After a stress-induced health crisis landed him in the hospital, Will Watrous discovered EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) and transformed his marketing company from chaotic to thriving - increasing net profit from 6% to 34%. Now an EOS implementer, Will shares how this proven system helps leadership teams gain vision, traction, and health.

Learn why 34,000+ companies worldwide use EOS, the six key components every business must strengthen, and how to move from firefighting to fire prevention. Perfect for business owners feeling overwhelmed and seeking a better way to run their companies.

What You'll Learn:

1. The warning signs that your business stress is reaching dangerous levels
2. Why trying to implement EOS yourself (like learning golf from YouTube) doesn't work
3. How blind spots keep even brilliant leaders from seeing simple solutions
4. The difference between vision, traction, and healthy - and why you need all three
5. Why the right people in the right seats is more than just a hiring strategy
6. How to move from firefighting to fire prevention in your business
7. The organizational checkup that reveals your six key component strengths
8. Why leaders must realize they're in the people business, not just their industry
9. How a two-year EOS journey creates lasting transformation (and why it's worth the wait)

DON'T FORGET...

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#WillWatrous #EOS #EntrepreneurialOperatingSystem #Traction #businessoperatingsystem #leadershipteam #businesstransformation #netprofitgrowth #businesshealth

From hospital to 34%

profit will waitress on EOS success.

Welcome to another episode of Biz Bites

for Thought Leaders.

I'm your host, Anthony Pearl, and

today we're sitting down with Will an

EOS implementer who learned about

the entrepreneurial operating system

the hard way.

He had a stress induced health

crisis that landed him in hospital that

led him to learning about how EOS.

Can make a major impact

on a business.

He took his marketing company

from chaotic and overwhelming to

a high performing team that increased

its profit from six to 34% and

now functions without him.

So he just focuses on EOS implementing.

In a business there are 136 simultaneous

issues that are happening, and

six components that actually

solve them all.

That is some of the gold that

you're gonna learn from Will in

today's episode.

It's one that if you are running a

business that has a couple of million

dollar profit to a hundred plus profit,

then this is perfect for you because

you no doubt have teams and you no

doubt have issues and blind spots

that you don't even know about yet.

So stay tuned for this episode

of Biz Bites for Thought Leaders.

Hello everyone and welcome to

another episode of Biz Bites.

And once again, we are traveling

to the other side of the world and

I'm delighted to say we have Wheel

Tres joining us today where it's

well as we are recording this, it's

evening your time.

It's middle of the day my time.

Welcome to the program.

Will Watrous: Thanks Anthony.

Great to be here with you today.

So we've got a lot of

topics we're going to cover today, I

just know, but why don't we start by

asking you just to introduce yourself

to everyone.

Sure.

So currently I am an EOS implementer.

That's the Entrepreneurial

Operating System.

There's a book out there called

Traction, which is pretty well known

in the business community, but how

I got here is an.

A whole nother story.

It's very interesting.

I own a company.

I started it about 15 years ago and

it grew rapidly to the extent that

I had some health issues come up.

The stress of that chaos and so

many moving parts just really took

a toll on me and the leadership

team, in fact, and I found myself

in the hospital and they thought

it was pretty scary actually.

They thought I was having a stroke,

and so they did all these tests.

Ultimately, they determined

that it was all stress induced.

And after that incident, I set

out on a mission to create a healthier

business and a healthier life,

and I came across that book Traction.

Reddit made a lot of sense to me,

so I hired an EOS implementer and

worked with him for a couple of

years, and it was transformational.

The business continued to grow,

but morale improved.

We used to feel like we were herding

cats every day.

We turned into this high performance,

healthy functioning team, and net profit

went from 6% to 34%.

And needless to say, I fell in

love with this whole EOS thing.

And along the way it also created a

lot of freedom for me as the owner

of the company.

So about three and a half years ago,

I stepped away.

I still own the company

passively now.

I meet with the CEO once a month.

Run through financials

and support him as I can.

But all I do now is help other business

leadership teams implement EOS in

their companies, help them gain

traction in their companies, create

companies that are aligned and healthy

and moving toward their clearly

defined vision.

Super thankful to be where I'm

at today doing what I'm doing.

And and you're part of that story now

too, just spreading the good word,

that there is hope, that there is a

way to wrangle this crazy thing

we call business.

Yeah.

There is so much that goes on in a

business and you are absolutely right

that it's hard with so many different

things coming at you from multiple

different angles.

And it's sad in a sense that you

know the story of.

A health crisis is often what

we see as what.

Is the determiner of making a

significant change in a business.

And I was actually just leading a

forum just before we spoke, and one

of the big things that we were talking

about in that forum was around

the ability to break habits and

the fear that's attached to making

change that really comes to the fore.

And I think that's the one thing when

you have a health crisis like you did,

it makes you, it forces you to stop.

But I'm just interested as

well as how often when you encounter

businesses, are they really ready

to make that significant change?

That's a great point,

Anthony, because the reality is that

we're all on our own journey and

business leaders, entrepreneurs

we're all on our own individual

path toward.

Success or fulfillment or

whatever it is.

And what I, my experience has been

that some people are very goal oriented.

They're very driven.

They have a clear picture of where

they're trying to go, and that

drives them forward to making

whatever changes are necessary.

And I would also say this, that

I think we all function at times

in that manner.

However, there's also.

Times where there is so much pain, there

is so much pressure and stress that we

know that we come to this place of, let's

call it disgust.

We just realize that something is

going to change.

I've had it and I am going to

make a decision.

And so that pain inst insti,

instigates, if you will, or inspires or

initiates a change or a willingness

to make change.

And so in, in my instance, it was the

pain that drove me to make significant

changes in the business and the

way I was running the business.

But you're right that so often

I think that's the reality for

a lot of people.

It's just they get to a place

where they've said, I've had it

and I've gotta do something different.

And I'll say this too, that until

people reach that point, it's really

hard to help 'em.

They say when the student is ready,

the teacher appears.

And if someone's just determined to

just keep trying, to figuring it

out on their own and just keep

hitting their head against the wall

or trying different things, I get it.

There's power and persistence

and perseverance.

That's real.

That's important.

But when something is not working

and you've tried everything, to do.

At some point, you have to be willing

and open to look at things in a

different way.

And until you're ready to do that,

I don't, I'm not sure that

there's much hope.

Yeah.

And, but it is, as I said it's

sad that sometimes it's something

outside that crashes, outside

of your control, at least that crashes

that causes that.

And so how many of the people that you

are dealing with that, that have

become clients or that you've helped

along the way?

Have had some kind of external forced,

we need to take a look at this.

Yeah.

So I'd.

I would say all of them in one

way or another.

Not all of them, certainly not a

health crisis, but there is

enough pain in the organization that

they've realized we need intervention.

And that's really, in a way, what I do.

I am intervention.

I, this is someone stepping in and

helping them to figure this out.

Help equip them, teach them, show

them a better way.

All of them have come to their,

to that point, or honestly, they're

not a good fit.

I, I. Would not want to work with someone

who feels they've got it figured

out and they don't want or need help.

That's just not a win-win situation.

And so I would say all of my clients in

one way or another, what, whatever

has happened.

So I'll give you a few examples.

So one, one client he has a family.

He's got family in the business,

family on the leadership team.

He's getting older and he's in his.

Mid sixties and he's thinking,

you know what?

I wanna step away and spend more time

with the grandkids.

But he and his wife are a little

concerned about what's gonna happen

to the business.

He's the source of knowledge.

He's the one who started it, let's

say 25 years ago.

He's a little worried about what's

gonna happen to the company when he

steps away, becomes less involved

and hands it all over to his kids.

And so he's wanting to institute some

framework, some foundation, some

structure to the organization that

ensures his legacy.

And so that might not be a pain in

the sense that the sky is falling, but

he's recognizing that his.

Priorities are shifting and

he has concerns about what's gonna

happen, how do they navigate that?

So that's one example.

Another client had cash flow issues.

A great company been around for a long

time, but they're working their tails

off and just don't have enough profit

at the end of the day to show for

all of the work that they've done.

And so that's a very real pain point.

And and I'll give you one more

client example.

One, also another gentleman in his.

Late sixties it was working just

70 hours a week.

And at that stage of life, the 70 hour

work weeks get old.

And so he's just wanting

to create some.

Space, some margin, some freedom of

time and what he had been trying

to do or trying to handle whatever

he was trying to do to handle that

wasn't working.

And so that's, he's bringing

in EOS to help him manage that.

So those are just some examples

of the, you're talking about the

pain what maybe triggers someone

or inspires someone to want to use

something like EOS?

Those are a few examples.

Anthony Perl: Suppose the

important thing for people listening in

now is to recognize.

When they might be in pain or that

they're heading towards it.

I think that's the thing is you don't

actually want to have to wait for

that pain to come.

You want to recognize that it's

coming and and try and get in front

of it because it, I imagine for you

it was a lot harder to react when you

go, okay, I have a health issue now.

And so now I need to respond, but now

you are managing the health issue

and managing a significant change

in a business.

So two significant changes in

your day-to-day living that's

hard to manage.

Yeah, it compounds and

the body's keeping score, whether you

realize it or not, in the background.

It's paying attention to all

the stress and.

And all of the chaos, sometimes

it goes into the business.

So yeah, that it's much better to see

it coming and hit it off at the pass.

It's so much better.

And I'll say this I love entrepreneurs.

I love the entrepreneurial

spirit because they see an opportunity

and they just figure it out.

They just jump in headlong and

try to add value to the world.

And I love that entrepreneurial

spirit and.

Part of the reason they're successful

is that they do just figure it out.

They just grab a piece of this and

a piece of that, and they're just

bringing it all together, creating

this business, and that is a

wonderful thing.

It's a beautiful thing.

Honestly, the issue is that as we say,

what got you here won't get you there.

And so you cannot continue to

grow a company in that manner.

At some point, you need to have a

business operating system, and

I'm not talking about software.

I'm talking about how do you function

as a business and if you're

not intentional with that, you'll

wind up with this Frankenstein.

You've got multiple operating systems

all trying to work together

and communicate different languages.

Different approaches,

different words that mean

different things.

And so having a single business

operating system is what really

allows you to create simplicity,

because prior to that, you're

just at piling on complexity.

As the business grows, as you add

people, as you add services, whatever

the business becomes more and

more complex.

So simplicity is.

Is very valuable.

It's a very important thing.

And so having a single business

operating system that's simplified

allows you to grow and create

the freedoms that you're seeking

in the business.

I wanna delve into

that in a moment, but I do wanna ask

you just first, how important do

you think it is for you to have gone

on your own journey and discovered

not only EOS, but.

Discovered how to implement it in your

own business and the impact that it

makes, how different is that approach

to someone going, oh, here's a great

tool I've never actually implemented

on my own business, but I'm gonna.

Implemented on lots of others, which

without denigrating a lot of coaches,

a lot of coaches have, the only

business they've ever known is a

coaching business.

So they've not actually had an

opportunity to build something

for themselves and show how it's

being delivered.

And you've done that, so how

important do you think that has been

in the success of what you've had?

Yeah, so for me it was the

price of admission.

Meaning that that was my path.

And I'll say this, I would never want

to knock someone who did it, the whole

that's a wonderful story to tell is

that I saw other people's mistakes.

I learned from other people's mistakes,

and I decided to do it the right way

from the beginning.

And that's a wonderful story.

And an example, although I'll say

there is also a lot of value and just.

Empathy.

I think people feel when they

see that, okay, someone has learned

the hard way and they've paid some

prices of admission and learned some

lessons that I can now benefit from

and learn from.

And so to answer your question,

I'd say it's very important.

It's been very important to me.

I think it's relatable.

Most business owners and leaders have

made mistakes, have, done some things

that have been.

Really painful, and they can relate

to that and they understand that.

And it's been a big important

part of my story.

With that in mind, let's

give everyone a little bit of a

background to the business that you

had, that you were involved in on.

Say you, you're still involved

with it to, to a lesser extent today.

Give us a paint, a little bit of a

picture about that business at and at

the time, what it was looking like.

Will Watrous: Yeah, so it's a

marketing company that specializes

in emerging franchise brands,

so multi-location businesses

throughout the US and Canada.

And at the time I have had a

wonderful, I'd call him a right hand man

a real executive, like a operations

executive.

His name is Bruce.

And he is just been a wonderful aid and

a help in managing the company.

The problem though was that he and

I were often not on the same page.

And in retrospect, I see now that I'm

more of a visionary type leader.

I have great I come up with the ideas

and I chase shiny objects and one

month I love this, and the next month I

love that I'm making all the promises.

He's finding himself having to fulfill

all the promises that I'm making.

And so there was a lot of just stress

around not being on the same page with

basic things like the organizational.

We call the accountability

chart.

In other words, who ex who is doing what

in the organization?

What's the right structure for

our company?

What's the simplest and best way to

arrange all of these people?

Who is responsible for which area?

You would think that would be obvious?

But at the time it was not clear.

And so balls were getting dropped.

And deadlines were getting missed, and

I would continue to try to sell, and

he's trying to do, create efficiency

and processes and account

profitability.

And so it was not great.

And the staff could feel that tension

as well, because they weren't really,

I would say one thing and he would

might say another thing because the,

I would have a great vision of something,

but he would have the more realistic

version of that.

And so there was not a lot of

alignment across the organization.

So that's what it, that's what I was

dealing with at the time prior to

us embarking on our EOS journey.

So you discover EOS,

how do you go about implementing?

What did that journey look like?

So as any entrepreneurial

spirit would probably do.

I read the book and tried to do

it all myself.

I just, nobody's ever done

that before.

Anthony Perl: Surely not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's I like tos, a couple of

YouTube videos.

And then it's all fine.

Will Watrous: Exactly.

Exactly.

I, it's like learning how to play

golf by watching YouTube videos

and then picking up a golf club

and expecting to go out there and

hit the ball just perfectly straight

after you've watched a dozen videos.

Doesn't quite work like that, sadly.

And so I realized, sadly, I wish

it worked.

So I, I realized that.

There was a lot of value in having

someone walk us through the

process, and so we, we worked with

an US implementer at the time and he

walked us through the exercises and

coached us and trained us and.

Watched what we were doing, gave

us feedback and really helped us

hone and lean into the EOS process,

adopt the tools.

And the further that we went, the

more clarity that there was, the more

alignment there was.

We're all on the same page at a clear

picture of success.

Looks like.

We knew who exactly was accountable for

what we were using.

The scorecard at a leadership team

level, paying attention to the

handful of key numbers that the

leadership team needed to be

looking at every single week to know

what was going on in the business.

Just as a few small examples.

So that was a, it was a great

process for us, a great learning.

And I realized, this is funny.

I was actually talking with

someone earlier today about this.

As a marketing company, some of

our clients were in the medical industry

and so talking with doctors, very smart,

very intelligent people, and at

the same time, while they were

brilliant in their field, they were.

Maybe sometimes very ignorant as it

came to marketing.

We would be just surprised, wow

you're really good at what you do,

but you'd really have no clue how

this marketing thing works.

And so the point is that we had

blind spots.

Everyone has blind spots.

Business owners as well.

So what I've found is that even great

entrepreneurial leaders and

leadership teams have blind spots.

They're in the weeds, they're

in the forest.

There's so much going on in the

day to day, and they don't have

enough perspective.

They don't have just a simple tool set,

some very simple things that can help

them and they don't realize that they're

missing these very simple things.

And yeah, that, that's been very

funny to watch.

It's I'll sometimes I'll work with a

leadership team.

And this is what's interesting.

I actually don't need to know a ton

about their specific business because

what I'm working on them is how they

run their business as a business

operating system.

So they might be talking for 10

or 15 minutes and all this jargon.

That's internal language of these,

but I'm not paying attention to that.

I'm paying attention to how they're

talking together, how they're working

together as a team.

I'm paying attention to some

simple mechanics that are really.

Foundational, they sit below their

area of expertise.

So anyways, it's just interesting

how all of us have blind spots.

It's interesting how a simple set

of tools that help you run your

business better can be so obvious

but many teams are just unaware

that take an external

person to recognize the blind spots.

Yes.

Yes.

That was my point.

Thank you.

I had kinda lost track of what,

where I was going with that, but yes.

An external perspective that

can look on, look in and say, Hey guys,

what about this?

And what about that?

And go, oh yeah, that's a great idea.

Why didn't we think of that?

Yeah.

It's a big thing for business to

actually realize the, where the, that

they have a blind spot and where that

actually is and.

That they may not also be the best

people qualified to fix it either.

I think that's the important bit.

It's all very well to, I'm sure you

experienced as a marketing company

to point out that hey, you don't

have a clue around marketing, but you

can't just give it to them and expect

that they will then be able to implement

it themselves.

You actually, you actually have to

get in and get your hands dirty.

Yes.

And with EOS there's a lot of what we say

put in the reps. In other words, it's

using the tools.

You've got to get your hands dirty.

You've got to use the tools, get the

practice using those tools for you to

really understand.

And even once you start using the

tools, you need some feedback.

Ev.

Every great athlete has a coach,

sometimes multiple coaches, and I would

say high, all of the high performers

of the world have some coach in

their life that's giving, offering

them an objective perspective, helping

them see things that they can't see when

they're in the game.

And and so that's a big part of EOS

is getting some feedback are we

doing this right?

The, and it feels messy.

It feels awkward to them.

It's a new tool set.

It's a new language they're adopting.

Within their organization and

it feels awkward.

And so to have someone say,

yep, that's right here, watch this,

watch out for that is, is really

valuable to them.

Tell me at a high level,

someone's going, okay, what is the

CEOS thing at a very high level?

What am I going to get out of it?

Yeah, so EOS is a simple.

Tool set.

It's a complete system and it helps

people get what they want from

their business, which could be

different things.

But the three main things that

I like to say are vision, traction,

and healthy.

So number one, it helps them get

on the same page with where is this

company going and how do we plan

to get there?

So a clear vision.

Traction means instilling

discipline and accountability first

in the leadership team level so that

they're executing really well on every

part of your vision.

And then healthy means helping the

team to become a more healthy,

functional, cohesive leadership team.

Because leaders often don't function

well as a team.

And what we found is as goes the

leadership team, so goes the rest of

the organization.

So we get to the point where everyone

in the company is crystal clear, all

aligned with where we're trying to go.

They're gaining consistent traction.

Everywhere you look in the company,

people are making progress toward that

vision and they're doing it as a group

of people who enjoy the work they do

and the people that they're around.

And so vision, traction, healthy

is really what EOS delivers.

The way it delivers it is just with

a complete set of really simple,

practical tools.

So let's talk about

then going into a business in the

first instance.

What are you looking for to start things

off, to know where you've gotta go?

Do you mean in, in terms

of a perspective eeo, so is someone

ready for EOS or

Yeah.

Someone you as an EOS consultant going

into a business, how do you, what

are you observing?

What are you looking for that

is knowing what are the directions

you want to go?

Because I understand that someone,

can look at their business and

go, we have some pain points here.

We potentially have some blind spots.

We have things that are not

working as well as they would like.

I understand that an, this system can

deliver for us, but they probably don't

know where to go.

So how do you know where to go?

Will Watrous: Gotcha.

So I'll come at this from a couple of

different angles.

First of all, at the very beginning,

I'm looking for a leadership team

that's growth oriented, that is

more afraid of the status quo than

they are of change.

They do want to grow and change,

and they're willing to be open and

honest and vulner vulnerable with

themselves and the people that

are around them because it takes

a leadership team being open and

honest with one another to really

grow and go where get where they want,

where they're trying to grow to go.

So with that said, EOS, the process is

very prescriptive, it's very defined.

There is a set of meetings and

agendas and the, it's, there's, I

don't know how many, there's, I think

34,000 companies working with an

EOS implementer now around the world.

So it's, there's actually I think

a couple hundred thousand companies

using the tools.

So it's.

It's proven.

My point is that it's a very

proven process.

The results have been seen over

and over again.

And over time they've, EOS

worldwide has been very intentional and

careful to curate and find the best

way to implement EOS inside of a company.

So with that, we have a really

clear process.

There's a journey mapped out.

Here's what we do.

The first step is a 90 minute meeting.

I have a very clear agenda what happens

on the 90 minute meeting, and then

there's focus day, and then there's

vision building day one, and then

vision building day two, and then

there's quarterlys.

All of these meetings have very

clear agendas, very, we introduce

a tool at, in a certain meeting

in a certain way and assign certain

homework after and so all that to say.

What we found is there's a foundation

that has to be built regardless of what

the pain points are right now today.

There's a path to get there

that requires a foundation to be

laid and so that you can solve

that problem.

So us.

What Gino Wickman, when he started

creating Geo Us, he saw that these

entrepreneurial leadership teams

tend to struggle with 136 issues

simultaneously, but to the degree you

can strengthen the six key components

of your business.

All of those 136 issues tend to fall

into place because they're actually

symptoms of a true root cause rooted

in one of those six key areas.

And so the EOS journey is a journey

to strengthen those six key components

of your business.

That's what gets you everything

that you want from the business.

You want to focus on all of the

noise and putting out all the fires,

and that's fine.

You've gotta do some of that.

But what has to happen is we must

go to the root.

We must lay a real foundation so that

you stop having the fires to begin with.

So going to, from fire, fighting to

fire prevention take some time

and due diligence.

And so the journey you asked.

How do I know where to start?

We started the same spot with every

single client and get them a firm

foundation built upon which they can

then build the rest of their business

and solve all of those pain points

that they've been working through.

Anthony Perl: Imagine for

many businesses.

The dilemma here is that we're working

on some foundations, but yet.

We want to be running at the

other end of things.

We want more business.

We want it to be growing at a faster

rate, and this potentially slows it

down because you're reexamining the

base, which can lead to other things.

I'm sure as a, from a marketing

perspective, branding can

be a an outcome of all of this.

Because if fundamentally

the vision and many of the.

Those base components

have changed.

It may change how you market

the business.

And branding could be an impact of

that, which is inevitably gonna

slow down what they want to be

doing and running at the other end.

So how do you balance those two?

Because it's not a, this is not a,

you're not talking about something

that is a, couple of weeks process here.

It is not a quick fix.

It, I, most of my clients work with me

for about two years.

So it's about a two year journey.

To get those six key components strong.

So it is not a quick fix, and

that's hard for some entrepreneurs

that are fast paced and to live in this

microwave world that we live in.

We want it right now.

We want everything right now.

But I'll tell you that while it

takes a couple of years and while

it is a bunch of work, the payoffs

are worth it.

It is amazing to have a company

that's healthy, clear vision,

strong team, energized team,

healthy culture.

It's worth the weight.

All, some recipes you throw it in

the microwave and it comes out.

Two minutes later, other recipes, you

cook all weekend.

And I guarantee the meal that's been

cooked all weekend is much higher

quality, much more enjoyable than

the one that came out from the Wake

av.

Great analogy, isn't it?

And it's funny too because you

often look for, you watch any of the

cooking shows always fascinates me.

The amount of preparation and

thing that goes into this meal and people

consume it in.

A minute or two when you go, it just took

three, four hours, sometimes longer to

prepare this thing.

And that's by someone who

is an expert.

So if you're not an expert, it

probably took you a day or two you

say to get there.

But the feeling that you have

at the end of it is significantly

more joyous.

And the and in part that's because

of the quality of what you've

turned out as well.

Yes.

And they say big shirt, big ships

turn slowly.

Sometimes companies have a lot of bad

habits, and when you're changing

culture, when you're changing

who the company is at the fabric, the

core of who they really are, that's

not something that happens overnight.

That's, that takes a process.

Yeah.

And so what's it like for the

businesses that are dealing with

you over that period of time?

Do they, do they fall into that

routine and respect the fact that it is

a two year process?

Or is there that tension of can

we go faster?

Will Watrous: There's so two years

is the average.

Some do it faster, some do it slower.

And that's fine there.

Each one is at their own pace.

It's funny, I'll say within a leadership

team, typically the founder of

the visionary is saying, oh, can we

just speed this up?

Can we just move faster?

Why are we still talking about this?

They wanna move on.

And there's other key leaders on the

team who are going, whoa, wait, we just

made a decision.

Hold on.

We need to talk and do all this

due diligence and research.

And so there's tension even

within the team.

Some feel we're moving too fast,

some moving feel, we're moving too

slowly, and my encouragement

to them is trust the process.

Tens of thousands of companies have

gone through this exact same process,

stick with me, and it doesn't

take long for them to see, by the.

By the second session they're

realizing, oh, okay.

There's a lot more going on here than I

might have realized.

And so it takes time to practice.

It takes time to put in the reps to make

fundamental shifts in the organization.

And I think they respect that.

And I do have to encourage them to

trust the process along the way, but

it's not a, usually a big battle.

I think more of the tension

happens maybe within the team.

Some as I said, feeling we're

going too slow, some too fast.

Anthony Perl: Let's maybe look

at some of these six different areas

that you go through.

What are some tips across each of those

that people might be more or less

to look out for?

Because we say we are not telling

people that they can do this themselves,

but what are some things that they

might be looking out for to recognize

if they've got problems in those

six key areas?

Yeah, so there's actually

a fantastic tool.

It's called the organizational

checkup, and if you were to just

Google it and just do a search for

EOS organizational checkup, it's 20

questions and you just, and those,

there's those are designed and that'll

reveal to you how well you're doing

in each one of those six key areas.

That would be a great.

Just exercise or tool for really

any leader to go through.

The six key areas are the

vision component.

Is everyone crystal clear on where we're

going and how we're trying to get there?

The second one is the people

component.

Do we have the right people in

the right seats?

Right People or people who

fit the culture like a glove.

You love having them around.

Having them in the right seats

means they excel at their work.

They have the.

Excuse me.

The God-given talent, the drive,

the desire, the capacity to do

the job well.

That's the second one, the

people component.

The third component is the

data component that's running the

business on facts and figures, making

so sure that we're using objective

information to make our decisions

versus in most entrepreneurial

companies make decisions based on

hunches and egos and subjective feelings.

The fourth key component is the

issues component, and that's just

making sure that your people are

really good at solving problems

as they arise.

You can't really grow a great company

if your people aren't great at

identifying issues and then knocking

'em down, making 'em go away for good.

The fifth key component is the

process component, which is.

Making sure that all the important stuff

in the business is getting done the

right and best way every single time.

That's what creates scalability,

profitability, makes the business

a lot more fun to run and manage

when everything's being done the

right and best way.

And then the last, the sixth.

Key area is what we call traction,

and that's bringing the vision down

to the ground and executing on it

day in and day out.

And within each one of those six key

areas, we've got a couple of tools

or disciplines that we use that

helps strengthen those areas in

the business.

But the starting point that the

assessment I would say or the.

Best way to understand how

you're doing is to start with that

organizational checkup and it's

free, it's online.

It would take probably less than

five minutes for any leader to,

to fill that out.

Anthony Perl: Typically, what kind

of businesses are you working with?

They are privately held,

typically two to $50 million US dollars

in annual revenue.

Typically 10 to 250 employees.

And as I said their leaders are

growth oriented.

They are willing to be open and honest

and vulnerable with themselves and the

people around them.

And they want to grow.

They are seeking change.

They know that there's a better

way to run their business.

We start to wrap things

up a little bit.

I wanted to get some insights on a

couple of different levels from you.

You've talked about some of those six

different areas.

Is there a a note for people that

are listening in now saying.

I think I should, you know that says

that they should look at EOS as

something they should be doing.

Is there a trigger point aside from

the ones that we talked about at the

beginning, which are the crisis points?

Is there something where you can say,

you need to get in advance of this.

It's better to move now rather

than wait a year or two when something

might happen.

Will Watrous: Yeah, so a lot of

the issues we see are people issues.

So whether that's turnover, a lot of

turnover sometimes it's drama, just a

lot of tension on the leadership team.

Sometimes it's accountability when

it comes to people.

You feel like you come together, you

make a decision, but then it

just never gets executed on fully.

You don't see things being finished

out completely.

And so people.

Is one area profit.

I mentioned earlier, sometimes you're

working really hard, but there's just

not enough profit at the end of the

day to show for all of your hard work.

Other times there's a lot of stress

or chaos because things are not

being done the right way consistently.

So I mentioned that process component.

It's funny when.

When I was running my marketing

company, I read a book, I forget the

name of it, but I got really excited

about processes.

I thought, man, if we just created a

process for every single area of the

business, everything would be done the

right way, and all these problems

would go away.

And I had the right idea, but my way

of executing on that was very poor.

I. I wound up creating hundreds

of pages along with a team, hundreds of

pages of processes, and by the time

we were finished, the first ones

were outdated and nobody was using

them to begin with, and they were in a

Google Drive folder.

So within EEO s we've got a really

effective way, an entrepreneurial

approach to systemizing

a company.

And so anyway if you feel like there's

not consistency in the organization,

the customers are not getting the

same consistent experience or

product or you just know internally,

there's a lot of inefficiency in

the way things are getting done that's

another symptom or pain point or a tip

that someone might realize, okay, we

might need to adopt something like EOS

to help us become more consistent.

Anthony Perl: I wanted to ask

you, and this is a probably

a significant topic that we can

only scratch the surface on, but I'm

intrigued about the role of technology.

There's a lot of chatter about ai of

course, but that's not the sole piece

of technology.

How much of a role is technology

playing both in the, building up to

a crisis point of needing to change

and also EEO S'S intersection with

that in terms of how is it

using technology to help improve

the business?

Will Watrous: Yeah so what's so

interesting about US is that it's

industry agnostic, first of all.

So it doesn't really matter what the

business does, it sits below your

area of expertise.

We all mentioned, we mentioned earlier

we have these blind spots in these areas

where unaware of.

But secondly, I would say that

technology is.

Neither good nor bad.

It is how you use it.

It is what's done with it

that matters.

And so AI is great.

I use AI every day.

The marketing company, every

role within that marketing company

uses AI as a tool every day.

But within EOS, it's what I would

say EOS is a people management system.

And so AI can help, technology can

help with that, but at the end of

the day, it's a bunch of people

working together to accomplish a goal.

Technology will change, but

how people work together, having

a clear aligned vision, having clear

accountabilities, having discussions

to solve issues together as a team,

those things aren't so dependent on

technology, and so I encourage my

clients to use ai.

We in the session room when I'm

meeting with them, we don't use

technology at all.

In fact, we're using paper and

pen because of the distraction that

it tends to be.

We put the cell phones away, they'll

close the laptops, and we're just

fully present, fully engaged

with one another.

And that's important.

It's been interesting to

watch AI unfold.

AI can help you create processes

in your company, for example.

That's a great tool, but AI is

not going to call John out when

he shifts in his chair a little bit.

When Sarah says something, that's

my job as an EOS implement.

John, I saw the look what's

with the look.

Sarah said such and such and now

we're getting some, now we're getting

to the root of some real things.

That's a team health issue perhaps,

and that's what us really helps teams

do is get clear aligned, open and

honest and measuring progress, those

types of things that technology's a

merely a tool that can enhance that.

Anthony Perl: So much stuff in

everything that you've talked

about there.

I wanna ask you the question that I ask

all of my guests on the program, what

is the aha moment that clients have

when they come to work with you that

you wish more people would know They're

going to have?

I wish

leaders

realize, realized that.

Regardless of what their business

does, they're ultimately in the

people business, and especially as

leaders, your job is to get work

done vicariously through your team.

You're less a technician

now and more a people person.

Your job is the people business and.

When you realize that you're in the

people business, you see your

job differently, you realize how

important it is that we clearly

communicate that we have an aligned

vision, that we're aligned with the

vision, that we hold one another

accountable, and that we have

open, honest conversations.

How we work and function together

as a team is so important because

most companies.

Focus on strategy.

They focus on how we can deliver the

product better.

They don't often work on the health

of the company.

They focus on the performance, but

not on the health.

And so if leaders realized how

important and how simple that

can be, it's.

It doesn't have to be complex,

doesn't have to be complicated,

but it has to be a priority.

They have to be very intentional

as to designing a culture and a team

that is healthy.

And Patrick Lencioni, in his

book, the Five Dysfunctions of

Teams, and he's written several

other books that are wonderful,

is a great read.

I would recommend that to anyone.

But that at the end of the day, what I

think most of these teams realize is the

power of being open and honest with one

another and being a healthy team and how

that gives them a tremendous advantage

in the marketplace.

Anthony Perl: Thank you so much.

Will there is so many great

insights that people will gain

from listening to this conversation.

I know I certainly have.

It's a process I think is the most

important thing that people need

to understand and that EOS is

something that you should jump on.

Sooner rather than later for

your business.

'cause if you see any of those warning

signs at all, it's never too early to

get on board and do those things.

So thank you for enlightening

everyone about EOS and about sharing

your story as well.

And I really appreciate you being

part of the program.

I know it's been

a privilege to talk with you and

just have a great conversation.

I learned as I talk sometimes just,

fleshing things out.

So I really appreciate your

questions and the way that you

phrase to those.

And it was a great to have

great to have a good conversation

with you today.

Anthony Perl: Fantastic.

Thank you so much for being part

of the program.

And of course, we will include in the

show notes all the information on how

to get in contact with Will, and we

remind everyone, of course to subscribe

so you never miss an episode.

And we look forward to your company next

time on Biz Bites for thought leaders.

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