My team and I have decided it’s time to take a bird’s eye look at our own business. We hired a company called Sagacious Partners to implement a system called EOS. It ties together two main organization ideologies that I respect and adhere to, Entrepreneurs Organization and Strategic Coach. If you have read this blog for some time now, you have probably heard me mention both.
Entrepreneurs Organization is the collaborative meeting of the minds of successful business owners where we can discuss roadblocks and wins and support one another through growing a business. Strategic Coach has some similar cornerstones, but it is a structured quarterly collaborative planning workshop to help business owners create clear visions of where they want to take their companies.
EOS was created to bring the whole leadership team, not just the owner, into vision and planning discussions to solve problems, get organized and grow their organizations.
The premise of our fist leadership meeting this past week was strategic goal planning and clarity on the roles that we could be missing altogether in our company. In short, Poe Group has been in a growth stage. I’m not complaining. In the last two years we have made five new position hires. This year, we made three of those hires.
I’m thrilled, but it has meant I have started to wear far too many hats. I am overseeing budget, training, daily operations, sales, and broker training. You name the task and my hand has been in the pot. I expected this. I am aware it is a temporary growing pain as I prepare my team to be self-sufficient. But, like every business owner I was getting a little bit stuck in the weeds contemplating how to pull myself out of this difficult stage of growth.
Last week we pulled our Charleston team and our longest-standing team member, Stephanie Smith, into a full day meeting. We turned off phones and computers and we had pen, paper and a white board. We all pretended we were a board of advisors without a role to play in the company for the majority of the day. We mapped out our six to twelve month vision. We drew a chart of roles needed to give us capacity. We set SMART goals, meaning specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based. The hard work is not done. We realized we probably need to make a couple more hires in the near future, but we delegated some tasks and mapped out what we really need for success.
I encourage you to take the time to work on your business and include your key players. There is a way out of the daily grind that creates a path for success. To me, that looks like happy employees doing work that they are good at, well-serviced clients, more revenue and most importantly, more time!
We will keep you updated on how our strategy meetings go, and in the meantime, you may want to check out the book Traction and see how you can start to get a better grip on your business.
PS – Whenever you’re ready, here are 4 other ways we can help:
- Seller FAQ: Answers to the questions sellers are asking. From practice value, to timing, we’ve got you covered.
- Strategic Guide to Selling your CPA Practice Video: The how-to of selling a CPA firm.
- Accounting Practice Academy: If you’re looking for benchmarks, our 8-week workshop has a community of established firm owners that will help you get perspective, reduce your owner hours, and raise your bottom line. email ibrennan@poegroupadvisors.com with “APA” and we will fill you in on the details.
- If you want to chat about your exit strategy, email bball@poegroupadvisors.com with “strategy call” or request a call here.
