So today I had the AMAZING opportunity to speak with a business owner, and EOS Implementation expert, Keith Quattlebaum. Keith works with businesses to help them do something extremely important… set and accomplish their goals! Using the EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) to create a vision for their company and break it down into clear goals that their team can work towards.

Keith was kind enough to share with me many of the strategies he uses to help teams accomplish this! These EOS strategies have been used by thousands of businesses with outstanding results.

Here are 6 tips for setting goals with your team AND getting everyone onboard [FREE PDF]

1. Include Your Leadership Team In Your Vision Creation 

We have probably all heard of the importance of having a vision… that's where it all starts. However, one of the KEY aspects Keith has stressed, is that there is a LARGE difference between the business owner having a vision and the entire leadership team having a vision. If the entire leadership team isn’t on the same page with the vision, it probably will never happen. Too often Keith sees teams when each member has a slightly different vision for the company and is working in different directions. This causes lots of inefficiencies and wasted efforts. So it is critical that the leadership team is a part of the vision creation.

It is also really important to include them because you will use the company vision to form business goals. By including them in the goal creation process you can make sure everyone is on the same page and can, therefore, be held accountable to do their part. Or as Keith says, “by including the leadership team in this process, it leaves nowhere for anyone to hide.”

When getting started with your vision, Keith first likes to have businesses reflect on some deep questions… who are they? What are they in business for? What are they wanting to accomplish? What are their values?

Although it may seem strange answering questions like this because it appears the answers should be obvious… it is often not the case. Actually, in most cases, each member of the leadership team answers these questions differently!

2. Quantify Your Vision

After the leadership team takes time to answer these questions, he helps them put together a 10-year target. By doing this, it gives the team the opportunity to envision together where they want the future to look like. What do you want the company to look like in 10 years? What do you want to accomplish? Keith has leadership groups quantify this vision by answering these three questions:

1. What is the date you want to accomplish this? (This should be 10-years out)
2. What do you want your yearly revenue to be in 10 years?
3. What do you want your yearly profit to be?

Although your purpose for your business may be much larger than the financials that these questions bring up, if you truly took time to understand how the service you provide is helping with this purpose, you should be able to connect how these business metrics will reflect the impact you are making.

After you have created your 10-year target, develop a 3-year picture by answering the same questions but this time for 3 years out. Keith says 3-years is the perfect amount of time to focus on because it is close enough that you can see the end, but it is still enough time to make a HUGE change.

Since the 3-year picture will affect much more what you doing now, it is important to come up with specific measurables besides revenue and profit. What will you do that will create this revenue? Maybe it is the number of clients, a number of sales, or a number of locations… whatever it is, it should be quantifiable and should be the driving force that leads you to your revenue and profit.

3. Create Your 1-Year Goals

When it comes to setting goals, Keith often says “less is more.” One of the large problems businesses often face is trying to do too much! This causes them to not be able to accomplish what is most impactful.

Look over your vision and think about what are 3-7 of the MOST impactful goals you can accomplish this year that will make the biggest impact toward your 3-year vision? (again… less is more! Maybe lean more towards the 3 goals rather than 7).

Lots of times we create large lists of goals at the beginning of the year and it spreads our focus too thin, causing us stress and limiting us to make any significant progress on any of our goals!

4. Break Your Goals Down Into Business “Rocks” For The Quarter

Let's start with the business rocks…

Keith has explained rocks as being projects or milestones that will move you in the direction of your yearly goal. These should be things you can accomplish over a 90 day period.

What are 3-7 (again less is more) rocks your business can accomplish this quarter that will make the biggest impact towards your 1-year goals? By limiting your focus to three, it will help make sure you are truly focusing on what is most important. This may be hard to limit yourself to only 3-7, so to help, Keith recommends making a list of all the projects you would like to do that quarter, and then organize the list using the Keep, Kill, Combine process… Deciding which activities to keep on the list, which to eliminate (kill) and which can be combined with another.

This refining process is SUPER important! Again, most of the time (as ironic as it seems) businesses don’t accomplish their goals because they were trying to do too much! Use this process to narrow your focus.

5. Create Rocks For Each Person On Your Team

Now that you have the 3-7 rocks for the business this quarter, you need to each come up with 3-7 rocks for yourself and each individual on your leadership team. These should be things that will move you toward your business rocks. For example, maybe a business rock is launching a new product line… the rock for your marketing director may be to finish the marketing campaign for the product, the R&D director might have the rock of finishing the product design, and so on.

It is extremely important that each individual share what their 3-7 rocks are with the team… that way they can be held accountable.

If you need help figuring out what your rocks are… again use the Keep, Kill, Combine method. Because similar to before, less is MORE! Try to choose only the 3 rocks that will make the largest impact on the business.

6. Develop A Way To Grade Yourself

This is SO IMPORTANT!!!

You need to develop a way each person, and the business, can quantifiably grade themselves on their progress.  What are the specific activities you can grade yourself on to make sure you are staying on track to hit your rocks?

When making these measurements, make sure they are activities or results that are not dependant on anyone else. For example, if you are in charge of sales, you would not measure yourself on the number of sales you close, but rather the prospecting calls you made (which will naturally lead to more sales). Because you are not always in control of whether people buy… however you CAN control how many customers you call on.

Set a goal for these measurables, and then track your progress so you can make sure you are taking the necessary actions to reach your goal. It will create an easy way for each member of the group to be held accountable and determine if they are on track or not.

Use this to hold each other accountable!

These measurements will be used to quickly hold each other accountable during your weekly meetings. This is something an EOS implementer like Keith can help you put together and organize in an effective way so that each meeting is highly effective, and quick! Having an easy way like this to keep each other and on track can often be what determines if you hit the goal or not. Learn more about this here.

Next Steps

The beauty of following this process that Keith shares is that everyone is included in the process of creating the vision and goals… AND, probably even more importantly, everyone leaves with “rocks”... measurable things they must do that will lead to hitting the business goals. Everyone has a clear way to hold themselves and each other accountable.

Download Free PDFs

Kieth has been nice enough to share with us two resources for free to get started! Including the first chapter of "What The Heck Is EOS" by Gino Wickman and the Level 10 Meeting™ Agenda. Download them here.

So, let's put this process to work! Download the free resources now and get started!

I have started following this process with my own business and it has been extremely helpful! It took my business goals to a whole new level of clarity. Learn more about the process here and set up a quick call with Keith... he's an expert!

About Keith Quattlebaum

With 20+ years of successfully leading teams and companies, Keith started Aligned Vision Works so that he can serve and help more business owners and their teams get what they want from their businesses and lives. Throughout his career, Keith has worked in leadership and executive roles across diverse industries. With years of experience filling and leading every aspect of business operations he now helps organizations implement EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System). By aligning ownership and the leadership team towards their vision, keeping them focused, and using knowledge from past successes and failures, Keith will make sure you get the most out of your business and life.

In the simplest form, Keith helps you discover your Aligned Vision that Works to create clarity for success! Schedule a quick call with Keith here.