The Scalability Code

From IT Visionary to EOS Implementer: Clay Harris' Journey as an Entrepreneur and Consultant

• Matt Haney • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Join Matt Haney on The Scalability Code as he chats with Clay Harris, a full-time EOS implementer from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Clay shares his entrepreneurial journey from starting an IT services business in college to growing it into an award-winning company with over 100 employees and $20 million in revenue, thanks to EOS implementation. In this episode you’ll hear:

• The challenges and triumphs of managing a business
• The importance of clear communication
• The impact of a strong compensation philosophy
• Clay’s transition to becoming an EOS implementer
• Insights into the adaptability required for different businesses
• The creative way Clay approached compensation plans when managing people

Connect with Clay Harris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clayharris/

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Welcome to The Scalability Code, the podcast that helps you get out of the sh*t show and start growing your business. A few times each month, you'll hear stories and commentary from visionary entrepreneurs, EOS implementers, and fractional COOs about how they've taken businesses to Level 10. And now for your host, Matt Haney.

Matt Haney:

My name is Matt Haney. Welcome to the Scalability Code. Thanks for joining us today. We're joined with Clay Harris. Clay is a full-time EOS implementer and is joining us here today on the scalability code. So Clay, thanks for joining us.

Clay Harris:

Thanks for having me, Matt. It's nice to be here.

Matt Haney:

Awesome, man. Well, uh, as I do with some of my favorite implementer friends, I love to jump in and ask some questions and, and, uh, have a few conversations about what it's like to do the job that you and I get to do, which is, you know, you implement it and I integrate it. So give us a little bit of backstory. Tell us about yourself, where you're from, all these interesting things that, uh, you know, you've been asked your whole life, but give us some backstory here.

Clay Harris:

Yeah, sure. I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which is a home of the North Carolina Tar Heels, which is important.

Matt Haney:

Go blue.

Clay Harris:

well, you gotta pick the right shade,

Matt Haney:

Yeah, the baby blue.

Clay Harris:

the baby blue. That's right. So Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I've been here since 1997, which is when went to college at UNC and my senior year of college, me and a couple buddies started an IT services business and, bootstrapped that off the ground for until 20 12, 20 13, got stuck, 30 employees,$5 million of revenue and didn't really know what to do next. And, uh, ended up. Yeah, having coffee or lunch, we can't agree on which it was with another EOS implementer. a guy by the name of Brent Sprinkle, who's an expert EOS implementer, been doing it for a long time and he ended up helping us implement EOS at, at that company, you know, back in 2013. And, uh, it was off to the races. Ended up that company won all the awards, you know, Inc. 5,000, 12 years, uh, best, best places to work. Fastest growing privately held companies and, and all those sorts of things. Yeah. Had a really great run. Ended up over a hundred employees, over$20 million of revenue and, uh, and built a leadership team that sustains that company to this day. thanks. In no small part to the, to the EOS implementation. Yeah.

Matt Haney:

You were there for 27 years.

Clay Harris:

Yeah, 23 years or so. Yeah. And, just left the day-to-day of that business actually a year ago. Uh, yeah,

Matt Haney:

out on, on your own after being 20 plus years in your own company. I.

Clay Harris:

23 years of the same thing. And so,

Matt Haney:

I bet seeing something different is, is, uh, is still fun every single day. Right.

Clay Harris:

well, interestingly. As an EOS implementer, it's actually not that different than doing like outsourced it, which is what we did. We worked with similarly sized clients, right? Like less than a hundred users generally, and you're outsourcing their it, and of course you're fixing it. But as an EOS implementer, you're kind of zooming out a little bit on the business. But the magic is that like every business like thinks they're completely unique, but they all kind of deal with the same challenges, whether it's IT or running a business, right? So.

Matt Haney:

it's so funny. I look at everyone, they're like, well, you, my business is different. I'm like, you've got the same five core tenants as every other business in the world.

Clay Harris:

Uh,

Matt Haney:

a different widget, a different gadget, a different thing. So it's so true.

Clay Harris:

The six core components of EOS are so powerful because they translate from one business to the next for sure. Okay.

Matt Haney:

right, and, and every time someone tells you that their business is different, you're like, yeah, but you still have the same core principles you need to operate against.

Clay Harris:

That right.

Matt Haney:

back up. So you, you founded your company right outta college,

Clay Harris:

Yes, actually while I was,

Matt Haney:

from college,

Clay Harris:

while I was still in college. Yeah. While I was still in college. Yeah.

Matt Haney:

were you the operator the whole time or sort, did you, did you guys have different roles or what was the.

Clay Harris:

The three of us did. One guy, Ron was kind of the, the main founder, this is kind of his brainchild, brought us all along on the ride with him. And he, he was the CEO for years and years, and he stepped away from the day to day, and then I stepped into the role for the last eight or so years and, and took over for him. So he kind of switched seats along the way as one person kind of exited the day to day of the business. Another person stepped up, right?

Matt Haney:

And when did you realize, or how did you get EOS and where were like, how long was it? Do you remember what year you brought it into your company?

Clay Harris:

For sure. 2013. Uh, yeah, so we've been,

Matt Haney:

shit. That's cool.

Clay Harris:

yeah, a long time. We ran EOS still run EOS, for over a decade. and we brought,

Matt Haney:

you might

Clay Harris:

I.

Matt Haney:

cake for the one of, I mean, I, I maybe know a handful of companies that have been on it 10 or more years, but not many. Most, most of the growth in EOS has come over the last, you know, five to seven years I would say. so that's really cool. You guys were pioneering it early.

Clay Harris:

yeah, for sure. It really took off. Brent Sprinkle was our original implementer and he's still around And shout out Brent. Yep. He's a good dude.

Matt Haney:

in touch with him?

Clay Harris:

Of course. He was one of the key reasons I, uh. Decided to do this implementation thing after leaving the day to day. and the interesting thing is that, you know, it's, that's like the, it turns into a lifelong relationship, right? When you, when you like, kind of get to know someone really well and share the goods and the bads and the things that are working, the things aren't working regularly, develop meaningful relationships there.

Matt Haney:

it's really special to, uh, to have, and also you have that relationship with someone who knows, you can be really vulnerable with. I feel like I think you as the, as the president and CEO of your company, you know, uh, all of the folks that I generally work with, there's some point in time they say to me, man, I just. need to tell somebody how much it sucks right now. Like, I can't, I can't, I can't go back to my team and tell how, tell'em how it is today because of them and this, and I'm like, I hear you buddy. Like, everybody's got a tough day and, and uh, it's nice to have a relationship with a disinterested but interested third party.

Clay Harris:

Yeah, it's uh, it's lonely at the top.

Matt Haney:

It is lonely at the top, especially if

Clay Harris:

That's right.

Matt Haney:

The checks. so, alright, let, let me ask you, Well, I have so many questions, but I really want to know what made you kind of realize that it was time to, to move on from your former job, you know, the business you founded, and how did you guys get to the point where you were like, man, we're gonna, we're gonna package this thing up and move on.

Clay Harris:

Yeah, well, It's still closely held. what we've figured out is that we just we're getting in the way

Matt Haney:

yeah.

Clay Harris:

And it's actually just true that when you're getting in the way, you gotta get out of the way and bring someone who can like, kind of take it to the next level. So the same reason that we brought in EOS in 2013, was the same reason why in 20. 23, it was time to find someone else. We ran out of the arrows in the quiver that were fueling the growth. Right. And so

Matt Haney:

in and find someone as an operator or did you sell to another MSP or IT service company?

Clay Harris:

brought in another operator.

Matt Haney:

great. So you still own the company. You guys are still involved.

Clay Harris:

That's right. That, yeah. So.

Matt Haney:

That's even, that's twice as hard as selling it and waving your hands in the air and moving on. Now you still have the middle, the middle anguish of what's happening. They, you know, that's incredible. I incredibly admirable to do that.

Clay Harris:

Yeah, not, not the most, fun thing to do, you know, to kind of like look in the mirror and say, this isn't working. knock on wood. Proof is in the pudding. We'll see how it goes. Yeah.

Matt Haney:

been been like a year you said, or

Clay Harris:

Yeah, got some great folks in the company running it and, super excited to see what they'll do over the next 10 years. And, uh, I have a lot of confidence.

Matt Haney:

you're running up the os implementer business and tell me, obviously your 10 years of experience with EOS, you used it every day for 10 years. Like, how did that help you kinda get to the point where you were, you know, you knew that the next step was to be an implementer. Like what was that, what was that path like?

Clay Harris:

so after a month of kind of cleaning up the to-do list at home, right? kind of gets boring and. Sitting around being like, I'm not sure I wanna go work for someone. It's been a minute since, you know, I haven't, yeah.

Matt Haney:

years.

Clay Harris:

and so really what I was looking for was like, what can I do that like, kind of sparks me personally and kind of two routes presented themselves. One is just kind of just doing kind of generic consulting kind of work, right? Like where you're.

Matt Haney:

space. Yeah,

Clay Harris:

Yeah, kind of going around and, and figuring out a problem, solving it. And then the other thing that kind of popped up, I had a coffee with Brent and he was like, why don't you do this? You know how to do it. And what appealed to me is really like systems. I really like kind of working within a framework and not having to spend all of my time both creating the framework and the idea and then executing on the idea, but like, kind of just going out there and delivering, made a lot of sense to me to be an EOS implementer and, So yeah, after that I was off to the races bootcamp in August of last year and

Matt Haney:

so coming up on a year?

Clay Harris:

coming up on a year.

Matt Haney:

two questions. What's been the easiest and what's been the hardest part of, of your implementer journey? I mean, you, you, I don't know, it's, it's been a minute, but what are you, what are your thoughts in terms of what's been or the most eye-opening, maybe not the hardest?

Clay Harris:

Oh man, I, I, my mindset is to always avoid kind of making really broad generalizations, but, what's been easy getting in the room, right? Get, getting in the room with clients.'cause, you know, running EOS for a long time. It gives you a lot of like real world experience on how to apply the ideas, and you have a bunch of things to pull from in terms of like connecting the dots for clients. So that's, being in the room is easy. What I think the most eyeopening thing was like when you spend, for me, 20 plus years as one thing, no known to my network as it,

Matt Haney:

This guy.

Clay Harris:

yeah. What has been. I don't even know what the right word is. Surprisingly hard to kind of shift is that that network doesn't like activate overnight. Right? Like, and so, uh, getting out there and meeting with people and talking to'em, it's taking like a bunch of repetitions. We say in eos, you gotta tell, you gotta say it seven times before they hear you, you know? And that's true kind of with everything. So picking up the phone, sending the emails, meeting people at networking events and coffees, it just takes time and.

Matt Haney:

time and that's, it's, as I say, and I don't know where I came up with this, it's like I spend a lot of time eating my own soup. You know, as I'm building my own business and helping others build theirs, it's like a lot of times I need to take the advice I've been given for so long, which is just gotta keep going. And it's, it's hard. I mean, it's just, there's no solution to just keep persistent and staying

Clay Harris:

A hundred percent. That's right, a hundred percent.

Matt Haney:

That's awesome. well, tell me, what do you do when you're not, running IT companies for 24 years or rolling out your new EOS implementer, uh, business. What do you guys do for fun there in, in Chapel Hill?

Clay Harris:

Well, I'm a dad, so I got two beautiful girls who are

Matt Haney:

Oh, girl, dad. How old are they?

Clay Harris:

13 and 10, and uh,

Matt Haney:

that one is now 15 and I have a 9-year-old as well, so I know

Clay Harris:

there you go.

Matt Haney:

dealing with.

Clay Harris:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we got middle school and fourth grade and, uh, so the, you know, they're both 10 and 13 going on, you know, 19 or 34, but they do the sports and we go do that on the weekends. And they,

Matt Haney:

What are they into? What sports?

Clay Harris:

my older daughter is in the basketball and volleyball,

Matt Haney:

There you go.

Clay Harris:

and my younger daughter is into whatever her sister's into because she idolizes her. Uh, but she is, she's the more like kind of. She's a piano player and, and more artist Yeah. Of the family. So yeah, man, that's what we do all the time. So really my free time is spent driving kids places. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Matt Haney:

Unpaid Uber.

Clay Harris:

yeah. And like, I don't even, and they control the playlist, they demand car chargers for their devices. I mean, it is,

Matt Haney:

like anything else. I can get you my passengers here

Clay Harris:

I thought, I thought you were gonna stop at Starbucks. I'm sorry. Right.

Matt Haney:

$7 for a, a acai drink. I'm like, are you kidding me?

Clay Harris:

Listen, if the order was only two words, I'd place it, but it's 37 words and I don't know what, how to remember it.

Matt Haney:

don't have time for your nonsense kids.

Clay Harris:

That's right.

Matt Haney:

that's so funny. So, do you have a niche? I mean, are you trying to find a certain, I know there's some OS implementers that have. You know, no niche. They've got, you know, landscape companies and high tech companies and there's some that, have you found or have you, you've gotten to the point where you think finding a niche is of interest or you're out there being optimistic?

Clay Harris:

I am, I don't say no to anybody. I'm traveling, I'm doing virtual sessions. I have clients and from Washington, DC to Phoenix to Florida, and I have one client with a leadership team member in Spain and San Francisco. So we're all over the map. Yeah.

Matt Haney:

You know, I, I, I deal a lot with implementers that have, you know, they wanna stay in their market and they loathe this, the virtual sessions and I totally appreciate it. Like, listen, everybody's got their own, their own niche. But I do, I have had a lot of, virtual clients myself over the last seven years trying to figure out. One in New Jersey and one in Seattle and, and one in Dallas, and then one in Peoria, Illinois. And and I just love, the diversity you get from having people that aren't in your hometown. It does make a, a, a digital session a little more complicated, but I think if nobody knows any different than nobody knows any different, it's our

Clay Harris:

Well, I've got this cool setup. That board behind me is a digital white. Yeah, it's a vibe board. Yeah. Yeah. So, so we're, we're rocking and rolling with virtual sessions here.

Matt Haney:

Dude, I love the vibe board. shout out to my friend Damon Neth net here in Austin. He has a, a vibe board and watching him learn how to use it and engage in it has been really cool. And he's, you, he, he's real tech centric as you would be as well. And it's nice because it's like you early adopters are figuring that shit out for the rest of us. We're like, once you guys go figure it out, let us know how to use it. And not make mistakes and tell us what we need to know. And he's, jumped in, man. He's got it dialed in.

Clay Harris:

Man, I. I, I feel like I got a little production studio here. I got lights and multiple microphones. Gotta gotta keep it solid for the clients,

Matt Haney:

in office or distributed when you had, your IT company?

Clay Harris:

office until 2020. And then we, of course went home for a few months and then we, I think we did what everybody else has, has been doing, which is like really struggling to figure out what, what it means to come back to the office and do it in a way that doesn't.

Matt Haney:

hear that conversation?

Clay Harris:

What's interesting, is that in this world, in the EOS world, most of my clients are getting together regularly and I don't hear a bunch of complaints about it. I hear a bunch of talk about it in the world, but like the clients who like really care and committed to building culture and great companies and that kind of stuff, I think have figured out what's right for them and feel pretty confident about it.

Matt Haney:

I, I, I hear it a lot and. Generally it's around trying to find talent. Like you, a company has a specific role and they're like, well, we really need'em to be in Austin, an office. And I'm like, I get it, I get it. But like, what if we can't find them? And what if we spend three to six months trying to find this specialist who lives, you know, maybe, maybe four states away, maybe four towns away, maybe four hours away. do we do? And I think, It's complicated, man. It's so complicated. They've been saying, and we, everyone's been saying that for so long, but I do feel like it's one of those things that is a case by case basis. And, but then you create an exception, clay. You're like, well, we, we need to hire this person. And they live well, but they're the only one that's remote. And how do we manage that and how, what are the implications of the business on that and how do we, it's like, it's the, the, the onion has so many layers.

Clay Harris:

For sure, and I think as you, like, I'm sure that you, when you deal with this problem, you, you, the number one thing is just to make sure it doesn't happen accidentally.

Matt Haney:

Right,

Clay Harris:

Do it purposefully. Communicate it clearly, and if there's an exception, cool. Just talk about why.

Matt Haney:

Yep.

Clay Harris:

Right, like the world isn't black or white. The world is pretty darn gray all the time. You just gotta make sure you define it.

Matt Haney:

that is so well said. Communicate the uniqueness and don't run away from it, and don't act like it's not a thing. And, but then it's like, well, we need to be fair and equal. And I always tell people, it's like if you can find a, a, you know, group interview or whatever, it's like, Hey, let's interview this person. They're on the screen and we're sitting in an office together and. Like, listen, I'm begging everyone to find someone locally. We've tried. It's not like we set out and said, you know, we wanna find somebody four states away'cause we wanna have this awkward conversation with everyone in the room. No, it's not. We're trying to find the best person for the seat and we can't find them. And we, we, we all agree as a leadership team that this is a huge seat we have to fill and we had someone leave or we didn't have the right person previously. And, you know, finding next level talent and bringing them in sometimes means that, to your point, we've gotta operate in the gray a little bit.

Clay Harris:

It is a, it's a, it's a different world than we lived in five years ago.

Matt Haney:

Absolutely. I mean, you're, you're so, so true of that.

matt-haney_2_02-06-2025_192447:

You are listening to the Scalability Code. I'm your host, Matt Haney, founder of Sinclair Ventures, and we help visionary entrepreneurs like you get out of the shit show and focus on growing your business. We offer fractional COO and leadership coaching services that free up that brain of yours to focus on what's next. Learn more about us at SinclairVentures. com. Now back to it.

Matt Haney:

well, let me tell you, lemme ask you this question. You manage people for 24 years, two couple of them, business partners, I'm sure. What, what do you think, what are some of the top. Issues you've seen or you, you clued on it earlier with just being explicit with communications, but if you had to give listeners a, uh, a little nugget of your, of your wisdom, what would you tell'em about managing people and, and some of the things you've taken over the years

Clay Harris:

I think there's a couple things. One, and I hate to be like a EOS, kind of just like evangelist, but, but yeah,

Matt Haney:

my shoulder. You've got it on your sleeve. Let's not act like we're not.

Clay Harris:

but the whole conversation, the people analyze their conversation. Really boiling down with simplicity, what a right person looks like in a right seat. Core values match, right person, GW C, their seat right seat. Creating that common language for the, for the multiple ways that you need to communicate that, whether it's manager to employee, manager to manager, manager to leader, having everyone on the same page around how they're talking about it creates real clarity and velocity within the organization, right? Instead of saying like, I don't know, something just doesn't feel right with Matt. Right. What we can instead say is like, I don't think Matt wants to see it, or I don't think Matt is a core values match on this core value. That clarity really matters. It drives the speed at which you come to understanding and decisions, right? That's one thing. Second thing is getting, uh, the fav. My favorite kind of project that I did at the IT company for years was, uh, we really went all in on comp philosophy, uh, on like. Generating a full fledged, and this is when we were 70 people, but it was, we were in multiple states. We had multiple levels of different technical proficiencies and people like working across, you know, geographic areas. And so we had to get really clear around why you paid someone differently in New York City than you paid someone in Durham, North Carolina.

Matt Haney:

Yep.

Clay Harris:

And doing. It's the same reason you do a people analyzer is'cause you want to create clarity throughout the organization around what means what. And that comp philosophy tied into like the clear definitions on the accountability chart of what a seat looks like really reduced the amount of friction when it came to comp discussions within the, within a 70, 80, 90, a hundred person organization because everyone was just on the same page. So creating alignment around what good, what right people looks like. Right seat. And what comp looks like. Those two things around people management just made it go faster. Does that make sense?

Matt Haney:

it's so awesome. So, so you had almost like a full transparency with the entire team on comp. I is our, was it, was it safe to say that everyone in your org at one level or another knew what the other people were making?

Clay Harris:

No. That's like level, uh, if there's like a five level transparency level, that would be like level five. We took it to level four, which, which. Which was like everyone, every role had a range and everyone knew where they fell within the range, and everyone knew that. Everyone else in that role was within that range.

Matt Haney:

That's something you at least, you know, and then were you able to help them build, you know, proficiency and skill and development and training to get to that next level of, of,

Clay Harris:

I

Matt Haney:

you know, of pay?

Clay Harris:

a hundred percent the the act. Yeah. I can spend hours talking about it. It's like a little geeky thing.

Matt Haney:

to me. I, I have a client who's a, uh, they are a development shop, for a product called Palantir. I dunno if you're familiar with Palantir.

Clay Harris:

That sounds familiar.

Matt Haney:

It's a, it's a, they're a all the rage now. Basically, they, they're helping, you know, spit out data in real time for companies that are operating on Excel spreadsheets. So they're really focused on this, this company, ranger Data is my client, and they're, they're really focused on helping people that have. Businesses that need to be making really quick, nimble decisions, but they just don't have the, the data, they've got the output. They just don't have the, the machine to crunch it. So they build a custom setup of, uh, using Palantir. And I tell you all this because they have a lot of junior engineers and then they're building senior engineers and so forth and so on. And, and we're going through the process of, of helping understand what that growth path looks like. And you know, it's, you know, talk about a lot of gray area. We're trying to take some of that gray and turn it into more of that black and white. So there's a structure that people know and appreciate.

Clay Harris:

well, the, the cool thing about that is that. Similar industry. It, what we had was, one of the, one of the issues we were trying to overcome was like, people thinking like, the only way I'm ever gonna make more money is if I get a good promotion, like to the next level. And so they're jumping ship because they're like, I'm, I don't even see another position above me. The cool thing about a good comp philosophy is that it discloses a range for the position. So it creates a bunch of clarity around the, the, the capacity they have left to grow in their salary. Based on their proficiency instead of just having to get to a new role. And so it shows them the runway they have left to continue to earn more without having to like go to a new position. And hopefully that kind of keeps'em

Matt Haney:

and try to trade, trade a different role. In reality. You're just learning that.

Clay Harris:

right.

Matt Haney:

I, and, and I'm curiously, your take on this, I spend a lot of time staring at scorecards because as a, as a fractional integrator, that's what we do. We measure and we understand and we, you know, look at indicators and make changes in the business and so forth. Did you, I mean, obviously you guys had a, a scorecard for a decade, um, at your, at your IT company. Like how often are you. Were you changing that scorecard and how has that process helped you advise clients on how to set theirs up?

Clay Harris:

It is like a pendulum, right? Sometimes you, you don't change it for a year and you're like, oh my God, why are we not using this tool as effectively as we should? And then sometimes you change it too often. I don't know that there's a perfect rhythm. What I. what I always urge, my teams to do is like, check if it's always red and you're not talking about it, take it off. If it's always green and you're not talking about it. Either up the goal or take it off. The, the, the point of a scorecard is not to be like a hand slap kind of, you're good or you're bad. It's meant to help you drive better performance. And so, what I always thought about was each quarter when I'm setting rocks, is there a scorecard metric that's gonna, that's gonna help us know whether or not the output is happening the way we expect it to, or maybe the last quarter's rock. How are we double checking to make sure that it's generating the result that we thought it would as like a. Maybe just throw it on there for a quarter.

Matt Haney:

Yeah,

Clay Harris:

Note it as like, we're just doing this for a quarter. Like use it as a tool. Don't use it as like something that you're gonna like etch and granite and hang on the wall.

Matt Haney:

well said. I, I always tell people, uh, scorecard should look like a Christmas tree. There should be red and green lights all over it. And, and if it's all red or all green work, something's not right. measuring the same thing over and over again and, and, and no change in outcome. You know, they put you in padded rooms and give you medication for, for that level of insanity. But I think. I tend, I keep saying this out loud, it's kinda one of those things where like, if I say it out loud, I'll be more aware of the fact that I need to constantly be telling teams to look at their scorecard. And every quarter we need to push ourselves to your point, to change things up and look at something in a different light and add a metric. If, you know, we say, oh, we'll measure it for 90 days, and then all of a sudden it becomes one of those key metrics that you can't live without. You're like, how did we know we shouldn't be tracking this? It's like, well, we were curious one day and decided we were gonna put something up there different than, wasn't there. before, and here we are learning that. Um, so those man, you're, you're so spot on with those changes in scorecard and how, there's no real right answer. We can take the book, the proverbial book, the literal book, the traction book and get examples from it. But the reality is, is that, every company's different and some of them. They have the same metric forever and it goes and they know that they're making those micro adjustments based on it. Some of'em, it's the same number across, and that's where I'm just like, put it on the issues list, throw it out there and say, let's figure out a way to do something different.

Clay Harris:

For, for my clients who've been running s for a long time, one of the things that they really like when we kind of go over scorecard is using the, the scorecard as a like incremental improvement tool. Like they've been, you know, that number, like they're like 90% customer satisfaction for forever, and they've been able to do it and they're patting themselves in the back. I'm like, all right, this quarter, make it 92. What are the tweaks that are gonna, like, marginal improvement is hard, but that's actually what separates the great from the good. And so like, let's not be an A player. Let's be an A plus player. You're really good at a cool, let's do a plus.

Matt Haney:

That's awesome. No, it's so true. Uh, marginal improvements to are the hardest. That's so funny. You know, when you're growing a business from zero to a million, you celebrate every win, but, but a million to 1,000,002, and then all of a sudden to get from like 5 million to 5.1, you're like, oh shit, it's so hard. It's like, yeah, zero to a million was hard. You just don't remember it.

Clay Harris:

Yeah,

Matt Haney:

just don't remember it.

Clay Harris:

there's a whole bunch of grind that comes with that five to 5.1 that wasn't there on the zero to one. Like just, yeah,

Matt Haney:

have any experience or any exposure to, to working with a fraction integrator?

Clay Harris:

I don't actually, I most, well, it's interesting, like,

Matt Haney:

indoctrinate you. Let me tell you what it's like.

Clay Harris:

tell me please.

Matt Haney:

So, since I have you here captive and you don't have a choice but to listen to my nonsense, um, we, we work our, our firm works with, um,, as a, as a fractional integrator for companies doing generally five to 15 million in revenue. Founder led businesses that have gotten to a certain point, maybe they didn't have an integrator or they transitioned or had a bad hire. and we get to come in for a, a fractional basis, and our job is to work ourselves out of our job, our job's, to bring in that next level talent, either from inside or hire outside to replace us once we get the business stabilized. to ride shotgun to the EOS implementer. So I get to sit in the session with you. I get to be on the other side of the whiteboard, not at the board. Being a participant in the session, watching and learning and contributing while you are facilitating the session. And it's huge. I've, I've never stood at the whiteboard. It's not where I want to be. It's not where I think I should be. but being able to have the relationship with you, the visionary. The fractional integrator, it's a really interesting triangle because you know that person, I know you, and we're constantly using it to make sure that we're optimizing and getting the most outta business.

Clay Harris:

How would you answer like, objection to like, well, if it's fractional and integrator seat, kind of generally respond from execution of the plan. How would, how do you kind of come back to someone who says like, well, what if we come up with a problem on Thursday and you're not there to help us?

Matt Haney:

Yeah, no, that's a great question. I always say if it's gonna cause the business to fail that day, pick up the phone and call me and I'll help you through it. But most times those business issues aren't that impactful unless you're dealing with an accident or some sort of, you know, fraud or something that, that, it's not that mission critical. But most of the times we find ourselves in businesses that have never had a second in command or. Transitioning from one to another. We need someone to fill the gap or we don't know what we need, so we're gonna bring this fractional integrator in to sit in the seat. Because what you find, or what I find is that most times people think they need an apple, but they actually need an orange. So they're they, I get there and they're like, well, you know, we need this and this and this. And I start looking and I'm like, wait. This team's pretty badass. They're, they're firing on all these cylinders. Actually, I think you need an integrator with more of this type of experience. Someone who doesn't come from the industry because they don't know the technical stuff, so there's no risk of them going around and doing the la blah. So, to answer your, to your question short, you know, in the shortest way I. rarely does it happen where there's something that pops up that quickly and I always coach back to say, add it to the issues list. We'll get it to an L 10, and if you need to hop on a Zoom, let's hop on a Zoom call and talk through it. it works really well when companies are distributed, because everyone's staring at a screen together when you have someone in the office. everyone at a conference table and me on the, on the screen doesn't really work. It works only if you really want it to work. but most times our engagements are either all in person or fully distributed, or maybe they're part of the people are in the office and part of'em are hybrid. That's when I say, okay, everyone, we do our L tens behind the screen. Everyone go to their screen, put your headphones on, and we're gonna facilitate this as if everyone is hybrid, but you're on your, in your own office.

Clay Harris:

What, right? Yeah, a hundred percent. What, what's been your, uh, experience with like for those founder led companies, first integrator hire, like, uh, how do you get'em to let go and let you do something?

Matt Haney:

man, it's so hard, clay, it's so hard.

Clay Harris:

I can imagine.

Matt Haney:

you established trust and rapport. let you know and, and you said it earlier, it's clear communication, right? I mean, I think I spend a lot of time kind of over-emphasizing and overexplaining the fact that nothing's gonna be a surprise. It's like sitting down with a, an EOS prospect for the first time. They are always nervous of the change, right? They just don't know what they don't know.'cause they've never been down the path. It's no different with a first time, um, visionary. an integrator, they're automatically assuming that we're here to wreak havoc. Maybe not wreak havoc, but change. And I always tell'em like, Hey, you don't want to pay me to just agree with you. That's not what you're wanting to do. You need somebody to challenge status quo. You need someone to, but it's all calculated. That's the beauty of going back to DOS is if we continue to throw everything against the system, get the output.

Clay Harris:

Right.

Matt Haney:

the short answer is communication and then the long answer is if you feel it, say it. Put it on an issues list, have those hard conversations. I had one earlier today. I'm still thinking about it. but you gotta run towards'em and you gotta make sure that they know you're not out to fire their people and slash and burn.

Clay Harris:

Right. A hundred percent. That's cool.

Matt Haney:

what are some of your goals for the remainder of the year? You don't have to get down into the details, you don't have to get into the specifics, but like is there anything you want to see for the remainder of, of this year that you're looking for accountability on?

Clay Harris:

Oh, well, luckily I have a couple of different peer groups I'm in that are. Good at holding me accountable. Let's see, through the, for the EOS practice, I mean, my goal is to be at 20 clients by the end of the year. I'm more than, more than half, more than halfway home. And, uh, you know, it's AP May, it's almost May. So we'll see. We'll see. I, I gotta do a little bit of hustling.

Matt Haney:

The fact that you've gotten 10 clients in the first year of your business is, is a testament to your commitment. and on your way to 20 is even more incredible.

Clay Harris:

Yeah, I mean, we'll see, you know, I, knock on wood, everything I've been, most of the things I've done in life, I've been pretty lucky at. So I,

Matt Haney:

Well, I, yeah, we can't

Clay Harris:

uh,

Matt Haney:

all coincidentally luck. You're probably pretty damn talented

Clay Harris:

oh man. Right time, right place, you know, um, so that's one thing. The second thing I'm really looking forward to doing. is sick. I have a bunch of clients who feel like kind of impacted by the uncertainty,

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Clay Harris:

kind of existing kind of macro condition wise right now. And, uh, I'm looking forward to see, like, I, I think a business goal of mine, I haven't really verbalized this to date, but like working really hard with them in session, in between session to kind of have the confidence of their kind of. Momentum, right? Like they're doing great work like focus, focus on what you can control and let the other stuff slide off. And so I'm really interested to watch the EOS process kind of pay dividends for them in a way that kind of feels material. And so that's really interesting. Yeah. So.

Matt Haney:

coaching them back to continue to be good at what you're good at and focus on what you can can impact because everything else becomes a worry. That's so well said.

Clay Harris:

Sure. Yeah. I mean, one of my, one of my clients, does a lot of work. It's a company called Positive Intelligence, and they do a bunch of work around getting rid of that, that head trash, and like kind of putting a name on there. Unbelievably awesome. So last goal is kind of applying some of those learnings into my session room to make those more powerful. So those would be my goals for the year. Yeah,

Matt Haney:

uh, I need to reach out to those folks'cause I, I have a couple books here. I always like to show people. These are, these are the things that I try to look at these two daily. Daily books that I read. the Daily Stoic is

Clay Harris:

yeah. Yep.

Matt Haney:

I don't know if you're familiar. And then, the Dayton Maxwell Daily reader's, another one, John Maxwell's, a real famous leader. And, and these are, there's one, I read one page of these each every day. They sit right next to me. And a lot of that just helps me try to stay focused and stay positive and make sure that the energy I'm giving off is what other people want to pick up.

Clay Harris:

That discipline, is meaningful in a bunch of different ways, not just from the knowledge you get from that, but just like daily investment in yourself as a reminder that you are deserving of investment and like. That confidence translates into confidence in others and building them up too. So that's, that's an awesome practice. Yeah,

Matt Haney:

Well, anything else, clay, it was awesome to have you today. Any other questions, thoughts, or concerns before we wrap up?

Clay Harris:

I don't think so, man. That's a good shot.

Matt Haney:

Awesome. Well folks, my name's Matt Haney. Thanks for tuning in with the scalability code. Special thanks to Clay Harris, uh, implementer for joining us today. And as always, we'll see you next time. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to The Scalability Code. If you made it this far, please follow the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get out of the sh*t show together. We'll see you next time on The Scalability Code.