Build an Agency Beyond You

How do you grow an estate agency without remaining at the centre of every decision? EOS implementer Adrian Lomas joins Estate Agency X to explain how a clear vision, genuine core values and a consistent operating system can create greater focus across a leadership team.

The episode explores right people in the right seats, Level 10 meetings, 90-day priorities and the powerful relationship between a visionary owner and an operational integrator. Adrian also shares how these principles helped him rebuild, scale and eventually exit his own business.

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This episode is sponsored by Iceberg Digital, the AI Operating System for Estate Agents. They replace outdated CRMs, disconnected marketing tools, and manual prospecting with one intelligent, AI-driven ecosystem, built to increase revenue per employee and future-proof your agency. https://iceberg-digital.co.uk/

Transcript

Welcome And What EOS Means

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to this episode of Estate Agency X. Today, myself and Rob are talking to Adrian Lomas, who is an EOS implementer. That probably doesn't mean a great deal to you, but an EOS implementer is somebody that has followed the book Traction, which talks about an entrepreneurial operating system. It was written by a guy called Geno Wickman, and it is a way of running your business more successfully to have more clarity around what you do and know what direction you're going in. Adrian is one of the mentors that comes in to talk to agents on our 18 cores business accelerator program that we put agents through. And he talks to people about how to do it. So today we dig into his backstory, the businesses that he runs, the problems that he faced, and the things that he finds when he took he works with businesses that really help them to put the rocket fuel into what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Estate ANCX, the UK's number one State Agency podcast discussing the future of Estate Agency, entrepreneurship and business.

Adrian’s Background And Exit Story

SPEAKER_03 1:10

Okay, Adrian, thanks for coming in. Can you just give the listener a bit of background on yourself?

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Sure. Well, I used my own company back in the last century, if you like. I was a digital creative agency up in the Northwest and uh grew the agency up there. And uh at some stage I discovered the EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system, implemented that into my business, grew a business, and effectively sold the business in 2019 for a healthy sum. And uh after that I worked for the company for like four years, came through the sort of the uh uh exit, if you like. Um, and then picked up EOS again, picked up a book, a book called Traction, uh, read it, made sense. And uh basically I bought a franchise. And since then I've just been help helping uh leadership teams to get what they want from their business. That's simply what I do. I just help and work with entrepreneurial leadership teams to help them to implement a complete proven system just using simple, practical tools. That's what I do.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

I love it. And you you I've seen you do that on our 18 cores workshop, do it brilliantly. Um so, but I want to just dig into some of the things that the listeners might find relatable because you know they they're all the state agents mostly listening to this uh show, and they might think like, okay, you mentioned digital marketing business. Are we talking about digital marketing? Are we talking about EOS traction business? Um so um really I don't know if you'd you'd sort of maybe summarise it differently to me, but for my I've got a lot of uh, you know, experience with traction as well and EOS, and I think it's I think it's really something that helps a business owner to give give them clarity around what's the fucking point of your business? Like why does it even exist and how does it exist? Um and so I what was it that you were going through in your old businesses the first time that you picked up the book and thought like this is the answer to my problems?

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Yeah. Yeah, so the story is that I was running my agency and you know it's doing well. We were working with Red Bull, Law Rashley Tate next, you know, a lot of good brands that we're working with from uh from a creative point. But I I think a bit of hubris kicked in and life-changing things. 2013 was my horrible year. My mum passed away, went through divorce, which was never nice. And then I was told it overtraded. So effectively I'd lost Leplot in my own company, you know. Now I'm in a point where my business, I'm told to close the door because I'm financially broke, and also my business is is sort of uh told to wrap it up. Um, but it was at that point when I was living under my desk, which I literally did, lived under my desk for three months of my life. Somebody gave me the book Traction. The Gino Whitman wrote

The Year Everything Broke

SPEAKER_02 4:00

it, a book on how to run a business. And I read it and I thought, it's quite simplistic. And I probably know most of this stuff, but I don't think I'm really doing it properly. I didn't have the rigour in my business to do it. I was, you know, sleeping under my desk skin and therefore not getting it right. And so when I read the book and read the process and put it into place in my business, it just managed to over time, not immediately, it's not a quick fix, but over time managed to scale back up and got to the point over sort of six years where we then got to a great exit uh because we ran our business rigorously on EOS, a set of simple tools.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

How do you help someone with when you when you start reading Traction, one of the first parts of the book, if I remember rightly, I might have got it in the wrong order, but one of the first parts of the book that I remember is um uh starting to try to get you to understand what the vision of your company is and the 10-year goal and the three-year goal and all of that sort of stuff. And I think as a business owner, um well, maybe I'm just saying this because this is how I look at things, but one of the problems that I had, let's put it this way, um, is you can answer the questions. You know, when even when you were living under the desk, you could have answered the questions.

SPEAKER_05 5:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Um but maybe it's only in hindsight when you've had the great exit six years later that you could see you answered the questions incorrectly. Right. Right? How do you how do you how does someone someone's listening to this and they think they're thinking to themselves, maybe right, I'll get that book. Yeah, and that's how sort of it. Yeah. And they'll answer the questions. Yes. They'll answer the questions wrongly, probably. Right. So how do you how would you explain that to someone?

SPEAKER_02 5:48

Yeah, look, it's tricky. The book is out there, uh, as are many other books, uh, you know, for people to read, and if it resonates with them, and they can take action with it. That's the book is written in that way. Now, as we know, it's sometimes very hard to see uh to read the writing on the jar when you're inside the jar, if that makes sense. And so sometimes you need that person on the outside. It's why you have a coach in the gym just to get you to go that extra mile, push you that but a bit more, see it from their viewpoint. And that's what I now do. So, you know, I I find, you know, for everybody that buys a book or gets the book or whatever, you know, nine uh people or companies will do it themselves, because they may have some sort of uh rigor that can do it. Not I I find that many don't really follow it through properly.

SPEAKER_05 6:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Uh, but some are the fashion, some start to create their own. And if that works, great, I'm up for that. But you know, what there are is that, you know, from one out of every nine, if you like, nine or ten, that they just need that extra support. And that's when I come into it. You know, I I do three things. One, I teach what EOS is about, I facilitate the wisdom in the room so I can see what's going on and call it out. I see what people's heads are or talking or not talking, what they're saying. You know what I mean? I can I can call it out from that point of view and therefore facilitate and then also coach them with the aim of getting them to run on one system, one language, company-wide, so then everybody is clear of the one vision. Yeah. Because that's the other problem we find is that, you know, a director, a founder or whatever will have a vision, but nobody else has got that same vision. You know, that if it's a if we're all looking at a different vision, then it's gonna be a much harder journey. We've got to make sure we've got a clear aligned vision. We're all shared and we're all trying to get there as quickly as possible.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

And what about when, like, you know, you you you arrive at a business to help them and they don't have a vision, like, you know, because in their mind, they are just an estate agent. Yeah. You know, it's like, well, you know, it's all very American, isn't it? This whole idea of a vision and a mission. We're just an estate agent. What's the problem? Like, you know, there's ten of us on the high street. Like, what do you want me to say? I'm an estate agent. Yes, yes. How do they how do you like because EOS works across any business? So and every every business thinks, oh, yeah, but we're different because we're just an estate agent. Yes. And we're different because we're just a now business, and we're different because we're just this. Yes, yes. Where does it where does the conversation go?

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Well, it's it's helping, and this is why it sometimes takes a while. You know, as I said, it's not a quick fix. We sometimes have to work to figure out what the passion is. What are we doing here? What's the passion? What's the end goal? You know, so for instance, if I have a team who says, Yeah, we want to sell for X amount, yeah, that's nice. That's gonna inspire the directors, but not the rest of the people in the organization. We've got to figure out what really makes a difference. So is it, you know, we housed X amount of people, we we dominate this community or this geographic area, or we we only work in this one sector and we are the best at this sector. It's about creating what that purpose is, that vision is that you want to be. And if everybody can align to it in that organization, then that's when we can start to really dominate whatever that is. And it isn't always about being the biggest and best. It really isn't. I've worked with some teams that want more, but then realise actually, you know, that's what I want. It might actually be more, might be more flexibility, more time, or whatever it is. So it's whatever it means to the leaders of the organization. That's what we're trying to get to. The leaders all clear on the vision. Because that's when it makes it easier. Because most times the leaders are not allied.

unknown 9:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

And that's when it's a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Um, core values.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Yes. Love them.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

So we've obviously, I mean, I learned a lot from core values because I've obviously gone through the similar process years ago. Yes. Um, and quite a lot of the uh people we come across that you know, you you met even at the beginning of the year, had some core values, but then uh reinventing them because they're realising that it's just I've got something maybe from someone else or Chat GBT. Chat GBT, I'll just sort of put on a wall, and I hope that sort of that's in place. So um what's the difference between someone having corvets on a wall and then actually someone really putting corvée

Vision Clarity And Outside Perspective

SPEAKER_01 10:10

in place? What would you say are like the drivers for them to make it actually of a meaning to a strategy or something within the business?

SPEAKER_02 10:19

So let me take a back step on that. If we're to think that we've got some vision that we want to go with this business, whatever it is, in order to get there, I think it's fair to say that we should have as many of the right people in our organization to get helping us get there. Right people in the right seats. So what I mean by that is if if we want to grow a business, we're probably gonna need some finance, we're gonna need some arts, whatever it is, uh lent lettings or sales. We're gonna need key seats in our business. And we've got to define what those are, and then we've got to list out what we want people to do in those seats. And only then do we then see if we've got the right people to sit in those seats. That's the right seats, right? So we've got to assess on uh uh whether they also meet our values. Because if we think about it, if you have worked with somebody who just really grates on you, but it's probably good at sales and good on the numbers and so on, you know, what do you do with somebody like that? I mean, most people are like, okay, they're hitting the numbers. Piss me off a little bit, to be fair, but they're hitting the numbers. So what they tend to do is they promote these people into more leaders. And yet your other people that are really, really nice people, great people, the ones that you get on with are like, why are you doing that? You know, these people are just offended because these people meet your values. These are the ones that really align with you, whether it's professionalism, team spirits, whether it's communication, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. These are the ones which align. We've got to make sure that we've got the people align from a values point of view, because we then get on with them, build our team. We've also got to make sure that they align from a seat, because when they are in that seat, that they actually get it, they want it, and they've got the capacity to sit in that seat and get the job done. This is what we look for when we're looking for right people in the right seats. They meet us from a values point of view and they're getting the job done that we want them to get done. They are superstars. And if we can get nearer to 100% right people, right seats, every time we get nearer to it, you know, it's like releasing the handbrake on a big car, if you like. You can just put your foot on the accelerator of the business a bit more because we've got less drag. If we've got people that don't meet our values, it's just gonna be really draggy and it's hard.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

And a a business owner listening to that, thinking, I've got I've got a person in my company that hits those targets. Um, and they do piss me off. Yeah. They do things that annoy me, that don't that the that the set the salesperson would maybe think doesn't affect the core part of the job, because the core part of the job was hitting the targets and they hit and smash their targets. And the business owner, it grates them because it doesn't align with their particular values in life. Um and they would they would argue, I'm not saying I would necessarily, but they would argue to you like, okay, but the whole point of us, well not the whole point, but the first point of us being here is to make a profit. And I need this person, why would I why would I throw them out the door? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

So I never uh recommend they throw them out the door. What I recommend is using the EOS tools to put a spotlight on the issue. Because if we put spotlight on the issue and say, well, actually, the reason that this person grates on us is because of X, Y, and Z. Now we've got some data. Now we can choose to do something about it. One option is put up with it. We could. We have been. So do we carry on doing that? Or do we aim to bring them up, point it out, and say, actually, you know, creative about the possible, that's one of our values, but yeah, I never see that in you. Can you over the next week or two weeks demonstrate to me how you can be creative about the possible? And then they like start to see if they can do it. And if they can do that, it's almost like they're starting to rise to a line with the others. Or they may realize, I don't fit here. Because if somebody is in a company and they don't meet with the company values, they feel it as much as you feel it, that they don't fit in. And at some stage, they will probably exit if there is more of these people in this cult, this culture of people that do it this way. And I'm starting to be the odd one out, maybe it's hard and I go.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

Yeah. And then, but then that wouldn't that business owner turn around and go, but I but I don't want them to go. They hit, they, they break their, they hit all their targets.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

I I'm still saying we've got a choice here. We're sort of saying, okay, they're breaking records for us that are amazing. I reward you or I give you. You can do that. I'm not saying you can't do it. The EOS does not force you to do it. It just says, okay, this is the problem. This is why all of my superstars are, you know, now getting pissed off and leaving because we're rewarding somebody that's doing their sales, but we just don't. So we you've got to look at the data in order to make the smart, educated decision. Yeah. That's what it's about. And that's what EOS is about, is creating that data for us to then come together and say, what shall we do? Let's reward this person just because they're great sales, bloody annoying as they are. Or do we start to backfill? Do we start to bring them up? Do we recruit while this is happening and then replace? I don't know what it is. It's their strategy, their plan, but we're using the data, not good, to run the business.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

So it's like uh Sue is the superstar salesperson. She never comes to the morning meetings on time, she's always late. Yeah. It pisses me off as the manager. Yeah. Um, and I've got other members of the team who do come to the meeting on time. Um they're not as good at at sales as Sue. Yeah. Um, I guess that's the business owner. What we're saying there is, what do you want? Yeah. Are you gonna get over the fact that Sue doesn't come to work and neither do uh on time for the meetings and neither does everybody else need to anymore? Yeah. Or is it important to you that these people come to the meetings, in which case, like, but do something about it.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

That's exactly right. We you you have the choice and we know what it is. Because in those instances, we tend to find, well, Sue's always late, so I'm gonna be late. Yeah. Sue does it this way, and she's a superstar, and she gets a bonus. I'm now gonna start to emulate. And you start to people gravitate towards this, dare I say, a cancerous element in the business. Or Sue gets special treatment. Yeah. I wouldn't get away with being like. It's Sue. She does just because she hits the numbers, but she's bloody annoying and we don't like it. And here's the thing: normally, when people like that are either leave or exited, normally exited, then normally the rest of the team are like, why did you keep it for so long?

SPEAKER_05 17:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

And, you know, then they're sort of waiting for you to make it as a leader, they're waiting for you to make a smart decision, which we all know. We know what Sue is like this. But what are you going to do about it?

SPEAKER_03 17:12

It's interesting because um I know that um uh a question that I often ask uh a group of business owners is like um put your hand up if in hindsight there's somebody that works for you that you if you could go back, you probably wouldn't rehire. Yeah. And they all put their hand up. Yeah. And then it's like, why are they still working for you? Absolutely. I mean, and it and we've all done it. Yes, and and so that's the that's the blocker, isn't it? It's like almost the better the devil you know, like you know, but the flip side of that, who uh I think Julia said this to me, who who, you know, you're friends with Julia as well. Like the flip side of that is is it better than the devil you know, or is it better to have a hole than an asshole? You know, it's like is it is it that much of a big deal to think that this company could run without this person that you actually wish you'd probably never hired? What might the company look like? Yes, yes. Is it just that you don't want to have the conversation? Is it just that you're not equipped to have the conversation? Yes, like you say, like you know, actually being able to identify what the problem is, I found personally gave empowered me to be able to have nice, calm conversations with people. Exactly. Instead of like, I've let it get to the point whereby like I've lost the plot now and I'm shouting at somebody unnecessarily.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Exactly. And that that's exactly the point. It's using the data to have an educated decision and an educated conversation, as opposed to it being an emotive one or a gut feeling, as I call it, or gut means gave up thinking, as Keith Cunningham uh calls it. So I I think if we can use the data for us to stay calm, I always recommend that we use at least three reference points in a why is

Core Values And Right Seats

SPEAKER_02 19:00

Sue doing this, what's it doing to others? This is the fact. So we're using facts about a person with the aim of bringing them up, bringing them up to the level of all the others. And they can sometimes turn around into being real superstars because they've now meeting the culture, they understand the rules of the game, because that's all we've got is a set of rules of game packaged around values and and and so on. And so they now understand what we've got to do in this team to play the rules to win at it, yeah, to get to that vision that we're learning that we're trying to get to.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Just on that last bit on the c uh core values, if someone has got them on their wall or they've got them because they've they've been told I've got to have them, or I've been I've read this book and it says about core values and I've credited them. Yeah, what would you is there any particular questions you tend to ask those owners to maybe get them to see whether they are the correct ones?

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Yes. Yeah, use uh there's an EOS tool, you can download it, you can use it called the people analyzer.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

It's just dead simple because a lot of things are quite simple. But what we're gonna do is score each of the people. We've gotta make sure that the directors of the business meet the values because the last thing we want is to launch the values or have the values on the wall, and everybody behind us laughing, because that is not professional, yeah, you know, ambition. No, we're not. You know, they just laugh at it. But yes, Sandra and Marketing's ticker box that we've done, all of the values are on the wall, try and remember the police. That's what happens. But no, we've got to have it where the directors and the leadership team are all scored in this. People analyze it to know whether they plus, plus means that they always ref uh are one of those values. Plus minus, it's sort of a 50-50 and a minus, hardly ever. You know, coming back to you know, a Bob or a Sandra, you know, professional, hardly ever. Minus. Do we want to work with somebody like that? No, do we not? You know, so we've got to have make sure that those values are very realistic, not aspirational. We do not want ones that we are not these, but we'd love to be. Because again, it's not realistic. They've got to be genuinely realistic.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Yeah, because obviously, back back of our workshop, you know, I think that a lot of the clients were getting to the point of going for their core values, and then you had to almost tease them back because they start to think about the marketing and then start to change into the marketing. But it's actually like these are internal sets of values.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, correct. Yes, we start with the internal. This is very important that the values are created for the internal team. It's not a marketing exercise at all. This is we're gonna create, we're gonna figure out what the values are. Because the values are there, we've just got to unpick them and figure out what they are, and then we've got to use them to make sure that you know as many of our people are meeting our values as possible. Because it is a fact that any person that we pick up from our values that is not meeting our values, they're bloody hard work. We we just struggle with it. So that's why we've got to use it and the people analyze the tool, simple, but use it to just use the values to w know whether we've got the right people in our organization.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

So um we've got clients obviously that have used uh level 10 meetings. Okay. And they and the ones that I've seen have done it religiously have done it really well, especially in their agencies. So um notorious in a state agency is morning meetings and meetings tend to just get together, chat some random stuff, go on a tangent, come away, everyone's a bit confused. Yeah. And then no one really knows the direction of going forward. Yeah. Or there's a preconceived agenda for why the meeting needs to take place because it's never really structured in in place. It's just we need that meeting because something's happened now and uh we this is what we need to get out of it. So like the importance of having like um maybe explain to any listeners out there level 10 meeting what does that really look like and and why it's important maybe to have a structure to a meeting even if it might not necessarily be the level 10 straight away but the importance of having that structure when you go into it.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

So um for the audience level 10 is what the heck is it level 10? Basically level 10 means it's a 10 out of 10 meeting. I mean why should we have crap meetings, right? Why should we all come together, spend our time, just calculate the time in a meeting room you know there's 10 people X amount of that is an expensive meeting. So we've got to have great meetings. So we call it a level 10 because we want a 10 out of 10 not a 5 out of 10 meeting and we're gonna score it to know how good a meeting is that's the background to the name. But why do we have a weekly meeting? Well what we're doing it comes back to the the the vision because if we're creating a vision that you know for hypothetically we want to go up this mountain not this one this mountain. So we're clear what that looks like whether it's an amount of properties or you know customers or a geographic that's what it's looking like. And we've got some sort of time scale however long five 10 15 you choose it's your business not mine. But if we've got that mountain we've therefore got to say right that's what the top is roughly looking like not clearly it's too far. We've got to then come down it and say well in three years time what's it looking like so what's the picture you know numbers teams properties deals all that sort of stuff what's the one year plan down here? What are we doing in the next four quarters to to get to that mountaintop so we've now got a plan we've now got some smart goals we then bring it down into quarters and say right what are we going to do for the next 90 days we can hold energy for 90 days anything much longer we lose interest people you know lose focus but if we know what we're doing in a quarter now we measure it weekly and every week we want to know that if we're here and we're going on a journey to do that in a quarter we've now got a track of 12 13 weeks in a quarter and we're just simply checking it. Number of calls made number of deals number of viewings number what is it that creates a good week not an amazing week because that's stretching people just a good week a good week to go to a great quarter great quarter one year plan one year three year long range. So that's why it brings it from long range down to a week and in that weekly meeting we're coming together to say have we done what we said we're gonna do to have a good week you know have we done the big things the big goals what we call rocks what's our scorecard looking like like is our are there issues if it's issues is it off track or on track if it's off track is it an issue do we need to talk about it so what we're doing is setting a track from here to there over a quarter and we're just we checking weekly to to remove issues solve issues so as we have a really great quarter. That's the reason we have a weekly level 10 meeting because at the end of it we score and say was it a 10 out of 10 or a 5 out of 10 and we get the learnings.

SPEAKER_05 26:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

The state state agents most estate agents out there will have they'd have probably started working in a corporate state agency where they would say there is structure for what's that and then the structure is have these daily meetings about what's going on in our with our viewings, our valuations, our sales progressions, everybody sets their tasks off you go and do it. And they they take that structure and they start their own business and they carry on like that. But what they didn't realise is that the the the level above their pay grade the corporate had a vision and the mountaintop and they'd worked it all the way back down to you guys just do this part. But then what they did was they went off and set up a business where the only vision they had was the daily whiteboard. Yes. And and yes okay you could argue like yeah but if we hit all our daily targets then we're all going to be happy.

SPEAKER_04 27:47

Yeah no but that then then what?

SPEAKER_03 27:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 27:49

It'll be the same it'll be groundhog day forever won't it?

SPEAKER_03 27:53

Absolutely yeah yeah so I think that's where it starts to change when you start looking ahead and go like I know you you could hit your targets every day and I'm sure you would have a nice life but what about in three years? Like you know it could be slightly different. Yes. What if you when will you open a new branch? Of course will you go to a new area? Yeah. I spoke to a a a a bigger estate agency a couple of years ago I was at their annual conference and at the annual conference they said we made this acquisition we might make more and and then I went out for dinner with the leadership team and I was chatting to the to the to the a founder and I was saying like so we are you making more or not? And he was like well Ben's on the deal right and I was like well yeah but are you or aren't you? Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah you know so you've got to have a you've got to know where you're going absolutely and the company the team's got to go with you.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Yeah you're obviously you you know we get you in for one day as a part of our accelerator programme and you know it's a it's a particular way that we do our process

Handling The Brilliant Problem Employee

SPEAKER_01 28:49

but obviously you go into businesses and start to support them in implementing those tools. Yes. So you're obviously a little bit more on the cold face with a lot of those businesses and see maybe some more developers behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_05 29:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

So like things like that uh level 10 meeting it's a new initiative new strategy new tool that's come into it. Yeah like how how do you find on average you know the businesses you work with it takes for them to get that into um it's a no-brainer now yeah why we do this. Yeah and like what what do you commonly find in just in case we've got an agency owner out there who's whether they want to look at the level 10, engage with you, yeah start up process or try it like you said the not the nine out of ten try and do it themselves how do you find that it how long does you reckon it takes yeah it's a generalization of we're talking averages here but what we tend to say is over two years it takes to go from learning to really fully embedding it that we fully run on it.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Some teams will think that they can do it quite quickly and some do pick it up quicker than others but what we're doing is we're working with leadership teams first before we go and confuse the rest of the organisation because there's nothing worse. You know a visionary if there's a visionary on the uh listening to this they're the ones that pick up the books they go to conferences they read lots of stuff they come into the meeting 20 ideas and the rest of the team like oh my God they're they're here again you know 19 of those might be crap ideas one might take them to the moon two might actually kill the business but if we can block the the bad ideas and we just harness the one that's great. But that's a visionary and visionaries who would read the book would come in and try and force it in and say right let's do this and we do it for two or three weeks and then they're bored aren't they onto the next thing we can't have that. That's what creates confusion with all the team and so what we have to do is we've got to work I predominantly well I I solely work with the leadership team and in order to really embed it and learn it just in the comfort of just that space before we roll it out to the rest of the organization. So we're building a rigor we're learning it because we've got to get to the point where the leadership team can teach it to the next level and to Lynette because we've got to make sure that it's consistent. We don't have to want to have bad ways come creeping into it you know where rather than a weekly meeting oh we'll do it once a fortnight or we're not gonna do rocks we we're gonna do like a you know every six months or something you know once they start to water things down and weaken it it changes it. So I teach them to run really purely so then they can then just roll it out and roll it out to the rest of the team and when we get everybody on one operating system all from the same vision traction organizer as we call it the VTO the the map where we're going that's when it really sends it that's when it goes and if we can get that visionary working with an what we have is sort of like somebody in between it I'm an uh EOS implementer but what we want is an integrator somebody just to harness the energy keep the plate spinning block the visionary from upsetting the machine that's when it really works you know because many times I walk in I meet them and the visionary is there also spinning the plates confusing stuff doing the accounts on a Sunday night you know doing the marketing with their son or whatever child. So they're wearing many hats I get that I've been there we've all been there but we've got to start to get it clear what those hats are and make sure that the visionary is is supported so well with an integrator when we get that that's the rocket fuel bit the integrator the the the visionary that's the bit that sends the business to the moon because we've now got a visionary entrepreneurial day to day sort of beating the drum just starts to sink.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

We had we had a a podcast a guest only like a couple of hours ago and she said that she started it started that process and then recognised that she needed an ops person to s to do that process. Yes. And she internally found that person because she said it's very good to because they were a sales progressor so they knew the process knew the company do you think that's quite because a lot of the as Mark said a lot of the owners that we tend to deal with or aid owners out there they tend to have set up on their own yeah taken some of the corporate stuff or another independent stuff do it realise they need an extra hand and then they go do I need admin do I need another salesperson do I need a negotiator? I'll do a negotiator first because I can still list yeah then they go to a point they go on expand so I'll get a lister on board and then we've got a load of team we'll just get an admin person and then they're still stuck in this circle of I've got an admin, maybe a couple of negs, maybe a couple of valuers I sometimes do a bit of listings, but I haven't really got anyone for that integrator role.

SPEAKER_05 33:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

Like do you find within the businesses that you work with is there a particular individual that you find if they haven't got that that's got a good skill set towards being an integrated in case someone's looking at they're thinking who are my team right seats yeah you know I work with a at Lettings a mortgage sort of company and uh property company and and had that very same experience where the visionary was in there, you know, spinning the plates visionary side things. But every time he was looking to get the answers he was finding that the answers were from this certain person who was in in sort of like op seat if you like and so afterwards I called it out and I said look you know there's something in this person you know young person uh female uh but she knew the answers and when he was like trying to think what where it was or what the answers were always looking at her and when we called this out it was like oh yeah we've probably got this we've got this integrated person who can sit in this seat and that's what we've got to do is say we need that who's the best person to sit in it is it the visionary or is it this person from that seat or is it somebody else but we've got to run the filter do they get it do they want it and do they have the capacity because what we want is people to sit in that seat who get it want it and then capacity the time skills the knowledge to do that job. And many times they are acquired on some people in the business the people that will be there sorting Christmas dues they will be sorting presents out they will know things about who step into any role just roll the sleeves up and get stuff done they're really good ones that can come through. They don't need to be loud and vocal they just have need the respect they can sit and be aware of a lot of things and just keep the balance of the machine going.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Yeah sorry goes do you find um with the changes in AI that you know I've only read an article around like how therapists are really struggling at the moment because people are taking therapy from chat GPT and stuff like that. Yeah do you do you find there's any there's any ever going to be any changes towards the that leadership vision where we go I don't really need someone like that.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

I can just go and chat to my Yeah I do I I do it myself I use it. I I think AI is brilliant. I think it's absolutely brilliant but we've got to use it in the right ways to get to to what we want. But what we do still think well what we need and I think we'll come back even more so is that human interaction even stronger I think I think that's still going to be needed. You know I think the the fact that when you're in a meeting with somebody and you just see how they're responding or not responding or saying something or not you know that's when you know I think AI at the moment is is not picking up on those things but it's a case that we've still got to have those human interactions and use the AI to support our journey you know the more of the how we can bring in the what why and where we want to go we can use the AI to help us on that journey.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

I agree with that. Yeah just going back to the integrated thing over the years I've I've spent a lot of time working with companies that try to find integrators and thinking about it myself what makes an integrator and I've boiled it down to one specific thing to find a good integrator you need somebody that did or was the type of person that would have laminated their school timetable.

Level 10 Meetings And Weekly Traction

SPEAKER_02 37:13

Because like you know that that person is your integrator provided that they they've got your core values and they're on board with the vision if you've got that person in your company that's your integral if if they do it methodically and they're proud of it and they do week after week, you know, if it's the one that just like oh I've got this new machine and Luke and we can do it and you've all got it and then they get bored and no no no they did it for the middle they knew that it was going to get torn and this was the most sensible thing to do.

SPEAKER_03 37:41

Yeah laminate this timetable and stick it inside the locker and it will never get lost to perfect you're an integrator perfect.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

Yeah and that's what it's about it's integrating all of the energy of all the people and just helping the machine to roll towards the plan the good weeks many good weeks create a great quarter great quarter takes us to our one year three year and our long range absolutely those integrators they're the they're the key to the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 38:06

Like you said like the visionaries the salespeople they make all the noise but like it is all just noise. You know as a visionary myself if I came back with traction and said this is a this is a great book this has got everything we need in it you guys should implement that and then I'd just leave the room you know what I mean of course and they'd go like uh anyway back to work then forget about it yeah yeah we'll wait for the next book next week where season well I think when I first met you I think you we'd um Haley'd put you into the corner and then she'd removed my desk completely out of the office.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

It's okay so are you doing some work over there or were you actually doing what you said you're gonna do last week.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

Absolutely I remember saying like when we'd first put all of this into place Haley said to me she called me something or other and said like no because we've got a meeting next Tuesday about that and I was like next Tuesday I'm not even around next Tuesday she's like you're not coming to the fucking meeting you'll just fuck the whole thing up and that's you know it's an interesting point if we can get to that point of where the fishery is not in a weekly level 10 meter don't need to be they don't need to we don't need a plan we've got a plan we're just working the plan.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

No new hanging that's right that's right bring them in every so often every quarter let's right what's the idea is let's go you know think about it all and and and that's absolutely great but not in the day to day of it.

SPEAKER_03 39:19

No no no absolutely not I love it. Um one of the things that I um I notice that's great about the the annual A team course that we do and the workshop that you do and some of our mentors um and you sort of touched on it before is um when you're trying to figure this out yourself either as just an integrator or maybe there's a leadership team or maybe there's two business partners and you know because none of you have actually lived through it or got the answers it all it's all it's all debatable. When you have a mentor or you come on a course or you do a workshop with yourself or you know employ your services what I what's great about it is that someone who you respect comes in, gives you the knowledge and shows you a way of solving this problem that you might have. And there's no argument because everybody goes well he said it it wasn't there's no egos. Yeah. They go well he said it so it's not your idea it's not my idea we might as well follow what they said and give it a go. And I guess like you say like if you don't follow it to the letter and you do decide well we're not gonna do quite what you said we're gonna make up our own version that's where I guess it starts to become like now it's all debatable. Yeah. Now we're gonna sit around and discuss like well you know this is no one really told us to do it this way though did they so like you know the fact that it's not working is like your fault.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:50

And you know off off we go down this path again. So the mentors the workshops the books all of this sort of stuff is like this is the shortcut.

SPEAKER_04 40:58

Yes this is the this is the quick way. That's right. You have to find a new way with you been here before already.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

Yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean Gino read all the books and found that there wasn't a system at the time this is going back a couple of decades there wasn't a system how to do it and that's why he read all the books he plainly admits he you know he he knit those ideas and knitted it all together to create one system. Is it the best system in the world? Well it's it's it you know there's others out there but it's about is Apple Max best or is it PC? But I don't know speak to me it's Max speak to my wife then she's PC you know who's right me of course but do you know I think I think as long as you pick one and all of you run on it that's why underdogs come through in sports we love it don't we it's like they're committed they're just going for it like follow it. So there's been some research carried out over the last five years uh with EOS uh true space linked with Gallup has done a load of research on companies either from the same base either running on a US with an implementer or or not and what they find is that with the an implementer it picks them up it gets them going and they they they they max out so much quicker than they do when they try and figure it out themselves. So many of them just stop it and drop and you can see the data it's now evidenced which is great.

SPEAKER_03 42:14

Because before that we didn't really know factually it was working but now the data is out it's it's been researched well that running on a US with an implementer it it improves by 35% and you know speeding up the the the yeah you can you as you say even without the data you could you could see that that would happen because it's like anything in life isn't it's like I I didn't I didn't do well at school I wasn't interested in their way of teaching and I mis I mistakenly thought I didn't like learning. I just didn't like learning how to work out a circumference of a cone but like you know when I or the way they were teaching it. Yeah but actually it learning is the secret to everything in and if someone can show you how to do this thing

Visionary Versus Integrator Plus Closing

SPEAKER_03 42:59

you're going to do it faster. Absolutely someone teaches you how to iscate will be faster than trying to isolate yourself.

SPEAKER_02 43:05

Yeah absolutely absolutely and that that's you know there's what 911 implementers like myself globally at the moment there's 44 across Europe you know and it's about finding the right one you know obviously I'm me, my style my backstory I'm I'm just one of many. But you know it's it's it's about finding the right coach the right system the right group of people mentors you find those it can really really pallor your journey you just got to find what works for you.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

And vice versa from that part like who do you who are the type of people that you tend to work best with is there a particular set of people that you go yeah I work with this particular model or really like if you are thinking right I've listened to this but I'm gonna read the book I've listened to this podcast I'm gonna start doing it like some self-reflection questions that you should be asking yourself before you take that journey yeah so that you're not one of those people that like oh I'm gonna get you in age I'm gonna do this and you do it all and then three well yeah I wanted to create my own level five meeting because like yeah well a few things there one is by all mean LinkedIn and I'll send you content and you can get onto the EOS website free of charge that's content on there.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

So you can learn that the traction book is free all of the other books get a grip and so on. They're all uh you know books with good resource in there. It's just that extra level above it if they really want that commitment and that's where we come into it. Now the the types of people um our sweet spot is generally companies between 10 and 250 so a good sized company you know they're normally over that sort of initial hump they've got some cash going but they're just hitting the ceiling frustrated accountability's not right a bit of politics you know all that sort of stuff you know is is is absolutely the perfect client for us open and honest that's what I push for and crave for you know we're gonna go deep on a lot of things and we've got to go into that from an open and honest standpoint. But you know it's it's teams that really want to go to the next level you know if they're okay with where they're at that's fine that's good there's space for them but if they want to go to the next level that's the perfect client that's teams that I really love helping with and bottom line is the teams I enjoy working with I just want to work with nice people. That's I I want to enjoy it and just feel part of it because when they're sending me messages you know oh I'm struggling with this person what do you think I just want to really enjoy working with them. So that's what one of the main criteria for me. And don't forget you can do the IT in court and spend a whole day with uh agent and figure it out for yourself right but I've got to ask you what are your core values oh that's that's a good one yeah mine mine is about health first I'm very very strong on health first um passionate about the possible has been one that I've had for a long long time um they're they're my two main ones when I ran my company Blue Leaf we got to the point where we had nine values which was a lot a lot to remember and the tattoo was long but you know I think it it's not about one or five or ten as long as you have got sort of like three, four, two core that's absolutely fine you know so yeah they're they're um they're mine.

SPEAKER_03 46:07

I love it. So if someone out there is passionate about the possible and uh they're also helpful then like you know they're probably quite well aligned with you yeah exactly absolutely I love it anything else that you want to add to that no you've been great Adrian thanks for having me on appreciate it thanks for listening to this Estate Agency X podcast can you make sure that you're actually subscribed to this podcast channel if you liked the content uh it helps us massively to get better guests and it just helps us generally so you might think you're subscribed but just have a double check whatever your um podcast platform of preference is that you're actually subscribed and then that way we can continue to grow the channel and get better and better guests for you