Charting Business Growth: Lessons from the Maritime to EOS, with Matt Hahne

In this episode of The Scalability Code, host Matt Haney invites his doppelganger, Matt Hahne, both EOS implementers, for a fascinating discussion on business growth and operational strategies. The two Matts explore topics like transitioning from a maritime career to entrepreneurship, the essentials of effective scorecards, challenges with maintaining focus in a session room, and the role of AI in today's business landscape. 

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
01:22 Background
05:52 EOS Journey
13:26 Fractional Integrator
18:19 The Secrets Behind Scorecards
29:26 Changing Company Culture
32:35 Challenges in the Session Room
35:49 Usage of AI

Connect with Matt Hahne on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-hahne/

#operationsmanagement #eos #fractionalcoo #podcast

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Transcript

0:01

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 0:21

All right. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Scalability Code. Today we're here with my other Matt. The other Matt Haney. Haney. Haney Haney. Uh, Matt, welcome to the Scalability Code. Thanks for joining us.

Matt Hahne 0:35

Haney talks to Hani. I love it.

Matt Haney 0:36

Yeah, Haney and Hani. Uh, it's so funny, uh, we, we shared this laugh. I was on the phone with somebody or on a meeting and someone was like, oh, you know Matt Haney? I'm like, no, I am. And he's like, no, no. The other Matt Haney. I was like, wait, time out. There's another Matt Haney in the world doing EOS, and they said, yeah, but they, they spell it differently. So for our viewers, go ahead and tell us how you pronounce your last name.

Matt Hahne 1:00

It is like Connie with an h. Ha.

Matt Haney 1:03

So you've got Matt Haney and Matt Haney. Boy, that's not gonna be confusing as hell for everybody, but

Matt Hahne 1:08

Let's just use Matt and

Matt Haney 1:09

That's right, the two Matts running the show. thanks for joining us, Matt. Um, I'm excited to get to know you and learn about your business and learn about your background and, just like any. Formal meeting of two strangers. You and I don't know each other. So, uh, what better way to, uh, get to know each other than ask a bunch of questions about your background? gimme them one minute background on what you did before your implementer world, and also kind of how you got here and what you're doing now.

Matt Hahne 1:36

Yeah. entrepreneurial family fell in love with the maritime industry. I did probably 35 years in the maritime industry. Uh,

Matt Haney 1:45

What does that mean for our viewers? What does, what do you mean by it?

Matt Hahne 1:47

industry is ships, boats, barges, anything that floats or moves on the

Matt Haney 1:53

There you go. That's cool.

Matt Hahne 1:55

loading and discharging cargo onto ships and boats and barges moving. Big oil rig, uh, wellhead platforms on barges

Matt Haney 2:04

Very cool.

Matt Hahne 2:05

US Gulf Coast down to, um, Venezuela, loading. You name it. I did

Matt Haney 2:12

So were you in the side of the business that actually took the, the cargo and put it on the ship or were you in the, like, tell us more about what that means in terms of like,

Matt Hahne 2:19

Yeah, I I started, um, scrubbing pots and pans for Miss Flow on the Steamboat Natches in New

Matt Haney 2:26

There you go.

Matt Hahne 2:28

Uh, became a deckhand the next summer and fell in love with the maritime industry. Went to a maritime college, um, sailed around the world with both the Navy and the Merchant Marines, so I got a lot of miles underway on the water under

Matt Haney 2:42

so cool.

Matt Hahne 2:43

Big ships, little ships, dredges, tankers, container ships, did it all. Uh, moved to shore, uh, managed ships for a long time. Had that siren song of being my own boss in my years. So like any good entrepreneur, I started my first business as a side

Matt Haney 2:59

There you go. Moonlighting.

Matt Hahne 3:00

that. Yeah. And, um, marine salvage in the last five years of my life. And, uh, I was like, man, I am, I am working 20 hour days. I am,

Matt Haney 3:11

So Marine salvage, you are working either as a company or your company was doing salvage efforts for sunken vessels.

Matt Hahne 3:19

Yeah, so I worked for a company called Resolve Marine for five

Matt Haney 3:22

Okay,

Matt Hahne 3:22

then I left Resolve to go back to New Orleans and be a general manager at a Steve at Oring company on the Mississippi River. ships, uh, 60 rail cars, maybe, you know, 120 trucks, and I don't know how many barges a day.

Matt Haney 3:37

That's incredible.

Matt Hahne 3:39

Yeah, but I, I was short lived in that, uh, as you can imagine. It was pretty quick,

Matt Haney 3:44

That's a grind, right?

Matt Hahne 3:46

Then I started my own bus, my third business. My third business was, uh, loading and discharging ships offshore.

Matt Haney 3:52

So what does that mean? I.

Matt Hahne 3:55

Uh, we, a lot of ships would come into, um, new Orleans or come to New Orleans, and they were too heavy to come into Mississippi River, so somebody had to figure out a way to discharge'em offshore. That was us.

Matt Haney 4:07

So you would go out to the, to the container ship, which was more not in the Gulf, and you would, you would offload it kind of piece by piece

Matt Hahne 4:14

Yeah, usually not a container ship. It was, uh, bulk, bulk ships that were, uh, somebody that loaded bulk, uh, grain or

Matt Haney 4:22

Oh, okay. So not containers. You were, there's a massive amount of grain or something on there that was loose, and you guys would come in and, and take it off and put it on a smaller ship. Would you put it in an actual container then, or would you put it like, what would you do?

Matt Hahne 4:37

ship. Yeah, you were spot on with a smaller

Matt Haney 4:39

Very cool.

Matt Hahne 4:40

Yeah, But like any good entrepreneur, I found myself running, you know, 20 hour days and no time for my growing family. Didn't know which way was up. Nobody kind of knew what we were

Matt Haney 4:53

Right.

Matt Hahne 4:54

a buddy said, Hey, you gotta read this book Traction And it. It changed my life and, uh, I, uh, sold all three of my businesses and became a full-time EOS implementer in February of 2020 when the world shut

Matt Haney 5:07

Literally. Okay. Wait, so were you running on EOS before you pulled the plug? Okay, so you had, again, started it, read the book, figured it out, implement it yourself, were running it, your company, and then said, wow, this is, this is my calling, is to go help others implement or help others run the system.

Matt Hahne 5:26

It's a great, term that you use. Calling it really?

Matt Haney 5:30

is. Every implementer I know is like,'cause it's a grind. Most people don't know how, what kind of a grind it is you guys have to do every day. Uh, when you're running a hundred plus sessions a year or 150 sessions a year. I mean, it's a, it's a lot of energy to stand at that table at that whiteboard every day and, and, and listen to people, you know, vomit their problems to you every day. So you said you started your, your, um, journey at EOS February of 20.

Matt Hahne 5:59

February of 2020 when COVID,

Matt Haney 6:01

Like just started

Matt Hahne 6:03

Yeah, yeah,

Matt Haney 6:04

Wow. So you couldn't have built a business during a harder time.

Matt Hahne 6:09

yeah. I got my first client in April of 2020 and my second client in like October or November of

Matt Haney 6:16

Wow. What a

Matt Hahne 6:18

Yeah. Yeah,

Matt Haney 6:18

there.

Matt Hahne 6:19

Yeah.

Matt Haney 6:20

Holy cow.

Matt Hahne 6:22

Yeah, it was, it was kind of crazy. We had a really good group of, you know, um, when implementers become implementers, they go to a thing called

Matt Haney 6:30

Oh yeah, I'm familiar.

Matt Hahne 6:32

and my bootcamp was very, very tight. And we each other up during that hard time. And, you know, we spent a lot of time practicing on each

Matt Haney 6:40

Yep.

Matt Hahne 6:40

But then, uh, you know, once 2021 came around, things were pretty good. And now I've been at it for five years. So

Matt Haney 6:46

That's amazing. That's amazing. Well, congrats. Um, so, so give me an example. Do you, and I always ask this question and I know the answer, so I'm gonna tell you, you cannot say all types of businesses. Do you find yourself in a certain niche or any similarity? Or any? Any like, yes. Okay. Thank you. Most people are like, oh, every business. I'm like, I know every business. But tell me more.

Matt Hahne 7:10

I have, I have crazy, I have clients all the way from like marketing. Uh, law firms to a sand mining business.

Matt Haney 7:20

that.

Matt Hahne 7:20

yeah, so, you know, I cover the spectrum, but for me, um, I find, um, uh, high, um, high, high dysfunctioning visionaries.

Matt Haney 7:34

Yes.

Matt Hahne 7:34

I'm very attracted to high dysfunctioning visionaries.

Matt Haney 7:38

Yeah.

Matt Hahne 7:39

I like to get them out of all of the many

Matt Haney 7:41

So, do you have to gimme an example?'cause I have, I have worked myself with several high functioning, highly dysfunctional visionaries. Tell me what you what Gimme some characteristics that you see.

Matt Hahne 7:53

of a, a high dysfunctioning visionary.

Matt Haney 7:57

I.

Matt Hahne 7:57

it's my baby. I can't let it go.

Matt Haney 8:01

Yeah, man, if I had a dollar for every time I heard that or experienced it, I wouldn't need to work with clients. I just sit there and collect the money from people that would saying, man, I just can't let go of the vine. I had it last week, last Thursday, I just can't let go of the vine.

Matt Hahne 8:15

Yeah. Um, there's no chance that anyone can do it the way I

Matt Haney 8:20

Yeah. Yep.

Matt Hahne 8:23

That's true. But also not scalable.

Matt Haney 8:25

Right. Oh, I'm eating that. I'm eating that dog food right now in my own personal business. Just trying to like, scale my business and, and my team around me is like, I've, I finally said, just stop including me because I'm gonna be the one that slows it down. And they're like, Matt, did you hear yourself? I'm like, yeah. I have to say it out loud to verbalize the fact that I think I can do it better than everyone else. And I can, I can, but I can't scale.

Matt Hahne 8:50

your affirmation for the next couple of weeks needs to be I am the bottleneck.

Matt Haney 8:56

right.

Matt Hahne 8:56

is at the top.

Matt Haney 8:58

Get me out of the way. Okay. Gimme another characteristic of a, of a highly functioning but dysfunctional visionary.

Matt Hahne 9:06

Yeah. Um, their vision is so big, only they can see it.

Matt Haney 9:12

Ah, yes, yes, yes. Interesting. Interesting. I. Huh. Very cool. Very cool. Um, so did I, did you tell me what types of industries that you said sand industry, which I was, I was fixated on that. So do they tend to be service specific or any blue collar or any

Matt Hahne 9:30

No, I mean, I'm, I'm good with any,

Matt Haney 9:33

I.

Matt Hahne 9:33

good with any of them. I seem to attract, um, I like on the narcissistic scale, I like'em to be a seven, five to seven over seven. I end up, you know, seeing a little too much of my prior self in

Matt Haney 9:45

Yep. Yep, yep.

Matt Hahne 9:47

Um, but the other thing that I found is, um, I'm not real good with engineering firms. I, because Yeah. Um, the, the attention to detail,

Matt Haney 9:56

Yep.

Matt Hahne 9:57

work that they really wanna get into. I'm like, Hey, uh, you know, go back and figure that out in the bit back when you get back in the shop. We don't need to figure that out today.

Matt Haney 10:07

yep,

Matt Hahne 10:08

just talking about the, we're talking about the what, not the

Matt Haney 10:11

that's exactly right.

Matt Hahne 10:12

success looks like. Don't give me the how we're gonna make the sausage. I don't, I just want it to taste

Matt Haney 10:17

I always say I wanna make sure it tastes good and doesn't kill me. That's it. The sausage, the old sausage. let me, let me um, ask you a couple more questions. I'm dying to know about 35 years on the sea or in the business of being on the sea. How, how do you not go, how do people like states sane when you're out at sea for that long? And just kind of like, I mean, did you ever have any tricks or how did you sort of stay? I mean, obviously when you're working, you're working, but

Matt Hahne 10:46

Yeah.

Matt Haney 10:46

not working the other 14 hours a day, you're. You gotta stay busy.

Matt Hahne 10:51

Um, the, the work when you're in it is, is busy.

Matt Haney 10:54

Yeah.

Matt Hahne 10:55

you know, you're, you're standing on the bridge of a ship and it's you, and maybe at nighttime, one other person in the daytime, it's just you

Matt Haney 11:05

Yeah.

Matt Hahne 11:06

you know, you're, you got 70,000 tons under you that can't stop on a dime.

Matt Haney 11:12

can't stop at all.

Matt Hahne 11:13

Yeah. Takes, takes about 11 football

Matt Haney 11:17

I believe it. To come to a complete stop.

Matt Hahne 11:21

yeah.

Matt Haney 11:22

That's crazy.

Matt Hahne 11:23

yeah, so, you know, you,

Matt Haney 11:25

a bitch.

Matt Hahne 11:26

you got some, you got some, uh, responsibility

Matt Haney 11:29

Yeah.

Matt Hahne 11:30

you see some things out there and then, you know, loading and discharging, you gotta, you gotta, you can't let the ship flip over. That'd be a bad day.

Matt Haney 11:38

That'd be a bad day. That'd be a not so good. Very bad day. Um, and did you have a family at all while you were traveling out on the ocean?

Matt Hahne 11:45

Yeah, I sure did. Um, I started growing my family, uh, when I took my first job ashore in the maritime

Matt Haney 11:54

Mm,

Matt Hahne 11:55

thought, okay, it's time for me to move ashore and not go to sea anymore. And that was kind of a, not true. That was an untruth because when you work in the maritime industry, you end up traveling everywhere anyway,

Matt Haney 12:07

right. You just gotta go where you gotta go.

Matt Hahne 12:09

Matt, you loaded this very special General Electric Cargo in Newport News. You have to be the one that discharges it in

Matt Haney 12:17

one else can do it the way you do it, Matt. No one else can do it that way.

Matt Hahne 12:22

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so I saw a lot of, uh, I saw a lot of fun places at Umca or Iraq, uh, after, in 2004, five, somewhere around there. Uh, Venezuela, a lot of time in Venezuela, China spent, spent three weeks, more than a three week periods, two or three times in China trying to build a spill response company in

Matt Haney 12:45

Wow.

Matt Hahne 12:46

of fun

Matt Haney 12:47

That's awesome. And, and I mean, all of that work informed where you are today in your implementer space, that's fantastic. Where do your clients tend to be? Are they spread out geographically or where do you, do you do virtual sessions? Tell us about your practice a little bit.

Matt Hahne 13:00

Yeah, Matt. Um, I am what's called a dual market implementer. Uh, I'm a dual coastie, so I work New Orleans and Santa Barbara, California, and

Matt Haney 13:09

Hmm.

Matt Hahne 13:09

it.

Matt Haney 13:09

Very cool.

Matt Hahne 13:11

yeah, I'm at the point I'm, I'm not good on virtual. I can do it in a, in a pinch. Um, my preference is to be in person in Santa Barbara or in New Orleans.

Matt Haney 13:21

Gotta be at the whiteboard.

Matt Hahne 13:23

God, I love the whiteboard.

Matt Haney 13:24

love the whiteboard.

Matt Hahne 13:25

is pretty magical. I.

Matt Haney 13:26

It is. I always so funny, I, you know, being a, a fractional integrator, I. I've, I've had the pleasure of sitting in a few different people's sessions, and I think that's one of the neat things that we get to do is like, you work with a variety of implementers, you get to see a variety of different styles and, and selfishly, I love working with implementers for many reasons, but one of my favorite is that I don't have to be at the, at the whiteboard. I don't have to be in control of the meeting. I mean, I facilitate and run so many L tens over the last seven years. That it's like, it's, it's, it's nice to be an attendee, not a host or a facilitator. So it's, it's really special for me to be on this side of the whiteboard watching the masters at the craft

Matt Hahne 14:06

you've got a different perspective as a fractional integrator. You can speak to self implementers with some pretty serious authority. The difference between facilitating a quarterly session yourself versus having an implementer facilitate.

Matt Haney 14:24

What is the difference?

Matt Hahne 14:26

Yeah. Like

Matt Haney 14:26

I can tell you it's exponential. It's not incremental. The difference between being in a quarterly with someone who self implements. Versus being in a quarterly with an implementer is night and day and the darkest of dark and the brightest of brights. And the main reason for that, well, there's two reasons. I think there's probably seven, but the one that really comes to mind is being able to know the room. So Matt, when you stand in front of the room at that whiteboard, you know the participants. Now there may be a new person that's come on, but for the most part, you know, the visionary. His or her tendencies. You probably know most of the seats on the, on the, on the accountability chart. You know where they're going to go, you know, where they're going to get bogged down. And you get to facilitate those, those changes. And the best implementers let the, you know, discourse happen and the discomfort and the aha moments come out. and then just, you know, kind of push to push towards a solution. So I think that's what you really get with an implementer is. creative and critical thinking, as well as questioning and pushing. Um, and some of the, best integrators, our vision, our implementers I've worked with are those who listen more than they speak. And it's really hard because at the session table and at the whiteboard, your job is to facilitate and speak and challenge. But, looking over at an implementer. While I'm watching the leadership team and he or she is sitting there just like understanding the dynamic and trying to figure out what's happening and do I interject, do I let'em get there? I mean, it's a really special skill.

Matt Hahne 16:02

Yeah, I think that's the problem.

Matt Haney 16:04

yeah.

Matt Hahne 16:05

you know, if you don't have a facilitator, you have to do that facilitating

Matt Haney 16:09

Yeah.

Matt Hahne 16:10

you miss so

Matt Haney 16:11

So much.

Matt Hahne 16:12

Of you're not able to participate as a member of the leadership

Matt Haney 16:16

Yeah.

Matt Hahne 16:16

you're so busy trying to facilitate.

Matt Haney 16:18

That's exactly right.

Matt Hahne 16:19

L tens, you know, I don't, in my own L tens I'm facilitating the L 10 and I'm like, man, this sucks.'cause I feel like I'm facilitating

Matt Haney 16:26

Yep. Participating. Yeah, and that's one of the things I work with on a lot of my clients. Matter of fact, I just got off an Elton earlier, which there's a really strong sales leader on the company. She's awesome. She's loves EOS and her sales leadership team meeting, I still sit on as the fractional. uh, integrator, but, but she leads it, and it's a relief for me because I'm like, I don't have to be on the mouse. I don't have to be dead in issues. But one of the things that I, and, and I don't know Matt, how you feel about this, but I've gotten really intentional this year about requiring all of my teams to log into 90. I use 90.0 religiously,

Matt Hahne 17:02

Mm-hmm.

Matt Haney 17:04

to see up at the top who's attending the meeting. And if you are in an L 10 with me, I make you join the meeting and I'll see your name up there and I'll ask you, Hey Matt, will you grab that issue? Will you go ahead and grab that issue for me? Can you do that behind the scenes? Or, Hey Matt, would you mind going ahead and. And assigning a to do for yourself for that, so I don't have to stop what I'm doing in the middle of the meeting to open up the to-do, try to get the to-do, and maybe I'm an idiot. But I didn't realize I had the authority to do that. Of course, I knew that the authority, but I just assumed that I was there facilitating, to your point. So I had to do everything. But I think really, and I teach that to a lot of my, my clients is like, you need to be facilitating the meeting, but everyone else in the meeting can participate. They don't need to sit there and check email in the background.

Matt Hahne 17:51

Ooh. Yeah. Preach it.

Matt Haney 17:53

Preach it.

matt-haney_2_02-06-2025_192447 17:54

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 18:17

Okay, so let's see. Uh, one of the questions I like to ask everyone, because I feel like this is the thing that I, one of the things I struggle with is tell me your, um, experience, um, in amending editing or updating scorecards.

Matt Hahne 18:33

Oh

Matt Haney 18:34

It's a big hairy one, but I won't, I won't lead you any further. I'll let you tell me and then I'll jump in.

Matt Hahne 18:40

So, uh, my experience with scorecards is, is recent. Uh, the EOS conference was in April, I was asked to present in the hangover slot at the EOS conference. You know what that is?

Matt Haney 18:53

Yeah. It's 8:00 AM on whatever morning.

Matt Hahne 18:55

Friday morning, right? Yeah. So I was asked to speak on scorecards, and it was doubly odd because the data book just came

Matt Haney 19:03

Oh, yeah.

Matt Hahne 19:04

book was re released at the EOS conference. I was like, wait a minute. What's going on

Matt Haney 19:08

Yeah.

Matt Hahne 19:08

are you

Matt Haney 19:09

Why are you asking me to do it?

Matt Hahne 19:11

And, uh, it turned out to be a fantastic presentation. Um, I led into that with the, idea of the uk uh, rowing company, rowing team, and how they never won a gold medal and they took everything that they could. If it didn't make the boat go faster, they didn't mess with it. So what is your way of making the boat go faster? I think ultimately, here's the super secret on scorecards. Are you ready?

Matt Haney 19:37

I'm ready. I'm listening. Bated breath.

Matt Hahne 19:40

Here it is. The scorecard just needs to tell a team that they're winning or losing the game. That's it.

Matt Haney 19:51

Yeah.

Matt Hahne 19:51

And so I see that you're a Longhorn fan. Uh, and so when you're watching football in the SEC, there's a nice little banner at the bottom of the tv and what does it have in it?

Matt Haney 20:03

Yeah,

Matt Hahne 20:03

me, what does it have in

Matt Haney 20:04

it has the scorecard.

Matt Hahne 20:06

Score, it has the

Matt Haney 20:07

Yep,

Matt Hahne 20:08

remaining. What down? It

Matt Haney 20:09

yep. How many timeouts? Just those critical, crucial elements,

Matt Hahne 20:13

yes, the things that matter. That's what a company scorecard or a team, or an organization or a unit scorecard should be just enough data to tell the team that they're winning or

Matt Haney 20:25

right?

Matt Hahne 20:25

so they can rally around that win. Now is there a wide receiver that's tracking yards per carry? Yards after first contact. How many tackles were shrugged, of course, but those are individual measurables that tell us that that person

Matt Haney 20:41

Yeah,

Matt Hahne 20:41

their key roles on the accountability chart. Well, I just need the scorecard to tell you whether you're winning or losing. Now, I got three analogies to help people build scorecards if you want to

Matt Haney 20:51

let's hear it. Come on.

Matt Hahne 20:53

Okay. The first one is. out of the book Traction, the very first two paragraphs of the data chapter in traction are a corny joke. Gino had a lot of corny jokes. They came from his dad, who was the king of corny jokes. Um, but the idea here is you're on a plane crossing the Atlantic Ocean and the plane's flying, right? And the pilot comes out from the cockpit and says, Hey, uh, good news and bad news. The bad news is none of our gauges are working. None of them. We don't know how fast we're going. We don't know what direction we're going. We don't know how much fuel we have. We don't know if we're flying down or up into space. We don't know. But the really great news is we're making great time.

Matt Haney 21:35

And we're still in the air.

Matt Hahne 21:38

Yeah. So what gauges do you need to tell you that you're flying the plane, running the company the way you want for an integrator? I'll argue there's only two gauges that an integrator runs their company by profit. And percentage completion of rocks and todos

Matt Haney 21:55

Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yep.

Matt Hahne 21:58

else. If your profit and your todos and complete rock completion or milestone completion is good, you, that's good. The

Matt Haney 22:06

Yeah.

Matt Hahne 22:06

where it should. And then the other analogy is think of, um. Think of a, a road and you know you have a destination, so you get your phone out and you plug into ways or Google Maps. You, you, that's your one year plan.

Matt Haney 22:22

Yep.

Matt Hahne 22:23

one year plan is everything. This is where we're headed. And then kind of, you know, when I learned how to drive, my dad told me, aim high, drive, drive down the road, not right

Matt Haney 22:34

Yep.

Matt Hahne 22:34

of the uh, hood. So that space, that's your rocks. That's what you're paying attention, attention to right now. So the one year plan is where you're going the attention right now, the 90% of the time you're looking out the windshield, paying attention to driving forward, not looking right over the hood, that that's your rocks. And then the boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. The rumble strips

Matt Haney 22:58

Mm-hmm.

Matt Hahne 22:58

of the road that tell you you're about to go in the ditch and spend a lot of time and money. That's your scorecard.

Matt Haney 23:04

Yep,

Matt Hahne 23:05

tells you you are about to cut way off track and you need to pay attention, or you're gonna spend money and time

Matt Haney 23:12

that's exactly right. So well said. I, I love the simplicity of those analogies and, you know, even the, uh. Biggest of visionaries can understand those. So I'm glad you, uh, you put those together in a way that are, that, uh, such, such good, good analogies. Um, I, let me ask you, let me dig a little further because we have the time and I certainly have the interest. how, and again, I'm not looking for an exact amount here, but how often are you changing the scorecard, a quarterly with your clients?

Matt Hahne 23:42

the scorecard needs to change at a minimum of quarterly. At a minimum of quarterly, because you rocks change quarterly and your scorecard needs to tell you that you're on track to get your rocks done. So your scorecard should probably change quarterly as well if it needs to.

Matt Haney 24:00

Yeah,

Matt Hahne 24:00

to remember back to rule number one, are you winning or losing the

Matt Haney 24:05

yeah,

Matt Hahne 24:05

all it needs to

Matt Haney 24:06

yeah.

Matt Hahne 24:06

winning or losing? But if it tells you that your rocks are on

Matt Haney 24:09

I.

Matt Hahne 24:09

that's great too. Sometimes you need a short distance, uh, scorecard item. So sometimes you need a short distance scorecard item. Maybe you're gonna have a campaign like eight cashflow

Matt Haney 24:23

Right.

Matt Hahne 24:24

So you gotta add like a six week thing to the scorecard just to track it for those six weeks.

Matt Haney 24:29

Yep. Well, and it's funny, everyone's like, oh, we can't touch, we can't touch that metric. We, it's when I'm like, why, by the way, it's been green for the last 16 weeks? Like.

Matt Hahne 24:39

I love

Matt Haney 24:39

I love that too. I'm like, congratulations, it's green, but can we do something different? Can we push ourselves? Is it right?

Matt Hahne 24:47

yeah. I love, industrial companies wanna put safety on their scorecard, and I'm like, why?

Matt Haney 24:52

Yeah.

Matt Hahne 24:52

'cause it's the most important thing to us. And I was like, yeah, I get that. Truly, I understand that Maybe it should be up in your core values

Matt Haney 24:59

Right.

Matt Hahne 24:59

but not on the scorecard. Because let me ask you, how, how many safety incidents are you having? They're like, one a quarter. I was like, not.

Matt Haney 25:08

Not, not worth reporting. Yeah.

Matt Hahne 25:11

contrast on your scorecard. You need the roller coaster. If you don't have the roller coaster, you don't know you need contrast. So anything that's like one. Is not a good number for your scorecard. Give, measure something that has contrast.

Matt Haney 25:24

Exactly. Well, I'm, I'm gonna, I led you into this because I'm dealing with a client I. That, um, is, and I want your, your expert opinion here, so there

Matt Hahne 25:33

oh.

Matt Haney 25:33

expert. They're a high functioning sales org lot own founder and co-founder, both high, high functioning sales executives and no surprise, they've built a very robust sales team in the medical device space. Very successful company doing great things, but they've built a business tracking. Ready lagging indicators, not leading indicators.

Matt Hahne 25:56

Mm-hmm.

Matt Haney 25:57

they're tracking the outcomes, but not tracking the activity that leads to the outcomes. So we're tracking how many sales we're having, but we're not tracking the activity to get those sales. Okay,

Matt Hahne 26:08

Yeah.

Matt Haney 26:08

that works fine, Matt, when you've got great revenue,'cause revenue hides a lot of problems. But when the revenue slides, everyone's like, we're.

Matt Hahne 26:16

like a revenue's, like a fresh coat of paint in a house for sale. It hides a multitude of sins.

Matt Haney 26:22

So, so when the revenue slides a little bit and the revenue indi the revenue, lagging revenue indicators shows some. And then I go, okay, we gotta put some activity metrics on here. Uh, so I want to get your thoughts. Obviously, you know where I'm going. I like to track activity'cause it's a leading indicator, not a lagging indicator. Uh, what are you, give me, what are your thoughts?

Matt Hahne 26:44

Yeah. So, um, painful tool that nobody likes to use, but it's the most powerful tool we have. It's the getting what you want tool. And like every other EOS tool, it's very simple,

Matt Haney 26:57

Yep.

Matt Hahne 26:57

uh, until you start using it and you're like, oh, this makes my

Matt Haney 27:00

Right, right.

Matt Hahne 27:02

Um, the getting what you want tool, if you want 4 million in revenue. Okay. How do you get 4 million in revenue? Well, we have, uh, you know, 2 million in recurring revenue sales and 2 million in project sales. Okay. So. how many, how much do we have in recurring revenue now? Uh, 200,000. Oh, and we gotta get to 2 million. Okay. So we gotta figure out and work backwards.

Matt Haney 27:24

Yeah.

Matt Hahne 27:25

What leads you from this square? I.

Matt Haney 27:27

Mm-hmm.

Matt Hahne 27:27

To the next square. What, gets you to that square and if you work yourself back? The great example I have of this is, um, private jet managing company. They

Matt Haney 27:37

Yep.

Matt Hahne 27:38

charter private

Matt Haney 27:39

Oh yeah.

Matt Hahne 27:40

uh, you know, people that have jets. And, uh, they're like, we want seven more jets in our portfolio. Okay, get seven more jets. How many, what, what, what leads to that Contracts? Wait. When you have a contract that doesn't lead, they're like, no. So how many contracts do you need for 21 contracts? Okay, so only a third of contracts lead to actual jets under management. Got it. Okay. How do you get 21 contracts? We need to have probably like, I don't know, somewhere around, 70 to 80. Dinner

Matt Haney 28:13

Conversations or, yeah.

Matt Hahne 28:15

in-person conversations, how do you get those? We need to have like 180 proposals. How do you get the proposals? We need to, have a first call, a scheduled meeting. And eventually they worked it backwards and they realized, hold on a minute. There's not, there's not that many qualified leads

Matt Haney 28:35

To get. Yeah. So did they change and go to a different target market?

Matt Hahne 28:39

yeah, so they, so it was a real aha. So using this, getting what you want tool to work backwards to figure out what leads to this number to get this number, what do we need to do

Matt Haney 28:50

Yep.

Matt Hahne 28:50

this number? What do we need to

Matt Haney 28:52

Yeah. What is the activity that leads to the outcome?

Matt Hahne 28:55

Yeah. And if you start with revenue at the end, usually in my experience, around four to six boxes back, you're gonna see great. Departmental or unit scorecard items, six to eight numbers back, you're gonna see great individual numbers. And in sales it always leads to, you know, qualified leads or SEO work

Matt Haney 29:19

Mm-hmm.

Matt Hahne 29:19

like that. And first appointments, you gotta talk to people. You got, you

Matt Haney 29:25

Yeah,

Matt Hahne 29:26

talk to people.

Matt Haney 29:26

but, but let me, let me jump in for a second.'cause I agree with you. I, I welcome feedback on, on that. How do you changing that culture and, and you know, you got ownership at the, at the level that's saying, you know, fractional integrator come in and help us, show us the way. And oh, by the way, um, we don't want to track activity'cause we don't want to change the culture of the company, yet our revenue's sliding and you need to help us save revenue and

Matt Hahne 29:50

company. I'm confused

Matt Haney 29:52

yeah.

Matt Hahne 29:53

of the company. What? What did I miss?

Matt Haney 29:55

Yeah, it's, it's, but what do you say? What do you do? What's your, what's your go-to?

Matt Hahne 30:00

Is the culture of the company to not get a paycheck for doing work.

Matt Haney 30:05

That's what, that's exactly what I'm saying is like, you're gonna lose revenue and therefore people's jobs are at, at, at stake here. And it's, it's, uh, well, we just don't, we don't, we don't, we don't wanna, man, we don't wanna micromanage. We a big brother and I'm like, guys, we've gotta stay focused on.

Matt Hahne 30:20

not micromanaging. This is a, this is, see here is a, a huge, we, we've gotten, too nice as a society in the United States post COVID. We don't wanna, we don't wanna offend

Matt Haney 30:34

Upset. Yeah.

Matt Hahne 30:35

okay. I don't wanna offend anyone either. But I also want to do the right thing by someone, the kind thing, because nobody wants to be a failure.

Matt Haney 30:46

Right.

Matt Hahne 30:48

Nobody wants to be a failure.

Matt Haney 30:49

Right. Yeah.

Matt Hahne 30:51

By us helping to hold them accountable. Measurables, Hey, if I'm a sales guy and you give me, I gotta do three proposals a week. I gotta make 25 calls a week, and I gotta have first appointments face to face. Okay? If I know that that's my yardstick that I'm gonna be measured against, then I am clear what I have to do to be a rockstar at this company.

Matt Haney 31:19

Yep.

Matt Hahne 31:19

Anything other than having those individual measurables inconsiderate and doesn't produce clarity. And quite honestly, rock stars, that gwc their seat, they want to be measured so they can show how

Matt Haney 31:38

To

Matt Hahne 31:38

they're

Matt Haney 31:38

every type. A badass salesperson I've ever, ever known, brags about their activity. They can't tell you fast enough how good they are based on the activity they're putting forward.

Matt Hahne 31:51

Matt, it's not micromanaging. It's measure

Matt Haney 31:55

Yeah, I.

Matt Hahne 31:56

people that GW see their seat don't see it as micromanaging.

Matt Haney 32:01

That's exactly right, man. That's so well said. And you got me all fired up because that's exactly right. It's like the best salespeople will tell you how great they are based by their numbers and, and not just the revenue. It's, you gotta look at all of the. Well, my, my, uh, one of my first managers used to say, you've gotta put the recipe together. Get it outta the cookbook, put the recipe together and you'll, your, your product will come out, meaning, set your measures, hit your measures, put the ingredients in, and then your cake will come out. You know, you forget the eggs, you're not gonna get the cake rise. So it's really, uh, it's really interesting to, to, to jump down in that. What are some challenges you've seen in the session room lately? Like what were some of the, if you can spend a minute thinking about anything that's come up where you had an unlock or an aha moment.

Matt Hahne 32:44

about electronics.

Matt Haney 32:45

yes.

Matt Hahne 32:47

Yeah, so, you know, I try to have a strict phone policy, but lately that's been really, really hard to implement and. You know, some, some of the tough old school implementers are like, it's not tough. It's the same as it's always been. I'm like, no, it seems to be different now. so I've asked a couple of people for help and I found some really great help from Dr. Lori Santos from the Happiness Lab at Yale.

Matt Haney 33:12

Okay.

Matt Hahne 33:13

And she referred me to this book that, uh, Price wrote and Lori Price Can, can three things, right? Every time you reach for your phone. What for? Why now, what else?

Matt Haney 33:26

What for? Why now? What else?

Matt Hahne 33:28

yeah, what are you reaching for at for

Matt Haney 33:31

Why is the time?

Matt Hahne 33:32

bored. Why now? Why now? And what else? Meaning, what are you missing out on by being on your phone in that time? And so in the session I'm like, Hey, let's focus on that. What else? For a minute. Right now, what's more important than us being aligned for the greater good of the organization? What's more important than us hitting our one year goal and celebrating that at the end

Matt Haney 33:59

Right, right.

Matt Hahne 34:02

Okay. Then why do you have your

Matt Haney 34:03

Exactly. Why now? Why, why, and do you get to the point where you feel comfortable, you know, calling out somebody respectfully, of course, in the session and saying, Hey, uh, you know, how do you, how do you handle it?

Matt Hahne 34:15

Yeah. So, um, I, a couple of EOS implementers have, um, electronic spas, so I'm like, so I have a basket now in the room and I'm like, Hey, your phone seemed to be working really hard right now. They probably need a break in the electronic spa, so either you can put'em in the spa or I'll put'em in the

Matt Haney 34:34

Yeah. Good for you. Good for you. And I, uh, I see that, I see that a lot, and I we're all guilty. I think it's, it's, it's, but if we can help ourselves from ourselves, then we should do that by, by removing that distraction. I love that.

Matt Hahne 34:48

for? Why now, what else?

Matt Haney 34:50

Yeah.

Matt Hahne 34:50

curbed a lot of my use on the phone

Matt Haney 34:53

Yeah. No, that's really, really helpful.

Matt Hahne 34:55

What are you missing?

Matt Haney 34:56

Yeah, what are you, yeah, most of the times you're not missing, you're missing something from the session. I can promise you that. And you're, you're not missing something on the phone.'cause uh, you know, I, I have do not disturb. I try to use it pretty religiously. Um, and the only number that comes through is my wife's or maybe my kids. If I, if I set them in there and, and when I'm in a session or quarterly, it's known like, hey, if, if, if you need me and the world's falling apart around you call me.

Matt Hahne 35:19

Yeah.

Matt Haney 35:20

let's save what's for dinner conversation for after the, after the meeting. Like we can plan the grocery ingredients later, or I'll handle dinner. Don't worry about it. So, and that's gotta be distracting for you guys as well, standing at the, at the whiteboard.

Matt Hahne 35:34

is. so I think electronics and the, you know,

Matt Haney 35:37

I,

Matt Hahne 35:37

the distraction, the general distraction of all of us right now,

Matt Haney 35:42

yeah.

Matt Hahne 35:43

all of that stuff. You could probably do by time blocking it into one little part of your calendar or

Matt Haney 35:49

Right. Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna segue us'cause I have an interesting thought and it is around distractions. Um, I've, I, I can't help but think of AI and the use of artificial intelligence and LLM models, like all of those things have you? Dove into that, or do you see that in your client sessions? Or I give, gimme Any backstory you have on sort of what AI's doing to some of your clients, good or bad?

Matt Hahne 36:14

I haven't, I haven't seen it in the session room so much. Um, we've experimented with it a little bit, but ultimately I think AI is more practical in the how.

Matt Haney 36:24

Mm-hmm.

Matt Hahne 36:24

But when we're in session and we're setting rocks for the quarter. We're working on what does success look like? They don't need AI to tell them what success looks

Matt Haney 36:33

Right.

Matt Hahne 36:33

know what success looks like at the end of the quarter, so they don't need AI for that. maybe they need AI to come up with the how, the milestone plan that delivers the

Matt Haney 36:44

Right.

Matt Hahne 36:44

they don't need AI to figure out the what. seeing a lot of powerful AI work in. Every facet of company now, like, uh, you know, some of the, some of the talking heads are talking now. The technology, like a thousand years of technology, uh, acceleration is gonna be done in about 10 years.

Matt Haney 37:07

Matt, it's crazy where we are today. I'll give you a quick example. So I'm. I'm working on a proposal for a prospective client. They're not gonna see this by the time I win or lose that work, so it's not gonna be a super secret, but, but I'm analyzing their, some data for them and getting some of their spreadsheet information around how many, they're big companies, so Right. They're very vertically orated. They got 25 different LL tens going a week. 25

Matt Hahne 37:31

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Matt Haney 37:32

ahead and rank their scorecard qua their quality of their l tens by and because I was gonna come in and help facilitate and help you go. So I put, I spit it in and I was like, okay, I only have this much time per week. So I dumped the spreadsheet in and I asked it to gimme a plan on how often I should,'cause the, the meetings are ranked one to 10, one being bad, 10 being the best, and you know, created and sorted, dump all this information into a spreadsheet to create a plan for me on What would your plan of attack be to get these meetings? To this level based on this period of time, allocating this much time every week and all of a sudden babo it, spits it out.

Matt Hahne 38:06

Yeah. crazy

Matt Haney 38:08

there's like, compare these two proposals. Tell me the difference between the two. Like there's so much stuff out there that, uh, are gonna fundamentally change small to mid-size businesses.

Matt Hahne 38:20

massively, I think anybody solopreneur and up. Needs to be thinking about how to use AI in their business, including, including us.

Matt Haney 38:32

Someone said to me the other day, the invention of modern machines. Everyone was scared when the loom came out, that that made, you know, allowed people to, to not keep. I mean it's like all of these, these modern techno, I guess what people evolved and got better when the industrial machines, the steam engine, the train, the car, the plane. Guess what? People still find a way to persevere and survive.

Matt Hahne 38:54

Yeah, and I think that's, it's no different now. I think, you know, people are asking all the time, what's gonna be replaced by ai. I think there's a lot of stuff out there, but the human connection will thrive, and I think human connection is a place to invest time and energy in the future.

Matt Haney 39:10

That's exactly right.

Matt Hahne 39:12

so spend more time being human with your humans.

Matt Haney 39:15

That's exactly right.

Matt Hahne 39:17

invest in face-to-face, invest in human connection, because I think that's gonna be the currency of the next

Matt Haney 39:23

You know, you're so funny. I was listening to a podcast. I don't listen to a lot of podcasts a lot, but I had some time in the car and one of them was from a, one of the original founders of Twitter. and he has obviously met a zillion dollars and created now his new latest and greatest technology app. Is to create a place for people to get together in person. He's taking all of the disconnection he created by forcing people to go to this app and create 42 characters of communication, and now he's using it going the other way, which is how do we get back together for humans to be humans and facilitate that interaction that we've gone. I, I mean, I, I can't believe we have to create technology to do that, but that's kind of where we are.

Matt Hahne 40:05

Well, I mean, for any supervisor out there that's listening to this, don't ask ai, ask your direct hires.

Matt Haney 40:12

Yeah. Yeah. Well said.

Matt Hahne 40:14

what you, that's what you're giving'em a paycheck to do is to use their brain.

Matt Haney 40:18

That's right.

Matt Hahne 40:19

Use their brain, like empower them to be more creative in their ideas that they're providing. You let them go to AI if they want, but for you as a supervisor, you have employees that should be sourcing ideas for you.

Matt Haney 40:34

Yep.

Matt Hahne 40:34

But we've gotten away from that where we, you know, you gotta, you gotta empower your, your direct hires to do the work.

Matt Haney 40:41

Yep. No, absolutely. Absolutely.

Matt Hahne 40:43

mm,

Matt Haney 40:43

Well, I, I loved chatting with you. If you've got any questions or anything else, I'm happy to answer them. But I've, I've loved spending time with you and I love the fact that we had no connection to each other, other than a very similar name and an interest in EOS. And here we are, you know, chatting about the world and AI and people and reporting and, um, so I just wanna thank you a lot for your time and. Let you know. I appreciate it.

Matt Hahne 41:07

I Ah, thank you. Thanks for having me on. I'm looking forward to seeing, seeing future podcasts.

Matt Haney 41:12

Matt. Thanks for your time. I'll talk to you soon, sir. Be well. Thanks for joining us on the scalability code. Take care.

41:19

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.