All right, welcome back to The Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. I'm super excited today because we have some real strategy and tactics we're going to get into with our guest, Will. Will Watrous, how are you doing, buddy? I'm doing great, George. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's been, it's sometimes tough to coordinate, but I've been wanting to get you on the show here for a little while. And so I'm gonna give everybody a little bit of background, but we'll kind of dig into that as we go as well. But for those of you that are listening, I just wanna make sure I remind you to hit that subscribe button. We don't want you missing any episodes and we're really gonna get into some good strategies and tactics today. So share this show if you get the opportunity and you learn something. So Will's background is great because not only does he have some cool strategies, but he's been a business owner, an investor, and he's now an EOS implementer as well. And he spent years in the trenches. He's been a founder, a leader, an investor. And at the end of the day, he's worked with companies anywhere from 2 million to $80 million across all kinds of industries. So today on the show, we're gonna talk a little bit about the systems he puts in place for businesses to be able to scale. So Will, with that said, why don't you give us a little bit of your background so people get a feel for like where you come from and sort of what pivoted you into this space of EOS. And then we can kind of talk a little bit about what that is and how it works. But give us some of your background. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I would say at the core, I love to help people. And so the business that I started, man, back in 2010 was a marketing agency. And it was not because I decided to start a marketing agency. I knew someone who needed help with marketing. And I knew enough about it that I knew I could help some. And so I just offered my assistance to this local business owner and wound up, he was very successful because he does great business. I would never take the credit for all of that. But he wound up sending me lots of other clients. Everyone in town knew him. And so I just started getting phone calls from other business owners saying, hey, what you do for us, what you're doing for so-and-so. And so I started taking on more and more clients and we grew and grew. But all of that honestly was out of a desire to help a friend. You know, I went to a Bible school many, many, many, many years ago. And the funny thing is that at this Bible school is a two-year program, it was right out of high school. And in the second year, you kind of choose an area, you know, you can help with youth or you can help with children's or a pastor, all these things. And then they had this category called helps, which is so funny. You know, you hear that helps and that's what I chose. Like that's the area. I just want to help. So it was all that he could be amused. There was all because any sort of ministry, there are a lot of behind the scenes, like not everybody has seen there's all kinds of stuff that happens behind the scenes. And that's what I just want to do. I just wanted to help. So anyways, I just say that to say, I just wanted to help this business owner friend that needed some help with marketing. And so I decided that I would do that. I was not an expert at the time. but through the process learned all kinds of stuff and and my the business i wound up creating an agency and it wound up being very successful and growing and growing but what brought me to eos to answer your question was that it grew so quickly that i had some very alarming symptoms show up in my body i wound up getting really stressed out wound wound up taking a trip to the hospital because of this and i had a wife and a couple of young kids and said okay this this is not cool we need to change our approach here. And I came across EOS in the book Traction, tried to implement it myself, didn't work out so great, hired an EOS implementer and worked with him for a couple of years, transformed the agency. And we continued to grow quickly. Net profit went from 6% to 34%. Morale improved. And in that process, it created a lot of freedom for me as the owner. and I just fell in love with everything about it. I said, I want to do this. So I was able to hand over that company. It's a multimillion dollar company and has a wonderful leadership team. I meet with the CEO once a month. We run through financials. I support him however I can. But now all I do is help companies implement EOS in their businesses. And it's because of this desire that I have. I've always said my life theme is I connect people with the strategies and tools they need to succeed. and so i can't not do that it's like a duck can't not you know not quack you know yeah no that's awesome right so that's awesome i was gonna say you know a lot of people i just thinking of this you because it's so used commonly eos you know obviously it means entrepreneurial operating system but let's do this and i should have done this to start but like tell define for people that don't know what eos is tell them what it is and how it how it came about that would be a really good important point here. Yeah. So EOS is, it helps business owners and leaders get what they want from their businesses. And it does that by providing a complete system with simple, practical tools that helps them to do three things. We call vision, traction, healthy. Vision from the standpoint of first getting your leaders 100% on the same page with where are we going with this company and how do we plan to get there. Traction from the standpoint of helping your leaders to become much more disciplined and accountable. So they're executing really well on every part of your vision. And then healthy, meaning helping your leaders to become more healthy, functional, cohesive leadership team. Because most of the time leaders 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 everybody in the company is all crystal clear and aligned with where we're going. They're making consistent progress, gaining traction 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. They're actually having fun and making a meaningful contribution in their job. So that's EOS in a nutshell, just a simple set of practical tools that helps accomplish those things. No, I love that. I think that's a great explanation and we can kind of dig into some of the core components. But what I found over time, and I know you see this all the time, which is going to bring up a great question, but there's people listening to this podcast and business owners out there at all levels, right? They might be starting their business, scaling their business, really dealing with a large operation or a small operation. But some of the challenges that businesses face are pretty similar and they're also different at different levels. And so this system applies to all different levels. And but what are some of the before we dig into the pieces of it what are some of the biggest challenges that you find that businesses face Because having this blueprint or this system is great but it come about really because people are dealing with problems. What are some of the big challenges that you feel like business owners are facing today, which might even be a little different than, you know, five, 10 years ago? Yeah, you know, it's a very similar set of problems, very often people problems. So whether that's turnover, drama, just tension and stress happening in the communication and understanding of how a group of people are working together. Also financial. Sometimes there's just not enough profit. Business owners are working their tails off and leaders are working their tails off and there's not enough to show for it. There really should be more margin involved as a reward of the work that they're doing. And then I would say thirdly is systems processes. It's not documented, simplified, being followed by all. That's what creates scalability. That's what creates profitability. That's what makes a business fun to run and manage when everything's being done the right and best way every single time. And whoever's touching a process has been trained and managed and is being held accountable to actually follow it the way that it should be done. So those three, I'd say people, profit, processes are probably the main issues that I run into. Yeah, it's interesting because most business owners, at least, they start a business hoping that it's going to give them more lifestyle, it ends up being a lot more work than even a full-time job with even more stress and pressure. So I'm sure you see that with most businesses at any level they're at, right? They're just like, ah, this is just the business is running me. I'm not running the business. So I can see how that's probably ties back to when you said helping people. You're really helping them with these processes to create a business that works. I thought you were a great example of that, where you said you've been able to grow a business and then kind of step away from it and work on these models. I'm curious, do you feel like there's a particular, and I don't know if this is a good opportunity for you to maybe kind of take us through some of the steps or some of the core components that EOS drives into, or if you feel like maybe there's one or two that really come to the surface that you want to kind of dig in a little deeper to? What are your thoughts there? So that's a great question. And I think the bow on all of this is that those problems we were mentioning happen simultaneously. At any given moment, a business leader, an entrepreneur or leader is struggling with 136 issues at the same time. But what EOS does so beautifully is what we've discovered is the EOS model, which has six key components. And to the degree that you can strengthen the six key components of your business, those 136 issues tend to fall into place because they are actually symptoms of a true root cause. So you strengthen those six areas and that business will accomplish everything that you want for it to accomplish. So I'll just real briefly walk into those six areas. Yeah, I'd love for you to do that. And I was going to comment, you're right. That's a really good point is that you can't just work on one of these areas because more than like, first of all, they affect each other so much as you move and scale, but more than likely you're dealing with more than just one of them as an issue, right? So yeah, let's go through those. That'd be great. Yeah. So the first component is the vision component, getting everyone on the same page with where we're going, how we're going to get there. And by the way, US provides a couple of tools, simple practical tools or disciplines in each one of these six areas that strengthen them, that get them strong. So there's the vision component, the people component. You can't accomplish a great vision without great people. And the truth is that every business defines great people differently. And so we work together to understand what does a great person for your unique company actually look like. The third area is the data component. and that's running the business on facts and figures, on objective information versus the egos, emotions, subjective feelings that so often drive the decision-making process in an entrepreneurial company. True. The fourth area is the issues component, and that's just getting your team to be really good at solving problems as they arise. Your company can't ever be great if your people aren't really good at setting up problems, knocking them down, making them go away forever. The fifth component is the process component, which we just talked about getting everything in the business done the right and best way every single time. And then the last one, the sixth component is the traction component. That's just bringing the vision down to the ground and executing on it day in and day out, that consistent discipline. And so each one of those six key areas have a couple of tools or disciplines that we use to get them to 80% strong or better. We're not trying to get perfect. Perfection, utopia never happens in business. You know that. And so 80% stronger, better is all that we need. Yeah, just evolving growth, right? I thought it was interesting. I'm a big fan. I think that there's, well, I guess let me ask you this question before I make this comment. Is there one of those areas that you find more often than not is the one that people are not even addressing? Or is it always different? Well, every business has weaknesses in different areas, but I would say the most common and Maybe the most impactful one is the people component, getting the right people in the right seats as Jim Collins popularized in his book, Good to Great. A couple of tools or disciplines there. But it seems like the root of all evil in an organization is found by not having the right people in the right seats. That's really critical to overall success. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you're measuring the results if you have the wrong people, right? I do find a lot of people that we've worked with over the years also struggle with the scorecards and KPIs. But I was going to comment and say, I thought it was really unique of EOS. So I would love for you to just give me a couple more pieces on this. That they have one of those six components as being issues, meaning most businesses know what they need to do, doesn't mean they're doing it. But very few of them focus on ways to handle issues. And so that's where kind of the rubber hits the road. So when you say the issues and things that come up, what do you mean by that? And what is it specifically that you work with businesses on? And I'm assuming it's like preemptively, or is it just as things come up? What are your thoughts on that area? Because I thought that was pretty unique to EOS. Yeah, it's such an important area because you're always getting bombarded by lots of issues. And as a leader you have to be really good at understanding what your true priorities are wading through all of the things I could put my time and attention on What most important So the couple of tools that we use for that the first one is called the issues list It's simply, first of all, creating a culture in your organization where anybody feels comfortable raising their hand and saying, hey, we've got an issue here. And that issue goes on a list. So we actually have an issues list where we're documenting and paying attention to the things that are coming up. Once your team is doing that, we've got to help them get really good at solving those issues at the root, making them go away forever. And so we do something called the issues solving track. It helps teams stay on track. So it's a very specific way of having a discussion or a meeting or an issue solving session that helps you, first of all, identify what is the true root of this issue. because whatever was written on that list is probably just a symptom. You've got to dig, dig, dig, understand, okay, how could this have ever even happened in the first place? Then briefly discuss it without anybody repeating themselves. We say it once and only once because more than once is politicking. So once the discussion gets redundant, we then move to the solve phase, which means we make a decision. Someone commits to take an action to make that go away forever. But this whole process, because what we found is that even great leadership teams, they'll get in a room, they'll tackle an issue, and they'll discuss the heck out of the issue. Rarely do they understand what's the true cause, and rarely do they walk out of the room with a solution that'll make it go away forever. So the EOS has this thing called IDS, which I just outlined, which means identify, discuss, and solve. Three distinct phases of a conversation that helps you solve issues at the root. Yeah, it's interesting because sometimes the systems are simple, they're just not easy. And that's one of the reasons why I think this term and, you know, the process is done by an EOS implementer. And this podcast episode is by no means meant to just promote EOS. I just think they have a great system and a great organization for doing that. And I think it's just like anything else with mentoring and consulting and other things people can access. sometimes the best help can come from outside your organization because you can't see the forest through the trees when you're on your own. I would imagine you've probably had many situations where business owners or companies have had aha moments because maybe they just were too close to the situation to see what was happening. And I don't know if you have any stories of, you know, businesses that have implemented and had, you know, major transformation or examples of that, But have there been situations where companies were like, wow, we just, we just didn't realize how either unorganized or unfocused or whatever it is, and then saw some major transformations? Yeah, definitely. So I'm sitting here at this table. This is a hexagon, six-sided table. I can fit up to 12 people. The reason I'm talking about this table is that it's set up so that everybody can see each other. and why that's important is that where I'm going with this is that teams be open and honest and you know I forget I think it was a general so maybe someone in the military who said to his the people who were he was leading said tell me something I don't want to hear and what what happens in these sessions is we go there we we rip off the band-aid and I we work with teams to help them become open and honest with one another. Just say it. Don't hold back. Just get it on the table because a great team working together can solve it all. So what I have seen again and again and again at this table is as we build this openness and honesty and people being willing to share things with one another is that the owner or the leader is hearing information for the first time. Like they saw the symptoms here and there, but they could never put their finger on it. And here now someone at the table, some of their, one of their leadership team members is willing to actually get vulnerable, go out on a limb and say, okay, here's what's really going on. And the owner just kind of sits back in awe going, wow, okay, I was unaware how deep that went or how big of an issue that really was. Because a little crack at the leadership team level It's kind of like the Grand Canyon down and farther in the organization. And so all of that to say, the surprises that I see with owners and visionaries and leaders is what other people on the team bring to the table and are willing to discuss once an environment of being open and honest is created. And there's Patrick Lencioni, the five dysfunctions of teams. You're probably familiar with that. But that base layer is vulnerability-based trust. That's what creates an opportunity for healthy conflict where people are willing to have an opposing. And we need that. We need that healthy conflict. We need opposing viewpoints. We need to fight for the best idea. Yeah, and I'll bet you've got, I'll bet you've got, I mean, obviously having a third party come in helps to create that sort of environment of openness. but I would imagine you struggle with organizations at different levels and different times where there are some people that are a little more willing and open than others and maybe you got to crack through that with certain, it takes finesse, right? Like I'm sure it takes experience and things to be able to get in there as an implementer and get people to open up because the last thing somebody wants to do is open up in an area that they feel might affect their job. Uh-huh. Even if, even if, you know, they're told it doesn't like, they're thinking, man, if I bring these things up, this person's never going to forget it. How do you deal with that? Yeah. Well, every team has room to grow, but some, some of them are pretty far along. They're pretty healthy and others come in and it takes work because there's been drama. There's skeletons in the closet. There's stuff that's just not, has been talked, has not been talked about. And so we do team health is a big part of what we're doing. You know, Patrick Lencioni says, most teams spend a lot of time and effort and energy on becoming smart, but not on becoming healthier. And that's critically important just as much as smart is. So we do some exercises together to help people to kind of start letting their guard down, build some vulnerability-based trust with one another to open the door to having meaningful conversations as a leadership team. And that sometimes that can happen in month three. Sometimes it's month 18 before they really start. And honestly, sometimes if a person is not willing to go there, they might not be a fit for this team or this company and they need, sometimes they'll self-eject and that's okay too. They need to go find a place where they feel comfortable being themselves. Yeah I definitely seen that over the years scaling companies that you know really you right One of the number one things you need to be able to scale a company is leadership growth because you can grow a company by just going wide You can't just continue to add people. You've got to grow a layer of leadership, which usually and ideally comes from within the company. But leadership and growth always come outside the comfort zone. And so it's one of those things that make it very difficult for some people. But there again, like you said, that's a filter. That's a process that allows you to identify you know, true leaders that are willing to be vulnerable and listen, but also get feedback and adjust and not take it personal. And so that's a really good point. Well, what would you say are some of the, if there's any, you know, biggest mistakes that leadership teams kind of make when they try to do this stuff on their own versus bringing someone in? And I asked that question for a specific reason. I've always found, even myself, and I've scaled businesses to large levels, at all levels, I have needed someone who can see the forest through the trees when I can't, right? So I'm not sure if you have maybe a thought on that, because I know we're short on time here, but common mistakes that leaders might make when they're trying to implement things like this or systems like EOS on their own. Yeah. You know, if it's the owner visionary, the founder of the company, typically not always, but very often they have shiny object syndrome. And so they're going to just grab something and plug it in and hope it fixes it. And that's, they're strong on ideas, strong on creative problem solving. solving, they're usually weak on execution and project completion, driving it all the way through the finish line. So for that to happen, a couple of things need to be in place. First of all, a commitment, a deep, unwavering commitment to see it through to the end, which is hard for a visionary. That's why they need a great team. They need an integrator. They need people around them that are actually going to execute. And a consistent discipline. And with that, you have to have buy-in. The whole team needs to be bought in and committed to it. Without those two things, it's going to be another fad. It's going to be another thing we threw at it to try to fix it. And EOS or whatever system you choose, it's fundamentally changing the way that you run the company. We do our business and, oh, we do this EOS thing or whatever. We are changing. It sits below your area of expertise. It is how you get people aligned. It's how you get a vision executed upon. And so you have to understand that we're fundamentally changing how we do the work, not just engaging in some seminar or dabbling in something. No, that's a great point. I think is with anything in business, you know, the best thing you could do is not find a certain strategy you can try to apply or a growth strategy, but to really put a structure and foundation that you can scale upon in your business, which is obviously a long-term focus, right? It's something that is going to be around for a while. It's not a short-term, let's try this for 90 days and see how much, you know, traction we get, right? So that's a great point. Well, good. Well, this has been very helpful. I think it opens the eyes for a lot of people that there are proven systems that can help you to scale and build and grow your business. And EOS is one of those that, I mean, we're talking, you know, hundreds of thousands of companies and people that have used. And so I really, I appreciate you being willing to kind of share with us what that structure and things is. Is there anything else you would like to leave with our audience kind of before we take off when it comes to business or structure or systems, anything else you'd like to kind of add for the current market or anything? Sure. You know, Sam Carpenter wrote a book called Work the System. And I love this. He said that your business is nothing more than a dispassionate collection of systems, a dispassionate collection of systems. And I love that because it helps you separate yourself from this other entity. It helps you see the business as this collection of systems. And you just have to tinker. You have to get down in the basement where all of the boilers and all, it's producing everything you experience up here on the ground floor, but down below are all the machines that are creating the results that you're seeing. So if you want to see change, go down into the basement and start tinkering, flipping levers, doing stuff with how the systems are creating that result. if you want to experience the results. So I love that paradigm. There's a way of looking at things, but I think it helps really small business owners understand that you are not the business. Yeah. And it helps really big business owners or leaders understand that this is a collection of systems and what they're experiencing is exactly what that business is designed to produce. All of the great stuff, hey, great job. All of the frustrations, all of the hangups, all of the pain points, well, you got to take responsibility for that too because you designed and created a system that's producing those. Yeah. No, I think that's great. I appreciate you saying that. And, you know, I'd like to just leave another thought with our listeners. And that is, you know, I say it all the time. One of the things that really marks a visionary or a very successful business leader, entrepreneur, whoever, is someone who can see and clarify and crystallize that vision in the future of where they're at. And they also recognize that that is outside their current capacity and skill set and comfort zone. And so a lot of times when you're working towards something that's in the unknown, there's nothing that gives you more certainty and confidence than having systems in place that are things that can help businesses at those levels. So, you know, sometimes that system and that blueprint, that roadmap is something that helps you to get to where you want to be. Whereas let's be honest, if you really do have a strong vision, it's completely outside your vision or you would already be there. So it's important to have some type of system. And that's the reason I wanted to feature Will on the episode today. So anyway, Will, thank you for being here with us. I'm going to put your contact links. I know you were here just to bring value, but contact links in here. So guys, if you want to find out more about EOS or you want to connect with Will or you've got questions and things, I will put his social media and website on there as well so they can go to that. And once again, man, thanks for spending time with us. I really appreciate you being here, Will. Thank you, George. Keep up the great work. I'm excited to see where your companies are going as well. Yeah, thank you, sir. Okay, guys, listen, thank you for being with us here today. Share this episode. And as always, hit me up on The Daily Mastermind on Instagram, Facebook, pretty much all the social media handles. And I look forward to talking with you more tomorrow. Once again, this is George Wright III, and this has been The Daily Mastermind. Have a great day.
