Elevating Janitorial Business Performance with EOS: Key Insights and Strategies

INTRO/OUTRO [00:00:02]:
Welcome to the Cleaning in Motion Show, a podcast interviewing successful cleaning business owners to hear what they're doing that works and what they've tried that's failed, all to help you grow your business. And now onto the show.

Samuel Klein [00:00:26]:
Welcome back to the Cleaning in Motion Show, the go to podcast for insights and strategies in the commercial cleaning and facility management industry. Today, we're excited to welcome Lyn Askin. Lyn is a dynamic force in the world of business renowned for his expertise in marketing and his exceptional skills as a master coach. Beyond guiding number of business and agencies to success, he's also the man when it comes to implementing the entrepreneurial operating system or EOS to help companies achieve clarify a clarity, focus, and growth. With a lean, unique blend of marketing knowledge and deep understanding of US, we're set to explore how these principles can revolutionize your, cleaning and business. So grab your notepad and get ready to dive deep into the world of EOS with DeLyne Askin and discover how to bring clarity, focus, and growth to your cleaning business. So, Lyn, welcome to the to the podcast. Excited to have you here.

Samuel Klein [00:01:32]:
And, yeah, man, hopefully, people will see and you can explain better than me why EOS is so important and why people should considering implementing in their businesses or at least reading the book. I've been a a a loud voice of EOS in the cleaning industry, but people are just, like, curious, but but not the curious enough to start pulLyng the trigger. No? And that's what I wanna change in today's conversation. So, yeah, welcome to the podcast, man.

Lyn Askin [00:02:07]:
Thanks, Sam. It's great to be here. I really appreciate it. That was a great intro. I, hope I can live up to all of that, so I appreciate you.

Samuel Klein [00:02:14]:
No worries. So, Lyn, before we dive to the world of EOS, if you don't mind sharing a bit about your journey, who is Lyn asking a little bit about your background, and how did you find your path into marketing and business coach?

Lyn Askin [00:02:31]:
Oh, sure. Sam, I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I had a paper route when I was 9 years old, started a mobile disc jockey business in my teens. In in my early twenties, I I started building computers. And then in 1996, I actually built one of the very first onLyne auctions. And so, I think eBay hired their first employee in 1996 also. And so, we were we were kind of on the forefront of of the Internet back then. I built my first ecommerce store in 1997 and then, you know, started building websites for other people and and, you know, spent the last 20, 25, 26 years running a digital marketing agency.

Lyn Askin [00:03:12]:
And so, you know, in in during that journey, we had sort of the same challenges as everybody else does in business. We had maybe a lack of clear vision about who we were and who we served. We had a difficulty sort of differentiating ourselves from the other agencies. We had a handful of employees that felt like maybe they were 1 foot in the door and 1 foot out, sort of maybe a lack of commitment. And probably that was because of our lack of real vision. And then, of course, we had a a lack of accountability all the way to the top. And so, you know, but but despite all that, Sam, we had a really, really good business and and, you know, I've lived a really good life. And, you know, business has been really good for us.

Lyn Askin [00:03:53]:
But in let's I think it was September or October of 19 September of 2020, I I collapsed in my yard, and I had this massive pulmonary embolism. I had a just this huge wake up call. And as I I was rushed to the ICU, and, as I was laying there, they're fighting for my life, Sam, all I could think about was what kind of mess that I just leave for my wife and my son. You know, my my wife was going to have to go to my office. She would have had to fire all of our employees. She was going to have to lose all of our clients, and she would have had to lock the door behind me, because, you know, my business relied 100% on me, and I didn't really have a business. I had a job. And, and so, obviously, I thank god I recovered and I survived.

Lyn Askin [00:04:44]:
And, but I knew I knew from that moment on that I had to make a change in my life and in my business. And I think that's, what I, what my first initial thought was, man, now that I've recovered, it took me probably 3 months to feel good again. But, I said, man, this business is kilLyng me. I I have to sell this. Ben, I don't know if you know this or not, Sam, but you can't sell a job. So, I mean and because the business relied so much on me, the business wasn't really sellable. And so I went on a mission to systemize my business and grow my business and scale my business. And so I I started studying, like, what what does a business look like that is, that is that is sellable, that is, you know, that somebody would want to purchase that that makes sense for somebody to acquire? And so, you know, I looked through a lot of different things, watched a lot of podcasts, read a lot of books, and, and and I I found EOS.

Lyn Askin [00:05:43]:
You know, I I bought the book Traction. You can see it sitting back here on my desk. I bought that book in 2014, but I I I read it just like a lot of people, and and it's and it's a pretty heavy book. And I thought, oh, that's really nice, but I don't know how to to to get that implemented. But in in early 2021, after my pulmonary embolism, I I I was just on a mission to systemize my business. And I actually hired a professional EOS implementer to come into our business and help us install this this framework to help us get more of the right stuff done. And, we had a pretty remarkable transformation. We we three x'd our revenue over the next year and a half.

Lyn Askin [00:06:20]:
We seven x'd our profits. We grew from 10 employees to 27. And most importantly, Sam, I was able to sort of take myself out of the day to day operations of pipe business and do more of the things that I love, which is which is coaching and helping others grow their businesses. And so EOS just had such a a massive effect on our business. It's such a game changing moment for us to put this into place and to be able to free ourselves up and to be able to grow and to be able to scale that that it just, you know, sort of it was just a natural extension of my of my coaching business that that I that I became an EOS implementer.

Samuel Klein [00:07:00]:
No, nice. It's definitely a very backfill story. You you had a wake up call that you came stronger on the other side, you know, that that made you realize what a lot of us sometimes want to ignore and all that is that we have a job and and not a a business. And I think, you need to either because I see a lot of business owners and sometimes including myself, you know, we become this, workaholic, which is not a healthy people, and not because of passion and we love what we do is because we are so dependable in every decision and every turn that the business has to make that it's hard just to to unplug for a little bit and and see things that form from from a different perspective. No?

Lyn Askin [00:07:57]:
Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to say that that EOS EOS, I like to say that it that it changed my life, but the truth is it probably saved my life. I was I was kilLyng myself. I was working long hours. I was working, you know, 10, 14, 16 hours a day. I wasn't sleeping much. I was constantly always thinking about my business.

Lyn Askin [00:08:18]:
You know, I was always worried about the emails that would be coming in and the challenges we'd be facing, and it just never ended. And it was just it caused a lot of stress in my life. And, and EOS was just such a big game changer for us that I that I that I think it saved my life.

Samuel Klein [00:08:33]:
So so let's talk about the basics of EOS for the listeners who are not familiar. Could you give us an explanation? No. I would encourage people to also put in chat EDP what I see and explain it as a 5 years old, which is my favorite prompt. But, yeah, I would love to hear from you. How do you explain to someone who is not familiar EOS, in big companies that are making multiple 7 figures that they have a mess in house? No. Like, how how can you convince to at least please hear hear me out, you know, hear you about this topic that that it can really be a game changer for your business?

Lyn Askin [00:09:17]:
Sure. EOS is EOS just as a simple set of tools and practical concepts that have that have been around for a 100 years and will probably be around for a 1000 more. There's no magic or magic pee beans or or magic, or silver bullets here. Right? It's a simple set of practical tools that are designed to help you get more of what you want from your business. So EOS at its core helps you focus on getting better at 3 things, vision, traction, and healthy. And by vision, what I mean is we gotta make sure that we get a 100% of your team, a 100% on the same page about where you're going and how you're gonna get there. Traction just means instilLyng that discipLyne and accountability so that no matter where you look in your company, you see people executing on your vision. And then healthy, that just means making you and your leadership team a more cohesive, functional, fun loving team who actually likes to work together because, you know, let's be honest, sometimes we don't.

Lyn Askin [00:10:14]:
And so EOS really at its core focuses on improving 6 key areas of your business. Number 1, the vision component. Vision is about, again, making sure that that all of your people are 100% clear on where you're going and how you're gonna get there. We have the people component. That quite simply just means that you can't achieve a great vision if you don't have great people. And then there's the data component where we help you run your business on on real numbers and facts and figures rather than sort of the emotional decision making that a lot of us do as business owners. And then, of course, we we when your vision component's clear and your people component's clear and your and your your data component and they're all working together well, your business starts to become a little more transparent, and you start to have problems and challenges and and and issues. And those things just start to pop up.

Lyn Askin [00:11:09]:
And so we gotta make you and your team really, really good at solving those problems as they arise, and we do that with our with strengthening your issues component. And then we strengthen your process component, and that's about getting the handful of core processes. The things that you guys do in your business every single day, it's about getting that stuff done the right way and the best way every time. And then, of course, the traction component. Now the traction component is sort of the bottom of the model. The vision component is at the top, and and there's no, you know, no surprise that that the traction is vision is at the top and traction is at the bottom because if you can't bring your vision down to the ground and execute on it with discipLyne and accountability and we say that vision without traction is hallucination. And so, the traction component is really about how do we get the work done? How do we how do we take that vision and all of those things that we put together and really go out and get our work done on a regular basis? And so, at its core, EOS is a framework around how to run your business.

Samuel Klein [00:12:11]:
No. I I love it. For me, I I also start self implementing last year and hopefully will work together soon. But it has been a great like, a game changer. I know in any business and and me personally, I always grew and crashed and grew and crashed. And, I'm in this constant roller coaster because I I like the structure. No? And I, yeah, improved my process, but then something else breaks. And, the reality is that I don't have clear steps on on how to manage the business, you know, besides all these departments.

Samuel Klein [00:12:46]:
No? And, I think EOS model, it's an amazing framework that the beauty is that it can apply to any business. And we have seen that and or I have the experience working with cleaning companies that are implementing the EOS in a very few months. They're starting to see very fast impacts in their business from, getting the right people in the right seats to having a more clear goals and a clear vision on where the company wants to go. So that's what the EOS, is knowing. It's a a step by step framework that will help you take your company to a next level and will help you see things from a different perspective without losing control. No? That that leads me to do to my next, I guess, question that that I think it it's one of the main pain points that I see constantly in at least the industry that I work, which is, it's common to find people in roles that are might not be best suits for their talent. No. It seems like, when, we are hiring, we are always on a hurry.

Samuel Klein [00:14:02]:
No. It's because someone quits or someone retire or we grew too fast and then we have to grow. And then we hire the first, somehow decent candidate that someone put in front of us. And at the same time, we have rock stars that have been with us for years, but they are in the same position. And so I wanna I wanna hear from you from an EOS perspective and from your perspective, as a, you know, entrepreneur and and and business coach. How can companies more effective align their team members with their roles or their seats? You know? How I make sure that every team member, is in the right seat in my company. And if not, what can I do about it?

Lyn Askin [00:14:52]:
So in EOS, when it comes to the people component, we focus on 2 things. We we say right people, right seats. This was popularized by by Jim ColLyns in his book, Good to Great, but I'd like to explain it and make it a little more tangible for you and your audience here. So what are right people? Right people are people that that exemplify your core values. There are people that you love, that you wanna be around, that that consistently exhibit the core values of you and the rest of your team. Now what are right seats? Right seats are are people who are they have god given talent. They have skills, and and, they're great at their jobs. These are people just really good at getting things done.

Lyn Askin [00:15:35]:
And when you combine those things with the right people in the right seats, this is this is what we do in EOS. We help you get the right people in the right seats. Now, how do we do that? Well, again, we we help you build and structure a great set of core values around your company. There's just maybe a handful of rules that that define what it's like to be a great employee at your at your company. Those are our core values. You must exhibit those core values to be a great employee here. And then right seats. This is really about defining your accountability chart, mapping out all your roles and responsibilities, and then matching the right people and putting them in the right seats where they're they can consistently excel at their jobs, where their roles just match up with their skill sets.

Lyn Askin [00:16:19]:
And so, obviously, we have some challenges when you put people in you know, you try to put the right people in the right seats, And there's a couple of challenges you could have there. You could maybe have a right person, but not in the right seat. And so, you know, again, these are people that you love. You wanna be around. You want them in your company. Lucky for us as entrepreneurs and business owner, we have a lot of seats. And so we we figure out ways to move that person around so they can be more consistently excellent in their job. Now sometimes you have a a person who's in the right seat, but they're the wrong person.

Lyn Askin [00:16:53]:
So that's a wrong person in the right seat problem. In that case, those are people who don't really exhibit your core values. They don't they don't really fit into the team. And and in those cases, I would suggest that you make a change because it's really hard to to make that person a right person if they don't fit and they don't live the core values of you and your company. And so right people, right seats is really important. We have a couple of tools or discipLynes that help you do that in EOS.

Samuel Klein [00:17:21]:
I I love it because for me, right people, the right seat always mean, having, like, the most smart guy, you know, working, in whatever department it is. No. But I think, you mentioned something that that is critical to make a company work, you know, in every department and every people work in harmony, which is, that person has to be, have to follow the values of the company. You know? And so you have to before and correct me if I'm wrong. Before knowing, if, the right people's in the right seat, you have to have those core values known that you want the company to represent and you want your employees to live by. So then as a next step, once you understand what what, what do you need to know in each position, then, you can you can move your your your chips around. So so values, it's something that we are on underestimate, and and then we have friction with with employees, or or is that a great cloud? No. Every time that we've talked with someone, and and I guess the way that you can avoid that is is by having, your core values.

Samuel Klein [00:18:37]:
Correct? Right?

Lyn Askin [00:18:38]:
Yeah. I mean, the the your core values are just so important to your company because it defines what it means to be a great employee. You know? What And so we don't you know, your core values are not the same as anybody else's. So we define your unique core values. And once we do that, once we define that, then we have to you know, people have to hear things multiple times before they really, really get it. But we've gotta teach our team our core values. So we've gotta hire with them. We've gotta fire with them.

Lyn Askin [00:19:11]:
We have to review with them. We have to reward with them. We have to recognize with them. Because people don't learn core values from a poster, from a mug. They learn core values from living them on a daily basis and having them reinforced. And so when we build a culture of people that that fit, you know, people that that we love, like, when we build our core values exercise, we ask you, like, who in your company would you if you could if you could have a 100 of them, if you could clone that person and you could have a 100 of them, you could take over the world. And then we map out what are the qualities? Why did we list that person? What are the qualities of the people that we want on our team? And so then we go about making sure we get the right people in the right seats.

Samuel Klein [00:19:53]:
No. Love it. So one of the other things that I, for me was personally a game changer in the US, and. It's that, besides putting a structure in your business, it also sets a lot of accountability. No? Which, in most businesses, there is a lack of accountability for everything. No? And then there is a lag and maybe you can share in your opinion why do you think there is a lack of accountability. Because I know before I implemented the US, that was my case, and I see it all the time because I have weekly meetings with, all of my clients, and we serve, more than 80, facility management service providers. And and what we try to get in those, meetings and all besides, of course, the the marketing, the sales, and so on, it's accountability.

Samuel Klein [00:20:46]:
If they don't do their part, I cannot succeed and vice versa. If I don't do their part my part. No. But, EOS talks a a lot about accountability. And and later on, when we talk about the the the level 10 or the leadership meetings, there is something that it's also people analyze or not. And so if you can give us a a brief overview of what is that about and and how can, I start implementing again some kind of more of a accountability chart for for my team, for my company? How how do I make sure that everybody knows what they're they're supposed to do?

Lyn Askin [00:21:30]:
Yeah. Sure. Accountability starts with with clear expectations. It it starts with a clear list of of things that you're responsible for and things that you're expected to do. And so, in EOS, we have a couple of things that really, really help with accountability. One one is a scorecard. So everyone on our team has some sort of metric they're responsible for on a regular basis. We also have our our set of core values, so they know exactly what kind of behaviors they need to exhibit on a regular basis, you know, who they need to be, how they need to, you know, sort of act or behave, or or how to treat the clients.

Lyn Askin [00:22:08]:
Depends on, like, what the core values are. And then, of course, we have level 10 meetings where we hold them accountable on a regular basis. So we're checking on, you know, are you are you doing the things that you say that you were going to do? You know, so we have we we look over the to do list. We have a scorecard, make sure everybody's meeting their metrics. Everybody has something called a rock, which is a a 90 day business priority. And every week, we're checking in on on your rock to make sure that you're making progress. And so, there's a lot of accountability in EOS, but it really, really starts with those super clear expectations, Clear expectations about how you how you what it means to be a great employee at this company, and what are the expectations of the role or the responsibility of the job that you're in. And so those all of those things combine into into this, obviously, sort of what I think is just beautiful system that helps you get more of what you want from your business.

Lyn Askin [00:22:59]:
1 of the things you mentioned that I that I'd love to touch on just a little bit, you mentioned the people analyzer. The people analyzer is a tool that we use in EOS. You know, we sort of use it quarterly with our team, and we we analyze the person, you know, with real kind of information here. And what we're trying to determine is, do our people consistently exhibit our core values? And so we rate them on a scale of, you know, do they exhibit our this core value most of the time, some of the time, or rarely? And so we have a set of expectations around whether or not our team is really living our core values, and and this people analyzer allows you to do that with your team. And not only that, it allows you to have great conversations with your team. Because you can walk into with a team and you can say, hey. Look. I just wanna you know, remember when we hired you, We we told you how important these core values were.

Lyn Askin [00:23:53]:
We we reinforce them every Friday on our on our call. Here's a couple places that I think you're doing really, really well, but here's a place where I think that there's room for improvement. And I and and you can have a conversation about, you know, whether or not they're really delivering excellence or, you know, being a team player and whatever the rules are or the the core values that your particular company has. And so the people analyzer allows you to kind of see, you know, in in real facts and figures on whether or not somebody's really living these core values, and then it allows you to have great conversations with them about how they can improve and what it means to live that core value and some examples of ways that they can improve their performance.

Samuel Klein [00:24:35]:
So, I think, there is something, there is a lot of to unpack now there, but that, I well, one of the things that that people miss, a lot is communicating, you know, their vision, communicating in this case, their core values with the team. So, how do you go about communicating core? It might be a super simple answer. It might be a little bit more complicated. No. I I think it's it's just, as simple as it sounds. And how often do you communicate your values to the team? How often you do you share the expectations of of, what they should be doing in each role? How do you, again, level expectations so you have, the ideal green team? No?

Lyn Askin [00:25:25]:
Well, I think the I mean, this there's a couple of ways to think about this. You know, we we have to stay connected as a team. And so there's there's a couple of different ways we could be connected. We you know, circles could never connect, which, obviously, bad things are gonna happen when you never communicate with your team. And there's another way that that might not be so great is when you're too I think that in in the EOS, we we have what we call the meeting pulse. And so it's what we try and determine is what is the right level of communication between you and your team? You know, how many meetings should we have? Can we have really, really great one really, really great meeting a week versus, you know, a morning huddle, that sort of thing? And so our our core values are reinforced often. I mean, like I said, we we hire with them. We fire with them.

Lyn Askin [00:26:18]:
We review with them. We recognize with them. We reward with them. And so our core values are super prominent. And then, of course, you know, they're being held accountable in their regular level 10 meetings to the things that they're supposed to be doing and getting done with their with our scorecard and with our rocks and with our to do list.

Samuel Klein [00:26:35]:
I appreciate, again, sharing, all that knowledge. And, and for all of you that are more interested again, there is a lot that the book will give, you know, and it will take you as far as hopefully time. For me, at least personally, the the book took me a part off to start taking action. And then by watching videos to talking with coaches like you and, in the future, of course, it's, having that implementer coming in and and and helping you see things without any emotional attachment. So you can really implement this model and and and change, you know, the whatever it's making you stop doing and don't allowing you to grow. So I wanna talk a little bit more about, establishing goals, knowing about the rocks. I think that's a crucial thing that we miss, and sometimes we just set goals at the beginning of the year. No.

Samuel Klein [00:27:39]:
It's, we're starting a new year. Everybody's hungry. Everybody's positive. Positive. Yeah. We're gonna add, 300,000 in revenue to the company. Great. No.

Samuel Klein [00:27:49]:
And that's it. And and, most companies leave it like that. But one of the things that we also always preach is that leading companies should have goals for a lot of different things. No. And a goal is not only translate into sales or revenue. It also translate into profit margins, into employee retention, into customer retention. And in my case, we preach a lot, you should reach, or you should try to get at least 10 positive Google reviews, a month. No? So, you go back that little bit.

Samuel Klein [00:28:28]:
How does EOS, talk about goals and and how it helps, you know, or or give you that accountability to make things happen and get us close or hopefully achieving those goals?

Lyn Askin [00:28:43]:
Absolutely. In when when he wrote the book Built to Last, Jim ColLyns did a lot of research into companies, and he discovered that all great companies, you know, the ones that have been around for for 10, 20, 50, a 100 years, they all have this habit of setting and achieving big goals. So at EOS, we set goals at several levels. You know, when we get together and we we do an EOS implementation, we we set a a 10 year target. So this is just sort of your big, hairy, audacious goal. It's kind of the north star of where we're heading as a company. We also set what we call our 3 year picture, and this is about defining, you know, we we define your your revenue goal, your profit, your measurables, those sort of things. But then we go about defining exactly what this company needs to look like just 3 short years from now.

Lyn Askin [00:29:32]:
K? And so we we map that out because if we can all see as a leadership team, we can all see it. We can picture that in our mind's eye. The chances of actually achieving it are just significantly greater. K? And then we're gonna bring that down to the ground even further. We're gonna make it real with a 1 year plan. We're gonna do the same thing. We are gonna set a revenue goal. We're gonna set a profit goal.

Lyn Askin [00:29:53]:
We're gonna set a measurable goal. And then we're gonna we're gonna set 3 to 7 company goals for the year. That might be, you know, making sure we have this system in place or maybe it's, you know, expansion or whatever that is for the year. We create these 3 to 7 big goals for the year. Then we bring that down to the ground and we create a 90 day world. And in our 90 day world, this is really about we're gonna do an exercise where we determine your biggest business priorities for the next 90 days, and we call those your rocks. Now this is really about creating a 90 day world in your company where we where we get together every quarter. We look back upon our last quarter to see how we did.

Lyn Askin [00:30:33]:
We're gonna make sure we're all still on the same page, because sometimes we're not. Right? And then we set a new set of rocks for the next quarter so that you and your team are crystal clear about what you need to do and what you need to execute on for the next 90 days. Then we get back again every quarter, and we do it again. And we just get in this cycle of of execution mode where we are just moving closer and closer to those goals that we set for ourselves. So when Gino created EOS, came to him and said, hey, Gino. Where are you going with this EOS thing? Right? And so Gino said, hey. My goal, you know, my big hairy audacious goal for EOS is to have 10,000 companies running on EOS. And and his advisor was like, woah.

Lyn Askin [00:31:17]:
That's a lot. How many do you have now? And Gino said, 53. And he's like, oh my gosh. How the heck are you gonna do that? And Gino said, 90 days at a time. And that's the basis of EOS. We set we set big goals, and we achieve them by taking chunks out of them 90 days at a time. What's what's the joke? How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. The same thing here.

Lyn Askin [00:31:40]:
We take chunks and bites out of your big goals every 90 days.

Samuel Klein [00:31:45]:
Nice. No. I love it. So so help me understand a little bit the different of, setting goals versus, the scorecard. No. And and just to give a little bit context, to the listeners is that one of the beauty about the US, at least, in my personal opinion, is that you have weekly leadership meetings. You know? We're in these weekly leadership meetings that are goal level 10 meetings. You, talk about, these rocks and all these 90 days, goals.

Samuel Klein [00:32:19]:
And, you also talk about the people if they're in the right seat or not, or what's happening in issues, but you also talk about scorecards. No? And the scorecards, Lyn will explain, in a second are very tied, knowing to your goals as well. No? But, in my opinion, I think scorecard is is super crucial for any company, you know, and specifically commercial cleaning companies because it give you a pulse on on what's happening in the business. So if you wanna help me also understand a little bit how scorecards what is it and how they tie to to goals. No?

Lyn Askin [00:33:00]:
Yeah. Of course. So a a scorecard is a is a handful of key metrics. So at the leadership level, you know, one of the one of the key leadership abilities in EOS that we teach is to is to simplify. And so at the leadership level, what we want So imagine yourself on a deserted island. Imagine yourself sitting there in your in your your beach chair, and you've got your frosty beverage, and your cabana boy or cabana girl brings you a piece of paper. Now you have no access to the outside world. You can't call the office.

Lyn Askin [00:33:30]:
There's no Internet. There's no phone, and they hand you a piece of paper. On that piece of paper is a set of numbers that give you an absolute pulse on your business. You gotta be able to look at this scorecard and know, hey. Are we having a good week in sales or a bad week in sales? Are we having a good week in marketing or a bad week in marketing? Are we having a good week in operations or a bad week in operations? Are we having a good week with our customers or a a bad week with our customers? And are our employees happy, or are they not happy? So you gotta be able to look at this scorecard at a glance and get a really, really good pulse on your business. So that's the the concept behind the scorecard is we want to have a set of metrics that we can look at and really understand if we're on track or off track. And then, of course, we tie those metrics to goals, and so we have a goal for every metric. Every metric has an owner, so somebody's responsible for each of these metrics.

Lyn Askin [00:34:21]:
And then we tie that with, like, 13 weeks of of data, so we can look and we can spot the trends and we can see, oh, no. We've had a bad week in sales 2 weeks in a row. What are we going to do about this rather than than wait till the end of the month and just look at our profit and loss statement and see that we've had a bad month. We can catch that ahead of time by looking at a weekly scorecard and seeing that, hey. We're a little bit off here. What do we need to do to take some action? Because this is one of the most important metrics in our business. And so scorecards give you a pulse on your business, and they and it and it's really a, a preventative tool, and and it's a look forward tool. It in some ways, it can predict your profit and loss statement.

Lyn Askin [00:35:01]:
Because if I look at your scorecard and I see your your sales numbers down 2 weeks in a row, 3 weeks in a row, I know what's gonna happen at the end of the month. Right? And so when I can see that scorecard, I see everybody's on track, and I see everything's going well. I know we're gonna hit our goals. But when I see a number on that scorecard that that we didn't hit a goal and maybe we haven't hit it 2 weeks in a row, we certainly have to drop that down to the issues list, and we gotta tackle that in our level plan meeting and figure out what we're gonna do about that. So a scorecard is a tool to give you a pulse on your business. It also allows you to make sure that each of your departments is doing what they're supposed to be doing, you know, making sure that each department's on track. And so that's a that's a scorecard, just kind of in a nutshell.

Samuel Klein [00:35:44]:
So, I I wanna share with you just to open a little bit the mind to our listeners, some of the metrics that commercial cleaning companies can track on a weekly basis now to make sure that they're on track and and and have a pulse on the business. No. Because the first thing that we we think about is sales. No? And how many clients did I get this week, which is the most obvious one. But sometimes you do not grow on sales, and the reason it's, many other things that can be tied to operations or people, so on. So I I did all these, know based on conversation with the other facility management companies, about the most important metrics that they track, and, we just divided into financial metrics, operation metrics, sales metrics. No? And you can have also innovation. So it's just like 4 different buckets.

Samuel Klein [00:36:46]:
And, this is just a live exercise to go. Correct me if I'm wrong or or or this is not the way to approach it. But I wanted to to give something to the listeners so they okay. I'm not tracking these metrics. I need to start tracking this because it's super relevant. No? In terms of financial metrics, now what we have is, first is profit margin. Sometimes, in this space, there is a such a crazy pricing war and all that. I believe a lot of the companies that had, we work, unfortunately, they they are not profitable or the profit margin doesn't make sense.

Samuel Klein [00:37:27]:
So profit margin, also the cash flow, understanding how much cash is coming in the business. You have to have, of course, your monthly recurring revenue. So that's a little bit the basic financial metrics. No? Then in terms of sales, you wanna know how many appointments you got, how many leads you got, and how many you won, how many contracts, you secure. No. So it's a little bit of sales metrics. In terms of operation, what do we have and and please feel free to interrupt me if, if, you don't agree on in anything. I think these are metrics that that we can track, weekly.

Samuel Klein [00:38:09]:
In operation metrics. We have client satisfaction, which can be a little bit challenging, but a lot of facility management and service providers, they have an operation guy who is visiting clients on a weekly basis or every day. Actually, that's his job. So there should be some kind of satisfaction indicator, employee turnover. No. If you have a lot of people in the field, a lot of times, there is a lot of turnover there. So you wanna understand why you're losing a lot of, employees or not and same with, with client not retention. And, then in terms of of innovation and improvement, that's a little bit more more challenging.

Samuel Klein [00:38:58]:
Many trainings or or education you you provided to your team, new services or product introduced, and, also technology and the adoption on the of new initiatives. So this is, me trying to to give ideas knowing, hopefully, some of these metrics will resonate to some of the listeners and will spark some some, action to be taken. But, if you have, the the point here or the big picture is that if you have a clear scorecard, clear metrics that are relevant to your business that you can measure and that you can track on a weekly basis, and then it will give you a visibility if you're going the right direction or not. That's what we wanna accomplish with the scorecard. No? And so we'd love to hear if, some of the things that I said, make sense in a scorecard based on your EOS experience or Yeah. Absolutely. Back. But yeah.

Lyn Askin [00:39:59]:
No. That's okay. Absolutely. I think, I think the key point that I wanna make here is that what can be measured could be improved. And so if you are looking to improve a certain area of your business, let's measure it. Let's put it on the scorecard. Let's make sure that we're hitting that number. And, you know, just the mere act of scorecarding can make you better.

Lyn Askin [00:40:17]:
There's a great story in history about scorecarding, and it and it's really about, the company Bethlehem Steel. And Charles Schwab was running that company at one point, and he went and visited, like, the lowest producing steel plant in Bethlehem Steel. And, and he asked the ship supervisors, you know, he's trying to figure out why is this plant not producing, and he asked the ship supervisor as he's coming off the floor, how many how many heats did you guys produce today? And the ship supervisor said 6. So Charles Schwab took out big piece of chalk, and he wrote a big 6 on the floor of the of the factory. And when the next shift supervisor came in, he said, hey. What's that? He said, oh, well, that's the number of heats that the ship the day ship produced. Well, when he came back in the next morning, the 6 was crossed out and there was a 7 on the floor. And so just the mere act of scorecarding can make you better.

Lyn Askin [00:41:04]:
It can make your employees more more accountable. Employees love it or accountable employees, at least, love or great employees love the ability or any tool that will help them become better. And so a scorecard can certainly make you better in your business. But but one of the things that I wanna say about scorecards is, there's a great quote by August Turkin. He says that employees respect what management inspects. And so I think if you're if you're looking at numbers and you're making sure that everybody's accountable to something, everybody in your team has some sort of number that they're accountable for on a weekly basis, and and the management is in is cons is looking at that inspecting it, the employees will respect it, and the employees will improve their numbers. And so, scorecard is really about being able to look at your business and knowing that week, if we are on track or off track, it is it's it's simple. I don't want you to overcomplicate it.

Lyn Askin [00:42:00]:
It I want you to to ask yourself, how do we know if we're having a good week in sales or a bad week in sales? What's a good week look like? What's a bad week look like? And measure something there that'll tell you that on a regular basis. What's a good week in marketing look like? What's a bad week in marketing look like? Measure that on a regular basis. What's a good week with client retention or a client satisfaction look like? What's a bad week in client satisfaction look like? Measure it. Right? Those are those are important metrics for each of your kind of core departments, And it's important that all of your departments are strong. You can't just have a great sales department and poor delivery department and a poor finance department. Right? If sale a lot of people say, like, just do sales, and sales will take care of everything. That's not true. You know, great sales can ruin a company quickly if you're not fulfilLyng well.

Lyn Askin [00:42:48]:
And so we gotta make sure that all of your departments are strong and it's all super important and it's a part of EOS. We wanna make every department strong, not just sales, not just marketing, not just fulfillment, or not just finance.

Samuel Klein [00:43:01]:
No. Love it. I I know I think, you hit a key point that is not overcomplicating things. You can start with a couple of metrics and then grow from there. Correct?

Lyn Askin [00:43:13]:
Yeah. That's right. The the number one leadership ability we teach in EOS is the ability to simplify. And so we wanna we wanna make this as simple as possible, obviously, as accurate as possible and more and the most impactful as possible, but but don't overcomplicate things.

Samuel Klein [00:43:30]:
So, we we're almost there. I I I appreciate, your time. No? We have just a couple of, more questions, Darlene. Hopefully, you don't mind, as this

Lyn Askin [00:43:42]:
I don't mind at all. I I could talk about EOS all day, and I'm I'm here for you. So we've got all the time you

Samuel Klein [00:43:48]:
need. Amazing. So, one of the things that, I guess, any business in any industry in today's world is experience is, the fast paced thing that technology is going. No? With, everything, not only AI, but you also have in this world of facility managements. A lot of people still manage their business in Excel. They don't have a CRM. They don't have basic stuff that you keep adding nor noise to this world of of, technology and marketing. And you can go crazy, you know, looking like right and left, on what to implement or what to use or not to use.

Samuel Klein [00:44:28]:
And the formal will get you sooner or later. But I think that that that's one side of the coin. The other side is that you have to take it seriously because if you don't innovate like any business sooner or later, no, someone will. And this is a very competitive, industry, and you need to find always ways to get ahead of your competitors. No. So I guess, in a fast paced world of of, facility management, staying ahead of, often means innovating. So I wanna prove you a little bit. How can the EOS principles encourage a culture of innovation within the company? How can, it helps, you know, implement or or or pay attention to all these trends that sooner or later will have an impact in your business?

Lyn Askin [00:45:19]:
Well, I think that I think the reason that that some companies don't innovate is they are just so busy working in the business that they don't have time to work on the business. And EOS is a system that's designed to help you get more of that stuff done, the right stuff done, the right way every time. And it's EOS is about building a strong leadership team that's thriving in their roles, they're working in their unique abilities. And when we get the right people in the right seats, this empowers your employees. This empowers those that are innovative thinkers and doers. It also frees up the visionary from the day to day work that they're stuck working in the business to actually work on the business and do the things that visionaries do. And when you align people's roles with their skills and their passions, your business can really unleash its creative potential. And so this is really about taking that that visionary of the company, you know, the the person with the great ideas and the big ideas and the big relationships and freeing them up from the day to day so they can actually do the visionary work and the innovating that we need from our visionaries.

Samuel Klein [00:46:24]:
So, for everyone who who has joined us in this episode and and it's listening until the end and it's okay. Okay. So we we spark, hopefully, something in their minds, and, so I need to take action. What what is the next step? Like, what get would you recommend someone who is not too much too familiar with the EOS? They just heard for the first time in, this podcast or someone who, has heard here and there and now finally click, how can they explore more and start taking actions?

Lyn Askin [00:47:00]:
Well, I certainly think if if you wanted to self implement EOS, there's a couple of things I wanna say. Well, 1, you must commit to learning the system. You can't really take EOS like a menu at a restaurant and just pick the couple of items that you want. It's it's a it's a full process, so you kinda have to commit to the process. But 2, I I would start with with reading Traction by Gino Wickman. This is the foundation of EOS. It's a it's a book. It's on Amazon.

Lyn Askin [00:47:28]:
It's really easy to find. It's called Traction by Gino Wickman. I would also suggest possibly that the visionary of the company, if if you're more of a visionary and you you see things differently and you're not you you don't wanna read a manual of how to implement, but you wanna hear the story of the OS and how it's implemented in a company, I suggest maybe either the the book or may even better, maybe the audio book of Get A Grip, that's written by Gina Wickman and Mike Payton. It's a it's a fable of EOS. It's a a fictional story of a company company that's struggLyng, and they put EOS in place and all the changes that that happen over over time. I think that's a great book for most visionaries, and I I really love the audio. I would I would head over to eosworldwide.com where you can download all of the EOS tools. You can you can, you know, opt in, and it'll let you download all of the all of the tools and the systems and the process.

Lyn Askin [00:48:21]:
It's all free on EOS worldwide. To self implement, though, a couple of things I like to say is that it's it is it is simple. It is a simple set of practical tools, but it's not necessarily easy. It is a fundamental change in the way you run your business. And so you really have to commit and you have to build a great company culture. And so you have to get you have to get team buy in. And I think that's the probably the most important part. If you, as the visionary, the leader, are just forcing EOS upon the team, I don't know that it works so well.

Lyn Askin [00:48:53]:
I think it's really important to to maybe schedule a 90 minute meeting with an EOS implementer. It's it's a free meeting. We'll come in, and we'll talk to you and your team, and we'll just describe and explain EOS. I'll I'll learn a little bit about you. You'll learn a little bit about me. I'll show you all of the EOS tools, and I'll show you the entire process of how to implement EOS in your business. And so, I think that's probably a great step too. It's just just meet with an EOS implementer and have somebody come in with your business and and spend 90 minutes with you and really explain the system.

Lyn Askin [00:49:25]:
And once again, that's a that's absolutely free.

Samuel Klein [00:49:28]:
Amazing. So I guess that leads me to the final part of the podcast, which, again, I'm super thankful to having you here. I know Lyn for the past, I guess, of 4 years. He's an amazing human being. He's a very well loved in, or a mastermind where agency owners, share strategies, and he is an implementer and one of the best. So, please, if you're thinking about implementing EOS, he just put an amazing offer out there. I will take his word and reach out and explore EOS without any commitment. He will explain further how, again, this, be a game changer for your company and give you some knowledge that you can implement.

Samuel Klein [00:50:18]:
But, Lyn, yeah, we'd love to if you can share a little bit, how people can find you onLyne, if they wanna engage with you, where do they have your information? We will put everything, of course, in the podcast and the episode notes that please share with the audience how they find you. Sure.

Lyn Askin [00:50:37]:
Yeah. So those those are looking to self implement. Like I said, I'm I'm happy to to meet with you, schedule a call, do a 90 minute meeting, see if that makes sense for you. It'll give you a good basis for for EOS. Ultimately, if you want to accelerate the adoption of EOS and the effectiveness of EOS in your company, you can hire a professional EOS center implementer like myself. EOS Implementers are our expert facilitators. We're we're great teachers. We're great coaches.

Lyn Askin [00:51:02]:
We facilitate effective EOS meetings. You know, we'll teach you the tools. We'll help you avoid common pitfalls, and we'll coach your team and and and help them get aligned and help you avoid, you know, the the challenges you might face self implementing. We'll make sure that your team's aligned, focused, accountable, and maybe we'll just get more out of them than you even thought would be possible. And so, excited to to speak to some of you. I'm really easy to find. You can go to https://lynaskin.com/linktree. That'll have links to all my socials and my calendar and all of those things.

Lyn Askin [00:51:36]:
Or you can just go to Google and search for Lyn Askin. I have a very uncommon name. I think I'm the only one on the planet. So, I'm pretty easy to find.

Samuel Klein [00:51:43]:
Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing, all that knowledge with us today. And, yeah, we'll, looking forward to having you for a second episode for sure in the future once, people get more educated in the topic, and I'm pretty sure we'll we'll get asked. So thanks, Lyn, for your time and hope everyone enjoy the show and see you in the next episode.

Lyn Askin [00:52:07]:
It's it's my pleasure.

Lyn Askin [00:52:08]:
It was

Lyn Askin [00:52:08]:
so much fun. Thanks for having me here. I love talking about EOS. If you wanna do some sort of workshop or webinar for your audience or something like that, I would love to help you out with that. Any and, you know, if your audience has a real interest in EOS, I'd love to be back.

Samuel Klein [00:52:22]:
Amazing. Thanks, man. We'll take your word for sure.

INTRO/OUTRO [00:52:27]:
Thank you for listening to the Cleaning in Motion Show. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. In the meantime, find more resources, including more sales and marketing tactics onLyne at cleaninginmotion.com. That's cleaninginmotion.com. Until next time.