If you’ve implemented EOS within your business, you’ve built a great foundation for success…but graduating from EOS doesn’t mean that it’s time to sit back and relax. On the contrary, implementing the disciplines of EOS is only the first step in the journey toward steady, predictable revenue growth.

What is EOS?

EOS is a framework that guides small businesses through the process of building a smart, disciplined, and growing organization. Developed by Gino Wickman and outlined in his book, Traction, this framework has been used by tens of thousands of businesses. 

As a business strategy consultant, I recommend that every business owner read this book, but I also urge you to go above and beyond EOS if you truly want to enjoy long-term business success (and who doesn’t?).

What Do You Do When You Graduate from EOS?

If you’ve implemented EOS with the help of a certified implementer (teacher), then you’re probably around 18 months (longer if you’re self-implementing) into the process and you’ve established the basic disciplines to get traction in your business. 

During that time, you will have built the disciplines around: 

• Annual and Quarterly Planning Sessions
• Rocks (quarterly goals)
• Weekly Level 10 Meetings
• The Right People in the Right Seats

At that point, you’ve “graduated”.  

Whether you’re working with someone or going at it alone, the really exciting work begins after you graduate from EOS.

Post-Graduation is When the Real Magic Happens – Here’s What to Focus On

When you’ve implemented EOS, you’ve laid the groundwork for six critical components of your business and developed some habits necessary to grow your company. 

As a B2B business consultant, I love working with businesses that are already running great meetings, understand what they’re accountable for, and have dashboards with data, because that means we can focus on levelling up different aspects of the business instead of building the foundational disciplines.

Here are a few things you should focus on after graduating from EOS to build an even better business and develop significant momentum in your growth. 

Level Up Your Execution Disciplines

EOS does a great job of helping businesses set up key execution disciplines like dashboards and weekly leadership meetings. 

Now it’s time for further clairty. 

Do you find that execution on your rocks isn’t quite what you’d like?  Leveling up your quarterly priorities with more detail and a 13-week plan makes accountability simpler and less subjective.  

Differentiate, Differentiate, Differentiate 

Strategy is not covered in EOS in any meaningful way. In my work with clients, strategy is all about competitive differentiation. When your business reaches a certain point, your success (and maybe even survival) depends on your ability to set yourself apart from the competition and build it into your strategy for the next several years. 

Dive Deeper into Vision and Culture

The clearer your vision for your company is, the more people will buy into it. That’s why I take my post-EOS clients much deeper than the simple metrics they established, to brainstorm with the team in meticulous detail what they want their company to be like.

We also dig much deeper into company culture, beyond merely defining the mission, purpose statement, and values. We go a step further to embed the behaviours they drive into the DNA of the organization to ensure that they are not just words on a website.

More Granular Focus on Systemizing the Business

Again, EOS’s proven process is a great starting point – but eventually, you need to go deeper to create consistent, scalable results. With EOS, you defined a 5 to 10-step customer journey. Now it’s time to look at the processes within that journey and create a high-level systemization of that to make it super clear.

Focus on Growth

Now that you’ve got your basic disciplines down, it’s time to drive growth by developing crystal-clear branding, marketing, and sales processes. The surest way to drive predictable revenue growth is to have a structured methodology for marketing (for increased lead flow) and selling (for increased conversion rate).

I can’t emphasize enough how important a proven sales methodology is for increasing both warm and cold sales. This includes fine-tuning processes for things like follow-up, nurturing the customer, analysis, and more. Your customer journey must be clearly mapped so that your entire team is aligned in a way that creates impact.

Driving Accountability is Crucial for Improving Every Aspect of Your Business

Now that you know what to focus on after you graduate from EOS, you need to drive accountability everywhere along the way. To understand why this is important, it’s helpful to use a sports analogy. 

Every great team (or team that wants to be great) has a coach. The coach is not the one on the field or court doing the actual work. The coach is on the sidelines motivating the team and driving them to excellence by creating a culture of accountability. A coach helps the athletes with their disciplines by giving them a clear reflection when they fail and a massive high-five when they’re successful!

That coach is the valuable resource you lose when you graduate from EOS. As much progress as you’ve made on your business, you lose the voice of experience that is there to guide you when you need to do better or to cheer you on when it comes to your successes.

That’s where a business strategy consultant or coach like me comes in. The way to deepen your focus on each crucial discipline for your business is with the help of a coach who can help you accelerate your progress and drive you forward past graduation.

EOS is a fantastic methodology that gets you to the starting line for doing some really good work with your business. I recommend every entrepreneur read and implement EOS to start their journey. What you eventually need to drive your business forward is to dive deeper.

If you’re eager to go faster to see steady progress with your business, give me a call. I’d be happy to help you through this exciting phase.