Traction First: An EOS Workshop with Jill Young

Source: GeniusDen archive transcript checked against the recording. Administrative opening and closing material is omitted; the presentation wording is otherwise preserved with light readability edits.

We will get you unstuck for the day, all right? If everybody has a place to write, a really good way to do this is to just actually write all of this stuff down. It’s still around nine o’clock, so write your name and your role, one minute about your company, and then something that’s not working so we can put together a list and start solving your issues today.

Shawn McBride: we have a corporate law boutique. We work with business owners on protecting them—ownership structuring when they go out to do capital raises, M&A transactions, other strategic legal issues in the business, contract negotiation and drafting. What’s not working for me is time management.

I recently got involved at a startup as part of my MBA project. I liked the product and the business model enough that I actually want to join them full-time. The startup is an online media platform for group communications set up so anyone who wants to teach a class or give a session can do it over the platform, and people can take part from anywhere through online interactive group videos. As a presenter you get to set the price and the people taking part pay for your session; the platform retains a small portion for providing the technology. The company name is [unclear; spelled I-M-M-E-R-S-S] and they’re in beta; they’ll go live in maybe three months, and the big question for us is how to get users on the platform. There’s a lot of fear about coming online—people aren’t sure about the experience, and we’re trying to figure out what it takes to get the brand out there and get people to join. So the single thing would be bringing users, which in turn converts into eventual revenue.

My name is Mylin and our startup is Vidyfx, on-demand video editing. I have the same issue with time management and lots of tasks. I’m trying to find lead generators and then outsource that—train some people on my tasks so I can focus on the startup.

My name is Maximilian and I am the CEO of Dallas Urban Farms. We are an urban farming company and an organic local food supplier. Right now we don’t have any food to supply. We’re working on a fundraise, and our biggest obstacles are the actual implementation of the strategies and concepts we come up with for creating sales channels and cash flow, as well as clearly separating and defining roles and responsibilities. We have such a small employee base; we all have a lot going on on the side, and getting everybody to work at the same time on the same task is difficult. Lots of part-time people with equity. There are only three of us, but we’re paying the bills while launching the company.

Hi, I’m Julie Fleming. I am a partner with Jill Young and I’m the integrator for Traction First. We develop high-performance leadership teams using the tools from EOS as well as Gallup’s StrengthsFinder. Everything is not perfect—we totally get off track in our Level 10 Meetings. The day we’re perfect is the day we stop going. So don’t expect perfection from me. Can you say your first name for me?

Alaric. How do you spell that? A-L-A-R-I-C. Great. Vice President of Development for Dallas Urban Farms—one of our biggest issues as an independent development team is introducing a new technology that people want. There’s a certain fear about putting a record of what’s behind it, so that’s a business challenge for me.

Thanks so much for sharing all of the things that are not working. As you went through your issues, a few themes jumped out: revenue, time, putting dollars into marketing strategies, finding lead generation strategies. The tool I think will help you the most today is in your Vision/Traction Organizer—the V/TO. I brought extras if anyone wants one. I want to go over our marketing strategy right now, and I’ll give you highlights of what makes a really strong marketing strategy so it relieves some of your fear. If we get to it, we’ll also talk about delegating and GWC and possibly the Accountability Chart.

Before we jump into the plan, I’ll give you a quick high-level overview of what EOS is so you understand where this marketing strategy fits into the model. Turn your page to the EOS model. The principle is this: we deal with a billion things every day—maybe like 187 things. To the degree that we can focus and have all of our attention on these six key components, all of the other things start to melt away—fear about investing, who’s doing what, how to get on the same page, how to bring in more users, how to do all this on your own. All those little things fall into place when you focus on the model. This is a high-level overview of that model, and you can take notes on this page. This is your business; we can focus.

I have digital copies of [unclear]. This is your business. To the degree we can focus on these six key components, everything else is going to fall into place. So the first one here is vision. Vision means when it is 100% strong, it means that everybody in the company is rowing in the same direction. Instead of you're working on this thing and you're working over here and you know you're contacting Fox 4, but you're over here thinking we should go more newspaper — we're not focused. We're all out here, and we're never going to be able to move forward if we have all of our energy focused in different areas. So vision: getting everybody aligned and on the same page in the whole company starts with the leadership team, and then we make sure that it's shared by everyone in the company.

So that's vision. Second key component here is people. We've got to have great people in order to achieve our vision, right? People means the right people in the right seats. How do we get the right people in the right seats? We use tools that do that. But here's the key: if you have somebody in your company who does not share your values or who is not excited about what you're doing, they're holding you back. Sometimes you have to make hard people decisions. If you understand this from the beginning and you define what right people means for your company, you're going to be so much farther ahead of all the other startups because you're going to start right instead of two years down the road going, "I've got a team of 20 people and half of them don't share my values." So we've got to have great people in our company.

Next one here is data. We need to run our company on real-time objective data. It takes out all of the subjectivity, all of the egos, all of the feelings, all of the politics that goes on behind the scenes sometimes in companies. Here's a quick example of a client right now who's letting go of a top salesperson. They've been friends for a long time, but the data is showing that he does not get that role; the data is showing that he's not closing deals. Because we've been measuring real-time data, it's the data that's the problem. It's not the human being. We can still be friends. Even if it's not as extreme as that — "I've got to let you go" — if there are data issues that pop up, now it's you and me working together against the numbers instead of you and me working against each other. So we absolutely have to live in a world that is objective. We track data.

Next over here is issues. Something great happens when you have a clear vision, the right people in the right seats, and you're tracking data: issues just pop up and your company becomes very transparent. Instead of shoving things under the table or sweeping them under the rug or waiting to see if somebody's going to come up to par, we have tools that tackle how to deal with your issues — how to deal with your issues on a daily and weekly basis.

Next key component is process. We were talking about McDonald's and the franchise way. When you live in a company that is very process-driven, that has systems and regularity to it, then we can spend our time differently. Right now you're spending a lot of time redoing things for every client, and that's not allowing your brain to be the genius. So we really focus on processes; then we can take our brains and put them to [unclear].

The last key component here is traction. Traction is just getting things done every day: living in a world of discipline and accountability over and over and over again. I'm going to teach you some tools that are within these six key components. Keep in mind a little visualization: all of these tools that I'm going to teach you — they're gears. You're going to take the marketing strategy and some delegating tools away today, but they're just gears in your company. The best way to use the gears is when they all come together. I'm giving you pieces today, so if you go back and they're not quite working, it might be because your gears are not in alignment with the other tools we're using.

All right, so where are we going to work today? That was super high level. Everything I'm saying is in the book; I have a digital first chapter for those of you that said one that you can read right away. Any questions about the model? Makes sense, right? It's all simple. I have an MBA; I look at this and I go, yeah, I know all of that. That's the cool thing — it's very simple, it's very disciplined, they're all proven tools, nothing's fluffy. The cool thing about EOS is we put it into the system.

The first tool that we use here in vision is called the Vision/Traction Organizer (V/TO). The V/TO answers eight questions. Turn your page and you will see the V/TO — Joe actually held it up during his check-in. It's a two-page document, so just be looking at it like this. The V/TO answers eight questions, and what I would encourage you to do is get your leadership team together. You're talking about trying to be on the same page with your leadership team; this is a great tool to get everybody on the same page. You don't need me to do this, but ask: what are our core values? Discuss, debate, and decide. That's the first question. Number two: what is our core purpose? What the heck are we doing here? Purpose is more about the feeling; the niche is simply what you do. Next is the ten-year target: something to shoot for out there. Max, you shared with me your ten-year target out here — it was a visualization of plants and vegetables all through an empty hotel. Maybe that's the ten-year target: something big and audacious.

But the thing we get down to next — and that's where I want to spend our time today — is: what is your marketing strategy? Marketing strategy really gets the whole company, starting with the leadership team, focused around how we're going to bring in the revenue. How are we going to close deals? How are we going to sell our wares? I really want to go into that today. You can use this as maybe your final product, but you'll need some place to write and to brainstorm. I'm going to take you through the exercise that we go through with my leadership teams. We probably don't have time to do everything, but I'll try to get to all of the great steps so you can finish it up later. Is that a good idea? Does everybody agree that's the best use of our time today? Yes. Getting laser focused on the marketing strategy.

Quick disclaimer: this is not your execution strategy. I'm not saying you should be on Twitter and then read these data analytics — that's not what we do here. Imagine that your leadership team's job is to come up with that broad raw data. It does not need to be fancy. It's that raw data foundation of everything that your marketing execution plan is going to be based around: really defining who you are targeting, why you are unique, what is your proven process, and then finally what is your guarantee.

Everyone get some paper, ready to brainstorm. Marketing strategy: EOS has taken an entire marketing and sales degree and boiled it down into four points. You're probably thinking about pricing strategy and it's so in-depth, but I am going to dumb it all down. Sometimes one of our five leadership abilities in EOS is to simplify. We get so complicated that we forget the basics. Today is about the basics. This is a good thing to do for your whole company and also for when you release a new product or think about going into a new area. For example, Julie and I run a retreat every year for women executives. We run a new marketing strategy through these four basic points before we put together a flyer, before we decide where to put it on social media, before we decide who we're talking to about it. You can take this and use it over and over.

The four main points in a great marketing strategy: number one, who is your target market — who the heck are we talking to? Sometimes we think we know, but when you get your three partners in the room, you may each have a different idea. When you ask these pointed questions, you start to get in alignment. There are three main lenses we work on with target markets: demographic, psychographic, and geographic.

Demographic just means: male or female, how old are they, how much money do they make, what's their income level, do they have children? If you're looking at businesses, what is their revenue and employee size? Just think about that raw data. The next lens is psychographic: how do they think, how do your customers feel, what do they value, what is important to them? The third lens is geographic: where are they?

Psychographics are often ignored. When we think about our target market, we usually focus on demographic and geographic, but psychographics are crucial — how they think, how they feel, what they value. There's a danger, especially in startups: the minute we open our doors, we will take anybody as a customer who wants to pay us money. Be careful of just taking anybody as your first client. This is who we want as a client — our ideal customer. When you're creating your marketing strategy, have your mind laser-focused on this ideal customer. If you already have some clients who are awesome to work with and profitable for you, think about them when you're putting together your marketing strategy. Defining this piece does not prevent you from serving somebody outside of it, but this is where we're going to focus all of our efforts. Your marketing strategy becomes a focusing tool. If we're going to spend $1,000, where are we going to get the most ROI? If we spend $1,000 on everybody, it's going to be less effective.

All right, I want you to brainstorm for about five minutes and brainstorm in all of the categories at once: demographic, psychographic, and geographic. Think about your ideal customer and, in theory, be able to build that profile.

"I didn't make it outside of Dallas, Texas — that's my only issue to do graphics," one person says. "Our target is Dallas, Texas. Our demographic is medium to high income" — put a number to that later. "They are intelligent and/or educated. They don't have to be formally educated, but they at least know stuff. They're self-aware and aware of what's going on in our culture. They're pragmatic and benevolent; many are charitable and have an interest in cost-effective food production — restaurant owners or people with outreach programs, or individuals and families interested in gardening in a residential capacity." These are a few distinct groups, and they all follow under the psychographic lens.

So challenge to you, real quick, is where are you going to get the most bang for your buck when you advertise? When you spend $1,000, where is that? Is it going to be that one family? Is it going to be me, one tomato plant in my entry rate? Or is it going to be the restaurant owners who are saying, “We serve organic”? I really don't plan on spending any money for advertising to see your referrals. Okay. So what is the effort into getting referrals and social media and all of that? When you think about spending $1,000, it can be spent in many different categories. But in time and effort and energy, think about that. Who is your ideal?

I'm using Max as an example. He almost is starting to go into, “Well, everybody in Dallas might like something that we write: family and a restaurant.” So think about where you're going to get the biggest bang for your buck. That becomes your target market. Then all of the decisions that you need to make about where to put your efforts become very clear. If a family comes to us and wants to buy it—and I'm just using an example, not stepping into consultant mode—okay, we'll totally sell it.

Can you make a note on your paper? This is so important to my system. When you start to feel like, “Oh, I've got three target markets,” that's your clue to go, “Ooh, there's one, and there's one, but let me choose.” Especially at startup, we've got to have ROI today. Hold the crap—we need revenue. So start here. Maybe in another year or two, you can add another target market, but start where you're going to get the most.

They're not in alignment. That's the perfect example: two owners in the same company were not in alignment. This is awesome, because now you know. In a normal case, we would sit and have a discussion and debate—bring more data to the table. If we really focus here, you'll say, “Oh, but what if we really focus there?” So we're starting to come to alignment because we're asking these good questions of ourselves. Our goal is to basically bring large produce growers into urban areas; we have the ability to create urban farms in urban areas.

For what it's worth, it's possible to find a large grower that's innovated in a harsh climate that doesn't support farming in a city. New York is a perfect example. And we'll talk about, in a second, whether we have a wide enough target market to meet our revenue coach—if we're going to have a hundred-million-dollar company, there's got to be a market. That comes next.

Brainstorm for probably five minutes and brainstorm in all of the categories at once—your demographic, your psychographic, and your geographic. Demographic is medium to high income; put a number to that if you can. They are intelligent and/or educated; they live in a growth area; they're pragmatic and benevolent; they have an interest in cost-effective food production or an outreach program; individuals or families that have an interest in gardening. Geographic—think five to seven minutes; target is five to seven minutes.

Yes, I do it all. We’re a five-person organization at this point. What is working: we’ve done a lot of branding and marketing stuff; it's working, it's bringing calls in—we're getting that. What's not working is the volume of work; Sean doesn't sleep very much. I have to close the store and I'm still building my staff, trying to get them trained to actually be able to assist. They're great at a lot of different tasks but not diverse enough. I need to get them to another level so I can delegate better. I slept a little bit last night—it was nice. I get emails from this guy sometimes like 4 in the morning; it's awesome.

My name is Milin and I'm the owner of Boutique Agency 93. We do web design and mobile apps. Can you say the name of your company again? [unclear company name]. What's working is that we are getting lots of referrals; we're busy. What's not working is that I don't have enough time to create my process right now because of lack of sleep and lots of client calls and emails. I don't think I set my boundaries enough because I get texts and calls anytime of night. There's not enough time to train them and give work because they keep calling me like, “Hey, what else to do? What else to do?”

Hi, my name is Julie Fleming and I am a partner to Jill in Traction First. My role is actually as the integrator, and I'm also a support role to Jill. I do StrengthsFinder for our clients, both teams and individuals, and then I do everything else you can think of—from finances to some marketing and all kinds of stuff that goes on in a small business. Anything not working? We live in the EOS world, so I’ll probably throw delegating in that box; we're dealing with the same exact thing.

I'm Jack Carney. The problem is that we do it asystematically: when we're marketing we're not closing transactions, and when we're closing transactions we're not marketing. Direct sales or direct marketing works well, but we don't do it systematically. Referrals are probably 40 to 45 percent of our overall revenue. The primary source of referrals will be attorneys, consultants, and direct salespeople who know about us, but once again that's kind of a lumpy, asystematic activity and the revenue we generate is asystematic from it. We are very good at outsourcing roles. At this point we don't have any employees other than me, but I work on a routine basis with outside people to help me market transactions and close transactions.

One of the toughest things—I hate to admit this—is it is fairly expensive in this market to hire fairly qualified financial analysts, $50,000 to $60,000. Most of our income is on a contingent fee basis. For example, a week ago we just closed a transaction and earned a $300,000 fee; that client was a client for nine or ten months. They pay a $25,000 retainer and then there's no income until we close a transaction. If we don't close a transaction that's not good. Hiring people and having employees has always been something that kind of disturbs me or challenges me. I worry about bringing somebody on full-time and then maybe having to say at some point, "I'm sorry, cash flow doesn't warrant me paying you $5,000 a month," because we haven't closed the transaction yet.

Right now I have a remarkable investment banking analyst that I pay $1,800 a month; he happens to be located just outside Mumbai, India, and he is phenomenal. He's great at a very low cost, but I also feel bad about not hiring somebody locally to work with me. The biggest issue I think about is that my income over the years is very high, but I really haven't built a valuable firm, because literally if Jack Carney gets hit by a truck there is no firm. One of the things I want from this process is to move from a whole series of outsourced or insourced relationships to really building a company that has sustainable value if I'm not there.

All right, Joe, you're up. I'm Joe Payton. I founded the Genius Den. I've got a real estate investment group that's basically made up of small, high-net-worth private investors who put money passively into my real estate deals. We bought this building in August 2014, tore into it for nine months, and we launched one month ago and one week ago here at the Genius Den as a business incubator. What's working is we found the building and we built it out. We actually have another building under contract that we're going to close on the 30th of this month, so we're going to double our square footage, which is a little frightening.

What's not working right now is tenants. Our business model as a business incubator is that we're not taking part of someone's company; we're not taking equity at this point. We're just taking rent as our way of covering expenses and making it a business model. We need to figure out how to acquire customers better. Our interest in doing that is programs—speakers, events that get them in the door, build a relationship, and then move them into where they office or into membership. My target is a 35-year-old, probably male, with corporate experience, maybe with an app and a small team that could be dispersed. I try not to assume my customers are already at a coworking space; with seven million people in Dallas, they might be happy where they are, come in for an event, and go back. I think our people are leaving a sterile executive suite and want somewhere with more energy. I need to figure out how to make the right noise that attracts that customer to come in and become a member. We're still putting all those pieces together.

Anything else? It's a bit vague, but generally speaking I'm trying to identify and implement the right action plan—if it's events, it's figuring out the right kinds of events and programs.

Some of you have read the book and the system a little bit—quick raise of hands if you have. Okay, good. I want to make sure I'm not using too much lingo if we're all pretty fresh. The book is Traction by Gino Wickman; have you read this book? Okay. This is kind of how these sessions will work: we all check in, say what's not working in our business, and we actually build an Issues List. You're going to use this Issues List throughout your whole life with EOS. Think about an Issues List as a parking lot: it's a parking lot for all of your obstacles, your barriers, but it's also a parking lot for all of your 2 a.m. wild thoughts. Put it on an Issues List so you don't forget that awesome idea. It holds obstacles, ideas, opportunities—maybe a new session to get people in—and it lets your brain relax a bit and focus. I heard a lot of you say you had a hard time focusing on getting traction in your business, moving the company forward, so we'll talk a lot about those things. Start that Issues List today, even if it's in your notebook or a shared Google Doc. Nothing comes off the Issues List until it's solved; it can stay there and there can be a hundred things on it. We'll start whittling it down.

I wrote down a few things that a lot of people had in common, and I'm going to suggest we focus on a few tools. Number one, I want to talk about Rocks—Rocks are our top priorities in a 90-day world. Another option is to introduce the Delegate and Elevate tool. Do you have people working for you ad hoc, consultants? Okay. Just like Jack does, you have people working for you. We could spend time on the Delegate and Elevate tool today. I also want to talk about the difference between vision and traction; that will help align you around moving forward. Those are the three top tools I pulled out of the Issues List. Does one of them resonate better than the others? Rocks? Okay, we'll start with Rocks, then Delegate and Elevate, and then Vision and Traction.

Before we go to Rocks, I want you to hold this principle in your mind, because Rocks will make a lot more sense. Open up to the first page that says the EOS model. The EOS model basically says that to the degree you can focus on six key components of your business, your business is going to go farther, faster. What I want to talk about today is the vision and traction pieces and how they work together. We absolutely have to have clear vision in our company—we need to know where we're going, how we're going to get there, who we are, and what we stand for—so everybody is rowing together in the same direction for the good of the company. We have to have great people, and we need to measure with data. We have to be able to solve issues, run our company on processes, and then the last one is traction: we need to be getting things done every day.

If you've got your vision up here and your traction down here, the problem with most companies, especially founders, is we have tons of vision—we have ideas, we can visualize this great company or product—but we have a hard time bringing it down to the ground and actually doing things with it every day. You're not alone; this is why most businesses fail in the first one or two years. If you have a lot of vision and not a lot of traction, that's called hallucination—we're just hallucinating. And when we're not all aligned around our vision, it's really hard to gain any traction at all because you don't know where you're going.

There's also the opposite phenomenon: some companies have a lot of traction. You're bringing customers in, you're reacting to urgent needs, you're closing deals and serving clients, but you don't have a lot of vision guiding where you're headed.

So a lot of companies have a lot of traction — we're getting a lot of referrals, we have a lot of business — we're running our company on "what does the customer need today?" You had kind of said emergency things, right, they need this, they need this, and so we just react, react, react, and we're doing a lot of business. We're closing deals, we're bringing on people to serve our clients, but we're just working from day to day. We have a lot of traction because we're bringing customers in and they're paying their bills and going out the door and they're happy, but we're not having a lot of vision. We don't know exactly where we're going. When somebody says, "Hey, will you build me an app or will you build me a website?" "Yep, yep, we'll do that." We're excited to do that because it's business, right? It's revenue. So we want to do it, and every business does it, but this is called traction without vision — it's called randomness. You will be pulled in all kinds of different directions, and pretty soon you're going to follow a direction because there's lots of revenue there, and you're going to go, "Wait, I never intended to be here. This is not what I intended to do," and then you're frustrated with your business because it's not what you thought it was. So we need to have a clearly defined vision, we've got to have a plan to get to that vision, and then we execute on it. We have to execute on it, and that's where we get to the Rocks. Any questions about this? Any comments or feelings? "Ah ha." Okay, that is what I'm doing. Yes. That's typical — it's not right or wrong, it just is. Now that we're aware of what's happening, we can be a little more focused and align that traction with our vision.

So let's get down to the principle of Rocks. When a lot of you were talking about, "Hey, I don't have a lot of time, I don't have a lot of sleep, I'm not very good at delegating, I know I should delegate, where am I going to set my boundaries, staffing, training, a system for our sales" — what happened is I kind of thought, "If everybody can focus on some high priorities, a lot of this is going to go away." The principle of Rocks is a tool we use under the Traction key component. I'm going to explain it to you and then we'll see if we can maybe make some Rocks for ourselves for the next quarter.

This is where the word Rocks comes from: if you have an empty glass cylinder and you are given some rocks and some pebbles and some sand and some water, and your challenge is to fit all of this into the cylinder — if you start with the pebbles and then add the water and sand and then try to fit the rocks in, the rocks are not going to fit; they'll end up sticking out the top. But the principle here is, if you put your rocks into the cylinder first, then the pebbles, then the sand, and then the water, everything is going to fit. How does this relate to our lives? We look at this cylinder as all of the time we have available during the day. Sometimes when you had a job where you worked 9 to 5 and now you open a business, you think, "Well, now I'm going to run my business from 9 to 5," and then you have a rude awakening that you're working from 6:00 a.m. to midnight. Whatever this availability is, that's what it is. Mine feels about 16 hours. These rocks are your highest priorities — we'll talk about that more. The pebbles represent everything that falls within your role, the sand represents your distractions, and the water is everything else. When you get laser-focused on your priorities, everything else will fit. That's the principle of Rocks.

The Rocks are usually not urgent things, but they are very important; they're not urgent, so we never get to them because the sand and the pebbles keep coming at us. Those nonurgent things constantly get pushed to the back burner — "I can't do that today because I have to open the building at 6:30," so you push things off. It's human tendency, but now we'll get laser-focused around it. Moving off of Julie Fleming's comment — and this is what I do with my clients — I encourage them to make their Rocks priorities that will move their company forward forever. For example, let's say you have somebody sitting in the finance seat and they say, "Well, this quarter my Rock is to get the tax return done for the company." That's not a Rock; that just lives within your role. Something that would be a Rock for them would be to redefine the accounts payable process and automate it. That's a Rock — it's moving the company forward forever, really building the foundations of your company. When you start a company, that's the most important thing: building that strong foundation so that someday you're not doing everything and you begin to elevate yourself.

Now I'm going to describe the process we go through to actually create these Rocks. Turn your page and you'll see a two-page document — that two-page document is our Vision/Traction Organizer (V/TO). This actually is your strategy for your company in two pages because everything we do in EOS is simple; we don't do anything fluffy — we get the biggest bang for our buck. The second page is where we're going to focus today. You'll notice we have a one-year plan space. In that one-year plan, you get your leadership team, or even yourself if it's just you, you put yourself in a room, lock yourself in for two hours and really focus and think, "What are the most important things I need to get done this year? What absolutely has to happen this year?" Of course we want that aligned with your three-year picture and your ten-year target on the top page, but what must get done this year to reach those long-term goals? Once you have a solid one-year plan, you break it down into bite-sized chunks. In EOS we live in a 90-day world because humans can't stay focused much farther than 90 days. That's where we take the one-year plan and break it into quarterly Rocks.

Your quarterly Rocks absolutely have to feed into your one-year plan or you're not going to get there. You don't want little projects sitting out that aren't supporting the one-year plan — it's all a funnel. Ask yourself, "What is the end of my quarter?" If we're sitting here today and it's April 15th, then our quarter would be July 15th — just write that date in there: by July 15th what will I get done? I have digital forms of all of these tools so you can scribble all over them. Then decide what you want your revenue to be, what you want your profit to be. I'm going to skip the line of measurables just because we all have different industries. Then decide what are the most important things you've got to get done in the next 90 days to hit that one-year target. For Joe it might be ten tenants, I don't know what it's going to be; it might be to hire a marketing department. Jack, for you it might be to solidify relationships with one other financial analyst. That's how you create your quarterly Rocks.

The other thing about your quarterly Rocks is you have to be able to measure them — you can't just say, "I want to have more X"; there's no measurement. We always make our Rocks SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable (realistic), Relevant, and Timely. If you've done your Vision/Traction Organizer well, then your Rocks are always going to be relevant because they have to feed the one-year plan, and they're always timely because you've set the 90-day date. Really think about specific, measurable, and attainable — it's no fun to make goals or Rocks that are not attainable, so be realistic. The teams I start working with, I push them and they say, "Oh yeah, we can totally get this done in 90 days," and then they come back next quarter and say, "That wasn't very realistic," and they learn how much they can actually get done.

Always make sure those Rocks are moving your company forward forever. Establishing processes and training on processes are great Rocks. Staffing can be a Rock if you've never had that role before — defining it and adding measurables to it makes adding a staff member a legitimate Rock. Maybe delegating is a Rock. What kind of questions do you have around the concept of Rocks?

The principle here is that you stay laser-focused on those. You have to check back in with yourself or your leadership team at least once a week and report to each other whether a Rock is on track or off track. If you're working on your own or with consultants and you don't report back and forth together, at least have a weekly meeting with yourself — it's called the Level 10 Meeting. It gives you a chance to take that clarity break and ask, "Am I on track with these Rocks? Am I going to meet my goal by July 15th?" If you're off track, take conscious effort to think what you need to do to get back on track, because this is building the foundation of your business.

Sometimes you feel like you need to move from being self-employed to being a business. Right now you might be self-employed — you don't get a paycheck from anybody, you "eat what you kill"; if you get hit by a bus, there's nothing that goes to your family, you can't sell it. How do we move from self-employed to a business? You start focusing on processes, you start delegating and elevating, you start having an Accountability Chart, you build a leadership team so it is something you could sell someday. Focusing on these Rocks and that foundation makes it so your company — Shawn McBride.s law firm, [unclear], [unclear] Capital, and I forgot the name of your company already — [unclear] 360 — your company should be your first client. If you start thinking, "I can't focus on my Rock because I have to take care of this client over here," think of your company as your first client: you must get that work done or you won't be able to serve the client very well. You won't move beyond being self-employed.

Does everybody feel like you can create some Rocks today? You probably won't finish them here, but go home and ask, "What are the most important things we need to do?" With my clients in their first session we set raw Rocks — we don't have a one-year plan to start with because it's a muscle you need to build to stay focused on priorities. The first session we always set some practice Rocks, so maybe try that for yourself today. Don't wait to have a big one-year plan and ten-year target before you start living in a 90-day world and focusing on priorities.

90-day world where we really focus on priorities — just try to exercise that muscle. Joe has a lot of good ideas written down there for his Rocks. Good job. All right, so that is the principle of Rocks; I think that will help you focus more. Should we move on to Delegate and Elevate — the Delegate and Elevate tool?

At any time ask questions because this is your time to have me. This is your Delegate and Elevate tool. Before I describe it: when do we use it? Well, the first time we're going to use the Delegate and Elevate tool is for yourself. I'm going to show you the tool today and then you can take it home. I have a digital form for this as well, but you're going to use this throughout your life. You use the Delegate and Elevate tool when you are hitting the ceiling.

Hitting the ceiling looks like this: it can happen on three different levels — individually, as a department, or as a company. Most people think that when we start a company it grows slowly at first, and then it takes off. But what actually happens is there are times in the life of your business where it spikes and then you get a whole bunch of customers and oh my gosh, now we don't know how to serve them. We don't have enough people, we don't have good processes, we're working like crazy, and then maybe customers leave because we dropped the ball. Then we find a great contractor who sees we're making money and asks for more and then leaves. We can't break past that little ceiling; we don't know how to do it, we don't have the tools or the skills. A lot of companies at that point will just go out of business. Throughout the life cycle of your company, we at EOS call that "hitting the ceiling."

How do you avoid hitting the ceiling? There are a few leadership abilities we talk about, but one of them is delegation. We have to live in a world where we are constantly pushing items down the accountability chart. When you read the book you'll know what I'm talking about — an accountability chart is like an org chart but it's on steroids. We're grooming people to take the next level in the company. We always have our mind on training, on growing people and bringing them up in the company. So when we use the Delegate and Elevate tool, we use it number one when we feel like we're hitting the ceiling — personally, as a department, or as a company.

The Delegate and Elevate tool is just a simple grid. You can find a blank sheet; there's a notes page. It's not in the book — it's one of our bonus tools that we use. In EOS we have foundational tools that are in the book and then about 20 other tools in the toolbox that we use when clients need them.

Do this tool first with yourself, but have the frame of mind that you'll be able to use it with all of your employees for as long as you live. When employees come to you and say, "I can't stand it, I have to stay here until 7:00 every night and I don't know how to get all my work done," sit down and do this tool together. Take all the tasks you're doing throughout the day and put them into one of four quadrants:

You are great at this task and you love it. You are good at this task but you don.t like it. You are not good at this task but you like it. You are not good at this task and you don.t like it.

Just try to think of one thing in each of the four quadrants right now so you can start practicing using the tool. When I use this tool with clients, I like them to put at the top of their page: "We delegate everything but genius." So we delegate everything but genius. Can you delegate everything but genius today? No. You've got to start where you are. When you get this tool fleshed out — I do this tool for myself; Julie told me two days ago, "Jill, do the Delegate and Elevate tool" — I sat for about 30 minutes and did it. Then I prioritized and moved things to my assistant in a very thoughtful way. We've planned it out.

Everything in the quadrant of "not good and don't like" goes first. This determines what your next hire is going to look like. Tons of entrepreneurs find their accounting tasks go here — it's time to hire an outsourced bookkeeper. All their legal stuff goes here — it's time to have an attorney do it. We're not going to use LegalZoom anymore because it's getting us in trouble; we call Sean. A lot of these things can be outsourced.

The quadrant "good but don't like" gives insight into people: if you're good at something but you don't like it, it's probably not in your strength. If you think you're good at it but you don't like it, you're probably spending way too much time getting results from those tasks because you're frustrated. Then elevate yourself to the quadrant of what you are great at and love — that's where you get the most bang for your buck.

Think of your company as its own entity; you are an employee of that company and have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure the company gets the most bang for the buck out of your services. I had a client who said he was hitting the ceiling. I asked him what he was doing, and he said, "First I have to stop at Tom Thumb and get some water for the office." You haven't delegated getting the water yet. He wasn't getting the most out of his own time. You're the genius of the company — that's where you should be spending most of your time, living within your unique ability.

Use this tool for any delegating tasks. Maybe you can't delegate right now, but doing this will help your vision get more aligned as to what you need next — that next hire. Make sure they're in the right quadrant; don't hire another genius because they're flashier. Stay focused on what you're actually trying to hire for and you'll make a much better hire. That leads into right people on the right seat.

Any questions about the Delegate and Elevate tool? All right, we have five minutes left, so if there's anything burning I'm happy to answer it. If not, we'll do our conclusion.

Question: At this stage, is there a correlation between the Rocks we develop and the quadrant "not good/don't like" or the "good/don't like" quadrant? Does it make sense that those become our Rocks?

That's a really good insight. Everything in EOS I look at like gears — not puzzle pieces. We have lots of tools, foundational and toolbox tools, and when one turns the others turn. That's a perfect insight; you're seeing how the tools work together. Do this fully — you've spent 15 minutes on it, but really spend time with yourself. Maybe that Rock is outsourcing the accounting from this piece. Make sure it moves the company forward forever. Once you set your Rocks, call me and say, "Is this a good Rock?" I'd be happy to say yes or push you further. Also, if you have a Rock landing in that quadrant and you're actually doing it yourself and not outsourcing it, that might be a clue that you won't elevate yourself unless you change how you spend your time.

Okay, let's look at some of your Rocks. Our one-year plan is $20,000 a month at 30% profit. Our goals for the year are to fill Genius Den to capacity, have our full program schedule, and hire a program manager/community manager. You've got a new hire in there that you've never had before; that person will run and connect with people, handle operational-level stuff, and understand high-level finance. I like that because you've never had that position before — that's your one-year plan.

Getting down into the first quarter: you said July 14th, 90 days from today. That would be $6,000 a month at 10% profit or possibly zero profit while growing. Ten members, all offices full — the offices are high revenue and consistent at $800 a month, so that would be $4,800 plus the back, which would get us there. I think that's achievable.

We need to finish the website — that is Tom and Eric's responsibility. Quick mistake here: when we make mistakes we all learn. He put two people in charge of that Rock; only one person can drive it. Eric is doing the back end and S is doing the front end. They're working as a team, but when two people are accountable, nobody's accountable. One person must drive it. Book three speakers — that's Joe. Hire the community manager — that's Joe. Build out social media distribution platform and content calendar — those are good Rocks; they move the company forward forever.

One tweak: book three speakers and document the process for booking speakers. Documenting the methodology is the Rock so next quarter you can hand that process to the community manager and they don't have to reinvent the wheel. Websites are never finished — they're our digital brochure — so be specific: make certain pages presentable and ready to publish, add an event calendar, and a content calendar. What does the content calendar mean? [unclear]

If you come back on July 15th and say, "I completed my Rock; it's the content calendar," and we look at it and it's a scribbled note right on the back of a piece of paper—that's not your content calendar. So make it specific, challenging enough for yourself that says, you know, it's online, we know every topic built out for the 12 months, whatever that is to you. Make it specific for yourself so you know what "done" looks like. What will you be happy with at the end of 90 days?

Okay, does that help? So online with content. And then Issues List is my website, social media, and updating our advertising—Facebook ads, Twitter ads—that kind of thing; media package, PR, announcements and news releases. So as we get a speaker in we'll put it out through the news: "A great person's coming." These are things that we don't yet know the solution to. Things that go on your Issues List can just be raw data; they don't have to be clearly identified. It's just this random thought or this random thing that's bugging me—like, "I want to paint the brick walls." Well, we don't need to know what color or when we're going to do it; it's just at some point I know I want to paint the brick wall. Does that make sense? So random raw data can go on that Issues List.

All right, who wants to go next? Going to the left—why don't you do your Rocks for us? My three Rocks are actually somewhat similar to Joe's. All right, so webpage update: I made it more specific, which is we're getting our new events calendar and speaking calendar launched to our web page. We're close to completion on that, but it has to be done this quarter. I want to get up to having one speaking engagement booked per month. Right now I'm running about two per month. I need to get things implemented and I'm working on implementing more things so that I'm constantly booking speaking engagements per month. And then I need to build my staff to the point where they're ready for delegation, and I'm in charge of all three of these.

With building the staff, I would just add: build the Accountability Chart. Use that tool first and that will really help you to know exactly how you want to build a staff.

Mylin, what do you have for your Rock?

That's okay; this is a point where you can share or you can not share. Did you say you just got the book last night? This is probably like a fire hose on you—jump in. A great way to jump in: three months from now you'll be running the things. You can just borrow our Rocks and take our—just take our Rocks, we'll hand you Rocks. By the way, you never give people Rocks; they always have to have buy-in. Because you take this concept of Rocks now and once you master it, you take it to everybody else. Eventually everyone in the company is going to have a Rock that's moving the company forward forever. Wow, what does that company look like? Your new community manager shall have Rocks to move the company forward forever so that people aren't just living in their role every day—we're constantly moving toward that vision. It's going to be awesome, but they have to have buy-in. It's not a "Hey, this is your Rock this quarter"—there's a psychological thing if you say "this is going to be my Rock" versus "here, there's your Rock," assignment-type of thing. Do you have any questions? No? You're actually right there—everything's in.

All right, mine: I've got three here. Hire a part-time analyst and put them on a track to licensure. Our industry—Sean is in a highly regulated industry; I'm in a much more highly regulated industry because we're federally licensed. As I explain, our business model is to charge retainers but most of the compensation is as a result of transaction fees. I cannot offer a bonus on a transaction to an unlicensed person. He is creating this Rock—he's seen the vision that I got to pay this guy something; we've got to probably pay a bonus; it's got to be licensed. So now his Rock is to make sure he's moving this person to licensure. The Series 79 is regarded as the hardest test to pass, but someone with a degree from a major university could probably do that. I have to get them licensed in order to shift them from a steady salary to one that provides bonuses or commissions of any kind.

I have the website almost ready to be launched; I need it actually approved by my broker-dealer. I need to get that done as part of the approval process. And then something I haven't done before—and I actually asked to do about in emails—are really the speaker engagements. I've been talking to Janet; I haven't committed to Janet in any way yet. I've gotten your feedback; I'd like to get yours. But in case anybody down in Deep Ellum needs speakers, I might want to talk to them.

Let me make a comment around the speaking engagement: if it's just "speak 12 times in this quarter," that's not a right Rock. What you both identified very clearly was: create that process, that something, where it is perpetual—you don't have to work on it anymore. Does that make sense? Your Rock is getting that perpetual maintenance in there. To get the incoming referrals and to get the things fueling engagement—you build the process. I wasn't even thinking about the speaking engagement results; I was thinking about the process. The process is going to be a Rock because that's going to move your company forward forever. And then just within your role after that it just lives; maybe that becomes your measurable: I need to speak once a month, and that's part of your scorecard. All right, well thanks everybody. What I'd like you to do is just check out real quick.