#57: How to Avoid Chaos in Your Business with Jeff Chastain, Professional EOS Implementer
Ever feel like you’ve got the money making part of business down, but the organizational foundation is feeling a little shaky?
There are so many tools out there to help you systematize your business.
One of the most popular is EOS, The Entrepreneurial Operating System.
EOS helps business owners and their teams get on the same page, increase accountability, and work more cohesively.
This week I was joined by Professional EOS Implementer, Jeff Chastain.
In this episode, Jeff and I chat about:
Why he believes EOS is so popular
The importance of having the right people in the right seats
His advice on how to get to the million dollar mark and stay there
If you are interested in implementing EOS in your business, give this episode a listen!
Learn more about Jeff here: http://www.admentus.com or check him out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/admentusinc/.
Check out my new free new training on www.yournextmillion.me, where several of my seven figure clients and colleagues share what they're doing in the next year to scale their businesses to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond.
Listen to the Show:
Laura (00:03):
So here's the challenge: so many entrepreneurs dream of leading a life of impact by creating a multimillion dollar brand, but only a tiny percentage of businesses actually scale to that point. On this podcast, we speak openly and authentically about what it takes to scale your business. Following the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts, and leaders, looking at the behind the scenes of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned. My name is Laura Meyer and I'm your host. I'm a serial entrepreneur, wife and mom to three. I love talking all things business, especially digging into the mindset and strategies of scaling joyfully to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond. Let's go.
(00:50):
So I'm here with Jeff Chastain and he is an EOS implementer. And before this even got started, we talked about the various degrees of implementation with EOS. Many people are familiar, but not everybody's implementing it, probably the degree that you know how to. So I'm really excited to have this conversation with you, Jeff.
Jeff (01:08):
Well, thank you for having me on and yeah, it's always a fun conversation to have.
Laura (01:11):
Yeah, absolutely. So you're a professional EOS implementer, which means that you, when you got your certification, they stamped you, you've got some tattoo that we can't see somewhere and it makes you a professional EOS implementer. Like why did you decide that you even wanted to do that work?
Jeff (01:28):
Well, it's actually kind of an interesting story that I started out really more on the entrepreneurial kind of business side, myself, was a consultant. So I was doing a technology consulting, fractional CTO kind of work, and had started up several other businesses kind of thing along the way, and just basically had an early stage struggles of saying, okay, great. I can do this myself. I can do this with four or five people. Oh, wait a minute. Now we've got 10 and we just can't, this is the wheels are falling off the business, kind of a thing here. It just, things didn't work. It basically got beyond where I could handle it myself. Just again, being a technology person, I didn't have an MBA or anything like that. So I really struggled with that. So it was actually several years back, was entrepreneurial itch again, looking to say, okay, what's, what's the new venture?
(02:12):
What can we go into kind of the thing here and decided, Hey, this time I'm going to do my homework. I'm going to go figure out, okay, well, what was I doing wrong the first couple of times when they had less than stellar success. And in looking at various business books, various systems out there is just so much theoretical stuff out there about business, like, okay, great. These are nice ideas. How the heck do I actually make this useful? And actually do something with this and came across the book Traction like many business owners and really identified with it resonated because it's just concrete kind of tools and systems to it. It's not a bunch of theories. It's literally, here's how you do a vision plan. Here's how you doing accountability chart, things like that. Then it's like, okay, I can actually utilize this.
(02:55):
And the deeper I got into the system, it turned into more of ok, rather than just trying to go utilize this system, these tools in my own business, this is something I can help. A lot of the clients that I've been working with from a CTO perspective, because so many times I'd run into that CEO, for example, that says, Hey, sales are down. Hey, Jeff, we need to implement a new CRM system here. Let's go get this new tool. It'll fix all of our sales issues here. And we'd go through the whole process, implement, deploy, train, all that kind of stuff. And of course, then he'd come back and say, sales didn't improve. Why not? It's like, well, technology's not going to solve that technology amplifies, whatever you had and you didn't have a sales system. So it just amplified the fact that you didn't have a sales system.
(03:38):
So to me it was EOS and traction was just something. I was like, okay, I can actually go help that person with a system with, with ways to improve that, rather than trying to build another business to go sell them another widget or another service or something like that, I can actually come back and help with it. And just really from there just kept digging, kept digging kind of a thing. I'm a big information person, big process person. So just kept digging deeper into EOS and really just have thoroughly enjoyed it. Kind of never looked back on it at this point. Just that ability to just go help people at that point, really with it.
Laura (04:10):
Cool. So if you've been around the entrepreneurial block, you've read all the books, right? Like, and all of the different systems, the Scaling Ups and the Profit First and the Strategic Coach, and there's so many approaches to strategic planning that you can follow. Why, why do you think EOS is so popular?
Jeff (04:30):
To me, The biggest thing and looking at them, and it kind of goes back to my earlier comment is just the simplicity aspect. It's not some monolithic system. It's not a bunch of theories. It's literally 20 different tools, real simple concrete tools that, okay, this is today, it's different. And that's, that's one of the things I actually take away from the implementer side, working with an implementer versus just picking up the book. I was talking with a company actually just earlier this week, it was an energy investments company, but basically they had picked up traction themselves. They had started working through it. And when you pick up the book, it starts out with all the six key concepts and it starts out with your vision planning. The problem with vision planning is that it can be very amorphous. You can get bogged down in it real quickly and not gain any momentum.
(05:17):
And you get burned out on a system. And I find that a lot of them that way, when you kind of jump into it yourself and try to do something and you can get burned out, lose, lose control real quick on it. Whereas when I'm working with a client, I actually start more with like their accountability chart with setting some scorecards, some rocks stuff that they can literally take back into the business tomorrow and start using. So it gets that momentum going, gets that flywheel, turning. Okay, now we'll take a look at some of the bigger strategic concepts with vision and stuff like that, but we've already got your wheel move and we've already got your momentum moving. And that's really where you struggle when trying to adopt something on your own, but especially something that's more theoretical and more conceptual basis is like, okay, how do I get that initial momentum going?
(05:58):
Because once you get the momentum going, like I said, they're, they're all great systems, but it's getting over that initial hump too often. Entrepreneurs, we like chasing shiny objects, kind of a thing. We don't have time for long-term investment. Long-term sitting here studying and trying things out. We want to do something and get results tomorrow. And that's one of the things to me that EOS is really ideal for. Is that, okay, there, you can get results. You can see impacts tomorrow. You can literally take stuff back in and start working on it tomorrow with it.
Laura (06:26):
Yeah. I've found that too. And I totally agree that the by-product of even me working with my clients can be like peace of mind or extra support. But ultimately at the end of the day, it's like how fast I see a change in my business as a result of working with you. And I think for many entrepreneurs, they have, they're having a shorter and shorter tolerance for, you know, how quickly can something turn itself into a revenue stream or how, how quickly can I become net positive as a result of this investment? So what do you think, like, what are some of the most dramatic decisions that entrepreneurs have made that you've seen as a result of implementing EOS?
Jeff (07:06):
Really a lot of the challenges they face and, and, and correspondingly the decisions come around people. But when we, at any time we're dealing with people with organizations growing it out, scaling out kind of a thing, both the hiring, as well as saying, okay, we've messed up on the hire or something's changed kind of thing. So the, the trouble to me has always been on the people's side, because with, again, we're going back to EOS, we build out the, the concept of both your core values as a company to say, who are you, but then looking at your accountability chart to make sure you've got the right people sitting in the right seats. And a lot of times we'll have the entrepreneur that, okay, it's the brother, sister, family member that we let come into the company, or it's the favorite, best friend who at four and five people and just kind of everybody winging it.
(07:52):
They, they held their own. But now all of a sudden we actually have to have a real accounting department, a real accounting system. And Johnny over here doesn't really have the chops anymore to be able to handle that. And it's making that call one to say, okay, we've got to either move you into a seat that you're more capable of, or we've got to find somebody else that is more capable, but really the nice thing about EOS is it gives you that clarity to say, okay, exactly what are the roles and responsibilities of the seat and what are the core values that we expect you to live by? So are you meeting those? And it gives you a nice, clear measuring stick to have that discussion with those people and say, hey, here's where we need you to step up. Here's where we need to meet you, you know, meet this bar or else we're going to have to make a change and being able to do it from a systemized standpoint, to me, makes that decision a lot easier for both parties, really, because it's not a surprise to that person that, hey, I thought everything was good.
(08:46):
It's like, we've been having conversations. I know what the expectations are. I know I'm not meeting them. I've got a pretty good idea of things. This is not going to be a long-term solution kind of a thing. So it gives a simplicity there to both parties. And then the other side, I see it with still sticking with the people side is you've got that Rockstar sales person out there that, they're in charge of bringing in 50% of your revenue, but they're not living up to the core values. They're making the deal under the table. They're promising things that operations can't deliver on. Basically the money's going straight out the back end of the company, kind of a thing there, but they're generating 50% of our revenue here. What do we do? And, but the reality is the other two or three salespeople you've got, are sitting there looking at that person and saying, hey, she is getting away with all this.
(09:36):
Why do I have to tow the company line? Why do I have to do X, Y, and Z? So it's killing the culture overall. But to me, that's both sides of that is either the personal relationship that we got, okay, this is not working out or some key player that, that hey is really important, but they're really not fitting your company. Those to me, those are the two hardest decisions I've ever seen a business owner make. Especially if they haven't been doing a lot of people, kind of work, hiring firing in their past kind of a thing. If that's not their expertise.
Laura (10:07):
It's so funny that you say that because when I was running my own companies in the past bigger companies than the one I have today, I was always trying to figure out, is there a star sales person that is not also a total pain in the arse? And I was trying, I, you know, who will just keep handing you a difficult, you know, you've got to figure out how to keep handing you poop sandwiches basically, but they perform. And it's just, it's a matter of trying to, ensure that they're not overstepping in the core values area so much that they disrupt your whole entire operation, but they still perform. And that is, it's such a challenging situation to be in. I've been in there myself, and I've pretty much had this conversation with every single one of my clients. So that's here. So if you're listening and you have a star salesperson who is a total pain, you are not alone and it is not you. Yeah. So we're thinking about, you know, the coming year, it's 2021, by the time this podcast airs what do you think are some of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make when they are creating their annual plan?
Jeff (11:18):
In a lot of ways, it's overthinking things to me that it's, it's you want always come back to clarity and come back to simplicity to say, okay, make sure that we've really got everybody on the same page, make sure that we're all working together here and making sure that's really clear because too many times the entrepreneur has got their plan in their head, that they know exactly what they want from the business. They know exactly where the business is supposed to be going. The rest of the team doesn't necessarily have that clear of a picture. And it's like, okay, which way is he going today? What's he doing today? Kind of a thing. So when we go about the vision planning side, the what do we do? All the planning and such like that lay out strategic plan. But the second half of it is to say, okay, you got to turn around and share this with everybody in the company.
(12:02):
They've got to know what's going on. What the, what are our goals? What are our objectives? Because if you think about it, if you've got somebody's frontline workers saying, okay, I'm just here for a paycheck. They're giving you some value. But if they're sitting there saying, hey, I know exactly what I'm doing today fits into this year's goals or fits into this quarter's goals and exactly how I'm contributing towards that. They're going to be much more of a team player at that point, really bought into and sold much more into it. So it's really getting that communication out more than anything that a lot of us are good at it, having the ideas and sort of good at sticking to them. But it's, it's really getting the rest of the team on board with them more than anything is just having that clarity for the entire organization to say, okay, this is the, the organization's vision for this year, for the next five years, whatever, whatever the timeframe may be, but it's getting everybody pulling on that same page. That really, to me, is the biggest key to it. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what your vision is. If not, everybody's not on board, then you're probably not going to succeed anyways.
Laura (13:03):
It's such a such a good point. And I think that's when entrepreneurs often feel like they're hiking up the mountain alone, or even worse everybody on their back. And it's that difference between really getting that collaboration and that buy-in, and then everybody carrying the weight up the mountain with the entrepreneur. So many of the people that you work with are probably already at the multi-million or million dollar mark. If you could describe what it takes to get there and stay there. I'll put a little twist of my typical question in one word. What do you think it is?
Jeff (13:39):
Boy, I'm going to have to throw two at you and two different directions, but still now one I'm for sure. It goes back to what I was saying is simplicity idea that a lot of times it will say, I know I struggled with this early on in several different business ventures of saying, hey, I want it perfect. Before I roll it out, I want the perfect marketing campaign. I want the perfect product, whatever, and you spend so much investment into trying to get it perfect. Trying to get it perfect. And then you roll out and it falls flat because while it may have been perfect for you, it's not perfect for everybody else. So really the idea of keeping things, simple, keeping systems, simple business, simple, and saying basically imperfect action is just is better than, than no action at all. Just get something rolling, get the ball rolling.
(14:20):
Then you can come back and refine and clean up at that point. So simplicity to me is one of the biggest keys. And then the other side is on the delegation side to say, hey, that's a lot of the clients I work with specifically is they're experts in their lane. They, they know technology, they know medical, they know staffing, whatever their area is, once it starts turning into, okay, I'm a technologist here, how the heck do I do marketing? How do I do sales? How do I do finance too often, try to hang onto that too often, as, as entrepreneurs and say, okay, I can still do all this. I can still, the bailing wire and the, the, the duct tape, et cetera, around this. I'm going to hold this all together. I can do it all myself.
(15:02):
And it really holds you back from hitting that million dollar marketing that next stage, rather than saying, hey, there's other people around you, either board of advisor type relationships, just networking relationships, even consulting outside coaches and stuff. There is stuff that you don't know, and it's perfectly acceptable to ask for help and to say, I don't know this, this is my lanes medical right here. Help me out with the marketing side, help me out with the sales side, whatever here, find some other help there. And the sooner you ask for that, and the sooner you realize that the faster you're going to be able to move forward because the longer and vice versa, if you hang onto it for too long, you're, you're just hamstringing your own business. They're going forward more than anything.
Laura (15:43):
That's awesome. Such, such good advice. I asked somebody a week or two ago what theirs was and they said winding. And I thought they've said wine. And I was thinking, you know, there's that too. So you're allowed to have two words cause we allowed her to have two words, winding and wine. So if people would like to learn more about having somebody come in and take a look at what they're doing and apply EOS to it from a professional, I'm a dabbler, I'm an EOS dabbler, admittedly, and you are a licensed professional. Where can they connect with you?
Jeff (16:18):
Admentus.com is my company and my website. So there's lots of resources and stuff up there. I actually am have regular workshops set up. There's just, Hey, you want to come learn more about the system as a whole, without it being a, a sales call or anything like that. But all that information is up on, on a dentist.com and we're actually launching a new podcast as well. And talking about EOS and talking about companies running on EOS and things like that. So feel free to come join us over there as well. But all of that information is just off the website admentus.com and all across social media with Admentus.
Laura (16:50):
Perfect. We'll put it in the show notes too. Well, thank you Jeff, for joining us. And I really, really appreciate it. I know it was incredibly valuable to our listeners.
Jeff (16:58):
Thank you very much.
Laura (17:03):
Before you head out, I wanted to let you know about a free new training I have right on a brand new website called your nexmillion.me. It's yournextmillion.me, where several of my seven figure clients and colleagues share what they're doing in the next year to scale their businesses, to the multi-million dollar Mark and beyond. And I have to tell you, it is not what you think. So check it out atyournextmillion.me. And if you loved this show, will you subscribe to it and share it with a friend or just say something nice about it to someone, you know? I'd really appreciate it so much. Thanks so much for being here and I'll see you next time.
The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.