SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Business transformation, Digital technology, Team alignment, Financial turnaround, Scorecard usage, People management, Accountability chart, Leading indicators, Lagging indicators, Leadership team, Integrator role, Visionary role, Business scaling, Operational discipline, Professional services

Mirko Roettgers 00:00

Yeah, thanks for having me, Debra.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 00:01

Oh, my absolute pleasure. Now, even though you have been an EOS incubator for a while, we haven’t spent an awful lot of time together. So today’s show will be just as much a learning experience for me as well. So, would you like to tell myself and the listeners your EOS journey? Like, how did you get to where you are today, and why? Why are you in EOS?

Mirko Roettgers 00:20

Yeah, yeah, I’d love to look. I’m born in Germany. Yeah, yeah. I migrated. Look, middle of nowhere. Right. Okay.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 00:29

Right.

Mirko Roettgers 00:30

Country town. I’m a country boy. Yeah. Ultimately, grew up in in just fields and farmland, but came to Munich, and in between to the US, but came back to Munich before I came to Australia. So I follow my wife down here. She’s an Aussie girl, and that was about 15 years ago. And I was really lucky. I got involved with the Queensland tourism industry to help operators in the state to get better using technology, digital technologies, with the objective of being more competitive and being out there to you know gain an advantage to other states and international destinations. And I absolutely well, I enjoyed that first. I got to see the state as a you know coming from Germany. There’s one thing you want to do. You know, I got to travel for free, so that’s a bonus. But I also had a lot of fun and passion helping the small guys on the road, the operators, to help run their business from a digital technology perspective at that point, and that theme carried along.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 01:39

So, what is your original background then? So, this technology. What is that? What you studied in? Is that how you got started?

Mirko Roettgers 01:45

I’ve got a business degree. Yep. And I would say transformation, digital transformation, business transformation is my background from a career perspective in mostly professionalised services or related industries.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 02:00

So yeah. So you were you’re brought on board to do that, and

Mirko Roettgers 02:03

yeah, so that was good fun. I I was so so involved in the industry that I actually started my first businesses in the tourism sector. I was out there trying to compete with What If and booking.com. We went out so hard, we came down really hard as well. You know,

Debra Chantry-Taylor 02:20

really.

Mirko Roettgers 02:22

That was a really good learning, but I took a lot from it. So, long story short, I, I, you know, came across multiple industries, still professional services, still around the how do we use technology, business transformation to help the business help their members to get something from from their services, and I ended up ultimately in a small Martech startup, and I used them before as as as a supplier, as a contractor, and I loved the way they worked on getting team alignment. They used EOS tours. I had no idea at the time that there are EOS tools or what they were at all. I was just fascinated of how simply they were used and how practical they are, but how effective they helped me run my teams, and that’s how I got more involved with it. So when I joined that Martech startup. That’s when I got really involved into EOS. So they ran or tried to run on EOS, and I had the objective to turn this business aright. And we used EOS for that. And when we did so, it you know it was yeah it was mind blown on what came out of it? So financially, we turned it around. You know, I started on a negative profit, and we went back into the 20-plus profit percentages. We had a culture that was off. You know, not the right people. We would say today that entirely changed. So we had a really fun operational cycle, and personally, you know, I put in the 1415, hours per day, thinking that is what you do when you run a startup. That’s what you do when you’re an entrepreneur, or you know, manage services as such. And that turned to six to eight. And when I saw that you can grow a business, but also have the time for yourself of not kidding yourself. That’s how I got, you know, really into EOS and decided that’s that’s where we continue. Okay, so you did say though, and I just picked up my language. They were trying to use EOS. So tell me a little bit about that. So they were running on EOS. Yeah, they had to implement it. I think there was the still the field we have to turn it around and apply it properly, and use the tools and mechanisms that the model provides to to turn the business around. Okay,

Debra Chantry-Taylor 04:58

so you turned it around. And and then,

Mirko Roettgers 05:02

oh, and then you know, after a few years of of turning this business around, there was a point in my career where where I decided, is this what what’s next? You know, am I sticking around? Is this what it is, or is there something else? And I took a bit of a career break at the time over Christmas. I had six weeks, eight weeks off with family. My my parents were here, and I noticed that no, it’s it’s I want to do something for myself here too, and that’s where my my thinking started around what does it mean if I want to do it for myself. And well, it wasn’t very. It took me not very long to decide on. Well, hold on. That’s something I know really well, and I know what works, and I’m passionate about it. You know, why not make that my living? And here we are.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 05:53

Here we are. Beautiful. Okay. So, in terms of the business that was using EOS, what do you think was the thing that really made the difference in that business. Was there a particular tool? Was it you know what what sort of really changed the business?

Mirko Roettgers 06:07

Yep, two things: a very strong and disciplined scorecard, and I used the scorecard prior when I used that Nartec partner as a supplier. Just being able to see the business, understand how it’s going, and being able to hold people accountable, direct people of where to put emphasis on. I’m a numbers person, so I love to see those numbers in the heads of me a lot. So that was a big tool for me to keep control on the things that are not working to make sure they are working, and the second one is right people. And I hate to say, but I think we had a turnover over the years of almost 80% from when we started to where we, you know, finished off or before. And that was just making sure that you really have an understanding what it means to have the right people. I mean, I have many ghosts of this. You know, it doesn’t happen all the time. But if I would look back, I know how to get it right these days.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 07:10

Yes. Okay. And it’s interesting because I think you probably see this with your clients as well as when we start to first implement EOS. There is a lot of turnover, and it feels really unsettling because it’s like, oh my goodness! But we’re losing all these people, this knowledge. But nobody ever says, “I wish we kept them around for longer.

Mirko Roettgers 07:26

No, and hindsight, you know, these days I would say, as a tip, if if you feel there’s a cup coming, just cut fast. It it’s it’s better for both in the end, and I have hesitated myself a lot because you always hit this emotional factor of how am I going to tell that person that it doesn’t work, and that is a constraint and it’s a barrier that that doesn’t happen automatically. But you get good at it after a while.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 07:57

Yeah, it’s like a muscle, right? If you’re working regularly, but but I think what’s really important, and certainly I’ve seen this, is if you’re not happy with the person, the organisation, there’s a really really good chance that they’re not happy either, which means that sometimes it’s actually a bit of a relief for both for both them and you when you have the conversation, you realise that yeah they’re better off going somewhere where they can be happy and do what they love with people they love, so it is better all round. It is,

Mirko Roettgers 08:23

it is, because no one wants to go into a job or come to work when they know they are struggling to meet expectations. Yeah, it’s an awful feeling.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 08:32

Yeah, I think I love about the EOS tools, though, is the people analyzer, particularly it really that combined with the accountability chart, of course. But the the people analyzer really gives you a chance to take all the emotion out of it and and look at it from a very objective point of view. I imagine because I’m half German too, of course. So I mean, I like things to be I like things to be kind of you know quite black and white and and be able to know what where things are at, and it just helps remove a lot of that emotion, all that triggered stuff, and kind of go actually, what’s really good?

Mirko Roettgers 09:00

Yeah, now that’s an important thing. If the if you can reduce the amount of emotional impact that you carry, and you bring it down to the facts and where we can see where it doesn’t thrive, where doesn’t work in the business, it is a conversation. It’s a really a conversation about performance for the business rather than you are not good at your job, and that is a difference.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 09:25

And I and you mentioned scorecards, and it’s it’s interesting, is it? Because I find that a lot of clients initially resist the scorecards. It’s too hard, and it’s like the scorecard really gives you cold, hard data. So you make decisions based on data rather than again emotions, rather than feelings, rather than and as as visionaries, you know, we can be very persuasive and very good at sort of convincing people to to do it our way, but the data kind of brings us back to actually, is this the right thing, or are we just you know going on a whim and a bit of a gut feel rather than actual cold hard data?

Mirko Roettgers 09:58

That’s it, and yeah, I’ll. Love the fact that you can always ask the question every single week again, and the expectations are suddenly moving on. Oh, I know Merk is going to ask me this question again if if I don’t give the numbers. So it’s changed your mindset really fast. Yeah. So how did you go about developing a good scorecard? Because I mean, I see lots of companies. I’m sure you do it too, where they’ve got lots of dashboards, or they’ve either got actually lots of dashboards, lots of information, or they have pretty much nothing. I don’t see much in between, but it does take a while to

Debra Chantry-Taylor 10:30

really develop a good, strong, useful scorecard. Where do you start?

Mirko Roettgers 10:35

Ah, look, it it is a bit of a trial and error at the beginning. I I always had a trial and error, just to see what works over the weeks. Looking at you know we’re making sure I capture what the people do, capture what the business is focused on for this quarter or for for the year, and figuring out what what activities, what levers are we currently trying to move and use, and yeah, there will be scorecard items or measurables in there that that you actually don’t need, but they feel good at the beginning. Then you remove them and you add something else. Honestly, I think I adjusted my scorecards every quarter just because I wanted a bit of attention somewhere else, or problems seem to move, and then it just shifted, and you you know we we measure something else. I

Debra Chantry-Taylor 11:25

think that’s really important. I think a lot of people think that you kind of set the scorecard and then it’s set in stone, and that’s it forever. But it it really shouldn’t be. You should be reviewing it every single 90 days and saying, you know, if these are our goals for the 90 days, these are our rocks, is what we’re trying to focus on, or these are our issues. Even where is that kind of being reflected on the scorecard, so we can focus on it because we know that what we focus on, what gets measured, gets improved, right?

Mirko Roettgers 11:46

Yeah, yeah. And once you feel you have, you know, I worked a lot with the utilisation numbers, and when utilisation was not where it needed to be, then you know we added those to the scorecard in detail, and once we saw, yeah, the processes are now working, people have the attention to it, we remove them and we focus on other business areas of the business from from a scorecard perspective that seem to need some attention. So, if I was starting out though, and I didn’t have a scorecard, what would you recommend that I actually do to even start thinking about what to measure. Look, number one is what is important to you. How do you know as as if you’re the owner or the leadership team? What are the things that you need to know that people need to do? What’s important to the business? And I usually try to follow the the accountability structure in its easiest, most simplest form, and that is just that’s marketing, delivery, or operations, and somehow finance. You know, capture those three elements, and you have a pretty, I would say, 80% of the numbers that are important around making sure you put the effort into the right activities are somehow started to be captured.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 13:00

And we always talk about as a UI. Sometimes you know you want to have a mixture of leading and lagging indicators. I always use the analogy because we’re a car freak. You know, you you don’t drive your car looking in the rear vision mirror. You drive your car looking at the dashboard. And most companies that I work with in the beginning, they’ve got lots of lagging indicators. They really are looking in that rear vision mirror all the time, but they haven’t got the leading stuff. Tell me a little bit about leading indicators and why they’re important.

Mirko Roettgers 13:24

Sure. So it’s for me. I was, I was, I was needed to see that the people are focusing on the activity that will get me to the goals that I have in mind, and knowing that they put the right emphasis into something that is, you know, a leading indicator. It’s an activity that they do every single day, and seeing that activity, I know the guys are doing the right things that we focus on this year. And activity can be all sorts of things, you know, from the guys doing the sales calls, the guys going out to networking events, doing quoting and so on, you name it. But knowing you have the activity in the right places of activities is is just the influence and the levers you want to hit to hit your financial numbers in the end.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 14:20

Because at the end of the day, whether we like it or not, this is you know it needs to make money. That’s what it’s all about. If if we make money, then everybody wins across the whole organisation.

Mirko Roettgers 14:29

Yeah, yeah. Look, and if you only you know track your numbers, financial numbers, yeah, you’re not you’re looking at the result, but but not what influenced it negatively or positively. You need to understand what influences the financial numbers?

Debra Chantry-Taylor 14:42

Absolutely. So, in that business, I’m curious: Did you have a leadership team in the beginning, or was that something you had to develop?

Mirko Roettgers 14:50

No, I had a small leadership team in the beginning. Yeah, that was leadership team of three or four, if I remember correctly. It’s a few years ago. Yeah, and it continued that way. And yeah, so typically the same, you know, same elements. We had sales and marketing, someone in operations, someone in finance, capturing key items, key business functions, and then the team underneath each.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 15:14

And did you have an? Did you have that sort of integrated visionary relationship really clearly spelled out, or was that something that you uncovered as you were through EOS.

Mirko Roettgers 15:22

No, so the owner of the business at the time, we would call him the visionary today. Yeah, there was a he would live in the owner’s box, not necessarily in the business on the executive level. So we would have on execution side of things not a visionary in the business, but in board meetings, monthly catch ups. Yeah, the visionary would be part as as through the onus box.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 15:43

Okay, and so the integrator was you, yeah. But was that a role that was already no? But was it a? I want to try to ask: Is it was it a role that was already identified, or was that something that came up? Yeah, it was okay. Yeah.

Mirko Roettgers 15:56

Yes. Yes. So they already had EWS running. So the concept of integrator visionary roles and accountability chart already existed.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 16:06

Okay, so tell me a little bit about your time as the integrator, because I know I’m sort of I’m one of those few people who actually scores very very highly on both visionary and integrator, both both above 80 sort of 3% or something. So I’m actually sort of a bit unique in that respect, but naturally more of a visionary. The integrator role, though, I know from my experience when I was running a 220-person company, it can feel really lonely because you are the person kind of trying to hold it all together. You’ve usually got a crazy visionary who’s off doing sort of crazy stuff, and then you’re the one that has to have the difficult conversations, all that stuff. But I’m just interested to know, as as the integrator in the business, what were the biggest challenges you faced?

Mirko Roettgers 16:47

So the biggest challenge at the beginning for me was firefighting. Yeah, I was drawn into client problems, client crawling for not being satisfied, for budgets not met, for timelines not met, and being drawn into a lot of the operationalist side of the business is distracting. Yeah, you are being in it, and as an integrator, you still need to be, you know, on the business to a degree of time. And I realise I’m actually not working on the business at all, and 95% in it, helping the team to solve the issues that firefighting, and that was probably a challenge to get through. Of how do I find the time that I need to run the integrated asset properly, not being drawn into the firefighting and the issues that are in the teams below, or in the other roles, so that had to be established, and for that, that’s why I said you know, people is probably the most important thing. If you get, and that’s what needed to happen, you need to get the team underneath you right as an integrator. The number one thing I would say today is have the team that does the job right. I don’t know 345, people that are in the leadership team. If you get that right, right people write seats really, really well, you can perform and you can be a really really good integrator. If if you have a weakness in there, then you as the integrator being dragged into the business a lot of where you don’t really want to be all the time. I

Debra Chantry-Taylor 18:24

think that’s a really key point, right? It’s like actually, if you’re sitting here as an integrator listening into this, and you’re kind of going, “Why am I always fighting fars? Why am I always doing things? You have to ask the really hard question: Do you have the right people in the right seats in that leadership team? Because you know, as goes the leadership team, and so goes the rest of the organisation. So if that leadership team isn’t right, it’s going to have a massive impact on everything in the business, and you will find yourself getting dragged into the weeds.

Mirko Roettgers 18:48

That’s it. And you know, you, I felt it because when I started to receive calls from clients wanting to talk to me and not to the operational guys that are on the project, like something is wrong. You know, I couldn’t relieve this call, but I do. So something is not working right here.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 19:07

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we, so you, you turned the business around using EOS, making sure we had the right people in the right seats, using the data, using all the six key components, and and obviously got back to profitability, back to I’m assuming a much more fun place to work and all that kind of stuff, and then you decided to kind of venture into becoming an EOS implementer because that was your passion. So now you’re on the other side of the fence, where you know you’re not involved in the day-to-day running of businesses anymore. You’re the the person that comes in like I do and and helps them to put the system in place, facilitates the conversations, difficult conversations, helps them with the you know coaching and accountability. What have you noticed most about that switching roles? What do you see? What do you see often that you in the businesses you work with that you can see in yourself when you were in the business?

Mirko Roettgers 19:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hesitation. Yeah, yeah. Of the integrator, the visionary, the leadership team of trying to make a seed work. Yeah, of yeah, no, but I think I think that person can do it. Yeah, and you already know they’re questioning themselves at the moment, but they’re not there yet to honest and open and honestly say, actually, this is probably not the right fit. It would take some time. That’s you know, it’s a journey to get there. You know, I I I can see it took for me almost two years personally to change over the leadership team, and that was hesitation as well. I hesitated moving people, reforming, really embracing right people, right seat properly, and I can still see it. Yeah, it’s it’s not an easy step to do. You know, you’re dealing with people, lives, and households, and so on. So I get it, but yeah, it it comes through all the time.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 20:56

Yeah, yeah, and if you don’t deal with that issue, you’re never going to really get on with the rest of stuff. So, in in your work as an EOS implementer, you know what are the clients you’re working with at the moment? Without giving away details, of course, but what kind of industries have you been working with? What are the things that you’re seeing? And I think particularly, well, tell me about that first. I’ll ask my next question.

Mirko Roettgers 21:17

Yeah. So most of my clients are in the professional services verticals. I think that not that I really was pushing for that. It’s just, I guess, my career is based into that or on that, and it just aligns. I’ve got big networks in those in those industries, and I probably speak the same language as well. So most of my clients are in that marketing, technology, development space, IT, you know, financial as well, legal to a degree, and and that’s fine. That’s that’s typically my focus, you know, in when I go out and do business development, the professional services industries as well as tourism. Tourism is for me a passion in a market. As I love the industry, you know, no Queensland tourism operators up here, and I’m focusing mostly on on Queensland in terms of my my area and my market. Could do so much more, so much better, especially you know the north people in the north. They have so much to offer, and I just feel passionate of of trying to to be in this vertical.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 22:28

I love it, love it. So how so how are you finding things? Because I don’t know what it’s like in Queensland, but certainly in Melbourne, there’s a there’s a an economic downturn. There’s people kind of worrying about where things are headed. We’re about to go into an election over here, which means that a lot of nervousness. I also work in New Zealand. New Zealand’s about to go through the same as well. So I see it in both of the countries that I’m working in. What is what’s what is it like in Queensland at the moment? How are people feeling? What’s going on?

Mirko Roettgers 22:53

Yeah, look, I think the economic pressure is there up here, as as it is in the rest of the country too. You can feel it. People are talking about it, of course. Cost of living is going up. Cost of running a business is is going up as well. But I do see an opportunity here, and that is the Olympic Games. Yeah, 2022, and it is. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this is such a big event in terms of the economic inflow of money that comes to the state and to Brisbane itself. It’s just immense. It’s a once in a generation type of opportunity. You’ve got to be ready for that. And in my head is how do you get ready? You know, you will not just gain benefit from that if you’re not prepared. It will not just happen unless you know hope is your strategy. Then you may then you may break something or may not. So I think we can feel here that you know you see headquarters or moving offices to Brisbane to capture that market to capture the financial stimulus that comes to. There’s of course the infrastructure projects that are on the way at the moment or going to be on the way. There’s a lot of money being poured into this state, so I feel there should be coming an uplift, a stimulus that is fairly strong if you’re ready for it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 24:24

But again, you made a really valid point there. It’s like you you do have to plan for it, and just like everything in business, it’s like if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. So the plan is a really important part, is knowing what you can actually do. So I I can honestly say, hand on heart, that while it’s been tough here economically, the businesses that have been running on EOS for a period of time and have really embraced it have actually had their best quarters, their best years because they’re focused on the things that they can affect. You can’t affect the economic downturn. You can’t really. You can’t. You cannot affect where the games is going to be held. But if you know it’s coming, you can do something. About it,

Mirko Roettgers 25:01

yeah, that’s it. And I think having a plan of how to utilising that stimulus, and understanding of how it’s going to apply to you in the business and where you know you can benefit from it, it’s fairly simple to figure out. It it really requires a plan and a good structure, a system, to get ready for that and take advantage of it. Otherwise, you hope that you somehow get something from the pie.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 25:29

Yeah, as you said, hope’s not a great strategy. But yeah,

Mirko Roettgers 25:34

not not at all. Yeah, and look, I you know to put numbers in here, that is, you know, I think infrastructure is about $170 billion. That over the pipeline of all the things that are plus Uber games, but there’s also other infrastructure projects happening. There’s there’s a lot of money being pushed into the economy from that regard. Tourism is expected to grow from 17 billion to 40 billion over this period. So that is an immense uplift of of economic economic value to be part of, and I think there is about $8 billion being put aside for small business operators in Queensland for the Olympic Games alone. From you know that’s of course development, but there’s agencies, there’s legal, there’s security services, cleaning service, venue management. So there is a piece for everyone here. The question is, how do you take action? How do you get ready for a stimulus that big? And you know, start starting. Oh my God, I, I could have access to this, but actually, I don’t know how to scale my business right now. I’m, I’m hit the ceiling, and you know, and suddenly you’re like, “Oh, I’m not ready for it. And then this this opportunity passes really quick.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 26:46

And that’s the thing you you can’t kind of do it two weeks beforehand and go right. We need to get ready now. You’ve got to be thinking about this a lot lot further out in terms of what you need to do, particularly if the business needs to scale to cope cope with that growth.

Mirko Roettgers 26:56

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 26:59

It’s really interesting. I love I love all things scaling businesses, and you know I think there’s there’s two really important things in in a business. I mean, it’s that long term view of where you’re headed, because if you don’t know where you’re going, and you’re able to get you there, but then it’s breaking it down into bite sized chunks: the 90 day plans, the rocks, the the weekly meetings, the stuff, the short term stuff is actually what moves the needle. You know the big the big goal keeps you focused. The short term stuff moves the needle, and unfortunately, different for business running on EOS. But a lot of businesses don’t take that time on a weekly, quarterly basis to actually look at what’s working, what’s not working, adjust things as need be, and you see it all the time. It’s when you start to bring that discipline in that you see changes. I would say, almost immediately. I don’t know about you, but I think that you don’t get immediate. It’s not a magic silver bullet, but I know that as soon as people start running on EOS, within the first few weeks, they can already start to see some differences in the way that things work.

Mirko Roettgers 27:53

Yep, yep. No, I couldn’t agree more. And I and and I see many clients after a period of six, maybe nine months, see a shift in the organisation on the performance financially, and I feel this was easier than I thought. You know, this is feels good. I mean, just starting to to to move the needle now. So yes, it’s I think the discipline and the focus, the focus of what’s important is a shift that comes quite quickly.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 28:22

Yes, no, I agree, and that’s why I love the whole EOS process. In terms of, I love the fact that in the focus day, we don’t focus on the big plan and and all the the rah rah stuff. We kind of go, what can we fundamentally change in the business so that when when you leave this session room, you’re going to have something that’s actually going to change the way you do business from the very beginning, and it’s it’s lovely. I mean, you’ve you’ve obviously done a few focus days with clients and things. Now, what do you think is the biggest kind of aha moment in a focus day for most clients?

Mirko Roettgers 28:52

I think the biggest is I find the most confronting is going through the accountability chart, and because it is so early on in that day as well, it comes straight up. Yeah, see, this is not just a fun workshop. Yeah, it is really about looking at the business and what’s best for the business. And people realise quickly, “Oh, good. All right, well, this is going to be serious. And that when you have the first real, true, honest conversations popping up, that probably had to be dealt with a long time ago for most or many at least, and I love that moment. I love when they see that people realising they need to address something that they haven’t addressed, and they’re starting to make good decisions for the long term, or the better good of the organisation, and that that aha moment from there on, I feel it flies once we got through that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 29:49

Yeah, and sometimes that can take a long time, right? I remember my I don’t know about you. My longest one was six hours on the accountability chart, and I was like six

Mirko Roettgers 29:57

hours here, but half five before.

Mirko Roettgers 29:59

Yeah,

Debra Chantry-Taylor 30:00

I think six is a little bit too long, but it had to be done. And you know, as you said, it it flushes out conversations that needed to be had a long time ago, but that haven’t been had, and so therefore you can’t just brush over it once lightly and go, “Oh yeah, that that’s enough. You actually have to have those meaty conversations, and yeah, that can be tough. But it’s easier when you’ve got somebody helping you. I think

Mirko Roettgers 30:20

absolutely, absolutely, yes, guiding that a little bit so it stays a little bit, you know, more objective and and focused on for the business and not personal.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 30:28

Yeah, it’s always challenging. Tell me what what have you seen in terms of results from your clients? What’s the things you start? What’s the first things you start to see as they start to embrace EOS? What do you see happening in their business?

Mirko Roettgers 30:40

Ooh, clarity. I get this all the time. It’s it’s oh my god, this plan is clear. Yeah, that direction. I feel now we have a plan of how we drive this business forward, so that clarity of how to get to where they wanted to be, that they haven’t achieved themselves yet. So that suddenly becomes clear, and I feel the second piece here is there’s a very clear ownership of who does what, who owns what, and how we measuring ourselves to drive accountability. They see the impact, how how this all connects, and I think that is very powerful in your first quarter when you start running on EOS, of how that elevates every single week.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 31:26

Yeah, and we use the term clarity creates confidence, and it’s so true. Most of the times when teams are struggling or the business is not kind of performing well, it’s because there’s no clarity about what each person’s doing, what they’re accountable for, what makes the business turn, even just things like sharing numbers and things. I think that that’s one of the things I love about EOS. We start to actually share numbers with everybody. It’s not just the accountant’s role, but it’s actually like here’s what we’re trying to do as a business, and suddenly they start to understand how that business actually operates.

Mirko Roettgers 31:56

Yeah, yep, yeah. And fear sometimes I’ve been able to check in and I have the conversations about you know they’re bringing in a few other ideas on the side. It’s like okay, so how much time do we spend on this new thing? And all right, good. So how much time have you not done on what’s what’s on your accountability chart of what you’re designed to do? Ah, yeah. Look, what does it do here? Scorecard. Oh yeah, I’ve got a couple of red numbers for the few weeks, so you did this, and we stopped doing this. You know what do we think is going to happen? Ah, yeah, I think revenue might not be where we wanted to have it. So, see the model how it works. I just love when that that clarity and that that crystal ball suddenly. Oh my God, I can see what I’ve done.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 32:42

I I I’m really proud. I’ve got a team in Melbourne that is a manufacturing team, so they manufacture some big water tank things, and they’ve got about 170 staff, and they have been running on EOS for a little while, and they’ve actually been able to share numbers across the whole of the the organisation, and they’ve got to the point now where every single person, no matter where they work, whether they’re working on a factory production line or they’re working out in the fields, actually understands EBITA and understands how their role contributes to EBITA, but also more importantly, the context of why that’s important and what it means for them as individuals as well. And like when you get that level of understanding, you’ve got everybody wanting to to to make the business more profitable, wanting to make it go faster because they know that they’re going to benefit from it. And I just that makes my heart sink because then we’ve suddenly got everybody rowing in the same direction.

Mirko Roettgers 33:33

Yeah, that’s awesome.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 33:34

Yeah, and you know, and it’s interesting because I’m sure you see this too. And this is not to knock anybody, but sometimes when you start working with leadership teams, there are people if they’re not in the financial seat, they don’t even have a a basic understanding of a basic profit and loss. And again, I’m not meaning that disrespectfully, but you, they, you know, we talk about revenue, we talk about cost of goods, we talk about gross profit, net profit, and and they some of them have never they’ve never been taught it, so you know we expect them to know it, but nobody’s ever taught it to them. So how would they know it? And they all turn to the financial person. Like, what are the numbers? When I’ve been working with a team for you know six to nine months, there’s there’s no excuses. I need every single person that leadership team to know the numbers. It’s not the finance person’s role, and and they do. They come in. They can tell you quite proudly. This is you know what we’ve done because they’re starting to see, like you just said, how it all fits together, how it all links.

Mirko Roettgers 34:28

Yeah, yeah, and it’s it’s yeah. You get I get this awesome understanding of how you apply your role to to the greater good. You know, suddenly you feel like I understand myself of what I contribute, and if I want something to a new project, a new shiny thing, I suddenly like, oh, hold on a second, this is a small business, just asking for money as I used to. To the finance, and if they give it to me, yeah, I can do what I want. Suddenly, you’re like, hold on, this may not actually work because we’re influencing our numbers here. And small businesses not necessarily have unlimited budgets. Actually, probably never, right? Highly unlikely.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 35:15

Yeah,

Mirko Roettgers 35:16

we can’t just have a bad quarter just to throw some money at this or at that. It doesn’t. It doesn’t work that way.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 35:23

Yeah, I mean, I come. I actually come from a sales and marketing background originally. Well, actually, biochemist originally, but I come from a sales and marketing background in business at least. And you know, I remember I was very very fortunate working for quite a large organisation where you know I had a massive budget. We start off with $3 million for marketing, end up being 9 million by the time I left three years later because I’d be able to show return on investment, and so they kept increasing the spend. But of course, small businesses don’t have that luxury; they don’t have the luxury of those huge, big budgets. So it’s really good. I love the the marketing part of the VTO, which actually gets everyone in the organisation thinking about who is the ideal client. Not we want to be everything to everybody, but who is the ideal client? So we can actually really focus our energy on the right people rather than just throwing money out to try and be everything to everybody.

Mirko Roettgers 36:12

Yeah, it it’s very powerful. You know, making sure that everyone puts their their emphasis on what do we only need to focus on where we go out and look at look for look for target markets?

Debra Chantry-Taylor 36:24

Yeah, and and that marketing strategy, like by defining the ideal client and really speaking to their three uniques and what they’re looking for, it also gives you a sense of you know what do we need to deliver as a team. So I love the proven process and the guarantee because that starts to drive your internal process, your internal way of working. If you’ve got a really strong guarantee, everybody in that business has to be behind it because if we buck it up and we don’t kind of deliver on it, then it’s going to cost the business money. And so all of that drives the way the business actually operates.

Mirko Roettgers 36:53

Yes, yes.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 36:54

Get very excited about this stuff. I love it. Clarity. Clarity creates confidence. It’s brilliant. Tell me in terms of you know the we’ve talked a little bit about some of the things that happen in the first sort of few months results wise. So what have you seen with clients that you’ve worked with in terms of results? I mean, yes, we can increase the top line revenue, but what else happens when you start to put focus on the business using the EOS tools?

Mirko Roettgers 37:19

Yeah, look, the second most important thing is probably everyone needs financial results. There’s no doubt about it. That’s what we’re driving for. The amount of efficiency that comes through it into the organisation. So I just had a session yesterday, and the the overall feedback was we are the smallest team probably since at the moment for a very long time, but we had our best quarter ever. So this shows you how much time you waste on shiny things that don’t make you money that distract you from the core purpose or you know the core focus of your organisation. And I have the same. You know, I personally knew that we did. We had a smaller team, but we grew the organisation with more profit year by year by reducing the people that are actually working in the organisation, and that shows you the efficiency that EOS provides can provide if you you know if you stick to it, and also shows you how much time you waste if you’re not forwarding a system or a proper structure or a plane.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 38:25

Yes, yeah, it’s so true. Yeah. So yeah. So yeah. So it certainly. I think overall, it just helps you focus on the things that are important. You’ve got to ask the question: Does it make the boat go faster? And if it doesn’t make the boat go faster, why are we doing?

Mirko Roettgers 38:39

Absolutely. Yeah. And and look, there’s one thing that I always love, and that’s these are the personal stories that I love is when the founder or the visionary or the integrator comes along and says, “I’m on a holiday, I’m going for two weeks, and I’m doing this the first time in 678, years, and they come back and say, “I didn’t really need to do anything. Yes. Yeah. This this is where we want to be. Yeah. You trust your team. You have a good good operating model, and things are getting done the way they should be done with IBUM there or around. Personally, I find this very satisfying.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 39:16

Yeah. Actually, we we we run an integrator peer group, and we actually ran it this morning. And one of the integrators shared a similar story. One of my one of my clients, their integrator, that yeah, the the business has grown from being a smallish team of three or four people up to I think I know they probably got about 20 people now. And for the first time, the owner actually went away on holiday for two weeks because he’s got the right people in the right seats in the leadership team, and he felt like he could go. Now, has he completely let go? Probably not. He’ll probably, yeah. But but nevertheless, to go away for two weeks and know that the business will continue to run without him-that’s what this is all about, right? This is what we all, as business owners, it’s what we want. It’s actually what we, you know, we go into business for. But often we don’t get it because we just keep scaling the chaos rather than scaling in a structured way.

Mirko Roettgers 40:00

Yes, yes, and scaling taylor usually doesn’t work.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 40:03

No, no, I can definitely attest to that from previous businesses that I’ve run. So yes, it is good. Hey, Morko, three top tips or tools. What are the sort of three things that you would love to share with people? Either things that you’ve personally learned through your journey or things that you love within the ERIS framework.

Mirko Roettgers 40:20

Yeah, yeah. So I think the number one we touched on it is the people side of things, and my tip to everyone who’s in the in that similar scenario is make a really quick decision. Yeah, don’t wait, don’t hold off on letting someone go or having that tough conversation about do they really fit the seat or not? Are they fitting the values or not? Go there really fast. I personally hesitated a few times a lot along too long, and it doesn’t work. It does waiting doesn’t work. So, on people’s side, if the worst decision has to be made and you need to let someone go, make it fast and quick, get that quickly. That that’s probably one tip. That if I would do my job again from you know years ago, that that’s the one thing is, you know, go there quickly, go there early. Two, I always have a scorecard, and always be there every week. Go into that scorecard. It drives behaviour. It absolutely changes behaviour in the business. You just being there, spending five minutes on that scorecard, looking at the numbers, asking some questions. It’s probably back in the days my my favourite tour of driving teams. And then there is the third, and that is you’ve got to learn to apply discipline, and what I mean with that is, so I show you show you something with that’s my privately. That’s my EOS life here, Debra. Yeah, we haven’t talked about that yet. Is I’m an I’m an ultra runner. Yeah, so I run 100k’s on trials. Yeah, for I think well, it is fun. It’s pain too, right? On tomorrow, actually, so got a big raise tomorrow coming up. But where I’m going with that is when I started doing that, there’s such a big parallel between businesses and long ultra running, and running 100k’s or quarter 40 even, or a marathon, or anything that is that you feel is not possible for you right now. It is this big, big, you know, audacious, hairy goal that you have in mind. You have to break it down. Yeah, you know, you have to work quarter to quarter, build yourself up to get there. You have to train what we call it. I run scorecards in here myself. That’s why I love Gorka so much. I track my motivation, my distance, my food intake, just to make sure I’m actually getting there, quarter by quarter. And here comes the discipline. I’ve got a plan, and I’ve got a coach who puts a plan together, which is the same thing in the business. You have a plan, and you execute every day. So execution for me is I get out there, no matter what, and I do my 10 camera, my 50, my sprints, whatever is on the agenda. It can be raining, doesn’t snow, but if it’s night, it will be fun. I could have a bad day. I could have been in a session for too long. I still figure out how am I getting this done. This is a discipline that you need to apply to your business because you can’t just rock up and run 100k’s or 40k’s. You can’t just rock up and double your turnover without that grinding quarter by quarter moving you you know day by day forward, and that for me is discipline that you need to apply. And if you cut or cut corners, when that discipline slips, everyone else slips too. And I learn this a lot through my you know my life outside of EOS. I apply it every single day because I know if I stop discipline, the discipline here, I’m not going to survive this 100-year run. I know the same with my clients. If they’re not putting in the discipline, I’m always watching. You know, they’re not getting there as far or as quickly as they want to.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 44:13

It reminds me of a story. I can’t remember. I can’t remember the exact details, but it was talking about two armies or two two bands of people who were trying to cover a certain distance, and one team just went out, like you said, rain, hail, shine every day. Walked there, whatever number of kilometres it was that they had to do, and the other one would do big spurts. But then when it was cold, they kind of go, “Oh, we’ll just take the day off because it’s cold, and we don’t want to be out in the snow. And and it was the consistency that won. The people who just went out there, rain, hail, or shine, are the people that actually get the results. And I think that happens a lot in businesses where, yeah, they they do the quick sprint and then they hurt themselves, or they yeah, or they don’t want to go out because it’s cold, or yeah, yeah. I love it. Okay, so just be really clear. So people make a quick decision, rip the bandaid off as quickly as possible. You’ll never regret it. Scorecard it drives behaviour and it changes behaviour. Because what gets measured gets improved, and then yeah, learn to apply discipline, execution, and consistency is actually really the key. The the you said you have a coach for your ultra marathons, ultra running stuff, and you know that’s what we do for our for businesses, right? With a coach, with the the people who keep them. Why is it important to have a coach?

Mirko Roettgers 45:20

There’s one quote we always use, Debra, and that is, you know, you can’t understand a system if you’re part of the system, and that’s it. You know, you can’t see yourself when you’re in it, so you need to someone on the sideline that tells you what’s really happening. Sometimes it’s the same when you play football. You know, you can be the captain of of a great team, but you are out there playing. You’re in the middle of it. You can’t see from the top of what’s happening overall. You can’t see the system, and that’s where a coach comes in. Someone that tells you from the outside of what’s going on, that holds you accountable if you’re not following the plan, if you’re getting sidetracked, or if you got blind or you know not wanting to watch us look into some directions, that’s that’s why we bring a coaching, someone who can help you understand of what is looking, how the organisation is going, helping you see it too, and hold you accountable to your actions.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 46:15

Yeah, I completely agree. I also think it’s it’s really really hard, and we know this ourselves. You you know, especially when it comes to the business stuff, the U.S. stuff, you you can’t actually be in the meeting and trying to facilitate the meeting and trying to take the notes and trying you know trying to do all of that. It’s just it’s overwhelming. You you’ve got to pick a pick a role, and the role we really want you to play is is the business owner who’s there as part of the leadership team participating in that process.

Mirko Roettgers 46:41

Yes, it is. That will be a tough job.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 46:43

Well, I think I’ve tried it. I think we’ve all tried it ourselves. I know I tried it myself in the business. It’s like, yeah, it didn’t work. So we still have a we have an implementer and a coach just to help our business as well. Hey, Merka, it’s been great to to learn a little bit more about you. I love I love your passion for the EOS process and tools and for scorecards, particularly data. There’s a whole book on it that you can read. I think data is really important. It’s one of the things we tend to forget a little bit about. So thank you for sharing. Thank you for you know for being on the show and giving us some of your podcasts and tools. Lovely to talk to you.

Mirko Roettgers 47:12

Excellent. Thanks, Debra.