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Today's episode was sponsored by New Economy CPA.

We just got off a call this morning where one of them was like, I really like that you guys have core values. And that's very uncommon for Asian independent distributors businesses like yours. And yeah, that's very common in the rest of companies in United States, but yeah, it's not common for us. And so it's really brought us to that next level where we have core focus. We have a mission statement. We have an org chart or our accountability chart. All these things give a structure and a system to follow that.

Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Rocket Fuel podcast, where visionary and integrator duos from entrepreneurial companies share a behind-the-scenes look at their relationship. These amazing leaders blend their unique skills to create rocket fuel. I'm your host, Mark C. Winters, co-author of Rocket Fuel and an expert EOS Implementer. Today, I'm excited to welcome Raphael and Mervin Lay, a brother visionary integrator duo from Winram International. This second-generation family business specializes in the import and distribution of quality branded Asian grocery products and providing full-service export to the Pacific Islands. Raphael started full-time in the business in the integrator role with his father as visionary, back in 1996. Later, when their father transitioned out of the business, Mervin joined as the new visionary. However, it wasn't until they read Traction in 2020 that they realized they had fallen naturally into these roles. In this episode, we explore what it's like to transition from a first-generation company to a second and even third generation. Rafael and Mervin talk about the changes they've experienced since implementing EOS and how it has helped them reach a new level of professionalism. We're starting the show with Raphael sharing how he discovered Traction and EOS. Let's hop in.

It's funny, we had managed service provider come out to us. He said, you know, I'm not sure your company is a great fit for us. You're not quite what we're looking for in a client. I was like, no one's ever said, come to a call and then say, you're not a fit. What is happening? He's like, yeah, we, We really identified what our client base should look like through traction, our ideal customer. And he said, here, you should read this book. Let it help you, you know, glean what you can from it. I devoured that book in a weekend and it was where a light bulb moment went on. Like Merwin said, we both went to MBAs. We had read all the great books, you know, how to manage businesses, how to manage this part of the business, how to manage that part of the business, but nothing tied it all together. And this was this book that was just like, this is how you do it. This is the roadmap for it. My God, my mind was blown. I told Marvin, you have to read this book. This makes everything we've done in the last 10 years so much more understandable. And we dove right into it. Our implementer, Josh Holtzman, he was the last speaker at my Vistage group right before COVID locked down. So March 2020. And, you know, I came prepared with questions to talk about the material. We continued talking about it for a couple more months, and then August we called up Josh again and we said, I think this is for us. We need to go down this path.

We were meeting in my parents' backyard during COVID I heard about that, right?

So first of all, Josh is a fantastic EOS implementer. I love Josh. He's really, really great at what he does. That's awesome. So your first one, Mervin, was in your parents' backyard. So did Josh like, you know, wheel in a bunch of portable whiteboard? How did he, how, what did that look like?

Yeah, we all sat separated and then, you know, we, it was still early. We had no idea what was going on with COVID and, he was like five to six, five to 10 feet away from us with a whiteboard and just doing it all. He gave us, folders and, it was all off that whiteboard. No, no electronics.

Of course, it was a crazy time for all of us, and we, everybody had to kind of adapt and figure out how to do it. So, you know, talk to me about why you thought it was important, or Josh thought it was important to do that one in person and kind of do the backyard version. You remember thinking about that? Was that intentional or is that just.

Kind of the way it worked out? I think it was intentional. You know, we started doing Zoom for all the various things. Our Vistage meetings were in Zoom, calls with our vendors were in Zoom, and there's something that you lose in that in-person connection, that immediacy of bouncing ideas off of each other, of being able to follow a thread and also not talk over each other. That's one of the frustrating things about video. You don't know when someone has finished talking, if there's a lag. Just the immediacy of all of us being together in the same area was, I think, valuable. In addition, you know, everybody knows the first two sessions are all-day sessions. I had no desire to sit behind a computer screen. looking at the screen at Josh, as handsome as he may be, for eight hours. That would have been a lot.

I think it ties into a little bit of what we are as a company too. I mean, most of our business has been for 30 years a handshake business with all of our vendors and customers and that face-to-face getting to know the person face-to-face is really important for us.

Yeah, I experienced that in working with clients. I mean, Zoom's great. and you can do a lot, right? So it's super to have that as an alternative. And it's very effective, particularly with people that you already have that relationship with, right? But boy, when you're first coming out of the gate and you don't really know each other yet, it's slower, I feel, to kind of build that rapport and really begin to trust each other. So that's cool that you started out and you've got a backyard story for your EOS implementation. So just give the audience a little bit of context. How big is your organization right now?

We're currently at 48 employees. We run a warehouse staff. We're a food distribution business. So we have six trucks that we run all through Southern California from San Diego all the way up to Fresno. We have five sales that travel throughout the country. I think before COVID we were at about 30. So we ramped up pretty quickly just with the demand and the complexity of the business post COVID.

Mervin, your LinkedIn profile says that you used to believe it was a bad thing when they said, oh, you're such a dreamer. Why did you think that was a bad thing?

This is getting into my childhood and everything. Typical Asian culture, your choices are become a doctor, an engineer, or a lawyer. and go to an Ivy League school, get straight A's, that's about the extent of life, right? I had no desire to be either of those. I was not a straight A student. I think this gave me a sense of value or sense of worth, reading traction and reading rocket fuel. Like it was, I don't know how to say it. I mean, to find that you actually have some value, for what you do, what comes natural to you. All of these things started to make sense. I had a leadership emphasis in Pepperdine for some reason. I was just drawn to that. My strengths finders was ideation, Colby, I'm like an eight quick start pioneer. It's like, why am I built this way? And to find that the visionary is actually a role that is integral to an organization is something that I never thought of as a kid. And, you know, it's, it's, for the last three years, it's been really empowering to know that, hey, I have an important role in this company, not just a role. And there's a reason why you have all these ideas and why your brother's always saying, nope, nope, nope. That doesn't work.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I still keep coming up with them.

That's how you're wired, right? So it's validating to learn that, okay, this is a thing. Right? It's not just a bad thing or something, you know, I'm not just different in a negative way, but it's a real thing and it does have value. And then, you know, the other side of the coin, Raphael, is the integrator piece of the equation. And so, you know, you'd probably never heard of that until you read Rocket Fuel or until Josh introduced it to you as part of your EOS implementation. So what was your reaction to discovering that there's this integrator role in the world and that you, you were one.

I think it also relieved a lot of things for me. You know, I have an easy way, I don't want to say easy way, but like spreadsheets come very natural to me. The idea of manipulating numbers to get, to analyze results and things of that nature. And also as a, maybe as an elder brother, you know, being the tiebreaker, being the one who says, yes, that's an idea that's worth pursuing, or maybe this one, we're just not quite ready for that yet. There's a role for that too. And I felt bad before always saying no or no's. We're shutting down idea after idea when that's just how he is and this is how I am. And we harness that natural ability, that innateness in us to better our company. And I think it's just unique and just valuable that we both have fallen into what's naturally been our roles.

Did you feel like you were different from each other growing up?

Oh, absolutely. We were night and day. I think, you know, the joke is that one of us must have been found because we're so different. We were switching nicely, but Mervyn was always very, very active, very athletic. He got along with a lot of people. It always seemed to be very outgoing. I was definitely more of a homebody, introverted. I read a lot, not quite as athletic, so there, but I was more studious. So there was different interests that we pursued even as we were young. that kind of set us apart. Most other brothers, sisters, they seem to be a little bit more homogeneous.

I heard you used to fist fight when you were kids.

Yeah, it would usually go with me sneaking into his room while he's reading a book, flick his ear, run off, and he'd chase me down and beat the crap out of me. And then that stopped around high school when I got big enough to defend myself and joined wrestling.

There you go.

But very typical story for us.

Do you fist fight? Does everyone break out at the office where, you know, you just can't take it anymore and we're gonna settle it the old fashioned way?

No, but you know, it's the whole part about visionaries and integrators driving each other crazy at times. We do, I mean, get into verbal disagreements and yell at each other at times, but we've tried to do that privately more now. if there is an issue. And I think that's the difference with us. And, you know, it works for us because we've been doing that our whole lives. Right. We, we'll get into arguments and then we'll work out something that hopefully is for the betterment of the company. And I love that part in rocket fuel where it's the, the positive and minus energies kind of, you know, the more polarizer, it creates, like, this. energy, right? We work through the challenges of like him saying no to things and much easier just because we've had that relationship for so long.

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Are there other family members active in the business right now, or is it just the two of you?

Right now, well, my mom is technically still the controller. She's looking to retire at the end of this year. So for all intents and purposes, it's just the two of us.

So as you think about really implementing EOS purely, and we talk about the owner employee rules of the game, where you can't play the special card, that says, oh, I'm an owner or I'm a family member or something like that, that gets you special treatment and gets you out of the obligations that come with the seat or seats that you sit in. Has that been an issue?

I think the area that we experience at the most right now is in me wearing the sales manager hat. I'm not a great manager. That's just, I think my follow-through was like, two or something on Kobe. It's pretty terrible.

That goes with a nice high quick start. Yeah, mine's the same.

So.

So it's good. It's good.

Getting me out of that seat has been something we're trying to figure out. And, you know, even, like, doing one-on-ones with Rafel, because he's technically my supervisor in that role, like, I dread that. I'm like, God, why do we have to do one-on-ones again? It's just. I can't, it's hard for me.

Well, Rafael, is it easy for you?

It definitely is challenging. You know, it's, how's your team doing? What are the big problems? What are the big challenges that they're facing? And it definitely has been challenging over the years. We're getting better at it. It's, it's something we work at constantly, just not letting, you know, I can see his frustration sometimes and not wanting to deal with it and work on his marketing focus, which he loves because that kind of feeds into the ideation and the big dreams. But also knowing that, you know, sales is actually super important for us. Without sales, there's no revenue. So we are also very cognizant of that and know that that's the next seat that he needs to be replaced out of.

Yeah.

Some of the difficulty with that is since we're a family business, some of the people who've been with us have been with us for 20, 30 years. And my dad hired them. they're great as a sales team for, you know, what we had in the first 30 years. But now, as they're even looking to retire, like, we're having to train new younger sales people. And so I've never had to do much of this training of the sales people. And now it's like, oh, man, it's. It's even more evident. Like, I need to get out of that seat.

Marvin, how many seats do you sit in? So Visionary and sales leader. Anything else?

Visionary and VP of sales and marketing.

Okay, so two seats. Yeah.

Right?

And Rafael, what about you?

I technically sit in the integrator and VP of finance seat.

What percentage of your time and energy do you think you spend in the integrator seat versus the head of finance?

We have a really good head of accounting who we're training to become the next VP of finance. And I would say my time is split. maybe 60-40 as integrator versus finance.

Okay, Mervin, what about you? What percent are you able to spend in that visionary seat versus running sales?

I probably spend 40%, maybe 30% of my time doing the sales management portion.

Okay. Okay, so wearing the two hats, so Raphael, you actually report to yourself over there in that finance seat. So that's always interesting, right? How do you do it? Do you kind of call it out, hey, you're talking to me or I'm talking to you as this seat or that seat? Is that a challenge in any form?

Sometimes it is a little bit hard to remember that. Like for example, when we're doing our VI meetings, I start thinking about sales things that we should be discussing and then I realize, no, that's a separate topic that I also have to have a meeting with him for. This is an important one that should be focused on. So sometimes there is a little bit of that, but I think for the most part, We've been pretty good at separating the walls and knowing if we come to each other, it's like, okay, I'm speaking as this person, right? I'm speaking as the integrator. This is the direction we need to do. We need to slow down on this. Or I'm speaking as the VP of finance, our overhead is too high and we need to cut expenses. I usually try to be pretty clear about that.

Marvin, does that seem to work pretty well?

Yeah, definitely. I think as a small business, we still do have certain things that we're doing. You know, there's times where you're trying to fix the toilet, there's certain accounts that we still keep as sales. So Rafel does some sales.

Well, now you get to hold him accountable there. How's he been on that?

Yeah, exactly.

You enjoy that.

Think about that. I'm like, I never had a one-on-one with you as a salesperson.

Well, that's because you're not a very good sales manager. Exactly. If you were a better sales manager, you'd be all over that. Lots of things are becoming visible here between you two.

I can see it. Yes, yes, I should. I'll have to talk to you about your client.

Okay, clients are all great.

They're all doing great. So tell me about the LifeLight Foundation and why that's important to you.

So our father, you know, he started going blind in his 40s. So that profoundly impacted the trajectory of our life, having, you know, coming into the company to support him because he, you know, he couldn't do simple things like reading and replying to faxes. It was still faxes back then, right? Early 90s. Right around the early 2000s, I think my father wanted to give back. So LifeLight Educational Foundation was really set up to help the blind in China. There's not a lot of social services available for them. So a lot of the blind are really left at home. They're last to eat. They're a lot of times uneducated. They work with schools in China to teach the kids acupressure and Chinese. therapeutic massage so that they can start bringing in money home. It transforms their life. All of a sudden, they're not just an expense, they're actually an asset, something to be cherished in the family. It's been transformative for so many of the children there. And we see the value in it. We see the changes that he makes, the impact he has on those families. So 10% of our distributions go towards supporting that charity.

Love that, love that. Yeah, you know, I love entrepreneurs and that's a great example of why. I really believe that entrepreneurs are the answer to so many of the problems that we face as a global society and the impact that you can have, you know, whether it's in a marketplace, socially, you know, through the folks that work for you through your clients or through a great cause that you resonate with. that's awesome. Appreciate you sharing that. So, so one last topic I want to tap into before I let you guys go is when you reflect back on the days since, you know, Josh broke into your parents backyard and began to teach you about EOS. And, and when you think about the, you know, the Visionary integrator Duo, that structure and what that's been able to do for you, the operating system of EOS and what that's been able to do for you, how How are things really different?

Different level of professionalism. Our new vendors see it. We just got off a call this morning where one of them was like, I really like that you guys have core values. That's very uncommon for Asian independent distributor businesses like yours. Yeah, that's very common in the rest of companies in United States, but yeah, it's not common for us. It's really brought us to that next level where we have a core focus, we have a mission statement, we have an org chart or our accountability chart. All these things give a structure and a system to follow that. We were just kind of, you said it before, running blindly, I think it was the way you were putting it before EOS, and a lot of our team was running blindly too. We weren't sharing scorecard numbers. It was kind of, the salesmen didn't really know how they were performing.

Interesting. Rafael, what would you say? What's the biggest difference that you see today versus that first backyard meeting back in 2020?

We're not running around like the roof is on fire. You know, when you're a small company, everything is urgent and important and needed to be done yesterday. With EOS, we're able to step back and say, What are the big things you want to do this year? What's truly important, what's urgent, and what can be put off till later? Having that framework then reduces the day-to-day stress for all of us. I just had an employee tell me just a couple of days ago, like, you used to get mad a lot. You don't do that anymore. You've been so calm those last two years. And I truly credit it with EOS, delegate, elevate, Finding where I truly fit within the position. I'm not doing the eight hats, right? I'm focused and concentrating on what I need to do. I have people I trust focused and concentrating on doing what they need to do. And it's been transformative.

If you don't know who you are and you don't know what you're supposed to be doing, it can be so frustrating. So it's given us clarity. Right.

So imagine if we flipped your seats, how would that go?

Possibly could be a better sales manager.

That is true.

That is true.

Not that seat. No, it's see Mervin wouldn't be holding you accountable as an integrator. So who knows what would be happening.

Yeah.

Oh, my God. We would definitely be chasing all the shiny objects.

Yeah.

Right. There's no framework for what's the big rock that we're trying to do this quarter. Everything would be shiny and we'd be implementing, you know, 100 different things. And that's how we were before because we didn't know what what was important.

So I'm curious, that vendor or whoever came to see you and said, you know what, you're not a good fit for me. If they came back and met with you now, what do you think they'd say?

Well, the funny thing is after we implemented EOS and we went back to talk to them and they actually are our MSP now and we're both growing together. He's also introduced me to a lot of other companies that are also running on EOS. It's a whole community where we all speak the same language. We all understand the struggles that we're going through. we're all trying to improve ourselves and they're all a joy to work with.

Love that, yeah, community is such a big part of it, isn't it? We're not doing this alone and we can learn a lot from each other. So, yep. Alright, well before I let you go, if people want to find out more about your business, if they want to find out more about either of you or connect in some form or fashion, what's the best way for them to do that?

WinnerM.com, we're both on LinkedIn, Instagram, we have Facebook, Email us info@winarom.com, all the modern ways.

All the modern ways. We'll try to be sure those are captured in the show notes. And I just want to tell you, I am so grateful to both of you for spending a little bit of your day with us here and some of your story. And my hope for this program is that we don't all have to make the exact same mistakes all over the place that we can learn through stories and through shared experience that, oh, okay, that's what I shouldn't do or that's what I should do and hopefully get there a little faster with a little bit less pain. So I know that your stories today have helped some of our listeners in that way. So I'm grateful to you for that. And to our listeners, you know, appreciate you taking your time as well to spend with us and listen and hear these stories and then go do something with it. So thank you for listening. If you like what you're hearing, please tell somebody, you know, leave us a review. That's how other people find out about us and hopefully we can help them a little bit as well. All right, great conversation with Mervin and Rafael. So let's take some of that discussion now and let's go to the Rocket Fuel Toolbox. There's a few things that jumped out for me on this one. One was, you know, Mervin talked about the different energy, you know, between him and Rafael. And, you know, we talk about the charge. He was talking about the plus, the positive and the negative charge. And we talk about how far apart those are. that polarity sometimes drives really the strength of the duo, right? So if we're exactly alike, there's only so much energy that comes out of that. But if we're really different but complementary, then that really is a lot of power to work with if we can get it focused in the right direction. So that was interesting to hear him say. When we talked about the biggest difference they've seen over the time of, you know, having their VI structure and implementing EOS, A couple of things they went back to, the delegate and elevate tool that got them really clear on what they should be doing, what they shouldn't. So bringing that focus in so they're not just running around all over the place, but they're really laser focused on the right things. The scorecard for sales. So, you know, before sales really isn't looking at the numbers, they don't know where they're at. So even though Mervin is the self-admitted, not the best sales manager in the world, he did talk about they've got the numbers there, they're paying attention to them, they know where they need to be. So we've got that kind of focus brought into into the function, which is super powerful. They talked a little bit about the hats, keeping the roles straight, and Raphael brought up, we're sitting in one meeting and one issue around something to do with sales and where an account stood or something like that began to come up in their Visionary Integrator same page meeting. And again, even though it's the same two people there, it's helpful if we can put those issues in the right compartment, if we can put them in the right meeting. And that really was a, more appropriate thing to discuss in that sales meeting or in the quarterly conversation that Raphael would have with Mervin as the integrator, with the sales manager. And really that's the last tool I kind of noted out of this one was the quarterly conversation where, you know, it's kind of tricky because, you know, one's reporting to the other in a certain seat, but then the other's reporting to them in another seat. So we've got to keep those hats straight, but we've got to have those quarterly conversations so that we can be really crystal clear on what the expectations are around core values and around GWC for the seat. So, you know, it sounds like there's probably an opportunity for Raphael to turn it up a little bit as he's holding Mervin accountable for that sales leader seat, but then in turn for Mervin to hold Raphael accountable as a person on the sales team who has an account. that he's responsible for. So he sounded like he wasn't doing that, so he kind of got an awareness of that. But we want to keep having those quarterly conversations. Again, the idea is we're coaching them to success. We're being crystal clear on what those expectations are around core values, what those expectations are around GWC. So it ties back to our core values on the VTO and the core values speech. It ties back to GWC and the specific roles for a specific seat on the accountability chart, we're using that People Analyzer to bring it into focus. And the manager is assessing them with their version of the People Analyzer. And the employee is doing the same for themself. And then they're looking at those together and seeing where are we aligned, where are we not. If we have exactly the same scores all the way across there and everything's good, then that's fantastic. But more often than not, there's some differences. And we get to dive into those and talk about, wow, why are you seeing it that way? Or why am I seeing it this way? What's the difference? And clear that all make it visible so that we know exactly where we stand. And if it's anything less than the bar at or above the bar for RPRS, then boom, there's an issue. There's something we still got to work on. We still got to get that corner turned because we don't want to have anybody in this organization that doesn't fit our core values and that doesn't hit three yeses on GWC for their seat. So that pressure is there. Use that quarterly conversation tool. to help drive that home. So that's what I saw in terms of the Rocket Fuel toolbox today. So, you know, a couple of things. I want you to go to rocketfueluniversity.com if you have not and take the assessment, check out the tools we've got available for you there. Join our community of visionaries and integrators and learn more. And I just want to thank you again. Thanks for listening and thanks for being a part of what we're doing here. And until next time, Go Rocket!

Thank you for joining me today for another inspiring story. Are you an integrator? Are you ready to begin your journey to integrator mastery? Visit rocketfueluniversity.com to join the free Rocket Fuel community and learn how to register for an upcoming integrator masterclass. you cannot build a great business on multiple operating systems. You must choose one. EOS One is the simple to use software exclusively from the makers of EOS. By bringing everything EOS into one place, EOS One allows you to run better meetings, access the foundational tools faster, and build a more accountable team. One vision, one system, one team. Start your 30-day free trial of EOS One today at eos1.com.