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There is a proven way you provide your service or product to your customers. You do it every time, and it produces the same result. It’s what got you where you are. What you need to do is capture that process in a visual format to guide your sales team. It should be encompassed on one single piece of paper, it must illustrate your proven process, and it must have a name. It should show each step, from the first client interaction to the ongoing follow-up once your product or service has been delivered.
Your guarantee has a secondary benefit. It forces all the people in your organization to deliver on it. That in turn forces you to look inward and make sure you’ve got all the right people, processes, and systems in place to do so. If not, you’ll be forced to improve upon it. Your client will never need to make good on that guarantee if you’re at your absolute best.
How to Select Your Guarantee Brainstorm with your leadership team and list what you believe to be the biggest frustrations, fears, and worries for your potential customer when doing business with you.
Your guarantee must drive more business or enable you to close more of what you’re not winning. If it doesn’t, you shouldn’t waste your time using it.
Now that the four elements of your marketing strategy are clearly defined, it’s time to pull the entire marketing strategy section together. You can now clearly communicate a consistent marketing strategy for the entire organization to support, which clarifies for everyone what they must deliver. This becomes the foundation for all of your sales and marketing materials, messages, and presentations moving forward.
Go after all of the prospects on The List, communicating with them why you’re unique, showing them your proven process for doing business, and offering them your guarantee.
With life and business moving as fast as it does in the 21st century, there is little value in detailed strategic planning beyond a three-year window.
We’re now going to the traction side of the V/TO, which is about bringing your long-range vision down to the ground and making it real. That means deciding on what must get done this year.
When everything is important, nothing is important. The EOS approach is going to force you to focus on a few goals rather than too many. By doing that, you will actually accomplish more. That is the power of focus.
As with the three-year picture, again, decide on the numbers. What is your annual revenue goal? What is your profit goal? What is the measurable? This number should be consistent with the three-year picture measurable.
Quarterly Rocks create a 90-Day World for your organization, a powerful concept that enables you to gain tremendous traction.
Every 90 days, your leadership team comes together to establish its priorities for the next 90 days based on your one-year plan. You discuss and ultimately conclude what has to be executed in the next quarter to put you on track for the one-year plan, which in turn puts you on track for the three-year picture, and so on.
The focus of the Rocks is what makes this process so productive. Most organizations enter the next quarter battling on all fronts. They make everything a priority and accomplish very little. By setting Rocks every quarter as a team, you gain considerably more traction and finally reach your goals.
HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR ISSUES This exercise can be done very quickly, in 15 minutes at most. Ask the team to think of the obstacles, concerns, and opportunities you face in achieving your vision. From there, let the opinions fly. Don’t sugarcoat them. Encourage an open atmosphere where they can all come out.
The number one reason employees don’t share a company vision is that they don’t know what it is.
The poll revealed that 37 percent of employees didn’t understand their companies’ priorities.
Don’t be afraid to let your people challenge the vision and ask questions. These inquisitions, along with the preceding dialogue, will help you both become more invested in the vision. While you may worry that they may point out a flaw in the plan, that’s not a bad thing at all. If they notice and highlight a potential problem, they’ll be even more committed as a result of their involvement in the resulting exchange and resolution. Be willing to be vulnerable.
Have a company kickoff meeting and unveil your clearly defined vision (the V/TO). This is an opportunity to share your newly created core value speech for the first time. Make sure to include question-and-answer time.
Every 90 days, have a short (no more than 45-minute) state-of-the-company meeting with all employees. The objective of this event is to share successes and progress, review the V/TO, and communicate newly set company Rocks for the quarter.
The quarterly state-of-the-company has proven to be the most effective discipline for helping people share, understand, and buy into the company vision. In its purest form, the meeting has a three-part agenda. 1. Where you’ve been 2. Where you are 3. Where you are going Each quarter, you and your leadership team fill each of those agenda items with three of the most relevant data points, and you’ll deliver a clear, concise, and powerfu...
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Each quarter, as you set Rocks in each department, conduct a complete review of the V/TO as a team.
Each of these three events will prompt questions and answers that continuously clarify the vision for everyone. You’ll need to give people the opportunity to ask questions and understand the vision. As a result, they’ll be able to decide if this is the company they want to be a part of.
The core values, core focus, and marketing strategy will always give them clear direction on their actions and enable them to make better decisions on their own, ...
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People need to hear the vision seven times before they really hear i...
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Human beings have short attention spans and are a little jaded when it comes to new messages. As a good leader, you must remain consistent in your message. The first time they hear it, they’ll roll their eyes and say, “Here we go again.” (R...
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The right people are the ones who share your company’s core values. They fit and thrive in your culture. They are people you enjoy being around and who make your organization a better place to be.
Core Values + People Analyzer = Right People
The right seat means that each of your employees is operating within his or her area of greatest skill and passion inside your organization and that the roles and responsibilities expected of each employee fit with his or her Unique Ability®.
When you’re operating from within your Unique Ability®, your superior skill is often noticed by others who value it. You experience never-ending improvement, feel energized rather than drained, and, most of all, you have a passion for what you’re doing that presses you to go further than others would in this area.
One of the obstacles in gaining traction and achieving your vision is that roles, responsibilities, expectations, and job descriptions are unclear due to structural issues.
When creating a structure to function efficiently, you must take the long view. Sometimes this means eliminating or changing seats that are no longer relevant. To break through the ceiling, you must make sure you have the right structure in place to get you to the next level.
Unique Ability® + Accountability Chart = Right Seats
You have to make decisions for the greater good of the business, and you don’t have the luxury of keeping people around simply because you like them. If this is the case, you must let them go.
WRONG PERSON, RIGHT SEAT In this case, the person excels at what he or she does, is extremely productive, and is clearly in his or her Unique Ability®. What makes this person the wrong person is that he or she doesn’t share your core values.
No matter how difficult the issue is, you have to make a good business decision here for the long haul. If you have a wrong person in the right seat, ultimately that person must go for the sake of the greater good.
Your job is to hire, fire, review, reward, and recognize all of your people around core values and Unique Abilities®. That’s the way to build an organization with all of the right people in the right seats.
It’s important to note that whatever your core values are, they don’t make the people who don’t possess them right or wrong, nor do they make them good or bad. They just don’t fit in your company culture.
The three-strike rule works as follows: Strike One: Discuss the issues and your expectations with the person, and give him or her 30 days to correct the problem. Strike Two: If you don’t see improvement, discuss his or her performance again and give him or her another 30 days. Strike Three: If you still don’t see improvement, he or she is not going to change and must go. When the termination finally happens, all of those who are the right people will thank you for it and wonder what took you so long.
When these tools are in place, with increased focus and accountability, there is simply no place for them to hide.
Next to the V/TO, the Accountability Chart has the most impact of any EOS tool.
As an example, the visionary function’s five roles might be as follows: • R&D/ideas • Creative problem-solving • Major relationships • Culture • Selling
LMA stands for leading, managing, and holding people accountable. Anyone in the Accountability Chart who has people reporting to him or her has a vital responsibility of LMA. This requires time, energy, and Unique Ability®.
