The Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS), was designed to help businesses create a healthy, results-driven work environment through practical tools and concepts that encourage transparency and collaboration. As an EOS partner, Sagefrog has seen impressive results thanks to the system’s structure, and we encourage other B2B companies to adopt EOS to improve their sales and marketing efforts.
EOS provides tools and principles that are easy to apply and can be scaled to fit teams of any size. In this blog, we’ll break down how to use one effective EOS tool, the Organizational Checkup™, to organize and lead your sales and marketing departments to success.
The Six Key Components™
The Organizational Checkup™ is a 20-question evaluation tool used to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a team to provide context around their issues for better, prioritized problem-solving. It involves assessing each of The Six Key Components™ below to get them back on track one by one. Before completing the Checkup, learn more about the six areas you’ll be evaluating.
1. Vision
“Getting everyone 100 percent on the same page with where your organization is going and how you’re going to get there.”
The steady foundation of all successful businesses is the vision: where a company aims to go and how it plans to get there. Marketing teams can scale down this component to create their own departmental vision, which creates a space to house the department’s core focus, track progress on goals, document a branding and marketing strategy, develop quarterly rocks or individual goals and identify, discuss and solve issues as they arise. When each of these practices are in place and working well to align everyone, a marketing department can be said to have a strong Vision Component™ because it’s calibrated and ready to handle anything that comes its way.
2. People
“Surrounding yourself with great people who will help you achieve your vision.”
People are the most important resource in any team, but only when you have the right people in the right seats can you operate at your highest potential. While marketing managers don’t have control over who they work within other departments, they often do have a say in selecting the members of their own team. To strengthen the People Component™, you’ll need to put into effect EOS’s RPRS technique to create the best group of people to help carry out your vision; this means making tough choices to have the Right People in the Right Seat and shaping and growing your team accordingly. To use RPRS effectively, your marketing department should create a set of core values with which to hire, fire, review and reward team members and develop an accountability chart everyone’s role clear.
3. Data
“Boiling your organization down to a handful of objective numbers that give you an absolute pulse on your company.”
A strong Data Component™ requires determining objective key performance indicators (KPIs) that best measure progress on a vision, evaluating them frequently and adjusting the strategy used to see better numbers as you go along. EOS KPIs are placed on a scorecard, which is something your team measures every week; you set target numbers for each KPI and log your progress in weekly meetings. For a marketing team trying to increase their overall brand awareness, monthly website traffic, number of referrals and media coverage are good data points to start with.
4. Issues
“Becoming great at solving problems throughout the organization—setting them up, knocking them down and making them go away forever.”
Even if your department runs smoothly most of the time, you still need a clear way to bring up and address issues when they do arise. Having a strong Issues Component™ in EOS looks like a team that is open with each other and willing to take issues objectively to the table to identify the problem, discuss the reasons behind the problem and take action to solve it for good. It may take some time before people are comfortable with bringing up new issues—whether that be problems among the team, processes that aren’t working or tools needed to get the job done—but your department won’t function to the best of its ability without having a safe outlet for problem-solving.
5. Process
“Systemizing your business by identifying and documenting your core processes to create consistency and scalability in your organization.”
Lists are extremely valuable tools in approaching tasks and projects, whether for professional or personal use. That’s why it’s important not to overlook the processes that your team follows to reach marketing goals and accomplish important to-dos. To build a well-functioning Process Component™, you’ll need to document existing core processes and work on creating or refining processes that aren’t yet solidified so that you establish stability and scalability for future growth and new team members. Then enforce these core processes until they’re followed fully by everyone in the department.
6. Traction®
“Bringing discipline and accountability into the organization—becoming great at execution—taking the vision down to the ground and making it real.”
Traction® is where it all comes together because it’s all about checking in with overall progress on goals and operational efforts and checking in with each other. Traction is weekly meetings, quarterly conversations, short- and long-term goal setting, reviewing your vision and doing all of this in the most organized and time-efficient way. This cements accountability and focuses the team’s energy on accelerating the company’s success and also benefits the team’s well-being at work.
How do you think your marketing department or organization would perform in each of these six key areas? Find out for yourself by taking EOS’s quick Organizational Checkup™ and considering the steps you need to take in order to strengthen each component.
Do you want to make the most of your EOS efforts? Contact Sagefrog Marketing Group today to see how professional branding and integrated marketing support a more successful EOS business.
Source: EOS Worldwide
