How To Fix A Business That Feels Stuck w/ Simon Adcock

So if you were, let's say, a gas engineer, yeah, um, sole trader.

If you're a gas engineer, you're sitting in, you're fulfilling all of those functions most probably. And that's important to recognize because I think one of the challenges when you're, when the business is just you, and I've, it was a long time ago, but I have been there, is you're doing everything. And the next step is to go and hire somebody who can take on, take some of that load from you. Entrepreneurs, so the people who start businesses, are not necessarily good managers and frequently are terrible managers. Just free yourself from that because, uh, yeah, it was a revelation to me. I'm not supposed to be good at managing people because prior to that I was like, I'm supposed to— I run a business, I'm supposed to love managing people.

This is the Field Rocket podcast. I'm your host, Taliq Priest, and today we're joined by Simon Adcock. From EOS. Simon is an EOS implementer and also the owner of A-Tech Security. Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Tolek. It's great to be here.

Well, we certainly appreciate your time. Um, today we're going to talk about, um, what you actually want. Are you getting what you want from your business?

That's right, absolutely. And, uh, most entrepreneurs— and I've been on a very long entrepreneurial journey— um, I find are not getting everything they want from their business.

Um, are you getting what you want from your business now?

So right now, and for the last couple of years, most definitely. So, um, typically what is that? So, uh, you know, from a business, most people are looking for, uh, growth, profit, obviously enough time to, to do other things and actually to, um, enjoy what they're doing, to have some fun and get a sense of purpose and that they're making a difference.

You, you say that you're getting that now And you had a period that you weren't getting this?

Yeah, I think every entrepreneur will go through points on their journey where they're not getting everything they want from their business, and that is not often just one point in time. It's something that, you know, crops up repeatedly. Uh, for me, I think, you know, we had quite a good period of growth from when I first— so my entrepreneurial journey started when I was 19. I took over one of my parents' businesses. It was essentially just me. Over 20 years, grew it from £100,000 turnover to £4 million and about 20 staff. And the period between 2008 and 2017 really was actually quite tough. So, you know, growth was much slower, had a lot of fractious discussions, had a leadership team, and that was a little bit dysfunctional and it just felt hard. So during that period, Yeah, growth was sometimes but rarely what we wanted. Profit, probably the same. Yeah, we did have a lot of fun, but also we had a lot of strife. And pretty much say I've almost never had enough time to do all of the other things that I would want to do.

And then how did you actually make the change from, you know, the before of, you know, not having time, not getting what you want, to now? What caused that?

So I think there's a couple of things happened. One of the things was that I changed my leadership team, and so you can attribute a lot of the strife that I experienced from 2008 to 2017 to not sharing core values with my other leadership team members.

So you didn't actually share what you believed in with them?

Well, they didn't share. So as the owner of the business, you know, a lot of the people in the business reflected my core values, and my two lieutenants at the time didn't share my core values and didn't act with our core values. And when you get people like that in a business, particularly leadership team positions, it creates a lot of tension. Other people kind of see that tension. It just creates a lot of strife and makes business hard.

So there's what I'm guessing there's more like friction and everyday decisions or like how does this actually show up?

So I think in leadership team discussions, Conflict is healthy. Constructive, respectful conflict is very healthy. This definitely veered beyond constructive and respectful on a regular basis, and it just made it difficult and not enjoyable. So I've now got a leadership team, all of whom share our core values, and we've, you know, we've been very explicit about agreeing that that's part of the EOS process, and it's made a massive difference. So the first thing was, which predated me finding out about EOS, was getting the right people in the right seats, um, on some of the right seats in the leadership team, even though we didn't really know that that's what we were supposed to be doing. It just became apparent. And the second thing was I discovered EOS about 3 and a half years ago, and we put it into the business, ATEX Security, and within about a year and a half, I was kind of almost put out to pasture. I guess I had a little bit of a mini existential crisis because I wasn't, you know, for 35 years I'd been needed, uh, and I was not needed to anything like the same degree. And that's actually, that journey's continued, so I'm even less needed in ATEC now. I've gone from working 50, 60, 70, 80, on occasions over 100 hours a week, to, I don't even know, less than 8 5, 5 hours a week maybe on ATEC security.

And what's your team size at the moment?

In total there's 50 people in ATEC and we turn over around just over £9 million.

Right, and how did you— what kind of triggered— what, what was the point that you said this is enough and then you actually decided to implement EOS?

Uh, so I think, well, there's two answers to that question. So that when I said this is enough is probably in 2017 where we came very close to going out of business. And actually, my two lieutenants on the leadership team both abandoned ship and left the business at that time. And that was my worst nightmare, that these, these two people would leave, because they're actually good at their jobs, and I would have to take on what they were doing and, and do and find a way to do that without them. That was my worst nightmare, that either one of them could leave. So both of them left out of necessity because, you know, we were losing— I mean you know, tens of thousands of pounds a month, sometimes six figures in a month. It was, you know, catastrophic. And when they both left, it was extraordinarily hard work, but actually it was very freeing because whilst I was at that point working, you know, 80, 100 hours a week, I was kind of enjoying it because I, I then got a team of people who really did share my values who were, you know, receptive to my ideas. And, and we turned the business around. And it's, I guess, my proudest achievement really, to come down from, from, you know, that close to everything going catastrophically wrong to where we are today. So that was the first thing that happened, was, uh, we changed the leadership team. Uh, sorry, we— those two people left. Uh, and then a couple of years later, I I was fortunate enough to be able to recruit my current sales director and managing director. And about a year in, I think, to their journey, I was given a copy of the book Traction, which describes the entrepreneurial operating system. Read it and went, wow, this is, you know, where has this been for the rest of my entrepreneurial journey? Basically, we need to, we need to do this.

Okay. And you, so you read the book and you thought, okay, we need to do this. And then what did you actually do in practice? How, like, you had the two, you know, the two leaders, well, the leadership team, so you had the issues there. What about for the rest of the company? What other kind of changes or what kind of steps did you actually do? Like, when you start implementing EOS, what would be the things that you actually look at?

Okay, so we did already have a leadership team beyond those two people. So in my business, we have a, I think at the time actually, technical director, sales director, and two operational heads, one for our projects division and one for our support division. And also, actually, at the time we had a head of finance, but I think I was sitting in that seat. So our current head of finance wasn't in the leadership team at that time.

You're kind of talking about seats. What is a seat?

Okay, so essentially, if you think about— if we take it back to the structure of any business, even a one-man business, up to any size, you have 3 core functions on the leadership team. So sales and marketing function, which goes out and essentially generates leads and, you know, gets the business, gets the orders, gets the customers, uh, an operations function, which then delivers the product or the service, and then a finance function, which essentially, you know, collects the money and manages the, you know, the financial assets of the business.

So if you were, let's say, a gas engineer, yeah, um, sole trader, if you're a gas engineer, you're sitting in, you're, you're fulfilling all of those functions. Most probably, all 3 seats, and you're sitting in all of those seats. Okay.

Um, and that's important to recognize because I think one of the challenges when you're— when the business is just you, and I've— it was a long time ago, but I have been there, is you're doing everything. And the next step is to go and hire somebody who can take on— take some of that load from you. And what some people do is, is go and hire the person that they think they want and actually end up doing more of the work that they hate, um, because they've just hired somebody to do some of the work that they like because they just think that that's the natural step. So when you're an entrepreneur, uh, the most important decisions you will ever make are who to hire and who to promote. And the corollary of that is, is actually who to fire as well.

But, but what actual roles that you're actually looking for, and then yeah, who to hire.

Yeah, so I mentor a friend of mine in business who has a small business in CCTV. Let's, let's call him John. That's not his name, but, um, and when I initially started working with him, I didn't really think that the EOS tools would be, uh, terribly valuable. But we, uh, we started working actually with this sort of business structure. There's a tool called the Accountability Chart, without getting into detail, but that has these major functions. And very quickly he was, he was interested. He was planning to hire a salesperson, uh, which was going to cost him six figures a year. And in my experience, it is the most risky hire you can make, hiring somebody in sales, because salespeople are good at selling themselves, and there's not always the substance behind that. He was going to hire a salesperson so that he could do more of all of the other things in business. Actually, John's natural ability is in sales. He's really technical. He knows the product. He's great with people. He loves doing it. He loves being out there. So we— when we looked at this and looked at, well, who— here's the sales and marketing seat. These are what you're accountable for in that seat, which is a key part of the tool. Um, here's what operations are accountable for. Here's what finance and administration is accountable for. You're going to go and hire somebody to do this so you can do more of this, and you hate doing this. Why are we doing this?

So you would actually sit down and think, what am I good at? What am I actually, you know, enjoy doing? Yeah. And then actually use that to actually guide you to actually apply the other tasks.

Yeah. So that's another tool which is, it's called Delegate and Elevate. It's very similar to Dan Sullivan's Unique Ability. So you look at all of the tasks that you undertake on a weekly basis and try and build a comprehensive list of all the things that you're doing, and you put them into one of four boxes. So firstly, you have the things that you love to do and you're great at. Then you have the things that you like doing, you're good at. Then you have things that you're good at but don't like doing. And then you have things that you're really actually not good at and you hate. So those last two boxes, those are the tasks that you need to try and find a way to eliminate if you can, automate, or delegate. So, and that's what— those are the things, those are the tasks, and though it's the seats with those tasks that you should ideally be looking to hire somebody to fulfill because they sap your energy.

So if you don't do this, um, like, if, um, if I, if I understand it correctly, so let's say for example moving away from like trades and If you were, say, a baker, you really enjoyed baking, and then you were getting busy, so you open a shop and you hire another baker. And you— so this is kind of like an example of what can happen if you don't actually think about this or actually plan ahead. So you hire a third baker, and then you're actually doing— founder is doing more of the ordering supplies, chasing the invoicing, all of these things and less baking and less of what they like.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah. And this is, this is how you paint yourself into a corner.

Absolutely. And I think there is this myth. So when I read the book Traction, which we've, we've talked about, a lot of the stuff in, almost all of the stuff in Traction, it's all tried and tested. Uh, it's tools based on tried and tested management theory. There's nothing new in it, even to me. And I, you know, the only thing in there that was new for me is that entrepreneurs— so the people who start businesses, the people with vision, the people kind of that can, uh, move the business in the right direction, see the future if you like, visionaries we call them in EOS— are not necessarily good managers and frequently are terrible managers. And so the entrepreneur who starts the business and gets it to a certain point is often not the person that needs to then take it to the next level. Because visionaries, entrepreneurs, often naturally lack this accountability, discipline, focus. And I'm definitely guilty of that. You know, you said earlier that, you know, you're quite disciplined, Simon. Absolutely not. I have to make that happen. Um, so, and it was very freeing because I stopped beating myself up about that. I went, actually, I'm not meant to be good at everything, and I'm not meant to be good at managing people. I don't love managing people. I love the fact that we've got 50 people who work for ATEC who are just great people. I think they're amazing, but I don't have to manage them.

So you need to be really honest, uh, actually about what you actually like doing, um, and what you're actually good at.

You do, yeah. So when you're looking at your list of tasks and putting them into one of the 4 boxes, you need to be really honest with yourself about what you're good at, what you love doing.

And it's not just that expectation. You're the founder, so you, you expect to free yourself from that.

Because, uh, yeah, it was a revelation to me. I'm not supposed to be good at managing people, because prior to that I was like, I, I'm supposed to— I run a business, I'm supposed to love managing people. I now have one person that I manage, uh, and that's my MD, my integrator in EOS speak, and, uh, he manages me as much as I manage him, and maybe more.

Maybe coming back to kind of John's example, Yes. So he was originally looking for, looking to hire a salesperson.

Yes.

And the, when he looked at his accountability chart or the other roles within the company, whatever you want to call it. So the other roles were, what were the other roles?

So he had a sort of marketing seat, if you were, that was part of the sales and marketing. So he got somebody that reports into him doing marketing and he has, you know, his finance seat, which is about, you know, doing the invoicing, and he's got an operations seat. So his business is essentially selling products and licenses, a lot of license selling. So there's a lot of administration, there's not really making anything, so a lot of admin roles. So actually, elements of the operations and the finance seat, uh, he then packaged up and hired somebody part-time to fulfill that role. So rather than spending six figures, it, you know, maybe cost him £15,000-£20,000 a year, let's say, to free himself of some of the mundane stuff, you know, the stuff that needs to be done, you need to be disciplined about, and he's not disciplined because he's a visionary and an entrepreneur and, and we're not.

Yeah.

And now he's, you know, he has regained all of the energy that that used to consume, and as well as the time.

That's quite an interesting idea. You mentioned energy because, you know, if you have time but no energy, it's just not, it's not going to make any difference.

Correct.

And that energy is actually quite, I feel it's quite overlooked.

Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. And the things in the bottom two quadrants, the things that you essentially don't like, you know, you're either good at or not good at, but you don't like doing, they consume your energy. You know, you don't bounce out of bed in the morning going, I can't wait to get my invoicing done. Now, some people love that. So actually don't think, oh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm seeking to give away all the stuff that I hate and everybody's going to hate it and it's going to be an imposition because people are built differently and you will find people who actually love doing kind of repetitive tasks and get a real buzz from that and from just working through a to-do list.

Yeah, so the solution was less risky, he got to do what he wanted, which is more sales, and then it was also better off financially and he had more energy.

Absolutely. So in the course of, I think, our first hour-long sort of informal mentoring, how can I help John meeting, probably saved him, you know, six figures a year.

I did come across a gas engineer and he was looking His company had kind of hit the— it wasn't growing anymore. And he was kind of asking the question, should I hire a CEO? How do I fix this, move forward? And he also mentioned that he was doing the sales and he hated it.

Okay.

So he was kind of painted himself into a slightly different corner, which is, I guess, is direct opposite of John.

Yeah, so what sort of size of business was your gas engineer?

I don't know the details, so it was just, um, we didn't go into kind of depth, but it was just kind of this interesting idea that you kind of got stuck and you were doing something you really don't like, and you're actually thinking about the actual hiring, you're thinking about what the actual business needs as opposed to it, you know, actually looking at yourself, which is the most important person in the company, valuing yourself and actually working out what you need. Like, if you fix yourself, then the actual business would actually grow faster.

Yeah. And this idea of the accountability chart, it's essentially, it's an organization chart. It's no different apart from each of the seats you've got. You have the 5 key things that you're accountable for. So it's, it's more developed. It's a developed version of an organization chart, but it means that you really know, you know, rather than, you know, Head of Sales or Sales Director, you know what that seat looks like. You know what the— it's like the headlines on the job description or the recruitment brief, if you like. So you— it helps you to know what kind of person is going to fit well in that seat. It's a great planning tool. Now, in a As we said earlier, if you're a, a self-employed gas engineer looking to grow the business, you're sat in all of the seats. So you're sat in sales and marketing, you're sat in operations, you're sat in finance. You're also in what we call the integrator seat, which is like the managing director seat, as well as the visionary seat, which is the entrepreneur seat. And as we talked earlier, they're two different skill sets. So to— but you'll be sat in all the seats. But the accountability chart really helps you to think about, who should I now hire? Because those are the most impactful decisions that you will ever make. Who am I going to hire and who am I going to promote?

Yeah, because I think actually just having all the roles listed out, you know, because sometimes you know that you're busy, but you're just not quite sure, you know, what you're actually doing.

Yes.

And, um, you know, if you do look at the accountability chart, your name's in all the boxes. Yep. Um, you can actually look at, well, you can actually break it down. You can actually say, I could get, say, a virtual PA. Yep. To hire to answer the calls.

Yep.

Um, or if you, if you have a bigger team, like if you have a team of, you know, 10 or 15, um, you can actually, you know, some things that you're doing, you can actually sort of give away But, um, yeah, I think that's really powerful.

The challenge with having a PA, I think, as I used to have a PA, is you're not actually responsible for any less stuff. So they're taking a bit of an administrative load away from you, which is great, but actually you're still responsible, wholly responsible, for sales and marketing and operations and finance. Um, so that may well work for some people, and, and I say I had a PA for 3 years and she was brilliant until we got to the point where I didn't have enough to do and I no longer needed a PA.

Well, it's kind of the other end of the journey.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I'm very fortunate to have got to this end of the journey, definitely.

Mm-hmm. Okay, fine. And if people wanted to find out more about EOS, what would kind of be the next steps that you would suggest?

So, There is a website, eosworldwide.com. I mean, some people might think— so in the UK, EOS is not widely known, in my experience. In certain groups, certain very entrepreneurial groups, it's getting a reputation. In the US, where it's from, it's huge. So I am one of about 25 implementers, professional implementers in the UK. In the US, there's about 700 people doing what I do. Um, so it's much— it's 10 times more advanced and still growing very rapidly. So yeah, if you haven't heard of it now, um, yeah, in 5 years' time you, you definitely will have. You'll be in like some of the groups that you're part of. I know, Tuluk, um, everybody's heard of EOS and half the businesses are running on it. Um, it, it will be like that in the UK. Yeah.

And it's, it's, it's what we run on ourselves as well.

Absolutely. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, so both our businesses run on EOS. So there is a book that will tell you all about the system called Traction by Gino Wickman. So Gino is the guy, the entrepreneur who ran businesses and then was part of a network called the Entrepreneurs Association in America. And working with those people, he found that he had this knack and passion for running truly great entrepreneurial company cobbled together. This was about 25 years ago, I guess. And, you know, refined it over the course of 5 years, has taught it to, um, you know, a couple of hundred businesses, I imagine, himself. And so now we— there are over 25,000 businesses running on EOS that have engaged a professional implementer, and something like 10 times that many in total.

Okay, so for the next— so for somebody just learning about it, reading the book Traction—

reading the book Traction will give you a very good grounding and My experience of reading, or rather I listened to Traction, so I listen to a lot of books on Audible while I'm driving. And my feeling about it, because you have a feeling about it, was there's nothing new here. All of this, I've heard all of this stuff before. It is the way it is organized into a very elegant system which you can actually put into your business with real tools that just make a difference. It's not just a collection of ideas. Actually practical guidance and tools. That's what was sort of mind-blowing, and that's what made me think we need to do this.

Well, I kind of find in business that, um, there's quite a few problems that require like different things to come up, a bit like legs on a chair. They have to come up at the same time for you to kind of move forward. And me personally, when, um, you know, I read the book, um, you know, a lot of things chimed with some of the issues that we were facing. And we've certainly found it very useful. So thank you very much for coming in. We really appreciate your time.

That's right. Absolute pleasure.

Yeah. Thank you.

Very good.