How to Get Business Traction with EOS — Leadership, Accountability & Execution with Chris Hallberg

In this episode of Small Business Pivots, host Michael D. Morrison sits down with Chris Hallberg, known as The Business Sergeant, to break down what actually creates traction inside a business.

Chris brings nearly a decade of military and paramilitary leadership experience into the business world, helping owners replace chaos with clarity using the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). As an expert EOS Implementer and creator of the GoExpand platform, Chris works with organizations ranging from growing small businesses to companies doing $10M–$1B+ in revenue.

This conversation dives deep into:

• Why businesses get stuck—even when revenue is growing
• The six key components every business must strengthen to scale
• How clarity eliminates the wrong people (without firing them)
• Why accountability fails when vision isn’t fully shared
• How EOS creates traction in 90-day cycles
• The leadership mindset required to build a healthy, aligned company

If you’re a business owner struggling with lack of clarity, people problems, or stalled growth, this episode delivers a practical framework you can apply immediately—without fluff or hype.

Chris Hallberg is an expert EOS Implementer, leadership coach, and founder of The Business Sergeant. With a background in military and paramilitary leadership, Chris helps business owners replace chaos with clarity through disciplined execution, accountability, and alignment. He is the author of The Business Sergeant’s Field Manual and creator of the GoExpand business operating system platform.

Connect with Chris Hallberg

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-hallberg-01516315/
• Website: https://implementer.eosworldwide.com/chris-hallberg/
• Email: chris.hallberg@eosworldwide.com

Transcript

Meet Chris “Business Sergeant” Hallberg

SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right. Welcome to another Small Business Pivots. And if you've ever watched the show, no one can say their name or their business like the business owner. So I let you have the stage, my friend, to tell us about you.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Thanks, Michael. I appreciate having me on your program. My name is Chris Hallberg. My personal branding is the business sergeant. I spent almost a decade in a couple of different uniforms, military and paramilitary uniforms, became a sergeant at a very ripe age. So got through thrown into the leadership circle in my lower 20s and learned a lot and took that fired up, direct, uh sometimes humorous but mission-focused uh process to the civilian business world. In 2017, I dropped a book called The Business Sergeant's Field Manual, Military Grade Business Execution without the yelling and push-ups. So taking the team building ethos from the military and sliding that in works just fine to the civilian side, but keeping out the parts that don't naturally slice, that don't match up puzzle piece wise, because you'd be in the HR office half your time if you did this stuff. Like hazing is definitely not allowed in the civilian business world, shouldn't be involved in the uh military world. But we all know that you know, taping your platoon leader to a cannon and firing it or you know, hog tying someone 10, 20, 10, 20 feet in a tree is perfectly acceptable behavior. In fact, your troops will never do that if they don't like you. So, like if you haven't been hazed, that that means okay, but uh staying on point here, Michael. What I do today is I help business owners and leaders gain traction. So I do that primarily through being an expert EOS implementer. It is an incredible operating system to help businesses align and synchronize all the moving parts of their business. So that's like my it when you're a hammer, everything's a nail. Everybody needs EOS. Okay. Like take that with a grain of salt, but the EOS guy's like, it's good for you. Like I haven't seen it really not work ever unless someone decided they didn't want it to work. Those are the only cases. So, like, not too many things with that level of certainty. So, as a coach, it's a tool that I use to make sure that we get our arms around the entire enterprise because it's a holistic operating system. And we can talk about the six key components uh in a little bit, but EOS Implementor, uh, my primary focus. I also have recently launched an agentic AI-powered uh business operating system platform called GoExpand. And then my business sergeant, right? I have an online course if people want to have that. So I have an online course for people to learn how to be a leader with a business sergeant mentality. Uh I coach EOS, turn people on to EOS, uh, and we have software to glue it all together. So if you have the right mindset, you have a business operating system, uh, and you have a tool to keep it together. That's how I help larger organizations. So I generally work with folks, you know, uh 10 million to a billion dollars a year in annual revenue. Anywhere where there's a big group of people wanting to do cool stuff, that's that's where you need these three things.

From Uniforms To Entrepreneurial Coaching

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Very cool. Well, I know that all big businesses started small. And so we've got some small business owners that want to get to that level. So I do believe, in my mind, they have the right mindset because they're here listening to us. But let's introduce the show real quick and then we'll get to the meat on the bone. Let's do that. Welcome to Small Business Pivots, a podcast produced for small business owners. I'm your host, Michael Morrison, founder and CEO of Boss, where we make business ownership simplified for success. Our business is helping yours grow. Boss offers business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at Business Ownership Simplified.com. All right, welcome back to Small Business Pivots. I know for a lot of our business owners that listen to podcasts, they kind of like to be relatable to our guest. Any upbringing stories you've got of kind of like what you what got you where you are today, so that they can kind of follow that same path.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yeah, I have a t-shirt. It says wooden spoon survivor. Uh so tip typical child of the 70s and 80s, you know, would leave for days, you know, there were no phones, there was just the ability to explore. So like I I actually feel pretty bad for kids, even though they have, you know, answers to the world's questions within seconds at their fingertips. The the the just going out and disconnecting and exploring and discovering and and uh uh yeah, they're just like I heard the other day someone said an emergency room physician, like we don't get half the broken bones we used to for kids. Like it's really hard to fall off a chair playing PlayStation and hurt yourself. Uh so like they you know, so like I would say uh my superpower is I got to be a kid without technology and a teenager kind of with some, and then an adult where it's it's everywhere. So like being just a Gen X person, I think is a superpower because we kind of had life before life as we know it, and now uh so we have a different perspective where the recent generations just really have the now and really don't understand the past. And that can be a good thing, that could be a negative thing, but I think anyone that has that perspective and gets both sides and has been able to function in the new world while retaining the essence of the old way of doing things, I think that's really powerful. And I would say it contributes greatly to the perspective I give. Now that I'm like 52, almost 53 years old. Like someday you look in the mirror and like, wow, I got a lot of gray in my beer. Um, and people are like, okay, great. Uh let's get some experience. Chris, what do you think? I'm like, oh, I'm I'm not the new guy, I'm not young anymore. Like, I'm the old guy. People are asking advice. Like, what happened to me? Uh, so it happens quickly. So, like, basically, that's a long answer, but I think philosophically, your upbringing, your life experience, like how you see the world, how you process um adversity, like that's what's really important when you're a small business owner and you want to build a great company, it it really comes back to that mindset. You were the wooden spoon guy.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

I was the dishwashing soap guy. So I got the dishwashing soap. So if you know, you know. For those of you that haven't don't know what the wooden spoon's about, the dishwashing soap, all that other stuff, the belt, and uh go look it up. But and and you mentioned push-ups earlier. I think some of our business owners could probably use some push-ups from time to time to hold them accountable and discipline them to get them to do these things because you and I have talked, and that's kind of one of the things you either want to do it or you don't. It's not just gonna happen. So let's kind of start with the early adapter of an entrepreneur, right? For most of us, all big businesses start small and almost every business gets stuck. And and that's where I think a lot of our listeners are. And we were talking earlier, you've got some some information, some insights that you'd like to share with them.

Why EOS And What It Solves

The Six Key EOS Components Overview

Deep Dive: Vision And Alignment

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah, before I give any of those like uh relevant tips or tricks or observations that I see, right, for people that are in that space. Um, I I just want to talk high level about the six key key components of EOS because I'm gonna want to anchor back to that. So I think if we do this in the right order, it's probably better for everybody. So, so Gino Wickman uh is the creator of the entrepreneurial operating system or EOS. This stuff's been out for about 20 years. Uh, it's all based on his book, Traction, get a grip on your business. So that's the assignment. Everyone get your hands on. If you haven't read it, uh, I'm guessing quite a few people in this space have know about this, but if you don't know about this, thanks, uh Michael Morrison, uh, for bringing this to them. This is usually one CEO to the other, bumps the other one on the shoulder and says, Hey, this book, you gotta read this. No, it's not like you don't understand. This one's special. It is literally the silver bullet for business. And I'm not overselling that. And I'm sure EOS worldwide's like, you can't say that. But I'm this is a personal opinion that I'm expressing that there are six key components of any business. I don't care if you got a lemonade stand or a Fortune 500 jugger or not, you have six key components. So I like to joke EOS is CrossFit for business. And if you do these six exercises, you will look like an action figure. So here we go. First key component. Uh, and it again doesn't matter your size, it it matters your ability to make these six things strong. And when they're strong, everything else that is pushing against your business and causing you pain goes away. So Gino talks about there's only 136 problems in business. So if we can strengthen these six core muscles, those there's no oxygen, fuel, or heat, the fire triangle, you know, for those problems to burn. So, like, that's why this is like we're gonna go right to the root of all your issues. I'm not overselling this, pay attention. First one vision component. Getting you, your management team, your leadership team, and the team, the greater team, a 100% opted in to this vision. 100% opt in, 100% opt out. Not, I like half of this, so I'm gonna do my own little thing here. I'm gonna change this. I I don't agree with this, so I'll do this. No. Companies are buses, not an uber. Don't let your people treat your bus like an Uber. That's not how buses work. So, eight questions, core values. Who are we? Timeless set of principles to talk about the behaviors that are acceptable. Uh, value diversity, not cool. Diversity, super cool, but people that don't care about what you care, yeah. Paying people to go the opposite direction, uh that's exactly what you're doing. I know it sounds crazy when I say it, but people do it all the time. I see it all the time, and I point it out because, like, you know, everyone sees their tree, their company knows every piece of bark, every knot that's your tree. I'm a forest ranger. I look at trees all day. Your tree's got disease, and this is what how you fix it. So just just understand there's there's no ugly babies in the nursery, but everyone needs to really think about what vision um and are you sticking to it? And are you getting a bunch of people that all feel the exact same way? And that's the actual power. So, eight questions core values, who are we, core focus, uh, why we do what we do, what we do, uh, marketing uh tenure target, which is just a BHAG, big hair aidacious goal, right? So that's like five to 35 years. Let's call that the North Star stuff that keeps us focused when times get tough, and times are always tough in business, right? Um then after that, we get a marketing strategy. Like, what's our demographic, our demographic, geographic, and psychographic? Don't ever spend money on someone that isn't the ideal client profile for you. Okay. And then what are your three uniques? At EOS, it's vision, traction, and healthy. Well, it turns out you need all three of those. So why not get one program that does all three versus three disparate programs that that bring it to you in, you know, 12 days a year versus four days a year or 16 days a year, I guess, would would be the right math on that. Um, and and then we say three-year picture, and we call it a picture because there's two sides to this vision traction organizer document that I'm referring to. The first side is the vision side. And the lat the fifth question, the last one on that side is what is your three-year picture? Top line, bottom line, big measurables, dream sequence, doo-doo, do-do-do, Wayne's world. What does it look like? Like we're sitting in a room, it's December 31st, 2028. Like we're reviewing our year, this happened, and that's a great experience. We close our eyes and we visualize it. Do you see it? I saw it. Okay, great. Now that we have that vision, flip over the document. There's three questions on the traction side. And the first one, what's your one-year plan? Now that we create a three-year vision, a picture, what's the real plan? What is the what is the right trajectory we need to be on at the end of one year to get to three years? And then every year we will recast the the the stone or the stick out three years and one year. Then we'll move towards it. Then we'll throw it again three year, one year. It's just backwards, you know, military backwards planning, bracketed. Uh, it it's a powerful, powerful tool. So your 10-year target, right? Your your big B Hag, your five to 35-year core target, you set that once and you you hit it or you don't hit it. You put that into stone. The three year and the one year, you redo that. And then once we have a one-year plan, we go to the seventh question. What are your quarterly rocks? Um, so if you're familiar with quarterly rocks, uh it's the late Dr. Stephen Covey talked about these big priorities, put do the big rocks first. There's the two glass cylinders, right? The rocks, the pebbles, the sand, and the water. If you've ever seen that, if you haven't, Google Dr. Covey uh, you know, a rock experiment uh with it. It's it's really cool to watch him do that. Um, all right. So then the eighth question what are our long-term issues? What are our issues? Uh long-term issues are issues, but they're things we can't solve until we do some other things. So we wave, we measure them, it's good therapy to write them down. And then every quarter we graduate them onto a short-term issues list for solvents. So there it is. Eight questions. If everyone can say those are the eight things, opt 100% into this or 100% out of that, that is the number one problem in business, right there, is people don't know what they're supposed to do. And if you haven't communicated explicitly and said this is good, this is bad, they are doing their level best. And that is a failure in communication. It's also back to accountability. If people aren't committed because they see this vision as something they really want to do, holding them accountable is actually impossible. If people aren't committed, they don't really care. So you can't hold somebody accountable and take something away that they don't value. If they want, they are excited, they get the opportunity to be surrounded by like-minded people on a similar mission, that's something worth losing. That's a special place to go for eight to ten hours a day. So, like first key component of the six, that's the vision component. The second part of that, the first part is the eight questions. The second part that it's shared by all, not shared by some, shared by few, shared by all. So I'm just gonna let that hang there. That's the big one. Second one, the hardest one, people, because we're all perfectly imperfect. Everyone shows up a little broken in their own special way, and that's okay. But what we really want to talk about is the right people. Right people share your core values. Now we're talking, you know, good to great, Jim Collins again. Uh, right seats using EOS terminology. EOS is full of acronyms, that's why military people love EOS. GWC. Get, want, and have the capacity. Right people share your core values, uh, right people GWC their seat. That's what we're looking for. Uh, there are four combinations. That's the one we want. The next most common one is the right person in the wrong seat. Hey, you come here. Do you know how to do this? Well, kind of, great. You're the best I got. Get in there. And then a year later, hey, I think so-and-so's failing. We should, we should, we should maybe think about like what's going on. Like, hello, this person did you a solid, right? And you you did never train them. So that's your your failure, not theirs. That's the right person in the wrong seat. As long as they're the right person, we can find them another seat on the bus as long as they get want and have the capacity to do it. So that's important. And then the the third one is the wrong person in the right seat. That's the brilliant jerk, energy vampire. Super profitable, productive. They walk in the room, everyone scatters. So can't really build a world-class team if we curate jerks. So the last one is the wrong person in the wrong seat. That's the oxygen thief, the energy vampire. They're easy to spot. No, like they don't they don't fit, and everyone needs to redo everything. So, like, actually not having them show up makes the team go faster than actually having them on the team. So those those those are the eight questions in the vision. And then we say right people, right seats in every position. Once you get to about 90% right people, right seats, they'll clear out the last 10. But if you have 25, 20, 75, 80 right people, right seats, that's still enough of a foothold for you not to get what you want from your business because we have these this group that looks like they're with you, but particularly they're not. And that's why we keep missing numbers and and and having less than profitable quarters. Third key component, data component. How do I know I got the right people in the right seats? Well, they're doing what you want them to do, not what they want to do that's fun. The actual ugly stuff buried in work boots and overalls, the stuff that actually makes the company money, makes the clients happy. So, like, you know, don't tell me I want to know monthly how we're doing, but EOS is like a weekly activity, brings a monthly result. So we can get into that a little bit later, but that's it for now. Um, and then so we create a scorecard. So we have people agree. So don't just have an expectation. Can you bring 10 units a week? Yeah, I got you. Somebody brings you nine units, you can look at them like, hey, what happened? You you agreed to 10. Like, you got to own that, not oh, you never told me I had 10. Big difference. So, right person, uh uh right seat needs to be verified through a scorecard and then giving everyone a measurable number they hit when they hit that number. I'm a full teammate. I carried my water, I'm good. I can sleep like a baby this weekend. I don't have to worry uh about being replaced because you know I'm not I'm not getting the job done. So so basically that's the data component. Uh, when you're strong in vision, strong in people, strong in data, you're open and honest. Issues stick out, the issues component, the fourth key component. It's just an issue. Issues aren't just problems, they can be opportunities. They're things we need to discuss and solve for the short-term or long-term greater good of the company. That's simple. And then we have a very structured way, identify, discuss, and solve IDS. Uh, a lot of people are good at the discussion part, uh, but they're not good at identifying the root issue. So they end up solving the symptom, and that's why it reoccurs again and again and again. And that's why you're really good at solving the same issue. It's Groundhog's Day. You're, you know, you haven't removed the conditions, it's going to just come back, and that's why you're so frustrated. Um, so that would be the issues component. Fifth key component is the process component. Just simplify this. Checklist, outlines, go fast ways. Uh, the 20% that gives you the 80%, and then it's FBA, followed by all. It's not optional. If we found a way to do it, that the customers like it, it's profitable, it's scalable, we're not messing with that. If you don't want to do that, you can't work here. Like, that's the deal. So I find often like, yeah, we have a process, but some people don't want to follow it. Well, that's because it's optional. And when I hear people say that, I'm just like, you're the issue. You've made it optional. Opt in or opt out. It's a very simple uh thing. Other like that's what happens with emails. If someone sends you a bunch of emails you didn't ask for, that's called spam. Why are you spamming your people? They need to opt in or opt out. And once they're opt in, you can do what you need to do until they decide to opt out. But if half your company hasn't opted in, hmm, gee, you might want to look at that. There's like 7 billion people in the world, and the people on this call are all under 100 people, maybe under 10 people. If you have under 10 people, then everything I'm saying uh amplifies. The like having one or two of the wrong people in the wrong seats for a six-person company is debilitating. Having two of the wrong people in the wrong seat at a 25 person company is debilitating. So this is not to be trifled with. You have literally have 7 billion people to pick from, and you got five, you better pinch yourself that all five are in it to win it. They ride for the brand, they bleed your corporate colors. Anything short of that, I don't like your odds. So, so where do we go? Left off process. Last one traction component, sixth and final key component. It's the opposite side. Vision without traction is hallucination.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

You're listening to small business pivots. This podcast is produced by my company, Boss. Our business. Is helping yours grow. Boss offers business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as twenty-four to forty-eight hours at Business Ownership Simplified.com. If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and share it as well. Now let's get back to our special guest.

People: Right Seats And GWC

SPEAKER_00 20:23

So, so where we go, left out process. Last one, traction component, sixth and final key component. It's the opposite side. Vision without traction is hallucination. Oh, by the way, I like to joke vision. I got a semi truck out back. 10 cents a pound. How many pounds do you want? Traction is$10,000 a carat. How many carats can you acquire? So there's no shortage of vision. It's the traction that makes it important. And the traction component is about creating a 90-day world. Humans get off track every 90 days. So every 90 days we say this is how you're living your core values. This is how you're GWC in your seat. And this is how you're helping out with ROCs. And rocks are the second part of the sixth key component, creating that 90-day world, those strategic initiatives. How do you change the wheels on a moving bus? We do with rocks. Rocks are just priorities, but usually they're strategic initiatives outside of the day-to-day, when done, give you new capacity, new capability. So that's a lot, but those are the six key components. So if you got a vision, everyone's like totally clear in it to win it. Everyone at the company is the right person. They care about what you care in a business setting. That we are not arguing about anything. We are all focused on that VTO, the vision traction organizer, because of the first key component we said yes to. And we're all amazing at what we do because we have scorecards, the data component, and it's green, and you know, we're above 100%. And then if we have an issue or just need to have a discussion on anything, we can do that. And then we're gonna have some process. Once we've solved these issues and we have the scorecards, we've got it locked in. We've got it actually figured out. We just need to follow the playbook. Just need to follow the playbook. That's the process. And then traction is creating that 90-day world, understanding that I move companies from here to there. And EOS Implementers spend about two years with clients, right? And and that's eight quarters. So how do I move you from here to there? 90 days at a time. Click, click, click, click. So uh where we want to be in three years determines what we're gonna do in a year, and then we're gonna reset that for a couple of years. That's how we keep it tight. So do you see where I'm going with this? Now, now we're having these meetings, we're getting these strategic initiatives done off to the side, preparing ourselves for further greatness. Imagine if if everyone understood that your business has these six key components, you can go to organizationalcheckup.com right now and take it. It's 20 questions, one to five. If you're not lying to yourself, you're probably still around 30%. That's what uh an average business, even ones making money uh with employees. I I could you'd be shocked if I told you some brands that that I've worked with that started uh in the 30s and we graduate them in the 80s or 90s, is kind of our job as the EOSHERPA. So the reason I give you that thing is like that's what you need at a minimum to be a viable business in today's modern age. So if you're listening and you don't have that all figured out, like this only takes a couple of days to write all this down and commit. This is this, you know, uh months to really do the work correctly. Um, but if you're sub maybe two million in sales, 10 employees, we have a self-implementers uh academy at EOS worldwide. That's where most of the folks on this call are gonna go and they're gonna get some EOS training, and then you're gonna get a software app. Hopefully, go expand the one that I'm associated with, and then you can do this EOS stuff on your own. And then when you get big enough and you can afford, right, a Sherpa to come in and look at your EOS and tighten that up, then you know, there's 850 around the world ready, ready when you're ready. So, like people are ready for an implementer when they're ready, but they don't need Gino put out the book, high level, just read traction, you'll have it. But when you go to the self-implementer academy, you go through a very similar process. You just don't have the sage advice. You have, you know, uh um your experience plus the pure way to uh implement this. So it is totally accessible uh for everyone at this current size. And I highly recommend it's much easier to implement when you're small and use the principles to be safe and healthy and expand your company, not extend one particular part without the support of the other. So it's a holistic process, um, and it is an absolute game changer. I've never seen a tool work like this one. Now, you can do it wrong, like anything else, but almost have to go out of your way. It's very simple and it's very powerful, but you got to commit to the holistic nature. And once you understand that, you will start to see traction within three to six months, night and day difference. Within two years, you can be an award-winning company, literally a top 1%, 90-some percent employee engagement. My clients have won literally, you know, close to 200 individual best places to work award. And you cannot write a check for these. This is where an anonymous survey goes to your entire employees. And if they don't like a single thing, trust me, they're gonna, they're gonna express that in a fully anonymous uh workplace survey. Uh, so the having a third party look at a bunch of my work just says, listen, like these are the results. Amazing system, but you got to commit to it and you got to make the hard decisions. And the second big issue, you haven't asked me, but I'm just gonna throw it in as a bonus, is hanging on to the wrong people too long, especially when you're small, conflating your personal relationship with your business relationship. We can get into that, but not having an operating system is making it up every day. I don't like your odds on the operating system. Your odds increase exponentially when you shore up those six key components. And if you have the right mindset, and then thirdly, a tool to actually watch the change happen and ensure it's happening and having that real-time feedback of an active performance score, an active alignment score, and an active engagement score, an actual number, a score that you can just look at. Um, the reason I created the app is to really help with the subjectivity. Uh, some of my teams just instantly get it. Yeah, I see it. They don't get it, or they do get it. Other people like, come on, I'm not sure. How would you know that? So, like, this is really about setting context and simplifying and making things very objective. The subjectivity is killing you. Make everything as black and white as you can. The gray, the middle part, that's where companies die. Um, there's an old saying the road to business failure is paved with squirrels that could not decide.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

I love it. Woo! That's like a fire hose, listeners.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Yeah, sorry about that, but like it's a lot of information that usually takes about 90 minutes to download that. That was the accelerated uh talk.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Well, so we mentioned people, and I'm just gonna kind of poke and prod in a couple areas uh working with these small businesses. I feel like the two things that really hit home, or it should for the business owners, is lack of clarity and wrong people, right? That's so many business owners seem to be at that stuck level. And we had a situation just this week where they had no clarity, it's family-owned business, right? We're all we all get along, and there's some people that are part of that, outsiders, and we just kind of come in when we want, we drink our water cooler, all that stuff. Well, we forced them to like tell us what you want, Mr. Business Owner, in three years. And he had this astronomical number, and the girl that was kind of the cancerous, she said, I don't want to work that hard, and she left. And and he was like, What do I do? And I said, Well, now you can achieve that goal. The one person that's holding you back is gone now, and you didn't have to fire her or anything. She left because you were crystal clear on what you want and what we're gonna do to get there. Is that kind of what you're talking about?

Data, Issues, And Process Made Simple

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Anything yeah, it's it's like you cannot accommodate, you can't get 10 people and say, Where do you want to go for lunch? Where do you want to go for lunch? And then everyone get what they want. Like, if we're gonna go as a team, we have to pick a restaurant and then the team goes to that. I know I suppose we could pick two spots. Uh, the people like this go there, but that that's not really a team dinner anymore, is it? So, like, so like it's really that simple. And and when someone's whenever I heard like, yeah, we can't do that, and I'm like, Yeah, with that attitude, you're a hundred percent right. I I believed you when you said that. So uh I actually believe we can because I have some peers. I've been in business for a while, and my competitors are doubling their company every three years. We're not, and my chief growth officer says, exact quote, I don't want to work that hard. So I just found the issue. It's you, and we want to grow that hard. We want to work hard. You don't want to do that? You know, hit the little thing, let the bus, shh, air brakes, door opens off. Like, good luck to her. I'm happy that conversation happened because she would have not been happy with where they're going. So, this is actually a way for her to win, the team to win, because they don't have that uh limitation, and the company can win. But what's really excited to exciting to me, Michael, is we don't think about this. And why I say you don't need to hang on to the wrong people for more than a minute. As soon as you come to the realization, oh my God, this is not the right person, and then they're not in the right seat. As soon as you like get that, like not having that conversation the next day, that's where your business starts to die when you don't say anything for 30 days, 90 days, a year, two years. My point is when you hang on to the wrong person, you're stealing the opportunity from the right person who's suffering at a bad company with a bad boss, and they would thrive in your organization and this place would light up like a Christmas tree as soon as they got here, considering the attitude of the last one. And oh, by the way, when you say, Oh, they didn't have to fire them, like I hear that all the time. That is not a badge of honor. When someone is the wrong person and they take themselves out, they're give showing you mercy. They are literally doing you a favor. You should never let someone uh do you a favor. You should be proactive and do what's right for the business. And that includes the existing teammates, the hiring the wrong person, putting up with uh poor accountability. Uh if I have four people that really care and one that doesn't, man, that is the most disrespectful thing I can do to the four that get it, want it, have the capacity, are here fully bought into my VTO and someone else, like you're asking to go out of business. You are asking to not be profitable by allowing that to happen. You know, we don't we don't put we don't grow weeds next to award-winning, you know, flowers, w roses, you know, tulips, those kinds of things. We don't.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Yeah. No, great, great stuff. So on the clarity, I know for a lot of business owners uh in your experience, does that come from the team? Does that come from the business owner? I mean, obviously it's his or her business, but how do they gather that information? Because I know a lot of small business owners are struggling with I can't even think three years from now. I'm just trying to figure out how to make payroll this week and put out these fires and stuff. So how can they see past what they already have, if that makes sense?

Traction: Building A 90-Day World

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Yeah, so like you don't get to grow just because you stick around, right? Like you might get a half a percent or a percent just for being here another year. So I guess there is some benefit to not dying, right? Being in business, right, for five years, like that, like it's a snowball, it gets bigger at the bottom of the mountain. Like the higher up you start, the bigger it gets. However, um it's okay to be operating the business in the year and week you live in. But you know, back to the payroll, are uh are you balancing profit and growth? So let's talk about the rule 30. And this is something that not a lot of people talk about unless you're a funded VC or a startup or a Silicon Valley person. Um, but basically the rule 30, and it could be the rule 20 or 40 or whatever you want it to be, but rule 30 seems to be like a reasonable place to start. And what the rule of 30 is essentially is you take your growth percentage. We're gonna grow 10%. We're gonna go from 1 million to 1.1 million next year. Um, you take your growth percentage and your profit, your EBITDA, earnings before interest tax, depreciation, amorization, amortization, like the entrepreneurial scorecard, EBIT or EBITDA, whatever you're looking at. Um, so basically, if you're gonna grow 30%, you're gonna make zero dollars, you're gonna break even. If you're gonna grow 20%, you're gonna make 10% EBITDA. If you're not gonna grow at all, you're gonna make 30% EBITDA and you're gonna have a cash machine, you're gonna get lean and mean and be super profitable. So it's really hard to grow 30% and be 30% EBITDA. Like it happens. I have clients that can pull that off, but these are experienced people that have crossed many gates before they get to me, and then I continue to help bolster them for you know continued demands of stratospheric growth. Oh, by the way, if you don't have those six key components fully locked down and you try to double your company, ooh, that's gonna hurt. You might, you might, you might get away with it, uh, but you might not live, right? You know, it's not you're not killing companies through starvation, it's through indigestion. Back to Jim Collins, a quote that he has by trying to eat too many things. So, like all this stuff is connected, right? At the end of the day, but the vision comes from the owner and the nucleus, the core of the team is like, oh my gosh, if this was my company, I'd want the same thing. Like, I don't have a million dollars to start a company, or I don't have the stress profile to deal with payroll. I just want to, you know, be an executive or a manager. And this vision lines up perfectly with my personal vision. So I get to be the same person at home as I get to be at work because my natural strengths uh can be flexed here. Uh, the mission of this organization is near and dear to my heart. It's not just about the money. I generally love being surrounded by normal people for eight to 10 hours a day. The world's crazy. Half the world thinks this, the other half thinks this. Like a company is just a microcosm of the world. How about we provide a third of someone's life that isn't dysfunctional? People say, Oh, I want my company to be like a family. And careful. Most families are dysfunctional, right? So, like wishing that on uh a second, like a second place of dysfunction, yeah, I don't think that's a good, that's a good selling point. How about you are the place where people can come where common sense is king. We trust, respect each other, we lift each other up, we hold each other accountable. And if you've ever been on a high-performing team, whether that's an athletic team, a military team, an academic team, you know a great teammate will never let their teammate down. They will go through pain and suffering personally, uh, and they'll make that sacrifice for the greater good. A poor teammate will always sacrifice the team for their personal comfort. So even if your business isn't in the life or death business, um, having a mindset like this is important because failing in business, you might wish you were dead, quite frankly. Like one of the hardest times of my life is when I crashed a company, you know, a company that everyone said, Oh, this is gonna be a winner. Yeah, you're a genius. Like, yeah, that echo chamber all thought that was a great idea. The market, they thought otherwise, right? I need another$50 million and about five or six years of education to change and disrupt an industry was a way bigger task than we thought it was. But it was a humbling experience. Uh, and the other thing is is it's hard to tell somebody who's making seven figures in income annually that they're wrong about anything. It's usually after a good failure, is when entrepreneurs are really open, really humbled and understand, you know, they don't have a cape or x-ray vision, and uh, we're all just trying to figure it out at the end of the day. But uh, you asked, and that is is how it works is is there has to be a nucleus, and it's one. And finding people that are like, you know, I'm like 94% into your vision, I could probably deal with that. I'm like 22% into your vision, I most definitely can't deal with that.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Yeah, that's that's golden advice. I know you've wet the ears of all of our listeners, they probably want to know where they can find you, hook up with you. Are you on social media? Do you offer blogs?

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Yeah, send me a LinkedIn invite, you know, Chris Hallberg. Yeah, I'm easy to find on LinkedIn. Um, you know, if you want to email and talk to me, you know, Chris at goexpand uh.com is a quick short one to give you. Uh the Business Sargent website is where people can get the online course. And then of course they can go to EOS worldwide slash Chris Hallberg, and I think that they can find me there. And um love to connect with people and uh and uh you know, send me an email, send me a question, love to engage uh with your listeners.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Is your platform go expand? Is that for those that have gone through the entire EOS system?

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Yeah, it's it's whether you're self-implementing through the implementer um academy or you're working with a professional certified or expert implementer. And then if you're not even an EOS fan, you you know, you just want a generic operating system. We have a non-EOS version as well, but you know, the majority of the people signing up are EOS friendly. I've launched it to the EOS community. My 850 fellow implementers uh are are it's brand new. We just only been out for a few months, so we're just migrating some clients over, uh, getting feedback. It's really been going well, but it's software. The stuff's never done. But it it's certainly ready, yeah, ready for prime time, and we're enjoying ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Yeah, it looks very helpful. So I encourage our listeners to A, buy the book, B, go follow you, connect with you on LinkedIn, check out the software, and lastly, I want to thank you for your service as well and all the good things we're doing and sharing with our uh communities in the entrepreneurial world. I always kind of end with a last question, and that is if you're in a room of business owners, different sizes, different seasons, different income levels, what's one last thing that could be applicable to all of them? It's an insight, a quote, uh, one last book or experience that you've had.

Implementing EOS As A Small Business

SPEAKER_00 39:08

If you want to make a horrible decision, ask everybody. Isn't that the truth? Yeah, and part two to that is stick to your guns. I see a lot of people give up just like literally minutes before it was gonna happen. So I know it sounds cliche, but you're the entrepreneur. Like no one cares like you do. Everyone can just get another job. You might have to live under an under overpass for a you know what I mean? Like taking yourself, it's like this, you've got it all on the line. And when your gut's like, I know this is the right thing, you might not just have the right people around you. So that I'm gonna go back to that because when you find your puzzle piece, pieces, the people that line up with you, man, this is fun. When you are fighting internally, your very own people to to execute your vision, man, you're just making this way harder than it needs to be. And well, by the way, it's already hard enough. So let's not borrow pain from the future. There's plenty today.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Absolutely. Well, you've been a wealth of information today. I appreciate you and wish you continued success. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate it. My pleasure. My pleasure. Thank you for listening to Small Business Pivots. This podcast is created and produced by my company, Boss. Our business is growing yours. Boss offers flexible business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at Business Ownership Simplified.com. If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and share it as well. If you need help growing your business, email me at Michael at michaeldmorrison.com. We'll see you next time on Small Business Pivots.