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8 Ways to Change your Business ForeverDaniel Davis explains how to avoid unnecessary business challenges

A 90-minute Business-Changing Interview with Daniel Davis, Founder and CEO of EOS Worldwide in Australia.

BFM | COVER STORY

Most of the time an inter-view has a feel of selling something, however when

I met with Daniel Davis he wasn’t like that at all. Daniel is very sincere about wanting to help business owners do one thing: avoid the un-necessary challenges that accompa-ny business ownership.

Daniel opened up about EOS® - The Entrepreneurial Operating System®, an all-encompassing system to help any organisation reach its full potential. This system is used by thousands of companies in the USA and is only now being launched in Australia by Daniel, with the plan of expanding into Asia-Pacific.

Whilst Daniel explained the EOS Model™ it was quite refreshing to see how generously he shared some valuable strategies a business can apply straight away. In Daniel’s words, “We have an abundance

mentality and we like to talk about what we do openly. We share what we can about the EOS tools, system and process and, ultimately, we just allow others to determine if there’s a real fit. The whole idea is to let someone find the value of what we do in their own time and in their way.”

Business First Magazine: Can you tell me, what is EOS? Daniel Davis: EOS® is the Entrepre-neurial Operating System®, a series of simple yet powerful tools that help any organisation reach its full potential. Over 16,000 companies worldwide are using the EOS tools.

EOS Worldwide is the grow-ing organisation of successful entrepreneurs, from a variety of business backgrounds, who are dedicated to sharing these pow-erful tools to help other entrepre-neurs succeed as they have.

8 Questions That Will Change Your Business Forever

The company founder, Gino Wickman, started his entrepre-neurial journey at the age of 21 and became soon thereafter an owner in a family business, one of the top sales training companies in the United States. Gino and several other business owners started the Detroit Chapter of the Entrepre-neurs’ Organization [EO], which soon grew to 90 members. Through that experience he found himself helping many of his fellow EO members, falling in love with the wonderful world of business and entrepreneurship. He discovered a passion and knack for understand-ing the science of business and so, after retiring from his family busi-ness, he devised EOS and set out to help entrepreneurial leadership teams get what they want out of their businesses.

Since inception 14 years ago, EOS Implementers across the world

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COVER STORY| BFM

(there are over 125 in the USA and another 15 around the world) have delivered over 14,500 full-day sessions to leadership teams from over 2,400 companies. I am thrilled to be the first Certified EOS Imple-menter in Australia.

BFM: How does EOS bring value to a business? DD: The power of EOS is that it is real-world, simple and practical. There’s no flavour of the month, no magic pills, no promises or “trust-in-me”; just timeless, field tested tools that really work.

Implementing EOS helps leader-ship teams do three things; achieve Vision, Traction and Healthy:

▪ • Vision means getting everyone on the same page and engaged with the direction and strategy.

▪ • Traction means better ex-ecution, more discipline and accountability to each other.

▪ • Healthy means you become more functional and cohesive as a leadership team that breeds a productive and positive culture; a major issue for most companies.

From there, the leadership team teaches and integrates these ideas into the rest of the organisation.

Our typical client is a company with 10 to 250 employees, with an open-minded leadership team that wants to help their organisation reach its full potential. In organi-sations of this size and responsibil-ity, it is vital to ensure the team is crystal clear on the vision, gaining more traction, more discipline, more accountability, and ultimately becoming more cohesive, func-tional, and healthy. If these factors

aren’t considered, the consequenc-es can be fatal.

BFM: How did you come across EOS and what is your involvement? DD: Well, I stumbled across it not knowing it would fuel my personal purpose. Going back to the begin-ning, my interest in business began very early with my first job at the young age of 10. You could say it was love at first sight, or maybe first pay packet – even if it was only $4 an hour!

By 21 I had opened my first busi-

“The power of EOS is that it is real-world, simple and practical. There’s no flavour of the month, no magic pills, no promises or “trust-in-me”; just timeless, field tested tools that really work.”

Daniel Davis with the EOS Worldwide Leadership Team: Gino Wickman, Don Tinney & Mike Paton



BFM | COVER STORY

ness, an IGA Supermarket in the Blue Mountains (west of Sydney), working massive hours, 7 days a week. I saw some great success and continued to grow my interests into a wider variety of industries including retail, communications, manufacturing, professional ser-vices and even an online start-up.

It’s fair to say that business is an addiction for me and I am obsessed with mastering the ingredients that make them successful.

You could liken the story of how I came across EOS to that of a ro-mantic novel. In 2014 I was invited to meet Sir Richard Branson at his home on Necker Island along with a group of other entrepreneurs. During my visit, one of the other guests, who happened to be an EOS Implementer, insisted I read Gino Wickman’s book Traction, saying that Gino and I were like twins. Of course I was intrigued, so I bought the book and was hooked by the first ten pages!

I decided to explore EOS fur-ther and over the past 2 years I have completed my Professional Implementer training and reached Certified Implementer status. EOS Worldwide has grown significant-ly in recent years, particularly in North America, and is rapidly expanding globally. I have devel-oped a close relationship with EOS Worldwide’s leadership team; at the core, our values and passion align so perfectly. I now have the honour of being trusted with the task of bringing the EOS brand to Australia and the Asia Pacific region, which is very exciting.

BFM: You’ve been involved in the business improvement and education space for 7 years now, why EOS? Why commit yourself to this brand? DD: Great question. Put simply, it is the most effective business operating system I’ve found. It can work in any size business, in any industry, and gets results quickly and sustainably. And that’s always been my ultimate goal; to find a system this simple, versatile and effective.

In terms of the EOS brand, it is perfectly aligned to my company here in Australia, Gallop Solutions Group. Combined, our passion (or obsession, if you like) is helping business owners and their leader-

ship teams perform - to help them get what they want from their businesses.

BFM: So, what does the EOS Model™ comprise of?DD: The EOS Model™ is made up of Six Key Components™:Vision, People, Data, Process, Issues and finally, Traction. It’s based on time-tested strategies, not fad ideas. These components must be managed and strengthened to be-come a great business. The model applies to big and small businesses alike, in any industry. 1. Vision. Strengthening this com-ponent means getting everyone in the organisation 100 percent on the same page with where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.2. People. This means surrounding yourself with great people, top to bottom, because you can’t achieve a great vision without a great team.3. Data. This means cutting through all the feelings, personali-ties, opinions and egos and boiling your organisation down to a hand-ful of objective numbers that give you an absolute pulse on where things are.

With the Vision, People, and Data Components strong, you start to create a lucid, transparent, open and honest organisation where everything becomes more visible and you start to “smoke out all the issues,” which leads to...4. Issues. Strengthening this component means becoming great at solving problems throughout the organisation – setting them up, knocking them down and making them go away forever.5. Process. This means identify-ing, systemising and documenting the core processes that define the way your business runs. You then ensure everyone understands these processes and follows them. This creates consistency and scalability

in your organisation.6. And finally, Traction®. This means bringing discipline and ac-countability throughout your com-pany – becoming great at execution and taking the vision down to the ground and making it real.

BFM: That’s a lot to consider, how does one get started on this to make it usable?DD: To really make it valuable for the reader, I’d like to share what I would do with any business I first meet and share how to apply the first component of the EOS Model, which is Vision.

Vision is how you will get every-one and everything in your busi-ness aligned and moving the same direction, 100 percent on the same page with where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. All other tools assist the achievement of this vision so this is clearly the first and primary factor.

If a business owner looks at their own organisation and answers 8 key questions, they will see what is and isn’t working very quickly so they can begin making decisions about how to better their business.

BFM: But don’t most business leaders know this? Surely this is Business-101? DD: Surprisingly, it’s often not the case. So many business leaders tell me that they know where their company is going and that they have a plan. When I ask where it is, they say “It is all in here” pointing to their heads. But, having run and managed many businesses, I would venture to say employees are not mind readers and that your “plans” may not be as clear as you think.

We create this Vision Component by helping the whole leadership team form the vision and strategy, document it, and get agreement from the whole company. The key

“It’s fair to say that business is an addiction for me and I am obsessed with mastering the ingredients that make them successful.”

COVER STORY| BFM

here is buy-in and agreement: an unrealistic or authoritarian vision doesn’t gain any buy-in which results in poor performance (or none at all).

Answering the 8 key questions and gaining agreement on them, no matter how simple they may be (and I ask you not to judge them by their simplicity), can fuel a leader-ship team to perform remarkably. Here are the eight questions we ask:

1. What are your Core Values? Core values are what define your culture; who you are as people. Typically three to seven is the rule of thumb (less is more). We’re looking to discover what lies at the core of your organisation so that we can get to work on surrounding you with the right people, ulti-mately building a strong enduring culture around these values that you hold dear.

2. What is your Core Focus™? It’s been called mission statement, motto, purpose, etc. It’s also been called voice by Stephen Covey in his book, The 8th Habit. In brief,

your true Core Focus is made up of two things: Your purpose, cause or passion and your niche.

Once you’re clear on what it is, you must stay absolutely laser focused on it and not get distract-ed by what we like to call ‘shiny stuff’. That’s all that stuff outside of your Core Focus that distracts you on your journey of building a great organisation. So it becomes a filtering and guiding mechanism for you.

3. What is your 10-year Target™? This is where you answer what is the big goal here? What are we all working towards so again, every-one can align around getting there? This is a shoot-for-the-stars kind of goal.

4. What is your (high level) Mar-keting Strategy? What this section is designed to do is create a focal point on your sales and marketing efforts, ultimately increasing your sales and your close ratios.

There are four parts to Marketing Strategy:

• The first part is your Target

Market. This is crystallising who your ideal customer is, who you should be targeting, the demographic, the geographic, and the psychographic of that ideal customer. Who are they, where are they, what are they?

▪ • How are you going to commu-nicate to your Target Mar-ket? By defining your Three Uniques™. The most common equivalent term here is dif-ferentiators, but what are the three uniques that truly make you different as an organisa-tion?

▪ • What is your Guarantee or Promise to your customer?

▪ • What is your Proven Process™ for how you do what you do for your customer? This how we take care of each customer and can guarantee their success.

Once you define these four parts you then have a clear high-level marketing strategy you can detail out and take to the world.

5. What is your 3-Year Picture™? We then go to question number five, which is painting a picture of



what this organisation looks like 3 short years from now. Now this isn’t a detailed three to five year strategic planning. Again this tool is designed to take a simplified ap-proach to your strategic planning, starting with what your revenue, profit, and measurables look like in the future date.

Once those are clear, we then paint a picture of what the organi-sation looks like with 5-15 descrip-tive bullet points. That way, in your mind’s eye, you all are seeing the exact same thing. Once everyone can clearly see exactly what it looks like and where you’re going, you’re more likely to get there. This also enables you to understand how you can then begin to gain traction and do much better 1-year planning because you now know where you want to be in 3 years.

6. What is your 1-Year Plan? We then take a simplified approach: what do we absolutely have to get

BFM | COVER STORY

Business Name: PowerNET IT SolutionsAge of business: 22 yearsYour name and title: Daniel Williams - Director of StrategyNumber of staff: 50Revenue: $11M

Prior to discovering the Entrepreneurial Oper-ating System®, we were performing okay and achieving regular growth, but the business was having noticeable challenges with strategic focus, leadership alignment and accountability for outcomes. Our young leadership team were all engaged and committed but lacked the structure that enabled them to focus on the truly high priority items that would take us to the next level of growth. We were expending too much energy and time on operational tasks and often at the end of a quarter or a year found we had not completed essential projects or goals.

Often the feeling within the team, despite the success we did have, was frustration and over-whelm. What we lacked were the tools for keep-ing us accountable and on track so we could produce long-term scalability and predictable success. We had an idea of where we wanted to get to as a business, but had no map or plan for how we were going to get there.

When we started to implement EOS®, we very quickly found clarity and momentum. The business has been able to roll out key tools, re-set our priorities with better accuracy and most importantly have made them visible to everyone

in the company along with an understanding of why we are aiming to achieve them. Our quar-terly priorities are now a part of every meeting to keep them top of mind; it makes the meetings more efficient and predictable.

Because of EOS, we have learned to man-age our business objectives in very specific manner. EOS helps us make sure we:• Better prioritise what the leadership team

should be working on. We’ve learned to elevate and delegate to our team members, which has released us from many of the day-to-day operational demands.

• Choose the correct most productive large-scale business objectives and strategic items we should be focusing on.

• Share weekly metrics with the business in the form of the scorecard, rather than waiting for monthly divisional metrics.

• Have the courage and conviction to make no exceptions when selecting the “right people” to have in our business. The beauty of the EOS tools is that they

are so simple. Every day I am referring to The Vision/Traction Organizer™, which is the tool that summarises our 8 key questions. Whether it be the 10-Year Target or Core Values, having all of this information on one page that is clear and concise has amazing power. It gives our whole team information that makes them realise they’re a part of ‘something bigger’, while still under-standing how the people they are and the roles they play are major contributors.

Besides the organisational and management structure and focus, we’ve already had some incredible wins. We are about to exceed our budgeted revenue target for the 2015/2016 FY by 7.5% which is 14% overall growth on last year. Whilst we might have exceeded it without having implemented EOS, I don’t believe we would have surpassed it by the amount we have with EOS. It has taken our focus and drive to a completely new level. Everything we do now has our long and short-term plans in mind.

The thing about the EOS Model™ is that the value you attain from it is completely within your control. If you are engaged and embrace the suggested disciplines, then the sky’s the limit. We have achieved a far higher level of function-ality as a leadership team as a direct result of each session with our Implementer, but the key is then how we have taken all we have learned back to our business and shared it across the whole company; that’s where we have gained traction. We’re continuing to tick off strategic goals and see significant results on the bottom line, which as any business who has ever used consulting or a management system knows is a great result.

I would say the EOS experience has exceeded all expectations to date. It is not only business changing, it is life changing and empowering. We have been taken out of our comfort zone and challenged to work together and individually in ways we could not have anticipated.

EOS CLIENT SUCCESS STORY

done this year to make that 3-Year Picture a reality? And so with that the same drill, future date and then what are the revenue, profit, and measurables for this year. And then we go into your goals and deter-mine: what are the three to seven most important things that must get done in the next year. Again, we take a simplified approach. We don’t focus on everything. We boil it down to just a simple handful, three to seven– hopefully closer to three, because less is more.

7. What are your Rocks (quarterly priorities)? With the 1-Year Plan now clear, we then take it down to the ground to what really matters and that’s the next 90 days of this organization’s life. We call them Rocks. These are the three to seven most important things that must get done in the next 90 days that will ensure you achieve your 1-Year Plan.

When we create this 90-Day


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World™ with you it keeps your whole company accountable and focused on what absolutely must get done. Every 90 days the Rocks are re-set. You put your heads down and go to work for 90 Days, then come up for air, review how you did, review your vision, then set your Rocks for the next 90 days.

When you break down your vision in Quarterly Rocks like this, you start to gain transparency around who is productive in your team, how powerful your team actually is, and how much time in the past you’d wasted focusing non-priority objectives.

8. What are the issues getting in the way of achieving all of this? And then the eighth and final question, as important as the rest, what are all the issues, obstacles, barriers, problems, opportunities and concerns that arise along the way? Well, we get you to get these out of your head and on paper. There’s good therapy in just saying it. Once your whole leadership team has aired their issues, you then go about planning how to solve them once and for all.

It is at this point where we, as EOS Implementers, get the rep-utation for being comfortable in bringing up what others won’t and addressing the true cause of issues in a business. Usually it’s only a handful of core issues that create symptom effects across the whole company, but these can be hard to confront.

When we go through this issues process with our clients, we air the true and underlying issues that stop businesses from achieving their goals.

BFM: Does someone need to hire an EOS Implementer like yourself to walk them through these ques-tions and get the tools applied in their business? DD: No, actually. Gino wrote the book called Traction which explains the EOS Model and Process, and there is an online toolkit where all of the EOS tools can be downloaded for free. Yes, it’s our “abundance” mentality again. Additionally, we also offer an online training platform called Base Camp which anyone can sign up to and access for

themselves if they want to self-im-plement EOS in their business.

Many people decide to work with a Professional or Certified EOS Implementer because they want the benefit of an external facili-tator who is a master of the EOS tools, which results in a raised level of accountability. As a standard, Professional and Certified EOS Implementers have a wealth of business experience and a passion for helping leadership teams.

BFM: If people want to find out more about whether EOS is right for their business, what should they do? DD: They can do a few things:1. Read the book Traction by Gino Wickman2. Visit this webpage to download a free chapter of Traction, learn more about the EOS Tools™, and access more resources: www.eosworld-wide.com/bfm3. Request a free 90 Minute Meeting for an EOS Implementer to meet you and your leadership team. We find this is the best and fastest way for us to give you and your team an overview of

EOS, answer your questions, and ultimately determine if EOS is a fit for your business. Call 1300 087 010 and we’ll put you in touch with an Implementer that will best suit your business.

As mentioned, the 8 questions address only one of the Six Key Components needed for any business to achieve their busi-ness goals: Vision. Gaining clarity and alignment on your vision is a great first step, but there’s a lot of work to be done to achieve that vision.

Business leadership isn’t as easy as it can be made to look. There are so many factors to consider, and all aspects have to be clearly defined, agreed on, and followed by all.

This doesn’t mean business leadership needs to be so chal-lenging or complicated. There are simple yet powerful methods of making your business manageable, understandable, and valuable.

My passion is to see business leaders around the world having access to these simple solutions so that they can get what they want from their business, and ultimately enjoy life more. BFM

COVER STORY| BFM

Licensed to Daniel Davis