Episode 89 - Evan Blumenthal

Erik Martinez: Hello, and welcome to the Digital Velocity Podcast. Today I'm thrilled to have Evan Blumenthal on the show to talk about business growth and an improvement. Evan is a certified EOS implementer, a certified outgrow advisor. Otherwise known as a business revenue growth consultant and a heroic public speaking graduate. Evan, welcome to the show.

Evan Blumenthal: Thank you, Erik. Glad to be here.

Erik Martinez: You know, for context everybody, Evan's another cohort from my heroic speaking class. We got a chance to get to know each other and Evan has been gracious in his time in helping me out with my business and I [00:01:00] thought it would be great to get him on to talk a little bit about business improvement.

I mean, we're all trying to make our businesses better and stronger and more consistent, and he has some really great insights from his work as an EOS implementer, working with lots of different types of companies. Plus he has an amazing background, which I'm gonna let him tell you a little bit about.

So, Evan, just give us the brief, who is Evan and what have you done? And why are you here?

Evan Blumenthal: Well Erik, thanks so much for having me. As you said, my name is Evan Blumenthal and I am all of those things. The certified EEO s implementer, certified outgrow advisor, professional speaker sit down comedian. I do whatever my wife lets me that's generally what I do and I try to help people in the process.

What I do fundamentally is work with entrepreneurial leadership teams who wanna stop spinning their wheels and start gaining real traction. I've helped dozens of companies cut through the noise, really [00:02:00] simplify operations and align their teams around what truly matters.

Primarily the way I do that is using EOS, which stands for the entrepreneurial operating system. But before I get into EOS, I want to just give you a sense of my background and why I do what I do today. Not only because you asked about it, because I think it gives context to help people understand why I am so passionate about this.

I grew up as a childhood entrepreneur, was selling snacks and comic books outta my knapsack and lockers early as sixth grade. And I always had this need to be selling something. It was an innate thing. I always figured I'd go into the family business, which was yarn. We sold yarn for knitting, crocheting.

My dad, my grandfather, multi-generational business. And so when I was in graduate school and thinking about actually joining the business full-time, I remember calling my dad one day and asking him So, think I could join the business now? I'm almost ready to graduate. You know, get my master's in international business."

And he's like, well, I'm thrilled that you want to come and [00:03:00] join us, and we'd love to have you, however, you have to work elsewhere for at least two years before you could join the business. It's an unwritten family rule. Everyone's gotta work elsewhere for at least a couple years before they joined the business. Great rule, by the way. Highly recommended for any family business.

So he suggested that I go and get a job somewhere else and get some real life experience before I join the family. And he suggested I apply for a job at a new store that was opening about 15, 20 minutes away from where we live. And I did, I applied and was hired as an hourly associate at Walmart. You know, the typical place that somebody in Long Island, New York might go for a job. Only in my circles it was mostly people go for accounting or lawyers or doctors. It was just kind of not the realm of what most of my friends did.

That being said, I felt it was really important to get a understanding from the ground up of how business really runs and who better to learn from than the fortune one. And so after six [00:04:00] months as an hourly associate department manager, I was promoted into their management training program. Went through a four month rigorous training program of how to run and operate a great business, and upon graduating that program. I became a salaried member of management and I helped over the next three and a half years run or manage about 11 different stores throughout my four years at Walmart.

What I learned during my time there was not only how to run and operate a great business, but what it looks and feels like to work for a company that's truly mission driven, purpose focused, and living and breathing its core values every day. I wouldn't fully appreciate how important that would be until almost 10 years later .

Well fast forward after four years at Walmart. I joined the family business about 18 years ago, and I spent the first year streamlining some operational efficiencies, helped them open their first retail store, implement some forecasting systems, and a number of other operational not challenges, but just opportunities.

And then I transitioned into sales and I took over international sales and e-commerce, and I was literally running around [00:05:00] the world. My focus was global domination of the yarn-a-verse. That's what I was trying to accomplish.

I helped grow that area over a 12 year span by about 25 x. And then I was asked to take on some more responsibility take on sales for the whole company. And I was managing those big relationships like the Walmarts and the Michaels, Joanne's, well, a blessed memory Amazon, et cetera.

And during that time, as much as I saw success on the sales side of things, I often found myself somewhat frustrated by the lack of aligned vision, the lack of role clarity. You know, we had a solid business. But as is very common in many entrepreneurial companies, when we've been doing things a certain way for a really long time, we got complacent.

We were interested in innovating for the consumer benefit, for the retail benefit, for our customers, but sometimes the way that we did certain things. Just became familiar and comfortable not unlike many companies.

So in my zeal to combat that frustration in [00:06:00] 2016, I had joined an executive peer group. It was a Vistage group, and I remember about six months in I was at a monthly meeting with the other members of the group, and I was sharing some of my frustrations. And one of the other members said, have you ever heard of this thing called EOS? I said, no, what's that? He said, well, it stands for the Entrepreneurial Operating system. And basically what it is, is a way of harnessing the human energy in your business so that you can run a better business and frankly, live a better life.

I'm like, well, that sounds good. I'd like to hear more. This guy's name was Barry. He introduced me to Jonathan. Barry sold his business not once, but twice, and the second time was for 300 million. So when you are introduced to somebody by Barry, you listen. So I took the intro, met with Jonathan, brought him in and we ended up implementing EOS. He was our implementer. Jonathan Smith. JBS, as we affectionately call him, he's amazing.

And so we worked with him for about two, two and a half years. And some of the things that we did during that process is we really strengthened and clarified our vision, getting everyone aligned on where we [00:07:00] were going and how we were going to get there. We gained more traction towards that vision by instilling more discipline and accountability so that we saw people executing on the vision.

We really started to build a healthier, cohesive team. Because any business, if you're not working together as a cohesive, functional team, you're not going to be as effective. If you have the best vision in the world, you're not gonna be able to gain the proper traction if you're not working cohesively together.

And so at its core, that's what EOS does. EOS is a complete set of practical tools and disciplines that help entrepreneurs get what they want from their business. And really it's about mastering those three things at a high level. Vision, traction, and healthy.

Vision is just getting everyone on the same page with where you're going and how you plan to get there. Traction's about instilling discipline and accountability so that you're executing on your vision. And healthy is about becoming that functional, cohesive leadership team. Because as goes, the leadership team ultimately so goes to the organization.

As we were going through this process, we recognized there were some opportunities, whether it was seats that we didn't [00:08:00] have people in. There were seats we had too many people in. But it wasn't just about people. We hadn't documented our processes more clearly or consistently so not everybody was doing things exactly the same way.

We weren't always solving issues at the root, making 'em go away forever. Sometimes we were kind of spinning our wheels, playing a game of whack-a-mole . And this process really helped us.

What happened as a result was in 2020 in the height of COVID, we brought in our first non-family president and CEO in the company's 147 year history. That's kind of a big deal. Let's put it this way. On the scale of miraculous proportions, getting eight family members to agree on any decision. Well, there's the splitting of the Red Sea, and then everyone agreeing to that, there's maybe a smidge below.

As a result, we started getting private equity offers. I was able to successfully exit the business at the end of 2021, and I decided to become trained as a professional EOS implementer to help other business owners get what they want from their business, just like I was able to.

So that's kinda like a fast version of my story.

Erik Martinez: All right. Well, [00:09:00] that's a lot to unpack. I mean, that's a pretty wild ride from starting as an associate at Walmart to almost getting your family business sold to private equity.

Evan Blumenthal: Well, we had an internal sale, not an external sale but yeah, ultimately eight family members, four stayed, four sold. And everyone's still talking to each other, which is great.

Erik Martinez: Always a good thing in a family business. So, Evan, thank you for the brief definition of EOS I think for me, EOS has a mixed connotation. And one of the reasons is I have run into companies who say, Hey, we do EOS. And the examples I have seen say, Hey, we want to do X and we are an EOS company, so we have a process for doing X. When you get into the reality is, well, they don't really have a process for doing X or they're adding more priorities or they're under investing in whatever X is.

Which [00:10:00] leads to the first question, which is, what do you think are the most common structural or leadership issues that creates that particular problem? Because I think fundamentally everybody starts out with good intentions. So why do these things break down?

Evan Blumenthal: Well, great question and before I answer it, I just wanna make one comment on something that you said a few moments ago. You may not have realized that you even said it and if you did, that's fine too. There are companies that say they quote unquote do EOS, but I would challenge that thinking as being fundamentally misaligned with what EOS really is. Because EOS is a business operating system. It's a set of tools.

You don't say, I do a hammer. I use a hammer as a tool to knock a nail into the wall. It's not, oh, I'm a hammer user. Like, No I use this tool to accomplish what it was intended to accomplish. So [00:11:00] people who use EOS or any other tool or set of tools, not in the manner that it was designed or intended, but in some other way. May not get the results that they're hoping for. So I would just wanted to call that out because I think it's an important distinction.

The companies that are running on EOS, this is how they operate. It's their business operating system similar to a software device, like an iOS device or an Android device the device itself runs on an operating system. So companies that choose to run on EOS are running their business with this methodology, but it's through a set of simple, practical tools. I just wanted to make that quick distinction because sometimes it helps clarify things for people.

To answer your question in terms of why strong companies sometimes struggle or what one of the biggest challenges that I have seen is frankly, role confusion. A lot of teams are full of talent, but no one's really clear on who owns what. You start hearing things like, "Oh, I thought it was your job", or "That fell through the cracks."

That's why we [00:12:00] start with what we call the accountability chart. It's not a fancy org chart. It's about clarity. Let's be crystal clear on what the structure is for the organization. What are the functions or seats that the company needs? And then what are the five key roles per seat. And then we only have one owner per function because when we build that scaling stops feeling like chaos and starts looking like progress.

Erik Martinez: I think that's right. I mean, I can tell you we've gone through this whole role confusion issue, and we're still working together to kind of unpack what that is and define it. And obviously there's been a lot of changes in the business that are forcing some of that.

Evan Blumenthal: And it's a journey, by the way.

Erik Martinez: It is absolutely a journey. And I think, you know, one of the questions that would come up and say, Hey, are you saying Evan, that there have to be unique roles in the organization? And I think one of the misunderstandings when you read Traction the book, is, [00:13:00] can a person be in multiple roles as you're growing and scaling your company?

How is the best way to define that? Because I think that is one of the biggest challenges, and I know we've gone through this process, so can you give us kind of a picture of how do you define roles within your organization?

At a high level.

Evan Blumenthal: Let me explain it this way. We take what we call a structure first people second approach to creating the accountability chart. And please don't misunderstand. It's not 'cause we don't value people. We absolutely do. Precisely because we value people so much that we wanna make sure that we're setting up our people for success and we're setting ourselves up for success.

So if you're an entrepreneur thinking, well I have all these people, or I have a few people and we have all this stuff to do and I'm not really sure, we've all kind of been doing a bunch of stuff and everyone's got their hand in a million different things. Is that the best and simplest, clearest way to get you from where you are to where you're trying to go?

[00:14:00] In our experience, it's not, and so the way to take that and structure it more effectively is - let's be clear on what the very basic functions of the business are. At the most basic level, every company, regardless of what industry, regardless of how big the company is, ultimately has at least three major basic functions.

There's marketing and sales. As one, operations as two, and finance as three. And so marketing and sales is really just about getting real clear on how you can create demand for your product or service and capitalize on that demand and turn that into orders. Fundamentally, that's what it's about.

And then operations creates the product or the service and delivers one or both. Then finance is making sure that all the cash flow flowing in and outta the organization is happening seamlessly. Ultimately, it's get business, do business, get paid, and pay your bills. Right? If you had to simplify it down to the most basic level, I recognize that there are certain functions that might exist beyond that, and that's the point to [00:15:00] customize it to your unique needs.

We're not trying to dictate what the structure of any company should be. It's just that's what we've seen as the most basic level. Now above that we have an integrator function, which is making sure that all those major functions are playing nicely together and staying in their lane, that the trains are running on time.

So the integrator is the glue that holds everyone together to make sure that everyone is doing what they are supposed to be doing. And then often we find there's a fifth major function, which is a visionary function. And visionaries and integrators couldn't be more different because visionaries are thinking at 30,000 feet.

They're thinking about the long term, the big relationships, the culture. They're on the cusp of innovation and talking to industry people. And they really want to take the business from maybe a million to 10 million to a hundred or a hundred to a billion. They're really thinking way beyond.

But that vision has to get translated down and brought into the business. And that's where the integrator takes it and makes it real. Recognizing that not everything is gonna happen all at the same [00:16:00] time. So let's prioritize what is most important first, second, third for the long term. And then let's break it down into more short term chunks.

And that's where we go through the process of clarifying what rocks are 90 day priorities. But from a structure standpoint. We need to be clear on what the functions are. Who is sitting in each of those seats. They have to want it, and have the capacity to sit in that seat. They have to GWC the seat, as we call it.

If they don't get it, if they don't want it or they don't have the capacity, frankly it's probably never gonna happen. We also wanna make sure that they fit the core values for the organization because that's critically important. If somebody doesn't fundamentally fit the core values of the business, it doesn't matter what seat they're in, they're probably not going to be an asset for us in the grand scheme of things. They're not going to help us accomplish our goals.

So we wanna make sure we have the right people who fit our core values in the right seats. Making sure that they're GWC in their seat, getting it, wanting and having the capacity to sit there. But we have to make sure that the roles are clear so that everyone understands what is marketing responsible [00:17:00] for? What is sales responsible for? What is operations responsible for? What is finance responsible for?

Because if no one's clear on what other people are doing. They don't see how it all fits together cohesively. And if I'm in the finance seat and you're in the marketing seat, well I need to understand your five key roles that you're playing in, so that I am clear on how that translates to where I need to pick up the baton and run with it.

There is one more thing that you mentioned about people sitting in multiple seats. The one distinction I would say is in the world of accountability, you can only have one person sitting in a particular seat. You can't have two people sitting in the same seat. If you've ever tried it by a dining room or kitchen table, it's very uncomfortable.

I highly recommend one person per seat. That being said, you might have a single person who needs to sit in multiple seats. You can get up from this seat and you can go sit in another seat. So that's possible, but just recognize you probably have a capacity where, if this particular seat requires 40 hours of work per week, and that [00:18:00] seat requires 40 hours of work per week, unless you're willing to devote 80 hours a week, you're probably not going to be as effective as the company requires.

So startups, yes, people are sitting in multiple seats, but at a certain point in order to scale, you gotta let go of some stuff.

Erik Martinez: So let's step back a moment 'cause you've thrown out a lot of jargon and a lot of terminology that people may not totally understand if they haven't read EOS or haven't been exposed to it in some form or fashion. And there are other systems out there that have similar nomenclature, but basically visionary is typically, not always, but typically what we consider either the CEO of the organization.

Might be an owner, might be somebody else.

Evan Blumenthal: It's usually the founder. And so the reason why we use function names rather than traditional titles, is because we want to create clarity. We wanna be clear on who is doing what. But yes, you're right. There are times that externally, they're called a CEO.

Erik Martinez: We're just trying to [00:19:00] create the relationship, right? So integrator is what the COO is and or a general manager in many organizations,

Evan Blumenthal: In some companies it's COO. Sometimes it's a general manager, sometimes it's the president. Yeah. Titles vary.

Erik Martinez: Titles vary. But if you think about it from a role perspective, that's what the roles are. And I'll go back to say, when we talk about seats and roles. Because what I actually said, can somebody be in multiple roles ? That is a really good distinction.

You are the director of X. You own that seat. Within that, you might have multiple roles underneath that, right? You might have the role for strategy, you might have a role that's tactical and implementation, and you might have a role in analysis. Just to overly simplify the picture here.

Evan Blumenthal: Can I just make one quick comment on that? Just for clarity's sake. If the seat or function, whether you use a title or not, is clear. Okay? It's the director of [00:20:00] operations. They own the operations seat. That seat might have five key roles that person is accountable for, and to your point, one of them might be a strategy role.

One of them might be a tactical role, one of them might be meeting with the people or the direct reports or what have you. But yes, each seat will have multiple roles, and to the extent that we clarify and articulate exactly what those are, it makes everything more clear to everyone in the organization.

And that's why we call it an accountability chart rather than an org chart, because it's not only who reports to who, it's what are they accountable for, and to whom are they accountable.

Erik Martinez: That's perfect. So now let's talk about core values because I think this is an interesting topic for me. Can you tell us just a little bit in your own words.

What core values are and give us an example. By the way, I will tell the audience, and this is my personal bias and reading, the ones in the book drive me [00:21:00] crazy 'cause I think they're corny. However, there is some beauty to this. So go ahead.

Evan Blumenthal: So when a company is running on EOS, and we talk about core values, essentially boiling it down, what we're talking about is what do we want from the culture of our organization. What are those essential guiding characteristics or behaviors that make up any person who works here? The optimal type of person who fits our culture would need to exhibit or display these behaviors.

So what are those characteristics or behaviors that need to be demonstrated in some way, shape, or form, in order for us to be clear and for them to be clear that they fit the culture of our organization? Let me give you a specific example. At EOS worldwide, we have five core values. Be humbly confident, grow or die, do the right thing, do what you say and help first.

Let's use help first as an example. Help first is a core value that if someone [00:22:00] within the EOS worldwide community didn't display a help first mindset, if they were always looking out for themselves before they were looking to help someone else, they probably wouldn't fit the culture in regard to that core value.

Conversely. We exhibit help first as a core value by demonstrating with our actions that we genuinely always want to help before we ever expect anything in return. That's why we offer a 90 minute meeting completely free. All the time, any EOS implementer around the globe will be happy to give any entrepreneurial team 90 minutes of their time completely free with no expectations, no strings attached whatsoever, because it's one of the ways we demonstrate help first. And it's a way to share more about EOS so that the teams can better understand what it actually is and what the process is and better uncover how this could be helpful.

But again, it's just one way that we exhibit that.

Erik Martinez: Awesome. So let's go back to the first question, right? We're talking about structural [00:23:00] and leadership issues that prevent businesses from growing or scaling. What are the typical warning signs that a kind of struggling with these issues and how do you find the root cause?

Evan Blumenthal: Yeah, so it's actually, it sounds like two questions in terms of some of the key issues, some of the warning signs, some of the things that we see often is. The leader or leaders of the business might feel like they're stuck. Like they've hit a ceiling. Maybe they were flying along for a while and things were great, but then at a certain point, they hit a ceiling and they're not sure how to break through. They're trying a bunch of stuff. They're reading books, they're hiring consultants. They're talking to a bunch of people, but they don't know how to break through the ceiling. That's one warning sign.

Another quick warning sign is people are frustrating and they don't feel like they're getting the most out of their people. Another one is they feel like their business is running them instead of their running their business.

Erik Martinez: I've lived that dream.

Evan Blumenthal: You know, and so these are some of the warning signs or another one is they don't have enough revenue or profit or both. [00:24:00] That's another warning sign, like, we're doing all of this stuff, but at the end of the day, it's not resulting in what we need. Both for the sustainability of the business as well as for our own peace of mind so that we can enjoy that healthy work-life balance that we so very much desire. So those are some of the warning signs.

The second part of your question about how do we solve the root of the issue? When we identify whatever the issue is, how do we solve that? We have a tool called the issue solving track, or IDS as we call it. Cause IDS stands for, identify, discuss, and solve. And this is one of the great tools. It recognized is that often even great teams, they will get themselves in a room and they will end up discussing the heck out of everything. Rarely do they ever identify what's the root of the issue, and rarely do they ever solve anything.

And so when teams get themselves in the room and they just start discussing things and it's not clear, well, what's the issue? What are we trying to solve for here? What would solved look like? What [00:25:00] would make this go away forever?

When we're not asking those types of questions to try to identify what's the real issue that we're facing here . Until we start to do that we're gonna spin our wheels. So we don't wanna chase symptoms, we wanna find root causes. That's why we need to spend time identifying what's the root cause.

Okay, so revenue is down. Why? Is it a customer experience issue? Is it a communication issue? Is it a marketing issue? Is it a sales issue? Is it an operations issue? Is it maybe we're not getting paid on time, maybe we're not sending out the invoices on time. I don't know what it is initially, but let's all dive into understand.

Is it a vision? Is it a lack of clarity around our vision? Maybe it's a people issue. Maybe people aren't trained or properly following the process. Maybe it's a process issue. Maybe we're not looking at the right data. Maybe we're just not solving issues and we're letting them fester and mushroom into bigger things. Maybe we're just not gaining traction 'cause we're not communicating regularly.

It might be one of the six key components at a high level. But let's dig down to the root [00:26:00] cause. Once we've hit pay dirt, oh, you know what? Well, this person didn't follow the proven process that we know works. They didn't follow it consistently. Well, okay, why not? Were they trained? Did they know how to do it? Do they know how to find the proper way to do it? Maybe we just had the throw 'em into the deep end and let 'em not sink. If they want us keep getting paid here, maybe that was the training program for that individual and so what do we expect? Of course, they didn't know how to do it 'cause we never showed 'em how to do it.

If in fact, training was the issue, great. So what do we do different? Not only for this individual, for this particular case, but how do we ensure we don't have a training issue going forward? Maybe we need a training program or a different way to communicate the proven process that we know works so that everyone's following it consistently.

So we identify the root cause, then we discuss it, we go around the table, everyone shares what they think will solve it and we go around the table once and only once. 'cause frankly, more than once is politicking. Once everyone has had a chance to share their thoughts about what might solve it, then we agree on some solve that will make that issue go away [00:27:00] forever and often it becomes a to-do or it might become a rock or something where someone is taking ownership and accountability of moving the needle forward, either through a conversation or following up in a particular way or having a follow up meeting, what have you.

So that's how we solve issues we IDS them, identify, discuss, and solve.

Erik Martinez: And that process, which by the way, I find in incredibly helpful. Our team is still getting better at doing this. We're not perfect yet.

Evan Blumenthal: It's about progress, not perfection.

Erik Martinez: Well, and I think that's really it So I'm gonna pull an example from our issues list just so the audience has an understanding of like, Hey, this is how we could potentially do this.

We are starting to experiment with some subscription services, and I've gotten asked when I do those subscription services, Hey, can we pay by credit card? We don't take credit cards. We do a CH. We can take a check, we can do Venmo or PayPal, but I don't have a credit card process, right? So that is [00:28:00] a simple issue that I can discuss with my team.

Like how do we take credit cards? How do we solve for the problem of taking credit cards? And so what we would do in a session is spend whatever amount of time, we typically spend about an hour a week discussing key issues, and we prioritize them and we'll spend some time kind of ideating on what the issue is, how do we solve it, come up with a plan, and then we create an action item to go do it.

And that's the essence of the process. Right. Evan, did I miss something?

Evan Blumenthal: I think you nailed it. But the one thing that I want everyone to hear clearly is that the point of the issues solving portion of the meeting is to solve issues. It's not just to ideate, it's not just to discuss. It's, we need to identify what's the root issue. Yes, we should probably spend 80% of the time on a particular issue in the identify stage because that's where we will really understand what's going on here.

And once we dig deeper enough and we hit pay dirt. So [00:29:00] let's use your credit card issue. I remember actually in my family business, there was a period of time on our website when we only accepted visa and MasterCard, but we did not accept American Express or Discover or any other payment methods online. Now, I mean, this was back in like 2000 eight, 2009.

Erik Martinez: It's the dark ages.

Evan Blumenthal: Yeah. We launched our website, I think in 1995, BG before Google. So just to give context. So early adopters of certain technologies, but at the time, I remember having that conversation with our VP of marketing because I was like, well, what if somebody wants to use an Amex or a Discover. Why are we dictating to them how they should pay?

Let's just make it easy for them to convert with us and not get in our own way. We're trying to grow revenue and someone's willing to give us their money, and we're saying No, we don't want that money. We want this other money. That didn't seem to make sense. So ultimately we solved it temporarily by accepting PayPal, and then later we got a credit card processor that allowed us to accept all [00:30:00] types of credit cards.

But, okay, well what's the real issue here? Is it that the company that we're using to allow these other things doesn't offer that service? Is it that we just never prioritized it? Is it that we don't think that there's value in it? Could be a plethora of reasons why we haven't flipped that switch yet. But let's identify why is it not true today?

And then if in fact it's important, what do we need to do to move that needle forward so that we can actually get it done?

Erik Martinez: Right. I'm gonna pivot over to this concept of a rock, which as Evan and I have discussed multiple times, the term rock drives me crazy. But there is a rationale and a reason behind the term, but for the listening audience, essentially a rock is a goal.

Evan Blumenthal: It's a 90 day priority.

Erik Martinez: And in simple parlance it's a goal.

How do we use rocks in EOS and how do they get into the list? Because there's a very specific methodology here that I found very interesting in terms of its [00:31:00] simplicity, but it's also very important to understand. It's simple for a reason and it's trying to keep the waters from getting muddied.

Evan Blumenthal: Well, as you stated, a rock is simply a business priority. That's what it is. It's a 90 day business priority. Companies that are running on EOS work in 90 day worlds.

And what that means is. That we break things into chunks. We might have a 10 year goal, we might have three year goals. We might have one year goals. And for simplicity's sake, we call them different things so that we're not using the same word for all of them. So like we say, 10 year target, or three year picture, one year goal. So we're using slightly different vernacular for each, so that we don't use the same word for multiple meanings, because that creates complexity.

We call it a 90 day goal versus a 90 day rock. But we're also calling one year goals. Goals. Well, now we're using the word goal twice in two different contexts. What are we talking about? That's complexity. Let's simplify everything down to the simplest form. So that's part of why we use [00:32:00] specific words for specific things to create simplicity.

But a rock is just a 90 day business priority. We wanna make sure that, if we know that we have this one year goal. How do we break that into quarterly chunks rather than trying to figure out every step to get there. What do we need to do in the next 90 days that will move us towards accomplishing that by the due date or by the deadline?

So that's essentially what a rock is. It's just a 90 day business priority. But there are two types of rocks. There's company rocks and then there's individual rocks. Company rocks are just the three to seven most important things that have the highest magnitude of importance to the company as a whole.

And what are those things that have to get done in the next 90 days? And we say, let's set three to seven, not 23. Because when we set 23 goals, when everything's important, nothing's important. So one of the things we say a lot in EOS is less is more. So hopefully it's closer to three, not even seven, frankly, because we can focus on three rocks.

Now I understand some people don't love the term rocks. [00:33:00] But it really came from Stephen Covey, I think in his book, First Things First where he gives the glass cylinder analogy. There's a glass cylinder and there's rocks and pebbles and sand and water and all of those things. And the glass cylinder represents your time. And most people, fill it all up with all the stuff on the desk. They'd pour in the water, then the sand, then the pebbles, and by the time they get to the rocks, there's no room for them to fit into the cylinder because it's filled with all this other stuff.

So the term rocks came from there because the rocks are the most important things that we absolutely have to get done. No ifs, ands, or buts. They're non-negotiable. They absolutely have to happen. So we need to put them into the cylinder first. Then we can fill in the pebbles and the sand, which are all the other daily things and distractions.

And the water is everything else that gets in our way. And then everything fits. So that's where it comes from. But , fundamentally. A company rock is just what is the three to seven most important things that the company has to accomplish in the next 90 days, and then individually, what do I as a leader in the business have to accomplish in the next 90 days?

I am [00:34:00] not gonna have more than three to seven individual rocks as well, because I also can't divert my attention to so many things because frankly we get distracted by shiny stuff all the time as business leaders. And if we're trying to do too much, we probably won't get it done.

Erik Martinez: Yeah, I think that's a really good way to look at these things and how having those 90 day business priorities really kind of starts to simplify the process. What's really interesting having started this process and we're still on our journey of implementation of EOS in our company.

It's a learning process. And I think if you read the book, you get the sense it's a rigid system. Having had the opportunity of going through this with you, Evan, I've learned that it's really a much more flexible framework as you start to learn how to use it .

So the next question for me is, if somebody were to say, Hey, Evan this sounds interesting. I'm curious about it. Erik's not [00:35:00] doing a great job of selling it because he keeps saying he hates the terminology and all that stuff.

Evan Blumenthal: I didn't hear that. But that's okay.

Erik Martinez: Whatever Erik said don't listen to that guy 'cause he is still learning how to implement this.

Evan Blumenthal: No, I think you normalize it because the way you're describing it is the way a lot of people think. And I don't think that's right or wrong. It's just it's what it is. And I hear this all the time from different business owners, not exactly what you said but there's always apprehension.

People want to be able to run their business the way they wanna run their business, and they should. The point of EOS is not to tell them how to run their business. The point is to give them a framework that can set them free to focus on what they love to do and that they're best at. That's the point.

Erik Martinez: And that's the piece that you have personally helped open my eyes to. I'm starting to understand the framework, how it works, how all the pieces fit together. We're not doing everything we need to do in this yet. We're still very early in our process, but I think the team is starting to understand it as [00:36:00] well.

And it's starting to embed in the culture Now we're still a little bit from meeting to meeting and we're not quite there yet. But we can see that we're starting to make progress on the important things. And I'll give you guys a good example.

We have been evaluating, some new data collection tools because we have a contract that's expiring at the end of August. It's a very expensive tool. And through the IDS process, one of my team members and I, Sarelle sat down and we talked about it and re unpacked the fact that I was complicating the issue by trying to deal with two or three different pieces of the puzzle when the real issue that we were trying to solve was, Hey, we need to find a replacement for this tool because not only is it expensive, it's not doing everything we want.

Evan Blumenthal: I just want to comment on that. So you bring up a really great point, and that's a great example of in real life, in real business, how things come up where we know that there's this big hairy issue out there that we gotta [00:37:00] solve. But then there's this and there's this and this.

What this process helps all of us do, is identify what issue we're solving. Focus on solving that, and if there are two or three or five other issues that we've identified through the process of trying to solve this, let's get those issues articulated and out of our heads and onto the issues list so that we will tackle those separately.

We will deal with those issues as well. And sometimes you have a solve for one issue that in fact solves two or three other issues that are already on your issues list. And that's great because if, let's say someone were to come to you and say, Hey Erik, here's this new software tool that I know that you have this thing coming up, it's ending in August and it's really expensive, and why don't you take a look at this?

And then you explore that and you say, Hey, you know what, not only is this gonna solve the timing issue and the cost issue, but it's also gonna solve those other two or three other issues. That we identified where we're not getting everything that we need from our current tool or system, and this other alternative seems to address that maybe we don't have to dive deep into those other things [00:38:00] because this new solution now addresses those things.

And as we implement that new tool or system, we can, you know, dive deeper into those at the appropriate time.

Erik Martinez: Yeah, and that's exactly what happened in this particular example. I think the other thing I would like the listening audience to understand, if you are of a mentality like, Hey, I'm into moonshots and not incrementality, and this sounds like an incremental approach to how to improve your business.

I don't think the framework distinguishes. I don't think it has to be right. If you have a moonshot mentality, I wanna grow my business three x in two years.

Evan Blumenthal: Great. Then let's just figure it out one quarter at a time.

Erik Martinez: Right, then we can do the IDS process and

Evan Blumenthal: Well, the first thing we do is actually we clarify what the vision is. It doesn't matter what the goal is. It could be a moonshot goal, it could be 10 x in your business. It could be a hundred x in your business. It could be 0.025, increase year over. It doesn't matter what the goal is. Let's get it out of our heads and onto [00:39:00] paper.

We use a tool called the VTO, the Vision Traction Organizer. Two pages gets your whole vision outta your head and onto paper. And when we are crystal clear on that, what are our core values? What's our core focus? What's our 10 year target? Where are we going long term, what we're going to get there with our marketing strategy? How are we going to break that down into more bite-sized chunks with the one year plan and the quarterly rocks and what our issues list is.

We get it out of our head and onto paper. We could then tackle it one quarter at a time and it's okay to have big goals, it's fine. But rather than trying to figure out every single step to get there, we just need to figure out what's the next best thing that I need to do that'll move me in the direction towards accomplishing that by the timeline that I wanna accomplish it.

Erik Martinez: I think that's an excellent way of putting that together. And I think for me, that was one of the hurdles mentally I had to get over. Like, oh, this is a very incremental and small, and incremental and small can be very impactful.

Evan Blumenthal: Yeah. And, it's a yes, and right? It's not either or. It's both. But here's the thing. [00:40:00] My experience is that visionary founders often have vivid ideas in their head.

Erik Martinez: In their head.

Evan Blumenthal: In their head. It's super clear. But how do we communicate that to every other person in the business so that they have the same vivid picture that the visionary has, and that every employee not only knows the vision, but they know how they can contribute.

That alignment turns the strategy into traction.

Erik Martinez: Yeah, and I think that for me has been the most significant part of this. Like through the work we've done together. There's some other things that I've read and worked on. I think that has really helped me the most figure out what it is that we're trying to do. Because sometimes I think that picture maybe isn't as clear as we think it is, right?

It also helps you getting it on paper, going through the process helps you clarify that vision as well.

Evan Blumenthal: Totally

Erik Martinez: And it's not set in stone. That's the beauty of this process is that it is a flexible framework for [00:41:00] how to potentially improve your business outcomes. Whether that is at a team level within a specific marketing department or a particular subsection of marketing, digital marketing, or it's corporate wide. You can apply this framework to your business, to part of your business pretty effectively. Now it's ideal right, to apply it organizationally, but there are some organizations that are large enough where a team or a business unit can actually apply this themselves and start working towards those goals.

Evan Blumenthal: That's true as long as they have the autonomy to make decisions for their business unit. So I would say that EOS is designed for entrepreneurial companies that typically have between 10 and 250 people in the business. But more important than the size. I mean, it works for smaller, it works for larger, it can be used in any size business, any industry.

It's completely industry agnostic, but more important than the size is the mindset of either the owners or leaders of the business. Because if they're growth oriented, if they're open-minded, if they're [00:42:00] willing to be open and honest and vulnerable with themselves and the people around them and they're frustrated and they want some help and they're willing to get it. Well, this process will help you achieve everything you wanna achieve with your business.

I always say be careful what you wish for cause with this process, you'll get it.

Erik Martinez: Yeah, and it's not a quick fix, folks.

Evan Blumenthal: There's no magic pills. There's no silver bullets.

Erik Martinez: It takes time to implement, and it really is a journey and it's really outcome focused, which I think is probably the most powerful part. I mean, Evan, through working together, you have convinced me that this is a process we want to embrace.

We're still learning how to integrate all the components that you have been teaching us. And I can tell you we have already seen some benefit. Now, are we perfect? No.

Evan Blumenthal: You guys are doing a great job of embracing it.

Erik Martinez: Do we stumble and trip? Yes,

Evan Blumenthal: So you're saying you're normal.

Erik Martinez: Yeah, we're saying we're normal. So, as we move to close, cause I think you've given A lot of food for people to [00:43:00] think about who are considering this process. Is there any last piece of advice that you'd like to leave with a listening audience?

Evan Blumenthal: The last thing I would say is if you're listening and you feel like your business is running you, instead of you running your business. Embracing a process like EOS can help flip that. But like I said, there's no silver bullets, there's no magic pills. It's not you just start this and someone else is gonna do it for you.

They call it work for a reason because you have to work to accomplish your goals. At the same time, work can be fun if you're focusing on what you love to do and what you're best at, and if everyone in your entire company is focusing on what they love to do and what they're best at. And yet everything is still getting done.

That's kind of the utopia or the, as we call it, the EOS life. Is doing what you love with people you love, making a huge difference, being compensated appropriately and having time to pursue other passions. Who doesn't want that? That's the end game here is allowing entrepreneurs to live [00:44:00] their ideal life, their ideal EOS life, which.

I have yet to meet a business entrepreneur who said, that sounds like a terrible idea. Nobody's ever said that to me.

Erik Martinez: What? I can't imagine that.

Evan Blumenthal: With that, I would just say that I love having conversations with entrepreneurs whether they're ready to implement this process or not, because my genuine love for helping entrepreneurs and Erik, you and I started the conversation like that, and you're like, well, I'm not ready to do this. I said, that's fine.

You don't have to be ready to have a conversation. And so I would invite anybody who's at least curious or frustrated in some way, shape or form in their business, or they'd know things can be better if - to say, "Hey, you know what, I'd love to have a conversation with Evan."

Erik Martinez: Yeah. You know, that's actually the next question. If somebody wants to reach out, what's the best way to get ahold of you, Evan?

Evan Blumenthal: Well, there's a couple of ways. You could reach out to me via email Evan dot blumenthal@eosworldwide.com. That's EVAN, dot B-L-U-M-E-N-T-H-A-L. [00:45:00] At eos worldwide.com. You can reach me on LinkedIn. You can Google me, Evan j Blumenthal, EOS. You can find me a whole bunch of ways.

Erik Martinez: That's awesome. I will tell you this folks working with Evan. He is genuine and he's gracious with his time. And he's come alongside our business to help. And he's really had a positive impact on our organization. So whether you choose Evan or some other EOS implementer. That's not the point, but Evan is here to help.

Try this framework out. I think you'll find as you go through the process, it won't make sense on day one. It'll probably even frustrate you on day one. Quite frankly. But as you go through the process and you start learning how to use it, you'll start seeing some really tangible benefits and just like, " Oh wow." You know, that issue's been sitting on my wishlist to get done or solved for a year, and we got it solved in a [00:46:00] week. It really is that powerful .

Evan Blumenthal: I love that, and thank you for sharing that. Yeah I just love helping entrepreneurs so, if I could help in any way, and I'm not the best fit for everyone either, so that's okay too. Like, if I know that there's someone out there who's a better fit, I'll be happy to refer you to them.

I love making intros as well. It's not about me, it's just about how can I help? So if I can help, love to have a conversation.

Erik Martinez: Evan, thank you so much for coming on the show today and talking about what I think is a pretty important piece of what we do. You know, it's not our traditional digital marketing AI focused conversation, but I think it's a conversation that many business owners or small teams or business units really need to have within the organizations.

Because I do see, even with the people I talk to, frustration within their organizations, why aren't these things getting done? Why aren't they getting done faster? Why can't. Sally or John or the dog do their job properly. Right. Okay. That was a joke, but

Evan Blumenthal: Well, hey, you [00:47:00] know what? If the dog's part of the business, get 'em on the accountability chart. Nothing wrong with that. Just make sure they're older.

Erik Martinez: That's right. Chief Happy Officer.

So well, thanks again for coming on. I really appreciate your time and everything you've done for us. And full transparency Evan is fantastic. Give him a call at least to get a conversation going. That's it for today's episode of the Digital Velocity Podcast. Thank you for listening and have a fantastic day.

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