Executives Edge
Learn what gives today’s most successful executives their unique edge and propel your businesses to new heights.
Executives Edge
Mastering Family Business Leadership and Growth with EOS
Discover the leadership strategies that turn family businesses into industry powerhouses as Travis McDowell and Erik Piasio join us to share their experiences. Travis, from Metal Fab Engineering, and Erik, at the helm of American Surgical Company, pull back the curtain on the transformative power of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and reveal how it has reshaped their teams for success. With their candid insights, you're guaranteed to pick up on the essential elements of team cultivation and the incredible impact of getting the right people into the right roles.
Welcome to the Executives Edge podcast. Discover what gives today's most successful executives their unique edge and propel your business to new heights.
Speaker 2:Well, good afternoon Eric and Travis. Welcome to the Executive Edge podcast. I'm Rafi Yardimi in Boston Sales Solutions, looking forward to having the two of you guys with me on the podcast today to talk about a big topic here, which is hiring, developing and growing high-performing teams in your organizations. So if we could first start, I'll ask both of you guys to introduce yourselves and a high-level overview of the organization and the companies that you lead. You're both really good, successful CEOs, and maybe I'll start with Travis walking us through your company, your background and how long you've been in the business for.
Speaker 1:Sure, great. Yeah, thank you Appreciate that. Looking forward to the conversation. So my name is Travis McDowell and I'm based out of the Midwest here in Winnemac, indiana, and I have the privilege of leading a few different companies. One is Metal Fab Engineering, of which I'm the third generation owner of that. We do sheet metal fabrication, primarily contract manufacturing. We've also got a product manufacturing arm and then we're getting into a third-party management service as well. So I've been here in the. You know I've led the family business at Metal Fab since 2015, and so it's been terrific, been fun. Obviously ups and downs, and manufacturing in the United States is on a nice trajectory right now, but that hasn't always been the case. So love talking leadership, as we are kind of reintroducing a generation to the joys and the great benefits that manufacturing can bring outstanding travis.
Speaker 2:Thank you, and um, I'll turn it over to eric, and I think there's some similarities, a lot of synergies between both of you. I think eric's also a second in your case third generation owner of a business and, uh, succession planning. So I'll have eric jump in and talk a little bit about his organization and how he's taken over from the prior generation as well thank you, raffy.
Speaker 3:So yeah, my name is eric piaio, president of American Surgical Company. We're located in Salem, massachusetts. We're a global medical device manufacturer, primarily focused on neurosurgery, and I've been here 15 years and, like Rafi, alluded to a little bit of family background. My father was a serial entrepreneur in the diagnostic space. My background was in biochemistry, working for gene therapy startups right outside of right out of school, and about 15 years ago my father came to me and said I'm looking at buying this company in Massachusetts. I need some help running it. And 26 year old kid looking for something exciting to do. I took over, figured I'd only be here for a few years and a decade and a half later I'm still trying to figure things out. So it's been quite a run. We're in actually quite a growth phase right now and every day is extremely, extremely exciting.
Speaker 2:Excellent and I have the pleasure of working with Eric on a regular basis. Eric is one of the clients that I work with and help in a sales leadership role, so we've seen some great growth. I think, eric, tell us a little bit about your first quarter. I think there's a lot to be said about the Q1 records that you've set this year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean we've been. So the company's been around since 1986 and really from 1986 until the acquisition in 2009,. It was run as a lifestyle business. The previous owner had a nice little consistent profit every year. Niche market, high barriers to entry, so very few competitors. And really after we took over, we've been trying to figure out all right, how do we take this company with this great foundation and figure out how to grow it into something truly special. And yeah, really over the last couple of years, things have started to click and I think fundamentally it's because we finally have the right people on the bus and the culture is humming and we had our banner Q1 and it looks like we're going to have a banner Q2. So we're growing at close to 30% year over year. And, yeah, rafi has been an amazing help, so thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, eric. You know what, while we're on that topic, I know both of you guys, both of your businesses, are running on a platform and an operating system called Enterprise Operating System, eos and from my experience with EOS and understanding that some components of thisOS comes in to say, all right, let's figure out what your leadership team looks like. There isn't really one owner, one individual and a whole bunch of people. Underneath there's the visionary integrator and that leadership team. I'd love to hear a little bit and maybe, eric, I can have you jump in for a second if you'd like to the good, the bad, the challenges and any iterations that you've gone through as you've built out that world-class leadership team to get you to where you are right now.
Speaker 3:So we've been running on EOS for just over five years and we've turned over the leadership team probably three or four times in those five years. I think, fundamentally, going back to what Jim Collins talks about good to great find the right people, get them on the bus and then figure out where you're going to drive the bus. Honestly, when we started with EOS, I thought that I had the right team. Very quickly I realized we did not, and today there's only one member on the leadership team who was with me when we started the EOS journey. So any entrepreneur that wants to get things right from a growth perspective and really wants to run on EOS has got to make sure that they have the right people sitting around that table and they have to be extremely intentional about finding those people. It's not a one or two year process. It is a multi-year process and I think people need to be prepared for that if they are serious about taking the EOS journey.
Speaker 2:Outstanding and, eric, if you could, I believe you're using an implementer. Who's the implementer that's partnered with you and how long have you had that partner? Yeah, an implementer. Who's the implementer that's partnered with you and how long have you had that partner?
Speaker 3:Yeah, our implementer is Nate Wolfson. Nate is not only an amazing implementer, he's a great friend and confidant. He's helped me tremendously over the past five years. He's just a great resource for advice and guidance and, to be honest, I don't think we would be where we are today, growing at the rate we're growing at, without Nate's tutelage. So can't recommend him enough, and I do think anyone who's looking at doing EOS make sure that the implementer is a good fit for you, especially as visionary and leader of the organization and then your team.
Speaker 2:Great Travis, we'll go back over to you same question and then dig in from there, if you could.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're not quite as far into EOS journey as Eric is. We're about three years in and, yeah, eos has been a game changer for us. The business had operated as a truly a small business, a founder run business, for a long while and we found EOS to be really the key that unlocked the type of growth that we were targeting, and I thought it landed perfect with the younger generation that we're trying to bring into the workforce. It gave them simplicity where it needed to be simple and it gave them opportunity where they needed opportunity. And we're yet to find a challenge or a problem that we can't run through EOS and have EOS provide us an answer to that, and that's been really cool. Every time you think, nah, there's no way that it's going to work, it answers the bell.
Speaker 1:I remember reading the book originally and thinking certain elements of it were too simple that they. You know our problems were far more complex than that and that's one of my favorite parts about it. You know we do engineering and problem solving for you know, for a living, and you know we get paid to make things simpler and I got to give them credit. They've definitely figured that out and in our world. You know we also used an implementer. Our implementer.
Speaker 1:His name's Andrew Williams and he was a perfect fit for us. He was a business owner in the past, but not just that, he was a manufacturing business owner, so he spoke our language. He had fought our fight, and I would definitely echo what Eric said. Make sure you get that part right, because you know your people are going to question whether this is just the latest fad or the thing that we're. Hey, we're just going to try this this week because you know our visionary is chasing the latest shiny object. If you got the right implementer, they can show that. No, no, this is a true investment in the future and it's good for everybody.
Speaker 2:And Travis, you're sitting in the visionary seat or the integrator seat in the organization.
Speaker 1:The visionary. I fit every one of the positives and negatives that are lined out in the book of the visionary, so I needed a strong integrator quickly and was blessed to find one.
Speaker 2:And if you had the same integrator for the last few years, has that position evolved?
Speaker 1:in your organization. Actually, I had the integrator prior to implementing EOS, so I read the book and then went to him with it, gave it to him and said what do you think? And he loved it. So yeah, he's been with me prior to implementing and he's probably the biggest reason that we've had the success with EOS that we have.
Speaker 2:Outstanding and Travis, I can ask you I mean my role. I'm a fractional CRO VP of sales. I work with various companies and helping them build out their sales structure or grow the org. But I believe you're working with one of my colleagues there as well and have invested in having a fractional help you out as well. Tell me a little bit about your sales organization, how that's ebbed and flowed and what you're working on right now with your CRO.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we did. One of your colleagues there, rich Hodkins, has come on in the last this year and, yeah, much like EOS, he's brought all of the you know kind of the splintered, partial things that we had in place or completely did not have in place, given us the ability to go out and be a market leader and just truly show why we're unique and show why we you know why we're a good partner for you know, for all the folks that we're trying to connect with. And so he's really made it possible for us to go out and get true business development team members really for the first time ever. You know, historically we've used manufacturers, reps and things closer to that type of a structure and, and you know, having that in place now has allowed us to go out, get a business development manager, bring an inside sales rep in place and actually have a true lead generation product that is constantly working for us in the background and helping drive and spur growth Outstanding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Rich Hodgkins is great. He's fantastic. He's right there in Indianapolis and spent some time around Rich, and he's a fantastic business owner as well as a great coach and developer of people, so you got a really good one there. I'm really happy to hear that, especially the first time you and I connected. It's interesting, Travis and I Eric I'll give you a quick story.
Speaker 2:We talked earlier today as it relates to having support and virtual assistance and folks that can help you to make things a little bit easier and in the EOS world, right, delegate and elevate and if you don't have that resource, have somebody help you out. And the partner that I use does a fantastic job. It's a company called we Are Working and part of the work they do for me as well is I don't have enough time sometimes to be able to spend on the outreach as it relates to LinkedIn and I love the EOS methodology. I love a lot of the clients that I have that are on EOS and I identified a campaign and just really did searches, mostly on integrators and visionaries. If they have that title in LinkedIn, most likely they're running on EOS and an opportunity for me to be able to get some folks and talk to them about this and that's how Travis and I connected.
Speaker 2:It was an opportunity for my virtual assistant to connected with Travis. We had a lot in common, got on a call and very quickly found out that he was working with Rich Hodgkins, which is great to hear, had a chance to talk to Rich and said I'd love to have Travis on the podcast and he was all very excited to try and get your organization and get some visibility there. So that's a great way to be able to bring business development, meet some like-minded people and eventually get that full cycle. Eric, I've got a question for you, I know, as we're digging deeper into EOS, your integrator, how long have they been in seat for now?
Speaker 3:to EOS, your integrator. How long have they been in seat for now? Well, in the seat about six months. I mentioned earlier I have one member on the leadership team who's been with us throughout the whole EOS journey. That's my current integrator. So she's been working with me for 15 years. It's someone I would trust with my life and I've been looking for an integrator or I was looking for an integrator for about three or four years prior to recognizing that she was right under my nose the whole time, and since we've made that transition, I was sitting in both seats and, like Travis, like I get distracted very easily. I drive the team crazy with all these ideas and even with something as disciplined and organized as EOS, I still found that we were. You know, there was a lot of tangents and things that were popping up in the middle of the quarter, that were derailing rocks occasionally, and I just made this realization came to this realization that we need an integrator.
Speaker 3:It's holding the company back and that's the biggest issue. So I spoke with Sasha, my current integrator, who shares an office, or shares a wall, with me. She has an office right behind me. Put her in the seat six months ago and Rafi mentioned earlier. We're growing leaps and bounds and I think that's a big part of it. I'm able to do visionary stuff while she's focusing on making sure trains are running on time and day-to-day stuff is getting taken care of and that's where I was leaning to.
Speaker 2:It's interesting, before we got a chance to collaborate together and work together, when I found out, sasha was in seat for about six months and then somebody mentioned to me that Eric was sitting in both the integrator and the visionary seat. At least my experiences have been. There's a couple of things that don't work very well. Sometimes there is no integrator and visionary that you can do both, because I think it's two sides of the brain and, at least within my own personal business and being on the sales side, one thing that I don't believe works really well is that player coach.
Speaker 2:Right, you hire somebody and you say, hey, you're going to be a manager and you're going to hire and you're going to sell as well. There's a couple of people underneath you and I don't believe that ever works, because either the person's got the desire or the GWC, if you will to be a manager and they want to continue managing and they fall off on one component, which in this case is a sales and hunting, or they want to keep selling and they're not developing their people, which is a lot of the discussion on our podcast, and I find that if you're going to do two things at 80%. You're better off doing something at 100% and delegate the rest, and I agree with you. I would have presumed Sasha has been in seat forever on the integrator side and a great move in putting her into that role.
Speaker 3:Well and Gino Wickman talks about this in Rocket Fuel I mean the doors that it has opened, both for me to explore future opportunities for the organization, and then Sasha, who knows more about the company than anyone, myself included Right, especially the day to day operation. It's just, it's done tremendous things. So I can focus on future opportunities. She can focus on making sure that we're more efficient and more profitable, and it has paid dividends.
Speaker 2:Well, the other thing that I think both of you have in common and the lonely part of being a CEO and realizing that you really can't vent down as much part of being a CEO and realizing that you really can't vent down as much you need a circle, you need a peer group, you need somebody to be able to help you along. I know both of you guys are part of different peer groups. That may help. I'd love to hear a little bit about your experiences and what that organization does for you to become a better leader and kind of clear your mind a little bit and reset, reset expectations. So, travis, if you don't mind walking me through the organization you're part of and what you do with Convene.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you bet I'd be honored to. Yeah, convene. Convene's a Christian CEO group, peer advisory group that I've been a part of for a couple of years now. I've been a part of for a couple of years now and the impact that it's had on me personally, you know. I'm sure it's trickled down to the business as well.
Speaker 1:But you're right, it does become lonely, you know. You do become on an island there and you know, and both that group and my integrator, you know, have have learned that I think every idea that I come up with is a good idea and it's not. And so it's nice to have some people who go well, no, I don't think that's a great idea. And I, you know, and or sure you should make that priority number 93, not not priority number one or two and and so, and then the you know the again, just the challenges of leadership in general.
Speaker 1:It's nice to have others that have either lived it, walked it or can look at it without the emotion that you have. Naturally, if you're leading others and impacting others, as we all are, it's nice to have others that can share that. So that's been huge for me. And they act as my board of directors when I come up with ideas or I want to run through things that are ultimately going to have an impact on all the elements of my life. It's just great to have people that are looking at it for all the elements of my life, whether it's business, personal, all the things that are intertwined anyway, and that is priceless to me. I could not replace that if I tried.
Speaker 2:How often do you meet with this group and how long have you been with the organization within that organization?
Speaker 1:Sure, I'm just over two years with that organization. Now we have an in-person monthly full day get together. The chair, you know, the lead of that group, you know has a one-on-one couple hour meeting once a month as well. And then we've also added a quarterly additional. We're calling it an optional one, but that's where a year that we're getting together, plus those individual monthly one-on-ones that I have with the chair of the convene group.
Speaker 2:That sounds great. It's all regionalized around the Indianapolis market.
Speaker 1:I actually go to Chicago for that. So it is that. But I go up to the Chicagoland or to Chicago for that. But I go up to the Chicagoland or to Chicago for that.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Eric, tell me a little bit about your peer group and I know you just came back from some other things that you do as it relates to kind of building and clarity breaks, if you will, on an excursion. So tell me a little bit about the peer group and what you've been able to do on a quarterly basis yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm actually in a couple peer groups I mean I call them cults, like business cults, and one is Vistage. I've been in Vistage for this will be my 11th year. I'm in Conscious Capitalism peer group. I think it's been five years and, like you alluded to, rafi, I just came back from a little trip with some other EOS implementers and EOS visionaries. So, yeah, I have my Vistage cult, my Conscious Capitalism cult, my EOS cult, and I would say Vistage, for me, has had the biggest impact, at least over the last decade.
Speaker 3:Eos is a little bit newer. I mean the group, like Travis said, it, is extremely lonely. Sitting in this seat I have friends that are very successful, but none of them are CEOs, none of them are running organizations, none of them know what it takes right Day in, day out. You know what's on their shoulders, right. It's totally different than what I have to deal with, right, and it's just great having that resource, having those group of people that get it. And on top of that, I mean over the last decade they've turned into just a great group of friends. I mean I call them a second family. So we meet every month. The meetings are fun, they're just. I love it. We process issues, we get speakers, so we get exposed to all kinds of interesting topics. In fact, this is how I learned about EOS and met our implementer, nate. I highly recommend peer groups for anyone, and it's not just for CEOs and visionaries Anyone in a leadership team seat should be in a peer group. Yeah, I agree. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I agree, Eric.
Speaker 2:Sorry, Rafi.
Speaker 1:I am now. I am in search for that same peer group kind of experience for my integrator and the other members of our leadership team, because I get so much out of it, it makes me so much better that that's truly where I'm at now. It's had that impact and I'm trying to find it for the other key team members, starting with my integrator.
Speaker 2:Yeah, within the Vistage community, as Eric mentioned, I'm also part of Vistage. Eric and I will be together for a regional one tomorrow and for me specifically, I've got my own practice. I'm more of a solopreneur and there's trusted advisor groups for folks like ourselves and I'm part of a very, very good group that my chair is, phil Thomas, and he's got a group of about 18 or 19 of us, all fractionals, somebody that does marketing, someone else that focuses on EOS, fractional CFO, a slew of different folks. And the one thing I really enjoy and I like about that particular group we get a chance to come in and have commonalities. We're all doing business development, client opportunities, success stories and all of those is what we share and you've got your own peer group.
Speaker 2:The other element that's really unique about Phil as the chair that we've got is rarely do you really have the CEO group really have other than guest speakers have interactions with some of these TA groups. So Phil happened to be a former CEO realized, as both of you guys have in your tenure, that hey, there's times where I don't necessarily have to hire a full-time resource. I can have a fractional CFO or a fractional sales head that can come in here, help me develop things, get me to the next level, before I have to go ahead and invest in a full-time W2 employee employee. And what Phil's done really well is he's brought a lot of us into his CEO group and said, hey, had I known that these resources existed when I was running a business, I'd be much more effective and be able to crawl, walk, run rather than go from zero to 100 and hire a high-level sales executive without having a sales team behind me. So that's been great for me in Vistage specifically. But I know within the Vistage community there's also key groups and groups kind of going down the chain a little bit more and that's been very effective, at least for folks that I've seen. One of my clients, actually one of your friends, eric, has a couple of his folks in peer groups in Vistage as well, in those key groups, and those have been invaluable for him as well.
Speaker 2:So let's flip back to the leadership group and developing good leadership teams. I'm wondering if you guys can give a couple of minutes of thought as to some really successful groups that you've had and Diamonds in the Rough like Sasha was right there in your group and how you were able to develop and get that next leader group and tell me something and I know we do this in our L10s, eric is a success from a failure of some sort or something that didn't go as well and it turned into hey. This was a great transition for me and how my leadership team enhanced and got better. In some cases it's addition by subtraction, in other cases it just might be right person in a different seat. Maybe I'd start with you, travis. Give me a little bit more detail on your experiences with leadership teams and building and re-architecting leadership teams.
Speaker 1:Sure, well, prior to owning Metal Fab, like I mentioned, I was in a third-party management company where I actually was the reclamation project guy. So the people that were truly having struggles or their businesses were failing, they hired us and I got to go and evaluate the leadership team more times than not turn it over completely. So I did that frequently in the past. When you know, when I purchased MetalFab and came into the family business, it becomes a little different, and now it is. You know, you know everybody's wives and kids and you know we're in a small community and so we really had to, you know, had to kind of buckle down and focus and, like Eric, we've turned over some members of our leadership team since the EOS process helped us highlight where you know, where we either had some, you know, wrong people in the right seat or wrong people in the wrong seats and weren't hiring to core value. So we've been able to do that. Eos helped us put every single person in our facility, including our leaders, on an individual development plan, and so we've got a personal, a professional and a financial approach to those development plans where you know we're trying to help make you the best. You and we know that our business will benefit from that, and so that's been really successful.
Speaker 1:I think that's been good. It's connected with across generations, for, you know, for people liking different elements of it and taking us into. For you know, for people liking different elements of it and taking us into a, you know, into a realm where people are coming in and want to be a part of that. They want to be a part of that type of an environment and they can see how they can work their way up and grow into a leader. We also use extreme ownership, which is a book written by Jocko Wilnick, and so that's helped us especially break through some of the generational you know, challenges and gaps and just kind of you know, letting everyone understand you own it. You own it all the way. There are no bad teams, there's just bad leaders and some people like that, some people did not the ones that are some people like that, some people did not, the ones that are still here like that and so they've bought into it and that's been enjoyable Not easy, but it's enjoyable and it's helped position us to be where we're at today.
Speaker 2:I can appreciate the first part of what you said in a prior role coming in, evaluating leadership teams and, in most cases, potentially turning them over. And at least for my practice and what I do and we had this discussion, eric and I, before we started working together the biggest concern when you bring in whether it be a fractional or you call them consultants, whatever the role is the first thing is someone's coming in here, they're going to evaluate me, potentially be able to reduce the number of people here, and I'm going to be out of a job. So there's a lot of resistance with at least with what I do when I first come in, specifically from a company that may have a sales leader in place. So I don't know how you were doing it, travis, it's something that I just I don't get a lot of joy out of.
Speaker 2:When people ask me what type of engagements work well for you, I said if there's something working and you want me to augment that and build on top of it all for me, I love that. It brings me joy. My working genius profile shows that as well. If it's, hey, come on in here and we really got to rebuild this entire sales team altogether. Well, there are some great folks that would do that, but it just doesn't bring me as much joy. So it's the toughest thing I know engagements that I go into right away. The first thing is, you know, resistance, this change coming, someone's going to come in here and cause my job and once we get past that, it makes it so much more transparent and easy to be able to work in a collaborative fashion.
Speaker 3:I believe, rafi, when you started, our sales manager Will said who's this guy? Is this guy the Bob's from the office space who I have to worry about? My job, it's like no, no no, no, he's here to make your life easier.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's human nature and I think, if you're aware of it, which I am and I've got a couple of EOS implementers that I know really well that were displaced in the corporate world and they're like, yeah, it's something like what you do was happening in my organization. They brought, you know, boston Consulting Group or somebody in here did an evaluation of our business and I was cut and like, well, I'm aware of that. So when I go into engagements, I want to make sure that that level of comfort is there and we build this together. And that's been fantastic working with Eric and American Surgical as well. So, eric, same question for you, as you've had a chance to reflect on the years that you've had under your belt and the various different leadership teams Great success stories, opportunities and learnings throughout that process.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think fundamentally and I like to think of this pre-EOS, post-eos the biggest issue for us prior to EOS is we never had our core values defined right. We had, you know, something on the website and maybe we you know the mission statement and kind of just a really high level, kind of weak idea of the kind of organization like we want to be and the kind of people we want to work with, but it was never defined, it was never visceral, we never really talked about those behaviors. And that was one thing that we really focused on right out of the gate with EOS. And the realization we had early on was there was a lot of people sitting on the leadership team that we couldn't check all the boxes for core values. So you know we had to work them out because they shouldn't have been on the bus. And then another learning is as the company grows and evolves, the leadership team has to grow and evolve as well.
Speaker 3:And recent example Rafi's predecessor, my former head of sales, who I love and we would not be here today without her help too we had a realization about four or five months ago that you know it was time for her to move on and she's wired to be a visionary, brilliant entrepreneur. That was what she was doing prior to working for us and you know we've gotten to a point where it just wasn't a good fit anymore and we were perfectly open and honest about that and we had a great conversation around it and, like I said, we're still talking. We're still. I owe her a lot and you know I'll love her for the rest of my life. So I think you know, when you think about it, at the end of the day, start with the values, get that squared away right, make sure you have people you can check the box with the values, make sure they're sitting in the right seat.
Speaker 3:And then the last key piece and this was the hardest one, and we just got here maybe six months ago was being you know, talking about Kim Scott radical candor, being open and honest and being willing to have those hard conversations. I will tell you, in the past we probably lean more towards artificial harmony, or what Kim Scott defines it as, I guess, ruinous empathy, right, and it's held us back. And now and I think, rafi, you can attest to this we have a team. If there's an issue, we're calling it out, whether it be a people issue or a process issue. It is coming out and we are attacking it. We're not letting that stuff fester because of fear of hurting someone's feelings. And it's helped us tremendously. But we've been running on EOS for five years and it's helped us tremendously. But we've been running on EOS for five years. It's taken us four and a half years to figure out that being open and honest is kind of a key part of it.
Speaker 2:If you're not doing that it's not going to work. Yeah, like any good leadership team is any good leader. It's an iterative process, right? You're always going to get a little bit better. And there's some other element too. Element too which is and I observed this with a quarterly of just that two weeks ago it's there's some people that are perfectly wired to be individual contributors and work in in in the organization.
Speaker 2:Just because you've been there for a very long time or you're in a managerial position doesn't necessarily mean that you should be on the leadership team in the organization, because there's so many other components in there. Um, you got to be talking about we rather than my own department. You got to find a way to realize the vision of the organization and be part of a collaborative team of five or six leaders. And that's one area that at least I've observed in some leadership teams. Where you look around, you're like there's somebody in this room that I believe the best thing that could happen for them you'd probably free them as well is not being on the leadership team. I don't think they've got the desire to do it.
Speaker 2:Maybe the want of the GWC and, unfortunately, with a smaller business in an entrepreneurial environment, the perception is this person's going to be disappointed and feel like they've got a demotion Meanwhile. You're probably freeing them up a lot and I think that's one of those very difficult decisions of sitting there saying I'm looking for a team that's here to be able to build the business. You're great at what you do, your department's running really, really well, but it may not be a perfectly suited position for you to be on the leadership team. Travis, tell me a little bit about your organization. We talked a little about core values and uniques and especially running on EOS. What are some of the core values you've got and how do you guys live and breathe that every day within your organization?
Speaker 1:Sure, well, I'll back up a hair to what Eric said about the core value side of it. I do think that is the core of turning the corner, or at least setting the bedrock for what it's going to be. And my favorite part of implementing EOS was when we went through and established our core values and I had next to no input in them. It was so enjoyable to hear the things that I thought we were and the ways that I thought we were and the ways that I thought we treated our people and operated come back out in the team and become those core values. So our first core value and it's listed first on purpose is to be a keen ally, and we came to that because people come to us with problems and we believe inherently that there's always an answer. We don't necessarily believe that we always know the answer, but we believe there is an answer and that we're an ally to work with you to find it. And that was what really kicked. The momentum going in establishing our core values was when we kind of pegged that and identified that and started running with that. And we use all of our core values for all the decisions that we make, like all EOS companies do, but we definitely use that one the most Well. I mentioned, there's always an answer. We believe that that's the truth. We just don't believe we always know it.
Speaker 1:So another one of our key core values is that we're always learning and you know, we really won't hire somebody if they don't have that inherent capability, skill and enjoy learning. Because the world's changing and you know it changes fast, it changes every day, problems change every day. So we do that and again, we hired that one specifically. We're always pursuing better, you know and believe that we can do things, do it the right way, and those have been kind of the key. You know the key tenants.
Speaker 1:I guess that we have put in there A few of my favorites in you know the key tenants. I guess that we've put in there A few of my favorites in. You know, in the EOS side that have come out. We tagged ourselves as magnets for miracles. So again, as problem solvers, many people come to you thinking that they have something that's impossible. So we like that, you know, saying that we're magnets for miracles and we find ways to solve problems. And so that's just a few of the elements, the core parts of the EOS component or EOS core values that we've put out there, thank you.
Speaker 2:So there's two things that kind of come in and I'm going to come back to you, eric, because I know we had a good quarterly recently and made some adjustments. I was with a leadership team earlier this week, on Tuesday, and this, this exact conversation came up, and they're relatively newer in their journey. They've had two quarterlies and an annual, and somewhere along the way, as we were going through the marketing plan et cetera, what came up was the core values, and the implementer, to our credit, is like hey, do you have the right core values? Are these the core values for you? A couple of them looked at each other. One of them said well, they better be. They're up on our wall. It took us forever to do that.
Speaker 2:So we got to keep these core values. I got a kick out of it. That was the reason. Not to change them was because they were up on the wall. But speaking of change and doing this during the process, we had a nice quarterly recently, eric, a couple of weeks ago, and at that I remember what came up was the uniques that we had. And looking at those uniques and saying, hey, you know what? This has not been looked at in a few years. Are they still what differentiates us in the marketplace? And let's talk a little bit about that experience and what we were able to do on the unique side of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's the uniques and also the purpose too, right, our core purpose and and I think what, um, you know, nate, our implementer, is, he does a great job of picking at the vto. So, vision traction organizer, it's kind of the eos two-page business plan, right, um, very good at picking at, especially the vision page every quarterly and you know the purpose. You kind of think, oh, let's set it and forget it, right, and uh, every quarter we go through, is this still who you want to be? Is this still what, what, what you want to do? And we had a great discussion around that, uh, about a month and a half ago. And, yeah, same thing for the three uniques. As the business evolves, right, our uniques evolve and we were looking I believe Rafi was specifically because we have two, we have our marketing three uniques and then we have we try, we develop new products, so we work with a lot of inventors, so we have, you know, three uniques for why inventors, surgeons primarily should work with us. And we just had, I don't know how long we probably spent about a half hour right Going through the three uniques, picking them apart, and I think it's critical, right, that we don't gloss over what is fundamentally probably the most important part of the quarterly, which is discussing that vision page right and making sure it is still.
Speaker 3:Are the values still who we are? Is the purpose still what we want to do? We were talking about our niche right. Is this what we want to do going forward? Is the purpose still what we want to do? We were talking about our niche right. Is this what we want to do going forward? Is this still the bread and butter right? I think it is critically important that leadership teams spend time and you don't have to spend hours, but at least 15, 20, 30 minutes every quarter reviewing that BTO, especially the vision page.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my view on those uniques, especially being a sales leader and taking a product that maybe in the marketplace looked at as a commodity and trying to make sure you've got those uniques and differentiators right Value, prop details. But I've had scenarios before where usually, when that comes up, I'll usually ask so what? Somebody says, well, we have white glove level of service. I said, okay, let me turn you over to the seven pages of your competitors and they've got the same thing there. They've got something similar and what is unique about why somebody purchases your product or why they do business with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so one thing that since day one I've been self-conscious about is, compared to medical device companies, we're small, we're teeny, right, and I want to make sure that our customers, whether they be hospitals in the United States or distributors we sell in over, I think, 75 countries now on six continents around the world.
Speaker 3:I want them to know that, yeah, we may be small, but we are big enough, right, to take care of you and we make world-class products. So, when you look at our three uniques, one important one to us is somewhere around the world, our products are used every 3.3 seconds, right, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Right, we are in 800 hospitals in the United States, right, like I mentioned, we're in 75 countries on six continents. So, yeah, we're not a big medical device company like Medtronic or Stryker or Boston Scientific, but we can take care of you and we've been around, right, we know what we're doing. We can take care of you and we've been around, right, we know what, what we're we're doing and I think the three uniques for us, both from marketing our current products and establishing relationships with physician partners to develop new products. It's critically important because it cuts out all of the BS, right, and we can start the conversation there and they have at least a high level idea. Ok, you know what I can work with these guys.
Speaker 2:I can trust them. Well said, eric, and I'm not going to ask you the next question because I think you just gave it to me and very passionate about that too, which is what differentiates you. What's different about American Surgical Group? But I'll turn it over to Travis for a second, if I can, in the last few minutes. We have here. Obviously, a big driver is growing business. Everybody wants to continue growing their organization and their business. Leadership teams are a large component of it. But tell me a little bit about where you see the organization, what your growth trajectory is and what your plans for growth are right now and how you're going to hit that North Star, if you will, by getting to your three-year and five-year goals.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, all that is captured in the VTO, which is such a cool document For those non-EOS business owners and CEOs out there. You should look at it because it does give you immediate priorities, immediate focus, and it should be continually looked at. You know, in the manufacturing realm that I'm in, which is a little different than Eric, you know Eric's got a really a cool niche that they deal with. We're making stuff that's not as specialized perhaps, and so it is more commoditized in that front, but that presents a lot of opportunity in that there's not much consolidation in our market, there's not much benefit from scale, and so our growth is to bring other people into our fold, bring the processes that EOS has brought and bubbled up to the top forward and find other manufacturers that are less than 50 employees and you know the average contract manufacturer, sheet metal fabricator in the US only does $4 million in revenue. So we think that we can target some of those, pick up some of those regionally and really just create a bigger vehicle for all those in our community to flourish. So we've targeted aggressive growth and it has multiple locations and multiple facilities in different states.
Speaker 1:We'll continue to add capabilities and I've been actively doing that I've been on about. The last year I've engaged a group to help me find off market. You know businesses that are out there, people that don't have a succession plan, and we're you know we're starting to see some opportunity there, but it's also spurting. You know the visionary side of me, which is there's a lot of people that need EOS, specifically in manufacturing, that need leadership, they need answers, and so that's why we're kind of bringing alongside our actual manufacturing capabilities, the platform of third party management, and going into companies and saying hey look, you know, do you want to sell or do you want to keep operating? You know how do you want to go about it? Either way, we can bring the core operations you know finance and administration, sales and marketing with us and hit the ground running. And so if we do end up buying some of those companies, we'll know the systems they're running on. If not, we'll make them better and stronger. So we're targeting. We've had double digit growth the last two years as well.
Speaker 1:Loved hearing that, eric, for your sake, that you're off to a great start. This year we would mirror that in a different, you know, specialty. But we continue to see people needing a simplified supply chain where they can come to you and ask you to. You know, give me all of this stuff and let me bolt it onto my finished product. Not, hey, I need, you know, this widget, this widget and this widget. So that's where our growth is continuing to focus now is being able to simplify supply chains, own as much of it as we possibly can and control as much of it as we can. And that's the acquisitions that I'm targeting, and you know. And then we're supplementing that with automation and you know, and technology like any, you know, successful business owner should be doing right now.
Speaker 2:I love hearing that, travis, and I say, when you look at what EOS can do for an organization, it'll make you the acquirer rather than the acquirer, because many of the companies that, even if it's like for like and it's another $4 million company similar to yours, what I've observed talking to certain clients of mine right now that are also in acquisition mode, the thing that's missing with the companies that they've targeted is the fact they don't have process structure, accountability across the organization. That's already built out and by investing as well as you guys do in EOS and building that out, you have an engine that you can just add additional pieces into and continue growing. If you've got the baseline right and I usually use and they're not a specific, three unique, but in a lot of sales calls that I end up getting on with clients and with partners is, I say, the fact that the company invested in a tool like EOS is a major differentiator. The company's invested time, effort, resources and a dedication to making sure their processes are documented correctly. They've got accountability built in, the structure is organized and this makes it different. And why do I want to do business with Travis, eric or Jim? Well, you know what. I know that it's not just them I'm dealing with. I'm dealing with a system within the organization that they pride in, and I think that goes a long way as a differentiator for many companies.
Speaker 2:I get the chance to work with some IT service providers MSP IT service providers and, again, even though there's differentiators in the marketplace, a lot of companies or clients, the consumer, looks at them as a commodity, and how do you differentiate yourself? And something like EOS is a great one to say hey, listen, you know what, everything that happens in here my meantime or repair or my SLAs and all of these different things are documented correctly. I've got guarantees around them and all those components. So I'll stop right there, and you know this wasn't supposed to be an EOS infomercial, but a lot of my friends on the EOS side will be very happy to hear that we're spending a lot of time on this. But I really do think it makes a huge difference and I really appreciate both of you gentlemen jumping on and providing your feedback, your leadership and your stories associated with running good leadership teams and how you're running your organizations. Any last words, you've got Travis that you want to leave us with.
Speaker 1:You know what? There's a quote we throw around at Metal Fab a lot. It's from Chuck Yeager, Said at the moment of truth, there are either results or reasons, and so EOS has helped us do that. Leadership is the is the key to that. So I just send many blessings out to all those fighting the good fight and I wish everybody good luck and good fortune, and Eric, how about you with the last word here before we wrap up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say and I think Simon Sinek calls it the infinite game and don't look at business as a matter of wins and losses and, you know, a grind to some goals in the distant future. Just wake up every day, look at it as an opportunity to do better in the world and just make sure you're having fun doing it. And if you do that, I'll tell you it's going to make your life that much better.
Speaker 2:Eric. What's the EOS life right? What are the components there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you want me to list all like 20 of them Do what you like, get paid.
Speaker 1:With people you love.
Speaker 3:With people you love and make an impact right. So it's and I, you know. To be honest, for the first time in my career I can check the box in all those areas. So it's just a great thing. It makes it a lot easier to get out of bed in the morning and come in every day.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm excited and very happy to have had two very good leaders on the call. I'm glad we were able to collectively get our thoughts together and thank you so much for your time and your attention, and have a great day.
