2 Thoughts - Clarity & Growth

#1: Paring Down to Scale Up

I had the privilege of meeting Mark O'Donnell recently.  He is the CEO of EOS Worldwide, and I dove in right away with a tough question.  I knew they'd had some serious upheaval recently and I wanted to know his side of the story.

2 years ago, after 13 years in business, they had a major business disruption and pivoted to a franchise model. I had spoken to people in their ranks (implementers) who were not a fan of this switch and heard their side - now I wanted to hear EOS' perspective.

To oversimplify it, they had a few operators in their ranks who were pushing them to clarify what exactly their product was and was not.  These operators wanted the freedom to add and subtract from the program, and EOS realized that their true value was to provide a simple and consistent product across the world.  Their "Entrepreneurial Operating System" teaches entrepreneurs how to become leaders and gives them a repeatable system to bring a company together to hit their future goals.

A consequence of the shift was that they lost about 20% of their operators - many of them very experienced - and spent significant money building a new franchise program with the remaining 600 implementers.  That's a tough call for a CEO to make, and caused many sleepless nights.  

When I asked if it was worth it in hindsight, he was resolute.  By clarifying their vision and defining their product more narrowly, their revenue and profit has increased significantly.  His proudest outcome though was how the culture has matured and the clarity of vision has united the core company and attracted new incredible talent.

#2: One Question To Ask Your Team

What do you think we do as a company that makes us successful?