I’ll happily bang on about how great EOS is until someone shuts me up, after all deciding to embrace EOS has had the most profound impact on my business of any decision I’ve made in the last 37 years. It’s also totally changed my work-life balance.
Implementing EOS is a journey, and like any journey, having an experienced guide with you is a good idea. The role of a Professional EOS Implementer is to be that guide. but that may not be appropriate for you and your business. Here are a few things to think about when deciding:
- Cashflow – Profitable businesses can go bust through lack of cash. You need to be able to see that you can cover the cost through your existing cashflow. Yes, hiring an EOS Implementer is an investment but the process to master the tools takes two years on average. During that time you’ll feel very differently about your business and the energy and focus of the team will improve dramatically, but don’t expect additional cash generation in year one. Financial results will come but in the short term, you must have the cash to spare.
- P&L Impact – Provided you have the available cash, then the additional cost will impact your P&L. Again, it might take one or two years to recoup your investment. If you have the cash then profitability may be secondary but your P&L and balance sheet do impact things like credit rating which you need to consider. Also, shareholders need to be on board.
- You don’t place much value on your time – The reason that we hire specialist help for things that we can do ourselves, is opportunity cost – the cost of what you cannot do because you’ve chosen an alternative course of action. For some of my clients, the opportunity cost of taking their entire leadership team out of the business operations for a day is in the £5k-£10k bracket. If that’s you, then how much is it worth to hire a specialist to accelerate your progress? If your team is just you, and you don’t think in terms of opportunity cost, you’re probably disinclined to delegate or hire specialist help.
- You have Moderate Ambition – Nothing wrong with that. Not everyone wants to “set the world alight”, but EOS is designed for growth-minded business owners and teams. If you and your team are broadly happy with the status quo and just want to “tweak” it, then you may not see a return to justify your investment. EOS is really about transformative change. If my cost is equivalent to your annual profit, then that might still be OK if EOS is going to enable rapid growth in cash generation from the off, but smaller businesses who want to stay that way may be better self-implementing.
- You want to “wing it”. EOS Implementers teach EOS Pure. I’m happy for any of my clients to adapt or improve on EOS tools and methods once they’ve tried doing it pure. Collectively, EOS Implementers have taught over 230,443 full day sessions. The process and the tools work for all businesses that fully commit. If you want to run a half-hearted version of EOS then your EOS Implementer might be willing to work with you, but they will continually call out what they’re seeing (that’s what coaching is about), and you may find that tiresome.
- We just don’t gel – Every EOS Implementer has a different background. Almost all of us came to EOS through owning or working in a business that ran on EOS. EOS has helped them to sell, or in my case, has liberated so much time that they need a new purpose. It’s helpful, though not essential that you identify with your EOS Implementer’s background. What is critical though is that their style of teaching fits with you and your team. All EOS Implementers know their KOLBE profile www.kolbe.com Mine is 8-4-6-2. Try asking an AI assistant what working with a professional Implementer with that profile will be like.
- I’m not in your Region – This one is specific to me. When I first became an Implementer I had two clients in the south east. I quickly discovered that travel was my least favourite part of the job, and given that I have my own session room facility (just off M54 Junction1), it made sense to work locally with teams who will travel to me. This also allows me to curate my client’s experience – something that’s harder to do in a hotel meeting room. It also saves my clients the expense of hiring a session room. The added benefit is that I get to build a local community. The (unforeseen) challenge is that sometimes a potential client might be a competitor to an existing one and therefore a conflict of interest to be avoided.
- You and your team have uncommon commitment to EOS – The quality of self-implementations varies greatly. Very few do a great job, but it is possible – e.g. https://www.start-tech.co.uk/, who at the start of their journey four years ago, didn’t know that EOS Implementers existed. To be fair, there were not many of us then. Start Tech had a leadership team of 3 people, and they were all-in on EOS. Huge commitment to doing it well and doing it pure. That was their recipe for success. It’s worth noting though that whilst a typical journey comprises 10-12 session days, one of my early clients https://softwareworksforyou.com/ demonstrated extraordinary commitment and after just 3 session days were ready to continue their journey alone.
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