Full Transcript
[Music] Welcome to the Solspace podcast. Thanks for listening.
Mitchell: Welcome back to the Solspace Podcast, everybody.
This is Mitchell Kimbrough, founder of Solspace. We are working on EOS as a topic this month. Previously, we had Leslie Camacho, who is an EOS implementer, and he is Solspace's EOS implementer, and he's also an implementer that is familiar to a big, impressive agency that I've admired for many years, Focus Lab.
And from that agency, Focus Lab, is Genina Ramirez, who is the chief growth officer, and she's coming on to the podcast to talk more with us about EOS, and specifically about how Focus Lab used EOS to transition from a state it was in to where it is now, and possibly where it's going to go in the future using that framework. So Genina, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining.
Genina: Thanks, Mitchell. Man, that was a really lovely introduction. I don't, I mean, I feel, I feel real fancy.
Focus Lab feels real fancy.
Mitchell: You are fancy, because I've heard the title chief growth officer more and more frequently lately, but that's the first question I have for you. What does that, what does that mean? What do you do?
Genina: I'm not going to lie. The first time I told my family that I was going to be CGO, they were like, oh, did they make you a title because your name is G, Genina? And I was like, yes, I am chief Genina officer, reporting for duty, 100%.
But no, for us, chief growth officer basically means that I head our sales and marketing department. So for us, we don't really want to separate sales and marketing. We want to make sure that they are truly connected.
So that's why we put it all under the title of growth.
Mitchell: So I'm seeing that as a need more and more often lately.
Genina: Yeah.
Mitchell: Is it the type of business that you guys are that necessitates that or is, or are there quite a few businesses who need to acknowledge that those two activities are best when they're combined? They're best when they're merged together and run as one cohesive unit. I mean, do you have any thoughts on that particular piece?
Genina: Oh, absolutely. I don't know if it has to do anything with the industry that you're in or the work that you're doing or the services that you're providing. But I really believe sales and marketing efforts work best when they work together.
And a lot of that is because, I mean, your sales people are boots on the ground, right? Talking to the people day in, day out who are either looking for your services or experiencing challenges or just have things to say that really will impact your business, right? And if your marketing department doesn't hear anything about it and they're the ones putting out all of the content into the world, how can it actually resonate, right?
To me, they're two sides of the same coin. And Focus Lab is a branding agency, so on top of that, we're also really big believers that your sales and marketing team should work together, but also through the lens of brand, right? Because having a strong brand foundation really also speaks to that and makes that work resonate even more with your audience, right?
But yeah, I think if you're separating sales and marketing, you're just losing out on so much insights that your sales team have because they're the ones talking to all of the people day in and day out. They're the ones having those conversations, right? You hear a lot of people discuss the importance of market research, right?
And focus groups. And while those are incredibly important, you have a lot of that information just from people who are tackling the client issues on a day in and day out, who are hearing literally from the horse's mouth what their issues are, why they're seeking you out, and why you matter to them, right? Why your services matter to them.
Because for all you know, you could even be needing to adjust your offerings, but you're not making those decisions because you're not really listening to what the sales people are listening to. So yeah, big believer that they shouldn't be fully separate, that they shouldn't work against each other, but that they should row in the same direction, right? That boat should be moving in the same direction with each of them carrying an oar.
Mitchell: Yeah. One of the other factors that we see in our business is that we have, most of our client relationships are long-term. The type of work that we do, helping clients maintain their websites, trying to achieve a level of reliability overall with a website.
It's a multi-year process, an ongoing relationship. And we find that there is sales activity all the time. There is, I guess you'd call it inside sales.
But it needs to be supported by marketing language, voice, brand, collateral. It needs support and backing. So these two need to be talking to each other on a regular basis.
At Focus Lab, do you have those kinds of relationships with clients or do you have project-oriented work where a client comes in and you take care of a new brand exercise and then that's a done deal? What's that terrain look like?
Genina: Yeah, so we definitely are project-based for what I like to call our core foundational brand offering. So when people typically come to Focus Lab, their business is usually at a juncture. When they're starting to feel some certain pain points, where they're starting to realize that brand isn't something that they can overlook anymore, or it's something that they just haven't considered, or they realize they've outgrown their past brand, right?
They're not really speaking to who they are. And at this point is typically when we're going to start to see them reaching out to us. So in that core kind of foundational project, and it is project-based, we're tackling brand strategy, we're looking at their visual identity, we're looking at how they communicate through their brand communications, right?
So we're kind of taking a look at their brand holistically and then setting a strong foundation for them. So a lot of our clients, it really is like that project. And then in theory, they're actually set in a lot of ways for growth internally.
But we do have another service that we call brand support that is a bit more retainer style because it's taking all the work that we did in this kind of core foundational project. And it's us applying all of those new guidelines and rules to a variety of visual assets, right? So sales deck templates, digital display ads, trade show booth graphics, right?
Really helping the internal team kind of bring all that brand debt up to speed with the new brand, prepping them for what we'll call their new brand rollout. So in that way, we are engaging with them usually for, you know, six months, nine months. Like, it could be a good bit of time.
But it's not something where we're really working with the majority of our clients on like an ongoing yearly basis. We do have a lot of return business, which I love. A lot of times, like, our clients will either go out and start new businesses or they'll hop to new organizations.
And when the time for a brand project comes, our name gets thrown in the mix again, which is really exciting. We'd love to see that. Because in that, we very much are word of mouth.
A lot of people who find us have either been familiar with our work or they heard about us from another, like, their CMO at a company and they heard about us from another CMO. So we have a lot of word of mouth in those areas. Because we're not in kind of any major metro.
We're not in New York. We're not in the Valley. We are fully distributed and we were actually founded in sleepy little Savannah, which is where I'm currently based out of.
But we are a fully distributed team. And we have been so for the majority of our 13 years in business. The only like say the only upside of the pandemic for me is that I no longer have to tell people what Zoom is.
Like before it used to be like, and you have to download this app. It's called Zoom. You are going to have to unmute yourself.
This is how it works. Don't have to do that anymore. But since we're not located in any of these major metros and we've been fully distributed for the majority of our time in business, people have found us in a lot of other ways.
Still find us in Dribble. Dribble is really big for us. But yeah, so we definitely get a lot of people who come back.
And because of that, it just kind of work continues to grow.
Mitchell: So let me ask some some EOS questions. We're talking about the history of Focus Lab for a moment.
Genina: Yeah.
Mitchell: My my relationship with Focus Lab was back from the the ExpressionEngine days. And I know Eric from from that community. And we were colleagues and competitors.
And then at some point, Focus Lab disappeared and disappeared. I mean, not like vanished and failed to exist anymore, but like got into a rocket ship and lit the fuse and took off and went bye bye. Next thing I know, you guys don't do anything like what we used to compete against you about.
But now you do a thing that has such clear definition and you express it at the marketing and sales level with such confidence and such certainty. And I come to find out that EOS had a hand in that. So the entrepreneurial operating system, true or false, like did EOS, was it pivotal?
And you guys deciding to be a thing and not be a bunch of other stuff that you were at that time?
Genina: Absolutely. Definitely true. EOS is at the heart of.
So much of our positive growth, success, who we are today. I mean, I currently can't think of Focus Lab without EOS and I was here before we implemented it. So I joined the team in 2017.
And I was obviously not on the leadership team at that point. I was hired. I was hired in 2017.
It's pretty much like an entry level, entry level salesperson. I was the second sales hire. So in 2019, there was a meeting.
I remember this. This is when we did still used to have an office. So there was like part of us were in the office and part of us were remote.
So everyone who was remote would be phoned in. Right. And I remember that our partners.
So Eric, Bill and Will all sat at the front of the room and they're like, we're going to try this thing called EOS. And I remember thinking, what the hell is this? Why is there an acronym?
I was like, oh, man, an acronym. Yeah. And then they were talking about it.
And I was like, I don't know this. This seems real. You know, because you've talked about this in the last couple episodes with Leslie, right?
There's a lot of terminology. There's a lot of verbiage. There's a lot of words.
And when you hear it at first, you're like, OK. Sure. Like, let's let's see what this is.
And I, if I'm being super frank, I did not expect anything of it. Right. You know how it is with small businesses.
We all try things, see if it works.
Mitchell: Yeah.
Genina: You know, give it a give it a good old fashioned try. And then maybe that wasn't for us. Right.
Especially because, like, one of the big things at Focus Lab, what I remember is that, like, we're different, like we're not corporate, like we're this really awesome design agency to work for and everyone is open and honest and it's great to work here. We don't we don't need that corporate stuff. But, you know, you kind of tell yourself things because you just don't know.
You don't know what's on the other side. Right. And you kind of build.
I say this in brand all the time when I talk to clients, like if no one is putting a narrative out there. So I didn't understand the narrative of EOS. You will create your own.
So I had already created my own right in that moment, in that vacuum. I created my own. This is the thing we're going to try and we'll probably won't work.
But whatever. Boy, was I wrong. And I'm so glad I was wrong.
Mitchell: Yeah, I suffered from the toddler syndrome. I can do it all by myself. I don't need any help.
No, no, no. I can I can put my shoes on all by myself and I can put my clothes on all by myself. I don't need anybody's help.
I can do this all by myself.
Genina: Yeah.
Mitchell: And I just needed to grow up as a business person. I needed to grow up and say, honestly, I somebody I need somebody to tell me what the fundamentals are. I need the basketball coach.
This is what I told Leslie. I need the basketball coach to yell at me and say, you don't understand the fundamentals. And here are the fundamentals.
Dribble with your fingertips, stay on your toes, tie your shoes, you know. And EOS is is saying it's OK to be a dummy and we're going to help you through that. These are the fundamental framework level things that you need to make sure you're doing as a business.
There's a lot of detail at each of these sort of conceptual levels, but it's a system that's willing to say, here's the top level stuff that you've got to make sure you handle. Otherwise, you're in deep, deep kimchi. So this is one of the things that drew me to it.
I was always turned off by gimmicks, always turned off by acronyms because I could do it all by myself as a toddler. Maybe you could tell me a little bit more about the process of maturing as a business, because my conversations with Eric roughly around the time that this was being implemented at Focus Lab, it felt a lot like, oh, this guy's suddenly a grown up. But it's a kind of grown up grown up that says, you know, I actually don't know everything.
I can't do it by myself. And I'm willing to be open and vulnerable and say, I don't I don't know. What do we do?
Can we figure it out somehow? So that's something I'm interested in in particular. What was your experience of that?
Genina: To me, EOS boils down to it's a framework, right? It's a set of tools, but it allows you to be who you always wanted to be. And I think that that is what EOS gave us, is that we've never not been dreamers at Focus Lab, but there's always that there's that chasm between dreaming and doing.
And EOS built the bridge. And that to me is really what it boils down to, because people wonder like they get it. I was like, it doesn't change who you are.
It doesn't solve all your problems because it doesn't it's not fundamentally altering who you are as a business. If that is if that core there is like it's like a seed, right, and it's good and it has potential, EOS helps unlock that. And it gave us that roadmap, that bridge to get to actually start achieving the things we were dreaming of.
And that that is intoxicating. That feeling is one that you will. That's why you can't put it down, because as soon as you realize that the dreams are not only achievable, they are you can repeat that.
It's not a thing that just happens. It's something that you can continue to do. I mean, why why would you ever why would you ever look back?
Mitchell: Yeah. One of the things I told someone recently about this is that EOS has given my team a new kind of an appetite. So we we have an appetite for problems that we didn't have before.
Yeah. There was a previous version of Solspace. It's like, seriously, another problem.
OK, I'm done for the day. I want to go take a break. Call me tomorrow.
It's totally different now. We solve a problem. We're like, give me another one.
Give me some more. Give me another bag of chips. I've got to have more.
Right. It's this addiction because you develop this capacity to solve problems and ask root out the next one. Like, give me the next one.
Let me fix the next one. Because you do see a future and you can finally see that you're actually going to make it from, you know, Dallas to L.A. on foot because you're going to take one step at a time and you're going to do it as a team and you have a plan and you have a way to alter the plan. So this has been a powerful thing for us.
So, you know, it sounds like you're seeing some of that, too. But we're you know, we're talking about sort of the history of Focus Lab implementing EOS. What was the rollout like?
And how gradual was it? How slow was it? How sudden was it?
Can you speak to that at all?
Genina: Yeah. So I can definitely speak to it, too, in those in those early years, to what it was like to be, you know, on the team here at Focus Lab and experiencing the rollout. So it started kind of similar to what Leslie mentioned on your last episode.
Like we started L10 started to roll out. Right. And all of a sudden, like we had this new structure.
And I mean, I mean, we're we were a remote team. We know how to do meetings like we do meetings. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, shit.
This is what you get done in a meeting. Wow. I don't need to have all those extra meetings.
Like if I have one solid meeting every week that I'm reporting on specific things and I have numbers that I'm owning like that just changes the game. Like then then you start to really see traction. Right.
You actually start to see things moving forward. So L10s were a big thing. We started to have a conversation around the accountability chart that was huge for us.
Right. Because then we started having the conversation of seats on the bus. And I remember that that was the first time that I realized like, oh, we're going to make changes like things are going to change.
And like anything, change is scary. But you can't I mean, growth doesn't happen unless change does. Right.
Like it's a part of it. So that's when we started to understand like where our roles were, what our future was, like how we were as an organization, like how we should be working. And that accountability chart really helped us with solving problems.
Right. Like really owning understanding like what was the area that you were going to sit there and own. But also how can I reach out to other people on my team, other people on my team?
Like how can I start conversations because I now have a greater understanding of how we all work together. Right. And who owns what.
And because people own things and they're accountable for them, you start to see kind of like I mentioned before, everyone starts to row in the same direction. Right. Yeah.
And that even though I didn't have words for it early on, like that's really something that I started to feel. And you could just start to see like when you get through to do's every week, when you start having rocks right every quarter and you start hitting on them, then everything starts to shift and change. So we definitely rolled out kind of in those ways.
It was not a it was not something that everything happened all at once. Definitely not. It was something that we really moved through relatively incrementally, but it was never something where I felt this backsliding.
Right. We definitely there was always forward momentum. And I think, I mean, that the results have just been so huge for us.
Mitchell: One of the big reasons that I was attracted to EOS was because we had a problem with accountability and confrontation. We had, you know, culture comes from the top and the culture came from me of being non-confrontational, not coming to people and saying, man, you really screwed that up. What are you going to do to fix it?
How are you going to be better next time? That never happened here, but it needed to. And I could see how it was just eroding the culture and eroding our performance and eroding our ability to survive as a business.
Did you have that experience at all? Did EOS create opportunities for you to hold yourself and others accountable and confront one another about, you know, issues that require confrontation?
Genina: It did, especially because also a part of the process in EOS, we actually updated our values. And as a part of that, like that also became a piece because values are also so integral to EOS, right? You hire around them, you have conversations around them, they help with confrontations because they also give you, they give you another set of tools to help frame things, right?
So great examples, like maybe I'm having a conversation with a teammate and we're struggling on something. I could be like, hey, one of our values is assume the best. Like, I think I'm struggling with you, not assuming the best in this scenario.
It makes, it creates a shared language and understanding that we all believe in that allows us to really bridge those gaps, right? So that's where like it's more than a set of tools in those areas because it does tell us like, hey, we've got to do the work. We realized our previous values just didn't cut it for where we were going.
And now that's a really big part of confrontation, how we speak to one another, like how we hire and grow. So it's definitely something that that piece was really special in terms of confrontation, but also just talking about it week to week, you know, also just being okay. There's something about, we always mentioned here at FocusUp, like it's okay to make a mistake, right?
But I'm one of those people that I'm like, okay, you can tell me that. But like, I really don't ever want to make a mistake. Like that stuff's going to sit with me forever.
Like it's just going to be like a rock in my stomach and I'm just going to carry it around. But one of the things about reporting on things weekly and like, you know, dropping things down. So if you don't accomplish a to-do within two weeks, usually then you should be dropping it down, right?
And then it's just about like, hey, let's have a conversation. Like, why haven't you hit on this thing? And in a sense, it does allow you to be vulnerable in that moment because there's a procedure, right?
So it's not that you're someone is just immediately pointing the finger. It's you. It's a timely way of being like, you know what?
I didn't get to that thing. Let's talk about it. And it just, I think it taught us that certain things don't have to be confrontations, right?
In the same way that maybe we have this negative thought around them, right? A lot of it is just the part of doing business and maybe like, hey, did you drop this? Do you want me to help you pick it up?
Maybe I can catch it this next time. Like it just kind of brought us together in a lot of those ways. I do think it, EOS keeps you from, you can't put things off, right?
You can't, it's not really built in a way for you to like put things off and that I think is so important because we can all just get into that like hustle and be like, oh, we'll talk about it later. We'll do this thing later. Oh, I can't tackle this later.
But because we're all accountable and we have this framework, it allows us all to really focus on what matters week to week. Cause also you can have the discussion of, you know what? I didn't hit on that again.
Is this something that we need to be focusing on right now? Am I the right person to own it? Right?
Like maybe it shouldn't sit with me. So it just allows for all of these, all of this flexibility. So that's why I think it's, it's, that's like the hidden gem for me of EOS.
Cause a lot of people are like, oh shit, it's a bunch of rules. I don't want a lot of rules. But when you know the rules, you can really bend and flex because the rules just give you a greater sense of understanding.
And once you understand that's where creativity gets unlocked, right? Cause then you can really problem solve. Cause then you start to realize like, okay, like, should we shift this?
Like, is this a real priority? Should it move to somebody else? Is it even something that our department should be taking on?
Right. And then you just have a conversation like that. So I, it's, I think that's kind of that next level.
Like once you've kind of started to learn the rules, it's what can you then start to do once you really understand them? And it really kind of, it just changes the way you think.
Mitchell: So there's a question I have about GWC. So get it, want it, capacity to do it. And we are, we're implementing EOS quickly.
Like we kind of jumpstarted it. I was impatient. And I, there was also a need internally for us to do a lot of it quickly at once.
It was, it was going to be less likely to fail if I just jolted the entire company with a shock, you know, it, I wasn't trying to be macho. I wasn't trying to prove anything. I was like, okay, this is going to fail if I don't move all these people around and shift their seats and shock everybody at once, and then we'll recover after that.
But there's some stuff that's happening after that, which is GWC, which means, you know, does the person in that seat doing that job? Do they get the job? Do they want the job?
Do they have the capacity to do the job? I wonder if you could talk a little bit about it. Focus Lab, what your experience of that?
Has it been super smooth? Everybody's right where they want to be or need to be? Has it been, have you used that framework to get people out of a role that they hate or out of an aspect of the job that they don't like that's not feeding them into something better?
What do you think about that part?
Genina: So that one's huge. And I think that's really important because EOS also reminds you to first think of the role and not the person who's currently sitting in it. And that is that first big step, right?
Because a lot of times, like if you're an existing organization and you think of a specific role, you think of the person, not the seat. And then a lot of times you'll start to create a job description or things around the person and their strengths, but that might not actually be what the organization needs, right? And that's where you start to realize that's where the conversation of right person, right seat also really starts to come in too.
Because they could be a really incredible person, but they might be the wrong person for that seat or that role. So for that first step of just looking at every kind of point on the accountability chart as a seat and then setting the job description, right? Setting the number that they have to be accountable for, like really setting all of that groundwork before we think about the person I think is so integral.
And I think it sounds, I mean, it's not, it sounds so simple when you're like, duh, of course, of course, like those people might not always be there, right? Like they might move on. And then you've realized that you've structured an entire role around an individual as opposed to being like, Hey, this is a great role for you based on your strengths, right?
Not creating the role around the person. So I think just that as a place to start is huge and so important, but we definitely, we definitely felt that was a moment where when we talked about that, I was like, Oh, I wonder if things are going to change here or shift. And like, that was definitely a moment where I think there was the most change in the very beginning, but it's definitely something that we continue to point to as we grow.
Mitchell: EOS is, is unapologetic about putting the company and the team first. And as a business owner and as a manager for decades, I have not been good about that. I have put individuals and their needs first, their hurt feelings first, you know, their, their egos first and neglected to see the impact of that on the, on the team as a whole.
And once you see that, once you get visibility into how everybody's suffering because I'm protecting one person, uh, you're in a lot of trouble if you don't do something about it. And EOS is like, it, it hits that fact head on, which is another reason that the book traction sold me on, on the EOS framework. Leslie didn't have to do any work on that one.
I was hooked on that part alone because you do have to protect the company and the team. And that means you do have to decide to find the seats and the roles and then get the people and get the butts in the seats. It's not the other way around.
Oh, this person's awesome. We have the best time hanging out, playing board games together. Oh, they can be my director of marketing.
No, no, you, you got to define the roles, you got to define the seats and then make sure that you have the right kind of fit. And that's all in obedience to the needs of the overall team. And I finally sort of getting that squared away.
So it kind of sounds like you guys have had experience with that too.
Genina: Oh yeah. And even as you get past those, that initial kind of exercise, right? It never goes away.
Every time you hire, every time you are looking at making organizing organizational changes, like GWC is always there. It's there in if you're doing one-on-ones with people, right? Cause that's a part of it is that it should be a piece of the conversation, right?
At least every six months, yearly. Like we're looking, we're looking at that. We're looking at if they're aligning to values, right?
If they still get it, want it, have the capacity to do it. So it's definitely something that is not like, oh, we implemented EOS, all good. We did this, we're done.
It's, it continues to be a part of the conversation as your team grows and changes and as just people grow and change, right? So it's, it's incredibly important though, but it also just, it gives a lot of clarity around hiring, around where people should sit, like where, what roles are essential, right? Cause we're looking at roles and not people, but then also having the conversation of like, maybe you'd actually be a better fit in a different role here, right?
Like based on this, like, and what we've learned, like maybe this is actually a better seat for you. So it just provides a lot of clarity and gives a much clearer framework that you can kind of have those conversations and then plan accordingly.
Mitchell: Yeah. One of the, one of the strengths of the system is that you're doing difficult things regularly, like weekly, quarterly, monthly, yearly, you're confronting the difficult, scary stuff on a regular basis. Like, did you finish the thing?
You know, that big, gigantic goal that you had that was not totally connected with you answering the phone on a daily basis, that really big rock that you defined, how's that going? Um, what rock? Which one are you talking about?
No, the one that was going to be huge and was going to generate a lot of new revenue is the future of the business. How's that going? So it, it has this cadence, this, this pulse, this consistent sort of drumbeat and the, you know, checking with all the humans and making sure that they're getting what they want and doing for the business, what it needs on a regular basis, it kind of, it, it destigmatizes, it takes the pressure out of that activity and normalizes it, you know, it makes it a regular thing on the calendar.
I really appreciate that part of it.
Genina: Oh yeah. It's huge. Like I said, when you start seeing yourselves hit on your rocks quarterly, annually, consistently, that feels so good.
So, so good.
Mitchell: Yeah. Um, well let's, let's take a break. Let's, let's call this an episode.
Um, when we come back a couple of weeks from now, um, I'm interested in talking a little bit more about how that transition at Focus Lab took place, how EOS brought you guys to say, ah, we're a branding company now and that's it. And I'm also interested in to, to do some future looking stuff. Like how has EOS helping you see into the future?
What kind of scorecards do you guys have? How are they guiding where you're headed? Um, so I have a whole bunch of, uh, additional questions.
Uh, but Genina, I just wanted to thank you for this segment and, um, who, and we can reconnect shortly.
Genina: Awesome. You are so welcome. I love this conversation.
[Music] You've been listening to the Solspace Podcast.