’s our data does not lie. If you have the right data and you track it.

00:33:13:01 – 00:33:14:22
Speaker 1
That’s what hourglasses for.

00:33:15:00 – 00:33:16:19
Speaker 2
They’re all there.

00:33:16:21 – 00:33:21:05
Speaker 1
I was like, data. I’m like, that’s what we do, man. That’s what we do with view data.

00:33:21:07 – 00:33:41:01
Speaker 2
Also because that. Yes. Because if you can, if people say, well, what do we know? So we’re we’re going to take out the emotion of an issue, which is a different component. We say, okay, what what is going on? What do we know when we know it kind of thing. But for real, like what’s happening here?

00:33:41:06 – 00:33:59:18
Speaker 2
Why aren’t we making sales? Is it because Bob isn’t a good salesperson? That’s kind of ish. Tell me more. Let’s look at the activity is by meeting meetings and people. Has he made three proposals? Has he sold one? That’s our typical ten. Three. What leads? We know the numbers. We’re supposed to be 30% close ratio. Bob.

00:33:59:19 – 00:34:19:19
Speaker 2
That 12. Okay. All right, let’s dive into that. Is it because he’s not meeting people, the right people. You know, we can look at data and they can get detail on those things. But really ultimately our open data is to take, the key things. And I’m sure you can track millions of things. I mean, you can track anything, right?

00:34:19:19 – 00:34:39:07
Speaker 2
So on a Tuesday, when we got some call from somebody after a radio show, marketing, you know, and the guy’s name was George, and George was has gray hair. How many gray hair? George? People doing, like, you could do that stuff. Or you can just say, you know, qualified leads. You know, you could look at the basics of things.

00:34:39:10 – 00:35:01:21
Speaker 2
One of those things I do, people, I love it when you can have, people specifically can know what their number is. Their measurable is. And so I’ve got somebody in a business and my business, when we’re doing it back in the day, one of our turnarounds was, we had graphic designers, as you know, this billable efficiencies of thing.

00:35:01:23 – 00:35:20:17
Speaker 2
And so if I spend 400 hours on someone’s logo that they’re paying only a couple hundred or thousands, a few thousand dollars, I’ve lost money immediately. Yeah. And have you met with a client yet to show it that to them? Who’s then going to want a 14,000 other hours of stuff if you just show me all sorts of different things.

00:35:20:19 – 00:35:45:20
Speaker 2
And so being able to say billable efficiency is this and this, and you have to be at x percent billable, without, you know, losing, the human. And so how do we do that. It’s so numbers. Right. So so vision people and then data. And so we can connect those three things. Then we’ll know those people will know they’re measurable and toward what.

00:35:45:20 – 00:36:17:01
Speaker 2
So the fourth component is called process I talked about Uber. This is basically myth consolidated idea of franchise model. Everything should be everything that you need to document should be documented in a simple way usually checklist, checklist, manifesto. Another book by the way, that that is amazing in terms of being able to take your process and saying, do we have a documented and followed by a key word there followed and two other words by all, everyone.

00:36:17:03 – 00:36:37:16
Speaker 2
But yeah, even when you do sales. Yeah, I’m the owner. I don’t have to do it that way. I have to take the CRM. I don’t have to pipe anything in there. Okay, let’s. Do you have an issue on the issues list, which is component number five. And that is the component of we’re going to have issues or challenges or opportunity to not be negative.

00:36:37:16 – 00:36:56:14
Speaker 2
But the idea of the tip we call them issues is that we have a problem. We have too many clients. My son is now a contracting and he’s got too many clients going too fast like they he’s got he’s doing well, he’s got to hire some folks, but he’s like, I don’t know how I’m going to get this squeezed in and do this thing.

00:36:56:16 – 00:37:17:08
Speaker 2
Good news is you have you have client your customers that want, you know, you have an issue, right. How do you schedule a more effective way? Got it. Right. And so is that the thing we’re trying to fix here? We’re not fixing a marketing problem, but what are we trying to fix? Right. And what what would that issue be?

00:37:17:08 – 00:37:37:09
Speaker 2
So we, we focus on the single issue, component. And that was my favorite because it’s, even though it sounds negative, this idea of like, if we write a list down and then we solve these things, just one of them every week, and we have this meeting cadence I’ll talk to you about. But that’s this component. It’s like we solve issues.

00:37:37:09 – 00:37:55:22
Speaker 2
Just one of them in my this is not in the book traction. This is kind of a De bro trademark. If you said, hey, I’ve attended a problem and what’s the ten minute problem? Well, we kept getting these calls from this one client who’s always asking for something, and he calls and he wants this file, and he wants to be able to do this, and he does that.

00:37:56:00 – 00:38:12:17
Speaker 2
And so and he calls every day. And so what if, how do we give it to him without like, you know, having to have that ten minute problem. All in one ten minute problem like that or somebody comes in. Hey Mike you got a second. Hey Mike. Right. They like hey.

00:38:12:17 – 00:38:14:21
Speaker 1
Mike. Oh yeah.

00:38:14:23 – 00:38:34:22
Speaker 2
That’s the ten minute problem perfectly encapsulated which is I haven’t trained coached somehow giving this person the right tools and resources to do it themselves. Or I’ve taken over micromanagement. And so how do I take off that. So an issue on the issues list could be I don’t have any time okay. That’s a symptom tell naught. It’s a ten minute problem.

00:38:35:00 – 00:38:54:19
Speaker 2
If I could give you ten minutes back of your day, one day a week or so, be every day for five five days and you take two weeks off a year, hopefully that’s this. That’s, 20 500 minutes. Basically that is 41.6 hours. You take a vacation every time you have a ten minute problem that you solve. Yeah.

00:38:54:19 – 00:39:13:11
Speaker 2
It’s not it’s so if you have five problems so you could solve it in one meeting, you can you can have five weeks off now every year. Right. So why is this work. It’s basically a compounding of time. So the issues component is one of those like oh now we can gamify this thing. How do we look for issues.

00:39:13:11 – 00:39:40:20
Speaker 2
Look for things to solve that are just small but incremental atomic habits in other book, atomic habits kind of things. Right. Yeah. Yeah. 1% better all the time. And so that’s the fifth about the six components called traction, which is which includes this meeting cadence thing. You have that meeting every week and then once a quarter with somebody like me or you do that, that strategic stuff once a quarter, but then weekly, it’s like, do we need to have these meetings?

00:39:40:22 – 00:40:04:05
Speaker 2
A real meeting, not stupid meeting. And the meeting is, it’s got an agenda. It has those data points. I talked about having those metrics. So for using stuff from hourglass, we’re using stuff. Right? Where are we doing? What are we taking action from? And, and then solving something and then leaving the room with clarity on who is solving it and when and what’s next.

00:40:04:07 – 00:40:20:13
Speaker 2
Next week when we meet. Did did you do it or not? So it was not going to be like, yeah, I’ll take care of it. What are you doing? When are you doing it? And what are we going to get a report back. And it’s usually next week. And so you have now at Uber Accountability. Even as an owner you’re like hey I’m going to take that on.

00:40:20:15 – 00:40:46:00
Speaker 2
You know, have a conversation. Good. We’ll mark it off when when you come back. So next week part of that meeting is I’ll be do last week from last week stuff. That’s it. And so those six key components if you could imagine those things working together. Vision right down to traction is this idea of like we’re getting start to make, movement toward this like a flywheel is so at first and then just start spinning and you’re like, wow, I don’t need to be at the office.

00:40:46:00 – 00:41:05:12
Speaker 2
My client yesterday in Michigan, the guy took a month off in July. And, there’s only eight people in the business right now. And he took he’s the owner and he’s a chief guy who does right now. It’s a wealth management company. And so he meets with most of the clients. How do you take a month off?

00:41:05:12 – 00:41:20:22
Speaker 2
And they still make money this this month? The sugar. Right. It’s like you can do it. And it’s not always because you need thousand people. It’s just a matter of like, what would I find? Ten minutes every, every week adds up and I could take a real vacation or four.

00:41:21:00 – 00:41:37:21
Speaker 1
It’s it’s funny you say that because it’s. I’m pretty sure it’s either from traction or from, Emeth. I can’t remember what it’s from, but one of the things they said is that, like, if you have an actual business, you should be able to leave for a month, and when you come back, it’s making more money than it was when you left.

00:41:38:01 – 00:41:49:01
Speaker 1
Right. And if you can’t, if the answer is not yes to that statement, then you have to ask yourself if you have an actual business or if you have a job. Yeah, right. That you own.

00:41:49:03 – 00:41:51:07
Speaker 2
You were held hostage.

00:41:51:09 – 00:41:59:21
Speaker 1
Yes, yes. That’s the that’s my holy grail, Dave. That’s what I’m trying to do, right, is to have an actual business that allows me to.

00:41:59:23 – 00:42:00:21
Speaker 2
Exactly.

00:42:00:23 – 00:42:05:07
Speaker 1
Even go away for a week. I don’t need a month right now. I just need a week.

00:42:05:09 – 00:42:09:02
Speaker 2
I don’t know about that. Yeah. Yeah.

00:42:09:04 – 00:42:22:04
Speaker 1
That’s amazing. I know we’re getting short on time, Dave, and I don’t want to keep you long, but, you know, as we’re talking about iOS. And thank you very much for running through the, would you call them the.

00:42:22:06 – 00:42:23:23
Speaker 2
The six key components? The key.

00:42:23:23 – 00:42:24:14
Speaker 1
Components?

00:42:24:18 – 00:42:29:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s called the iOS model for short, that.

00:42:29:11 – 00:42:43:07
Speaker 1
You know, if someone’s listening to this and they’re like thinking like, oh, that sounds good. Like, how would someone self-identify that they need iOS? Yeah. And even better that they should call you, but at least let’s start with the iOS.

00:42:43:08 – 00:43:04:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, I guess the question. Ultimate iOS. Are you getting what you want? So do you need iOS? A great question, there is the central question I ask is, are you getting what you want now in three short years from now, just take that number. What what does it look like? And it’ll look different than what you have now.

00:43:04:14 – 00:43:27:08
Speaker 2
It’s. There is? Yes. What are you doing about it? The answer is. I’ll just keep plugging away. Probably not. Right. That’s. That’s probably the answer is you’re probably not without some changes. You nothing. The business has to change. It’s smart. Strong businesses name it blockbuster. Sears, JCPenney. Any kind of a company, you don’t change, you fail, you die, grow or die.

00:43:27:10 – 00:43:46:08
Speaker 2
So that idea of like, if nothing changes, there’s going to be a lot of changes and not going to be good, right? So that’s one of the things that I would ask you to think about if you were like, I don’t need this thing. Great. Maybe you’re taking a month off, right? And you do that. There’s a tool we called the organizational checkup.

00:43:46:08 – 00:44:04:10
Speaker 2
So they can do they can you can go on to my website. You can go into iOS and sell iOS worldwide.com. And if you want to just go there and you can take this free checkup, no one will call you. And it’s 20 questions and you’ll answer your own questions about, do I need the OS?

00:44:04:12 – 00:44:23:21
Speaker 2
There’s it’s just a thing, and it’s not going to game the system. It’s 1 to 100 if you’re great, don’t need it. Right. So what’s great? 80 plus out of 100. You know you’re good, right? Less than that. Maybe you need to implement these tools. Working with somebody like me, I will tell you, this is not just a Dave Berlin thing.

00:44:23:23 – 00:44:40:04
Speaker 2
We’re going to be held first. So you’re going to, if you call me, said he, reached out. You said, Dave, I heard you, on this thing with Mike Nelson. But here’s the problem. I don’t I can’t afford you don’t want to ford you. I wanted to try it myself. Would you help me? Yes, I will help you.

00:44:40:06 – 00:44:59:06
Speaker 2
I get paid by people. Yes, but I also get help first, which is sometimes you. You’ll do it with me. Sometimes you’re like, oh, thank you. I’ll take it from here, not work. It’s going to sound weird. There’s no strength. We’re cool with this. Right? So this idea of, like, we’ll sit down and do that 90 minute thing.

00:44:59:06 – 00:45:15:23
Speaker 2
If you want to talk about traction, you can have me for coffee, pay for coffee, you know, do something for me, but that’s fine. But, we’ll do it right. And if you ever want to work with an implementer to actually get you there faster, it’s proven that working with an implementer is going to get you there, but I do these studies just came out.

00:45:15:23 – 00:45:26:12
Speaker 2
It’s like three times faster. I there’s a lot I don’t even know the number I don’t want to quote, but I saw but it’s a massive number of the multiplier. Getting there faster.

00:45:26:14 – 00:45:27:13
Speaker 1
It makes it.

00:45:27:14 – 00:45:36:07
Speaker 2
Makes sense right. Yeah. But but it’s not cheap. And so if you want zero I’m happy to help you to pay for it. I’m happy to help it.

00:45:36:07 – 00:45:37:12
Speaker 1
Right.

00:45:37:14 – 00:45:39:06
Speaker 2
It’s up either way.

00:45:39:08 – 00:45:45:08
Speaker 1
Amazing I Dave, you gave the US website. You got a website though. People want to reach out to you. How do they find you?

00:45:45:10 – 00:46:09:15
Speaker 2
Yeah, I do, so, there’s one way you can do it. So there’s a website. My personal website is called Grow exceptional.com. And if you want to go to the EOS website itself, it’s EOS worldwide.com/dave hyphen Burland b o r l a and d and that’s that’s all my EOS stuff. They can look to me up on LinkedIn.

00:46:09:17 – 00:46:15:05
Speaker 2
They Borland EOS simple enter. You can look that you can find me a lots of places.

00:46:15:07 – 00:46:19:01
Speaker 1
Awesome Dave thanks so much for coming on man I really appreciate it.

00:46:19:03 – 00:46:21:18
Speaker 2
It is my pleasure and always great to talk to you about.

00:46:21:19 – 00:46:43:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. Likewise. Likewise. And of course, thank you for everybody for listening. Of course, you can find this episode and all of our episodes at hourglass. Ask.com. That’s hourglass Suzuki. Com you can also find we do a weekly. Still trying to figure out the name for this, but for now with this use newsletter, even though I hate that term.

00:46:43:11 – 00:47:04:03
Speaker 1
But we do a weekly email, we send out, our top list of the week for curated information specifically for fractions each week. It’s a great list. My team puts a lot of time and putting that together. And so, go to our website, sign up for the newsletter. And so we come up with a better name than newsletter and, appreciate everybody listening.

00:47:04:03 – 00:47:06:14
Speaker 1
And, you’ll hear from us next week, guys. Thanks so much.