3 top tips from Rob Hughes

1. Fill out that VTO (EOS TOOL)

Because what you’ll find is that’s going to really push you to think intentionally about your personal health, the community of your friends and social network, it’s really going to challenge you to think intentionally about applying your purpose and your vision to all areas of life.

2. Take intentionality of that personal V

Consider each area of life that you’ve been given, and make sure that it has a home in that personal VTO because if you pursue intentionality, in my case, as a father, as a husband, as a friend, all of that begins to use part of your 168 hours of every single week. And so then the business can have the appropriate amount of time that’s left over from that. But so many of us and entrepreneurs and small business leaders, we allow our business to dictate our lives in sadly, many surrender control of their time to their business. But by reverse engineering your available time by elevating those other rocks and priorities. You can give the business the appropriate in our case, 40 hours a week that it deserves, and allow it to be a blessing to serve the rest of the areas of life rather than burning you out.

3. Stop comparing. Be yourself!

Like, don’t compare. Comparison kills contentment. Again, I’m a person of faith. And I believe if the Lord has called you to build a small business like micro business, embrace that that’s great, just because so and so down the road has 15 employees and is on social media all the time. Don’t compare yourself to them. If you’ve been given the blessing of a solopreneurship. I’m clear that the Lord has called me to something bigger than that, that was going to require more people. And I’m doing it to create that wake of blessing.

Head to Rob’s website:
https://hughesintegrated.com/

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

EOS, business, clients, core values, true, people, rob, team, life, VTO, personal, brand, talk, debra, listeners, creates, method, serve

SPEAKERS

Rob Hughes, Debra Chantry-Taylor

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:12

Welcome to another episode of Better Business Better Life. I’m your host, Debra Chantry-Taylor. I’m passionate about helping entrepreneurs and their leadership teams get what they want out of business and life. On the show, I invite successful business owners and expert speakers to share their successes. They are open and honest about the highs and lows of business and also life as a business owner. We want to share those learnings with you to inspire you, but also to help you avoid some of the common mistakes. My hope is that you take something from each of these short episodes that you can put into action to help you get what you want, not only out of your business, but also your life. So good morning, and welcome to another episode of Better Business better life. Today, I am joined by the beautiful Rob Hughes, who is joining us from Michigan over in the US. Let’s you and Rob is the CEO of Hughes integrated, which is a story brand certified marketing agency, which I’ll get him to explain in more detail shortly. But Good morning, Rob & good afternoon for you.

Rob Hughes  01:11

Yes, it is. Good afternoon. Here, Debra. It’s an honor to serve your community and through this platform as well. Thanks for having me on.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  01:19

Oh, my absolute pleasure. So Rob and I actually met via LinkedIn. And I think we started sort of stalking each other on LinkedIn for a while and finally decided that we should actually talk to each other. And so we caught up last week, and we had a great chat about Rob’s business and the story brand stuff, but also some other tools that he’s using in the business like EOS and profit first. And we just realized we had this huge amount of stuff in common. So I invited Rob to come and talk with me today. And we’re looking forward to hearing more about that, that journey, what he’s been up to. But before we get started, we always ask our guests to give us a professional and a personal best just so the listeners can get to know your way bit better.

Rob Hughes  01:56

Okay, so you want a personal best and a professional best. So this sounds a little bit like a quarterly or an annual meeting agenda, right? I get our agency, our story brand marketing agency runs on EOS. I totally get it. So we’ll start with a personal best. Yeah. And you want this over the last whole year. Debra, is that true?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  02:15

Yeah, absolutely. Or even in your life that she shared the best for their whole lifetime, which has been quite fun.

Rob Hughes 02:21

Oh, well, I’ll tell you about it. You know, one thing I’ve been really disciplined about in this last year is running like an athletic running goal. And so over this last year, I’m proud to report to you that at least four out of the days of the week, I ran at least two miles pretty consistently throughout the last year. So that’s a personal best I’d report to you. Thank you for asking. That’s fantastic. Wow. And on the professional side, I learned a new word this last year. It’s the word no.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  02:57

I haven’t quite got that one. Right. Yeah, I think.

Rob Hughes 03:00

So on the professional side, I learned how to say no, and I’m sure some of you listening in tuning in. I got some heads nodding I’m sure of it if you’re if you’re tuning into the show, but it’s true, saying no to the non ideal clients. He didn’t really the only way to say no is to have a greater Yes. And so in this last year, I really wrestled with that in thanks to EOS and my V to gotten crystal clear of the ideal client that our agency is positioned to serve well. And that’s really who we’re in pursuit of and that trajectory has been over the last year. So that is what I would point to is my professional wind.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  03:38

Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about the agency reps. I mean, how did it come about? How long has it been going for? A little bit of the history?

Rob Hughes  03:47

Yeah, so 2011 I left in became permanently unemployed if you will left the the world of working in sales and marketing for manufacturing company to start an executive coaching business with a business partner. And by God’s grace, we have grown this business and helping small businesses accelerating growth where principles and methods in 2017 We were in a conference in Orlando, Florida, at a national nationwide event that was taking place there and we were speaking in a gentleman named Dan Miller who’s of course the author of building a story brand got up on stage in shared about an hour keynote on the story brand method totally took my attention like captivated Of course I took copious notes as I was running the website and sales and marketing for executive coaching business and I applied what I learned and I saw the click through rates increase the numbers increase in analytics, were pointing to this method actually working. And so that inspired me to go down to become fully story brand certified. And since that point really have been dedicated to helping other businesses implement the story brand method. So that kind of the Genesis story, if you will, of how we came about is Hughes integrated, applying and helping others apply the story brand method.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  05:08

So you have we talked about this briefly the other day, and I had bought the book, but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. So for people who’ve never heard of it, what would you say is, in a nutshell is the story brand method.

Rob Hughes 05:19

Cash in a nutshell, is so many small business owners and entrepreneurs, they find that they are so close to their product or service, they have a hard time talking about it clearly with others. And while you may know that 10,000 words that describe what you do, you may not be keenly aware of the 10 words that matter to your ideal client. It’s a story brand is a method to help unearth the clarity of that minimum effective phrase that minimum effective words that can ring true in the ears of your ideal customer, and help them lean in to take action. So that is the process and the method that we guide small businesses with and that is the essence of story brand.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:09

And I can see why that was gonna be fantastic. For me, I have this kind of motto that says, Why use three words, I can use 3000 words. Doesn’t always work?

Rob Hughes 06:18

Well, I’ll just say this, Debra, you know, in the case of music, yes. Sometimes the pause between the notes, creates an emphasis to the keynote that composer wants you to hear. And the same is true with well told story as a brand. If you could filter your message, like music, through a storytelling framework, you can really draw in the attention and ultimately the activity of that ideal customer. And so it’s the whitespace between the notes that also matters.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:55

Yeah, it’s very true. And in fact, just watching you talk then, and I can see the use of the pause and things. It reminds me a lot of genome. Have you ever seen Gino Whitman speak?

Rob Hughes 07:04

Oh, I have Yes, energy energy. I had the privilege of attending the EOS conferences last April down in Houston, Texas. And it was phenomenal to see them live.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  07:14

Yeah. And he is a master of that storytelling and really drawing you into to what he’s saying, which is fantastic. So you use EOS in your agency, right? How did that deal out?

Rob Hughes 07:28

Well, for me, Debra, I would say it was the journey from solopreneur, to entrepreneur. And that was really the switch that was kind of switched on when I plugged into the EOS system. In 2017 2018, well, 2017, I was really running my marketing business, kind of in a solo fashion solopreneur I was doing all of the things, wearing all of the hats, somebody had recommended, I would read traction. And of course, it was one of those books that I read in a stack of other books and thought, Oh, this is nice. It put it back up on the shelf, had a few cool ideas, I tried to make my own system out of it for those of you who are not EOS pure yet. And Debra can talk to you about what that means. But for those of you who are trying to kind of make it and kind of hack the system make it work for you. I was that was my first phase of just trying to use the scorecard and implement. But ultimately, when we’ve got to actually building out the VTO, I realized I had a vision that was really bigger than I could fulfill on my own. And thus filling out my accountability chart and beginning to expand became Ness a necessity. So when you start to hire people, you start to realize how important those things like core values. And one year target and 90 day rocks really are. And EOS became the container to help me lead our team well, and each 90 day cycle. So you know, we’re a virtual business, all of my staff employees, we live locally, but everybody works from their own home office. So EOS for us has kind of become the container. It’s almost like the brick and mortar building virtually for us it keeps the business together in EOS has really been an instrumental factor in that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  09:14

And so how did you make that switch from doing your own version of Eos into becoming more pure EOS? And can you take us a little bit on that journey and what that meant as well?

Rob Hughes  09:25

Well, I saw the benefit of scorecard but fumbled through what metrics to even put on there. And of course, when it was myself in an administrative assistant, that’s kind of where we started to implement EOS. Initially, I wore many of the hats if not all of the functional and operational hats of the business. And so I had many numbers on the scorecard that she would ask me about because I paid her an hourly rate to ask me about these numbers each and every week. So it was really more of accountability for me initially. I saw the magic in that. But like I said what really came down When I decided to take that risk, and actually hire full time team members to bring them into the fold, I needed to have something to show them because otherwise they’d be coming to me for their next order, if you will, or for the next kind of the marching orders, day in and day out, they become an immediate say, Well, what do you want me to do next Rab. So EOS pulled that book back off the shelf and read through traction, the whole idea of creating a 10 year vision, the three year target the one year plan, and then 90 day cycles and rocks that would be said, on a quarterly basis really helped me to put focus to a growth model that helped me really be able to share some of the work with others in one of the pro tools that are kind of inside of Eos that many of your listeners may or may not be aware of yet, I don’t know. But when you kind of reach your capacity limit, they’re going to ask you never is going to ask it’s time to delegate and elevate which activities need to come off of your plate you’re not uniquely gifted with those are the things that come off your plate can become a job description for the next person that you hire. And you know, one thing I would say, Debra in my whole ethos in business, it’s not just about the business, I believe that if I lead and manage this company, well, it creates a wake of blessing like a boat moving through water, it creates a wake of blessing for all of those who are connected to it. And that’s true for the employees, on staff that that we’ve been entrusted. It’s true of the contractors that we work with, it’s true of the clients that we serve well, when we can really elevate our game and bring professional excellence to the table, it creates a wake of blessing that makes jobs possible for others. And so EOS kind of was a bit of that kickstart for us, and now has become the operating system. And if you get an iPhone, you’ve got, you know, mobile operating system that Apple’s created. EOS is our business operating system. It’s how we do all of the things under the hood of Hughes Integrated.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  12:02

I think that’s a really good analogy. I often use that. It’s like just because people say to me, Well, you know, can I use profit first? Can I use you know, something to do my processes? Like? Absolutely, because this is the absolute base operating system like your iOS or whatever Samsung’s ever got remember that. But it is just the way that you do the business, you can then plug in other things to actually help with that as well.

Rob Hughes 12:22

Yeah, I would totally agree with it. In fact, I like to say our business runs on three books. So EOS is our kind of method and container. That’s our business operating system. And then two other key books that we run on, of course, one being the story Brand Book, building a story brand. This is inside of the the VTO where they talk about your marketing strategy. This book is that on steroids, it is the operating system that we use for marketing that plugs into our EOS. And from a cash flow management system. I heard you mentioned Profit First. Around here in the United States. I don’t know if Dave Ramsey is a is a celebrity profile that you’re aware of in New Zealand area, but he talks about the envelope system cash management through the envelope system. Yeah, you know, and that kind of is what Profit First is Mike Michalowicz, wrote a book Profit First. It’s basically like the envelope system for business. And that’s been really helpful for us to make, you know, key cashflow decisions, like can we take on new payroll to bring on a full time employee? You know, are we set up for taxes when when we have to pay those on a on a, you know, regular basis. So all of that has really come together those three books, attraction, which is the EOS system, building a story brand and then profit first.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  13:37

Fantastic. So you talked at the beginning about being able to say no to people, and being really crystal clear on you know, who that’s perfect or sweetspot of your target audience is you want to explain a little bit more about what it was like when you weren’t necessarily saying no to those people.

Rob Hughes 13:58

A hassle?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  14:02

Oh, don’t do it. Right. We all we all jump in and we take on board clients, which we kind of in our gut now that may not be the right clients, but we feel it’s the only way we can grow. But I’d love to hear your your side of it because I know I’ve been there.

Rob Hughes 14:17

You know, I think there’s two pains that you go through as you’re growing a business. And maybe you can agree or see these yourself Debra but the first is the pain of discipline, which really comes from doing the wise things that are the hard things but the wise things like filling out your VTO working with a person like Debra and so on to help you. That’s the pain of discipline is to say I’m going to do what’s necessary to really, you know, achieve an outcome. And then there’s another pain. That’s the pain of regret. So you asked me what was it like before you defined your target client? I probably ate bowls full of regret more often. And then I would like to admit, we’ve, for instance, so out of that pain, though, I will tell you that has really influenced how the level of conviction that we have to our target audience, and the commitment that we have. So we know in the US here, I don’t know how this translates into international currencies, but one to 5 million in gross revenues, probably about the size of the company that we specialize in, because they don’t have internal marketing teams, they don’t have in house marketing. And they really are looking for aggressive growth at that stage. So that really is compatible with us. Another key characteristic of our VTO for our target client is that they have a partnership mentality. They’re not just partnering with our marketing agency, to be a vendor or you know, to be of a utility only, they’re really looking for someone that that will take the time to understand their business, and to become an extension of their business. But we really do take on that mentality. Fact, we call it ownership mentality over here’s one of our core values and our PTO, that we want to think of ourselves as an extension of our clients business. And that is the fiduciary responsibility that we carry, to advocate well as marketers for them. So that’s a key. Another key thing that’s on our VTO for the target client, is what we like to have lunch with this person. Love it, we literally put that on there, like, yeah, we have to have relational equity exchange between the two of us to the point where we actually enjoy spending time with them. We’ve all had clients that we’ve loathed, after, you know, getting the engagement started in when they call that that’s the phone that weighs 50 pounds before you can pick it up. We don’t want that. And so it’s really important for us that we have a relational chemistry with our clients. And we feel that, and I’m here to tell you, it’s a tough thing as a people, I’m a recovering people pleaser. I’m an Enneagram, three with a two wing. That’s like dead nuts in the center of the bullseye of people pleaser. So I’m there. And so what I’ve learned though, through the power of Eos and our VTO is that when we have a prospect, and by God’s grace, we have so many prospects that reach out and they have exploratory calls with us, which is great. Anybody on this show is welcome to do that happy to have a conversation with anybody. But the really the issue is when they come in, and they don’t fit some of the core criteria that we’ve laid out, I at minimum, I put a pause to that. And we have a conversation with the team. And we come back with clarifying questions. So when we have conversations, EOS has equipped us to be interviewing our prospects, not just them interviewing us, it’s a that’s an elevated mindset. I think that is really good stewardship for a customer’s resources, a client’s resources to really say, Now, I don’t think we’re the right fit. Yeah, if they don’t fit, kind of the the business process that you’ve set up. And so VTO has really empowered us to be able to do that with clarity. And it’s also energized our team.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:55

Yeah. And you know, people get worried, they say, Well, if we don’t say yes to these people, then we’re not going to have enough work. But it’s it’s not true, is it I mean, you actually have to have space to be able to embrace the clients that you genuinely want to work with. And I think if you take onboard clients that don’t meet that sweet spot, then you’re you’re not leaving space for the really great clients to come in.

Rob Hughes 18:15

Well, I would tend to agree in, you know, what’s the opposite if you don’t filter it. Now, if you’re starting a new business, and you don’t know who you want to be when you grew up in business, there’s probably a season like we went through of just saying yes to all the things and then deciding what we want to keep in that. But at some point, you’re going to realize that you’ve only got 24 hours in a given day. And no matter how many team members you bring in, they also only have 24 hours in a given day. In here in the US, an average work week is 40 hours. So if you’re only going to have 40 sellable hours, at some point, you will reach a capacity limit. So in order to say no, you have to say yes to something greater, right? Remember how I kind of started with that? So what are the greater opportunities? What’s the trade off for you to take non ideal clients? And what is the cost to your business for doing that? So I just want to encourage your listeners to just embrace the boldness of that because I’m telling you if you can really build a business operating system around specializing around a unique niche or target client, wouldn’t you want to be known as the best in the world? doing the work you love with the people you love making a difference? And that’s the EOS life, wouldn’t you want to make that difference in impact? So that would be if I could get 100 referrals of our target clients. I don’t think I would ever work a day in my life. And I hope that’s true for any of you listening to the show right now that you would take that courageous step to clarify who you want to work with. Because once you’ve taken that hard, that hard step of clarifying it, I’m telling you, the universe opens up and and you become known in that Space.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:00

That’s right. And it is all about being the best in the world at what you do. And I think that is really important. And it’s a, it’s a difficult thing to get your head around to start off with, because narrowing down feels almost unnatural when you’re trying to grow. But in actual fact, it is the key, in my opinion to growth.

Rob Hughes 20:17

Yeah, I would agree with that. Gardening. I’m not a gardener. But I’ve read a piece of wisdom scripture over here that says, even the good branches are pruned. So that become even more fruitful. I’m a Bible believing person, John 15:2 in the New Testament says that even the good branches are pruned so that the plant itself will become even more fruitful. You gotta say no to even good activities in order to pursue the great ones in store for you. And pruning is a necessary activity.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:50

I’m a rose lover. And I mean, that is absolutely true of roses. I’ll never forget one day, a couple of my horses got out into the paddock and ate or got out of the paddock and ate all of my roses. And I was horrified because they were literally are left with with very little of them left. Next year. Absolutely fantastic. Best roses we’ve had a long, long time.

Rob Hughes 21:10

Yeah, so pruning, pruning is key. In fact, I would encourage your listeners to that’s an annual activity to consider. You know, assuming you had an awesome client engagement. Like, let’s just take a moment to think like, what would it look like to serve your very favorite client? What would be true about them? Well, maybe you’re able to actually help them. Maybe it was profitable. Maybe they referred clients to you, and so on. Whatever you would answer that criteria with that kind of becomes your values that you would associate to an ideal client. Okay, let’s start there. Well, what if you took your current client list, and kind of scored them on a one to three scale or ABC, according to those values. If some of the key principles of like the 8020 rule, the Pareto principle, if that’s true in in business, which I think it is, there’s probably a couple of clients each year that you buy, you’ve legacy serve, you’ve served them over the years, but they may not be in that ideal target or zone, that might give you some clues to pruning your client list. Because listen, if you do this, that may give you capacity to bring your professional excellence, to more ideal clients. But at some point, we’re all gonna reach our capacity limits. And so pruning is really a wise strategy. Yeah. And it serves them well to

Debra Chantry-Taylor  22:31

Yeah, completely agree. Now, I’ve heard you talk about core values. So you’ve got your kind of criteria around how you pick working with a client, but I’ve also heard you talk about your internal core values for your team. And that’s a really important part of the whole EOS process the VTO How do you bring your values to life in the business? What do you do to keep those top of mind going completely?

Rob Hughes 22:53

Personal?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  22:54

Well, both actually, I mean, I think because we use EOS for our family as well. So I’m interested in.

Rob Hughes 23:03

So this is where I would, okay, I’m not making my own EOS system up here. Debra, I am EOS pure. I want to be as US peers there. But there are some areas like in like marketing, like I, my experience has been eel. Oh, no, that’s a great supplement to that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:20

So we just lost you there for a second Rob so much good to repeat that. So I think we’re a little bug in the system.

Rob Hughes 23:24

Okay, well, as many miles between us. Can you hear me? Okay?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:28

I can. Yes, thank you.

Rob Hughes 23:29

So if I, if I hear you, right, one of your questions was, how do I apply the core values into my life and into the work. So there’s one, this is probably one area, where I feel like there’s a little EOS plus going on over here. And I’m going to share with you what this approach has been sure. However, I don’t want your listeners to think that we are not EOS pure because we are, we’ve just taken it in really made it a part of our daily rhythms, not just in our L 10s. Okay, so how we do core values here is we have defined them, in fact, I’ll read them to you because I just think they’re so great as a team, our leadership, you know, of our team have come up with us. The first is a core values ownership mentality, that we really take agency over the projects ourselves. Growth Mindset is our second core value. Brilliantly creative is our third in relationships first, is is our fourth core value. And so these are four core values that we’ve defined as a team that are critically important to us. At now. Here’s where we go EOS plus. Every morning, our agency our internal team meets for a standing meeting. Sometimes it takes five minutes. Sometimes it’s 10. Maybe at length, it’d be 15. But that’s it. And I have our team each each member takes a turn report out on three areas. First, what was your greatest accomplishment? From yesterday, the second What’s your biggest focus today? And the third is a shout out to another team member, when they have seen one of our core values lived out from the previous day. Now catch this. Yeah. So I’ve created by God’s grace, there’s a culture emerging here at at Hughes integrated, where the team holds each other accountable to applying the core values in their daily decisions. And they’re always the radar is always up to affirm it when they see it. It’s a beautiful start to our day, a motivational start to our team dynamic each day and help for our culture. To say, for instance, hey, Debra, I see yesterday’s you handled this situation in that client meeting, it really displayed ownership mentality. And so I give you my shout out today. How does that feel to you to hear somebody affirm you for for that activity? I mean, it would feel great, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it’s so our team is cross pollinating this affirmation as a way of getting us started in the morning. In the beauty of this the hidden benefit that I did not see when I started this, this discipline in our team, is I go on vacation from time to time, many of your listeners may enjoy going on holiday, or a vacation where you want to get away out of the office strategically, even for a few days. For me to do that, it’s less scary, because the the team is kind of self managing to do what’s important to us as a team. So whether I’m there or not there, they’re doing the daily check in, they’re checking in, they’re giving each other shoutouts. And the team is kind of self monitoring and managing and encouraging one another to stick to those core values. Yeah. So that’s why I say it’s EOS plus, because I know EOS puts it in the VTO. But we keep it visible every single day. Because it really is core to our culture.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:02

And it’s really interesting, because you’ve got a team of 10 that there are all over the place. You’ve got some permanent people, you’ve got some contractor people and you say you work remotely. Tell me how you do that sort of those, the low level team meetings your – how does that work in a remote environment?

Rob Hughes 27:17

Yep. So we’ve got four and a half us integrated employees team members a four to five people that the half as a part time regular person. In our internal team member on payroll over here in the US, we call it on w two, our internal team, the four of us meet for L tents every Monday, from you know, in the morning, we have a team kind of powwow. And then from time to time, we cannot it would probably look more like a five by five by five with some of our outside contractors. But from time to time we do have ad hoc meetings that we would pull them into but we don’t require that our contractors come into the Elton’s, specifically, several of our contractors, they’ll work with us on a very regular basis, probably 10 to 30 hours a week, depending on what project load is looking like. So many of them feel like a team member like we communicate through our project management management system with them ongoing dialogue throughout the days most days, and so on.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  28:12

Perfect. Okay, great. Now I’ve heard you You’re obviously an EOS poster boy. And my thing I’ve heard you mentioned lots of tools around Eos, you’ve got your 555 delegating, elevate V to level 10 meetings. What’s your favorite EOS tool? What’s had the most impact in your business? Would you say?

Rob Hughes 28:31

Boy, I would say the curveball Gino threw at us in April of really making the VTO personal. I’m like I mentioned it for those of you who have studied listeners to show Enneagram personality profile. I’m an Enneagram three with a two wing. So you already know that I’m a goal setter, you already know that I’m getting after an achievement mindset and so on. So I have set goals. I’ve made posters and hung them in bathrooms. Like I’ve been like a goal setter, most of my professional life, if not all of it. Like that’s just inherent in my DNA. But what a personal VTO this year is offering to me is traction. Like really seriously sitting down. Every single week I take a clarity break, I go to a local coffee shop, I pull out my personal VTO and my business VTO and I read through them with the same intentionality. I built them with the same intentionality of a strategic planning day, you know, for both. So the personal VTO that really transcends business business is certainly a part of it. But that really helps to keep me accountable to core values that do overlap with the business but some are uniquely personal to Rab to have a one year plan and to know which key priorities and objectives I’m trying to achieve. This year has been refreshing and helpful. In to know what I stand for, like, how many of you listening or watching this show for depth from Debra’s network here? How many of you sit down have sat down and personally documented pen on paper, what you’d like to see your life accomplish over the next 10 years. I mean, how many people have given themselves the freedom to come up with that lifetime wish list. And beyond just dream between the ears like actually putting a plan together on paper on purpose with accountability? I’m so grateful for the recommendation of the EOS network. People like Debra and of course, Gino Wickman, to take the EOS principles and apply them personally into create that. So I have crystal clear clarity of what I’m trying to achieve this quarter. As a personal person, as a husband as a father. Yes. As a follower of Jesus. Like I know what some of the things I feel God prompted me to, to achieve and to pursue this quarter, which again, that higher Yes, entering the quarter gives me a filter to say yes, or more importantly, no, too many activities that do come my way.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:16

I love it. Tiana, my husband and I actually sat down at our family VTO over the new year period. And it was really good to have that time. And so I’m like, you have now got my personal one and my business one. I still have things in the shower in my, in my bathroom, because I think that’s really a good reminder. But it’s taken from those videos and other things I’m focusing on sir. Yeah. Okay, hey, look, we could talk all afternoon. And, but sadly, we’re kind of running a little bit on time. So what I would love to do to finish it off, Rob is to just hear from us or three top tips that we can share with the listeners, they can go away and actually put this stuff into action. And then also how people can get in contact with you as well.

Rob Hughes 31:55

I appreciate that very much. So three top tips. And then I’ve got one freebie I mentioned to you as a good way to get in contact. I love it. three top tips, I triple dog, dare anybody listening to fill out that veto? Personally, that would be step one. Yep. Because what you’ll find is that’s going to really push you to think intentionally about your personal health, the community of your friends and social network, it’s really going to challenge you to think intentionally about applying your purpose in your vision to all areas of life, which does kind of bring me to tip number two, we didn’t get a chance to really talk through this. But Zig Ziglar is a is a great influencer, at least in the US, I think abroad as well. It’s probably a name you’re familiar with internationally. And he years ago talked about the life wheel, where we’ve got a circle of life in each area of life is kind of like a slice in that pie. I would say take intentionality of that personal V to consider each area of life that you’ve been given, and make sure that it has a home in that personal VTO because if you pursue intentionality, in my case, as a father, as a husband, as a friend, all of that begins to use part of your 168 hours of every single week. And so then the business can have the appropriate amount of time that’s left over from that. But so many of us and entrepreneurs and small business leaders, we allow our business to dictate our lives in sadly, many surrender control of their time to their business. But by reverse engineering your available time by elevating those other rocks and priorities. You can give the business the appropriate in our case, 40 hours a week that it deserves and allow it to be a blessing to serve the rest of the areas of life rather than burning you out. So think in terms of that life wheel would be step two, or the second thing. My third encouragement to your community, Debra is stop comparing yourself Gino? Wickman. Oh, he’s got this kind of edgy phrase. He says let your fake flag flag Why yes. Oh my gosh, like, could you just do that? Like, don’t compare comparison kills contentment. Again, I’m a person of faith. And I believe if the Lord has called you to build a small business like micro business, embrace that that’s great, just because so and so down the road has 15 employees and is on social media all the time. Don’t compare yourself to them. If you’ve been given the blessing of a solopreneur ship. I’m clear that the Lord has called me to something bigger than that, that was going to require more people. And I’m doing it to create that wake of blessing. That is my freak flag if you will. It’s so the reason that it’s really important is I’m not trying to take my cues from others. I’m kind of staying in my lane and just pursuing God’s best for what he’s got for me. Now, I would encourage that for all of your listeners too. So get personal VTO I think life we’ll Yes. And then be yourself stop comparing for in the you blast for how do people get in touch if you’re interested in applying the story brand method. Of course, we have a website dedicated to that. But we’ve recorded a 36 minute accelerated training course that basically takes this whole book and teaches it in half an hour. Wow. And it’s called How to Use story to sell. Right now. It’s completely free on our website. I’m sure we could put a link into the show notes here, Michelle, definitely, yes, Hughes integrated.com, he GH s integrated.com. Go all the way to the top where it says get free access. And it’s how to use story to sell. So just go ahead, put your email address in there, and we’ll send you at no cost to you a 30 minute or 36 minutes actually accelerated training of this book.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:04

That is absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much for that. Hey, in terms of you know, we talked about your ideal client, just just remind us, your ideal client, who would you like to work with, so that they can make sure that we can they can get in contact with you if they fit that criteria?

Rob Hughes 36:19

Well, how about I read the VTO? Yeah, please? Yeah. We really, I mean, we are in it to help small businesses accelerate growth. Yep. And the way we do that is through powerful digital marketing methods like websites, lead generation, email sequences, social media, and so on. So who we work best with Debra, their independently own service businesses. Mm hmm. Probably in that one to 5 million range because they don’t have a marketing department. Yeah, the comfortable meeting through video software. And we think we live in a day and age now today, where zoom meetings are pretty common. We’re recording on zoom right now. And so our whole system is set up to do the same. And they desire that relationship connection. If they’ve got an audience, man, I tell you, we can help. So if they’ve got a following an audience, a tribe, a customer list, an email list, that is a goldmine for them that they may not even be accessing for new revenue in the year to come and we can help them access that. So again, independently on businesses, service businesses, that one to 5 million US revenue, they display trust and respect. They want that relationship connection with a true partner. And they maybe have a tribe that they’re looking to us to serve really well.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  37:34

Perfect. And it’s not just in us, right, because you do everything virtually it could be from anywhere in the world.

Rob Hughes 37:38

It’s true. We’ve had clients from certainly coast to coast here in the US, Canada, we’ve had some other clients internationally from European countries as well. Certainly, we’d love to serve the New Zealand area fact, Debra was kind enough to invite me out for a visit. So one of these days in the future, we’ll have to figure out how to do a family vacation and and do some on site workshops there. And we will

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:01

definitely be doing that. Once these borders open back up again. At the man we’re feeling a little bit restricted around, you know, where we can and can’t go and allowing people in, but it’ll get better.

Rob Hughes 38:11

Yeah, until then, through video. Certainly.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:13

Yeah. Fantastic. Hey, look, Rob, it has been an absolute pleasure. As always, you can’t imagine when I start my mornings talking to you the rest of the day. I’m just beaming. So thank you so much. And thank you for sharing all of your wonderful knowledge. And we look forward to talking again soon.

Rob Hughes 38:28

Well, thank you, Debra, thank you for the work that you do to help small and midsize businesses implement EOS. Listen, y’all I have talked with Debra we’ve met we’ve we’ve been friends now at a distance for a good bit of time. And she’s the real deal. In fact, what transpired this connection was me seeing her authentically guiding clients to implementing EOS at such a high level of excellence. So if you’re questioning if EOS is right for you, or if it’s even worth it, just I would encourage reach out to Debra spend 90 minutes with her going through some of the details of Eos to at least know if it’s a good thing for you to say yes to because I’m telling you, I’m glad that we implemented Eos, I think you will be as well. So thank you, Debra, for your work through this podcast through this platform as well. It’s an honor to serve your tribe today.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  39:17

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. You have an awesome rest of your afternoon and we look forward to talking in soon. Thanks again for joining us some better business better life with me your host Debra Chantry-Taylor. If you enjoy what you heard, then please subscribe to this podcast and let us help you to get what you want out of business in life. Each week we release a new short episode which will give a success story and three takeouts to put into action immediately. These will help you take your business from good to great. The podcast is also supported by free resources, templates and useful tools, which you can find at Debra Chantry-Taylor dot com. I am a trained entrepreneur leadership and business coach, a professional EOS implementer and an established business owner myself. I work with a establish businesses to help them get what they want. Feel free to contact me if you’d like to have a chat about how I might better help you, or if you’d like to join me as a guest on this podcast. Thanks again to NZ audio editors for producing this podcast. See you on the next episode.

Debra Chantry-Taylor

Professional EOS Implementer | Entrepreneurial Leadership & Business Coach | Business Owner

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