How EOS Transforms Businesses: Gary Leeman’s Story

Welcome to the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast, where we talk with entrepreneurs, founders, and leaders at B2B services, tech, and SaaS companies to learn the systems and processes they've used to create success for their business. We'll also learn from marketing and sales experts to provide insights to help you grow your business. I'm your host, Mark Osborne, and the podcast is brought to you by Modern Revenue strategies and their 10x ROI B2B growth guarantee. Schedule a free diagnostic call to learn the fastest path to double your B2B revenues in just 90 days. Hello and welcome to another episode of the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast. I'm your host, Mark Osborne, and today I'm very excited to welcome my guest, Gary Lehman. Now I'm going to read Gary's bio to make sure I get this right. Gary's a lifelong entrepreneur who was stuck in unsatisfying yet successful corporate career for 25 years. His first job at age 7 was a mechanic's assistant at his grandparents' truck repair business. Paper routes, shoveling driveways, raking leaves, fixing broken lawn mowers, flipping '70s-era German sports cars all followed. Gary helped a partner design and build a device to help people in wheelchairs, and he's been supporting that business for the last 20 years. He's a patented engineer and a lifelong idea guy. Gary was the first key hire for a software startup in 2016. He helped grow Hoops HR from zero to over $256,000 monthly recurring revenue while serving as their COO and EOS integrator. And we're going to talk about what that means to be an EOS integrator. Upon exiting his startup, Gary was called to help other entrepreneurs get everything that they want out of their business and their lives. He has found his purpose and passion serving as a professional EOS implementer, and I'm happy to have him here for what I know is going to be a very interesting conversation. So, Gary, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Mark. I really appreciate the introduction. I'm excited to be here. Looking forward to this conversation.

So, from repairing lawn mowers and flipping cars to growing a software company. Tell us your story. How—

what—

give us your story arc and sort of where you got to where you are now and really what you do today.

You know, it's funny, when I hear you, you know, share that story, I realize that maybe it's because I can't keep my hands out of things, right? I get my hands dirty all the time. It's— it's— I just lean in. Um, yeah, I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. My grandparents ran a successful Truck repair business in New Jersey, and I just assumed from a very young age that I was going to go and join that family business. So I knew I was going to get an engineering degree in kindergarten. Okay, kind of absurd. Unfortunately, my grandfather had passed away, and my grandmother ran the business for herself for about eight years, and she ended up having to sell it before I graduated college. Okay. So from life's great plan went what the hell to do now, and joined corporate. You know, got a degree, I have to go get a job. And so I had that series of corporate gigs and, you know, success, relatively speaking, you know, in a career, promotions every time they came up, but I never really felt at home.

Okay.

And, you know, I had a fairly big career hit about 10 years ago and I was out looking. To get the next job, and I had met a couple of guys who were starting up their own business, and I was just helping them just because I was intrigued.

Yeah.

And before you know it, there's an offer on the table to be their COO and really help them operationalize and run a business. So I jumped at that chance, right? It had been on a bucket list. I'd always wanted to do that. Yeah. And what I discovered was, yeah, it was a every bit as exciting as they say entrepreneurship is. What they don't tell you is how painful, chaotic entrepreneurship can be, worrying about payroll, wondering if you've just wasted a year of your life, you know, stressing about everything under the sun, right? And bootstrapping our way to our relevancy really. And we got really lucky. We had, we had a customer in the product that we really were finding a market fit for who loved what we did. He sold his business and he wanted to invest, but he had one condition: we had to implement EOS. And we had never heard of it. So obviously we said yes, right? Because he was going to be an investor. And I'll tell you, in 3 weeks everything changed. I mean, we completely turned the ship around and started making progress within a year. And over the last 18 months with that company, 5x revenue while increasing profitability. I scaled from 2 to 20 on my team, you know, without missing a beat, all due to EOS, right? Which is why when I exited that, I really decided my greatest impact now, given this really weird background I have, is to help other business owners and entrepreneurs realize there is another way. There's this myth in America that to own a business or to start something up, you have to sacrifice everything. You have to sacrifice your dreams, you have to sacrifice time with family. And it's a myth. It's a self-fulfilling myth. There is a way, and that way is EOS. And so that's what I do today. I help business owners get everything they want from their business and their lives.

So for those listening that may have heard of EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, but aren't as familiar with it, give us a Give us a quick background. What is EOS?

So the best way for me to explain that is what I would tell a business owner who I might meet who's happening, you know, who happens to be in that state where they're starting to really hit the ceiling and feel like kind of all hope is lost, right? That they're in it for the long-term pain. You know, what I do with EOS is I provide a complete system of simple tools And those tools help my clients get 3 things that we call vision, traction, and healthy. Okay, vision from the standpoint of first, I work with the owner, the leader of the business, and their team to make sure they're 100% on the same page with where their company's going and how it plans to get there. Traction from the standpoint is I help to create discipline and accountability with a leadership team so that everywhere an owner looks, They see every part of their vision being executed on consistently and really well. And then healthy, meaning I work with a leadership team to create a healthy, functional, cohesive group of leaders that are performing as a team. Because unfortunately, even sometimes great leaders don't work well as a team. Right? From there, as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the organization. So I work with my clients until everybody in the organization is crystal clear on their vision. Executing consistently day in, day out, gaining traction, and frankly advancing as a healthy bunch of people who enjoy coming to work. So what I do as an EOS entrepreneur is really unlock the potential inside of an organization by helping them focus on what's most important now. And Putting everything else aside because when everything's important, nothing's important.

That's right. Yeah, creating that priority and just that framework. And as you and I have discussed many times, so many businesses like are just sort of running around trying to do everything and don't know where to focus. And even if they do have focus, if they don't have systems or an operating system as EOS is designed to be that helps them sort of show up as their best selves every day in every way, then they can even feel underwater even if they have that focus. And so we see it's so important to have these systems and processes that create the opportunity for scale and freedom. We actually have a phrase that, you know, systems set you free. And it's so oftentimes like I've seen companies that have been afraid of something like EOS as, oh, it's too much, you know, sort of overhead or bureaucracy or too much structure. It's going to weigh me down. But in fact, Once you implement these things, it really sort of opens up and sets you free to accomplish a lot more.

I mean, you hit on a really, really important point. I can't tell you how many times the reaction from that visionary leader is process is going to slow me down. Don't shackle me. Don't put me in a box, right? Don't put baby in a box, right? So you cannot succeed through sheer tyranny of will. You cannot will something into being. Okay? I absolutely agree that that process and systems create freedom because when you're not fighting the same fires over and over and over again, when you're not making mistakes and rework because you don't have a documented process, right? When your salespeople are selling things that your operations team doesn't know about. That creates the kind of havoc that just absolutely stunts and limits your growth.

That's right.

And so it's a question of what kind of freedom do you want? Do you want freedom to really lean into the visionary seat, create big ideas, really foster those strategic relationships that are gonna drive your next decade of growth? Or do you want freedom to just, yeah, be the main firefighter and answer, solve everybody's questions? That's not my idea of freedom. Right?

Right. That's right. Well, so EOS provides this really great sort of overarching framework on how to run your business. And for those that are less familiar, everything from the way to run effective meetings and as well as a cadence for meetings and a meeting pulse that really sort of keeps all of your team aligned, even the types of metrics and a scorecard that can organize those meetings to make sure that you're focused on all those things. And within there, Fits sort of the strategy around marketing and sales. And that's, you know, what we talk a lot about on this show is sort of marketing and sales. So I'd love to, you know, sort of get your thoughts about how the EOS framework really supports a marketing and sales sort of a go-to-market motion for companies. What have you seen be one of the really power— some of the really powerful things there?

So, Mark, I think let's take a half step back so I can really address this question because you mentioned the framework a few times, right? So I said a complete system of simple tools. It's not just a toolbox, right? It is a framework. So, so at a very high level, what we know about almost all growing entrepreneurial or owner or founder-led companies is that they're dealing with 136 issues simultaneously. But to the, to the extent that you can strengthen 6 key components of a business, those they're just noise. And you start to see the true root causes and the true opportunities. So those 6 key components are important to understand because it is a whole system. And even where marketing fits in comes into other areas. So it's about vision, having a clear vision that everybody understands, is aligned to, and wants to help you achieve, having the right people to achieve that vision, having data so you can start making data, you know, informed decisions as as opposed to the gut, the reaction that most of the time drives decision-making in, in entrepreneurial companies. You gotta get really good at solving issues, not just having issues and complaining, but drilling down, getting to a root cause and putting the time in and commitment in to fix it now once so it doesn't keep coming up. That creates so much freedom. It's unbelievable. And then process and EOS is entrepreneurial. We don't create 700-page, you know, SOP manuals no one's ever gonna read. They're gonna be out of date the minute they're published. We're talking about identifying the value stream, right? What do you deliver? How do you deliver it? And just simply simplifying that so you're doing the right things the best way every time. And then traction, you know, how do we focus this energy and prioritize? So that is the framework. Those are the 6 key components. Now, marketing fits into the vision component.

That's right.

We simply ask 8 questions of a leadership team and we facilitate them to come up with the answer. What are your core values? What's your core focus? What's your 10-year target? What's your marketing strategy? What's your 3-year picture? What's your 1-year plan? What are your next 90-day rocks or priorities? And what are your long-term issues you need to solve? So we don't need to dig into each of those core values are really about your culture at its core. And so, you know, if people fit it or not, the 10-year target is that big kind of rallying cry that gets people inspired. We're gonna improve the lives of a million firefighters by 2025, something like that.

Right.

Why is marketing strategy part of the vision? Because we're not talking about a 38-page go-to-market plan with, with all the tactics and metrics and A/B testing. We believe that you shouldn't spend a dime or an hour in your very precious sales and marketing efforts until you can answer 4 basic questions, right? Who is your customer? Who's your ideal customer? Demographic, geographic, psychographic. Who do you wanna do business with? Who needs your product or service? You have no business marketing to anything or to anybody if you don't know who you're trying to, to speak to, right?

That's right.

You're just shouting it from a, from a mountaintop hoping that the right ears pick it up. Then the next 3 things are exactly just what you're gonna tell them, right? So what are your 3 uniques? It's, it's rare to find a company that has a product or service that does not have competition, right?

Yeah.

So, you know that there's choice. That's a beautiful thing about capitalism. Every consumer has choice. So your customers have choice. They're considering you or somebody else to deliver that product or service. So counterintuitively, you wanna let your freak flag fly. You wanna say, this is why we stand out in the pack.

That's right.

Why? Because the 20% of the available market that you would work really well with, that would— they'd love to do business with you, they're gonna hear that and lean in, and you're gonna turn off the other 80%. And everyone freaks out when I say that.

That's okay.

That's okay. That 80% is going to waste your time.

That's right. That's right.

They're either gonna beat you up on price They're not a fit for you anyway, or they're better served by one of your competitors, maybe who does things like, you know, offshore cheaply. Great. Good for them. So be really lean into who you are, what makes you unique. That will actually— that's kind of like that light in the cave. You spot it. Now I can move towards that light, if you will.

Yeah.

Proven process. That's simply Simple document that says from the moment you consider doing business with me until you're a long-term satisfied business partner, how do I execute my product or service to deliver exactly what I promise? What that does is it really lowers resistance. It takes away that unknown. A confused mind says no.

Yeah.

So when they know exactly how you provide that service and it's documented, one, it differentiates. Not a lot of companies take the time.

Yeah.

Document that. 2, it creates internal consistency. It keeps everyone inside your organization aligned on how we engage with our clients, right? And 3, it kind of, it lowers that fear of adoption.

Okay.

And then finally, we talk about a guarantee. It's simply a pledge or a promise. Not everybody has the ability to even give a guarantee. But to the extent that you can explain to a potential client, if things go sideways, here's how we remediate. Maybe it's a refund, maybe it's a free month of the service, whatever. Maybe it's a full product refund. But again, it's, it's saying that you believe in what you do so much, and you know life is unpredictable. So I don't offer a guarantee because I don't think you're gonna love it. Offer guarantees. So, you know, I will stand by what I tell you. And that creates the marketing strategy. And that's where EOS stops because from there, we're not marketing experts, right?

Right.

We don't tell you whether you should use Salesforce or HubSpot. We don't tell you whether you should advertise on social media or buy a Pandora ad. That's for the marketing team. That's for the marketing experts. But you shouldn't spend a dime on marketing until you can answer those 4 questions.

And it's so insightful and it's so funny. Like, I can't tell you how many times we've, you know, had conversations with entrepreneurs or businesses where they're like, we can't get our ads to deliver well and we're spending all of this money on ads and it all comes back to, well, Let's talk about what you really know about your customer. Well, it turns out they don't really know that much about them. They have an idea of maybe who they want them to be, but not who they really are. Or they might know them on a very surface level, but not on a deep level. And so, that's that problem number 1, knowing the customer. And then, maybe they do know their customer, like, well, let's talk about what you're talking to that customer about. And then, oftentimes, they're talking about the benefits of the category. If you had a calculator, it would add numbers for you.

Yes.

can make that claim. What is special about your calculator? So, it's these unique aspects of your business and really understanding that competitive landscape so that you can know there's a certain thing about my customer that makes them different. And there's a certain thing about me that makes me different than the competitors. That's where you find that real connection with those customers. And then it turns out if you've really done this well, the unique thing about your customer and the unique thing about you is what creates a process that no one else can replicate, that then really creates that credibility and trust so that they can believe that promise or that guarantee that you're going to make. And having those fundamental elements together, that's what makes a strong advertising campaign wherever you take that ad campaign to. That's what brings— And you talked about sort of the light and the dark. We like to think about it as a magnet because magnets both attract and repel. They attract the right people, but they repel the wrong ones.

I'm stealing that.

Yeah. And so you want to magnetically attract the right prospects while also magnetically repelling the wrong ones because they will waste your time, they will waste your resources, and they'll ultimately churn out of your business without generating a lot of return for you. So, it's so interesting just to see how that manifests itself, not only in the marketing, but the sales and even in sort of growing the recurring or reoccurring revenue that you have from existing customers. Because if you're making a promise upfront that doesn't pay off in the experience of working with you, they're going to churn out and it's not going to wind up being a good fit.

Yeah, I love that. And I am definitely stealing the magnet analogy. You know, you start with the marketing strategy, right? But it's part of a whole.

That's right.

Right. That is letting the world know what you have and finding the audience and making sure, you know, that you're honing that message to really resonate and communicate well, you know, the A/B testing, whether you're doing it, you know, Google AdWords or however else, whatever channels you use, right? You, but you don't go with feel. It doesn't seem to be working, right?

Right.

So you define metrics, right? Which is why the data component is so, so important. That's right. That's right. Okay, let's compare lead sources. And, and I, I've been in this room. Oh my God, we should only spend our money on Google. We got 30 leads from Google this, this month and we only got like 2 from You know, whatever from that social media post we did. Okay, what'd we spend on Google? Right? So let's, let's talk about the cost per lead and let's, then let's talk about the conversion of that lead through the system. So at the sale level, what was the customer acquisition cost? Turns out it was $10,000 in Google.

Right. That's right.

And so we're underwater with all those customers unless they renew next year.

That's right.

So it might look good on the surface, something's performing, But you need actual data to tell you.

Yeah, right.

Or hey, we started letting everyone know we want to offer this service. We're starting— our sales team's starting to get busy. They're taking meetings, they're having calls, and we're starting to see revenue come in. But what they're selling and promising is not what the operations team has been set up to deliver. So do we know that internally? Do we have the processes Right? That makes sure that stuff stays in sync, right? So the process component's really important. And when there is a misalignment, how do we quickly get to the root cause of that? So we gotta get good at solving issues because, look, more business, more problems.

Yeah.

They just exponentially, and life gets complicated quickly, which is why we simplify it every, every opportunity in EOS. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Because every day brings new complexities. So your job is to root it out. Your job is to get to the root cause of issues through data and then track data on how you're doing, right? So you can have wonderful marketing copy, you can be creating leads, and you can still be losing money for all these other reasons.

Yeah. Well, one, 2 of the things that you just mentioned that make EOS so powerful, even from a marketing perspective, is this idea of using data and metrics And a scorecard that so often, like, we see companies that, you know, they, when they have meetings, the meeting just, you know, sort of pinwheels into talking about, well, why isn't this what we want it to be? Or what about, well, what about this thing that we tried 6 years ago and why aren't we doing that again? And well, I think we should. But the structure of a meeting, Pulse, where you talk about the actual pacing against a scorecard and not a report card that's a step in time, but a scorecard that's tracking you over time so that you can see some context and where things are going. And that focuses you on that very quickly to then free up the time for talking about all these other issues and really unpacking those important things for the business. And Bringing together that sort of meeting pulse and having that regular cadence, that's one of the ways that we see that systems really create freedom for creativity is because when you get everyone together and you quickly look at your metrics and then move into the issues on a regular cadence, then you sort of create this opportunity for people to really get creative on solving the issues together rather than just bogging down in, well, is that KPI defined the way that I think it is, or what metric are you using versus, you know, having that regular scorecard?

Yeah. So you're giving me PTSD, right? That I remember from the story, right? I said within 3 weeks, we completely changed everything.

Sure.

I wasn't sure about EOS, frankly. I didn't go and find it. I was told you should do it. So we did it.

Sure.

And I'd been around the block a few times. And I had heard the great speeches from all the new leaders, and I've heard about, well, we're going to have laser focus, or we're going to put customer first. I've heard all the buzzwords. Ultimately, nothing ever changes day to day. But that meeting pulse you talk about, the Level 10 agenda that we use, same agenda, same time, same day each week, the leadership team, it is foundational. So you talk about team health, right? Talk about the finger pointing. I don't know if you've ever seen marketing and sales blame each other.

Oh, never.

I've heard stories. That's right. That's right. So when you can create a foundation where the team looks at every issue as us against the issue, not me against you, not sales against marketing. You're the problem. You're the problem. No. What is the problem? If the problem is in the sales process, then we work as a team to fix that problem. If the process is in the marketing strategy, then we, if that, if that's what we all agree to as a leadership team, as a root cause, then as a leadership team, we get together and solve that cause together. We put our efforts against that, not against each other.

Yeah.

And man, it's magic when you start to see people almost want to bring their issues to these meetings, even when it's their problem. Like, I missed my number. I almost want to because, hey, when, when, when they see the team band together like that and really put, you know, many minds, right? None of us is as smart as all of us. So you get, you know, these leaders that are really at the core, but they want the business to succeed. So who cares where the issue is?

Yeah.

Let's just jump in and figure it out and come up with a solution together.

Totally changes the culture when everyone can get shoulder to shoulder pointing at how did the system let us down? How did the process break? How do we improve the system instead of face to face saying, well, you didn't hit your number or whatever it might be?

You didn't follow up with the lead fast enough.

That's why.

That's right. You didn't mention this or what. It's always somebody else's fault, right?

That's right. But instead, if we can make it the system's fault, then we can collaborate on fixing the system, which is such a better way to approach it. And, you know, as you say, creates that, you know, health and sort of personal fulfillment in running a business rather than this, you know, sort of white-knuckled, impossible entrepreneurial journey that so many people talk about.

It may be the thing that gives me the most joy. Is when I see kind of a beaten up leadership team start to come out of their weekly leadership team meetings feeling better, feeling positive.

Excited.

Yeah, excited. Not dreading the next one like, oh, is it gonna be my turn to get spanked in front of everybody? You know, we've all been in those environments.

That's right.

So it's, yeah, I help business owners for sure because they're the decision maker. But my biggest impact is that team that's supporting and running that business. They carry it all too. Business owners tend to believe they're the only ones who feel the pain of the business. And that's just not true at all. Right? Intelligent leaders, they know, oh, we're missing our quarter. We may need to make cuts or we may not get a Christmas bonus. And they carry that home too. Yeah, they certainly carry home when they've been falsely accused of something or put on the spot as everything's their fault. Nobody likes that, right? So I see it a lot with sales and marketing, but some—

it's—

I see it as often as sales and operations. I see it between operations and finance, right? So this is a global dynamic. But look back to marketing and process. What I really liked about what you shared Is that you understand working within a framework, and that you understand that all those pieces are important. It's not just a website or the color design or a channel to pick.

That's right.

It's based in data, right? It's based in first and foremost understanding who your who your target market is, who your ideal customer is, and then what makes you particularly unique. That's right. Now it's your expertise that. that then comes up with that messaging and the collateral and the channels in which to do that. And then setting about to build a process with the data that helps us continually improve, right? Continuous improvement is key.

Well, Gary, I've loved our conversation and we could probably talk for hours more, but I gotta be respectful of your time. But before I let you go, for our audience that's been listening and really sort of loving what they're hearing and learning more about your practice with EOS, give it, you know, tell us the— give us the pitch. Why would someone want to work with you specifically? Like, what makes you the right fit for certain companies?

So there you go, right? Let me lean into my 3 uniques.

Sure. Right?

So in the instance where you have an educated consumer out there, they've decided to move forward with EOS, they're still considering maybe trying it themselves or Maybe they want to meet a couple implementers to see what's a good fit. This is where I get a chance to just tell them exactly what they're going to see if they put Gary in that room for a full day. Yeah, they're going to get a class clown that's going to use an opportunity to make a joke every now and again to keep, keep things light. I'm an aficionado of analogies. I can come up with analogies. All my teaching style is through analogies and examples. I'm very direct. I'm from New Jersey. If I, if I'm thinking something, I say it. And you don't have to wonder what I meant. So I'm a very direct individual. I'm a cheerleader in the sense that I believe in everybody, but that doesn't mean everybody's always getting hurrah. Sometimes you screwed up and I help you see it, right? So I'm, I'm a very I almost get too passionate, right? One thing I always have to be aware of is I can never want success more than the client does, right? So I need to work with teams that really want to be the best, right? It isn't just, hey, let me solve a couple problems. This is a lifestyle change that I bring, right? So embrace it and I'll be with you side by side to get you Absolutely world-class in whatever endeavor you're, you're going after. Um, so kind of expect if you're not seeing the big picture and seeing where you can take that team in your business, then I might be pushing and prodding you along the way or getting frustrated with you that you're not going after what you actually can once you get your system in place.

Yeah.

So that's, that's how I approach my EOS business, which is really how I approached everything else I ever did. Right. You're just full-throated.

So for those of you, for those of our audience that's listening and they like what they hear, how do they get in touch with you? What's the best way to connect?

Well, I have a microsite. I think you can probably share a link in the description.

Yeah.

I'm on LinkedIn and we can post that too. On my microsite, you can schedule a call, you can call me direct. You can contact me via email or via LinkedIn if you want to talk about— and by the way, even if you're not interested in implementing EOS, if you just want to learn more about one of the things I spoke about or interested in maybe some guides or tools, maybe around a problem-solving session around getting better about issues, I'm happy to talk to anybody who wants to make their life a little better on 9 to 5, if you know what I mean.

Awesome.

I'm available for any discussion. Awesome.

Well, Gary, thank you so much for joining us today. I really enjoyed our conversation.

I can't believe it's third. I thought we were just getting started.

Time flew, didn't it?

Thank you so much for the opportunity, Mark. I really enjoyed it.

Absolutely. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you for joining this episode of the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast. We hope you've gained insights to grow your business. If you enjoyed this discussion, please rate, comment, like on your favorite platform, and share to others who will find it useful. Do you know a CEO, founder, or leader at an early-stage B2B services, tech, or SaaS company who would like to be a guest and share their story? Send us a note. Let's schedule a conversation.