How EOS Transformed a Franchise Empire | Landon Eckles | Ep 218

Landon Eckles  00:00

Being intentional about how you bring in different members of the team, what they're gonna be focused on. Understanding what you're really good at and what's driving the most valuable that you do for the company, is so important. You gotta enjoy yourself along the way. And so if you're not enjoying yourself, it's time to take a step back and ask yourself why.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:24

Thanks for joining us on the Better Business better life podcast. I'm your host, Debra Chantry-Taylor, and I'm passionate about helping entrepreneurs lead their ideal lives by creating better businesses. Because life is just too bloody short.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:42

I'm a certified EOS implementer, an FBA accredited family business advisor and a business owner myself with several business interests, I work with established business owners and their leadership teams to help them live their ideal life using EOS the entrepreneur operating system. And I use this podcast to share practical tips and tools about how to use EOS in your business and your life to get more of what you want. Today's guest has built a franchise, a juice franchise, with over 100 stores around the US using traction, and has successfully sold it. He was the integrator in the business, and his wife was the visionary. He's now an EOS implementer and is working with other entrepreneurs to improve their businesses. And today he's going to share with you about the book that saved his marriage and his top tips for building a business that is saleable. Please, welcome to the show. Landon Eckles, who is an EOS implementer with EOS worldwide. So welcome to the show. Landon, lovely to have you here.

Landon Eckles  01:36

So much. I'm so excited to be here, and I'm really excited for the episode.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  01:40

Yeah, so am I. We had to have a quick, a brief chat before we came online. And you told me your story, and it's a really interesting story. I wonder if you could share that with the listeners, please.

Landon Eckles  01:48

Sure. Yeah. So my wife and I founded a juice bar company here in the States called Clean Juice, and we got the idea in 2014. I was actually before that, travelling a lot internationally, and it was, it was great job, but tough on me, because I was trying to raise a young family at the time. So we always been very entrepreneurial spirited and wanted to open our own thing. So we spent about a year developing the concept. And we opened clean juice in 2015 and we were serving organic juices and smoothies and acai bowls and just really healthy, great taste of products. And when we opened, it opened with pretty big success that first location. And so we knew we wanted to scale it, and so we opened another location down in the southern end of the city that we were in, and then we opened two more stores from there. And this happened in about a two year period of time. And throughout that, people were like, Hey, this is amazing. Do you guys franchise? Or would you consider franchising? And honestly, neither one of us had ever franchised anything before. It had no background in it, but kept getting the demand, so we figured we'd look into it. And so we thought it would be a good opportunity for us to scale the business and help people kind of open their own clean juices and their local market. So we did. And fast forward from when we opened five years later. We had 100 stores open across the country in 2020 and then, of course, COVID happened. So it was definitely a wild ride. We scaled it very quickly, but it was a really cool product, and people there was high demand for it. So it was awesome. It was a lot of fun.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  03:18

And of course, you've got, you've got five children. Is that right?

Landon Eckles  03:23

I do, yeah. So five.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  03:24

So you were doing all of that while also being married and having a young family and raising it yeah?

Landon Eckles  03:30

Yeah. And my wife was as well. So if your listeners are familiar with EOS and how it works, she was our visionary, and I was our integrator. So we actually worked hand in hand, and we were the VI duo, so.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  03:46

Oh, that's amazing, I mean, you obviously have a lot of you're obviously very good together. I mean, that's always very challenging to work with your wife or husband in a business, but obviously there was a great synergy there. So yes, the visionary into better relationships. So you weren't always running on EOS, so in the business, were you?

Landon Eckles  04:00

That's right. So I always tell Mark Winters, you know, the co-author of Rocket Fuel, that that book saved our marriage, right? Because we were both kind of leading the company as co-founders, but we were falling all over each other, right? Neither one of us, like the team, didn't really know who they reported to and who's doing what. And like, it was just very, I call it a bull spaghetti, right? It was just very, kind of, all over the place. And so it wasn't until we read traction and then rocket fuel that we got really clear on what she was good at and what she loved to do that could add value to the company, and then what I was good at and loved to do and add value to the company.

So she became our visionary, focused on the future, focused on, you know, the R and D and the menu, and how are we going to service guests, and what's the culture of the brand, all of that stuff. And I was thinking about, okay, how do I make it happen today, right? How do, how do I work with the leadership team? How do I make sure that we're digging into the details when we need to, you know, making sure that everyone understands kind of what's. The focus today, she'd bring those 20 ideas to every meeting, and I would tell her that 19 of them were insane, but one of them was great. And so we would go for that one. And it wasn't until we actually read that book that we were super clear on really. You know what it is that we could do to add value to the company, while also doing the stuff that we were great at and love too. So it was super helpful.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  05:20

It actually reminds me, I had a client who was running a metal recycling firm, husband and wife team as well. And then they came in to do EOS with me, and we kind of went through the whole the Accountability Chart, looked at the vision reverse of the integrator, and then they gave them the Rocket Fuel book, and they said exactly the same thing. They said, This book actually saved our marriage. And because we work, we loved each other. We loved working together. We were just always at odds and always confusing everybody else around us in terms of what trying to do. And it was the other way around. He was a vision. She was the integrator. But just by defining those roles, it actually meant that when they got into a tussle or an argument, which is perfectly okay, right, there should be natural tension between a visual and integrated but they can actually go, ah, rather than saying, oh, Stu, you just being Stu, it's like, oh, still, you're being a vision rich or, Oh, Lisa, you're being an integrator. And so it gave them that kind of that language to take all the heat out of those emotions. I think it was really interesting. So, yeah, I can understand rocket fuel. For those of you don't, don't know, you know, the rocket fuel talks about the fact there are two types of entrepreneurs required to run a business. And I suppose for a lot of people, we often think we can either be that one person who can do both, or you've got two co-founders who are trying to both be co-founders without any definition of you know what they should really be doing. So it's a great, great book to have a read off.

Landon Eckles  06:30

Exactly, exactly.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:32

So, you know, as I said, you weren't running you as but you came across the book traction. Tell us a little bit about how you came across that and what that did for you.

Landon Eckles  06:39

Yeah. So I was in something called Vistage, which is a peer-to-peer kind of CEO coaching group, and working with other CEO’s of other companies in this Vistage format. And it was great. I thought it was great for me, right? We happen to have an EOS implementer in the group as well who is building his practice, and I'll get to that in a moment. But Vistage was awesome for my own personal development and my coaching, but I always found that I would learn something in visage, and then I would try to bring it into my business with my leadership team. And they always knew when I had my visage meeting, because for about a week after, we'd be doing something, and then it would kind of fizzle out, right? And so I'd go and learn something, and, you know, months later, and then we would do that. So I felt like visage was great for me, but I really needed something for my team, something for us to really align around. And so kind of at the same time, we had experienced really rapid growth. We were dealing with COVID and just all these different issues in the business. So I finally read the book Traction, and I was like, wow, like this. I think this would help us tremendously.

So I devoured the book in my two days. I called the Implementer, who was in my VISTA group. His name was Neil, and we booked a 90-minute meeting, and, you know, the rest is history. So we worked together for three or four years and implemented, you know, EOS into my company with an implementer, right? So I was also confused integrator, right, and implementer. So I was the company's integrator, meaning I was running the day to day operations of the business. Neil was teaching me how to run EOS into my business, and he was helping to facilitate those all day sessions with our leadership as our EOS implementer. So I hired him to help me with that, and it was awesome. I mean, it really helped us. Like I always say that EOS doesn't, you know, it doesn't magically solve all of your problems. It just gets really clear as to what's actually important. Because before EOS, you feel like you've got 150 arrows in your brain pointing at all these different directions. After you do EOS, you know what the top three to seven most important things you gotta focus are? And so it just created that clarity for us, which was amazing. And so eventually I sold that company, and I loved the EOS so much that I decided to become an EOS implementer myself. And so I've been doing it now for just about a year as an actual EOS implementer, which has been a really, really cool experience.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  08:58

Yeah, I can relate to that five and a half years I've been doing it for now, and I absolutely adore it. Hey. So tell me when you when you first read the traction book. What was it? Was there one thing in there that kind of stood out for you that made you go, Oh, my goodness, has it been missing my entire life? Because I certainly had that moment myself.

Landon Eckles  09:13

So it wasn't one thing in particular. I had done a little bit of everything, right? And so I was trying to run a weekly meeting with my management team, and it was four hours, and we just went round around, talking about the same stuff, right? So I tried to do that, and then we tried to set quarterly priorities, right? We talk about them in the beginning of the quarter, wouldn't talk about them again until the end of the quarter, right? And nothing ever got done. And so, and, and I had, I had a company org chart, right? Like my leadership team would, like, literally, make fun of me, like, you're always working on this org chart thing. But it was just, it was just names and titles, right? So it was so interesting. I read, I read traction. I'm like, Oh my gosh. Like, this is, like, what I've been trying, what I've been spending all this time trying to figure out it's all right here, right? Just. Way better than I could have done it. And so I'm a big component. Like, if you are trying to do something and it's not working, like somebody's figured out, you just gotta go and find that thing. And so I was super stoked when I read traction, because it showed me the light on all the issues that I was having and trying to, like, reinvent the wheel. And it was just super clear. I'm like, Oh my gosh. Like, that's how you actually get a priority done in 90 days. You check on it every week. And so I just kept having all these little light bulb moments. And I was like, this is this would be so helpful. And I was looking for something that my leadership team could really rally around and feel like they all brought the accountability into the room, versus me trying to push something down throughout the organisation. So it was a mixture of all that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  10:41

I had a similar experience, I was actually running a business at the time, and a lot of the things that I was doing, like, we had a better scorecard. It was just a whiteboard rather than a natural, you know, electronic scorecard, but we had a whiteboard that we're tracking things on a weekly basis, and we're trying to run weekly meetings. But yeah, it was just a bit chaotic. And I'd been doing coaching for about 20 years as well, and I had been doing, you know, lots of little bits and pieces based on what I had learned from running some quite large businesses, but I didn't actually have a framework that just tied it all together. And I saw traction and went, oh my goodness, this is it. This is my framework. This makes it easy.

Landon Eckles  11:11

Exactly. That's exactly, right,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  11:13

Yeah. So Okay, so we've talked a little bit about the rocket fuel book, and obviously the impact that had for you and your wife, which is fantastic, and it's really great to hear that you were very clear about what roles each of you had. Is there another tool that was, like, really transformational in the business, in the juice business?

Landon Eckles  11:26

As it relates to EOS, or in general>

Debra Chantry-Taylor  11:31

As it relates to you. Was an EOS tool, particularly that you kind of went, oh my goodness, that was that? That was the game changer. I know that we've got the foundational tools. Obviously, those five things together work really, really well. But was anything that really stood out, as well said, but once we did that, this completely changed?

Landon Eckles  11:44

Yeah, I think, you know, for me, it was definitely like the level 10 meetings, right? And obviously that's a foundational tool, but I was trying so hard to have these weekly leadership team meetings, and we would schedule them for two hours, they'd always go over, because we never really solved the issues. We just talked about them like we did the discuss, right? It was discussion, not for discussion, and it was just like so within the level 10, as you know, we IDs or work through issues, right? We would talk about our issues before never really solved them. So the tool that I think was probably the most transformational for us was the issue? Solving track, right, really making sure that we were identifying our issue, not talking about just the symptoms up here, but digging down and really finding out, why is this an issue? What is the issue and how is it impacting the business? We didn't have the tools to ask those questions, right? We didn't really know we would just say statements about the issue, and that was it, right? We give a little history and a little a little analogy, right? And so we didn't, we weren't asking ourselves the right questions. So, you know, identifying the issue and then discussing it briefly, right? Not repeating ourselves, not politicking, actually getting clear on what healthy discussion looks like. So that was super helpful. And I think the real light bulb moment with IDs is to solve, right? Every issue has some kind of solve which creates an action. And so for me, I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, it just compartmentalised everything for me, and it just made so much sense. And so we went from going round and round and round about issues to actually working them, discovering, really what they were, asking ourselves, questions, discussing when we needed to, and then solving them with action. And so that was an absolute game changer for us. And as you know, that happens in that weekly level 10 meeting, our meetings went from three hours to 90 minutes, and they so they were half as long and at least 10 times more impactful.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  13:34

I think that Gino and his explainer video talks about that, talks about your time management tool and saving you time so you still, you know, you have regular meetings, but you're actually having short, sharp, really effective meetings. And I love the the IDs, you're absolutely right. It's really a chance, if it's done well, to really dig deep and find out what? Because obviously, obviously, there's the issue that is often brought up is very surface level, and it's only when you start digging to get to the real issue and ask those questions, ask those questions, that you get the real kind of root cause of it. And I think one of the things I'm learning a lot with a lot of my clients, they feel like they have to kind of run for the meeting and tick off all their issues on their issues list, but it's not a game. It's not a race to get to the ticking them off. It's about having those really meaningful conversations. And sometimes the solve may not solve the complete issue, but it's always taking a step forward. And I think that what I love about it is it's always an action point. So you're not just discussing for discussing. For discussing sake. You're going right, even if we can't solve the entire issue, least we can take one step towards something that might then bring us back to help solve it next time around.

Landon Eckles  14:31

That’s exactly right. Yeah, totally agree. It's magnitude right order of impact on the business. And so I think sometimes teams like delivery issues aren't really issues, but they learn in the beginning, you know, or they want to solve, like, the easy stuff, so they can do that ticking, right? But it's like, yeah, exactly right. It's a little bit of a but it's like, Guys look like, if we solved one issue, but it was the biggest, most important issue that we had to solve. That was a great use of 60 minutes, you know. So it's all about impact and. That's what I that's what I try to coach now.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  15:01

That's beautiful. Um, I actually have in my office, I use some, some soft, fluffy toys to, kind of, you know, remind people of some of the things that they need to do. And I actually have a Donald Trump in my in my toolkit, which is the no politicking. And it's just a reminder, you know, whether you love him or hate him, it doesn't matter. It's a reminder that that's what politicians do, is they repeat themselves over and over again. That's not what we're about. We're actually about sharing your opinion once.

Landon Eckles  15:23

Yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  15:24

Okay, great. So, yeah, so structured meetings, having that IDs, you're absolutely right. There's a game changer, I think, for most businesses. And it does. I mean, if you think about the number of meetings that we used to have before I brought traction into the business, it's like, we would have meetings for just about everything, and they would go for ages, and then you kind of come out and go, What was that about? So it's a Yep, definite game changer.

Landon Eckles  15:45

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  15:48

Cool. Tell me a little bit  about the growth.

Landon Eckles  15:50

Yeah, oh, sorry, I was gonna say I love rating the meetings as well, right? That was always cool, because if you don't rate the meeting, you don't know how you're doing, right? Number one. Number two, if you know at the beginning of the meeting that you're going to rate it at the end. The end, it actually helps you to do better work throughout the meeting, right? So it's this psychological thing. And I was like, wow, like, our meeting sucked, but I never had a way of explaining it, and now I did with a rating. So they didn't start out as 10s, but we got there, you know. So it's just that measurement tool. And it's so funny, because it's like, such a basic thing, but it just like, is so powerful. That's why I love the EOS. It's simple and it works. It takes work, right? But if you follow it and you put the work in, it's a simple thing to follow.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  16:32

Yeah, actually, I haven't really thought about that. You're right, because you're coming in with an intention in the meeting that you want to make it the best meeting possible, and you know you're going to have to rate it. Here, I often have the discussion, especially in the early days with new clients, about the ratings. Yeah, they tend to do it based on, oh, I didn't like the meeting, therefore I gave it a six. It's like, no. You know what? Every meeting is actually perfect before it starts, isn't it? Because nothing has gone wrong before it starts. So every meeting is a 10 before it starts. And then it's really about, did we follow the process? Did we actually get into the real issues? Did we do everything that's required in that meeting? And then you kind of take points off where perhaps you haven't followed the process, or somebody was late, or whatever it might be, and then you get a real score, and then it forces you to think about, well, what do we need to do to improve that? And there's no more joy for an EOS implement. And we get our stuff coming through from 90 or from stretchy, and see that your clients have actually rated the meeting ends across the board. You go, yes, we made it. Yeah, yeah. So tell us a little bit about the growing pains. Because, I mean, that's, that's huge growth that you had with the juice bar to go from what was if, essentially, you know, you and your wife, kind of running a business, opening up a couple of stores, to suddenly, 105 stores across the whole of the US. What were some of the challenges that you faced in that growth? Because that's pretty fast growth.

Landon Eckles  17:45

It was fast for sure. I think, you know, the biggest challenge that we faced early on was COVID, right? But everyone faced that. But for us, you know, we're in the restaurant industry, so actually kept most of our stores open during that time because we were considered essential. But just taking that, you know, I think in March, it was like 80% revenue hit, and then, you know, April was 50% revenue hit. And May, it got better. But then after that, there was such a it was such a swing, like it was a pendulum swing in the right direction for us, like our demand went up crazy. So that was great. You know, that created its own set of challenges, and those challenges were supply chain, really, because we were sourcing only USDA certified organic materials to make all of our products. So not only did we scale to 100 locations in five years, we were the first to market a certified organic concept in the US that was franchised. So it was like, we're doing all these firsts, which, of course, just created more and more challenges and difficulty. So, you know, as we scaled, we tried to make decisions that were, you know, going to be the best for the brand, just in terms of where we were sourcing and how we would make different products and different things like that.

And, you know, as you get bigger and bigger, you just can't please everyone, right? So there's always trying to work through, you know, work with different franchisees and different, you know, different partners on different things and so, so that was definitely a bit of a challenge. But before EOS, like I just, we had no way of prioritising all this stuff, you know, and then after I implemented it, it was just very clear what we needed to focus on. So it didn't make the challenges go away. It just made our team way better at handling them, which is, I think every business, no business, runs perfectly, right? That's just a complete misnomer, right? That's not what we help entrepreneurs do. What we do help them do is get more organised, more clear, and eventually give them more time back, because they focus less on all this stuff in their brain, and they're able to compartmentalise it along the way. So, so we went through a bit of that, but, um, but, yeah, those were the big challenges. And I think that, you know, the biggest, the biggest challenge was probably in supply chain, just because of the, you know, the demand and then the lack of the material. Materials after the demand went up.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:01

Sure, that makes perfect sense. And it's interesting just thinking about what you just said then, I mean, the one of the things I love about EOS is it actually forces. I should say forces. Well, yeah, it does. It forces the leadership team to actually step up and be a real leadership team, right? So often, especially in a new, newer business, you'll have people who are on the leadership team, but they're not really functioning as leaders of the business. And then when you use the accountability chart to really establish what those main functions are, and then get those those main functions represented the leadership team, I think it changes the conversations that I had at that level, and I certainly now as an entrepreneur, when you've got your leadership team working with you, you suddenly feel supported. I have so many clients who say, hey, look, I felt like I was doing it all on my own, and now suddenly I've got this team who are actually there with me, fighting for the greater good. We're all in it together, and they feel like they're, you know, they're equals, and they can actually contribute. Did that? You find that within your business?

Landon Eckles  20:52

100%. Before us, I felt like I was just trying to push things down. And I always love to use these different analogies, but I felt like I was always trying to push things down. And, you know, rather than I was trying to push down the responsibility, versus, if you think about that from a top down approach, right, the opposite of that would be everyone coming into a circle together, right, and bringing that accountability and that middle of the table together. That's what EOS does, right? It helps the leadership team to understand how important their roles are in the organisation, right, and that they have a massive impact on how it goes. And so it's just a different a different way of thinking. And for me, rather than feeling like I was trying to force people to do things or force different things, we were coming up with it together. So that creates, created their higher sense of ownership for them around those different initiatives. And it was just amazing to watch them kind of take those balls and run with it right as kind of their own accountability. And so, you know, one person can only carry so much weight, but if you get a team to carry you can carry so much more and actually divide the weight way more evenly. So that's how I sell, you know, kind of post, post, doing EOS.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  22:04

And I think what I've seen is that, you know, even those who sort of self implement, one of the things that they often kind of fail to understand is that, yes, you can have all the tools, but it is bringing that leadership team on that journey, but having them involved in it, having them involved in the input, it gives them real ownership. And as you roll EOS about the whole organisation, every department feels some real sense of ownership, because they're actually contributing rather than being told what to do. They understand where they fit in on the accountability chart. They know what their measurables are. They're coming up with rocks that support the overarching kind of company, rocks for the quarter as well. And it feels like they've actually got some ownership of achieving that, whereas a lot, often a lot of self implements will kind of go I've written the VTO when I shared it with the team, and I've told them what they're going to be doing. And, you know, there's nothing that's better than nothing. I always say it's way better than doing nothing, but at the same time, it's bringing people on the journey that is really important. And I've often noticed, you know, founders, and I'm not, I'm a visionary myself in some respects, that it's hard to let go. And so you say, but I've got this plan. Know what to do? You just gotta trust the process, because at the end of it, you'll still come out with exactly what it is that you wanted to do. But now you've got the team actually understanding why you're wanting to do that, how they fit into it, what they can contribute towards it, and then suddenly they can really run with it, because they own it

Landon Eckles  23:15

Absolutely 100% I think that's really well said. And you know, on the self-implementer implementing thing, I think that the only companies that should be doing it are the ones that just can't afford. You know, they just can't they just don't have the budget for it. Because getting your leadership team in a room right and having them feel like they're contributing to not just the priorities for the next 90 days, but the vision of the company. Where are we going? Right? There's so much ownership in that, and that ownership just, I mean, it creates better executives, right? Our team would look forward to our quarterly meetings, right? They couldn't wait to get to step out of the business, right? Work so hard in the business for 90 days, come up for air. And it was just, we couldn't wait for it. We loved our quarterly EOS meetings. So, you know, to that end, just kind of talking about, like the expense, I think that there is a disproportionate amount of value that we give versus what we get. And that's actually why EOS implementation with implementers works, right? And how I say that is because, and why I say that is because, right, we're paid a certain amount, and so if you look at that amount, in a nutshell, that just kind of is what it is to a business that's typically doing, you know, multi million dollars of revenue. It's a very, very small expense. If, typically what we're doing is we're helping that client or customer or team go from, you know, where they're at to where they believe that they can go by helping them break through that ceiling. The return on that investment is so high, typically, right? And there's, there's been study after study that have shown that. And so EOS works because the financial model works for the business owner, and we're giving way more value than we're getting, and that's actually a really good thing. So it helps us talk about what we. Do because, like, Hey, if you can afford this, there's and it's just a captioning there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't be doing it right. It's you're going to get the value 10 to 100 times in return. And that's been shown.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  25:12

Yep. It’s a return on investment, not a spend, absolutely. And it's a very good point, actually, because I think you're right. I mean, if you can't afford to do it, then self-representation is better than doing nothing and but what I've learned, and again, through the five and a half years of experience is that when I work with owners, even if they have been self-implemented, because often people will read the book and go, let's give it a try, the biggest thing that they say is that they it's really hard to actually be in a meeting, run that meeting, facilitate all the conversations, and still actually wear the hat, or two hats that you have in the business, and participate as a, what do you call it? Like a young participant? So yeah, if nothing else, it actually frees you up to really play the part that you play with that be visionary integrator, sales and marketing, whatever it might be. But it gives you that opportunity to actually play a part in that rather than trying to juggle all the balls of running the meeting, doing the implementation

Landon Eckles  26:01

That's exactly right. And I think like that, that's even on, like, the higher end of like, self implementation. Like, really, what I've seen is, like, they're describing a couple tools, like, Hey, we're going to do this level 10 thing, right? And so they jump into these level 10 meetings, and they're trying to facilitate something that they've just read in a book and don't really quite understand yet, which you get better than nothing, right? But, you know, typically, there's using a few tools, if they're actually coming out of the business and doing quarterly is, like, good for them, but like, to your point, really, really hard to run a meeting and be a participant in that meeting at the same time. It's really, really challenging. There's because there's certain stuff that we're thinking about as facilitators, that the people who in the room who are participating in the meeting are certainly not thinking about, you know.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  26:44

Yeah. And I always say you know, we talk about being a teacher, a facilitator and a coach. And I think one of the greatest things I always say on the dumb blonde at the front with the marker pen, but what I do get to be is the dumb blonde at the front of the market with lots of different businesses. And so therefore I am, you know, I'm seeing all these things. And we just have a I love. I've always been a curious child, and now I just get to be a curious child in the session room in terms of asking the questions. So I don't have the answers, not going to lead you to an answer, but I'm going to ask the questions that really get you thinking, which is really hard to do, because, I mean, I run, I run three businesses at the moment myself, outside of being an EOS implementer, and you know, you get very blinkered in terms of the way that you view that business, unless you're actually pulled out of it. So when we come into our quarterly it's a great chance to go, oh yeah, somebody question us about what we're doing. It's a good, good, good thing to do.

Landon Eckles  27:28

100% Yeah, absolutely.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:30

Yeah. So you've been doing EOS implementation for you, say, about 12 months now, yeah, how you're loving it?

Landon Eckles  27:37

I love it. I think you know, for me, it was an amazing transition from what I was doing to what I'm doing now. I know the system really well. I really like working with entrepreneurs and their teams. I have throughout like my career, I've always coached people. I've coached my leadership team. I've coached different, you know, different people. I've helped people with, set up their franchise businesses and done their different things like that. So I always knew that I probably could be good at it. And now I just, I really, really enjoy it. So I feel like it's a great, you know, great kind of career step for me. So I'm loving it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  28:10

Sure. Can you without giving away names and things in any kind of real detail, can you give us a couple of examples of teams that you've worked with in the sort of transformation you've actually seen? Because I know that, you know, you can't expect this thing to work overnight. It certainly doesn't. But I know that you do get to see results. Even within the first few months, you see things changing, and usually within six months, there's some real turning of the wheels going, and by the time you get 12 months, it's way better. But can you share a couple of examples of teams that you've been working with and the breakthroughs that they've got?

Landon Eckles  28:36

Yeah, I've got one, a great example. So one of my first clients. I've been with him for almost a year now. We got we got started kind of right out of the gate. When we first got started, he was visionary integrator, sales, finance. He was in every single box, right? And he was literally trying to do it all, and he didn't understand why he couldn't do more than the revenue that he was doing. And so now he is in, I think, two boxes instead of four, right? Still not perfect. What he did was he, he went and hired an integrator, so he moved into visionary. He's still doing sales, because he's really, really good at sales, but he's not having the pressure of leading the leadership team and running the level 10s every single week, not focused on, you know, having to be in charge of overseeing operations, right, as the integrator. And that is just freed up him to do more of what he's good at, which is sell more stuff, and to be a good visionary. And so his, you know, his, his business has doubled in 12 months, where he had hit the ceiling for years. So that's just one example, you know, and it's just a, you know, it's an unlock for him. He's, you go from thinking, I have to do all these things to, wow, if I just brought in somebody else to do just this part, that would create so much of value over here. And so, you know, it's just us kind of showing them, hey, there's your name in four boxes, right? That's too much. So what do you think. Okay, you know. And we just made it a rock, you know, hire an integrator, and he did, and he's super lucky, found a good one, and it's been going great.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:08

Oh that's great, yeah. I mean, I think sometimes that's the pivotal role in the business, isn't it? As we could, because most founders are generally kind of more visionary bent, and therefore, you know, they do, they struggle. They feel like they have to do it all, but they struggle with that minute kind of detail and managing the team, as well as being big picture thinkers. I think what's really important, from what you just said there, too, though, is that, you know, we talk about the accountability chart. We talk about boxes. You know, you can wear multiple seats, and sometimes you have to, because a small business, if you are the best salesperson, you may well wear a sales seat, and it may be at the next level, down, not even on the leadership team. I've got one client where he's the visionary and there's actually a salesperson reporting into a sales and marketing kind of function as a salesperson, which is quite interesting. But, you know, you can wear multiple seats, and that's okay, but if you're doing to trying to do too much, you just will not get the results that you actually need. And so even having that, that epiphany of, oh my goodness, I'm actually wearing four hats, four serious hats in this business, means it's holding me back.

Landon Eckles  31:03

Totally, Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he was literally trying to do everything except for Operation seat. I mean, he was doing every other seat. And so, you know, it's like, I get it. You know, in the beginning, you as founding entrepreneur, you're trying to do everything, being intentional about how you bring in different members of the team, what they're going to be focused on, right? Understanding what you're really good at and what's driving the most valuable that you do for the company is so important. And, you know, we help them figure that out with kind of the different roles of each of each function, and really also helping them, you know, fill out the delegate and elevate tool, right? What are they great at? What? What are they doing that's adding value? And then, what are they doing that's probably not so I just love how all the tools kind of work together, you know, to really support the growth of the business.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:48

It is great. And as you're right. I mean, the accountability chart, the delegate and other go very, very closely together. I think the accountability chart was bit of a game changer for me as well. I mean, I've always I thought about structure as a business owner, and what do you need? But I think being able to get really, really tight on what each function is and what their roles and responsibilities are. Obviously that then drives your scorecard and your rocks as well. But it's like, I think that if you do that, we tend to speaking of experience. We tend to do it based on the people we've got in there, and where could I put them and what could they do? Whereas, you know, the EOS model is very much about structure, first, people second, and looking to the future. I've got one client who actually did an accountability chart for this next six to 12 months, thinking about what they needed. He also did one for five years out, and what that enabled him to do was he knew that he what his growth was going to be and what he was looking at. And so he went from sort of 14 people to 50 people, moving out in terms of the accountability chart. Now I'm not certain it stays the same. It changes, obviously, over time, but it gave a bit of a sense of if we grew to that size, and these were all the roles that we had, looking at our current people, how many of those hats are they kind of all wearing at the moment? And then what it gave them the ability to do was to say, hey, if I find somebody getting overwhelmed, now I can look at, you know, what they're looking for the future, what they could potentially doing, what hats they're wearing. Then we can look at the person they can look at the person they can hire, using that delegate and elevate tool, make sure we've got the right person coming in to take that away from them. So it's a fun, it's a fun, you know, if you like, if you like, potting things out and thinking about the future as a vision. It's a great little tool to be able to go, yay, and it's what it could look like in the future.

Landon Eckles  33:13

Yeah, absolutely, I totally agree. I was, I was, you know, I would say I would do like, before us, I would try to fill out my org chart, right with people and, like, all right, what are they good at? And I'll, I'll put them over here, and you know, what is that person good on? I'll stick them over there. And so that was not the right way to do it, right? But that's how most people think about doing it, because they're thinking about people versus function. And so that was a huge light bulb moment for me. It was like, Oh, wow. Like, I've been thinking about this all wrong. Like, what do I need this department to be doing? And then who's the right person to be leading those efforts, right? And so it's a it's a switch, and it's subtle, but it's, it's super important.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  33:48

It's subtle, but it can also have it make a fundamental difference the business quite early on as well. And obviously we talk about both, you know, right seats and right people. So I think one of the key things that I see when I start working with it, with a business in the OS is that they go through that whole exercise of here, what kind of village art structure for those people second, and then obviously we teach them that people analyse, and we talk about whether people, you know, have shared the core values, and they get and want to have capacity to the role. And it, I It's kind of shines a spotlight on the things that are quite obviously missing or not quite right. And often, in the beginning, it does mean a bit of turnover, which I think, you know, everybody kind of goes, Oh my goodness. We're starting to look at this and kind of realising we've got people issues here. We've got structure issues here, and so they have to make changes. So I think in the beginning, it can feel almost like you're doing a bit of a clean out, and it feels awful, because you're sort of potentially changing people around, but it's for the greater good of the business in the long term, and after they've actually done that little clean out in the beginning. It's amazing how quickly things turn around when you've got the right people in the right seats doing the right thing.

Landon Eckles  34:50

Absolutely, 100% totally.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  34:52

I always describe a EOS as like a big spotlight that you come into the business. It kind of shines on, you know, all the all the corners, and rings everything to light. So it feels really all. At the beginning, because, like, Oh my God. I didn't know there's so much wrong, but when you start working through them, then then it starts to get some water totally.

Landon Eckles  35:05

And I think Gino has even described that right. It's like, we have the light bulb as part of the logo. And people think it's like, you have these light bulb moments, then you do. But really, what you're doing is you're shining a light on the organisation, right, and you're just getting clear as to, hey, you know what's going well, and what do we got to work on, right? And so we're just creating that clarity. And that's, that's what I just love. That's what I love about it

Debra Chantry-Taylor  35:26

Yeah perfect. Hey, look, I'm sure we could chat all day, because we're obviously both big EOS fans, both from using it, but also says teaching it as well, and then being a coach. What are if you had to give three top tips or tools to people listening into this, this podcast, what would they be? What were those kind of, you know, the light bulb moments for you, or things that you thought, well, that's something you really should do as a starting point. What would you say?

Landon Eckles  35:46

Wow. So I'd say number one, anytime I am struggling with something, I think people think about, what am I doing right? And so they always think about, do, do, do I that's not what I think about at all. When I'm thinking something's going wrong or there's an issue, I'd think about, what am I thinking right versus what am I doing? So nine times out of 10, it's an issue between the years versus what I'm actually doing. So it's a head thing, right? So I'd say that's number one, like think about your thinking patterns versus what you're actually doing, because that's where it starts. Number two, I would say that promises kept to yourself are the most in promises that you'll ever keep. And so I try to, if I say I'm going to do something, I try to keep those things. And I try to, you know, I think that if we can keep promises to ourself and really create that discipline, then that just helps us kind of overall, be better people, you know, to the world. So that would be number two. And then I would say number three is like, don't take yourself so seriously. You know, I struggled with that a lot, you know, being an integrator and being focused on the details and, you know, all the different challenges and all these things. But if you really take a big step back, right, we're not here very long. So we better enjoy the ride along the way. And you know what is super hard or difficult today. It's probably not going to be there in 12 months, right? So just enjoy it. And you know, no one to take a step back and really see the forest through the trees. Those are my top three.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  37:12

Thank you. And I think that's the clarity back. I talked about this the client actually, yesterday they had we talked about clarity backs A while back, and only one of the team had actually been doing this. We revisited them to actually talk about, you know, why, why they're effective. They are. And I think that being able to just take some down time and really think about what is important and not be caught up in the busyness and the day to day stuff is really important. It means that you can really explore, what am I really thinking and what do I do about wanting to do to actually execute on that? It's, again, a really simple tool. I think this is what I love about EOS. Everything is so simple. It isn't easy, let's be honest. It's not easy, but it is simple, and it's just those little things. And when you start to put them all together, you know, they just create this momentum that gives you that time to then have some more fun with the business. Because it should be like, as you said, life's too bloody short. We should be enjoying what we're doing.

Landon Eckles  38:01

Exactly. Keep it simple, have fun. Love hard. Play hard, right? Work hard. It's great too. But you know, and you got to enjoy yourself along the way. And so if you're not enjoying yourself, it's time to take a step back and ask yourself, why, right?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:14

Sure yeah, completely great. There's a quick last question. So now that the business has been sold, obviously, what is your wife doing these days?

Landon Eckles  38:21

So I always tell this joke, she's doing Pilates. She's doing Pilates, and we've got, you know, five kids just, she's hanging out with, but she is just, she is doing a lot of what we just said, enjoying herself. And you know, she worked in the business hard for 10 years as a visionary, and so now she's just, you know, working on her own wellness and just hanging out with the kids and just enjoying life that way so and supporting her crazy husband. So.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:45

Yeah, of course. And that's that, yeah, it's actually another question has come to mind. I thought we're gonna finish, but I forgot another question. I mean, so for some people, they go into a business with the intention to sell it. Some people just go into business because they're passionate about what they do, and then it grows into this, this, this base that they weren't expecting. And, you know, happy, selling a business is quite tough, right? Because it is something that you have created. What was the lever or the moment there was like, actually, it's time to sell. And what did you go through as you thought about that?

Landon Eckles  39:16

Yeah, I think for us, like, the business had gotten pretty big, and there were definitely, you know, I think, just different things that, like, we always said, like, Hey, we're going to grow to a certain size. And once we feel like, you know, perhaps we're not the right people to be leading it once it gets there, or if we're not having on that we want to have, like, we're going to figure out something. And so we knew that at some point we would, we would sell the business. And we never knew really, what that would look like, right, whether it was like to bring it on a different partner or whatever, but we just felt like it was time. And so we had put 10 years into it, and we felt like we had grown it to where we could grow it to based on our own personal capabilities and how much more time we want to dedicate to it. And so, you know, I think that we also, you know. Had other things we wanted to do, right? I was like, I really wanted to do more kind of coaching things, you know, and eventually I chose to do that through EOS. But we just, we felt like we had done as much as we could, and we were happy to kind of go from there. And I think that that's kind of the the beauty of selling a business, and, you know, you get to enjoy what you did, but then also kind of take your next step in life. So, so that was how we did it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:26

Perfect. Okay, well, congratulations on your next step. I'm loving having you on the team at EOS worldwide, and hopefully we can have many more years of fun helping other entrepreneurs.

Landon Eckles  40:35

Yes absolutely. Well, thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast. I love listening to it, and I think you do a wonderful job. So I really appreciate it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:43

That's very kind. Hey, Landon, thank you very much. Hey, we're going to put Landon's link in the notes here, so if you want to get in contact with Landon, who have all the details on there. Thank you again for your time.

Landon Eckles  40:52

Thank you.