May 6, 2024 • 52 mins
In this episode of Local Leaders podcast, Toby Massengal, joins the show and shares his journey from starting a small landscape business to becoming an EOS Implementer. Toby's story begins with a trip to Greece at 21 years old, leading him to join his father's landscape business.
Over time, Toby grew the business into a successful venture, which included landing a significant commercial project - the Mall of Louisiana. Toby highlights his frustration with managing the organization one piece at a time. He shares his decision to sell the business due to various challenges and personal events, which led to a period of decompression.
Timestamps
03:58 Trip to Greece and Involvement in Family Business
10:15 Selling the Family Business
11:24 Commercial Project: Mall of Louisiana
16:47 Discovering the Book "Traction"
27:03 Realization and Selling of the Business
31:55 Reconnecting with Vistage Group and EOS Implementer
38:34 Decision to Become an EOS Implementer
43:44 Importance of EOS System for Business Success
49:31 Overview of the Six Key Components of EOS
Over time, Toby grew the business into a successful venture, which included landing a significant commercial project - the Mall of Louisiana. Toby highlights his frustration with managing the organization one piece at a time. He shares his decision to sell the business due to various challenges and personal events, which led to a period of decompression.
Timestamps
03:58 Trip to Greece and Involvement in Family Business
10:15 Selling the Family Business
11:24 Commercial Project: Mall of Louisiana
16:47 Discovering the Book "Traction"
27:03 Realization and Selling of the Business
31:55 Reconnecting with Vistage Group and EOS Implementer
38:34 Decision to Become an EOS Implementer
43:44 Importance of EOS System for Business Success
49:31 Overview of the Six Key Components of EOS
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, this is Lori Johnson withHancock Whitney Bank, and you're listening to
Local Leaders the podcast. Visit Localleadersthepodcast dot com for previous episodes or for
information on peering on the show.Websters defines an entrepreneur as one who organizes,
manages, and assumes the risk ofa business or enterprise. My guest
(00:23):
today started out doing just that.After a trip to Greece, he became
involved in his dad's small landscape business, eventually growing it into a multi million
dollar organization, selling it, andthen becoming involved in what became is passion
helping frustrated business owners gain traction intheir business. If you're an entrepreneur,
(00:47):
and most of you who watch mypodcast are, especially if you're frustrated,
maybe you are feeling like you're justspinning your wheels a little bit, you're
gonna want to pay attention to thistwo part series. So before we go
any further, I want to welcomeToby Massingal to Local Leaders Podcast. Thank
(01:08):
you, Jim. I am excitedto have you here. Yeah, man,
it's excited to be exciting to behere. Absolutely love your show,
love what you do here, Thankyou, thank you. It is a
labor of love for me, asI say, Uh, and folks,
in case you don't know, andobviously you wouldn't unless you were here.
(01:29):
We have been working on this onefor a little while. Uh. This
what you're about to hear and whyit's a two part series is it is
literally, in my opinion, oneof the top ways in which a frustrated
business owner can move forward with aplan and a a system. Yes,
(01:57):
and that's really what all this isabout. So it all started, and
this is one of my favorite partsof your story. It all started with
a trip to Greece, of allplaces, for you at a young age.
Yeah, so tell me about that. Let's kind of lead in with
that. So I was twenty one, I was trying to make school work
for the second time. I hadtaken a little break between I guess getting
(02:23):
started in college after high school,because that's what you're supposed to do.
I took a little break to geta job, I had to earn money
for tuition, and was at mysecond time around trying to figure out what
I wanted to do, and happenedto meet a woman who wound up being
(02:46):
my first wife, who had beento Greece yeah, the summer before,
and boy I had visions of adventureand conquering the world. Yeah, and
never been to Greece, and sowe went. Yeah beautiful, blaze,
(03:06):
Yes, absolutely beautiful. I woundup settling in, found the job running
a little hotel right on the beach, and that's cool. How old were
you at that point? I wastwenty one, twenty one? Yeah,
golly, that must have been ablast, it was, looking back to
I'm glad I did it. Yeah, yeah, well while you were there,
(03:28):
and and you know, when youdo those sorts of things, you
want to do them when you're twentyone, not when you're in nessarly fifty
one, although I know some fiftyone year olds that would argue with me
about that and say, do itat twenty one and fifty one. Totally
different experience, very different. Butit was when you came back from that
trip that maybe you felt like youwanted to get involved in your family business
(03:55):
at that time. Correct. Yeah. I don't want to lead anyone to
believe that there was any ambition,right, Yeah, I got back,
I had nothing to do. Ihad decided school really wasn't going to be
an avenue for me, and mydad had started this small endscape business.
He was formerly in road construction inthe eighties when lots of folks struggled,
(04:21):
he we wound up struggling as well. They had to shut that business down.
And yeah, in construction. Yeah, so he was doing the landscape
business. And I just threw into see if I could help him needed
(04:41):
help, and maybe to bide alittle time until I figured out what my
next move might be. Sure.Sure, and so you jump in there,
jump in is his landscape business.And I'm I would imagine that you
probably started noticing things that maybe couldbe more efficient, or issues with the
(05:03):
business that you could help solve.It was, Yeah, it was the
the humblest of beginnings. I don'tknow that either one of us really knew
anything about horticulture, but threw myselfheadlong into it. Uh and and and
really love the freedom and autonomy andand the feeling of being productive that that
(05:30):
having your own business can give you. And and you know, over the
time in the early early days,just really poured myself into learning the business.
And I guess you know, mymother and father had instilled in me
and my brothers a passion for beingexcellent we played sports and we were all
(05:58):
very competitive, and so that naturaldrive to produce an excellent product, ye
kind of was right there all alongas I was learning the trade, absolutely,
and drive, you know, tome, is one of the most
(06:18):
important traits, if not the mostimportant, for a business owner to have,
because if you're not driven, you'rereally really going to have a struggle
moving ahead. You've got to havesomething in you that always wants to improve,
always wants to be better. That'ssomething about when we talked about your
(06:41):
story before we were recording this podcastthat I picked up on right away as
you were someone that kind of seeksout knowledge. That is a derivative of
drive. It's really easy to siton the couch and want to watch Netflix
all day, right and and behappy with where you're at. But when
when you're driven, you always feellike you've got to take advantage of time
(07:03):
in the day. And especially asbusiness owners, we can all relate to
that. Now, family business istrucking along and look family business, y'all.
And I can't speak for this froma personal perspective, but I worked
for a company that was a familybusiness. It's tough to run a family
(07:23):
business when you've got sons and dadsand things like that. You will see
these multi generational businesses from year sayone to year five, the success rate
shrinks dramatically. From year five toyear ten at shrinks even more. By
the time you get into say thefourth generation or third generation. It's only
(07:44):
like five percent of family businesses lastinto that third and fourth generation. Yeah,
that's true. Yeah, so thatspeaks to you and your dad must
have had a good relationship for themost part. We did. He did.
And you know, I always lookto my father, learned and and
(08:07):
he was one of these guys thatkind of taught you how to do it
by doing it himself right. Soin other words, I never preached right,
never never came off acting like heknew better than me. So there
was always a mutual respect as well. Now that's not to say we always
(08:28):
got along. We bickered every day, but it was always for the better
and higher good of the business.That did come a point in time where
you know, I think having abusiness, when that business fails, it
takes a lot out of you.And that was his experience with highway construction.
So I don't think that that heever set out with this landscape venture
(08:54):
with the ambition that that I camealong and brought to the operation. Yeah.
Do you remember one quick question,I'm very curious to know this.
Do you remember the day when youdecided, I think this is what I
want to do. I don't knowthat it was a day, But there
was a period of time where Ijust got hooked with the game of building,
(09:20):
growing, owning, having a business, you know, And I think
that I always say, you knowthat that was my problem in school,
was just nothing jumping out at me, grabbing me, driving me to want
to know more. And and sowhen I got started a landscape business,
(09:43):
and it just something A light bulbwent off, a fire got started,
and so it might have been somethingelse later down the road. I don't
know, other than landscaping. Butman, I fell in love with it,
and uh and and I fell inlove with being an entrepreneur and then
(10:07):
eventually fell in love with landscaping.Yeah, yeah, and and uh so
you did fall in love with it. You fell in love with it so
much, in fact, that youbought your father out of the business in
the late nineties. I believe it. Yeah, it was, it was,
and he was I was pushing hima little harder than he wanted to
(10:28):
be pushed, and he thought maybethere was something else he'd like to pursue,
and so we decided. And Ihad been angling it it, wanting
to have ownership. It was we'llblame it on youth, right. Yeah,
(10:48):
It wasn't that I needed to buyhim out because we weren't getting along,
but but I was maybe pushing hima little harder, and it was
It was really a beautiful way totransition because he only stayed gone for a
year. Yeah, and that wasaround the time that we picked up our
first really big commercial project and Ineeded him and he was ready to come
(11:13):
back. And from that moment onwe had this wonderful partnership. He was
my biggest cheerleader and was always there, always had my back. Was it
was a good thing, very good. And that you mentioned that commercial project,
would that be the Mall Louisiana.It is okay, And look,
we want to spend a little bitof time on this because I put myself
(11:37):
in the shoes and my guest alot. And for those that may be
outside of Louisiana listening to this,Mall Louisiana is a gigantic mall here in
Baton Mariage area. But when itfirst came around, and it had a
lot of fanfare with it, obviously, and you had your eye on it.
(11:58):
Yeah. Yeah, for in thelandscape world, it was one of
the biggest things to come along,maybe ever for a private commercial landscape company.
And you know, I'd spent about, you know, five or six
years just learning the business, reallyhoning what we did, developing a reputation.
(12:22):
And so when the mall came along, I don't remember if I took
a picture and put it on myrefrigerator, but mentally I said that that
project's going to be ours. I'mgoing to do whatever it takes. Did
you believe that in your hand?I did. I went out there as
all day and just short of makinga nuisance of myself, got to know
(12:50):
the contracting company that was installing themall. They were a large outfit out
of Greenville, Mississippi, No,Greenville, South Carolina. Yeah, And
got to know that guy and andand ultimately wound up helping him kind of
save the day. They had somelabor issues towards the tail end of the
(13:11):
installation of that project, so Ireally gave me the opportunity to cement my
relationship with him and create a loyalfan and a good friend actually, And
so you know, it was goingto ultimately be their decision as to who
(13:31):
was going to maintain it because theywere under contract to maintain it for the
first year. So they because ofthat, they got to select the company
going to follow up with that,Magneans Ongoing. And this was yeah,
this is I mean huge, thisis a huge And before that, had
you uh was it primarily residential youwere focused on? We were we were
(13:56):
in the commercial landscape space, butwe didn't have a project that I would
call a flagship project that we couldhang a hat on and fly our flag
on. Yeah, yeah, andthat was that was As a matter of
fact, I remember the shock indismay for most of the folks that were
(14:18):
in our industry, wondering how inthe heck we were gonna possibly be able
to handle that project. And ofcourse that as you know, when enough
people say you can't do it,oh yeah, that's all you need to
hear. Yeah, And I loveit that you and your mind had no
(14:39):
doubt you were going to get thatproject. And that's really the first step
because if you don't believe you cando it, You're probably not gonna do
it. Your own limitations are whatyou have in your mind. That's right.
I truly believe that. And soit doesn't surprise me that you ended
up with that job and what itwhat it gave you, or what I
(15:01):
can picture from that is now youhave a project that is a flagship project,
and look, those things are likedominoes. Then when another big project,
Oh yeah, I do Mall Louisianain case you don't mess right,
And so it lends legitimacy where exactlyit's amazing what one project can do for
(15:22):
your entire business, uh, whenespecially when it's of that size. Yeah,
yeah, you know because at thetime Town Center didn't exist, Steve
Keller hadn't moved into our market,Perkins Row wasn't a thing. Yeah.
So I really feel like that thatthe Mall of Louisiana, the scale and
(15:43):
scope and and impressiveness, yeah,uh, kind of paved the way for
these other developers to come in withthese other projects, and and I think
we kind of earned our way tothe front of the line for those Yeah.
And and it's also the one thatyou probably used as a learning uh
(16:04):
tool. There were you know,when you I would imagine when you're bidding
and then you get a job ofthat size that it was that first Uh
oh, I actually got the job. Now I've got to make sure I
have the right amount of employees,and you know, jobs of that size
sometimes you know, issues come withit, and yeah, all of those
(16:25):
sorts of things. So the goodpart of that is when you bid that
second big job, you learn alot from that first big job. And
and that's really the beautiful thing aboutthat whole process. And and you make
a name for your company. Soyou know that job. How how was
it was? It was it achallenging experience for you You know, I
(16:48):
was so passionate and I've been waitingso long for my moment. Yeah that
if there were struggles, I don'tremember them. It was just almost like
when you imagine something and then itcomes to be. There were no real
(17:11):
surprises, you know. At thatpoint, I began looking for solutions for
our labor situation. You know,I was I had a dream that maybe
there was a labor force out therethat we could depend on to be consistent
that would be as passionate as Iwas about the work. And one of
(17:32):
the other gifts that had been givento me when we were helping this landscape
contract company install them all was itwas my first brush with working with uh
the Hispanic community and their commitment anddedication to work to a hard day's work,
that's right. And so I begansolving certain problems that I knew we
(17:57):
were gonna have to solve and we'regoing to contind you to grow. Yeah,
but uh, you know the biggestpart of solving a problem is identifying
what that problem is. Huge,huge part. If you don't know what
the problem is, you can't fixwhat you don't notice, right or you
don't catch and uh, really,at the end of the day, that's
(18:17):
what this entire podcast is all about, is how to recognize those things and
then the solution to fix them.And we'll get into all that. But
uh, you were were also someonethat you seeked out knowledge. There were
points in your business where and youand I have talked about you were you
(18:40):
were a book reader. You weren't. You weren't hesitant about checking out a
book that you thought could help youin your business and give you some tips
to succeed. And one of thosebooks that you came across was a book
called Traction. Tell me about that. That's right, I guess, just
to go back a little bit.As we began to grow, I think
(19:07):
I was under the impression that allwe had to do to be successful was
deliver an excellent product to be thebest at what we did, which was
landscaping. And I couldn't have beenmore wrong about that. But that's what
anybody would think. Sure, itsounds it makes sense. It sounds like
(19:29):
it makes sense. We delivered anexcellent product, and as a result,
we had success. We began togrow, and I guess there came a
point in time where I realized thatevery day I was really solving more people
problems and organizational problems than I waslandscape problems. And I had spent five
(19:52):
or six years learning the landscape business. I was ill prepared to be able
to solve, to understand and solvethe problems I was having billion organization.
And so I began to search,look, read books. There's plenty out
there on it, and joined theCEO peer group called Vistage. Learned a
(20:18):
tremendous amount there, very popular tofill fill my head with that that missing
piece of how to build a successfulorganization. So you are you were in
the game. I mean you're willing, uh. And I want to impress
us to to all the business ownersout there because I've been there. I'm
(20:38):
sure Toby's been there. We've allbeen in that position where I have the
answers kind of thing. As businessowners, that's increded inness. We we're
just a different breed and we wantto solve all the problems and have all
the answers. And I had abusiness owner sit across from me. Probably
one of the best bits of viceI've ever gotten on this show was I
(21:03):
asked this particular business owner, whatis one piece of advice you could give
that totally transform your business? Andhe said, figure out what you're not
good at and then pay someone todo it. As business owners, we
don't want to admit we're not goodat everything that's right, and so kudos
(21:26):
to you for being able to havethe humility to say I don't have the
answer here, I need to atleast go search for it. Yeah,
yeah, you're a little bit frustrated, probably absolutely, and maybe a little
bit Unlike the pathway of learning thelandscape business with an organization. It's a
(21:47):
little bit different. Yeah, Andyou know, in all of the experience,
the books that I read, theconsultants I hired, they approach was
to kind of fix the organization onepiece at a time. And so that
was my mindset and that it servesme well. When I was learning all
(22:10):
about landscaping. Sure, you fixa piece here, and then you roll
on down the road, and thenyou know, another challenge comes up and
you got to fix that, andyou you you wind up building a program
and a system. Right. Ihad a little bit more time at the
time. You know, I didn'thave an organization of eighty five folks that
(22:32):
I was trying to get rowing inthe same direction. Okay, we say
that entrepreneurs deal on a daily basissimultaneously with about one hundred and thirty six
issues in their head. Wow,yeah, Look, it wouldn't surprise me.
I definitely got at least one hundredand thirty five of it. And
(22:55):
so that was the mindset, isa fix it one piece at a time.
And so even when I read tractionuh uh, that that was that
was where my head was at andand I really missed the thrust. The
main point of of what Traction reallywas trying to teach me, and that
was that it was the answer tothat one hundred and thirty six issues simultaneously.
(23:22):
Problem is strengthening six key components ofyour business and its strengthened in all
six. Yeah, yeah, andand so what what TRACTION and EOS U
And that was the difference. Notto interrupt you, but that was the
difference between what you were already focusedon, which was one thing at a
(23:45):
time. That's a big difference,huge difference. Yeah, yeah. And
they it's called the entrepreneurial operating system. And when if you think about as
a as A as a comparison andtoo software, any software that you use
runs on the platform of an operatingsystem. Sure, and those operating systems
(24:08):
don't mix and combine. You know, You've got iOS and then you've got
Microsoft with whatever they call their operatingsystem and it serves, like I say,
as a platform to serve up solutions. You can put anything on top
of that platform to run it.But you can only have one platform,
(24:32):
one operating system. And that's thereal I think key to EOS that they
don't teach in school. I've gotMBA buddies who graduated, and they've never
heard of the concepts and the principlesand the idea of having an operating system,
(24:52):
one operating system for your business.Well, let me tell you,
I'm familiar with the operating system nowand it's genius. It is genius in
its simplicity, if that makes sense. Nick Saban, who I know.
(25:15):
I know we're from Louisiana and we'resupposed to hate him, but y'all,
he's a good coach. Nick Sabansaid it best for me. And that
was one thing he always preached washe had a system in coaching, and
he would tell his recruits, youbuy into the system and the system will
(25:36):
work. You buy into the systemand we will win. And that system
was a process. It was justa process and a manner of doing things.
But he knew it worked because hewon all the time. Right.
Yeah, it can cross over toany part of life, business included.
(25:56):
You have to have a system.You can't just go willing nilly through your
business and expect these amazing results.Will you get lucky? Sometimes? Yeah,
you might fall into a job thatyou didn't expect to get, or
you you know, someone may needyour product or service and they just come
(26:18):
to you. But without a system, there's all these other problems in the
background that you're not dealing with,and they will. They will frustrate you
to the point of I hate tosay pulling your hair out because I don't
have any, but Toby has greathair. Pulling Toby's hair out, I'll
frustrate him. So system systems arevery important, and we're gonna we're definitely
(26:45):
gonna lead into that and spend themajority and the vast time throughout this series
discussing it. I promise you,I can't hammer this down enough. It
is absolutely worth the listen. Youwill learn something from it, uh that
you're not gonna learn anywhere else.I want to say that. Now you
(27:06):
read that book and you you justsaid, you know I missed something there.
Yeah, eventually you end up sellingyour business kind of lead us into
that. Yeah. So so youknow the whole I guess begin of my
search to figure out how to builda great organization. Yeah, I tried
(27:30):
doing it one piece at a time, and and you know, I liken
it too. There's an old Indianparable about blind guys trying to figure out
what an elephant is for the firsttime, and they all kind of have
their one piece of the elephant thatthey're feeling and touching that's right in front
of them, and that is whatthey describe as, you know, the
(27:52):
solution, yeah, right, Yeah, and they don't take the whole elephant
into consideration, right, And sothat's kind of you know, how we
how we got on down the roadtrying to fix it one piece at a
time, and I became increasingly frustratedand I was dragging the organization, kicking
(28:15):
and screaming, and it was allon me. Yeah. I have to
say we had we had good people. Were they all the right people?
Maybe not? But but I justit was a piece that I never really
felt like I got figured out.And so when a competitor came along and
(28:37):
offered to buy my business, Iwas frustrated. Twenty sixteen, it just
happened. Yeah, for those thoseof you maybe not from this area,
that was a flood in which reallythe entire city of Denim Springs, most
of Livingston Parish, Louisiana, andpart of East Back and Reach Parish completely
(29:02):
went underwater. And we're not talkinginches, we're talking feet. Yeah.
It was devastating. So you gotthat on top of it all of our
equipment, trucks, offices went underwater. Yeah, that was a killer we
experienced. I experienced a death inthe family, So you know that combined
(29:23):
with the frustrations that I was experiencingwith the business and this offer out there
of a competitor, Yeah, Iwon't say that I had achieved this pinnacle
and was looking to sell. Iwas frustrated and didn't know when another offer
like that would come along, andso a little bit frustrated just threw in
(29:45):
the towel. Yeah, And howwas business at that point? Business was
great? Business was great. Yeah, you're not selling up. You were
successful, yes, And that's whatI wanted to point out and get to.
You were not in a situation whereyour business was failing. You owed
all this debt, and you're justlike, man, I need to sell
this thing just so I can getthis debt paid off. I mean,
(30:07):
you were business was fine for you, Uh, but you were so frustrated
that even with a fledging business,you didn't want adapt to deal with that
anymore. You were so frustrated thatyou had a good offer on the table.
Maybe, Yeah, And I didn'tknow how much longer I could do
it and maintain the level of successwe had. So it was this decision
(30:32):
I made at the time. Sure, yeah, tough decision, Yeah,
yes, And though you know,when you're tired and somebody says you can
stop running if you want to point, I love that analogy. And and
you know, it took me probablyfive years before I was rested and recovered
(30:59):
well enough to really start getting thatitch again and wanting to feel and be
productive. And interestingly enough, inthat time, the Vistage group that I
had been a part of, andwe had all grown really close, they
decided to disband as a Vistage groupVistage organization, but continued to meet on
(31:23):
a regular basis once a month.And well, at that point they're so
tight it's like friends exactly. Andwe maintained some are they maintained some semblance
of you know, talking about business. What's going on business was what's going
on personal? And so obviously whenI sold my business, I had to
(31:45):
get out of Vistage because I wasn'ta CEO anymore. And so when they
broke up, I was able toIt was okay to come back, right,
and it was great, you know, being part of that again.
But Interestingly enough, the Vistage chairMalcolm Brignak, had, after Vistage broke
(32:08):
up, decided to become what theycall an EOS implementer, which is not
a consultant. He's a guy thatcomes in and implements EOS in a business,
the actual system, the actual system. And one by one, all
(32:28):
the guys sitting at the table thatwere part of that Vistage group, they
began to hire him to implement EOS. And you know, you have to
remember we were together for five orsix years as a Vistage group, and
we heard speaker after speaker come inevery month and sell whatever whatever it was
(32:52):
they were consulting on. Sure asolution that your business needed, is that
one piece at a time. Nobodyin the group ever sort of broke through
right figured it out. Yeah,you know, we all continued to try
to figure it out while we werein Vistage. Once they began implementing EOS,
(33:15):
they all said, unanimously and enthusiastically, this is what we were looking
for all along the whole time.Change their life, change their business.
And that was very very powerful forme to see, Yeah, I can
imagine, and you know, Ican't hammer this point down enough. It
(33:36):
seems like you were handling one problemat a time. Yeah, And the
issue for me hearing that from you, and what I can imagine is you're
solving a problem, but there's allthese other problems that spring up. So
when you're doing it one at atime, you're you're never getting any traction.
(33:58):
Right, you were stuck in themud, because once you solve the
payroll problem, you've got the employeeproblem. And once you solve the employee
problem over here, you've you've gotmaybe some other sort of product problem.
Uh, So it's really get itanywhere. Yeah, you never get anywhere.
That's that's frustrating time. You know. Yeah, the bullets a whizzen
(34:22):
by your head, you're trying tododge those and uh and figure this thing
out. And I always love toliken it to the fact that Eskimos have
thirty words for snow. Yeah,right, So imagine figuring out one type
of snow here and then uh,you got that done, but then the
(34:43):
next thing, you know, there'sanother type of snow thrown at you that
you need to deal with. Andso language and and and and experience kind
of builds that knowledge base over time. And that's what EUS is. It
tells you these all of those problemsthat you have in your business that you're
(35:05):
dealing with on a daily basis,there's six key components that have to be
strong, and if you strengthen thosesix key components, you'll have a great
organization period. And here's the greatthing about that and what I love most
about it as as as you know, say it a customer. When I
(35:29):
look at that, it's not overwhelming. To me. You're not giving me
a system and saying here's one hundredthings that you need to learn. You
need to learn, and believe me, they're out there. Sure there are
some some systems. I'm sure we'reout there that are You've got to do
fifty different things in order to getyour organization. This is not overwhelming.
(35:52):
It's it's six key components. Andwhen we go over those components with you,
number one, it's gonna make completesuns. Number two, it's it's
probably steps in your organization that maybeyou have pieces of that you're you're doing,
but not all of them. Andsome of them you may have them,
(36:15):
such as a mission statement, butyou haven't put a whole lot of
thought into you know, it's it'slow hanging for it. It's the basic
mission statement. We want to doright by our customers and with pride,
you know that sort of thing.But what does that mean is what you
drill down in eos with What doesthat mean? And do the other people
(36:38):
in your organization share your leadership?That's right, share that philosophy. That
is a killer if they don't.And we're gonna get into all that,
y'all. But one thing to knowtwo is you know, when Geno Wickman
was putting the system together, it'snot concepts that you've never heard of before.
(37:00):
Now, these are concepts that havebeen around one hundred years, are
going to be around one thousand more. What he recognized was the innerconnectedness of
those and he developed a few simpletools to help actually make those concepts live
(37:20):
in your organization every day. Andthat's really the brilliance. And you're right,
it's simple. Now, there's brilliancein simplicity. Though, yes,
it's simple. It's not necessarily easy, no, but then again, you
know, having your own business andbeing successful isn't easy. If it was,
(37:40):
everybody would do it. Everybody woulddo it, and there'd be a
much higher success rate in business ifit were easy. It's not easy.
You know, your competition alone willkeep us as business owners on our toes
constantly. But this system that we'regoing to get into is going to be
a business changer for you. Ifyou are frustrated, I promise you that.
(38:07):
And the great thing about this podcastis is we talk about different things,
we're gonna pop them up. You'llsee him pop up actually on the
screen as we're discussing them, soyou'll have a visual there of what we're
talking about. So you discussed thatfive years and that five year period where
(38:30):
you were let's call it decompressing fromall of this, and eventually you said,
you know what I want to getback in the game. Your peer
group. There's a guy there.He was an implementer, as you said,
and you wanted to learn more aboutit, I would imagine, and
(38:52):
you had already read the book,so so you were somewhat familiar with what
this guy was doing and what hewas talking about. Yeah, I think
that that really the deciding factor becauseI was looking, I was trying to
figure out what my next move mightbe. My noncompete had expired, so
(39:15):
I could have gone back into thelandscape business, which was all I really
kind of knew how to do.Yeah, I might say, and wasn't
super thrilled about that, you know. I guess I had been there and
I had done that, and andmaybe the entrepreneur and me wanted to do
(39:36):
something a little bit different challenge.Yeah, I was in a different phase
of my life. So yeah,I began thinking about what I could do
to help folks, to make animpact, lasting difference. Impact one of
the key words in in in mypodcast one of my I have words that
(39:58):
are matter of fact. That wordis on one of my t shirts that
I have. Impact. It's avery strong word. Sure, and uh,
and we want to make an impact. And that's what you wanted to
do. And I'm sorry, Ididn't mean to cut you off. Now
I'm glad you did. Yeah,it's uh, it's it's part of you
(40:19):
know why I love what you dohere, so you know. And then
right before my eyes there was youknow, my buddy Malcolm, who had
made an impact on friends of minewho were in the same boat. I
was in a way that excited me. And so I can't say that I
(40:44):
ever saw myself standing in front ofa group helping them to build a better
business. But man, that justreally got it hooks in me absolutely and
and and often running. I wasso, yeah, very good. And
so we're going to get in nowto what you do now you are now
(41:08):
an implementer. Yeah, yeah,I became an implementals and so I want
to give before we get into theactual system. I want people to be
able to grasp exactly what it isthat you do from a bird's eye perspective.
So just like from thirty thousand feet, Yeah, what is an implementer
(41:30):
at EOS? An implementary the USis somebody that comes in. You know,
there's a Kurt Goodall and mathematicians said, it's impossible to be in a
system and standing on the outside lookingat that system at the same time.
Yeah. So it's not that youcan't implement EOS in your business yourself,
(41:52):
and they call that self implementing.It's just difficult to be on the out
sid business, working on the businessin the way that you need to,
and being in the business at thesame time. So an implementer comes in
and through a series of full daysessions, we help entrepreneurs implement EOS in
(42:15):
their organizations. Showing them what rightlooks like, using a series of exercises,
helping them learn how to use thetools. It's typically a two year
process, which is the other coolthing. I think on some level,
sometimes consultants will perpetuate their own existence. Sure, they want to get in
(42:39):
a business, develop a relationship witha client, and have that client forever.
The intent with EOS is to stepinto an organization, help them to
implement the system. Usually takes abouttwo years before we graduate them. Graduating
is not a requirement. Some clients, you know, keep us forever.
(43:04):
Yeah, but the intent is aprocess that takes about two years to implement
this system. Yeah, I meanthe goal there for you is I want
you to have the system and havesuch a grasp of the system that you
can do it without me if youneed to. And that's and that's really
the goal. But if you're youknow, some some business owners and CEOs
(43:30):
of companies that are like, no, I don't want you going anywhere.
I'll keep you here as long asyou're willing to stay, you know,
because because you do save a lotof time for them, and you are
a master of the system, there'sno doubt about it. Yes, So
we're gonna we're gonna take some timehere to tell y'all. Uh, the
(43:52):
reason that we're doing a series onthis is that there's absolutely no way you
could obviously cover this in an hour. World already forty five minutes in and
we're just now getting to the pointwhere we discuss it. So we're going
to give you kind of one ofthose six components today and then when you
(44:14):
come back next week, you're goingto get the full repertoires as it were.
Where would you start with that?Maybe with vision or well, I
would say at a very high level, EOS does three things for an organization.
Yeah. The first is gets everybodyon the same page, rowing in
(44:37):
the same direction with what we callvision. Yeah. Number two, it
creates traction around that vision by instillingdiscipline and accountability in the organization so that
everywhere you go you see folks doingtheir part and helping to achieve that vision.
Right. The third thing it doesis we create a healthy leadership team
(45:01):
where folks can be open and honestwith one another, they actually enjoy working
together because a lot of times that'snot the case. And I'm not saying
there's not healthy conflict, but thesystem teaches folks how to have that healthy
conflict in an open and honest environmentso that everybody's clean in the end and
(45:25):
ready to go to work. Sothose three things are really the foundation,
the starting point for what EUS does. So let's talk about those six components.
Yeah, yeah, sure, Sosix key components that Geno figured out
(45:45):
that need to be strong in anorganization in order to have a great organization.
And it starts with vision. Everybusiness should and vision is just about
getting everybody rowing in the same direction, on the same page. Absolutely.
It's like what I just talked about. When you're running your business willy nilly,
(46:07):
and you don't know where you're goingfrom one day to the next year,
you don't know where your goals,where you want to be in three
months, much less six months,much less a year. You have a
lack of vision. And don't getme wrong, the founder of the owner
usually does. Yeah, but thekey there, Remember we're trying to build
(46:28):
a great organization, so everybody needsto be on the same page with what
that vision is and how you're goingto achieve it. And so that's what
we accomplish with the vision component.The second key component is every great vision
has great people that work hard toachieve that vision. Jim Collins coined a
(46:52):
phrase, you know, right peopleon the bus, wrong people off the
bus. But it takes both takeshaving the right people who believe in your
mission statement, believe in your corevalues, and then you want those folks
sitting in the right seat where whatthey love to do and are best at
they get to do every day.So we help get that right with the
(47:15):
data component. The third key component. You know, in a busy day,
you wind up making too many decisionsbased on ego, emotion, whether
or not you're having a great daythat day. So with a data component,
it's a weekly scorecard so that youcan keep a pulse of your business,
be able to see things when theyget off track before it's too late,
(47:37):
before you're looking in the rear ofyour mirror. So there's a data
component. When all those I sayall, when those three things begin to
get really clear in the organization,your organization develops a certain level of transparency.
Right, so all the problems,the inefficiency, the issues, even
(48:02):
the opportunities begin to bubble up.They become very easy to spot. And
so we teach organizations how to addressthose issues. Every great organization has to
get really good at teeing their issuesup as they arise and making them go
away in such a way that theystay gone forever. So that's the fourth
(48:25):
key component, the issues component.And then with the fifth component, the
process component. You know, thereare six to ten things a handful of
core processes in every business, andyou just want to make sure that those
processes get done the right and bestway every time. So we help organizations
to develop processes and systems around thosehandful of things that need to get done
(48:53):
the right and best way. That'sthe process component. And then the last
key component is the traction component,and that's really where the rubber meets the
road. You know, we putvision at the top of the model and
traction at the bottom of the model. That's not by mistake, because traction
is bringing that vision down to theground and helping organizations to execute on that
(49:15):
vision with discipline and accountability. It'slook, when when visions aren't realized in
an organization, nine out of tentimes, it's because they failed to get
traction around that vision. And sothat's the six key component. That is
the six key components. Now nextweek We're going to go through these in
(49:38):
much more detail. We're going totalk about Hey, we're going to talk
about rocks, but not the kindof rocks you think we're going to talk
about. We'll get into that andso much more with Toby Massingal for so
many people. You know, you'vehelped a lot of people. There's a
(49:59):
lot more can and help that aregoing to need your help. And uh,
it all starts with this EOS.Come back next week, y'all.
That's all I can tell you.That's really all I can tell you.
Uh have to come. The bestis you had to come, and it
will be absolutely if you're a businessowner, a pivotal moment for you and
your business. To take an hournext week and listen to the follow up
(50:23):
episode in this two part series.But look, Toby, you did pretty
good behind a microphone here. Thankyou, Jim, I had a good
coach you did there you go.I love it, uh, and we
appreciate you coming by sharing this withus, folks. If you have any
any questions in the meantime, justshoot me a message and I'll be glad
(50:45):
to ask it. In the followup podcast with Toby, I'm going to
link the book that we talked abouttoday in the description of this video.
So if you're interested in checking thatbook out, I'll think it through Amazon
or whatever, and I'm gonna linkthe website fors and in there as well.
(51:05):
Uh so you'll have that, Andjust no, cheat, don't get
too far ahead. We don't wantto blow your mind before we get a
chance to tell you about all thegreat things with each of the six key
components to solving all your business frustrations. I'd say, yeah, you know,
I like to say that EOS doesn'tsolve one problem in your organization,
(51:27):
it solves all of them. Thereyou go, And so that's a good
place to kind of wrap this up. Thank you so much for your support
of what we do here on LocalLeaders of Podcasts. Closing in on one
million downloads on YouTube. Unbelievable.I know, man, I say that
every time I see that number.It's impressive. It's just crazy, mind
(51:50):
boggling. But it's it's Look,it's guests like you. I just I
sit behind here every week. Peopleget enough of seeing me. But but
it's guests like you that come onthat these people want to see and want
to learn from. So until nexttime, I'm Jim Chapman reminding you love
your community, support local business,and keep leading. Thank you very much,
Hi, this is Lori Johnson withHancock Whitney Bank, and you're listening to
Local Leaders the podcast. Visit Localleadersthepodcast dot com for previous episodes or for
information on peering on the show.Websters defines an entrepreneur as one who organizes,
manages, and assumes the risk ofa business or enterprise. My guest
(00:23):
today started out doing just that.After a trip to Greece, he became
involved in his dad's small landscape business, eventually growing it into a multi million
dollar organization, selling it, andthen becoming involved in what became is passion
helping frustrated business owners gain traction intheir business. If you're an entrepreneur,
(00:47):
and most of you who watch mypodcast are, especially if you're frustrated,
maybe you are feeling like you're justspinning your wheels a little bit, you're
gonna want to pay attention to thistwo part series. So before we go
any further, I want to welcomeToby Massingal to Local Leaders Podcast. Thank
(01:08):
you, Jim. I am excitedto have you here. Yeah, man,
it's excited to be exciting to behere. Absolutely love your show,
love what you do here, Thankyou, thank you. It is a
labor of love for me, asI say, Uh, and folks,
in case you don't know, andobviously you wouldn't unless you were here.
(01:29):
We have been working on this onefor a little while. Uh. This
what you're about to hear and whyit's a two part series is it is
literally, in my opinion, oneof the top ways in which a frustrated
business owner can move forward with aplan and a a system. Yes,
(01:57):
and that's really what all this isabout. So it all started, and
this is one of my favorite partsof your story. It all started with
a trip to Greece, of allplaces, for you at a young age.
Yeah, so tell me about that. Let's kind of lead in with
that. So I was twenty one, I was trying to make school work
for the second time. I hadtaken a little break between I guess getting
(02:23):
started in college after high school,because that's what you're supposed to do.
I took a little break to geta job, I had to earn money
for tuition, and was at mysecond time around trying to figure out what
I wanted to do, and happenedto meet a woman who wound up being
(02:46):
my first wife, who had beento Greece yeah, the summer before,
and boy I had visions of adventureand conquering the world. Yeah, and
never been to Greece, and sowe went. Yeah beautiful, blaze,
(03:06):
Yes, absolutely beautiful. I woundup settling in, found the job running
a little hotel right on the beach, and that's cool. How old were
you at that point? I wastwenty one, twenty one? Yeah,
golly, that must have been ablast, it was, looking back to
I'm glad I did it. Yeah, yeah, well while you were there,
(03:28):
and and you know, when youdo those sorts of things, you
want to do them when you're twentyone, not when you're in nessarly fifty
one, although I know some fiftyone year olds that would argue with me
about that and say, do itat twenty one and fifty one. Totally
different experience, very different. Butit was when you came back from that
trip that maybe you felt like youwanted to get involved in your family business
(03:55):
at that time. Correct. Yeah. I don't want to lead anyone to
believe that there was any ambition,right, Yeah, I got back,
I had nothing to do. Ihad decided school really wasn't going to be
an avenue for me, and mydad had started this small endscape business.
He was formerly in road construction inthe eighties when lots of folks struggled,
(04:21):
he we wound up struggling as well. They had to shut that business down.
And yeah, in construction. Yeah, so he was doing the landscape
business. And I just threw into see if I could help him needed
(04:41):
help, and maybe to bide alittle time until I figured out what my
next move might be. Sure.Sure, and so you jump in there,
jump in is his landscape business.And I'm I would imagine that you
probably started noticing things that maybe couldbe more efficient, or issues with the
(05:03):
business that you could help solve.It was, Yeah, it was the
the humblest of beginnings. I don'tknow that either one of us really knew
anything about horticulture, but threw myselfheadlong into it. Uh and and and
really love the freedom and autonomy andand the feeling of being productive that that
(05:30):
having your own business can give you. And and you know, over the
time in the early early days,just really poured myself into learning the business.
And I guess you know, mymother and father had instilled in me
and my brothers a passion for beingexcellent we played sports and we were all
(05:58):
very competitive, and so that naturaldrive to produce an excellent product, ye
kind of was right there all alongas I was learning the trade, absolutely,
and drive, you know, tome, is one of the most
(06:18):
important traits, if not the mostimportant, for a business owner to have,
because if you're not driven, you'rereally really going to have a struggle
moving ahead. You've got to havesomething in you that always wants to improve,
always wants to be better. That'ssomething about when we talked about your
(06:41):
story before we were recording this podcastthat I picked up on right away as
you were someone that kind of seeksout knowledge. That is a derivative of
drive. It's really easy to siton the couch and want to watch Netflix
all day, right and and behappy with where you're at. But when
when you're driven, you always feellike you've got to take advantage of time
(07:03):
in the day. And especially asbusiness owners, we can all relate to
that. Now, family business istrucking along and look family business, y'all.
And I can't speak for this froma personal perspective, but I worked
for a company that was a familybusiness. It's tough to run a family
(07:23):
business when you've got sons and dadsand things like that. You will see
these multi generational businesses from year sayone to year five, the success rate
shrinks dramatically. From year five toyear ten at shrinks even more. By
the time you get into say thefourth generation or third generation. It's only
(07:44):
like five percent of family businesses lastinto that third and fourth generation. Yeah,
that's true. Yeah, so thatspeaks to you and your dad must
have had a good relationship for themost part. We did. He did.
And you know, I always lookto my father, learned and and
(08:07):
he was one of these guys thatkind of taught you how to do it
by doing it himself right. Soin other words, I never preached right,
never never came off acting like heknew better than me. So there
was always a mutual respect as well. Now that's not to say we always
(08:28):
got along. We bickered every day, but it was always for the better
and higher good of the business.That did come a point in time where
you know, I think having abusiness, when that business fails, it
takes a lot out of you.And that was his experience with highway construction.
So I don't think that that heever set out with this landscape venture
(08:54):
with the ambition that that I camealong and brought to the operation. Yeah.
Do you remember one quick question,I'm very curious to know this.
Do you remember the day when youdecided, I think this is what I
want to do. I don't knowthat it was a day, But there
was a period of time where Ijust got hooked with the game of building,
(09:20):
growing, owning, having a business, you know, And I think
that I always say, you knowthat that was my problem in school,
was just nothing jumping out at me, grabbing me, driving me to want
to know more. And and sowhen I got started a landscape business,
(09:43):
and it just something A light bulbwent off, a fire got started,
and so it might have been somethingelse later down the road. I don't
know, other than landscaping. Butman, I fell in love with it,
and uh and and I fell inlove with being an entrepreneur and then
(10:07):
eventually fell in love with landscaping.Yeah, yeah, and and uh so
you did fall in love with it. You fell in love with it so
much, in fact, that youbought your father out of the business in
the late nineties. I believe it. Yeah, it was, it was,
and he was I was pushing hima little harder than he wanted to
(10:28):
be pushed, and he thought maybethere was something else he'd like to pursue,
and so we decided. And Ihad been angling it it, wanting
to have ownership. It was we'llblame it on youth, right. Yeah,
(10:48):
It wasn't that I needed to buyhim out because we weren't getting along,
but but I was maybe pushing hima little harder, and it was
It was really a beautiful way totransition because he only stayed gone for a
year. Yeah, and that wasaround the time that we picked up our
first really big commercial project and Ineeded him and he was ready to come
(11:13):
back. And from that moment onwe had this wonderful partnership. He was
my biggest cheerleader and was always there, always had my back. Was it
was a good thing, very good. And that you mentioned that commercial project,
would that be the Mall Louisiana.It is okay, And look,
we want to spend a little bitof time on this because I put myself
(11:37):
in the shoes and my guest alot. And for those that may be
outside of Louisiana listening to this,Mall Louisiana is a gigantic mall here in
Baton Mariage area. But when itfirst came around, and it had a
lot of fanfare with it, obviously, and you had your eye on it.
(11:58):
Yeah. Yeah, for in thelandscape world, it was one of
the biggest things to come along,maybe ever for a private commercial landscape company.
And you know, I'd spent about, you know, five or six
years just learning the business, reallyhoning what we did, developing a reputation.
(12:22):
And so when the mall came along, I don't remember if I took
a picture and put it on myrefrigerator, but mentally I said that that
project's going to be ours. I'mgoing to do whatever it takes. Did
you believe that in your hand?I did. I went out there as
all day and just short of makinga nuisance of myself, got to know
(12:50):
the contracting company that was installing themall. They were a large outfit out
of Greenville, Mississippi, No,Greenville, South Carolina. Yeah, And
got to know that guy and andand ultimately wound up helping him kind of
save the day. They had somelabor issues towards the tail end of the
(13:11):
installation of that project, so Ireally gave me the opportunity to cement my
relationship with him and create a loyalfan and a good friend actually, And
so you know, it was goingto ultimately be their decision as to who
(13:31):
was going to maintain it because theywere under contract to maintain it for the
first year. So they because ofthat, they got to select the company
going to follow up with that,Magneans Ongoing. And this was yeah,
this is I mean huge, thisis a huge And before that, had
you uh was it primarily residential youwere focused on? We were we were
(13:56):
in the commercial landscape space, butwe didn't have a project that I would
call a flagship project that we couldhang a hat on and fly our flag
on. Yeah, yeah, andthat was that was As a matter of
fact, I remember the shock indismay for most of the folks that were
(14:18):
in our industry, wondering how inthe heck we were gonna possibly be able
to handle that project. And ofcourse that as you know, when enough
people say you can't do it,oh yeah, that's all you need to
hear. Yeah, And I loveit that you and your mind had no
(14:39):
doubt you were going to get thatproject. And that's really the first step
because if you don't believe you cando it, You're probably not gonna do
it. Your own limitations are whatyou have in your mind. That's right.
I truly believe that. And soit doesn't surprise me that you ended
up with that job and what itwhat it gave you, or what I
(15:01):
can picture from that is now youhave a project that is a flagship project,
and look, those things are likedominoes. Then when another big project,
Oh yeah, I do Mall Louisianain case you don't mess right,
And so it lends legitimacy where exactlyit's amazing what one project can do for
(15:22):
your entire business, uh, whenespecially when it's of that size. Yeah,
yeah, you know because at thetime Town Center didn't exist, Steve
Keller hadn't moved into our market,Perkins Row wasn't a thing. Yeah.
So I really feel like that thatthe Mall of Louisiana, the scale and
(15:43):
scope and and impressiveness, yeah,uh, kind of paved the way for
these other developers to come in withthese other projects, and and I think
we kind of earned our way tothe front of the line for those Yeah.
And and it's also the one thatyou probably used as a learning uh
(16:04):
tool. There were you know,when you I would imagine when you're bidding
and then you get a job ofthat size that it was that first Uh
oh, I actually got the job. Now I've got to make sure I
have the right amount of employees,and you know, jobs of that size
sometimes you know, issues come withit, and yeah, all of those
(16:25):
sorts of things. So the goodpart of that is when you bid that
second big job, you learn alot from that first big job. And
and that's really the beautiful thing aboutthat whole process. And and you make
a name for your company. Soyou know that job. How how was
it was? It was it achallenging experience for you You know, I
(16:48):
was so passionate and I've been waitingso long for my moment. Yeah that
if there were struggles, I don'tremember them. It was just almost like
when you imagine something and then itcomes to be. There were no real
(17:11):
surprises, you know. At thatpoint, I began looking for solutions for
our labor situation. You know,I was I had a dream that maybe
there was a labor force out therethat we could depend on to be consistent
that would be as passionate as Iwas about the work. And one of
(17:32):
the other gifts that had been givento me when we were helping this landscape
contract company install them all was itwas my first brush with working with uh
the Hispanic community and their commitment anddedication to work to a hard day's work,
that's right. And so I begansolving certain problems that I knew we
(17:57):
were gonna have to solve and we'regoing to contind you to grow. Yeah,
but uh, you know the biggestpart of solving a problem is identifying
what that problem is. Huge,huge part. If you don't know what
the problem is, you can't fixwhat you don't notice, right or you
don't catch and uh, really,at the end of the day, that's
(18:17):
what this entire podcast is all about, is how to recognize those things and
then the solution to fix them.And we'll get into all that. But
uh, you were were also someonethat you seeked out knowledge. There were
points in your business where and youand I have talked about you were you
(18:40):
were a book reader. You weren't. You weren't hesitant about checking out a
book that you thought could help youin your business and give you some tips
to succeed. And one of thosebooks that you came across was a book
called Traction. Tell me about that. That's right, I guess, just
to go back a little bit.As we began to grow, I think
(19:07):
I was under the impression that allwe had to do to be successful was
deliver an excellent product to be thebest at what we did, which was
landscaping. And I couldn't have beenmore wrong about that. But that's what
anybody would think. Sure, itsounds it makes sense. It sounds like
(19:29):
it makes sense. We delivered anexcellent product, and as a result,
we had success. We began togrow, and I guess there came a
point in time where I realized thatevery day I was really solving more people
problems and organizational problems than I waslandscape problems. And I had spent five
(19:52):
or six years learning the landscape business. I was ill prepared to be able
to solve, to understand and solvethe problems I was having billion organization.
And so I began to search,look, read books. There's plenty out
there on it, and joined theCEO peer group called Vistage. Learned a
(20:18):
tremendous amount there, very popular tofill fill my head with that that missing
piece of how to build a successfulorganization. So you are you were in
the game. I mean you're willing, uh. And I want to impress
us to to all the business ownersout there because I've been there. I'm
(20:38):
sure Toby's been there. We've allbeen in that position where I have the
answers kind of thing. As businessowners, that's increded inness. We we're
just a different breed and we wantto solve all the problems and have all
the answers. And I had abusiness owner sit across from me. Probably
one of the best bits of viceI've ever gotten on this show was I
(21:03):
asked this particular business owner, whatis one piece of advice you could give
that totally transform your business? Andhe said, figure out what you're not
good at and then pay someone todo it. As business owners, we
don't want to admit we're not goodat everything that's right, and so kudos
(21:26):
to you for being able to havethe humility to say I don't have the
answer here, I need to atleast go search for it. Yeah,
yeah, you're a little bit frustrated, probably absolutely, and maybe a little
bit Unlike the pathway of learning thelandscape business with an organization. It's a
(21:47):
little bit different. Yeah, Andyou know, in all of the experience,
the books that I read, theconsultants I hired, they approach was
to kind of fix the organization onepiece at a time. And so that
was my mindset and that it servesme well. When I was learning all
(22:10):
about landscaping. Sure, you fixa piece here, and then you roll
on down the road, and thenyou know, another challenge comes up and
you got to fix that, andyou you you wind up building a program
and a system. Right. Ihad a little bit more time at the
time. You know, I didn'thave an organization of eighty five folks that
(22:32):
I was trying to get rowing inthe same direction. Okay, we say
that entrepreneurs deal on a daily basissimultaneously with about one hundred and thirty six
issues in their head. Wow,yeah, Look, it wouldn't surprise me.
I definitely got at least one hundredand thirty five of it. And
(22:55):
so that was the mindset, isa fix it one piece at a time.
And so even when I read tractionuh uh, that that was that
was where my head was at andand I really missed the thrust. The
main point of of what Traction reallywas trying to teach me, and that
was that it was the answer tothat one hundred and thirty six issues simultaneously.
(23:22):
Problem is strengthening six key components ofyour business and its strengthened in all
six. Yeah, yeah, andand so what what TRACTION and EOS U
And that was the difference. Notto interrupt you, but that was the
difference between what you were already focusedon, which was one thing at a
(23:45):
time. That's a big difference,huge difference. Yeah, yeah. And
they it's called the entrepreneurial operating system. And when if you think about as
a as A as a comparison andtoo software, any software that you use
runs on the platform of an operatingsystem. Sure, and those operating systems
(24:08):
don't mix and combine. You know, You've got iOS and then you've got
Microsoft with whatever they call their operatingsystem and it serves, like I say,
as a platform to serve up solutions. You can put anything on top
of that platform to run it.But you can only have one platform,
(24:32):
one operating system. And that's thereal I think key to EOS that they
don't teach in school. I've gotMBA buddies who graduated, and they've never
heard of the concepts and the principlesand the idea of having an operating system,
(24:52):
one operating system for your business.Well, let me tell you,
I'm familiar with the operating system nowand it's genius. It is genius in
its simplicity, if that makes sense. Nick Saban, who I know.
(25:15):
I know we're from Louisiana and we'resupposed to hate him, but y'all,
he's a good coach. Nick Sabansaid it best for me. And that
was one thing he always preached washe had a system in coaching, and
he would tell his recruits, youbuy into the system and the system will
(25:36):
work. You buy into the systemand we will win. And that system
was a process. It was justa process and a manner of doing things.
But he knew it worked because hewon all the time. Right.
Yeah, it can cross over toany part of life, business included.
(25:56):
You have to have a system.You can't just go willing nilly through your
business and expect these amazing results.Will you get lucky? Sometimes? Yeah,
you might fall into a job thatyou didn't expect to get, or
you you know, someone may needyour product or service and they just come
(26:18):
to you. But without a system, there's all these other problems in the
background that you're not dealing with,and they will. They will frustrate you
to the point of I hate tosay pulling your hair out because I don't
have any, but Toby has greathair. Pulling Toby's hair out, I'll
frustrate him. So system systems arevery important, and we're gonna we're definitely
(26:45):
gonna lead into that and spend themajority and the vast time throughout this series
discussing it. I promise you,I can't hammer this down enough. It
is absolutely worth the listen. Youwill learn something from it, uh that
you're not gonna learn anywhere else.I want to say that. Now you
(27:06):
read that book and you you justsaid, you know I missed something there.
Yeah, eventually you end up sellingyour business kind of lead us into
that. Yeah. So so youknow the whole I guess begin of my
search to figure out how to builda great organization. Yeah, I tried
(27:30):
doing it one piece at a time, and and you know, I liken
it too. There's an old Indianparable about blind guys trying to figure out
what an elephant is for the firsttime, and they all kind of have
their one piece of the elephant thatthey're feeling and touching that's right in front
of them, and that is whatthey describe as, you know, the
(27:52):
solution, yeah, right, Yeah, and they don't take the whole elephant
into consideration, right, And sothat's kind of you know, how we
how we got on down the roadtrying to fix it one piece at a
time, and I became increasingly frustratedand I was dragging the organization, kicking
(28:15):
and screaming, and it was allon me. Yeah. I have to
say we had we had good people. Were they all the right people?
Maybe not? But but I justit was a piece that I never really
felt like I got figured out.And so when a competitor came along and
(28:37):
offered to buy my business, Iwas frustrated. Twenty sixteen, it just
happened. Yeah, for those thoseof you maybe not from this area,
that was a flood in which reallythe entire city of Denim Springs, most
of Livingston Parish, Louisiana, andpart of East Back and Reach Parish completely
(29:02):
went underwater. And we're not talkinginches, we're talking feet. Yeah.
It was devastating. So you gotthat on top of it all of our
equipment, trucks, offices went underwater. Yeah, that was a killer we
experienced. I experienced a death inthe family, So you know that combined
(29:23):
with the frustrations that I was experiencingwith the business and this offer out there
of a competitor, Yeah, Iwon't say that I had achieved this pinnacle
and was looking to sell. Iwas frustrated and didn't know when another offer
like that would come along, andso a little bit frustrated just threw in
(29:45):
the towel. Yeah, And howwas business at that point? Business was
great? Business was great. Yeah, you're not selling up. You were
successful, yes, And that's whatI wanted to point out and get to.
You were not in a situation whereyour business was failing. You owed
all this debt, and you're justlike, man, I need to sell
this thing just so I can getthis debt paid off. I mean,
(30:07):
you were business was fine for you, Uh, but you were so frustrated
that even with a fledging business,you didn't want adapt to deal with that
anymore. You were so frustrated thatyou had a good offer on the table.
Maybe, Yeah, And I didn'tknow how much longer I could do
it and maintain the level of successwe had. So it was this decision
(30:32):
I made at the time. Sure, yeah, tough decision, Yeah,
yes, And though you know,when you're tired and somebody says you can
stop running if you want to point, I love that analogy. And and
you know, it took me probablyfive years before I was rested and recovered
(30:59):
well enough to really start getting thatitch again and wanting to feel and be
productive. And interestingly enough, inthat time, the Vistage group that I
had been a part of, andwe had all grown really close, they
decided to disband as a Vistage groupVistage organization, but continued to meet on
(31:23):
a regular basis once a month.And well, at that point they're so
tight it's like friends exactly. Andwe maintained some are they maintained some semblance
of you know, talking about business. What's going on business was what's going
on personal? And so obviously whenI sold my business, I had to
(31:45):
get out of Vistage because I wasn'ta CEO anymore. And so when they
broke up, I was able toIt was okay to come back, right,
and it was great, you know, being part of that again.
But Interestingly enough, the Vistage chairMalcolm Brignak, had, after Vistage broke
(32:08):
up, decided to become what theycall an EOS implementer, which is not
a consultant. He's a guy thatcomes in and implements EOS in a business,
the actual system, the actual system. And one by one, all
(32:28):
the guys sitting at the table thatwere part of that Vistage group, they
began to hire him to implement EOS. And you know, you have to
remember we were together for five orsix years as a Vistage group, and
we heard speaker after speaker come inevery month and sell whatever whatever it was
(32:52):
they were consulting on. Sure asolution that your business needed, is that
one piece at a time. Nobodyin the group ever sort of broke through
right figured it out. Yeah,you know, we all continued to try
to figure it out while we werein Vistage. Once they began implementing EOS,
(33:15):
they all said, unanimously and enthusiastically, this is what we were looking
for all along the whole time.Change their life, change their business.
And that was very very powerful forme to see, Yeah, I can
imagine, and you know, Ican't hammer this point down enough. It
(33:36):
seems like you were handling one problemat a time. Yeah, And the
issue for me hearing that from you, and what I can imagine is you're
solving a problem, but there's allthese other problems that spring up. So
when you're doing it one at atime, you're you're never getting any traction.
(33:58):
Right, you were stuck in themud, because once you solve the
payroll problem, you've got the employeeproblem. And once you solve the employee
problem over here, you've you've gotmaybe some other sort of product problem.
Uh, So it's really get itanywhere. Yeah, you never get anywhere.
That's that's frustrating time. You know. Yeah, the bullets a whizzen
(34:22):
by your head, you're trying tododge those and uh and figure this thing
out. And I always love toliken it to the fact that Eskimos have
thirty words for snow. Yeah,right, So imagine figuring out one type
of snow here and then uh,you got that done, but then the
(34:43):
next thing, you know, there'sanother type of snow thrown at you that
you need to deal with. Andso language and and and and experience kind
of builds that knowledge base over time. And that's what EUS is. It
tells you these all of those problemsthat you have in your business that you're
(35:05):
dealing with on a daily basis,there's six key components that have to be
strong, and if you strengthen thosesix key components, you'll have a great
organization period. And here's the greatthing about that and what I love most
about it as as as you know, say it a customer. When I
(35:29):
look at that, it's not overwhelming. To me. You're not giving me
a system and saying here's one hundredthings that you need to learn. You
need to learn, and believe me, they're out there. Sure there are
some some systems. I'm sure we'reout there that are You've got to do
fifty different things in order to getyour organization. This is not overwhelming.
(35:52):
It's it's six key components. Andwhen we go over those components with you,
number one, it's gonna make completesuns. Number two, it's it's
probably steps in your organization that maybeyou have pieces of that you're you're doing,
but not all of them. Andsome of them you may have them,
(36:15):
such as a mission statement, butyou haven't put a whole lot of
thought into you know, it's it'slow hanging for it. It's the basic
mission statement. We want to doright by our customers and with pride,
you know that sort of thing.But what does that mean is what you
drill down in eos with What doesthat mean? And do the other people
(36:38):
in your organization share your leadership?That's right, share that philosophy. That
is a killer if they don't.And we're gonna get into all that,
y'all. But one thing to knowtwo is you know, when Geno Wickman
was putting the system together, it'snot concepts that you've never heard of before.
(37:00):
Now, these are concepts that havebeen around one hundred years, are
going to be around one thousand more. What he recognized was the innerconnectedness of
those and he developed a few simpletools to help actually make those concepts live
(37:20):
in your organization every day. Andthat's really the brilliance. And you're right,
it's simple. Now, there's brilliancein simplicity. Though, yes,
it's simple. It's not necessarily easy, no, but then again, you
know, having your own business andbeing successful isn't easy. If it was,
(37:40):
everybody would do it. Everybody woulddo it, and there'd be a
much higher success rate in business ifit were easy. It's not easy.
You know, your competition alone willkeep us as business owners on our toes
constantly. But this system that we'regoing to get into is going to be
a business changer for you. Ifyou are frustrated, I promise you that.
(38:07):
And the great thing about this podcastis is we talk about different things,
we're gonna pop them up. You'llsee him pop up actually on the
screen as we're discussing them, soyou'll have a visual there of what we're
talking about. So you discussed thatfive years and that five year period where
(38:30):
you were let's call it decompressing fromall of this, and eventually you said,
you know what I want to getback in the game. Your peer
group. There's a guy there.He was an implementer, as you said,
and you wanted to learn more aboutit, I would imagine, and
(38:52):
you had already read the book,so so you were somewhat familiar with what
this guy was doing and what hewas talking about. Yeah, I think
that that really the deciding factor becauseI was looking, I was trying to
figure out what my next move mightbe. My noncompete had expired, so
(39:15):
I could have gone back into thelandscape business, which was all I really
kind of knew how to do.Yeah, I might say, and wasn't
super thrilled about that, you know. I guess I had been there and
I had done that, and andmaybe the entrepreneur and me wanted to do
(39:36):
something a little bit different challenge.Yeah, I was in a different phase
of my life. So yeah,I began thinking about what I could do
to help folks, to make animpact, lasting difference. Impact one of
the key words in in in mypodcast one of my I have words that
(39:58):
are matter of fact. That wordis on one of my t shirts that
I have. Impact. It's avery strong word. Sure, and uh,
and we want to make an impact. And that's what you wanted to
do. And I'm sorry, Ididn't mean to cut you off. Now
I'm glad you did. Yeah,it's uh, it's it's part of you
(40:19):
know why I love what you dohere, so you know. And then
right before my eyes there was youknow, my buddy Malcolm, who had
made an impact on friends of minewho were in the same boat. I
was in a way that excited me. And so I can't say that I
(40:44):
ever saw myself standing in front ofa group helping them to build a better
business. But man, that justreally got it hooks in me absolutely and
and and often running. I wasso, yeah, very good. And
so we're going to get in nowto what you do now you are now
(41:08):
an implementer. Yeah, yeah,I became an implementals and so I want
to give before we get into theactual system. I want people to be
able to grasp exactly what it isthat you do from a bird's eye perspective.
So just like from thirty thousand feet, Yeah, what is an implementer
(41:30):
at EOS? An implementary the USis somebody that comes in. You know,
there's a Kurt Goodall and mathematicians said, it's impossible to be in a
system and standing on the outside lookingat that system at the same time.
Yeah. So it's not that youcan't implement EOS in your business yourself,
(41:52):
and they call that self implementing.It's just difficult to be on the out
sid business, working on the businessin the way that you need to,
and being in the business at thesame time. So an implementer comes in
and through a series of full daysessions, we help entrepreneurs implement EOS in
(42:15):
their organizations. Showing them what rightlooks like, using a series of exercises,
helping them learn how to use thetools. It's typically a two year
process, which is the other coolthing. I think on some level,
sometimes consultants will perpetuate their own existence. Sure, they want to get in
(42:39):
a business, develop a relationship witha client, and have that client forever.
The intent with EOS is to stepinto an organization, help them to
implement the system. Usually takes abouttwo years before we graduate them. Graduating
is not a requirement. Some clients, you know, keep us forever.
(43:04):
Yeah, but the intent is aprocess that takes about two years to implement
this system. Yeah, I meanthe goal there for you is I want
you to have the system and havesuch a grasp of the system that you
can do it without me if youneed to. And that's and that's really
the goal. But if you're youknow, some some business owners and CEOs
(43:30):
of companies that are like, no, I don't want you going anywhere.
I'll keep you here as long asyou're willing to stay, you know,
because because you do save a lotof time for them, and you are
a master of the system, there'sno doubt about it. Yes, So
we're gonna we're gonna take some timehere to tell y'all. Uh, the
(43:52):
reason that we're doing a series onthis is that there's absolutely no way you
could obviously cover this in an hour. World already forty five minutes in and
we're just now getting to the pointwhere we discuss it. So we're going
to give you kind of one ofthose six components today and then when you
(44:14):
come back next week, you're goingto get the full repertoires as it were.
Where would you start with that?Maybe with vision or well, I
would say at a very high level, EOS does three things for an organization.
Yeah. The first is gets everybodyon the same page, rowing in
(44:37):
the same direction with what we callvision. Yeah. Number two, it
creates traction around that vision by instillingdiscipline and accountability in the organization so that
everywhere you go you see folks doingtheir part and helping to achieve that vision.
Right. The third thing it doesis we create a healthy leadership team
(45:01):
where folks can be open and honestwith one another, they actually enjoy working
together because a lot of times that'snot the case. And I'm not saying
there's not healthy conflict, but thesystem teaches folks how to have that healthy
conflict in an open and honest environmentso that everybody's clean in the end and
(45:25):
ready to go to work. Sothose three things are really the foundation,
the starting point for what EUS does. So let's talk about those six components.
Yeah, yeah, sure, Sosix key components that Geno figured out
(45:45):
that need to be strong in anorganization in order to have a great organization.
And it starts with vision. Everybusiness should and vision is just about
getting everybody rowing in the same direction, on the same page. Absolutely.
It's like what I just talked about. When you're running your business willy nilly,
(46:07):
and you don't know where you're goingfrom one day to the next year,
you don't know where your goals,where you want to be in three
months, much less six months,much less a year. You have a
lack of vision. And don't getme wrong, the founder of the owner
usually does. Yeah, but thekey there, Remember we're trying to build
(46:28):
a great organization, so everybody needsto be on the same page with what
that vision is and how you're goingto achieve it. And so that's what
we accomplish with the vision component.The second key component is every great vision
has great people that work hard toachieve that vision. Jim Collins coined a
(46:52):
phrase, you know, right peopleon the bus, wrong people off the
bus. But it takes both takeshaving the right people who believe in your
mission statement, believe in your corevalues, and then you want those folks
sitting in the right seat where whatthey love to do and are best at
they get to do every day.So we help get that right with the
(47:15):
data component. The third key component. You know, in a busy day,
you wind up making too many decisionsbased on ego, emotion, whether
or not you're having a great daythat day. So with a data component,
it's a weekly scorecard so that youcan keep a pulse of your business,
be able to see things when theyget off track before it's too late,
(47:37):
before you're looking in the rear ofyour mirror. So there's a data
component. When all those I sayall, when those three things begin to
get really clear in the organization,your organization develops a certain level of transparency.
Right, so all the problems,the inefficiency, the issues, even
(48:02):
the opportunities begin to bubble up.They become very easy to spot. And
so we teach organizations how to addressthose issues. Every great organization has to
get really good at teeing their issuesup as they arise and making them go
away in such a way that theystay gone forever. So that's the fourth
(48:25):
key component, the issues component.And then with the fifth component, the
process component. You know, thereare six to ten things a handful of
core processes in every business, andyou just want to make sure that those
processes get done the right and bestway every time. So we help organizations
to develop processes and systems around thosehandful of things that need to get done
(48:53):
the right and best way. That'sthe process component. And then the last
key component is the traction component,and that's really where the rubber meets the
road. You know, we putvision at the top of the model and
traction at the bottom of the model. That's not by mistake, because traction
is bringing that vision down to theground and helping organizations to execute on that
(49:15):
vision with discipline and accountability. It'slook, when when visions aren't realized in
an organization, nine out of tentimes, it's because they failed to get
traction around that vision. And sothat's the six key component. That is
the six key components. Now nextweek We're going to go through these in
(49:38):
much more detail. We're going totalk about Hey, we're going to talk
about rocks, but not the kindof rocks you think we're going to talk
about. We'll get into that andso much more with Toby Massingal for so
many people. You know, you'vehelped a lot of people. There's a
(49:59):
lot more can and help that aregoing to need your help. And uh,
it all starts with this EOS.Come back next week, y'all.
That's all I can tell you.That's really all I can tell you.
Uh have to come. The bestis you had to come, and it
will be absolutely if you're a businessowner, a pivotal moment for you and
your business. To take an hournext week and listen to the follow up
(50:23):
episode in this two part series.But look, Toby, you did pretty
good behind a microphone here. Thankyou, Jim, I had a good
coach you did there you go.I love it, uh, and we
appreciate you coming by sharing this withus, folks. If you have any
any questions in the meantime, justshoot me a message and I'll be glad
(50:45):
to ask it. In the followup podcast with Toby, I'm going to
link the book that we talked abouttoday in the description of this video.
So if you're interested in checking thatbook out, I'll think it through Amazon
or whatever, and I'm gonna linkthe website fors and in there as well.
(51:05):
Uh so you'll have that, Andjust no, cheat, don't get
too far ahead. We don't wantto blow your mind before we get a
chance to tell you about all thegreat things with each of the six key
components to solving all your business frustrations. I'd say, yeah, you know,
I like to say that EOS doesn'tsolve one problem in your organization,
(51:27):
it solves all of them. Thereyou go, And so that's a good
place to kind of wrap this up. Thank you so much for your support
of what we do here on LocalLeaders of Podcasts. Closing in on one
million downloads on YouTube. Unbelievable.I know, man, I say that
every time I see that number.It's impressive. It's just crazy, mind
(51:50):
boggling. But it's it's Look,it's guests like you. I just I
sit behind here every week. Peopleget enough of seeing me. But but
it's guests like you that come onthat these people want to see and want
to learn from. So until nexttime, I'm Jim Chapman reminding you love
your community, support local business,and keep leading. Thank you very much,
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