Hey, good morning. It is Cody and Spencer here with you on a Virtual GM, and today we have an exciting topic to talk to you about. We’ve kind of talked about our growth on a bunch of different episodes before. I don’t know that we haven’t really talked about how we grew or what was really the catalyst to that.
I think it’s a really important thing for any entrepreneurs or business owners that are listening to this. Or even if you’re just in leadership in your hotel and you feel like, man, we don’t have enough direction there, there’s too much unknown. So we want to really help you solve that today. We’ve got a bunch of good books that you can read and some really solid direction you can take to improve your business.
I think what we’re gonna talk about applies to any business model. We are so niched down in boutique hospitality. I think for us, it was a concern whether this would work or not. And it’s been absolutely amazing. So whether you own a boutique hotel or you have a team of vacation rental managers, or you’re starting off something new in the hospitality industry, and we haven’t even identified what it is yet, all of this is applicable to you. It’s a really great way just to identify and document core processes, get your business streamlined and grow with intention.
This episode of Virtual GM is brought to you by EOS from Gino Whitman, entrepreneur operating systems.
Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)
We have an EOS implementer here in Southern Utah. His name is Craig Andrews, and he’s amazing.
He had came to Breck a while ago and, and said, I really think you should do this. But it was a huge commitment. Financially, this was before Spencer’s time, and I was afraid that we weren’t at a place yet to do it. So I was actually really against it. And we collectively, as our leadership team at the time, decided not to do it.
Then Breck came back in like a week or two later and said, guys, look, we can’t not do it like we’re doing it and if it doesn’t work, I’ll pay for it personally, but we’ve gotta do it. And so that, that started the process. The first thing we did is we went, and again, this is before Spencer’s time, and we really defined who and what Vibrant is because we never did that before. Like it’s, it’s almost comical to think about that now, but we never sat down and said, here’s who our target consumer is. Here’s what our niche is. Here are our core values, here’s where we’re going.
All the while I was working with Vibrant in another capacity with another company just as a partnership. I thought that they had those dialed down just because of the, basically the feeling I got when I engaged when I came in the office, and you know, our exchanges over the phone. So when I joined the team, I was actually really surprised about hadn’t been done until how many, three or four months prior to me coming on.
I was really excited because we did that. It was like, oh wow. We defined our core values, which for us at Vibrant is: Have Heart, Be Fun, Be Competitive, Be a Team Player, and Be Driven. That’s what’s important to us.
So now we have a people analyzer where we’re able to go and, and look at our current staff and say, do these people fit these boxes? When we interview, we go through that process too. When Spencer came on, we did a people analyzer on him and said, does he check these boxes?
Setting Clear Goals with EOS: Our Journey to Success
EOS also really helped us narrow down on our niche, right. Because we would get kind of squirrely, and as a young company, you kind of want to take any opportunity you can for income. I helped us really focus in on that. We defined our demographic, which Spencer kind of blew that up last year because our demographic was originally the Rocky Mountain West.
Yeah. And then Spencer sold someone in Washington and was like, well, it’s really… that’s, that’s kinda Rocky Mountain West?
Then we got a property in Florida. Florida was like, well, maybe it’s North America.
And so, but it’s been really good. We defined all the things who we want to be, how we wanna work with our clients. And we set a one year plan, we set a three year plan, and we also set a 10 year plan. So now everyone on our team knows exactly what we’re striving for. We also went through and set rocks.
If anyone listening is familiar with like I think it’s Franklin Cubby’s idea. If you have a jar and you have rocks, pebbles, and sand, what do you put in first? The rocks. Right? And then you put in the pebbles and then you put in the sand. Right? But if you did it the other way around, you wouldn’t have room for the rocks.
And so rocks are the things that are most important to you that you need to accomplish in the next 90 days. All of us have rocks when we meet every week. We have a level 10 for just our executive team, which is myself, Spencer, and Brett. Spencer runs a level 10 with the marketing side. Then we run an operations level 10. So now more than ever, everyone on the team really knows what they’re doing. In that level 10, you also set, your task for the next seven days and a big portion of it is you talk about issues and you really take the blinders off and you really have conversations.
Creating a Foundation for Success: The Role of Core Values in Business Growth
Just to make this digestible for you, things that any company or business, especially working in hospitality needs to know is what are your core values?
I was just visiting with another company and asked their employees, probably 10 different employees, what are your core values? And they just said make money. So you need to identify what are your core values.
You don’t need to have 20. If you have three to five, that’s a good number. There’s a great book that Cody’s pulling these tools from called Traction by Gino Wickman. I’ll include a link to it in this podcast on Amazon. You can buy it. It really is a great book and it identifies that people analyze your tool. Do they match up with your core values? Do they get the job? Do they want the job? Do they have the capacity to do the job? It helps you identify where people fall in line in an accountability chart and defines their roles quickly. So there’s never any confusion. It shows the process where they fall, I don’t wanna say in the pecking order, but basically how their job function works. Yeah. Who their direct report is, why they’re working in that position.
Right. And that’s the accountability chart. That’s different than an org chart because it’s not titles; it’s accountability. Then how the communication’s supposed to flow. For us as a small company, our office is only a thousand square feet. So you feel like anyone can talk to anyone and of course they can, but we wanna establish that you go through the appropriate channels so that way everyone is in the know who needs to be in the know. And you’re giving your leaders the appropriate time to develop their leadership skills because they’re talking to the team that, that they’re directing.
Not to name names or anything, but we have we’ve worked with someone prior, and I don’t think I would venture to say there are probably a few of our properties that have their core values documented. Right. And you’re not failing if you don’t. Right. Just that some do and some don’t. And one big core value for Vibrant is that we have heart and we are in a meeting with a client, and we are discussing Christmas bonuses, and this person chose to say, I don’t think we should give out Christmas bonuses because that means there’s extra money to go around at the end of the year. And there, there isn’t any. Right. Which to me is just not the place that I want to work.
Yeah. It’s really important for us to, to really embody and, and really want our clients to embody those core values too. Right. Like it’s important for us. And so we do people analyzer with our potential clients too, to make sure that they’re a good fit for our program. And Yeah. And it’s really changed the way that we operate. I mean, we would’ve never had the consistency that we do.
EOS: The Blueprint for Improved Communication and Collaboration in Your Business
Really I think that oftentimes as leaders or as owners, you think your team knows what you’re working for, but they really have no idea. Right. Right. Like we were all looking back now, all of us were just individual silos just working on whatever was in front of us. Yep. Not really concerned about like, if Spencer’s right there, I’m going this way and he’s going that way. And we didn’t really ever communicate.
But now we all collectively know, and not only do we know like the big term, we know in three years here’s where we’re gonna be and here’s where we’re gonna be in one year. And we also break it down every recorder on those rocks. We’ve got, our objectives for the quarter. So everyone in the team truly knows what we’re working towards. Yeah.
And those rocks usually are facing towards one-year goals.
Yeah. Right. I thought honestly that we could do it ourselves. Now having gone through the process, cause we’re, let’s see, we’re about 15. No, we’re like 17 months into the process. We’ll finish up this year. And I really thought that we could do it ourselves after, because I’ve read all the different books and Spencer will put ’em all in there. There’s Traction, How to Be a Great Boss, Rocket Fuel.
I think there’s one more. So we’ll make sure all those are included. I highly suggest you read all of those. You want to read those together. And then the, all the Gino Wickman books are really tactical, like factual data. This is how you do it, these are the tools. Yes. This is how they don’t work. This is the wrong way to use ’em. This is the right way to use ’em.
Stop Wasting Time with Meetings: How to Streamline Your Business with EOS
One thing that Cody even mentioned too is a level 10 meeting. You can read about that in Traction. It also goes over it pretty well. And what the heck is EOS Level 10 is such a time saver. I met with a ski watch last year just here in Southern Utah. And they were having a staff meeting every day for 30 minutes. That staff meeting every day for 30 minutes is such a time suck. Yeah. When you could do it once a week for, you know, what’s ours an hour?
It’s a really great template on how to run a meeting so that you don’t get bogged down in the flow of meetings. There’s always those memes that circulate online. That’s like an email that says this could have been an email. Right. Or the meeting, it could have been an email. And that’s always the case if people just suffer from paralysis of analysis. So they want to have another meeting.
But level 10 basically moves that away. You introduce the week with a segue: a personal and business win. You go over a scorecard. Which is just documented results from the previous week. Every team member owns their data. You look at your rocks, which we’ve talked about extensively on this. So it’s just a review of the 90-day plan and what’s happening in the quarter. You hit your to-do list from the previous week.
It’s something that everyone has access to. Then down to the bottom of that template is your IDS list, which stands for identify, discuss, and solve. This is where short-term problems can live until you have a solution for them. Then the meeting is recapped to-do, lists are gone over, and each person in that meeting gives a score from 1 to 10. You can’t give a seven because that means you’re a sense offense sitter. And that’s it. And it’s, it’s as easy as that. You can make a template for it. You can Google Level 10 template, Google Drive, download it, and then put it in here.
All the tools are readily available on Google. Yeah. So it, it’s not very hard. It’s such a time save. We went from several meetings a week to really just two for each team member. Cody Breck and I have an executive team meeting every Monday morning now. And then I have one with my marketing team and that’s it. There’s no other meetings that we have. Cody has some with the operations team. Breck has some with the finance team, right? Or the I guess. Yeah. No, we have three total. We have our executive level 10, the sales and marketing level 10, and the operation level 10.
Hey everyone. Pardon the interruption. This is Spencer. Just wanted to make a quick shameless plug. Vibrant Management loves working in the boutique hospitality space and this podcast exists to serve you. If you guys have questions or are interested in working with us right now, we’re offering a free month of digital advertising. Reach out to me, spencer@thevibrantteam.com. Message me on LinkedIn or send a DM on Instagram and we’ll get back to the podcast.
How EOS Can Help You Double Your Business
We’ve had just a tremendous amount of growth, nearly doubling the business year over year just because we’ve been able to simplify all of our processes and keep everyone on the same page
And really establish that teamwork where we’re all working towards a common goal. I’m glad you brought up the scorecard too because that’s really one of the most important metrics because everyone in the company has a number. Where before that, it was like no one really necessarily know if they were doing good or not. You had no way of measuring it or grading it. So now there are maybe around 15 metrics on our scorecard. And every single person’s accountable for at least one number.
It’s very quick. You look at it, it’s green or it’s red, you hit it, or you didn’t hit it, why did you do either? It’s an easy, quick discussion, but we all know there’s that level of accountability. For example, if Kyle, since you guys have seen him on the podcast before, he’s accountable for getting all the social media posts done. If he went four weeks without doing it, it’d be glaringly obvious to the whole team that he’s not pulling his weight. That’s never happened. Kyle does a great job of that. Kyle never misses. But you would see it if someone did. Right?
So not only now do you have this accountability from your leader, but the whole company’s looking at you like, bro, yeah, totally. What are you doing? You know, this doesn’t reflect well on any of us. And so that really has been such a, a crucial tool and I’m just such a believer in it now.
EOS is the Key to Achieving Your Business Goals, No Matter Your Industry
We don’t have any affiliation with EOS outside of just being people who use it. But now that I’ve gone through it and I’ve had a couple of different businesses throughout my life, and I wish I had known about EOS 15 years ago because it has completely changed the way that we operate.
This is really cool too because it is pretty templated, so it can fit in really well to any industry. I certainly believe that this can work well in hospitality. We run level 10 EOS-style meetings for all of our client meetings, and they always go really well. So the proof is in the pudding because we’ve been able to retain all of our clients, and they’re happy. At the end of the meeting, instead of a one through 10 score, we ask them if it’s an effective use of their time or not.
Ultimately, we just want to make sure that we’re not stealing their time when they could be doing it somewhere else. But we run one of these same meetings every week in Springdale at our Cliffrose Lodge property on a level 10 agenda. And that’s the number one satisfaction rated Curio in America. And it runs on EOS.
It can work for any industry. And, to Spencer’s point, you talked a little bit about earlier too, I think there’s a, you know, like that belief that meetings are worthless. Yeah. You know, and I think that without structure, they are totally. Because if you just get in a room and all you do is talk about ideas and then everyone leaves and you don’t ever review it, it’s just conversation, then those are pointless.
We definitely, at Vibrant in earlier years had a lot of meaningless meetings, you know, where there was nothing that was, I don’t think I’ve ever, in fact,I know I’ve never got out of level 10 and said, well, that was worthless.
Our level 10 meetings used to be Tuesday morning, and then we’d have another company meeting on Monday morning. Level 10 accomplished so much for us departmentally and on the executive team that we just killed the company meeting. Yeah. And we’ve actually been more effective since killing it.
Saving all that time for everybody. Also, last year, we went to Scottsdale and had an annual offsite meeting with our executive team, and our EOS implement implementer Craig. We defined again for this year, okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. This year we made some tweaks to our three-year, we left our 10-year where it’s at. Then we went through and set our rocks and looked at our quarters. I’ve never gone into any year as a business being in a business as an employee or as an owner, and felt like I have a better bearing and understanding on what’s going to accomplish what’s going to happen that year.
I have so much faith in what we’re going to accomplish. I mean, we had heated debates, you know, we went back and forth like our revenue numbers, and people cry. Yeah. I mean, it gets real, it gets emotional, you know for the greater good of the company. After I think I was already a believer in EOS, but I think that annual meeting is what really like tipped me over the edge of like, wow, this is amazing. We had to go back to our team.
After that we take all that information, and we always have an event with our team. So like, we did a golf event, we went to Big Shots, which is like a Top Golf. We had like a pool party. We had a Christmas party here at the house. Then we’re informing all the team on all of those things. So everyone, no matter where you’re at in the organization, all knows what we’re marching towards.
Unlocking Your Business Potential: Your Next Steps to Implementing EOS
I think what I’d recommend, first and foremost for all of our listeners, get out there, purchase those books, do your due diligence. I highly recommend pursuing an EOS implementer. It is rather expensive, but I, it’s absolutely worth it. If you’re not out of that stage yet where you feel like you can commit that kind of financial commitment to your business, reach out to us Totally. And we’ll do it for free, at least giving you an introduction and get you, like Spencer talked about, your L10 s and your accountability charts. We will help facilitate that for you because we’re such believers in it, and we can certainly help you execute and work through EOS and your company.
Take action. The first book you should get is Traction. Go purchase that today. If you read that and you like it, reach out to us and let us help you get started on that process. Or reach out to us and we’ll connect you with Craig. If he can be your implementer, that would be amazing for you. He’s great. If, if not, he can get you connected with an implementer in your area. And then I think we also have a, a promotional marketing you want to maybe talk about.
Take Advantage of Vibrant’s Free Month of Digital Marketing Before It’s Too Late
Right now, until the end of the month, we’re offering a free month of digital media advertising. So just reach out to me, thank you to everyone who’s reached out over LinkedIn or email or has called us or DM’d us on Instagram.
We’re really excited that this podcast is starting to get some traction, pun intended, with the name of the book. But we’re really getting a lot of people that are starting to listen to it. We’re about to cross a thousand downloads. We have guests that are now lined up. So we really hope to share those guests with you. We hope to have Web Rez Pro on. We have another really great strategic partnership with a company called Stash, which is a boutique awards system point system.
I really think like this is going to be an amazing year for Vibrant. So yeah, reach out to me for a free month of digital advertising. There’s no agreement, no contract to it. We’d really love to show you what we’re able to do.
And Sean, if you’re listening, it is Friday in Utah. Yes, sir. Thank you so much. You guys have a great day. Enjoy the rest of your week.
Hey everyone. Sorry to bother you. This is Cody with Virtual GM. I just want to say thank you to WebRez Pro. It is one of our featured partners and they, like our other partners, make this podcast possible. If you’re looking for the best pmms around with the most integrations, make sure you go and check out WebRez Pro.
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