Implementing EOS® When Bootstrapping a Startup | Jen Vellenga and Jennifer Rettele-Thomas

Today's episode was sponsored by assistpro.

So when it comes to our systems, I go, how do we iterate this? And it's usually about relationship or how am I getting in your way or how am I feeling in a box and what can we do? So I go back to the books and go, where am I being difficult and where is she stopping me from doing what I need? And this is hard. You've already said it. We're two people doing everything. So there are a lot of tensions. But we recognize from 10 years of working together is our differences are our strengths.

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. Winners, co author of rocketfuel and an expert EOS implementer. Today I'm thrilled to be talking with Jen Vilinga and Jennifer Reddell Thomas, who goes by jrt. They are the founders of Voice First World, a communication coaching company that helps leaders harness the power of effective communication. Gen V is the visionary and JRT works as the integrator. But because their company is still small, they each hold more than one role in the business. In this episode, we'll hear them discuss the challenges and opportunities that come with self implementing eos. We're starting the show with JRT sharing how focusing on skill sets helped her and Jen distribute roles and responsibilities within their startup.

Here we go.

As you know, as a startup company, we really looked at our skill sets and divide and conquer those. And then we said, okay, what are those things that we really need to bring in some expertise?

So.

So it's going to be anywhere from our podcast editing and social media editing, because Jen can do a lot of the creative, but we hire out that final editing and we have a graphic artist that we work with for the design. Then we also have some of the legal work that we do that falls outside of our scope of work, which is really important in the startup.

We have some ads, marketing. We have a marketing consultant, somebody who runs our ads.

So how many different seats do each of you sit in on the accountability chart? You know, is that an easy answer without pulling out and looking at it?

I think we're a little high, but we are about eight and eight.

You're each in eight seats. Oh my word. So that's easy.

We're bootstrapping in a startup. So, you know, so it's.

How would you describe the complexity of trying to keep eight hats straight.

Well, what we typically say is, I am creative and coaching, and so in our business, I'm the product, you know, because it's my coaching and my creative, and she's sales and operations and relationships. Okay, so how do we keep all of that straight? Well, we often. JRT will often say to me, you know, you shouldn't have any rocks. Like, how am I not supposed to have any rocks? Because we are two. There's two of us. I don't know, jrt, how do we keep it straight?

Well, this is not us doing a promotional for eos. I know that, but I think. Well, I'm just saying I was not paid to say this, but our first year, that would have been a very difficult part for me to answer because we were just trying to figure it out. And both her and I came from leadership positions, so we had very different ways that we had organized ourselves. And then we had both heard of eos. EOS was introduced to us, and that was the first time, when we started that in February of 2023, that we really could look at what our skill sets were and create the accountability chart. And so now when we do our level tens or we do our quarterly meetings or annual meetings, however you want to look at the US Structure, we really are holding each other accountable to our skill sets. So all businesses, we had to make some adjustments on the accountability chart. You know, when we started, we thought we were X. And then we were like, no, really, I'm not good at that. That needs to be Gen V and Gen V, vice versa. And being able to make those changes in our quarterly meetings or whatever that looks like has been, like, a relief. And then when we question who we are or question kind of our expertise, it's nice to go back to that accountability chart to be reminded of that. And then as the business has grown, it's like, okay, yeah, we did put ourselves in the right seats, and we're going to always have to be making changes as we grow.

And when do we hire on? Because that is the next big step for us is when we start hiring people.

Yeah. And which. And which seat first? Right.

We know which seat first.

Which seat first, JRT Coaching.

Oh, my God. I would say sales.

Oh, no. See, this is like the Newlywed Game. One of you wrote down a different answer than the other twice for each other. Right. So I love genv, how you had kind of a simplified way of thinking about, okay, you know, I do this stuff, she does that stuff. And sort of categorizing it at a high level, but you've got the detailed answer in your accountability chart that you can go to. To really get clear. When I think about, you know, eight seats apiece or eight hats apiece, though I live in Dallas, and when I'm flying through the airport here, sometimes I'll see a traveler that's been to the Stetson store and they've had some kind of a fancy cowboy hat made, and maybe they've had cowboy hats made for a bunch of friends back home. And, you know, those things are kind of hard to pack. And so what they do is they stack them. And so you'll have somebody that'll literally have, like, five or six cowboy hats stacked up on top of their head. So that's kind of the picture I get of you two when you're trying to wear eight hats. So, you know, you're going through this startup phase, you know, but you're getting clarity, and now you're starting to think about, all right, what's the next hire? Where are we going to unlock the most opportunity or maybe offload the most pain by bringing another great person into the team? So I love hearing how you're thinking about that.

Yeah. So I am married to an introvert. I'm happy to say. We've been married for 29 years. And I've. And I'm an extrovert. And I always have said that I find my husband and someone who's opposite of me endlessly fascinating and endlessly infuriating, and it keeps it interesting, you know? And so then when I got a business partner in jrt, I said, it's the same. Endlessly fascinating. At the beginning, I was like, okay, I'm really sorry you have to do this part of the business, because the grossest part. But are you okay to take it? And she would be like, oh, my God, I'm at my happy place, you know, so. So endlessly fascinating that someone would like some of that garbage that she has to do. And endlessly infuriating because I'm difficult.

Well, she really owned that, didn't she, jrt?

She did.

So what's your version of it? So is she, in fact, endlessly fascinating to you?

Absolutely. I mean, I put into perspective that there is no business without Gen V. When we were coming up with the vision for the company, I mean, that was her. Her beautiful sweet spot was coming up with that vision for the company and for me, with my strengths, coming up with the execution steps were so natural, but I have no execution steps. Unless we have a vision. And so I, I find that to be a, a great joy. Now the infuriating part, here it comes.

I think it's when those TO dos.

Are just as Gen V will say. Is it an exact date? Because everything's movable, right?

Because I kind of feel like it'd.

Be flexible in the week. And I'm like, no, I set the to do date. That's the to do date. So that's probably the one thing that's infuriating, which is pretty minor in the.

Big scheme of things.

But that's how visionaries are in keeping them on track.

That's why we don't want them to have rocks too. Right? But the deal is Gen V is when you're sitting in eight seats, only one of those is the visionary seat. And those other seats unfortunately do need to get rocks sometimes. Isn't it painful to hear that?

Well, yeah. And in the in. I don't think we do this as much anymore, jrt, but you are welcome to correct me. I would like to just say we came from higher education where JRT was an AVP of development at a university foundation and I was the chair of a theater department. And when you're in higher ed and theater, you work 14 hours a day because you're at higher, you know, faculty meetings at 8 in the morning and you're at rehearsal until 11 o' clock at night. And she had a very busy job as well. And so she brought me in, she hired me and because she does have some vision and said, I want more creative opportunities in, in the way we say thank you to donors. And so we started this 10 year relationship where people said to us, you two have something really fascinating. And she would step back and say, I, I'm not the creative here, you're the expert in this, this creative piece. You do that, but I'll make sure it all happens. And so we don't have to go into any more of that. But the long and short is in the beginning I would say things like the same in, in higher ed, when there's so much to do, it's like, do you want me to do this or this? Which is your priority? Because I can't do both. So pick the one that's a priority. And she'd be like, both? I can't do both. I can. So I don't think we do that as much anymore. I think we're way better at implementing, being self implementers of the EOS system. And our tasks, even just this last quarter, have gotten so much Better. But yeah, I recognize I'm the problem. I get in the way of the growth of the business because I'm just trying to think of the next thing and ideate and I know that certain things have to get done and I mostly stay in the lane where I do the things that I enjoy, which is not always the thing that's moving us forward.

So the relationship obviously predates eos, predates this business. You kind of learned about each other and the way that the roles fit together. Right. And then you find out about eos. Let's talk about that. How did you find out about eos?

Jen had purchased the book. So she had heard of it. She had the book Traction. She purchased the book Rocket Fuel. This is like in mid-2022. And then by chance, we have a podcast and we interview a variety of different individuals and one of the women that we interviewed said, oh my gosh, you have to meet Mary Tatimas, which is an EOS integrator. So of course we interviewed her. What do we do? We asked for some other things. She introduces to Lisa Gonzalez and through both of those interviews, really got to know more about their work as EOS implementers and decided this is something we really needed to dive into. And we dove into Rocket Fuel. We drove, we dove into the other systems we use, EOS University, and as the rocket integrator, we downloaded all the assets and just started implementing those. And so In February of 23 is when we officially started. And I will tell you, what it did for our business, even from a profit standpoint, was significant. I can't imagine where we'd be if we didn't have the structure. Even though we know what structure looks like, it's just a very simplified process that keeps us going. And the great news is when you get stuck. What I love about it is that EOS is always providing new updates and new information so we can continue to upgrade our work through the EOS system.

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So, so talk about the challenges of self implementing eos. We don't hide anything. All the answers are kind of in the books, right? But you know, it's, it's, it's tough when you gotta learn it yourself and teach it to yourself and do it yourself. Right. What's it like to self implement eos?

Well, I think JRT is the one who's putting it all together. We did, we use Notion and we downloaded a template for the EOSL 10 and same page meeting and all of the pieces. But I'll come and say I don't think we're doing this part right and she'll go, okay, let me figure this out. So we are always evaluating and where are we, JRT? I'd say we're 50% there in terms.

Of why give us our credit? I would give us a higher percentage. I'd say 70. But I think for us, when you think about the issues, the to dos, you know, when you think about the scorecard and all of those aspects, I think just having, when you would actually have an implementer helping you from the beginning, you always question yourself, is this right? Are we breaking down the rocks? Right. And giving ourselves as two people? Because I think we started off with way too many rocks. And we learned over time that we.

Had to narrow it down, that it.

Was stupid to have seven or eight rocks like cats. And so we've made that adjustment. And then just recently Jen just mentioned this is that this may sound really silly, but it has changed our life in the last month is even though we read the book and we follow the notebook that I've downloaded, when it came to issues, for me as the integrator, I always have a ton of questions. And so the issues was a dumping ground for us. For me, for me, not Jen, for me.

And it wasn't correlated to our rocks. And so we were spending way too much time on the things that were not moving our rocks forward. And so we just implemented how it should have been done the first time, you know, with the seven days, although we went out 14. That seven day window, don't tell anybody a seven day window. And in already a month, as we started this quarter, can't believe we're finishing the month out. The difference in our productivity in our meeting has been a complete game changer. But I think it took us a year to figure that out because we didn't have an implementer.

Interesting. So you lead me to another question which is kind of okay, where do you. We call it purity. When you implement EOS the way it was intended. Intended, which we know works, where do you get your purity checks? You read it, you learn it, you're interpreting it in one way, but again, you're kind of on your own doing it. So where do you get kind of that check that says, oh, okay, hang on, we're not doing this exactly the way it was intended, or here's something we missed or whatever.

We might answer this differently, but I. For me, quarterly meetings, number one. Quarterly meetings is where we get that. And actually holding. We hold L10s consistently. Sometimes we might move the date just because we have something come up, but we. Tuesdays at 10 o' clock is really the time and we hold that sacred. So the, the L10 is very clear. The quarterly keeps us pure. We're. We're not pure yet. But I also say Lisa Gonzalez, we said, we interviewed her, she was episode 44 of the speak with Presence podcast. I will sometimes text Lisa and say, Lisa, are we doing this right? And she might give me a check in. We do want an implementer at some point and we have been very good in the three years we've been in business of getting coaching. But it's, you know, where do you need to most.

Yeah, that's. Yeah. So Lisa's fantastic. That's what I was looking for, is the out the external check. You know, because it's kind of like the four walls decision making, where if we just sit and look at our own four walls and just talk to us, sometimes we can go wildly in the wrong direction.

For me, the affirmation is, is what.

I find is the eos, whether it's.

The university or just googling a variety of things on the EOS platform, is that you guys.

The team provides updates.

You know, there's always things that are new or better ways to do them. So like when we did our last quarterly meeting, all they did, I mean, I, I have the format from when we started a year and a half ago of, here's how you run your quarterly meeting. Here's the things, here's your agenda.

But when I googled it the last.

Time, it brought up a slightly different format. It wasn't that much different, but it was literally that change in format that made me go, we're not doing the issues and the to dos right?

And again, it wasn't, it was just.

A slight formatting word change. And I mean, I. We started the quarterly meeting and I said, jen, I don't know why we haven't caught this beforehand, but it was just how the way it was written.

Interesting.

So it's just the new ways of looking at the information that EOS is providing, which is a lot.

So. So you, you mentioned Rocket Fuel University, which of course is, you know, specifically focused on the visionary and the integrator and helping them get clear and learn. So what in there, what resources or tools or whatever have you found most helpful?

For me, it's a philosophical check in, like, how am I being a jerk? What am I doing to get in the way of us? How am I, how am I in the way? Or because I had a mentor say to me recently, I don't even know if JRT knows this. I had a mentor say to me recently, have you ever been satisfied? And I was like, what do you mean? And she's like, have you ever been satisfied? And JRT asked me the other day, have you ever. When you do plays, so in theater there, in business, you can kind of scooch out your timeline, your deadline. People do it all the time. Well, we have this thing we're launching. We can push it a little, maybe. Maybe people are disciplined and they don't. Some entrepreneurs, they're very disciplined. But in theater, you have an audience coming. You don't get to push. You have to stop. And I know what actors can manage and certain actors can manage. So I stop tweaking when I think they've hit their threshold. It's usually the night before opening or, you know, the last preview or whatever. So what happens is you have a deadline. And JRT said, are you ever. Does it end? And I said, no, I'm in the audience going, like, I missed the boat.

Oh, I could.

I'm always iterating. I will always iterate. And I know that. And that's how I'm trained. And so when it comes to our, our systems, I go, how do we iterate this? And it's usually about relationship or how am I getting in your way? Or how am I. How am I feeling in a box? And what can we do? So I go back to the books and go, where am I being difficult and where is she stopping me from doing what I need? And this is hard. You've already said it. We're two people doing everything. So there are a lot of tensions. But we recognize from 10 years of working together is our differences are our strengths.

Does that answer that's pretty good? Absolutely.

I think the section that really talks about the meeting pulse and that it breaks it down into each aspect of Course, as the integrator it was, that is something I go back to time and time again and as I just said, I search to see if there's any updates or changes to it because that structure is the essence of how we function.

So that to me is the, when I think about the overall system, that is the bible for us.

So when you think about the visionary integrator part of everything specifically. Right. So that relationship and you know, the rocket fuel is all about that structure, you know, the five rules and the five tools and so the, the educational resources around that. So, so you know, we have IDS sessions, Q& A things where you can go on and with other people. Right. That are either self implementing or they're maybe they're working with an implementer, but just to kind of throw out a lot of times issues and questions that are specific to this whole VI thing. Right. So is that something that's been helpful for you? Is that something that you've tapped into and how, what do you get from that?

So I connected with the women integrators group FIM that Lisa connected us to. So that was something that I have connected with. I've not taken it to the next step, but I follow a lot of them on LinkedIn and so that has been powerful. Both of us have had some conversations and I've had some one on ones with some members of that group. But I think what's from an integrator standpoint is the constant reminder, and I say this all the time to other women that we meet that haven't implemented eos, is that you're an integrator and you're a unicorn and you're one in four. And so don't forget the power that you bring to the table. Even though there's a lot of times where you feel like you're just getting the task done. And I think being in that integrator's group, the power of that group is reminding yourself of your power and your importance in the relationship.

Yeah. The thing that goes along with that is, yeah, you're a rare commodity in the value equation, a scarce commodity in the value equation. But you're not alone.

No.

So there's other people like you that are out there wrestling with the same kinds of things that you are. And you know, so that's what our rocket fuel integrator community is all about. And same thing on the visionary side. So. All right, so there's something else that I heard that was pretty interesting to me. It's important to be power matched Right to where one doesn't just mow over the other, one doesn't look down on the other. But we're eye level, we're power matched, we're equally yoked. We're in this thing together and it's a true meeting of the minds and partnership to make it go. How has your relationship changed so three years going into your fourth year, from the visionary integrator perspective, how is your relationship different today than it was when you started the business?

I think for the biggest thing is for us is we knew our skill sets. But when you think about being entrepreneurs and starting the business and launching it, there were certain areas that I was like, oh, I am not good at that. That's totally you genv and vice versa. But it was through the accountability chart when we started implementing that again, we still had some of those issues where we put something under Gen V for a while and then we decided that wasn't working and it went to me.

And I think the dynamic has changed.

Where we really for right now, and I would say probably for the last six months to a year, we have really felt good in our seats in that accountability chart where at the beginning.

We were just trying to figure it out.

So I feel like we have become better at knowing who we are really what our strengths are and really how through our strengths, we're helping grow the business and make a difference.

And if we didn't have that, I.

Think we'd still be floundering around and.

We'D be tossing jobs back and forth.

But we now have a pretty concrete feel of what we need to do.

Well, I want to watch our time here, so we're going to wrap it up. But before we leave, folks want to find out more about either of you or your company. What's the best way for them to find you?

I think the best way is to go to voice first world.com links and that gives you all of our links. We have a masterclass. We have a place where you can book a call with us to see if you're a good fit or if we're a good fit for you. And I should say we work with men. They usually find us, but we're. We are. Our target market is women in leadership executive positions.

Great. I'm deeply grateful to both of you for taking a little time out of your busy schedules to spend with us and help some people. So our listeners and we're all doing this together. And my vision is, is that we not all have to make all of the same mistakes, but we can share our stories, share our experiences, and hopefully learn a little bit from each other. That helps us get there a little bit sooner, maybe with a little bit less pain. So I know you've done that for somebody today. So to our listeners, thanks for listening. We appreciate you taking your time to be here. And if you like what you're hearing, tell somebody, maybe do a review for a podcast, help somebody else find out about it. That way we can help even more people.

All right, so fun conversation with gen V&JRT. So now let's go to the toolbox.

And dive deeper on a couple things. So one of the first things that I picked up out of this conversation ties back to the accountability chart. And you know, in their situation, again, they are early on startup company, they're still young, and they're in eight different seats each and all of those different hats. And so it just points back to how powerful it is to get that clarity on structure. Otherwise, it's just so easy to just kind of get caught up in the swirl of what's going on and who's doing what, and you step on each other, things get dropped and all of that. So they had a really nice way to kind of tie that together with sort of some simple language around who does what at a high level, but then having that detailed resource to go, that detailed accountability chart tool to go back to, to see who really owns the thing, who really owns the stuff. So a lot of power in that. The next thing that struck me is, you know, they're self implementing eos, which a lot of people do that. And for them, you know, just kind of where they're at in the evolution of their business, they really have to be discriminating about where they invest. They believe in hiring coaches, but, you know, they're not to the point yet where they feel like they can afford to hire an EOS implementer. So they're kind of fighting through it on their own and doing the best they can. And gave one really interesting example of the level 10 meeting where it took a long time to really establish that discipline in the proper way. And so they're working through it, they're giving their best effort, but it's just about sort of clarity and confidence. I think JRT talked about. You're always kind of wondering, all right, am I missing something here? Is there something I'm not doing right? And there was one example where they kind of found out later, oh, wow, we were missing that, we were missing that piece of it. And so they pulled that back in and it was sort of an unlock that really changed things for them and saved them a ton of time, created more focus. And she felt like in the last month it had really had a big impact on their business for them. They've got an implementer that they have a relationship with. They're not, you know, engaged as their, as their implementer, you know, doing a full implementation, but it's somebody that they talk to to just kind of get that. I called it a purity check to just kind of make sure. So they've got a question that they needed to get cleared up. Am I doing this the right way? Is there something I'm missing? And so Lisa Gonzalez, who's a fantastic EOS implementer, was able to provide that for them based on the relationship that they have. So for those self implementers out there, just look for that. Whether you're going to Rocket Fuel University, watching videos, you know, following the EOS worldwide content, whatever it is, lots of different resources available to you out there that can help you get that reality check. Maybe it's going to an EOS conference and talking to other people that are running their company on eos. We always find people that attend the conference will they'll discover, hey, I'm actually doing pretty good on this relative to everybody else I meet. And then they'll find something. It's like, wow, we're behind these other people I meet seem to be way ahead of us in that particular tool or key component of the EOS model, whatever it might be. So learning from others, as always, can help you. And that's why we do this. We do this podcast to learn from each other so we don't all have to make the same mistakes. So if you're getting something out of this, if this is helpful for you, let somebody know, right? And please go to rocketfueluniversity.com, take the assessments if you haven't, to figure out if this is something that can help you do more of whatever it is you're wanting to do. And look at the tools that we have there available to you and join our community of visionaries and integrators again, where you can learn from each other and we can get there faster and make an even bigger difference in the world. So thanks for listening to this episode and until next time, go Rocket.

Thank you for listening today. I really hope this episode inspired you to bring Rocket Fuel to your business. If you're interested in learning more about the free community for visionaries, integrators and the people who support them, please visit rocketfueluniversity.com. The best support for integrators is other integrators. That's why we created the Integrator Mastery Forum, the number one community and training program for those in the number two seat. Join this peer group to share experiences, attend collaborative calls, access mastery level resources, and showcase your credentials on the IMF directory. Visit rocketfueluniversity.com to learn more.