279. William Edmundson on Getting the Right Things Done in Your Coworking Business Using EOS

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279. William Edmundson on Getting the Right Things Done in Your Coworking Business Using EOS

00:00:02 Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast, where every week I keep you updated on the latest trends and how-tos in Coworking. I owned and operated Coworking spaces for eight years and then served as the executive director of the Global Workspace Association for five years. And today I work with hundreds of operators and community managers every month, allowing me to bring you thought provoking operator,

00:00:29 case studies and inspirational interviews with industry thought leaders to help you confidently stay on top of what's important and what you can apply to your own role in the Coworking industry. Welcome to the Everything Coworking Podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo. Today my guest is William Edmundson. He has a fantastic background for today's Coworking operator. He has a work history that involves shared workspace,

00:01:05 executive suites, franchise businesses. He was also a hospitality executive with a lot of hotel experience and he's kind of pulling that all together. He also recently did a stint as the executive director of the Global Workspace Association and did a fantastic job producing the most recent GWA conference, the Flex Forward Conference in Dallas in September. So William, perfect timing. William is on the schedule because in addition to the really interesting combined background that he has across hospitality and Coworking and franchising,

00:01:48 he is also passionate about eos, which is the entrepreneurial operating system, which you can learn about in the book Traction. Or I think William recommends a book called, What the Heck is eos? I have it in the show notes. So we talk about that later. But what I love about William is he's very process focused. He's all about setting clear goals and then putting a plan in place to reach those goals.

00:02:12 And he's been very successful with that approach to business and he shares a couple of stories about that approach in our conversation today. So I think you will be inspired. And on a related note, if you are ready to plan like William does for 2023, we are hosting a Design to Thrive in 2023, We being Everything Coworking Workshop to help you walk through our nine step framework.

00:02:41 It's not our framework, but a nine step framework for planning 2023. We went through that framework on the last episode, so go back and have a listen if you wanna see what you'd be in for. But the idea of the workshop is it's a two session workshop cuz we can't get everything done at once and we don't want you to fry your brain all in one long session.

00:03:01 But to give you kind of accountability and just like a time on your calendar to work through your 2023 planning, we'll give you a process. We bring the worksheets, we bring everything. You also get to go through the process with other operators. So at the front end we'll do some breakouts and some brainstorming and idea sharing so you can see what others are up to.

00:03:21 So at the end of those two sessions, if you show up and do the work, we'll have a plan for 2023 in place with your primary goals and some project plans around those goals. So if that's a way you like to get things done, please register to join us at Everything Coworking dot com slash 23. If you are an Everything Coworking Academy member,

00:03:46 you are joining us free of charge. And you have a code in your email account or in your inbox in order to do that. And if you're missing that, just shoot us a note. We have lots going on right now, so I have to cover that before we dive into William's interview. So I have been really curious about the co warehousing model.

00:04:07 Saltbox is a brand that you might have heard of. They have raised a lot of money and are doing large footprints in markets such as Dallas and Atlanta and I think Seattle. And there are some other folks who have been running this model for a little while and are coming together to share their story and their experience on our November how I did this session,

00:04:31 which is live. So it's a panel format live with three operators of warehousing spaces. One is palletized, Max was on the podcast ages and ages ago. So I can't wait to get an update from him and hear his story and how things are going. And Mare Rosa, I'm not sure I'm saying her name right, it might be Mare. She is the founder of co-founder of e-com spaces outside of Atlanta.

00:04:59 Their Community Manager was on the podcast also ages ago now. And then we also have Philip Freeman who might be the actual inventor of the co-housing model. So he's hesitant to take full credit for that, but he thinks it might have been him solving a personal problem. And he solved that problem and started the loading dock in Raleigh. And many of you have probably heard of the loading dock.

00:05:27 They have not been on the podcast before. I can't wait to hear this story. So the three of them will come together and you get to be in the audience, you have to register, it's a Zoom format webinar style. So we'll have our panelists and then you'll be in the audience. So we need our registration for that. You can do that at,

00:05:44 it's totally free. But you have to register Everything Coworking dot com slash H IDT for how I did this. And then one last thing before we dive into William's interview, Giovanni and I started a podcast, Giovanni Palavicini called Flex Uncensored. And many of you are already listening. We are hoping to do a live session. We're still getting permission, so,

00:06:11 but we're uncensored. So we'll say we're waiting for permission. We're for our interview with JB Hodari of Industrious on November. It is November 18th, is that right? I think is right. It's next Friday when you're listening to this. It's Friday. So we would love to have you as a live studio audience. It's just kind of live podcast format. And then we'll do a little q and a at the end and you can register for that at Everything Coworking dot com slash live.

00:06:42 Also zoom webinar style format. So we need registration on that one too, just so that you can get the login info. So we hope, we'll, I'll put all that in the show notes. If you're driving and you can't remember these links, we'll make sure they go into the show notes so that you can grab them from the website. So we hope to see you at one or all of these events in the next few weeks.

00:07:03 And now onto my conversation with William. Welcome. I have with me today William Edmundson. And William has executive experience in co-working franchise businesses and hospitality. And William, I'm gonna sneak in a couple of bonus questions about your perspective on sort of the transition to be to the, you know, workplace being hospitality focused. Cause I think you would have a lot to add to that.

00:07:32 So William is also the current executive director of the Global Workspace Association. Just executed a fantastic conference a few weeks ago. William, I'm guessing you're still slightly recovering because it's a major understanding. Absolutely, absolutely. Great team effort and just, we couldn't be happier about how it turned out. Yeah, agreed. Yeah, Geo and I did a kind of a,

00:07:57 a debrief on the other podcast and agreed, lots of positive experiences, great interactions. It was everything at conference should be, I think. So I can't wait for the next one already. And I gotta tell you, Jamie, it was just, it was amplified because we hadn't gotten to be together as a group. So that, I think really,

00:08:17 really just amped the whole thing up. So, yeah. And I think even the next one will have a similar vibe just because, you know, we all, people don't spend as much time in person together, so, so good. And then you are doing some consulting and advisory work in a variety of industries. And that is partly why I wanted to bring you on to chat today because you do a lot of work with EOS and helping companies integrate eos,

00:08:47 learn how to use it and practice it. And I know you did that with the Global Workspace Association team, which w hugely elevated kind of how the team worked together. And even, you know, those a relatively small team and I love the EOS system, the book Traction. And just wanted to kind of chat about some of the work that you're doing and what,

00:09:10 what traction can look like or eo I guess the eos, I always go back and forth. You can help me with the, the vernacular Sure, Sure. Can look like for folks who want to, who want kind of a more like systemized approach to running their business, even if it's a smaller business or a few locations. So thank you for joining us today.

00:09:31 Thank you for having me. I'm excited. Yeah. So you're in Houston, what's the weather like in, in the fall Back home? Yeah, just in time. We moved back when it was still oppressive from Colorado. Every, everybody thought we were crazy, but it's home and it's always good to be home And mom's there. And you talked to mom almost every day.

00:09:53 I remember you saying, Oh yeah. You're like, Oh, mom knows all the details about the conference. I love that he's involved Just through osmosis practically. Totally. I love it. And then you have a son at Colorado State? Yes, absolutely. He's in their, he's in their music program and we miss being able to drive down the road and watch him perform.

00:10:17 But thanks to the internet, we were able to watch one of his jazz concerts the other night and a classical concert the week before. So do They still dream a lot of the programming? That's fantastic. It's not the same, but it's pretty good. We'll take it. Yeah, totally. You can sit right in your living room with a glass of wine and put the,

00:10:37 put the computer up and stream away. I love it. You know us well. Okay. Can you just share for folks who don't know, William, you're pretty visible in the industry, but just a little bit about your broader background, you know, at Abby Hotel, the hotel industry, just kind of like you've been doing this for, we won't date you,

00:10:59 but you've been in the industry for a long time and this is your second time on the GWA board, so Correct. Yeah. I would just love to kind of hear a little bit about, you know, starting in the hospitality business and kind of the transition into flex and, and maybe even maybe this is where I'll sneak in my question about like,

00:11:18 how do you think hospitality will be further integrated into flexible office and co-working? Yeah, exactly. And some of the patterns that our industry is following that I witnessed in, in hospitality definitely will cover all that. So I started out in the hotel industry. My family had some hotels when I was young and I, I don't think I knew that. Okay,

00:11:40 that's Okay. I started with the glamorous things. Yeah. Making toilets, rebuilding air conditioners, all the fun stuff. But what it did is it, it gave me a strong work ethic and I learned that from my parents and from working and you know, I made it through school and went into advertising and marketing and my first client was Embassy Suites hotels.

00:12:06 Oh, that's funny. So you were trying to do something different, but somehow It came back and got me. But yeah, you know, hospitality they say stays in your blood and I think we all get that, just the service aspect of, of our industry. It's just in your blood and you, you can't help but straighten chairs or greet people and things like that and it's contagious.

00:12:29 But did that, the way I like to tell the story is Embassy Suites saw talent and they stole me from the agency and Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay. So they, they took me, they took me in on the Embassy Suites brand on the corporate team and, you know, started with marketing and over the years I took different promotions At the time our company also owned holiday ends,

00:12:53 did marketing for all of the regional associations, some of which were bigger than other hotel brands at the time. Continuing on from there, I spent time in the early years with the Homewood Suites brand and provided consulting advice to the franchisees to help them get up and open and become profitable as quickly as possible. Yeah, there's so many parallels to that and to,

00:13:19 Yeah. The flex office, that's, Yeah, Absolutely. And you know what's really great is the same principles really, you know, applying to into our industry. And I went from the Homewood Sweet brand to the Hampton brand and there was a reorganization. I was one of three people that survived the Homewood organization in a down market and went over to Hampton and was there from 250 hotels to about 1300.

00:13:50 I headed up all the support operations, marketing, quality assurance, all of these things that were great building blocks for what I would later do and a executive suites and office evolution and, and with folks that I consult with. But I learned a lot of things. And when you have 850 franchisees, you Say most to most of that growth is franchise,

00:14:16 is franchisee growth. So you have the systems, but you're bringing on franchisees who are actually running the locations. Exactly. And I, I was held accountable for their performance. So as I grew my team and the different disciplines, we wanted to make sure that the franchisees, first of all, that we had the right franchisees, that as they came on,

00:14:38 that they ramped up faster than any other brand. And we accomplished that. You know, getting them to fair share in their market by as quickly as the third or fourth month. The, the brand was really strong at a phenomenal team. And we all work together, you know, using our strengths and, you know, if people, including our franchisees,

00:14:58 if they weren't doing their fair share, pulling their own weight, we would get rid of them. We had strict rules that we followed. They were always, I like call 'em firm, but fair. And you know, if a franchisee wasn't following the rules, they would, for example, fail the first quality assurance inspection. We'd coach 'em and tell 'em what to fix,

00:15:21 then they would have an announced second inspection. If they failed that we'd go to what we call the special inspection, very thorough with coaching exact details and what do you need to do? And if they didn't do that, then we would remove them from our system, take down the sign, that kind of thing. So They could operate as an independent brand but not under your flag.

00:15:44 Exactly. And they had to do things that de-identified them from, from our brand, you know, even even modifying the, the exterior of their building. You know, I learned a lot about consistency and how important that is and the success of any brand. Yeah. Hi, this is Josh Fried CEO of Proximity. When we started Proximity, we did it for one reason.

00:16:07 We didn't like how hard it was to run our Coworking spaces. At first we tried testing different space management software on the market. And look, we found that we had to use multiple software solutions, then we spent way too much time trying to sync them all together. And then we spent even more time training our staff. And worse yet, our members on how to use this overcomplicated solution.

00:16:28 We ended up going circles, attempting to manage our software instead of letting software do what it's supposed to, which is help run our business. Our members were frustrated, We were frustrated, we just didn't think it should be so hard to operate a co-working space. So we built our own solution to make co-working spaces easier to manage. All packaged up in one,

00:16:49 easy to use platform, refined by feedback from hundreds of Coworking spaces over the last five years. Proximity software is simple for operators and best of all members. And it is backed by our award-winning US based customer support team. It's time to stop settling for overcomplicate software, get software that was actually purpose built for Coworking by Coworking Space Operators. See you for yourself.

00:17:14 Our team is available to chat with Everything Coworking podcast listeners and you can schedule your call today@proximity.space slash Jamie. I was hired a way to launch a brand called Cambria Suites for Choice Hotels and launched the brand, built a team, built the brand to scale and we were signing up a ton of folks. Our pipeline was over 102,009 financing just completely dried up.

00:17:43 And I had the opportunity to take a, a generous package and got to do some consulting for a bit. It was at that time that a recruiter who had told me was a hospitality focused recruiter, told me that it was a really good time to take up a hobby. Oh no, I was pretty young at the time, you know, going and playing golf every day was not,

00:18:10 it just, that wasn't my thing. So, long story short, he called me about a week later after saying that and said, Hey, you're from Houston, I've got an opportunity in Houston. And that ended up to be the beginning of me getting into the ex, we called the executive suites industry at the time. Yep. President and CEO for a guy named Chris Brown,

00:18:33 who's one of the pioneers of the industry way back. And we grew that brand from 17 to 25 when I was there. We grew it into a nice regional brand. We turned what had been a kind of a really dated concept and kind of a more of a bargain. You know, let's get you in here with discounts kind of brand and that's not my dna.

00:18:59 So put in some signature items, upgraded the team as we could and drove, had triple digit increases in sales and ibida up 140 some odd percent during that period. And we ended up selling to Regis and that was my exit from there. So did a little bit of consulting there and I got back into the industry. Michelle Stickler with Premier called me one day and said,

00:19:29 Hey, there is this job you have to hear about. I was like, Okay, well tell, tell me about it. And she said, You're the only person on the earth that's qualified for it. I said, Oh, I'm, I'm Jamie. I was nervous, I wasn't sure what she was gonna say or where she was going. I said,

00:19:45 Oh, what does that mean? And it turned out to be office evolution. And I had been in the franchising world. I had been an operator, you know, at Abby I had the 25 locations. I had Scaled Hampton from two 50 to, you know, 1300 and you know, I, I knew a lot was Right. You were,

00:20:06 you were the one uniquely qualified. I also, I, so you mentioned, you know, sort of holding franchisees to a quality standard. It's funny cuz I sort of always think about the flip side of it, which is it feels like a lot of pressure to have franchisees. Absolutely. Because they're a very demanding bunch, right? They've started a business,

00:20:28 they've invested, you know, maybe retirement savings, like a significant amount of money Absolutely. In a hotel or a Coworking space, which is a physical location and then they really want it to work. And right now, so they have a lot of expectations from the corporate team, Right? So I feel like you have a lot of demands and pressures from franchisees.

00:20:52 It would, I'm not sure that would be my favorite model to pursue because of that. You know, it's a very difficult industry and you're right. People have no idea what goes into it. When I was at Hampton, we got to the point where we could select which franchisees candidates we wanted and we would take our best franchisees and you know, get them a new market.

00:21:15 So they knew our systems Yeah. And they were really committed to Yeah. So they knew they what they were getting. That makes sense. Yeah. But then when I, when I got over to opposite evolution, you had people who didn't know the industry. Right. You know, you remember, you remember sitting in G meetings and even OCI where we're going.

00:21:36 These people got in cuz they think it's cool. Yeah. Well right, because the marketing process for franchises is you need a funnel, right? You need a funnel. And those people right, may or may not have any idea, but you're sort of selling them on the concept. Yeah. It's different from someone who discovers Coworking and decides that's what I wanna start,

00:21:57 I'm gonna build my own brand. I mean, it makes sense from a business perspective. I understand that as a scaling model, it just seems intimidating to me. It's, it, it it is and it's tough because you're right. I mean, if you have a franchisee that maybe isn't flush with the bank account, you know, and, and they start to struggle,

00:22:18 the first temptation that a lot of people have in business is to cut spending. Yeah. So, well, I'm going to not spend as much on marketing. We'll, Right. Can't save your way to profitability. Somebody said that to me a long time ago and it's like one of my favorite quotes because it's so tempting. That's like human nature cut Right.

00:22:38 Turn off the bank accounts and but you can't Right. So you can't fix, especially in our business, you can't, you know, fix customer acquisition problems by not spending any money. Exactly. And that's where some of the key things that I had to do at Office Evolution was take a company that had been around for a while, you know, founder led company and put some systems in place,

00:23:02 systems including eos, but the tech, we'd outgrown the team. We'd outgrown some of the people had been around since, you know, the first location and, you know, were great people and all, but they weren't the right fit for what we needed at the time. And it's, it's hard for a founder to get rid of the people that they Well maybe even recognize.

00:23:26 Right. But that's part of traction is the right people on the bus and the Right. Those can be really hard decisions to make. Yeah. The right people and then in the right seats. Yeah. But, you know, so we've gone through hospitality. We've gotten into the industry, you know, since then, not even by design, but when I left Office Evolution,

00:23:48 I immediately got called by some of the vendors and partners and other brands. And one of the first things that, one of the first instances of that is Dave Millikin over it greatly told me, he said, he said, Look, I was, I was at your first office evolution conference that you were at, and you got up on stage and you told everybody,

00:24:14 you know, you shut straight. Here are the areas that you all do well, You know, like, like the culture that, that Mark and team had put in place, that the whole spirit of Ohana, you know, being family. And then I I told them, you know, things, things people don't wanna hear. You know, your baby's ugly.

00:24:32 Right. Nobody likes that. So It, it was, you know, it was tough but honest and, you know, that goes back to that firm, but fair that I, I had at Hampton. But it, it was telling them we need to work on these things. And what Dave Milliken told me is he said, You got up on stage that year and you know,

00:24:53 you were new and you told a story about incremental gains and Nicholas Beford and the English bicycle racing team that have each of these little changes add up. Right. And you're not gonna get a huge impact from, in the case, the bicycle racing team changing the pillows that your, that your riders use. But when you combine that with, you know,

00:25:15 a hundred other things, it, it can really start making a difference. And I told everybody that's what we had to do. And I focused in on three key areas of focus. And we won't go through it as were, but I, I told the franchisees at this conference, these are the three areas that we're going to focus on over the next year.

00:25:35 So Dave telling the story says, I went there the next year and the vendors partners weren't in the same room this year. We were in another room. But I made a point of coming in to hear, Okay, he Snuck in. I knew Yeah, You and I like the way that he continued the story. He said, You got up on stage,

00:25:58 you, you showed these are our three key areas and you've had actual measurable results for each one of them. And you were able to have accomplished with your team, number one, number two, and number three and details. And then you announced the next three for the next year, or three or four, whatever it was. And he says, I,

00:26:19 I want that in my team. So. Right, right. It sounds so simple. And yet so many businesses don't run that way. And I think oftentimes it's because you have shiny object founders. Yes. Yeah. And It's too tempting to get distracted. Right. And not focus. I mean, I am one of those like shiny objects. There's so many things I wanna do.

00:26:41 And if you focus on too many, many things, you don't get any one thing, like make significant progress. So yeah, that's the beauty of the EOS system. When did you first get introduced to eos? Yeah, at the beginning of my tenure office evolution, we wanted to focus, you know, here we just signed a bunch of franchises.

00:27:02 Our systems I knew were not in good order. They were good when they were put in place, but they, they couldn't handle the stress of, of the growth. And, you know, taken from 27 to 73 and four years, that's a lot of openings, right? Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about s as a system, as COO of the company,

00:27:23 it made sense for me to be, what an EOS terms is an integrator. And I'll step back in a minute and talk about eos, but the integrator is the person who reports into the visionary and the visionaries that shiny object following, in most cases, founder. And there's nothing wrong with a founder that follows shiny objects. In fact, it's more of the rule than the exception.

00:27:49 What they need, and what Chris Brown needed at Abby was somebody who could take the company to the next level and wanted that office evolution. And I've, Dave wanted that at greatly and so many other people I've worked with. And that integrator is the one who runs the, the weekly meeting. They're the one that makes sure you stay on track. EOS has a one year,

00:28:15 three year and 10 year plan that you put together strategic plan. And it really focuses on really three components. And then I'll break it down a second, but it's the vision. If you don't have everybody on the same page on the vision, you're not gonna get there. That's something that teams learn very quickly. Traction, you know, instilling that focus and discipline.

00:28:37 And very importantly, I think the most important is the accountability. Everybody I was talking to Nick command, they have successfully rolled out s all the way down through their whole system. And everybody has something that's measured that they report on in their weekly, they call it an L 10 or level 10 meeting. The 10 being you'd like your score to be a 10 for the meeting.

00:29:02 But everybody rates it. That doesn't happen for a long time, but it keeps people focused. And that's where you start making that traction when everybody's executing the vision every day. And what you end up with is a more healthy functional team if your team buys in, you know, talking to Tim Slaughter over at Cado and you know, he said one of the most important things that he's learned is that you have to let EOS sink in,

00:29:31 then you have to buy in. So the sinking in is really what are the mechanics of Yeah. How does it work? You know, taking that one year goal and breaking it into what they, they call quarterly rocks, which are goals and then weekly components that, that you measure in, in these meetings. And you know, he was saying that once you have everybody bought in,

00:29:52 a few things happen. One is you're gonna have people self-select out of the team, Nick Brent Barn Hill over at Shift. And Tim and I all have seen that happen. Interesting. They don't like the structure. Yeah. Is that, what's The Yeah. It could be that they, they start thinking, Wow, this, this really isn't for me.

00:30:09 This isn't what I thought I was signing up for. And that's okay. Yeah. With, you know, if their skill sets better used somewhere else. Good. Thank you. We'll, you know, we'll, we'll fill with somebody who can follow the vision and, and so forth. And it, it's not a bad thing. I know when we started EOS at Office Evolution,

00:30:30 we sat down with our implementer, who is a certified person in the EOS system. It's like your business coach. You go to them for an annual planning meeting and then each quarter you have an update, help you plan the next quarter, make sure you're on track, make sure the integrator, and in our case me, is holding everybody in line and,

00:30:52 you know, sometimes helping the integrator real, the founder in, not that that would've happened there, but you know, it happens at places. Yeah. And it's real important, which it's so exciting. I, I jump around a bit, but we started out with I think seven people sitting at the leadership table. And within a quarter or so,

00:31:12 we were down to four of us at the table. And three of them we realized either were not in the right role that they should be in. You know, we talk about getting the right people on the bus, but then getting them in the right seat. So we did a little bit of experimenting with one of 'em, but she was not a good fit.

00:31:31 Two of 'em, they didn't self select, but they made it easy for us to, you know, have that hard discussion. You've gotta have when the organization needs to move on. So each of the, each of the folks I mentioned before have been through this kind of process and it's good. It keeps everybody focused. Well, and it provides clarity,

00:31:51 right? Because without those structures in place, the poor fit, maybe you kind of know, but they're sort of hidden because there's not the right accountability in what you described, you know, that you were, you know, showing at the conference, like, here's what we're doing this year, here's what we got done this year. Like those match.

00:32:10 And, and that is like a dream, right? For a business that's trying to grow, that you have a goal and you, you get there and when you're following that it becomes really clear where the week link, I don't, I don't know what you call it, but like where something doesn't fit in pursuing those goals, which can be hard,

00:32:29 but is so important because otherwise you can't get there. Yeah. I learned another benefit from that too. Jamie is franchise brands typically have a franchise advisory council. So it's made up of, you know, a typically elected franchisees. Typically they're about their operators strong voices. Yep. And it's not uncommon for them to be very demanding. And They know that's what,

00:32:54 you know, that's my perspective. Yeah. They, they wanna return, who Knows, Right? But they also are real quick to say, well, we need to do that. And taking the three things that I focused on at the conference, you know, which had some sub-components, but it was very clear. Yeah. I was able to tell them,

00:33:12 well gee, you know, we could do that, but which one of the three things that is a poor focus are we willing to move aside? And all of a sudden, you know, it's like, well, you know what, let's put that on the list to consider for next year. Or, you know, maybe if you could have some people doing a little research on it,

00:33:32 but yeah, you're right, let's focus on, you know, one, two, and three. So much value in that, you know, even from the person who is forced, even when you're just doing it internally and you don't have that external pressure. Like that's what I struggle with, with the process. I would always say that to my teammate,

00:33:48 Kristin, okay, I'm only supposed to have three to five rocks. I have like 17, which is not realistic. You cannot get 17 things done in a quarter. So No, you can't. And, and if you can, did you do them well? You know, Right. Meaty things. Yeah. It's brutal focus. It's hard. And to your point,

00:34:12 when you first implement it, I think this is kind what you're talking about with like, sort of, you know, how it shakes out and who ends up staying. It's like, it's also not that easy to get good at it. I remember the book saying like, you'll feel like you're not good at these meetings for a while and then at some point,

00:34:28 cause you're not right, you're not. But someday you'll, you'll get better at them. So it's okay if your grade isn't outta 10 for some period of time. And, and you mentioned the book just so know. Yeah. S comes from a book called Traction that is written by a guy named G Wickman. And he basically took a lot of principles that were in a lot of other business management type books and really distilled the system and,

00:34:56 and it's really good. And you mentioned the gwa, you know, our annual plan, I'm sure you can't really see it, but there's something called a vto and you do your one year plan, you do your quarterly rocks, you have an issues list, you do the three and 10 year plan and it really makes you concentrate on, if we really wanna be here,

00:35:19 what are the step stones that we need to have in place to get there. And sometimes it weeds out a lot of the stuff that's more noise than anything else. But also I think entrepreneurs, aside from shiny objects tend to be overly optimistic. And so, you know, very grand visions about where we might be in three years. And so if you have to really kind of build that up and say,

00:35:43 well then what needs to happen? And you force yourself through that framework, it becomes more realistic and achievable. You end up with something achievable, which I suspect is actually really a strong recruiting and retention tool once you have that in place, because A, you have a lot of clarity around where the gaps are, but also when you hire people, everybody's on the same page about what you're trying to accomplish.

00:36:08 And recruits get the sense like, oh, this is a very focused company where things are happening and I think you wanna be Yeah. A part of that. Hey, I just wanted to jump in really quickly before we continue with our discussion. If you're working on opening a Coworking space, I wanna invite you to join me for my free masterclass. Three behind the Scene Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space.

00:36:33 If you're working on opening a Coworking space. I wanna share the three decisions that I've seen successful operators make when they're creating their Coworking business. The masterclass is totally free, it's about an hour and includes some q and a. If you'd like to join me, you can register at Everything Coworking dot com slash masterclass. If you already have a Coworking space,

00:36:56 I wanna make sure you know about Community Manager University Community Manager University is a training and development platform for community managers and it can be for owner operators. It has content training resources, templates from day one to general manager. The platform includes many courses that cover the major buckets of the Community Manager role from community management operations, sales and marketing, finance and leadership.

00:37:24 The content is laid out in a graduated learning path, so the Community Manager can identify what content is most relevant to them depending on their experience and kind of jump in from there. We provide a live brand new training every single month for the Community Manager group. We also host a live q and a call every single month so that the community managers can work through any challenges that they're having or opportunities get ideas from other community managers,

00:37:53 build their own peer network. We also have a private Slack group for the group, so if you're interested in learning more, you can go to Everything Coworking dot com slash Community Manager. Yeah. And how many times have all of us accepted a role somewhere and you got in the job, it's like, wait a minute, that's not what we talked about.

00:38:16 And yeah. Let's all this stuff. Yeah. You know, like the executive director job. No, I'm kidding. Well that might be fair, although I will argue you probably knew what you were getting into there. Yeah, I had a little tip, but You Know, it, it really is a good system and it focuses what is your vision and,

00:38:40 and you know, you, you talk about taking some time and we talked about Tim Slaughter saying, you know, you gotta let it soak in and, and you know, then, then really completely buy in. But Nick over its said, you know, one of one of their values was get rest, you know, stay rested or get plenty rest.

00:38:59 And they realized over time that's not really a, a value. And you know, he, it's funny, he was telling me, he goes, Yeah, so we'd have our meetings and then we'd go out for drinks afterwards and you know, I don't know what we were doing, but we certainly weren't getting rested. Right. You Know. Exactly.

00:39:15 So what I loved is he, he said, you know, we took a step back and thought about, well how, how do we get there was, it was along the lines of do whatever it takes. And that has resonated so well with their team that a bunch of his team members got tattooed on the inside of their lip, do whatever it takes or,

00:39:35 Oh no, I'm sorry. Day maker is what they put in there cuz they want to make your day and they do whatever it takes to do that. Yeah. I don't recommend that, by the way, Even that like the sort of the do whatever it takes or, or, you know, philosophy is not for everyone. And so the fact that they have that clarity and they can talk about that when they're recruiting,

00:39:55 then folks can self-select out of that, that mentality. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's better to know on the front end than on the back end. But you know, people get to hear candidates. What's your vision? What kind of people do you have in your organization? What data do you use and measure? I mean, that's real important to be successful in a role.

00:40:17 What issues are there and, and what are your processes that help get you that traction for your business? So it all works really well together and it does take time. Yeah. It right, it takes time and discipline. So, so related to that, if somebody is interested in, you know, starting EOS and they're not using it now, is there a team that you think is just too small for the approach?

00:40:43 I mean the GWA was fairly small, so I'd I'd love to have you talk Yeah. Just kind of like how do people get started if they wanna find, and you are also certified, which is somewhat new. Actually my next step is an official certification. I've completed the, gosh, what's it called? I'm one step before that and working towards the certification.

00:41:04 Okay, Got it. I'm a graduate of the masterclass and really, really excellent. But I hope companies, you know, decide on, is it right for you? You know, you talk about the, what's the sweet spot? You know, some people say it's 25 employees to 200, typically it's an entrepreneur led company. Those are guidelines, not rules.

00:41:27 What I would tell you is if you have a big enough organization where somebody can be the integrator, that person who keeps the train running on time, It's ideal. Yeah. Keeps, Keeps the, I think that was the problem I was having implementing it was I am like the, the scroll chaser, but I was playing the role of integrator and trying to rein myself in at the same time.

00:41:49 Which is not really how it's supposed to work. It's hard to be both, right? I mean it's, you know, you're this, but on the other hand you're this and Yeah. What I would say is that there are companies that self implement, but what I find is that, you know, they read the book, they download some of the tools that are online@eos.com

00:42:09 and they try it on their own. The problem is, is that there tends to be leniency there. There still tends to be shiny objects. Yep. Those kinds of things. And that feeling that we're not doing this right. Is it working? Is it because it's hard at the beginning. Yep. And there are people like me that coach companies and help them get up to speed.

00:42:30 And for example, I've helped companies actually being a fractional member of their team where technically everybody reports up into the integrator who reports to the visionary. So it would be holding that leadership L 10 every week. It would be the point person for all of those people. And then I would help them put together their L 10 tens for their team. So that weekly meeting Okay.

00:42:55 Where everything's measured in scored and, and put into goals. So you can have somebody who's fractional, you can have somebody who's full-time, you can have somebody who really just helps you roll it out. And then there are professional implementers and the, the three groups that I mentioned earlier, as well as office evolution use these implementers and they're another step higher in the US chain and they don't work with your team on a daily basis.

00:43:25 I mean the, they'll take your calls and coach and that kind of thing, but their main function is to help you get your one year, three year and 10 year plan done at an annual meeting. Yep. And then meet with you for what they call a quarterly pulse. So your pulse each quarter. And it's good because even as an integrator,

00:43:44 you know, trying to follow the system every now and then you get to get realigned and Totally those people are good at doing it and bringing stories of other companies best demonstrated practices with Them. Right. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Sid is on the board. She, they have an implementer that they work with for their, and their team is growing.

00:44:04 And so I'm sure there's a tremendous amount of value for them and I know a few other people who, who do that. And I think there's a lot of value in making that investment because Right. We sometimes are not as good as we think we're gonna be at at DIYing things. Yeah. It's not as simple as a short YouTube video to fix the the dryer.

00:44:26 Right. Exactly. So, okay, First step is by the book Yeah. And read through the book and then what would you recommend for somebody who's thinking about it? Yeah, I would traction's a little clunky to read. That's what they recommend to read. But there's one that that's really geared more towards the employees. But I find it a good introduction.

00:44:45 It's called, What the Heck is eos? Oh, okay. And to me it's a little easy to read. Okay. Once you decide you wanna do it, you know, you've gotta decide, are we gonna bring in an implementer on the EOS site? There's an implementer finder depending where you live. I may be able to help you find that implementer that does the annual in the four times a year.

00:45:09 I've helped some people who are self implementing by serving a set role. And I've actually been, as I mentioned, fractional integrator for some companies. Typically it takes two years to really get us totally smooth. Not totally smooth, but Yeah. You know, running like a champ then you can see benefits almost immediately. Totally. Yeah. Just, yeah.

00:45:35 I, yes, A really good other thing is there's a boat called Rocket Fuel and this is, it's all about the dynamic between that entrepreneurial founder, the visionary, and the integrator. And there's some really great tips there how to, how to help make it work. And, you know, it's really hard for somebody who founded a company to let go of anything.

00:45:58 And I've, I've been at multiple companies where, you know, you have to earn the respect of the founder, but sometimes you still have to pull the, to get that and you gotta build the trust, but you've gotta have the full buy-in as, as several of the folks have mentioned. Yeah, I love that. I'm just sticking those two books in the show notes because I have not heard of what the heck is eos,

00:46:23 but I did read Rocket Fuel and it really helps. Yeah. If you're especially or if you're an in denial founder who thinks you're an integrator or don't yet know you need an integrator, it's, it's really helpful even just to read it, to get the perspective of like, where do I fit? Am I an integrator or am I the visionary? And what do those roles look like?

00:46:43 Yeah, I love that. Exactly. Yeah. I actually, I prefer to listen to these on, on some of the audible Mm. Yeah. Audible's where I listen to 'em. But what I've found is that I like to go back into the book and kinda mark it up and put post-it notes and, you know, have things that I like to refer to.

00:47:04 Yep, totally. Yeah, exactly. I do the same. I'll listen and then write, go make my notes or sometimes write myself notes if I'm like walking the dogs and listening to something and, you know, open up my little notes app and, and make notes. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. This has been super helpful. William, if folks are interested in,

00:47:24 in what you're working on and getting some of your particular support, where do we find you? How do people reach out to you? I'm gonna give you the easiest way to reach me, which is just go to go to my email, which is william l edmundson edms gmail.com, or I welcome people to connect with me on on LinkedIn. On on LinkedIn.

00:47:48 Of course there's my, my background and some of the success stories that, that I've had helping companies out or grow or scale. So I welcome people to check me out there. Okay, perfect. I put your email address in the show notes as well, and the show notes are always on the Everything Coworking website. So if you're listening and you're driving and you can't write down the email address,

00:48:09 you can always find it there. Okay. William, let's end with a bigger picture question, which is, what excites you the most about the Coworking flexible office industry right now? Oh my gosh. We had like this super duper accelerant with Covid. Yeah. That we, we all knew that the way people work was gonna change, but this is amazing and we could see it at the GWA conference,

00:48:36 you know, now all of a sudden we've got the commercial real estate and building owners and so forth and our longer term plans of widening the tent or, or accelerating because it's reality. If you don't believe that the flexible office is the future, then you're, you're in denial. You have your earmuffs on. Yep. Two ways about it. What I think is gonna happen coming back to my,

00:49:01 my previous career is, you know, I was fortunate enough to see the hotel industry break into segmentation. And what I mean by that is not everybody wants to pay the same or expects the same, you know, do I love a Ritz Carlton or a, or a Conrad Hotel? Yeah. Who, who wouldn't, but, you know, is a,

00:49:26 is a Hampton Inn outstanding and meets my needs every time? Sure. But what we're gonna see is we're gonna see different types of companies and people at different levels within all companies are gonna have different needs based on what they do and so forth. Some people are just gonna have to go to the office. I mean, you know, you can't take your,

00:49:47 your factory with you or whatever. But we're going to see segmentation, we're gonna see different levels of amenities, we're gonna see all of those things. And there's gonna be a shakeout, there'll be some consolidation. There'll be companies that rebrand. That's something that I had some good experience in the hotel industry with reinventing Hampton ends. And it's just a reality.

00:50:12 Companies are going to have to do that and needs have changed. So I'm so excited about all of the changes that are gonna be coming and just the pace at which I think it's going to happen. It's happening. There's a lot happening and it's happening fast. Absolutely. Yeah. I got It. Absolutely. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for everything that you do for the industry and for sharing your perspective.

00:50:35 You have, you do have a unique, I love what Michelle said, You might be the only person on this planet that's, you bring a really unique perspective to the table from your experience. And I have a feeling the next few years are gonna be pretty exciting for you as well. I am sure that it will be exciting for all of us.

00:50:52 Jamie. Yeah. And I did wanna do one shameless plug for the GWA plug away. You're already a member. What's holding you back? Come on. And you can go to global workspace.org and sign up. You can also, we've got the dates for our conference or next September in there. And we actually are, are hoping that people will sign up early and you know,

00:51:18 I think we did a great job on content. We had some fantastic folks. Jamie, you're always so helpful in, in helping us make that happen. It takes a village. I mean that that's, Oh my god, it does indeed. Yeah. We're like s carrying something to the mound. But make sure you that you come to the next one.

00:51:39 If you didn't see this one, sorry you missed out. It was a lot of fun. Jamie, thank you for your time. Thank you for all of your listeners. And you know, feel free to reach out to me, email, or over LinkedIn. Perfect. Thank you William. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you like what you heard,

00:52:01 tell a friend, hit that subscribe button and leave us a rating and review. It makes a huge difference in helping others like you find us. If you'd like to learn more about our education and coaching programs, head over to Everything Coworking dot com. We'll see you next week.

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