From 80-Hour Weeks to Work-Life Balance: An EOS Franchise Success Story

Feeling overwhelmed and overworked in your franchise? In this episode of the Franchise Freedom Podcast, Giuseppe Grammatico chats with EOS Implementer Justin Mink about how the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) can help franchise owners gain control, achieve work-life balance, AND boost their bottom line. Justin shares his own journey from burnout to freedom and offers practical advice for implementing EOS in your business.

➡️ Connect with Justin Mink: linkedin.com/in/justinmink 

➡️ Learn more about EOS: https://www.eosworldwide.com/

➡️ Get the book Traction: https://a.co/d/hbzE2i9 

➡️ Explore franchise opportunities with Giuseppe: https://ggthefranchiseguide.com/right-fit/ 

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The Franchise Freedom: Discover Your New Path to Freedom Through Franchise Ownership, Book by Giuseppe Grammatico https://ggthefranchiseguide.com/book or purchase directly on Amazon.

Transcript

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is it better to start with a foundation of accountability, clarity, discipline, or do you want to try to go back and unwind and unpack maybe some bad patterns and unhealthy behaviors after the fact? They were at 34 million or something like that system wide sales for many years and over the two years We were running EOS. They rocketed to 50 million in system wide sales. You can't, if you look at the lungs, they're not going to function without your beating heart and vice versa. Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast, where you can escape the corporate trap through franchise ownership. Here's your host, Giuseppe Grammatico, The Franchise Guide. Okay, and welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Giuseppe Grammatico, your Franchise Guide, the show where we help corporate execs experience time and financial freedom via franchising. Thanks for joining us. We took your input. We're bringing on a lot of new guests, and I'm really excited to have Justin Mink on the show today. Justin, welcome to the show. Hey, what's going on, Giuseppe? Good to be here. Thanks for having me. Very excited. So I wanted to, bring you on the show because I've been talking about the book traction by Gino Wichman and the entrepreneur operating system. And I'm like, you know what? It's been several years. I've never had anyone on the show to talk about it. Probably explain it much better than I can. Before we do that, wanted to maybe give the audience a little bit of background, who, who is Justin, what do you do? And then we'll dive into EOS. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm a lifelong entrepreneur. I've, I got the bug in my twenties. I had this corporate desk job and started a side hustle. On the weekends that was a lot more fun and lucrative than my nine to five. I've had a lot of different experiences working with startups founded a company. in Dallas about 10 years ago called Music Audience Exchange. And today that company is, we've raised almost 15 million. I'm well north of a hundred million in revenue. I have a hundred employees, but I got pretty sick on that journey. I was working 80 hour weeks and, I thought I couldn't hack it any longer. Entrepreneurship was just chaotic, stressful, sacrificing health. Relationships time for any other interests in life. Thought I was done with entrepreneurship, went back into kind of how I got started in my career enterprise sales and discovered the book traction, get a grip on your business by Gino Wichman. It's what brought EOS to the world. And I was really inspired that there are answers to questions I didn't think had answers and entrepreneurship doesn't have to be so chaotic and stressful. Joined a startup venture. And we ran EOS and it was completely transformative. We over a six month timeframe, we took us to fully integrate EOS. We doubled revenue velocity and we made work life balance, a company value and capped everybody's hours, including all the leaders at 80 a week. So that was transformative. I found out there was this franchise where I'm a franchisee of EOS as our all implementers, where we can teach, facilitate, and coach leadership teams on how to. Run on EOS. And so for me, I've been doing this for about three years as a franchisee of EOS and EOS implementer, and it's real, a real calling to help other entrepreneurs experience the same freedom. That EOS made possible for me and performance, but hopefully saving people like your listeners, the suffering that I had to go through on that journey. That's awesome. I actually, I didn't, it's funny you mentioned, I didn't even know that you were a franchisee. I didn't realize that. So that's something new that I've learned today. And to your point, being a business owner for 20 years. Going back early on to, to get my graduate degree, this should be a course or maybe just the MBA in and of itself. It's the stuff that I felt like going through the process, just figure it out, right? Just work like you just figure it out work a little bit less and hire an assistant and it all works out and it doesn't, there was never really a way of really figuring out in a process of going about it. Can you talk to us a little bit about, so what is EOS maybe the spending maybe maybe a minute on each, but just talking about what it truly is for that person that is completely overwhelmed, maybe the owner franchise, maybe it's a startup and they don't even know where the heck to start. Yeah, it's, you had to strip it down to its essence, it's just a simple set of practical proven tools that leaders can deploy in the business to help them get more of what they want from the business. So fundamentally. It's all about getting a leadership team, ultimately an entire company strong and what we call vision traction and healthy. So vision from the standpoint of getting the leadership team aligned on exactly where the company's gone and how they're going to get there together. We think about traction, just discipline, accountability, everyone executing every day. And healthy is teams that are cohesive and lack politics and self interest and blame. And it's really just all about how do we get better together? And they're just world class at solving problems because we know a lot of times leadership teams just aren't cohesive. And so ultimately, as goes the leadership team, so goes the rest of the organization. You got a team top to bottom. Everybody understands the vision feels like they're an integral part of that story and they know how they're contributing. And they all believe in the same things at their core. You've got all that human energy in a company, all those arrows that are typically pointing in a hundred different directions, got harnessed all that. Everyone's pointing in one direction, making progress towards the achievement of the vision. And you just got teams top to bottom that. Are world class at solving problems and really enjoy being around each other kind of creates that locker room Championship mentality. Yeah, you got to be on you got to be on the same page, right with that without that vision Everyone's going off in their own directions so you start off so some someone is struggling right they Business maybe is going really well, but they are, as you mentioned, putting in 80, 90, a hundred hours a week, something that's just not sustainable. Do you work with, what do I have to only have one employee? Can this be implemented? Is there a kind of a minimum number of staff? What are requirements in order to make this work and to make the training work for them? Yeah, it's a good question. And it's a question I get a lot when I train franchisees, because there are always two, three, four people business when they're just starting out. I run EOS with my one assistant and with my wife actually, believe it or not. Yeah. And so as you grow and evolve the way that you leverage and use the tools within the EOS are going to evolve, but. I always preach, look, is it better to start with a foundation of accountability, clarity, discipline, or do you want to try to go back and unwind and unpack maybe some bad patterns and unhealthy behaviors after the fact? There's a lot of details that we could get into around how a one, two person business could use EOS tools, but creating a vision that's clear and compelling. using that as a hiring tool, creating structure for the company to give you some clarity around how to grow and scale. All those are powerful tools from day one. Awesome. So if someone is in need of assistance, you actually. So I guess maybe walk us through maybe an example. I obviously there's so many different areas we can't get into them all. So maybe just an idea. So someone is struggling. Do you go into, not only just going over the ideas of EOS, but when you talk about implementing, like actually opening up their schedule I know for me, just with my schedule, like I would always put personal stuff first and then if they, and whatever was left was reserved for business. So how do how do you help them just with. In the very beginning time management just getting their life and their time back in order Yeah, when I work with a client on a on implementation, it's a phased process and it involves locking me and the leadership team in a room for a full day and Getting the leadership team started with a foundation of tools that they can immediately deploy in the business a lot of these models When you start building the vision first, it feels great But the halo effect is pretty short lived because you go right back into business and right back to where the water's flowing. So we start with this foundation of execution. And then once that's we've got some, a sample size of data, we get to stress test it a little. Then that gives us a great foundation to lay down a vision for the business that really sticks. But there's 25, 000 companies that have used an implementer like myself, but that there's hundreds of thousands run on EOS without an implementer. There's, it's a a set of tools that harmonize and orchestrate all the moving parts and pieces of the business. So there's some best practices that a leader, a leadership team can take to deploy us without having to hire somebody like myself. And phase it in. We don't have time to get into all of it, but I would highly recommend a great starting point is the book traction. Get a grip on your business. I've got about 200 copies laying around, but this is the tome and that's enough to get any leader started on how to start layering these tools into the business. So start there and then, having, hiring someone like yourself to actually implement it directly. Yeah. In the business when working with someone is that, would you say aside from that full day meeting, is this something that it's, is it check in weekly, monthly calls? What do you, how do you normally structure that with with the client? Yeah, when I'm with the client, look I'm a resource. And so we have some structured check ins I'll sit in on some of their meetings and observe and provide feedback. But I'm a resource, all my clients, any implementers clients occupies. A massive chunk of real estate in our brain. So I'm there as is required but the, when we engage, it's a full day, eight hour session. And ultimately my goal is to get a leadership team equipped, confident, fluent in EOS so that they can then cascade it down into the rest of the organization, because what else, what often happens when leaders get a little bit out ahead of their skis when they're running EOS is that they try to push it down. Before they're ready. And so it burns that opportunity because they're not credible. They don't understand the tools. They're not using them well at the leadership level. And that's where really all the tools start using it for the leaders. And once they're really rocking and rolling, then they can push it down and they have the authority and they, I'm teaching the teachers in that respect. That makes sense. Can you anywhere, a case study, what life looked like before and then after with with the recent client implementing EOS, hiring yourself to, to really, implement this in the day to day. Yeah. Yeah. I've got what, One that comes to mind is I just recently graduated them. It's just between a franchise just between friends. Visionary owner founder Running the business for almost 20 years and in the two years that we implemented she sold the business to another franchisee. So that transition was a really smooth one because EOS helped them through that change management and in fact Energized the franchisees in the system, but it also just from a pure performance perspective They were at 34 million or something like that system wide sales for many years and over the two years We were running EOS. They rocketed to 50 million in system wide sales. So great success story But honestly the number one when, there's been about 25, 000 businesses over the course of 17 or so years with Gino Wickman as the first implementer. And when surveyed the number one thing that leaders say they get from EOS is a better quality of life. So hard to quantify that, but that freedom that it gives leaders to really get what they want from the business and really feel like they're in control versus the business being in control of them, which often happens. That's what our clients tell us is their biggest benefit. And that's the most important thing. There is, there's so many aspects of a business, but it's quality life. It's a hard one to what's next. Money is always important, but what good is that if you're working a hundred hours a week? When I, when we talk about EOS and I know you work with franchise brands, so that's where you're working directly with the franchisor and they're able to, assist and work with all their franchisees. There are a lot of people running their franchises, semi absentee, they're running it part time and I don't know if this, I don't know where this term came from, but the idea of phantom equity and having your general manager, getting that quarterly distribution, having some skin in the game. Is that from EOS? Because that seems as I was talking about EOS, I kept hearing more and more about phantom equity. So I was just curious. Phantom equity is not an EOS term. But not, okay. No but it's interesting that you bring that up because I do work. I'm just one in particular comes to mind. He's a he and his team are multi unit franchisees. They own 26 concepts that are part of a holding company. And one of the things that he is getting from EOS that we've talked about is the fact that, and he wants is that, when it's a single unit owner, operator, they've got their blood, sweat, tears in the business. And they're in that unit, that store, that service center. You know with the customer and they care and when you have 26 locations and you are semi absentee and you're building a team what eos can really powerfully do is create a culture of engagement and Identify right people who fit the culture like a glove who are in the right seats Being held accountable for consistently excellent performance and then align the incentives Everybody feels like they're on this journey together and they all have incentives to win together. And man, it's powerful for those multi unit franchisees who really want to make sure that they can push culture down into all the units that are part of their their empire. That's huge. Every, everyone's it's the journey together. As I look at it, we, everyone benefits. There, whether it be more time, whether it be more money, but that's, I think, culture, and that's when people look at franchises, they look at that, it's how do the franchises play with one another, do they get along I jokingly say as my kids y'all have to get along and have a good time together, but I think culture is huge. I think not the same things are important to everyone. I think implementing EOS and for those people stuck. And I think I talked to a lot of people, they've maybe don't have an implementer, they've read the book, they're in between, what advice do you have for them? They're stuck, is it time, hire someone like yourself. What am I doing wrong? I read the book. I've talked to quite a few people, they read it and they haven't done much with it. They're like, I had some great ideas, but I'm in this limbo stage, what advice would you have for them? Yeah. Change is uncomfortable. Always right. Growth is never a comfortable thing. And I think EOS is difficult to deploy for a lot of companies, especially ones that have been operating for a long time, they've got their sort of, their Ways and means and methods of doing things. And so a lot of the trouble that I see companies have when they try to self implement when they're doing it without the help and it can be done. I did it and it worked. If it's just one leader's thing, and all the leaders are not bought in, that becomes an issue, because really EOS works when it's a collective effort, there's collective will, and a willingness to be open and honest with yourself and those around you, and really being more uncomfortable with the status quo than you are with change, so if there's not that, even playing field where all the leaders are bought in and there's not that collective will to change, then it's probably going to be tough because one leader is going to run it. The other is not, it's going to feel like it's political. One team's going to use it in a different way. And you really need everybody operating on the same playing field. So that's super key. The other problem is when you try to use certain tools without using others, because. It's a system, right? And it's like the human body, right? You can't, if you look at the lungs, they're not going to function without your beating heart and vice versa. So when you try to use certain tools and leave others, it's just going to be watered down version. I certainly advocate and running us in any shape, way, shape or form simply better than not. But those are some of the hangups. So collective buy in and, a collective will is really where that's, those are the fundamental prerequisites to making it work. Awesome. No, I appreciate that. And this works for every business. I'm working with some right now looking at a coatings business in the home service space. And he's actually a surgeon by trade. And when we were having a conversation, he's Oh, I actually implement EOS. He bought the book. He's doing it himself. Although struggling a little bit, but he's I implement it in the business. So it was nice to hear it. It's wow, I've been hearing it. I'm in the franchise world, but you're hearing it. And people's practices, attorneys, surgeons, and everyone in between. This has been awesome. I'm going to include in the show notes or in the show, we're going to put a graphic of kind of the wheel and, vision data process, traction issues, and people in your, with, around your business. So I think that's a, just that graphic alone would be super helpful. We'll link. The book traction as well at the Amazon link and where can what's the best way people can get ahold of you if they have any questions, we'd like to start working together. Yeah, I appreciate it. And even if you're not interested in working together, I'm help first is one of our values. So if any of your listeners just need a perspective from a professional I'm always, willing to do what I can to help anybody who wants to help LinkedIn, I'm all over LinkedIn. I post just about every day on all things EOS and leadership. So just look me up, Justin Mink. I have a newsletter it's called Mink in a Minute. It's a little 60 seconds or less. Chunk on leadership and EOS tips and recommendations that goes out once a day It's at justinmink. com or if you want to learn more about EOS and my practice You can go to EOSworldwide. com forward slash Justin dash Mink. Justin. All right We're gonna put that all in the blog as well as the show notes. Cool. Anything else we didn't discuss? I know this is a lot to cram in a short episode, but any You Words of wisdom before we we sign off. No, I would just, like you, you asked a great question at the outset, which is always starting with a foundation of real, of a healthy culture, a crystal clear vision, accountability, having a team of right people in the right seats, really defining what that is from day one. That's going to set you up for success. So if I if I were a franchisee, like this would be the absolute pillars of how I structure my business. And it gives you a really healthy platform to scale the culture and the kind of performance and life that you want from your business. Awesome. No, I appreciate it. And I'm hoping more and more franchisors implement this. We talk about the freedoms of that business ownership can create. Quite a bit. So it's exciting to see franchisors working with people like yourself, helping every new franchisee, many of these people have never owned the business before. So this is that alone is brand new. So just starting that foundation, setting it up properly. Listen, Justin, I really appreciate it. Been looking forward to this. We'll put everything in the show notes. So if you have any questions for Justin, want to check out the book first. It'll be in there and I appreciate it. And maybe as a thought, maybe having you come back on later on in the year and maybe we'll dive into some some areas or specific case study. We would love to to do that if you're open to it. Yeah, I'd love to be back. We'll do the, this was the 1 0 1. We'll do the the 2 0 2 version, so there you go too. I like that. Yeah, man. Yeah. Thanks for having me, gi. It was fun. Thanks again. If you want to learn how to make the transition from corporate to owning your franchise, join Giuseppe on the next episode. You can also follow on all social media platforms and achieve financial and time freedom today.