Small business owners face an incredible number of challenges every single day. When you’re the founder, the boss, and the heart of your business…solving problems is just what you do.
The past year has only added more layers of complexity and difficulty thanks to COVID: lockdowns, working from home, supply chain disruptions, lack of employees, etc. For most business owners, calling it “overwhelming” is probably an understatement.
Entrepreneur magazine published an article back in February on the “10 Biggest Challenges Facing Small Business Owners Right Now.” Difficulty in planning, lack of work-life balance, increased shipping costs, and production delays seem to be some of the top issues for companies of all types and sizes. Those are a lot of the same things we’ve heard from the clients we talk to regularly as well.
In chaotic times like these, having a reliable, predictable way of doing things is more important than ever. Which is why we use EOS.
“What is EOS,” you ask? Well…since we’re in the business of helping businesses like yours grow, we thought we’d pull back the curtain and share it with you.
What Is EOS?
EOS stands for “Entrepreneurial Operating System.” Based on the 2012 book, Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business, by Gino Wickman, it is a collection of principles and tools designed to make your business processes more efficient. It’s a way to make good decisions quickly, then implement them so they actually accomplish something.
It moves you from meeting, planning, and talking to acting and achieving. From “to do” to “to done.”
EOS doesn’t tell you how to run your business, it just helps you run it better. When your business runs more smoothly and predictably, it becomes more productive. And productivity leads to profit.
Anything that is causing your business to be clunky and inefficient is robbing you of time and money…and that’s just not right. You deserve better, and EOS just might be the solution.
How Does EOS Work?
EOS is built around 3 basic ideas:
- Sharing a vision
- Getting traction
- Staying healthy
Having a shared vision ensures that your entire organization is moving in the same direction with the same goals. Traction is achieved by simplifying your operations so that everyone knows how to execute those goals. Finally, team health comes when your employees grow into a more cohesive and productive group as a result of putting these practices into place.
Rather than a bunch of theory or management fads, EOS uses a collection of practical tools to help you and your people get things done every day. They’re all designed to reduce friction, address problems before they happen, and streamline your processes.
6 Key Components of EOS
EOS is built on the idea that your business is made up of 6 basic components:
- Vision – having your entire team on the same page
- People – making sure your team is made up of the right people
- Data – knowing your numbers and the objective realities of your business
- Issues – being able to solve problems in a timely manner
- Process – creating a predictable and scalable way of doing business
- Traction® – “bringing discipline and accountability into the organization–becoming great at execution”
Break Things Down to Get More Done
One short answer to “what is EOS?” is: compartmentalization.
When you put tasks and issues into the right categories, they lose their power to be overwhelming. You only feel out of control when the chaos of everything that is screaming for your attention is allowed to swirl around you.
EOS helps business owners label every action, determine whether it is a short-term or long-term issue, then place it in the most suitable compartment. Then your team is able to quickly see:
- What needs to get done
- When it needs to get done
- How important it is compared to other priorities
There are 4 compartments that help you organize your activity. Here’s how they work:
- One-Year Goals: 3-7 key things you intend to get done this year.
- 90-Day “Rocks” (one of many memorable terms EOS uses): 3-7 quarterly goals.
- 7-Day To-Do’s: any action items that need to be accomplished by a specific team member within the coming week…before your next team meeting
- Issues: any unresolved action items or ideas that need to be dealt with. These get broken down further into two sub-compartments:
- Long-term Issues that cannot be resolved this quarter
- Short-term Issues that will be assigned to a team member at the next weekly meeting so that they get moved up to your “7-Day To-Do” list and resolved.
EOS Makes a Difference
What I’ve described here only scratches the surface of what EOS can do within your organization. We’ve seen a huge difference in the way our company operates since we’ve implemented it at CRS CPA.
For example, EOS has made a world of difference in how we run our weekly team meetings. In fact, we recently wrote about it in more detail in a post on “How to Run Efficient Meetings That Your Team Actually Enjoys.” Definitely check that out!
If you applied nothing but that one thing you’d see a huge upward spike in productivity and morale!
Want to Learn More?
CRS CPA believes you should expect more from your accounting firm. That’s why we share things like this. It’s why we’re so involved in Strategic Business Planning and other Consulting Services.
It’s why we put together this guide on “9 Simple Accounting Mistakes That Are Costing Your Business Money.”
You deserve to be something other than another stressed-out statistic.
Let our team of accounting and business experts help you grow your business and win the day. Give us a call at (731) 668-4482 or schedule a call to see what all we can do for you!
