Episode 241 – Solving Your Biggest Business Problems with EOS: Featuring Jillian Mittelmark

Episode Transcription

This is the Ultimate Advisor Podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful and scalable practice. Each week we’ll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets and create the advising practice that you’ve dreamed of. You’ll be joined by our hosts Bryan Sweet, who is moving fast towards a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redfern who can help you systematize and automate your practices marketing to effortlessly attract new clients. So what do you say? Let’s jump into another amazing episode of The Ultimate Advisor Podcast.

Brittany Anderson 1:07

Welcome back to The Ultimate Advisor Podcast Brittany Anderson here you are in for a treat in for complete delight. I have with me today Jillian Mittelmark, Jillian works with growth minded entrepreneurs to help them build stronger businesses. She is the founder of resolve works a firm that provides fractional accounting support for growth minded entrepreneurial organizations, and is also a professional EOS implementer. Working with entrepreneurs on a journey to help them strengthen their business and live even better lives. What she’s discovered is that many growing organizations face a similar challenge. They lack the critical infrastructure to help them scale I’m sure some of you tuning in, are starting to nod your heads. They simply don’t have a framework to organize their ideas manage their teams and communicate their vision. Instead, they struggle with communication lack role definition, mismanaged priorities and don’t feel empowered to make decisions as an advocate for the EOS system. Ever since her early introductory years through it, it became an integral part of the way she ran her business and communicated with her clients. Eventually that path letter to becoming a professional EOS implementer, a service which she now provides to resolve works clients and any other entrepreneurial company that is feeling stuck and wants to build a stronger business. Her journey with ELS taught her that even the simple solutions can lead to profound transformations. Now she is passionate about helping others in their entrepreneurial journey, so they too can get what they want from their business. Jillian, welcome to the show.

Jillian Mittelmark 2:47
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Brittany Anderson 2:49
Well, Jillian, I am just forever wowed and impressed with your long list of credentials and the success that not only that you’ve created for yourself, but for others. So I want to cut right to the chase. Why should somebody consider integrating or implementing ELS in their business?

JM 3:06
Honestly, EOS is it’s this simple set of tools that can just give profound transformations to business. And, and what I mean by that is, entrepreneurs just struggle so often with managing 150 issues that are, you know, bubbling up every day in their day to day business. And EOS is the simple, proven tools that essentially help the businesses align on six key components of Eos, and it helps them build stronger businesses. So some of the key aspects of it include helping them align on a long term vision, getting everyone on the team 100% aligned with where the business is going, and how it’s going to get there, creating this sense of accountability in the organization, creating that discipline so that people are executing on that vision day in and day out. And then creating a healthy, cohesive and functional leadership team, which means that they’re open and honest, they’re willing to be vulnerable. They’re able to address those issues as they arise in their business. And that’s really what businesses struggle with. So to the extent that the the company can get aligned and move forward and build that business, it can have profound transformations on a struggling business and getting the business to where the owners actually want it to be.

BA 4:24
You know, there’s a word in there Jillian, that jumps out that you said and it was accountability. I’ve joked before and for anybody who is listening in right now, you know that over the years, if you’ve been following us for any period of time, we’ve talked a lot about EOS. This is something that we strongly believe in and that we’ve seen the just massive leaps and bounds of growth that people are experiencing going through this. So going back to my point on accountability, sometimes that can be looked at as a swear word. within an organization people are like oh great, you know, here comes the accountability. Police So what am I gonna get in trouble for today? So I would love your perspective on what does accountability actually mean under the ELS model? And how is it actually really a positive thing?

JM 5:10
Yeah, so the main examples that I can give on accountability are twofold. So one is that, with the ELS process, people are assigned 90 Day priorities. And where this helps is that, you know, the vision is aligned on where it wants to get and say, you know, one year, three years, 10 years from now, we develop those priorities to help people stay on track to reach those goals. And every single week, there’s a cadence of coming together as a team, to get a temperature check to see where we are on those goals to make sure that those 90 Day priorities are on pace. And if they’re not on pace, then that gives the opportunity for people to have discussions about that, where they might be falling short, what challenges they’re running into. And it helps keep people accountable to themselves for keeping on track with what they’ve committed to for that 90 day period, and also accountable to others, that people are expecting that work to be done. So that’s a really great example of it. And then another is on this weekly cadence. ELS also implements what we call a meeting pulse. And that meeting pulse, again, is a time for the team to come together, the rocks are reviewed at that session. But there’s also this culture of accountability with taking two dues and takeaways tasks for a certain week. And then every single week, we come around and we ask ourselves is what we committed to last week, done this week. And if it’s not done, why, and then we discuss it. And again, it just creates the sense of keeping the business moving forward, keeping people on track with what they’ve committed to. And what I’ve my experience has been is that people actually really appreciate this, it’s not so much of that the accountability police, so to speak, but it’s, it’s people knowing that if another team member in the organization has committed to do something that it’s actually going to get done. And that overall, that helps everyone, you know, run a better business.

BA 7:17
Yeah, you know, I think you bring up such a great point too, in just that, that consistent meeting cadence and those kind of pulse checks, call it, you know, I can speak for myself here. And I know I can speak on behalf of many other entrepreneurs that I know are business owners that are guilty of drive by delegation, I have done this so many times where I’m going a million miles an hour, moving from one thought to the next, and I delegate in a really ineffective way. And then I’ll come back and be like, Well, why isn’t this done? And they’re like, Well, I didn’t know I was supposed to take action. And then my head immediately is like, Wait, how Didn’t you know that I thought I was clear. And they’re like, well, I need more information and the cycle goes on. So I think that what you’re talking about here structurally, really helps avoid that kind of interaction that we know happens a heck of a lot out there.

JM 8:08
Yeah, the feedback that we get from a lot of entrepreneurs is that prior to implementing Eos, you know, meetings were something that were seen as a waste of time or something that people dreaded going to. But with the EOS structure, the feedback that we get is that a lot of entrepreneurs, they look forward to those meetings, they want to go to this meeting, because it’s a it is the framework that helps organize everything in the business, and you can get through in a very efficient fashion. And everybody is on the same page with exactly what the takeaways are, what the discussion is, and where the priorities are for the week.

BA 8:44
Yeah, you know, one thing that I admire Jillian too, is there’s a big difference between call it being a coach or somebody who advocates for some sort of structure or program versus somebody who’s actually living, eating, sleeping, breathing, you know, their own business, too. So I think it just helps deepen the ability to help others implement because of the fact that you have your own business that you are running on a day to day basis, you know, outside of Eos, too. So I would love for our audience members for context to know a little bit more about your fractional CFO services. Can What are you doing? How are you changing the game? And how do you support people?

JM 9:25
Sure, yeah. So my fractional accounting firm. We essentially we provide support for growing organizations that need that full scope of the financial team, but they don’t need any one particular role on a full time basis. So what we do is we provide everything from basic bookkeeping work to controllership to advisory level CFO, we pair a team of people with the organization and then they base basically become their their finance team. So we work very closely in helping them establish what the what the technology tools are We’re going to be using, what their workflows are, what their best practices are. Oftentimes, we have the CFO sitting as a member of the leadership team. But we’re very engaged in collaborative with those companies essentially, sitting in that seat until they’re at a point where they’re ready to hire to internally, they’ve grown to a point where it makes sense to bring it internally. And then we help them transition to that. But with that, of course, you know, we’ve worked with all different types of entrepreneurs, we work with everything from bootstrapped founders, to closely held family businesses to venture backed startups, scaling really quickly raising millions in funding. And so we’ve consistently seen that there’s a lot of, you know, the same themes that we see over and over with those issues and challenges that businesses run into.

BA 10:46
So it’s interesting because you know, of your work within within resolve works, but also within your ELS platform, you do get to see people that are maybe call it at their darkest, right, they’re struggling, there’s a reason that they decided that this infrastructure needed to change or something needed enhanced. So I would be curious if you could pinpoint it down to kind of one or two core issues per se? Where do you see business owners or entrepreneurs hitting that ceiling of complexity? Like, where are they consistently banging their head against the ceiling?

JM 11:24
So I’d say it’s two areas. Number one is people understanding how to get the right people on the team to help you achieve your long term vision. So in Eos, what we teach is how to get the right people in the right seats. And so getting the right people is all about defining what core values are what those mean to your organization. And then right seats, it’s making sure that the people that you have on your team are good at their job and executing well. And we teach that you have to have both the right people and have them in the right seats. So a lot of companies that we work with they struggle, this is often a lightbulb moment for Pete for entrepreneurs, when we start talking about getting the right people in the right seats, because oftentimes, the frustrations of their challenges that they’re feeling are due to not having the right team in place. So I’d say that that’s one area and then the other is getting the team aligned on what that long term vision is. So often, it just lives in the the founders head or the CEOs head, and if not communicated well amongst the team. So getting everyone on that leadership team aligned with what that long term goal is, and getting an action plan in place on how the team is going to get there. That’s another thing that really speaks to people on the easy framework with which we implement to help the team down that pack.

BA 12:54
So absolutely, I think you hit the nail on the head, you know, team, frustrations, issues, whatever are something that we see consistently with our coaching members, our mastermind members, people that come into our community, they’re submitting questions in the podcast, I mean, team is consistently what we see across the board. You know, if managing people were easy, everybody would do it. And managing, you know, processes and projects were easy. Everybody would be very efficient. And I like to use the adage that it might be simple, but it’s not easy. So you know, thinking about your dynamic with teams, what is one thing or one step that somebody could take to maybe help them start thinking about, you know, what does that team structure change look like? Where do I even start? How do I begin thinking about this? What’s some groundwork you could provide?

JM 13:46
Yeah, I’d say at the beginning, understanding what the core values are of your organization, I think is definitely the right starting point. So digging deep down into what what is what is the culture of your organization? What do you what is important to you as a company, and then kind of assessing your team to see whether or not those people align with what your core values are? Then the next thing is to make sure that everyone clearly has defined what their roles and responsibilities are in the organization. That’s another thing that we teach as we go into a deep dive exercise about how to, like build out the structure of the organization, and we call it an accountability chart. But if I was to recommend, you know, a nice starting point for someone is to make sure that people’s jobs are clearly defined. That’s another really frustrating area for people is when the organization doesn’t know who’s responsible for what, and then oftentimes, things just get dropped because there’s no sense of accountability. Going back to that word about, you know, who’s responsible for taking action on something. So I’d say that those are two areas that can really make an impact when when thinking about About the team structure.

BA 15:02
You know, I think about one thing in particular, when you are talking about job descriptions and roles and people understanding, you know, really what their responsibilities are. There’s this adage that I like to use is we have to help people understand how to win. You know, I think immediately when you think about the reassignment of duties, or structure changes in a company, people often tend to go to the negative side, like, oh, I have so much work to do. And it’s like, well, yeah, there’s a lot that needs to get done. But at the same time, you’re really just showing people how they can hit a home run every day, how do they leave their desk, leave the office feeling like, wow, I really contributed to something that was more than just, you know, checking a couple things off the list, it’s being part of that bigger picture, which is what we appreciate so much about EOS. So Jillian, I want to I’m gonna switch gears a little bit here and ask maybe something more along the lines of your personal journey. So when you think back to, you know, your your path as a business owner, what is one of the most difficult lessons that you’ve learned? And it could be business completely? Or it could be kind of open to life?

JM 16:09
Yeah, yeah, I think one of the most difficult lessons I learned was actually, at the very beginning, when I was starting, starting the business, you know, working from going from that comfort of a W two job and having that, you know, that just the comfort of going to a place of business every day, and then starting out and going on your own, there’s a lot of pressure to get things, right, there’s a lot of pressure to understand what you’re doing. And that was definitely a fear that I had to overcome and learn how to work through that. You know, and the way I did it at that point was to set goals for what I wanted out of that business and take the leap of faith and the opportunity at that time had presented itself meat to me where it would have been, you know, I would have been very disappointed with myself later on down the line had I not taken that opportunity. So I knew that I just had to kind of like push through that fear, and work to, you know, educate myself as much as possible to be quite honest about how to how to run the business, relied a lot on thought leaders to other people that have been started firms and getting insights from them, and then continuing to grow my skill set in terms of the technology tools out there for how to build a firm, and really relying on that until the that client base started kicking in and started moving forward.

BA 17:34
So when you started out, I would imagine it was probably like a one woman band, where you’re wearing multiple hats at one time, and you’re just kind of doing whatever it takes to get the job done. So were there certain benchmarks that you can think of where you made a great hire, and it really helped, you know, be become a catalyst for your growth, or you delegated off a bunch of things, or one main thing that you were doing that you were getting in your own way, like talk a little bit about that journey?

JM 18:02
Yeah, it was the it was all of the, you know, the first major hires that I did was hiring a team of account. bookkeepers is where I started, being able to get all of that day to day activity that we’re doing for clients. Because the volume of that as more and more clients started adding on the volume of those little things, those they add up, right. So at some point, you reach capacity, and you’re not able to service everyone, any all of those any longer. So this is you know about being able to delegate down and get rid of those things, and let other people on the team handle those. So my first hires were definitely delegating to an accounting staff that could take care of all of that day to day work for our clients. And then I started elevating myself and the business, being able to focus on those higher level strategic elements that was more in my wheelhouse for those clients. And then again, as the business continued to grow, and my team continued expanding, you know, as we’re building out our org structure, you know, we have many, many boxes, and then my name’s sitting in a lot of boxes. And to continue growing, we have to start moving names, you know, getting other people’s names in those boxes. So one of the key hires that I actually made just in the past year, was bringing on a Director of Finance to manage my entire accounting team, so that I don’t have to manage the day to day accounting of the entire team. And then again, that I’m elevating myself another level up in the business to be able to focus on the strategic aspects of my own business or working on my business instead of in that business day to day.

BA 19:44
So when you think back and I’m going to give this analogy here, I was listening to a gentleman do a presentation and he was in the real estate business. And he was talking about how you know, when he got started, he kind of was that jack of all trades, doing all the things And then he said he got smart. And finally, instead of him carrying the toilet in to drop it for the plumbers and move it across the room and all that he hired somebody to do that and do some of that legwork. Now, he kind of paused for a moment, he said, fast forward. And then I got really, really smart. And as I grew in my future entities, I ended up actually actually hiring somebody to hire the people that move the supplies that kind of move the call it the momentum a little bit further. So I would be curious to know, is there anything as you reflect back that you would have done different as you built your team, as you did your hires? Like if Hindsight is 2020? What would you potentially have done different?

JM 20:44
Great question, maybe move faster in some of those decision making. Because I think I have a great team. Now I like what I’ve built. But I think at some point, there’s a sense of wanting to do too much or wanting to manage all of it. And so I think that maybe making those decisions quicker, when the time when the time was right in and presented itself would have been maybe something that I would have changed.

BA 21:13
I think that’s that’s a great point. Because what’s the little thing and I’m sure there’s a million of these little quips, but it’s like, action breeds opportunity, and fuels opportunity. And I know that for myself, I’ll have a million great ideas, actually listening to a woman named Mary Morrissey, she owns a company, I believe it’s called, like dream catchers, or dream dream, something but she’s amazing, brilliant, brilliant woman just launched a new book. I heard her speak a couple of weeks ago at the time of this recording. And you know, one of the things that she said is that when you are getting those downloads, right thinking, and you’ve got these new ideas coming to you, and you’re thinking about taking action, she’s like, the ones that you take action on are the ones that you can literally feel it in your whole body, that you can actually like, feel like this is a great idea. This is something that is going to be a needle mover versus the chase of the shiny object. So I thought that was really interesting perspective, and really forces you to go inward so that you do decide what should I take action on, so that you don’t take action on everything. And then you end up with maybe a mile wide and an inch deep versus a mile deep and an inch wide, which is really where it seems the most progress is made. So when you when you think forward, what has got you really excited for your future?

JM 22:31
You know, I’m just excited about bringing EOS to companies that need it. I’m really excited about the value that it can bring to organizations and working with them to start tackling those issues that they might have been just so frustrated and stuck in and feeling like they can’t move forward. And I’m really looking forward to just helping people overcome that and just build stronger businesses.

BA 22:58
Yeah, you know, and I think that speaks to it. You’re helping people on so many different levels, right? So you find this niche within your business, and then you’re expanding it to ELS and you know, I can speak to this. I’m not an I’m not an integrator implementer you know, but I am somebody who absolutely loves the system. And we’ve seen it work time and time again, when people have gone all in on it. So before I ask my last couple questions, if somebody wants to get a hold of you, Jillian to find out how you may be able to support their business, how would they go about doing that?

JM 23:31
Yeah, so I can be reached via email at Jillian dot Mittelmark at EOS worldwide.com. Or I also have a website. It’s EOS worldwide.com, forward slash Julian middle mark, either of those would be great ways. I’m also on LinkedIn, just my name, Jillian Mittelmark,

BA 23:50
we will make sure that all of those wonderful links are in the show notes to us, it will make it really easy for you to reach out, I highly encourage, like I said, we’ve watched so many people’s businesses be transformed by the EOS system. And you know, just when it can really provide that the clarity it can provide to you and to your team. And I love what you said earlier, too, about how sometimes the vision is up here for the founder for the CEO for that visionary person. They’re so excited about what they see. But it’s really hard to articulate it in a way where the team not only hears and sees it, but buys into it and takes action towards it. So I can definitely appreciate that. So Jillian, what does or what is one of your biggest aspirations, your biggest dreams for your future?

JM 24:36
You know, I obviously have the aspirations for my business. I have two businesses that I’m running. So I want to build a successful accounting business and have that continue to grow. And we have those long term goals like we run on EOS ourselves. And so we have those long term goals about what we’re looking for and our 10 year plan and, and that’s, you know, growing and building to work with With venture backed startups, and we have a specific number in mind of startups that we want to be supporting. So that’s one aspect of it. And then, you know, helping entrepreneurial organizations with the EOS implementation. On a personal level, I am trying to, you know, create a life for myself where I enjoy doing the things that I love and in my business, but also have the time to pursue other passions as well. And one of those passions that I personally have is traveling, I have a goal in my mind of traveling to 15 different countries and 15 years. And I’ve actually hit off four countries in the last three. And so I’m making pretty good progress on that. But I, that’s one of my personal goals is to be able to create a life for myself where I can pursue that travel passion.

BA 25:50
I love that. So if you had to pick one spot that you’ve been to, that’s your all time favorite so far, what would that be?

JM 25:57
Well, let’s see, it’s close to heart because it was recent. But we went to Norway last week, or last year, or not last week, last year. And that was, gosh, we stayed on the fjords of Norway, Norway. And we actually have some family members out there, which is one of the reasons we had the opportunity to travel there and why we chose that location. But it was just it was stunningly beautiful. And I would go back there in a heartbeat.

BA 26:22
Amazing. You are not the first person to tell me Norway. So that that just tells me now I’ve heard it a couple times, I might need to check it out. So what haven’t I asked you that I should have?

JM 26:34
You know, I think that we’ve covered a lot of really good ground. I think that, you know, if people are interested in learning more about Eos, I’d love to talk with them. And there’s so many other aspects of the EOS process that you know, are such value adds to businesses, and I’d love to tell your listeners more about them about that if they reach out.

BA 26:56
Awesome. Well, Jillian, we so appreciate you coming onto the show sharing your genius sharing your wisdom. Again, for our audience members tuning in, I highly recommend you reach out and at least have a conversation. If you are not running EOS in your business already. It is at least worth exploring and seeing how it could create more growth opportunities, and just even more structure to what you’re already building. So thank you, Jillian, for coming on.

JM 27:22
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

BA 27:24
That wraps up today’s episode of The Ultimate advisor podcast. If you liked what you heard from Jillian today, be sure to forward it to a friend help them tune in to the brilliance that was shared here. And don’t forget to give us a like and subscribe so that you can be the first to know when the next episode drops. We’ll catch you right back here next time. Hey there, Brittany Anderson here. If you are loving what you’re hearing on our ultimate advisor podcast, don’t keep us a secret. Share us with other advisors that you think would benefit from the messages that you are hearing. The easiest way to do that is to simply send them to ultimate advisor podcast.com. And if you want to learn a few other ways that we could potentially serve you as an advisor, go check out ultimate advisor mastermind.com. As always, we are so happy to have you here with us as part of the ultimate advisor community and we look forward to a continued relationship