Life After Limo: From Operator to EOS Implementer, with Mike Zappone

Episode Transcript
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Ken Lucci (00:25):
Good afternoon, ground transportation podcast
audience.
My name is Ken Lucci fromDriving Transactions.
I am usually accompanied by mylovely and talented co-host,
James Blaine from PAXs Training,but he is off training a group
of chauffeur, no doubt.
Hi Andan around, the countrysomewhere.

(00:47):
So I am equally blessedactually.
I am more excited to have MikeZopone, who is an EOS
professional implementer, on thepodcast today.
For those of you in limo land,Mike used to be an operator, uh,
made the savvy decision to sellhis business to our friends at

(01:08):
ros.
we might talk a little bit aboutthat, but, Mike, tell us about
EOS.
Tell us about your background.
Then tell us about EOS, and I'mdying to hear what led you to
EOS as a system.
So please tell us about yourbackground.

Mike Zappone (01:23):
So I guess I, I feel like I have the same story
as everybody in the limoindustry.
When I tell the story tooutsiders are usually, uh,
wowed, but most people have mysame story.
I started my company when I was19 years old.
I ran that company for 33 years.
We were based outta the HudsonValley up in Newburgh, New York.
I sold the company to Leros, asyou mentioned, after 33 years,

(01:44):
I, I did an early retirement,took a year off, Bored out of my
mind.
Is really what happened.
There's a, the big emptinessafter you're in this 24 7 crazy
business, and then it juststops.
tell you how bored I was.
I, became friends with JeffCardena.
That'll tell you, that'll giveyou an idea for how bored I
really was

Ken Lucci (02:02):
For those of you in podcast land that do not know
who Jeff Jeffrey Cartia is,there are two Jeffs at Leros.
One is Jeff Nikkos, who is thepresident and CEO, and I love to
get, emails and, phone callsfrom him.
And then there's Jeffrey Cartiawho fancies himself in-house
counsel, who I just think isRos, pit bull.

(02:25):
So that's how he treats mebecause he's always growling at
me.
But Mike, you became friendswith him, so that's interesting.

I did actually Jeffrey's a great friend and he
is, he's a really good guy.
hopefully you can edit that outso that the world doesn't hear
me saying that.

Ken Lucci (02:39):
Now he is a good guy.
I just actually texted with hima little while ago.

Yeah really kind and an incredibly talented
individual.

Ken Lucci (02:46):
That whole team is incredibly talented.

yeah.

Ken Lucci (02:49):
Most professional management team in the industry

Absolutely.
Yeah.
It's next level.
So it was neat to see themtaking, you know, a lot of
people say, you know, businessis business.
And, and to me it wasn't, it wasreally personal.
This was my baby.
And being able to pass it off,to the transportation group was
really, uh, wonderful to see,you know, the care and the
things they did with it that,that I, you know, that I just
couldn't or wouldn't do.

Ken Lucci (03:10):
Let's stop there for a second because I think it's
important.
From an m and a perspective,there are two types of buyers
out there that are operators,existing operators that are
buyers.
One type will come in and theywill immediately inform
customers that now you are an X,Y, z customer, X, Y, Z, quote
acquired, right?

(03:33):
A, B, C company.
And I look at that as unneededdisruption.
And some people, well, we wantto do a, you know, a consistent
brand and you know, there'sdifferent ways of doing that.
But the leros modus operandi,and they've done it about 15
times, is to buy companies thathave a really good brand in a
specific area.

(03:54):
They operate on a hub and spokemodel.
And they don't change the name,do they?

even to this day, they're still running under,
under my original name, which.

Ken Lucci (04:02):
and think about that, because it's pretty much, if you
are a retiring operator, there'sreally no change to the business
other than maybe you're notanswering the phones, but the
client is seeing the same brandnames, the same billing, the
same communication.
I like the strategy.
They call it the hub and spoke.
I like the strategy.
I think at some point that theywill because they're growing

(04:25):
their, their regional andnational business under the name
Ros Transportation Group.
But I like the way when theyacquire their methods are the
least disruption as possible.

it's a heavy lift for them, to uh, getting a peek
behind the curtains after,post-acquisition and seeing all
of the work that goes intokeeping all these brands,
separate.
And it's, it's a lot of, it's aheavy lift for them, but

Ken Lucci (04:49):
It is.
but you also spent some timeconsulting with them after the
sale?

still do.
Yeah.
it's great I get to play in thesandbox and build things.
They let me take on sometechnologies and do some passion
projects.
So it's still

Ken Lucci (05:01):
Yeah.
All with no more risk ofinsurance, no more risk of
Drivers and the things that keptus all up at night as, as seven
day a week operators.
So I've been in your shoeshaving retired and said to
myself, I'm gonna visit all myfriends, I'm gonna read all the
books that I bought that neverread, and then.
Magically 10 months down theroad, you get bored outta your

(05:23):
mind.
In your case, did your wife sayGet the hell out of the house?

yeah, it was figure out something to do or
else.
Right.
So

Ken Lucci (05:30):
Think about it.
24 hours a day is a lot to fill.
because you're, you're also,when you own a limo company, you
can't help but be thinking aboutit seven days a week.
So that must have been a majorchange for you.
So how did you get exposed toEOS and tell us about EOS as a
company.

So ironically, it's my good friend Jeffrey Car
was the one who told me aboutit.
And he said, you know, and ofcourse he just dabbled into it
and said, I've looked into thissystem, I've looked into this,
and it sounds just likeeverything you, you say and do,
you should check it out.
'cause I, I was telling him, I'mlike, look, I'm really, I'm
really bored.
I, I think I'm gonna openanother business.
I kind of don't wanna get intosomething else.

(06:08):
I was hoping to, you know, maybehave some kind of a hybrid
retirement, but I need to dosomething to fill my time.
So after he, he told me that Iread the book, traction it all
resonated with me.
And, and Traction is the, is theprimary book.
There's a series of books, butTraction is the one that kind
of.
Breaks down what E os is.
and so I was charged up.
I'm like, okay, this is, this iswhat I'm gonna do.

(06:30):
We're gonna, we're gonna go buyor open another company.
And that's where I found theopportunity to become an EOS
implementer.
And it just checked all of theboxes.
it doesn't require a big staff.
All the things I didn't wannahave, I could set my schedule.
And, and to me it's, the missinglink.
if I look back to the 33 years Ispent and, you know, being in
that hamster wheel and runninga, crazy business, EOS is

(06:52):
really, it just provides all ofthose solutions around it.
And so, I feel like I'm,providing, you know, a cure if
your American dream turned outto be a nightmare, you know, I
feel like EOS is a cure to that.
So I it's a really feel goodopportunity for me to be able
to, to help people and see thedifference it makes in their
lives.
'Cause I was there.

Ken Lucci (07:10):
give us the history of EOS and the main principles
of EOS.
First of all, what does EOSstand for?
For the audience that doesn'tknow?

So it's, the entrepreneurial operating
system.
And the most commonmisconception is that it's a
technology.
And so EOS was created by GinoWickman.
Gino is a lifelong entrepreneur,and, and what Gino did.
Was just put together all ofthese timeless, tools and
disciplines in a way that allowsus to execute.
So, you know, if you read allthese wonderful books, good to
Great and you know, some ofPatrick Chi stuff there's

(07:40):
wonderful books out there thatwe've all read to E-Myth and all
these really, really greatbooks, but what does that mean
to me as a small operator?
Like those were written forsomebody that had 10,000
employees.
It didn't really apply to mewith, you know, 20 or 50 people
in my company.
So Geno just put it together ina really nice, neat package that
allows it to relate to smallbusinesses, and it lets me

(08:02):
execute.
So it, focuses on three thingsand this.
Sounds a little bit like a, ayoga model, but it's called
vision, traction healthy.
And so vision is just aboutgetting everybody in the
organization on the same pagewith where are we going and how
are we gonna get there.
It's the long range vision,getting everybody to be rowing
in one direction.
That's where the magic happens.
And, and that sounds reallysimple until you go around and,

(08:25):
stress test that in your ownorganization.
When you start asking peoplelike, Hey, where's this company
going?
You ask five people, you getfive different answers on where
we're going and how we're gonnaget there.
So aligning the vision's really,really important.
And then traction is just aboutseeing people executing on that
vision with discipline andaccountability.
No matter where you look in theorganization, everywhere from
the chauffeurs, all the waythrough reservations, dispatch,

(08:47):
it doesn't matter.
We're all, pulling in the samedirection.
And then healthy is aboutcreating an environment of
people that, just a cohesivegroup of people that you enjoy
spending time with.
You're not afraid to raise yourhand and say that difficult
thing, put the skunk on thetable.
You know, if there's an issue,I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring it
up.
It's all for the greater good ofthe company.
'cause often we spend more timewith the people at work than we

(09:08):
do with the wrong family.
That's the vision.
Traction, healthy around whatEOS it really is based around

Ken Lucci (09:14):
So give me the typical implementation of how,
the starting point.
How do you engage with anorganization, it's definitely
for SMB.
It's definitely forentrepreneurs, right?
I don't know about you, butlisten, I, I have been an

(09:34):
entrepreneur for my entire life,but it's tough to recognize
sometimes, number one, whenyou've reached your own Peter
principle, and second of all,perhaps when your baby that you
consider to be absolutelygorgeous is a little fugly, So
tell me, how do you roll up yoursleeves and help a small
business?

So the process and again, this is running about
275,000, companies are using EOSaround the world, and there's
850 people like me that work asprofessional implementers.
You don't need to hire somebodylike me to, to do it.
This is like eating healthy andexercising is good advice for
human beings.
Uh, EOS is good advice for anybusiness, whether you're a, a
one man band or whether youhave, 500 employees this work.

(10:18):
Generally speaking, my, coreclient, my marketing efforts are
based around people that havebetween 10 and 250 people in the
organization.
And that's administratively sofor this industry.
It wouldn't be counting yourchauffeurs, right?
You would exclude those.
So your office staff or yourleadership team is at least 10
people, or more, uh, to help youworking on the business.
And the process is we do a, wedo what's called a 90 minute

(10:40):
meeting, and it's a free sessionthat we do.
And I walk them around theentire model, show them what
it's all about, give them sometools and disciplines that they
can take.
And at the end of that meeting,they're really answering two
questions.
Is e os right for me?
Is this the right time?
Is it the right fit?
And am I the right person tohelp them implement it?
So they, they walk away withknowledge and value right out of

(11:00):
that.
If they decide to move forward.
Then we work in full daysessions, and a full day is
seven hours, plus or minus anhour.
And this is offsite out of theoffice.
And we do what's called a focusday.
And in the focus day we, we havea specific agenda that we cover,
and then 30 days later we cometogether.
We do vision building, day one.
30 days later, we do visionbuilding day two.

(11:21):
And at the end of that period,you have all the foundational
tools.
So it's a spaced learningenvironment.
You have all the foundationaltools you need, and then we just
jump into execution mode.
And the execution mode meansevery quarter we come together,
we review the last quarter, seehow we did, are we all still
rowing in the same direction?
Set the vision for the next 90days, jump back in the business
and make things happen.
And then at the end of the year,we do a two day annual.

(11:42):
And that process lasts with menormally about two years.
And at the end of two years, thecompanies have this, they get,
and that's a beautiful part.
I'm not creating dependency, I'mcreating, you know, they're,
they're able to go off and dothis on their own.
So at the end of two years,clients graduate, they go off
and they run.
Some stay with me forever, butit's nice not building that
dependency.

(12:02):
Like I've hired a CFO firm forexample, and.
They were running my books inthe limousine company and, I
couldn't take it back from thembecause it was so complicated.
It was so proprietary.
I didn't know what I was doing.
I was almost held hostage bythat company.
And that's the exact opposite ofwhat we're doing.
We're empowering people to do iton their own.

Ken Lucci (12:18):
Oh, trust me.
My favorite thing to say topeople is we love working our
way out of a job.
If now we do have retainedclients that we do business
planning, financial planning,financial reviews, analysis, et
cetera.
But for the most part, whenpeople buy our financial course,
or even if they go through ourthree-year review at the end of
it, not saying, gotcha, yougotta keep us.

(12:40):
They keep us by choice.
You're giving them a system.
EOS is a system that once youhave, implemented that and it
becomes muscle memory.
It becomes the core operatingsystem internally.

Absolutely.
Yeah.
And a way of running yourbusiness really.
It's just a, a different way ofrunning your meetings and,
discovering your core values.
And a lot of those things likecore values is such an overused
term.
And people use chat GBT tocreate their core values or, you
know, steal somebody else's.
And, it really just takes all ofthe pieces, puts'em together in
a way, that just moves theentire company.

(13:16):
And it focuses you in six keycomponents of the model, which
is really, you get to the rootcause of what you're trying to
do.
Is it a people issue?
Is it a data issue?
Is a, you know, is it, is it aprocess issue?
Like where is a struggle?
Where are we gonna pin down?
And

Ken Lucci (13:30):
What are the six elements,

it's vision is on the top.
And then people and data.
So those are the three main,then there's an issues
component.
Then you have a processcomponent and you have a
traction component, and that'skind of the wheel.
And so as we're working withclients, we really wanna drill
them down.
If something comes up, are wejust getting out the zip ties
and the duct tape and fixing itas quick as we can and throwing
it back in the corner?

(13:52):
Or did we find the root cause ofthe issue?
Like, where does this belong?
Is this our process?
Is it a people issue?
Do we have the wrong person inthe wrong seat?
What's going on here?

Ken Lucci (14:01):
You hit upon something that we preach the
same thing, but we see itconstantly.
And that is, you know, let'sface it, the limousine industry
operators think, oh, it'sextremely complex.
No, it's not.
It's basically doing the samething over and over.
Now you do have, you havevanilla ice cream trips we do
every day home to airport,corporate to airport, et cetera.

(14:24):
And obviously there are hightouch stuff.
There's some, high touch stuffthat goes along.
But the end of the day, Ibelieve, and you tell me if you
think I'm wrong, if you make ita year in this business, you've
seen about 80% of the scenariosthat you are going to see right
or wrong.

Yeah, absolutely.
and the other 20%, you couldwrite a book on the crazy stuff
that happens.

Ken Lucci (14:45):
a hundred percent, uh, without question.
And those books, if we could thothose would be unbelievable, but
my point here is I listen tooperators talk to me about the
same problems over and over andover and over, and I use this
phrase, okay, back up, becausethat's a teachable moment.
But my whole point is you aresaying the same thing.

(15:05):
You are asking them to identifywhat the problem was and stop
and say, okay, wait a minute,this is the problem.
this is what occurred.
Now what's the real problem?
Is it a lack of process?
Do we have a wrong person, wrongseat, or do we have right
person, wrong seat, or do wehave, get'em off the bus
completely?

Absolutely.

Ken Lucci (15:27):
I love the fact that you do 90 minutes at no cost.
I love that.
And I do find you have to giveto get right, you have to give
people an idea of what they'reinvesting in.
So the first day, are you takingme the owner out of the
business?

Yeah.
And, And so one of the biggestchallenges, from a cost
perspective, from my opinion.
This is a really affordableprocess.
So we're, we're less than apart-time reservist would cost,
uh, the average limo company.
So the cost is normally not thebarrier.
It is the time.
And it is.
And, and so what that reallyshines a light on is that look,
if you cannot take yourleadership team and remove them

(16:07):
from the organization for oneday, you have a much bigger
problem that you, you need tosolve.
So it's kinda letting go of thevine, the story that, that Gino
tells in traction as theentrepreneur falls off a cliff
and he's hanging onto a vine.
It's a thousand feet down tosome rocks and a thousand feet
up.
And he doesn't know what to do.
So he looks up to the clouds andsays, is anybody there?
And, voice comes down and says,do you believe?

(16:30):
And he is like, sure, I believethen let go of the vine.
And the entrepreneur says isthere anybody else up there?
I don't wanna let go of thatvine.
'cause it's really scary.
And

Ken Lucci (16:37):
okay so in my opinion, we have hit upon the
essence certainly 85% of thelimo operators, well listen,
based on size.
85% are under 5 million.
And so in my estimation, themajority of the problems with a
business is you get to a certainpoint of revenue.
You're doing so much on yourown.

(16:59):
You've reached a point when yousaid it, your dream becomes a
nightmare.
you've created a lifestylebusiness and if you took off 30
days, the business would suffer.
If you die, the business dies.
So how does EOS solve thatproblem?
How do you turn a lifestylebusiness into a real company?

So you touched on before, it's the Peter's
principles, you know, runningfrom zero to a million, right?
Is You can do that, it's areasonable amount of energy,
effort, and it's easy to do.
But then when you get over amillion, and maybe it's not 2
million, but at 5 million,right?
It's a completely differentanimal at 5 million than it was
at a million and at 10 millionor 20 million, it's polar
opposite again.
So as you're hitting theseceilings, you know, evolution

(17:44):
took you to a point where youhit the ceiling.
You are either going to breakthrough that ceiling, you have a
revolution, figure out how toget through it.
You're gonna flatline or you'regonna fail.
And those are the three optionswhen you get there.
And as these.
Lifestyle businesses hit theceiling, they need to figure out
how to break through.
And that's in our focus there,the very first thing we go over
are the five foundational toolsthat you can use to, to identify

(18:05):
when you've hit the ceiling andhow to break through.
'cause it's not a matter of ifI'm going to hit a ceiling, it's
when, if your business isgrowing, you are going to hit
the ceiling several times.
And it could just be sometimesthe whole company's stuck.
Sometimes it's one department orsales department hit the ceiling
or sometimes it's, you know,just one individual stuck.
So like you can hit the ceilingin lots of different ways.

Ken Lucci (18:23):
You can and listen, I give credit to anybody who
starts a business.
I think when you do that,especially, you did what I did,
my first business was when I was15.
It was in the security industry,the burglar alarm business.
I was one of the, the youngestguys in the, in the industry at
the time.
You didn't have to go throughthe licensing in Massachusetts
at the time.

(18:43):
And I, I was doing security,putting security systems in
before I even had a driver'slicense.
So when you grow up in thebusiness like that, the way you
did and the way I did, it'sdifficult to take.
You are working in the businessevery minute and it's difficult
to ever.
Divorce from the day to day towork on the business.

(19:06):
so I mean, it sounds to me likethe e os system is pretty well
thought out.
How long has E os been around,by the way?

Geez I wanna, I don't even know the answer.
I probably should know theanswer to that.
It's been quite a while.
I I think Gino has beenassembling it over like 10 years
before he officially launchedit.
So it's been around a long time.
To hit on your point, if youthink about the typical person
that shows up at work, and,especially in the ground
transportation business you showup in the morning with the best
intentions and all of a suddensomething goes crazy, your world

(19:32):
gets tipped upside down andyou're fighting the day with two
swords trying to survive.
And at some point you leave.
That's Groundhog Day justhappens over and over again.
So when are you gonna stop andbe able to work on the business?
And, And usually if the leadersare experiencing that what do
you think the people behind usare doing?
they're just fighting the sameway.
Everybody's coming in and justfighting against a tide and it
doesn't have to be that way.

Ken Lucci (19:53):
yeah, and, and I call it the bloody slog, right?
Every day you've got a sword inone hand and the shield in the
other, and it's a bloody slog.
And to your point, if you workon making yourself the least
important person in yourbusiness by training the right
people, by developing the rightprocesses, the developing the

(20:15):
right procedures, that's onething.
But it sounds to me like e os iscompletely holistic, starting
from the core values of thebusiness.
What do you want to be?
Why are you here?
Okay, so there's a culturalelement to this.

Absolutely.
And you know, it goes back to,you know, in, in the good to
great having the right people inthe right seats.
It's such a great concept.
And I read that book and Ididn't know How do I implement
that in my business?
And so EOS has a tool called thePeople Analyzer.
And so this, now I know like,does this person is, are they a
core values fit for myorganization?
We analyze our people.
We know if they're a core valuesfit, we know if they gwc their

(20:55):
role, right?
We, we create an accountability

Ken Lucci (20:57):
What is GWC for their role?

gets, it, wants, it has a capacity to do it.

Ken Lucci (21:03):
wait a minute, back up.
That's a golden nugget.
Say that again?

Gets it wants, it has capacity to do it.
So do they understand the job?
Do they understand the, three tofive roles that are responsible
for the seat they're sitting in?
And most times the answer's nobecause the seed hasn't been
defined.
It's like, look, you come in andyou're gonna fight fires right
alongside of me, just if there'sa fire, you put it out.
That's your job.
When, when you define the roles,we wanna understand, hey, does

(21:28):
this person understand what'sexpected?
the million dollar question isif I said, Ken, are you doing a
good job?
It's a hundred percentsubjective, right?
Yeah.
I'm doing a good job'cause Ishow up early, I do this, I do
this, but it's really notdefined to be able to say that I
should know that I'm doing agood job and you should know
that I'm doing a good job.
There should be no question.
And that's where the G comes in.
So do we get it?

(21:48):
Then the second part is, do wewant it is this a means to an
end?
Am I just waking up doing thisjob because, I need a paycheck?
And so people go to chauffeursin that capacity.
Like, oh, no one was eight yearsold and wanna be a chauffeur.
Well, there are elements ofpeople that really love being a
chauffeur and wanna be in thatposition, enjoy providing the
customer experience and thecustomer service side of what

(22:10):
they do.
so there are people that wantthat and need to put them in
that seat and then have thecapacity to do it.
Do you have the mental andphysical capacity to do the job?
Right?
I, I might wanna be a brainsurgeon, but, lots of people
would argue successfully that Idon't have the capacity to do
it.
So can we get this done?
You don't teach a, squirrel howto climb a tree or a duck, how
to swim.
They just are natural at it.
And we wanna be able to putpeople that have a natural

(22:32):
capacity to be able to do thatjob.
and sometimes they don't havethe capacity.
It's either we're gonna trainthem up, do we have the time to
train them up, or, you know, dowe have the resources to be able
to train them up?
Or maybe it's a time capacitywhere they're just, they just
don't have the time to be ableto do the job.
So it really shines a light onwhat you're doing, you know,
using some of the timemanagement tools that, that
exist.

(22:52):
Like, Hey Ken, what are youresponsible for during the
course of the day?
And how many hours are youwilling to put into this
business?
I, I'm gonna put in 80 hours aweek.
We might identify that you havea hundred hours worth a week
worth of stuff.
It's not possible for you to besuccessful within the time
capacity that you'veestablished.
And so it really does shine alight on, on all these pieces
and, and allows us to,reposition the chest parts to

(23:15):
move forward.

Ken Lucci (23:16):
And sometimes it is difficult to admit to ourselves
as operators that we're notdoing a good job as leaders.
Okay.
sometimes what's in our head isnot what's communicated
verbally.
We think it is, but it's notheard that way.
So the gets it wants it.

(23:37):
Do you have the capacity to doit?
The fact that you'vesystematized that?
My dad used to own a supermarketand I swear to God some of the
people he had there, I'm like,dad, Jesus Christ.
I mean, and he's like, Ken, doyou want to spend 12 hours a day
in a walk-in chest gettingfrozen food?
No.
he said, that guy has checklistsevery morning.
I've given him checklists andthat's how I've trained him.

(24:01):
at the end of the day.
if the owner of the business isnot going to take the
responsibility for shaping theculture for working on the
business.
To me, that's the number onereason why businesses get
stagnant and eventually fail.

You, you hit on something and, as the owner of
the company, right?
The vision is so clear in myhead that I just assume you see
it.
And I think it was Stanford thatdid a study I, I wrote about
this, but it's called the thumpThump Theory.
And so I'm gonna tap out on thetable some songs like, you know,
like, uh, happy Birthday orwhatever it may be.
The success rate between metapping and you being able to

(24:40):
pick it up is like, less than20%.
And I'm really frustrated as aleader because why don't you get
this?
This is such a simple song, andI'm sitting there tapping on the
table, and you should hear this.
And we do the same as leaders.
We're just, we're not, beingarticulate.
We're not sharing our vision.
It's really clear to us.
It's really clear in our head,but it's not clear in everybody
else's head.
And so I think that's thebiggest point that founders, uh,

(25:03):
especially visionary founders,that started their company.
To them that vision is vivid,it's crystal clear, but the
people around them are justhearing thump, thump all day
long.
They don't get the song or thevision.

Ken Lucci (25:13):
And in some cases the entrepreneur and, you know,
listen, I, I took managementclasses in college.
I'm surprised I even made itoutta college.
when I decided to get into thisdoing business valuations, I had
to go back and take my financecourses because I just didn't
feel like back then I was reallyfocused on learning finance.

(25:34):
So entrepreneurs work in theirbusiness every day.
they're in charge of everything,chief cook and bottle washer.
But are they in charge of beingthe task master and the one that
is constantly teaching?
are they capable of doing it?
And the number one issue I seeis what you just said.
They know it in their head andthey think some sort of a mind

(25:56):
meld is going to get it to thenext person.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (25:59):
Talk to me about EOS and what is the end product
after two years?
Is it a written plan?
Is it a bible of sorts on thebusiness?
What is the end work product?

I just wanna jump back to one other thing you said
about the owner.
I usually use the example aboutsaving for your retirement.
So if you, if you look at your401k every single day and the
stock market has a great day, orstock market has a bad day,
you're, you're riding therollercoaster rate.
that's too much frequency foryou to be looking at it.
But if you never looked at your401k and then you did it the day
before you retired, you mightnot be happy with where you are.

(26:34):
Right.
It might, define a, a wholedifferent set of circumstances.
And so the balance betweenworking on the business and in
the business.
comes in a 90 day world.
And so EOS establishes this 90day world.
'cause that's about the righttimeframe for us to be able to
remember and keep focused beforethings start to fray.
So we know what we have to do.
We know what the most importantthings in the next 90 days for

(26:55):
us to accomplish are.
And then we focus on that whilewe're doing all the craziness.
And then at the end of 90 days,we come back up, you know, we
are, we all aligned, we realign,set the priorities for the next
90 days and we just jump back inand stay in there.
So owners struggle with, youknow, it's kinda like going to
the gym on New Year's Day.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to thegym every day at five o'clock in

(27:15):
the morning, for the first week.
And then I'm gonna, cancel mymembership three months later
when I stop going.
So you need to create a cadencethat's going to be sustainable.

Ken Lucci (27:24):
It becomes muscle memory.

Absolutely.
And so to answer your otherquestion about the end game.
And so what we're doing isteaching tools and disciplines
and, and the idea is just thatthe muscle memory at the end of
24 months with a client, we'vewalked them through the EOS
model so many times that theyjust, it's in their DNA, they
memorize, we've showed'em all ofthe tools in the toolbox.

(27:46):
They know how to use it.
it's working all the way throughthe organization.
And at that point, they're ableto just continue on that journey
forever.
But some people really require,it's like working with a
personal trainer.
So for me, you know, using a gymanalogy, I can't stand going to
the gym.
I will only go work out if Ihave an appointment with a
trainer.
Otherwise I can make everyexcuse in the world why I'm not

(28:07):
gonna go.
So that's why they keep mearound because I hold them
accountable.
I, Hey, listen, your rockcompletion ratio was less than
80%.
You know, an issue.
I'm gonna say that to thefounder of the business or, or
the visionary or whoever it maybe, and I'm holding everybody
accountable and they like havingthat, third party, but it's not
a necessity.
So that's what the end gamelooks like.

Ken Lucci (28:27):
And you do for organizationally and
operationally, what we do forfinance, and to your point,
these guys know they should belooking at their financials, but
they don't.
And the best companies with thebest practices, one of the key
best practices is a every monthgoing through their financials.
And it, to your point, again,sometimes it takes us saying,

(28:50):
you know what?
You can do it on your own.
Uh, don't expect your CPA to doit.
'cause he doesn't understand thelimousine business.
He doesn't know what your laborcosts should be, what your fleet
insurance costs should be, whatyour repair and maintenance
costs.
We know it.
Keep us around.
We'll do that for you.
we'll spend 90 minutes a monthwith you going through and
creating what your next stepsare, what your initiatives are.

(29:12):
But see, to me it sounds likeEOS, what I love about hearing
this is it starts with theculture and the core values.
It seems to me like culture isweaved through this what do you
do when you find somebody?
'cause we all know these peoplethat, they're really solid at
what they do, but they're just atoxic person to work with.

The, and the two people issues that come up all
the time and, and youhighlighted'em before you have
the, the right person in thewrong seat.
There's a person in yourorganization that you just love.
They've been with you foreverand you know, they, they're like
family to your organization, butthey just can't consistently
execute on their job.
You either have to move them toanother seed or you gotta move
them out.
In a for-profit company, youcan't keep them around.

(29:54):
The harder challenge is when youhave somebody who's just really,
really good at their job.
They're that square peg andthey're killing you in ways you
can't see it.
And look, it's a really toughdecision, but you have to move
that person out.
it is a weight, it's killing thecompany in ways you can't even
see.
And so again, the peopleanalyzer just makes it really
clear when you get yourleadership team and we go

(30:16):
through and we're rating peopleon the core, on the core values
of the company, and somebody'sbelow the bar, it's pretty
obvious.
And I've not witnessed anyonewho just marginally fails it's,
tragic failure or there'ssomebody who's a, a real fit for
the company.
There's never a question mark.

Ken Lucci (30:33):
And it's interesting to me'cause I've been on
corporate in corporate Americabefore and I've hated it.
Okay.
Corporate America to me breedsmediocrity.
Okay.
if you wanna hide, if you wantto get away with doing mediocre
work, just go work for a largecorporation.
I'm dealing with one now that,thank God they pay me by the
hour for the meetings that theyhave me in.

(30:54):
But I've just, I, I just keepsaying to my business partner,
send'em another bill.
They've got me in anotherproject group.
But at the same time, smallbusiness has a different set of
circumstances and a differentset of problems.
Normally they have a shortage ofresources, whether it's capital,
it's people, process, it can beall of these things.

(31:16):
And I, I do think it's difficultfor the owner to realize or
accept that they need help.
tell me what you do when, youknow EOS is the perfect fit for
this organization and everythingthey need.
'cause they're just bangingagainst that ceiling and they
can't overcome it.
I don't wanna use the term, howdo you sell'em or how do you
convince them that they need it?

So I, I don't, you know, it's too, and it's, this
might sound really harsh, but, Ineed to work with clients that
want it more than I do.
I'm really passionate about whatI do and I've spent 11 hours in
a, in a session room that wassupposed to be, you know, six
hours or seven hours plus orminus an hour.
And I'll, I'll stay all day andall night to do it, but, it's
too heavy of a lift to have topull people around.
So you have to have a certainamount of pain before you

(31:59):
realize that, you know, this iswhat we wanna do.
And, and I just wanna touch backon the financial side of what
you're doing.
So, we create a scorecard in eos.
And so the scorecard is, is theactivity-based metrics that are
going to show up on your p andl, for example.
And so, uh, when they, get a, abad month.
When they have a bad month, andthey're like, okay, we missed.

(32:20):
They're not able to go back intime and correct it.
So when you're setting thetargets for them, we're able to
break those down into weeklyrevenue, and we can make course
corrections real time.
So when they see that p and l,it's not gonna be, started like,
oh my goodness, how did we miss?
I, I thought we were having agreat month.
They know every single weekwhere they need to be.
And so measuring thoseactivities across your entire

(32:41):
company, and it's not justfinancial it's, how many
accounts are we bringing in?
How many incidents do we have?
How many this I, many that, sothe scorecard is a huge part of,
of what we do.
Working with clients.

Ken Lucci (32:51):
You break it down, it's a little that they can
manage.
Um.
I never would've made thisstatement in 2018.
I mean, I was a fantastic topline operator.
I judged, Everything by thenumber of accounts I brought in
the market share I had.
We were the biggest in TampaBay.
And thankfully I had a reallygood fractional CFO, but I wish
I had somebody on my shouldersaying, why do you need that

(33:13):
mini bus?
You've got three sitting there,and they're all about 70% of
industry standard, which is whatwe have.
But I can honestly say to youthat I made myself the least
important person from theday-to-day operation for a few
reasons.
Number one, I, really didn'tlike dispatching.
If you wanna screw up a dispatchboard, give it to me.

(33:34):
Okay?
And the second piece is, andthis is germane to what we're
talking about, is while I didtake reservations periodically,
that was not the best use of mytime.
How do you deal with an operatorwho says on a Tuesday I'm
sitting down and I'm sendingbills out, or I'm sitting down
and I'm closing jobs.
You know what?
No offense, but is that reallythe best use of your time as the

(33:58):
business owner?

Yeah.
And it's funny you say that,and, and I, find so many people,
like someone's getting the mailor somebody's, you know, they're
out washing buses or they're,you know, whatever it may be.
And I think what it really boilsdown to is that they're looking
for fulfillment, right?
And so you get fulfillment outof doing something that you
enjoy.
So like, for me, if I wash acar, right?
there's that sense ofcompletion.
And so the owner in doing those,simple tasks are really, to,

(34:22):
they're trying to createfulfillment and we just need to
get them that fulfillment at amuch higher level.
And so you can get the samesatisfaction or that same good
feeling by working on thisinstead of that menial task.
And so we, you know, what weusually do is just show them,
you know, the path to what makesyou happy.
Because it's funny you said, youknow, the reservation thing, I

(34:44):
loved reservations because itgot me out of doing what I was
doing.
So I would like grab the phoneand engage with a client because
I thought I was, giving goodcustomer service, but really I
was not doing my job that Ihated doing.
It was, that.

Ken Lucci (34:58):
well and I have a fantastic client, love him to
death.
And we preach the followingthings.
We've never found a company thatwas suffer from profitability
problems when their pricing wasin the top one third of their
market.
Okay?
They know they're worth, theguy's got one of the most
beautiful fleets in, in hisregion.

(35:18):
Owns his own building, everysingle morning he closes jobs.
He closes the jobs, okay?
And I say to him, I'm gonnaignore this because you love
doing this, but at some point,okay, at some point when you say
to me, revenue's down a littlebit, I'm gonna come back to you
and say do you think that hassomething to do with you sitting

(35:40):
down closing jobs between nineand 11 every morning when that's
primetime selling time?

Sure.

Ken Lucci (35:47):
Okay, so a part of it is an owner.
Tell me if you agree to thiswith a statement.
Part of it is to understand thejobs that you have to work
yourself out of and how you haveto progress as a quote, company
owner.

and so we use a tool in Eeo s it's called
Delegate and Elevate.
And it's it outlines the four

Ken Lucci (36:09):
that again.
I love that.

So the top left is the things that you love doing
and that you're great at doing.
And it just walks all the wayaround.
And the bottom right are thingsthat you hate doing and you're
not very good at.
And the reality is, people go tohell.
The, the living hell is doingthings that you don't like
doing, but you become prettygood at it because you've done
it enough.
And so the idea is to, matchyour people and be able to give

(36:37):
that to somebody else.
Give those tasks to people thatare going to be able to love
doing that job.
If I'm not a numbers person, Idon't wanna be closing trips
every day.
And so again, just delegate andelevate and back to that owner
it's interesting, I use the sameanalogy when we talk about
meetings.
And so there's 15 people in ameeting and I say, okay guys,
let's just do a recap of thesalaries in this room.

(36:58):
How much is this meeting costingthe company?
Did we get a value out of whatwe're doing?
And at that owner's salary, arewe getting a value or should we
be paying that salary level forsomebody to close jobs?
And so, you probably wouldn'tspend that much on a, on an, on
somebody in that position.

Ken Lucci (37:15):
And the most important thing to me is if you
are not working on your businessand you are stuck in it, and the
menial task, the day-to-daywho's working on your business,
you know the market is changingevery single day.
The market is changing everysingle day.
The world, the transportationworld around us is changing and

(37:35):
evolving.
You are stuck with your headdown.
Who's working on your company tomove it to the next level.
And you know what I like aboutEOS, from what I've, read about
it is you're not on your own.
You don't have to recreate thewheel.
This is a system that hasworked, and now we're gonna do

(37:55):
is we're gonna tailor, make itfor your company.

Absolutely.
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (37:59):
what's the biggest objection?
You told me what the biggestproblem is, which we're gonna
address, but what's your biggestobjection?

I think it's, getting people to a 90, it's,
it's a tricky, I struggle in aquick, conversation to be able
to explain to somebody, Hey,this is what EEO S is.
It's a pretty complex model, andso it really takes the 90 minute
meeting of me showing andteaching for them to get a
flavor of what it is.
So I think the biggest objectionis that people are just unsure

(38:26):
of what it is, and then theydismiss it as like, this is the
latest fad, or this is, uh,another craze.
And so really getting them tounderstand it is uh, is probably
the biggest c.

Ken Lucci (38:37):
And getting them to change, right?
That's what the fear is becauseto me that, oh, this is
something new.
Oh, it's the latest fact is anexcuse.
I know enough about the authorof the book and the gentleman
that created Eeo s to know hetook the best and brightest
disciplines that are from thebest organizations in the world

(38:58):
and distilled it down for use bysmall businesses.
You could sit and listen to thebest in the business to me is
Jim Collins.
Right?
Author of Good to Great.
at the end of the day, what youare correct those are for.
Large organizations,multinational organizations,
hundreds and hundreds ofemployees.

(39:19):
But, but what EOS is to me, isit's distilled all of the vitals
down.
I don't think you can overlookthe purposeful starting at the
core values piece, because tome, that's the essence of why
people do business with us.
It's the essence of what makesus different.

(39:41):
I will never forget getting intoa car.
I won't say who the network was,was one of the largest in the
industry.
And back then they had alaminated card in the back that
said their statement of corevalues.
And I pulled it out.
It was a direct ripoff from theRitz Carlton.
and to me, Ritz Carlton getsright what we're talking about.

(40:03):
It's why are we here?
Who do we serve?
What are our core values?
But you know, something that'sdistinct to the Ritz Carlton,
it's as distinct as the Lionlogo.
So you have to develop that inyour small business.
I mean, don't you find it, thepersonality that you want to
exude for your small business.

Absolutely.
And, and so as when we're doingour core values exercise, when
we create them, they'reinternal.
And so lots of our clientscouldn't, advertise'em because
there's curse words and thingslike that.
And in, in their core values,

Ken Lucci (40:38):
Sounds like mine.

Yeah we're using them for internal use, and then
we may hand them over to amarketing company and say, Hey,
spin this, an outward facing.
But for our purposes, we'relooking to attract the type of
people that share our values andshare our, there are people and
there's just, you know, when youmeet people, you're like, man, I
just instantly clicked with thisperson.
They're, they're my kind ofpeople.

(40:59):
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (41:00):
yep.
and I think that when you areworking in a small business,
when you are the owner, you needto understand, number one,
they're not your family, but youare gonna be around them
probably more time than yourfamily.
So you better find a way to getalong, communicate your
expectations, and inspire.

(41:23):
People wanna be inspired.
People wanna feel good about theplace they come to work in every
single day.
I struggle.
I have a client who came to usabout valuing his business and
he's in business with a partner.
The partner's downright toxic,and I only found that out
because we were on site andwe're doing a valuation of the

(41:47):
business so he can be in theposition to buy another company.
And I just found out by being inthe next conference room,
listening to his interactionswith the dispatch department,
2025 is a lot different than1980 and you can't treat people
a certain way.
So a lot of trying to attractthe right talent, the right

(42:10):
people to be on that bus it's amutual respect level.
A hundred percent.

Yeah, absolutely.
And, and And I think if you'renot aligned on a, on a core
values fit, and the second thingthat makes people feel good is
like the day you went to workand you just you worked all day
and, and you didn't accomplishanything.
You just survive the day and youleave.
It doesn't really feel thatgood.
But when you knock stuff out,when you complete something,
there's that sense ofaccomplishment that, I mean,
that drives endorses, that makesyou feel good.
And so I think.

(42:36):
It's the core values fit.
People have to line up, theyhave to be, culturally part of
your company, and then they haveto be able to reach success and
know what success is.
Did I move the needle today?
Am I making a difference?
And so, that endless, you know,hamster wheel is just, it
doesn't breed, people that are,that are happy, you know, you're
just working really hard.
It's a sprint.

(42:56):
You can't do it forever.
We need to be in a marathon.

Ken Lucci (42:59):
And when we deal with people who wanna sell their
businesses, many, there's abucket of them that come to us
that have been on that hamsterwheel.
they've been a million dollarcompany for years and years and
years and years, and they can'tbreak through, but they, or they
might be a$5 million company,they can't break through and
they don't correlate their ownlack of growth.

(43:21):
Okay.
what are you doing today?
I'm closing trips.
I'm dispatching it's likeliterally a haphazard way.
No systems in place where EOSsystematizes.
Now I can see where the averageentrepreneur who basically got
themselves up like you and I didfrom their bootstrap saying, I
don't need that.

(43:43):
because I've gotten this faryou're actually becoming your
own worst enemy.
I see it every day in thefinancials.
Okay.
the beauty of where we sit is wesee the same things over and
over, and we say do you noticethis, this is the problem.
This this guy is still doingdispatching.
He doesn't have an operationsperson.
You see this is what's going on.

(44:04):
And they're all, they don'trecognize the fact that it's
their inability to change, grow,and follow a system that's well
beyond them.

you can't be part of a system and at the same time
understand that it's kinda likethe matrix, right?
You don't know your, you knowthat movie you didn't know you
were in the Matrix and you justare, it's your everyday world.
They're so deep in the woodsthat they can't see it.
They need someone from theoutside to come in and like
you're doing and shining a lightsaying, Hey guys, look, are
doing things.
And it's just because evolutionisn't always the most efficient

(44:36):
way.
You look at the Colorado River,right?
Carved its way through the GrandCanyon.
It's beautiful.
But a straight line is theshortest distance between two
points.
The evolution of our businessusually doesn't make us the most
efficient.
And that's why it's alwaysevolution and then revolution to
be able to go back and make surethat if you were starting the
company today.
Would you still do things thesame way?

(44:56):
So if I said to, any of thesebusiness owners, look, I'm gonna
hire you as a consultant, and Iwant, we're gonna open a company
and, fill in the blank onanother planet or another state,
tell me what I would do.
The odds of it being the samething you're doing today are,
are usually pretty slim.
And that just shines a light inthe fact that how we did it to
what it took to get here is notwhat it takes to go forward.

(45:18):
And so

Ken Lucci (45:19):
That's the essence of small, the small business.
Most of the reasons they fail,if they're not failing from a
cash flow or financial deficitor financially being unhealthy,
they're reaching a point thatthey just can't get beyond
themselves.
They can't get, they can't getoutside their own box.

(45:39):
And that's, that to me is thebenefit of bringing someone like
you.
And, you know, I wanted you onhere specifically now because,
you know, we shy away completelyfrom doing any strategic
consulting.
Okay.
Because I find that theentrepreneur deep down knows
what he should be doing, but hecan't get out of his own way.

(45:59):
Where our job is fairly easy.
Is we diagnose the same thingsin every company and it's hard,
fast, black and white datapoints, financial data points
revenue KPIs.
But what you've gotta deal withis you've gotta deal with more
the operational and getting thecompany to be removed from its

(46:22):
entrepreneur, so to speak, andbecome, get to the next
professional level.
It's gotta be a more difficultjob.

It is until you, the accountability chart really
solves that.
And so if you have, mostfounders of companies and, and e
os would tag them as avisionary.
And the visionary is the personthat sits at 30,000 feet.
They have all these great ideasor creative problem solvers.
And when you have in, when youhave a visionary trapped in the
integrator seat, and theintegrator would be like the COO
level, the person that'sactually making all the major

(46:50):
departments run, when that, whenthat visionary is trapped in the
integrator seat.
You just get a lot of spikes,right?
A lot of you don't have anymomentum.
You're starting, you'restarting, you're starting,
you're never finishing anything.
And so what we do when we comein, in the accountability chart,
we're like, okay, if we have avisionary, we call it out.
We establish a three to five.
What's the best use of thisvisionary's time?
What are the three to fivethings they need to be doing?

(47:10):
What are the three to fivethings that the integrator needs
to be doing?
And when you establish thatrelationship, EOS calls it
rocket fuel, but it is the yinand yang of business.
It's the magic.
And, you know, ironically forme, and, and, and I didn't know
this, I did not run my companyon EOS because I didn't know
about it back then.
But I found my integrator andthat's when my business really,

(47:31):
really took off.
When I found the person who wasjust my opposite, she was able
to take, you know, take and runwith the ideas and execute.
And so we really just were yinand yang and, and my business
really, really took off and, andwas a better place.
And it's not always, people talkabout growth and growth is not
always top line growth.
Sometimes you need, you know,sometimes it's, look, this is a

(47:52):
24 7 business.
Maybe I wanna get some time backin my life.
Maybe I wanna be able to take acouple weeks off that I'm gonna
carry my cell phone around, orwhatever the goal may be.
Right?
So there's growth in lots ofdifferent areas business.
And so defining what you want,and I'm always, I'm always
surprised that when we startwith the vision statement in the
business, what do you want fromthis?

(48:13):
It's not an easy question for alot of people to answer.
'cause

Ken Lucci (48:15):
No.
and sometimes that's as a resultof being on the hamster wheel.
You may have had some prettydecent ideas of where you wanted
the business to go when youstarted it, but now you find
yourself so deep in the recipe,so deep in the business,

there you can't see.

Ken Lucci (48:32):
Exactly.
And we see it over and over.
we deal with it on the financeside because it's all black and
white.
we actually, it's very simple.
You are hiring us for profitimprovement.
Here are the things that arewrong.
There are only two ways to solve'em.
We're either going to go up onour pricing.
Or we're gonna cut our overheadcut our cost, and cut our

(48:53):
overhead.
It's interesting, you hit uponsomething where, and I think
it's, a universal misnomer inthe business where you get
together at these conferencesand all you hear about is the
size of fleets, and all you hearabout is top line revenue.
And I, I had hoped that duringthe pandemic, we would've been
dissuaded by that because that'snot success.

(49:14):
Top line revenue is just purevanity.
Pure vanity.
I've never had anybody whowasn't my client come up to me
at a show and say, oh my God, mygross margins this year are 44%.
Last year they were 38%.
They just don't, they don'tfocus on that.
And I do think it's because,it's an easy measure.

(49:35):
Hey, top line is 7 million thisyear versus 6 million.
But when you are talking about.
Breakthroughs, which is whatyou're speaking of.
You're talking about instead ofthe business running you, you
running the business instead ofthe business being your life,
your life is better because ofthe business.

(49:55):
And I don't know how many peopleget that way they don't get to
that point.

No.
A statement that you uh, thatI've heard that is, is gross as
vanity and profits or sanity.
And that's, uh, one of myfavorite client

Ken Lucci (50:06):
Absolutely.
Abs I, the myriad of clientsthat we have the best practices,
I can tell you the bestoperators in this industry, we
are blessed now to, I neverthought it would be this way,
but I, I'm blessed that some ofthe biggest and best operators
in the country rely on us.
And they all have the bestpractices.
They're all obsessed about theirnumbers.
And I was taught that after Igot into valuation piece and the

(50:31):
financial review piece by a guynamed Bobby Bellagamba, who ran
Concord Worldwide.
And, That he had what you'retalking about, he had an
integrator, he had, his brotherwas in charge of operations and
his brother had the ultimateright arm Shady Azer.
Shady was, was, would doanything would make it happen.

(50:53):
He was an operations maniac andBobby had the beautiful position
of managing some would saymicromanaging his finances.
But he is a guy that, brokethrough and literally because he
had the people he worked.
On his business every day.

(51:14):
He bought the land, built thebuilding, put solar on top of
it, focused on tax credits.
Focused on budgets.
And the operators that we seethat have the best practices
focus on that.
They focus on steering the ship.
They focus on, okay, is someone,off on the port side is someone

(51:35):
off on the starboard side, andthey really get to the level of
being the true captain of theship.
They're not down in the engineroom, they're not serving drinks
on the colon aid.
They are literally running theship and they know the course.
And it's an enviable position.
I don't you hit upon somethingThat to me.
We kind of do the same thing,but to me, I always have a say,

(51:58):
I Don't try to converse the ag.
Financially agnostic.
If you are financially agnostic,if profit is not your religion,
don't come to me.
Okay?
In your case, you saidsomething, look, if they don't
get it, if they don't see thatthis is an investment, I just
move on.
Because there are plenty ofpeople that want to change their
seven day a week business to acompany that lives for them, not

(52:24):
that they live for the company.

absolutely.
And this, this industry is just,it's such a heavy lift industry.
It's, you know, there's 24 7,365, and, and if you, if you
think about it as an investmentand think about, you know, the
return you're getting on yourinvestment, like, look, this is
an awful lot of work that we do.
Am I making enough money to, tomake this worthwhile?
And, and so when you, when youstart asking those questions in

(52:47):
this industry, I think it, itreally opens people's eyes and,
look, it's a lot of work andoften not enough return.

Ken Lucci (52:55):
and part of it is it's the insanity of doing the
same thing and expectingdifferent results, right?
prospective client of mine saidthe other day, you know, well,
you know, things are down.
The affiliates aren't sending methe work, the networks aren't
sending them me, the work.
And I'm like the fuck are youtelling me for?
I mean it What are youcomplaining to me about their
businesses?
You are in a fantastic market.

(53:17):
You are in a top 15 market inthe country, and you are
complaining as if the networksare doing something wrong by not
sending you work.
How many times a week are youout there telling the story of
your business?
The answer is, I don't have anoutside salesperson.
what are you doing?
Well, I don't have time forthat.
The EOS to me is about, this isa bad analogy, but back in the

(53:40):
day, I get corralled into acontest, a Dancing With the
Stars contest in Tampa Bay.
Okay?
It's a long, stupid story, butit taught me tremendous.
One, tremendous lesson.
If you don't get out of yourcomfort zone, nothing will
change.
And EOS to me, you tell me ifI'm wrong, systematically it

(54:02):
dissects the company, dissectsthe issues, and it does take you
out of your comfort zone as anowner.

And in the room, one of the rules that we have is
something we call open andhonest.
And so you need to be, justwhat's ever on your mind, say
it.
And in a session I had inConnecticut uh, just a couple of
weeks ago, there was a really,tough topic, and the individual
just said it and the team, heardit and responded.
And man, they left this meeting.

(54:31):
a better company than they wentin, just because they were able
to have that conversation.
And so one of the things thatgets you outta your comfort zone
is just, say what's on yourmind.
if hear what's being said.

Ken Lucci (54:42):
You as an owner, need to hear from the people that
maybe your baby is ugly andmaybe the person that for some
reason you think is great attheir job is causing you overall
long-term problems.
The analogy I use about dancing,first of all, I, believe it or
not, I was not born with rhythm.
Go figure.

(55:02):
I was scared stiff, but I madethe commitment.
Okay, it's a great story.
The woman that rat lasted meinto it.
It was one of my best customersand also one of the most
well-known people in Tampa.
And I loved her to death.
So I said, yes, Julie, I'll doit.
But I was scared stiff.
Okay?
I never danced before and I'dnever had a dance partner.

(55:24):
And this was a professionaldancer.
And at the, she said, listen,all I'm doing is facilitating.
We're gonna show you the steps.
And I promise you, by the end ofthe 20 sessions, this is gonna
be purely muscle memory to you.
This was totally foreign to me,but it got me outta my comfort
zone.
So, you know, my message toanybody who's listening to this

(55:46):
podcast and because I, I wantedto have Mike on ever since I saw
his presentation in Vegas.
You took me through the EOSpresentation.
I think there is a major gap.
In small business, and there isa, epidemic.
of the inability to change andgrow.
You think as an owner, you aregrowing because your revenue is

(56:08):
growing 10%, but are youevolving as a business?
Don't answer, you know, don'tanswer back to the podcast.
But answer yourself thequestion.
If you are living the same dayon what Mike calls the hamster
wheel, are you evolving yourbusiness or as I like to put it,
is your business just a bloodyslog that's running you?

(56:30):
so Mike, tell us how we canreach you specifically and how
people can sit in and schedule a90 minute, with you.

So my email, it's, my name, Mike dot
zon@eosworldwide.com.

Ken Lucci (56:49):
okay.
Mike, this has been fantastic.
I mean, we could do another one,you and I on the evolution of
your company and the feeling ofwhat it was like when you sold
it.

Absolutely.

Ken Lucci (57:02):
Mike's Deone from EOS.
There is life after limo.
You've got yourself a great job.
I know it's a great career and Iknow it's not seven days a week,
right?
Right.
And you're not worried about thevehicle, crashing into a
telephone pole, right?
So for all of those operators tothink you don't know what you

(57:22):
would do if you sold yourbusiness, this guy is a living
example.
That there is life after limo.
Mike, thank you for agreeing tobe on the podcast and

you.
You do the same.
Thank you.
Take care.

Ken Lucci (57:34):
Uh.
Thank you for listening to theground transportation podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode,please remember to subscribe to
the show on apple, Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
For more information about PAXtraining and to contact James,
go to PAX training.com.
And for more information aboutdriving transactions and to

(57:55):
contact Ken, Go to drivingtransactions.com.
We'll see you next time on theground transportation podcast.

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