Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the Laundromat resource podcast. It’s Jordan here and I am pumped that you are here today because I have not only an expert that is going to revolutionize your business here today, but also a super good friend and fellow Orange county in who migrated to Hawaii. We’ve got a lot going on here in common and this is going to be genuinely a business transforming episode for you. Get your notebooks out, get your remarkables out, take out the note app on your iPhone or whatever you take notes on, because we’re gonna be taking notes. So super excited about that. Before we jump into it with Amanda Barkey, I wanted to just say this. We’ve got this Laundromat Accelerator Hawaii coming up November 21st, 24th. Listen, we’re gonna be focusing on revolutionizing your business.

Jordan Berry [00:00:53]:
Like that’s what we’re going to be doing. We’re going to be spending focus time on your business, helping you and develop a 90 day plan to actually drive more revenue and increase the bottom line for your business. We’ve got a whole lot in store. You can check out laundromatresource.com hawaii to see more details about that. But not only are we going to do that, we’re going to do that in Hawaii, doing a whole bunch of fun Hawaii things while we’re at it. It’s all tax write offable. And as a bonus, Amanda is going to be there as well, presenting on more and more in depth of what we’re talking about today. So without further ado, let’s chat with Amanda.

Jordan Berry [00:01:34]:
Amanda, how you doing?

Amanda Barkey [00:01:36]:
Great. That was a really great introduction, Jordan.

Jordan Berry [00:01:39]:
I love that she’s saying that because I was telling her I normally don’t do it with the guests and she’s trying to make me feel good about it. So I appreciate that. Look how good of a friend she is. So good. Hey, I’m super excited you’re here today. Thank you for taking the time for coming on. Yeah. And let’s have a good time and let’s, let’s, let’s bring something that transforms people’s businesses here.

Jordan Berry [00:02:00]:
How about that?

Amanda Barkey [00:02:00]:
Absolutely.

Jordan Berry [00:02:01]:
Awesome.

Amanda Barkey [00:02:01]:
That’s what I live for.

Jordan Berry [00:02:03]:
Me too. Me too. Okay, so let’s start off with who, who are you? Give us a little background on you and then let’s jump into, like, what it is that you do and we can get into some of the principles.

Amanda Barkey [00:02:13]:
Sure. Well, I’m Amanda Barkey. I am an entrepreneur and philanthropist. I was born and raised in British Columbia, Canada. So I might look like an orange county housewife. I am currently in Orange County. Jordan and I do have that in common. I also spend time on Oahu where Jordan is.

Amanda Barkey [00:02:31]:
And so I go back and forth. But before that, way before that, I was born and raised in Canada. My grandparents were all political refugees. My parents are immigrants. I’m an immigrant. I did not come from an entrepreneurial family. But I was bit by the entrepreneurial bug when I met married my husband, who is good friends with Jordan. I swear my husband came out of the womb with a business plan.

Amanda Barkey [00:02:52]:
So we’ve been living an entrepreneurial life for the last two decades. We just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary on August 20th. So did you know?

Jordan Berry [00:03:00]:
We did too, on September 3rd.

Amanda Barkey [00:03:03]:
Oh yes.

Jordan Berry [00:03:05]:
So good, so good. Happy anniversary.

Amanda Barkey [00:03:07]:
You too.

Jordan Berry [00:03:08]:
Thanks.

Amanda Barkey [00:03:10]:
So yeah, we’ve been living an entrepreneurial life together, not just Jordan and I, my husband Jobin and I for the last two decades. And we. My husband’s a dual citizen, so we met, married, got met and got married in Canada. Excuse me. And we moved down to the States to start our business. We own a business called Soccer Shots. It’s a children’s soccer program for two to eight year olds. It’s a franchise.

Amanda Barkey [00:03:32]:
So we own four franchises in Orange County, California. We expanded our business four years ago to Oahu. So we own two Soccer Shots franchises on Oahu. And in the beginning years, we didn’t know what we didn’t know. We were learning by our mistakes, growing by our reputation. We knew there was a better and easier way to run a business. We just couldn’t quite put our finger on it. So then that’s when we read the book Traction.

Amanda Barkey [00:03:56]:
That was over a decade ago. We read this book and it absolutely changed our life. It was a game changer, transformational. Not just for our professional life, but also for our personal life. And so we implemented the tools and disciplines in that book, changed the game, got us everything we want from our business. We thought we were killing it. With 63 kids enrolled in our program in the first season of launching Soccer Shots, Fast forward. We now serve over 10,000 families a year between Orange county and Oahu.

Amanda Barkey [00:04:28]:
And we have used our for profit organization to start our nonprofit. We started our own nonprofit in 2012. We’ve donated soccer academies. I have a school for elementary school children, age children. 250 kids go to my school in Cameroon. We’re digging wells over there. We have an agriculture school, a Moto taxi company, a pharmacy. So we’re doing a lot overseas and using our resources to do good.

Amanda Barkey [00:04:56]:
And so that Was our goal was to build an employee led giving back organization. That’s what we have today. My husband’s the visionary of that organization, but his, his main focus is our passion projects and I have worked my way out of that business completely. And so I’m an owner on paper, but my full time gig is EOS implementer. So yeah, so I get to, I love what I do. I get to help other entrepreneurs get more of what they want from their businesses so that they can run a better business and live a better life.

Jordan Berry [00:05:33]:
I, I love that. And you know, I mean you said like the magic words, right? Like so many people would love to be an owner on paper and not have to be involved in the day to day. Yeah, yeah. Which, I mean, listen, you, you mentioned the book Traction. You showed it on the screen. If you’re listening. She showed it. I wish you had a copy or two in your room with you.

Jordan Berry [00:05:54]:
I don’t know, I’ve got a few. There’s a whole bookshelf behind her. Yeah. And by the way, if you haven’t.

Amanda Barkey [00:06:03]:
Oh yeah, I’m gonna bring a copy for everyone to the event in November, so make sure you’re there.

Jordan Berry [00:06:11]:
Awesome. Yes, do that. Well, that’s the better way to get. I was gonna say, I’m glad you said that because I was gonna say, hey, if you don’t have the book, we’ll drop a link down below so you can go get it. But the better way to get it is to come to Hawaii and get it.

Amanda Barkey [00:06:23]:
Yeah, I’m not even kidding. I, this book changed my life and I give them away. You know, know I, I it. One of my core values is help first. And so, you know, I give these away for free without ever expecting anything in return because I really none. Nothing’s hidden. All the tools and disciplines, everything’s in this book. So you know, you can buy this book for 20 bucks or you can get it for free from me.

Amanda Barkey [00:06:51]:
Just reach out, I’ll mail you one in Hawaii and I promise you there’s something in there. Or come to Hawaii and get one. Yeah, but there’s something in there. If you are a business owner that will change the game for you. So it’s a no brainer. You got to get the book.

Jordan Berry [00:07:07]:
Yeah, yeah. And I mean here’s the thing, right. Is like, and you said it and the reason I wanted you to come on and the reason I wanted you at the Laundromat accelerator here in Hawaii is not only because you’re already in Hawaii, part of the Time. Most of the time, but just down.

Amanda Barkey [00:07:24]:
The street most of the time.

Jordan Berry [00:07:25]:
Yeah. But also because of what it did for your guys, business. Right. Like it allowed you guys to set up a business with the right operating system and the right systems in place to be able to not have to focus on those businesses. Let those businesses support you guys while they’ve been doing that and you guys can focus on the things that you’re doing. Right. The, you know, the overseas stuff, all the, all the things you just talked about. And you know, I think for a lot of business owners in general, and a lot of people get into our business specifically because they want to free up their time and they get in there and they find out that they don’t have the knowledge or the tools to be able to set up the systems to allow them to not be in those laundromats.

Jordan Berry [00:08:12]:
And it’s easy to get caught up in the mundane. Right. So that’s why I was like, oh, Amanda, you’ve got to come on and talk to us about how do we, how do. What are the steps we take to help us professionalize our, our businesses here and run them more like their companies. And I like how you described yours. A company led. What did you say? Company led.

Amanda Barkey [00:08:33]:
Giving back organization.

Jordan Berry [00:08:35]:
Yeah.

Amanda Barkey [00:08:35]:
Thank you.

Jordan Berry [00:08:35]:
Yeah, that’s way better. Yeah.

Amanda Barkey [00:08:36]:
And that might not be everybody’s goal. Right? Like in my. Yeah, some people are selfish and so they don’t want to give back. No, I’m just joking. No, you do what you want with your business, but that’s that, that’s the beautiful thing. Like Gina Wickman wrote traction to give entrepreneurs freedom. And that looks different for everybody. But at the end of the day, there are two things that you hit on.

Amanda Barkey [00:08:57]:
Number one, so Dan Sullivan is a great thought leader. He runs Strategic Coach. If you haven’t heard of it, you should look it up. And he talks about your unique ability and so elevating yourself to your unique ability. Right. And if, and you said something about the mundane. I don’t even think it’s like necessarily the mundane. But when an, an owner of a business, a founder, owner, visionary of a business is stuck in the day to day, they’re working in the business.

Amanda Barkey [00:09:27]:
Right. Like you’re in the weeds. And if you don’t take time to get out of the weeds and elevate yourself above your business and work on your business, there’s a big difference between working in your business and on your business. In is management, on is leadership. And so if you want to lead your company, your Organization, you need to take time to elevate yourself above your business, work on your business, and that way you’ll understand, you know, what is your, your, your unique ability, what do you love to do? What are you best at in the world and what, you know, like understanding those things, wrapping your mind around those things and then creating a plan to like, do more of that is crucial. And it’s, it’s the only way that entrepreneurs will get what they want from their business, whatever that is. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:10:19]:
Yeah. So I love that. And here’s, here’s what’s been my frustration and why you are here today, right now, and we’re having this conversation. My frustration has always been, and I heard this a lot, especially in my early days owning a business where I was struggling, my business was losing money, I didn’t know what to do. And I heard a lot of work on your business, not in your business. And I didn’t even know how to do that. Like, how do I get. And you, you’re saying, like, you’ve got to elevate yourself to get out of working in your business so you can work on it.

Jordan Berry [00:10:50]:
And what I didn’t realize, and again, why you’re here, so we can talk about this, because you’ve got the path, you’ve got the, the solution here. What I didn’t realize is that when people say that, what they’re talking about is a systematic approach to getting to that, spending the majority of your time on the unique ability stuff and less and less time on the things that suck your soul out of your life. Right.

Amanda Barkey [00:11:18]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:11:19]:
So, okay, before we jump into that fully, I want to, like, I think there’s probably a lot of people listening to this who don’t know, who’ve never read traction. You mentioned EOs. You’ve got EOs all behind you. Can you talk about what is eos?

Amanda Barkey [00:11:33]:
Yes.

Jordan Berry [00:11:33]:
And give maybe just like a high level overview of Traction and what that is and the connection between the two real quick?

Amanda Barkey [00:11:39]:
Sure, absolutely. EOS is Traction. So I’ll explain what that is. EOS stands for the Entrepreneurial Operating System. And the Entrepreneurial Operating System is just a way of harmonizing all of the moving parts in your business. And so Gino Wickman wrote the book traction about 20 years ago, and he’s a lifelong entrepreneur. He’s been an entrepreneur since the age of 21. At the age of 25, he was called in to run his family business, ran it for seven years, turned the business around, it was in need of a turnaround, ultimately sold the business.

Amanda Barkey [00:12:12]:
And so he had a lot of experience, you know, working with other entrepreneurs, working in his family business. And he found he had the knack and passion for the art and science of running a truly great entrepreneurial company. And so he followed that knack and passion and he cobbled together what we now know as eos, the entrepreneurial operating system. And he wrote the book Traction. So EOS is inside this book. All of the tools and the disciplines are here. And so EOS was the discoveries that, that he made when he was cobbling these concepts together, these theories. And this is stuff that’s been around for a hundred years.

Amanda Barkey [00:12:50]:
It’s going to be around for a thousand more. There’s no magic pills or silver bullets. They’re just real practical tools. And what he discovered was that every entrepreneur is struggling with 136 issues simultaneously. And to the extent that you can strengthen the six key components in your business, you can run a better business and live a better life. And so those six key components are vision, people, data issues, process, and traction. And so we have two tools and disciplines to strengthen each of those six key components. You can’t be weak in one and strong in the others.

Amanda Barkey [00:13:28]:
You have to be strong in all six. And the goal is to get 100% strong in all six key components. And so, very simply, I work with leadership teams of entrepreneurial companies. I meet with them periodically. Usually it’s on every 90 days on a quarterly basis. We get out from the fray every 90 days. Humans tend to fray. And so we get out from the fray and we work on the business for a full day together, and we strengthen those six key components.

Amanda Barkey [00:13:58]:
So I help them get better at three things. We call them vision, traction, and healthy. So vision is from the standpoint of getting the leaders in the organization 100% aligned with the vision and the plan, rowing in the same direction. Traction just means bringing that vision down to the ground and executing on it with discipline and accountability. And then healthy means helping them become a healthy, cohesive, functional leadership team. Because oftentimes leaders don’t function well as a team. And so we find, as goes the leadership team, so goes the rest of the organization. So eventually, no matter where you look, everyone in your organization, Whether you have 10 employees or 1,000 employees, they are all executing on the same vision and plan, rowing in the same direction with accountability, discipline.

Amanda Barkey [00:14:47]:
And they’re gaining traction on that vision in a healthy, cohesive manner. And they’re a fun bunch of people who enjoy spending time together. And so that’s What I do, I get to go in and transform businesses one corridor at a time, strengthening those six key components. And that’s what EOS is all about.

Jordan Berry [00:15:07]:
Awesome. That was awesome. You know, it’s really interesting. So you know, we were talking before we hit record here and this, all these like principles. This is good for the single mom and pop store that doesn’t really have any employees or maybe one or two employees. And this is good for the large, you know, portfolio companies of laundromats. And it’s really interesting because just yesterday, or I guess yesterday when we’re recording this, not when this is coming out, but yesterday when we were recording this, I was doing a, a live Q and A with. You won’t know him, but Waleed Cope, who’s a little bit of a legend around our industry.

Jordan Berry [00:15:42]:
And we were talking about these large portfolio companies. And one of the things I was saying is I know a lot of these guys building companies and a lot of them are actually hitting the brakes a little bit on their expansion because they’re, they’re hitting these operational ceilings, ceilings, walls here. That’s, they’ve got to figure out how to do this right. So number one, I think this is timely because I’ve been talking more and more and more about how we need to, we need to level up our operations as an industry as a whole. But also there’s a whole lot of people who’ve got not 1 and 2 laundromats but have 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 laundromats now where this stuff becomes more and more important the more and more people you add to your team here. So it’s this perfect timing for this. So again, thank you for coming on. Maybe we can, you know, just do.

Amanda Barkey [00:16:35]:
A little, I want to say one thing. You know, you, you said you were talking about different sizes of businesses and you know, EOS was created for entrepreneurial businesses that have 10 to 250 employees. I think in the book there’s a certain amount of revenue that they suggest that you’re making to qualify as a business to use this system. But from my experience, like I said earlier, EOS is just comprised of practical real world tools and they work. And so, you know, like we were talking before this, I work with a lot of businesses that are certainly in that sort of like range, right? 10 to 250 employees x amount of gross revenue. But I also work with businesses outside of that range. Monday I started up with a new client and they have a business and they have 400 employees. I’m a solopreneur.

Amanda Barkey [00:17:33]:
I’m a one woman show and I run my EOS business practice, business coaching practice on Eos. And so, you know, the tools work for me for a solopreneur. We even use EOS in my family, you know, lucky them, their mom’s an implementer. So I’ve EOS star life. So, you know, we have family core values. We have a family vto, a vision traction organizer where we, you know, we plan and we set goals and all that good stuff. And so these tools work in any size business. I think that’s the beautiful thing about EOS is that it’s agnostic, it, it’s simple, it’s proven, it works, it just works.

Amanda Barkey [00:18:13]:
And so I love it for what it is. And you know, it’s a flexible system. And so whatever size you are, I would just say just give it a shot. Especially the foundational tools. There are five foundational tools that I feel like could really help any business of any size and change the game for people. You said another thing too. You mentioned, you talked about hitting the ceiling. That’s a concept that I teach my clients in our very first day that we work together.

Amanda Barkey [00:18:43]:
I talk about hitting the ceiling. And there’s this period of evolution and revolution in every business where a business will naturally hit a ceiling. And you know, when you’re a person, you hit, you have growth spurts, right. And you hit ceilings and you naturally break through them. While in business, you don’t, you, you know, most businesses, so they either they either flatline, they hit that ceiling and they stay there, or they fall off and die.

Jordan Berry [00:19:09]:
Yeah, they bounce off the ceiling. Yeah, right.

Amanda Barkey [00:19:12]:
50% of businesses fail within the first five years or they break through that ceiling and they move, they, they, you know, it’s like an upward trajectory and inevitably they hit the next one and then they break through that and they hit the next one. It’s going to happen. And so you need to learn tools to help you break through ceilings when you encounter them in your business. And so I teach my clients these five leadership abilities actually cracked open traction as you were talking about breaking through ceilings, because it’s all in here. And so the five leadership abilities are to simplify, predict, systemize, structure and delegate. And so if you can learn those five leadership abilities and all throughout the process of implementing EOs in a business, the exercises, the tools, the disciplines are all designed to help people get better at those five things. You can break through any ceiling that you encounter in your business, whether it’s individually, departmentally, or as an entire organization.

Jordan Berry [00:20:15]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And here’s one thing I want to say, you know, to those of you who have, you know, smaller operations, maybe you’re under that 10 employee mark, maybe you’ve got one laundromat, maybe two. Whatever. Listen, like Amanda was saying, there’s a lot of tools. You can get the tools, obviously get the book so you can understand sort of the concepts. There’s some tools you can download and stuff that’s going to help you all these things.

Amanda Barkey [00:20:39]:
And all of the tools are free and downloadable on the EOS Worldwide website. So there’s no excuse. They’re all out there for you. You just have to use them, get them and use them.

Jordan Berry [00:20:49]:
Yeah, and we’ll put links to that in the show notes. If you’re listening to it or if you’re on YouTube, we’ll put them down below so you can go find those. So. So definitely utilize those. But also, what I know about being a smaller entrepreneur, as you know, I guess I would consider myself that now, and I have been, is it can be kind of a lonely journey, especially if you’re like having your, you know, your, your meeting, your quarterly meeting with yourself. But what I found too, and, and, you know, just kind of lend some credence to this too. So her husband, Jobin and I, we know each other because we’re in gobundance. I’ve talked about that on here before.

Jordan Berry [00:21:23]:
A lot of the guys in gobundance run companies on eos and fight a ton of success. But one of the benefits of being in a group like EOS is that we have these groups where we can talk through our businesses from these frameworks together. And so, you know, I know a lot of you guys who are listening here. You’re in the pro community. You’ve got a mastermind group, maybe, or maybe you want to join one. A mastermind group so that even if you’re a solopreneur, you’re running your business on your own or maybe with a spouse and you need some, like, outside input, but you’re not big enough to maybe hire an EOS implementer like Amanda, utilize these tools that you can download for free, and then groups of people who are thinking about business the way you’re thinking about business too, that’s a really great way to implement them. And to those of you guys who have these larger operations and your goal is to expand, because I know there’s more and more of you out there right now, you know, consider setting up a call call with an EOS implementer like Amanda or, or another one, but probably just Amanda actually. And, because, and just, and hear them out too.

Jordan Berry [00:22:30]:
Like, like here, here are these implementers and, and see what maybe they can do to help you structure your business because it, it’s super powerful. Go ahead.

Amanda Barkey [00:22:39]:
We are an abundance minded community. So there are 900 implementers worldwide. I’m not going to claim that I’m the best, I’ll just, I’ll just claim it for you.

Jordan Berry [00:22:48]:
Yeah, well I’ll confirm it but you.

Amanda Barkey [00:22:52]:
Know, yeah, there is definitely a local implementer in your area. Wherever you are in the world. There are 900 implementers worldwide. We’re doing this work all over the world. There’s 900 plus of us. We’ve done 150, 150 plus thousand full day sessions in over 25,000 businesses. And so yeah, reach out to someone. Go on the EOS Worldwide website, there’s a directory you can look someone local up in your area or connect with me.

Amanda Barkey [00:23:19]:
Any implementer will offer you a complimentary 90 minute meeting. In 90 minutes they will meet with you, with all of your leaders or just yourself if it’s just you. And we’ll give you the movie version of the book Traction for free. So either over zoom or in person, whatever you prefer, no strings attached. That’s just how we do it. It’s how we lean into our core values. And so I’ll do that for you. I did one this morning and, and any implementer will do that.

Amanda Barkey [00:23:50]:
So whether you think you’re going to use me or not, take me up that, do a 90 with me and I’ll tell. I can teach you all the tools and disciplines, I’ll give you free tools. So it’s a no brainer, do that and then if, if I’m not right for you, whether it’s because we’re not in the same geographical area or, you know, I’m just not your flavor, I don’t know. Not everybody loves a juicy peach. So you know, I’m not the right fit for everyone. But if I’m not, that’s fine. I know a lot of people in this community and I can find you the implementer that’s right for you. And so please just take me up on it, connect with me.

Amanda Barkey [00:24:27]:
If any of this resonates with you, just hit me up and we’ll figure, we’ll figure out next steps. Yeah, but yeah, what you said was, was really, it really resonated with me. You know, I’m an entrepreneur and I can identify with that it’s lonely being an entrepreneur at. Whether you have no employees or 100 employees, it’s lonely at the top. Right. And so I really believe that every entrepreneur, every business owner, they need to have a few things in their arsenal. One is a business operating system. Whether it’s EOS or any other operating system, there are a ton of them out there.

Amanda Barkey [00:25:01]:
Obviously I’m biased. EOS is my operating system of choice. But you need an operating system in your business. You can’t just go flying by the seat of your pants forever. So that’s number one. But you know, a peer group is priceless. It’s. It’s something that it’s, it can’t even.

Amanda Barkey [00:25:23]:
I can’t even put into words how valuable a peer group is for an entrepreneur. Jobin is in gobundance with Jordan, and so that’s been a really valuable experience, beneficial for him. I’m involved in eo, in the Entrepreneurs organization. They have chapters all over the world. There are, you know, there’s ypo, there’s industry specific peer groups, masterminds, you know, so find something and get in there. Choose and use a system for your business, for yourself. You know, invest in yourself because you’re worth it, you deserve it, and it’s only going to be beneficial for you.

Jordan Berry [00:26:03]:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So the other thing I was going to say is, you know, if this, if, if it’s something you’re also interested in, if you’re, if you’re here at the laundromatic seller, Hawaii, we’ll make sure you get time with Amanda too. That way you can just connect with her in person and maybe share a little bit about your business and see if that’s right fit. So we’ll make sure that happens as well. Okay, so maybe we can get a little practical here. I mean, you mentioned these six pieces of this puzzle.

Amanda Barkey [00:26:31]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:26:31]:
Here maybe we can kind of go through each one of them just a little bit and do an overview so we can kind of start wrapping our heads around like we’re, we’re talking about an operating system. And it could be a little difficult to know what we even mean by this. If you’ve never even, I think, I don’t know, like, when I first bought my first Laundromat, I didn’t even know there were business operations. I wouldn’t even know what that was. So let’s put some, like, meat on these bones here and talk about what are these six things and maybe a little overview of each one.

Amanda Barkey [00:26:59]:
Sure. Okay, so I have a visual here. And anyone can, you can look this up. This is the EOS model. Okay, so these are the six key components that I talked about. So I’ll take them one at a time. So the vision component is the first key component right here. Strengthening the vision component.

Amanda Barkey [00:27:16]:
The two tools and disciplines we use is something called the eight questions and shared by all. And so eight questions, they’re kept on this two page strategic planning document. Whether you use me or not, please use this document. It’s a very powerful tool and it has eight simple questions. Looks like this. And the eight questions are, what are your core values? What’s your core Focus? What’s your 10 year target? What’s your marketing strategy? What’s your 3 year picture? What’s your 1 year plan? And what are your quarterly rocks? And then what are your issues? And so I work with my clients to answer those eight questions with their leadership team. Those eight questions are the greater good for your organization. And you want to make every single decision for your business with those eight questions in mind.

Amanda Barkey [00:28:07]:
But it’s really important for you and the leaders in your organization to all get on the same page. It’s not that there isn’t a vision in your organization. It’s usually that you’re not all on the same page with that vision and plan. And so we work together and we collaborate, we get on the same page with these eight questions. And this is called your Vision Traction Organizer, your vto. So yeah, so that’s the first tool that strengthens the vision component. And then once you’re on the same page with these eight questions, then you have to get everyone in your organization to share that same vision and plan. So when everyone in your organization can share the same vision and plan, they’re all rowing in the same direction and they’re trying to help you execute on the same vision.

Amanda Barkey [00:28:51]:
Not to get all kumbaya on you, but that’s. When we see planets line up, magic happens, you know, in ways we can’t even explain. So that’s the beauty of shared by all and strengthening your vision component to 100% strong.

Jordan Berry [00:29:07]:
I, I love that. And you know, it’s, it’s so easy to skip over this section, especially if you own like a laundromat, right? It’s like, it’s just a laundromat. What do I need a vision for? Right? You know, that kind of thing. But I mean, you know, as I’ve interviewed, I’ve interviewed over 200 people on the podcast now, 200 owners, right? And the consistent theme I’M seeing from people who are crushing it in this business is they have a, they have a vision, they have a plan for what they’re trying to do. And they align everything that they do and the culture of their business, all of that aligns and you know, get there with people too. Right. But all that aligns with the vision that they’ve set forth. And again, that vision can be, if you’re not a visionary person, quote unquote, that’s not like where you naturally go.

Jordan Berry [00:29:58]:
It can be really difficult to be like, okay, well how do I, how do I even do this? A tool like this gives you the formula, the format, the framework, right. To help you set the vision for your company. Like, where are we trying to go? How are we going to get there and what is that going to look like for us?

Amanda Barkey [00:30:15]:
Us, yeah. And, and we kind of work backwards. It’s like those Russian nesting dolls, right? You open one up and there’s a smaller one and a smaller one. There’s a saying, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time, right? And so, you know, there’s a quote by Yogi Bar and it goes, if you don’t know where you’re going, you might end up somewhere else. And you know, even if you’re just running a laundromat and you think it’s, you know, you know, it’s pretty, a pretty simple business, things can still get away with you. And so we’re, all we’re trying to do is crystallize your vision and your plan and then strategize and break it down into bite sized chunks. Right? And so, so you know, whether you want to stay small and you have your like one location, or you want to like grow and scale and open up multiple locations or whatever it is you still need, you need to have some sort of a vision plan, pathway framework to crystallize that vision and bring it down to the ground and execute on it. And so that’s what we’re doing here when we create this vto.

Amanda Barkey [00:31:26]:
And it’s a really powerful tool. So yeah, whether you’re a solopreneur, you have a ton of employees or even, you know, we’ve tweaked this vto. We have a family vto. I use this in our family. We have family core values and goals and family issues list. That’s fun when my 11 year old is adding issues to the issues list. But you know, it’s just really important to utilize a tool like this so that you can get clear. And when you’re clear.

Amanda Barkey [00:31:55]:
That’s what produces confidence. And clear is kind. And so if you do have any employees, whether it’s one or more, it’s just, it’s really important to provide clarity.

Jordan Berry [00:32:06]:
Yeah. And you know what’s interesting is, first of all, clarity is one of our core values over here. We highly value clarity. Right. And I love the. I mean, you dropped a little like, you know, clear as kind.

Amanda Barkey [00:32:24]:
Renee Brown.

Jordan Berry [00:32:25]:
Yeah. Little, little gym there. But I mean, and it is. Right. Like it is. And what I, What I love about this is, you know, something we talk about in our family a lot is there’s. There’s two paths you can take, right. You can kind of let life happen to you or you can say, hey, let’s try to.

Jordan Berry [00:32:43]:
You know, obviously you can’t control everything about life. There’s tons of things you can’t control. There are things you can control and things you can plan for and directions. You can move and influence things. Right. And so as far as we can, we can either let life happen to us or we can get clarity on where we’re going and so that we don’t end up somewhere else like Yogi Vera said, and, and. And move in a direction intentionally. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:33:06]:
So we can either be int about our businesses or our lives or whatever, or we could just let stuff happen to us. I’m always in the camp of let’s be intentional. You know, we may not hit every mark that we try to hit, we may not hit every goal we’re trying to hit, but we’re intentionally moving towards that. And guess what? We’re definitely going to end up closer than if we just kind of let business happen or let life happen. And I look back on my early days of running my, my laundromats, and I didn’t have. I didn’t have this vision. I wasn’t on the same page with my leadership or my employees. I just kind of let business happen.

Jordan Berry [00:33:40]:
And because of that, we suffered a lot early on because, you know, I wasn’t set in the right culture for our company. I wasn’t. Everybody wasn’t clear on what they were supposed to be doing. Nobody was enforcing what they were supposed to be doing. You know, like, so I missed a boat on a lot of this stuff. And this is what we’re talking about, right? This is how to. And a big part of this, because these are skills. You know, this is not stuff that most people are born with.

Jordan Berry [00:34:05]:
This is stuff that you learn and you grow and you have people like you or a mastermind Group or whoever, who help you grow in those skills and who help you implement them. And I mean, to me, like, you know, I said in the very beginning, like, this will revolutionize your business if you actually implement it. And you’ve said a couple different times already, like, hey, all the information’s in here in this book Traction, all the tools are downloadable. You can use them for free. But people like you exist who actually help people implement this business because knowledge is free, resources, even free. It’s the implementation where things get down and dirty. And having somebody help you implement is massive.

Amanda Barkey [00:34:48]:
Yeah, yeah. And you know what? I’ve seen both sides. And so I always joke I’m a repentant, reformed self implementer. Joven will tell anyone we crammed two years of learning in five years. So that’s fun. We did it the long, slow, hard way, right? And. And anyone can. I mean, you can, you can buy the book.

Amanda Barkey [00:35:08]:
You can do it. We were broke as a joke, to be honest, when we first discovered Traction, so we really didn’t have any other option. If I could turn back time and, you know, if I. If you have a time machine, I’d love that if he did. But if I could go back in time, I would take out a loan, a line of credit, beg, borrow, steal to you to be able to pay to use an implementer, because, you know, you can also, like, you can renovate your bathroom yourself. You know, you can. You don’t want me laying tile in my own bathroom. It’ll be a mess.

Amanda Barkey [00:35:44]:
Just like, you know, implement. Maybe someone like you implementing something like this into your business, it might turn out to be a mess. Right? And the worst first would be is if you do go down that road and then you have to undo what you did and eventually hire someone like me anyway. So, yeah, you might as well just explore and engage and see what it looks like to hire someone like me. So I’m a teacher, facilitator and coach. And something that you said earlier was really interesting. Before I get into that, you talked about not hitting 100% of your goals. And I didn’t say this before, but when we’re on the journey to strengthen these six key components, we’re on a journey to strengthen them to 100% strong.

Amanda Barkey [00:36:27]:
And you’re always going to hear me say that’s what 100% strong looks like. And obviously that’s our goal, but it’s utopia, it’s impossible, it’s never going to happen. And so my goal is simply to get my clients to 80% stronger, better. Okay, so that’s what we’re shooting for. 80% strong. Nobody’s perfect, right? And you can only control what you can control. So most of my clients come to me around 20 to 40% strong. They’re succeeding in spite of themselves.

Amanda Barkey [00:36:55]:
There’s a really great assessment on the EOS Worldwide website called the Organizational Checkup. It’s a checkup from the neck up again, just like everything else. It’s free. It’s an assessment you can take. All of your employees can take it, and it’ll tell you. I think it’s like 20 questions. It’s really simple. It’ll tell you where you’re at in the strength of these six key components.

Amanda Barkey [00:37:14]:
And better yet, it’ll show you the gaps, and so you’ll see where you can smoke out issues to what’s holding you back to getting to 100% strong. So I highly recommend taking that. But, yeah, the goal is 80% or better. Nobody’s perfect, right? And so I’m a teacher, facilitator, and coach. I am not a consultant. That’s the first thing it says on my LinkedIn. Amanda Barkey, not a consultant. Because my job isn’t to dig myself deeper into anybody’s business.

Amanda Barkey [00:37:42]:
My job is to teach my clients these tools and help them so that they master them. And mastery to me is that you know the tool and that you’re using it and then get the heck out of their way and let them run their own business. And so typically, on average, that takes my clients about two years. That’s why the joke is we cram two years of learning in five years. So typically it takes, on average, about two years. We work together over the course of two years, and then they get it. They graduate, and they run their business, and they use the EOS tools forever. Obviously, I’m always in their corner.

Amanda Barkey [00:38:18]:
Once a client, always a client. But. But sometimes clients stay on with us for shorter, and sometimes they stay on with us forever because we’re such a delight. But it’s, on average, two years. And so, yeah, it is an investment, right? It’s a monetary investment. It’s an investment of your time, your energy. But it’s well worth it for transformation. Radical transformation that lasts forever.

Amanda Barkey [00:38:43]:
Right. And so I’d encourage anybody to just explore what that could look like and. And ask yourself if you consider your expenses investments. Right? And so I. I certainly know, because I’ve been on both sides of it, that it’s a worthwhile one.

Jordan Berry [00:39:02]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, listen, I Haven’t been shy about. I spend a lot of money every year being in gobundance and some other groups that I’ve invested and try to help me grow my personal skills, but also help me grow my business. Right. And, and listen, I mean, frankly, we have not traditionally been great at that in our industry, but I see that changing. I see more and more people realizing, hey, and part of what we do with our clients is we want to obviously help them get into the laundromat business and help them grow their businesses, specifically from the laundromat angle. But one of the first things we talk about when we bring on a new client is your business can only grow to the extent that you grow. And so this is just as much about who you’re becoming as a leader, leader, as a business owner, as a person, as about what’s happening with your business.

Jordan Berry [00:39:54]:
Yeah, and I think, I think the same is true with eos and with Traction. There is these, like I said, these are skills that you’re developing along the way as you’re growing, whether you’re kind of self implementing because you have to or because you want to just try it out for a little bit or you’ve got somebody, you know, a professional helping you implement in your business, whether it’s a laundromat. I know some of you guys own other businesses too out there where EOS would also work really well.

Amanda Barkey [00:40:19]:
Absolutely. It works really in any business, in any industry, like I said. And it’s funny, like what you’re talking about is it just rings true across. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that. Right. Like I hear it day in and day out. I just did a 90 minute meeting this morning with a pest control company and they flatlined. Their revenues have been the same for the last three years.

Amanda Barkey [00:40:44]:
And so they’re bringing me in because they said if nothing changes, nothing changes. And what got us here is not going to get us to where we want to go. And so something needs to change and they’ve determined that they need to implement these tools and disciplines and that’s what is going to move the needle. And so, yeah, I would just, you know, I love that saying what got us here isn’t going to get us to where we want to go. And so, yeah, just because you have to just kind of take stock in that and decide for yourself, you know, what, what you need to invest in to get yourself to the next level.

Jordan Berry [00:41:16]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So I mean, obviously, like, I don’t want to go through all Six of these. We can do that for sure. At some point maybe, you know, or.

Amanda Barkey [00:41:25]:
Someone could, if they’re interested and this resonates with them. Just reach out to me and I’ll do that for you anytime.

Jordan Berry [00:41:30]:
Yeah, exactly. That’s perfect. But I would like to just do maybe just a high little level overview of like one or two more just to kind of give people a flavor. The vision thing, I think is great. And you just. The eight questions in and of itself is worth every penny you paid to listen to this podcast right here.

Amanda Barkey [00:41:49]:
Absolutely.

Jordan Berry [00:41:50]:
But, you know, I mean, can you just kind of give us, I mean, one. One thing we struggle with in this industry is the people aspect of it. So we don’t have to go super in depth into it. But can you give us a little bit of overview what’s within this people section here of, of traction?

Amanda Barkey [00:42:06]:
So strengthening the people component is all about getting the right people in the right seats. These are two terms popularized by Jim Collins in his book Good to Great. And we make them really tangible. And so we use this tool called the people analyzer. So we’ve done the work of defining what your core values are. When we answer those eight questions. Right, that’s the first question. What are your core values? Once we know what those are, we want to use those core values to attract the right people.

Amanda Barkey [00:42:31]:
People who are. Who fit our culture like a glove and repel people who are not the right fit. We use our core values in an EOS run company to hire, fire, recognize, review, and reward our employees. And so you, you use them to perpetuate the culture in your organization. So that’s right people. And then right fit is using a tool called the accountability chart. And so we decide what the functions are in your business. We take a structure first, people second approach.

Amanda Barkey [00:43:04]:
And so we create the best in right structure. There are three major functions. Sales and marketing, operations and finance. Every business, whether you’re sitting in all three of those seats, okay, every business has those functions. And then there’s a fourth major function called the integrator. This is the person that runs the day to day. Maybe that’s you too. And they’re the glue that holds everything together.

Amanda Barkey [00:43:27]:
They integrate the way that those major functions play together to achieve the common vision. And then 50% of the time, that’s the way that most of my clients will look. The other 50% of the time, my clients will add a fifth seat. And that’s called visionary. And I mentioned visionary earlier in the conversation. A visionary is a big ideas person. They love staying at 30,000ft. They come to every meeting with 20 new ideas.

Amanda Barkey [00:43:52]:
They don’t like having the tough conversations. That’s the work best done by the integrator. If you have a visionary trapped in an integrator circle, you’re going to see a lot of 90 day spikes. And then chaos ensues because they just can’t sustain the energy it takes to see things through. And so they get distracted by all the shiny stuff. And I, I consider an integrator like visionary Ritalin. That’s what they are. They are like they need the dynamic duo in an organization.

Amanda Barkey [00:44:22]:
So if you want to think about like a famous duo, think of Walt and Roy Disney, right? Like so Walt Disney was the visionary. He had this big dream of Disneyland. His brother Roy was his visionary or sorry, his integrator. He really brought that vision that Walt had down to the ground and executed on it. And we wouldn’t have Disneyland today if it was all up to Walt, right? He needed to have that counterpart in that dynamic duo to help him to execute on that vision. And so that’s the dynamic dual. Those are two key leaders in an organization. There’s another great assessment on the EOS Worldwide website called the Crystallizer assessment.

Amanda Barkey [00:45:03]:
This assessment changed my husband’s life. He’s the visionary in our organization. He is the visionaries of all visionaries. 10 quick start. He’ll build a parachute on the way down kind of guy. And he always felt like that meant he was a bad entrepreneur. He thought, you know, like if I paid my taxes on time or if I, you know, I did X, Y and Z, if I like, you know, submitted all the permits on time, I’d be a good entrepreneur. That’s not his skill set, that’s not his unique ability.

Amanda Barkey [00:45:32]:
But once he realized that, once he understood who he is wired to be, who he’s created to be and then he understood that he needed that second in command and he found her. He has Integrator who’s a rock star Integrator. He and her worked together as visionary integrator for over a decade. And they made magic happen together because it’s like yin and yang, right? And so a great book is called Rocket Fuel. So everything about the VI duo is in this book. Rocket Fuel. There’s a whole traction library. But especially for those, I’m sure there’s a lot of people listening who are like, oh, I’m a visionary.

Amanda Barkey [00:46:16]:
Like that probably rings true because most owners, founders are visionaries. And so it’s this is like visionary therapy. Reading this book. And so I highly recommend for your listeners to also read this retraction first, but read Rocket Fuel second and, and take that crystallizer assessment, it’s illuminating. And then once you know what you need right where your gaps are and that what that second in command looks like. And there’s a really great description of, of what makes an integrator in the book Rocket Fuel. And to be honest, so back in the day when we read Rocket Fuel, we were learning traction and we starting to implement it in our business. We were hiring people on Craigslist and my husband took the book Rocket Fuel and he literally copy pasted the description of what makes an integrator, put it on Craigslist and that’s how he found our integrator.

Amanda Barkey [00:47:08]:
And so if you’re looking for a job description, it’s right there in the book, right? And now with AI and everything, this was like back in the stone ages, but, but there are so many tools and resources that you can use to find your perfect match. And EOS Worldwide actually has just come out just this year with, or maybe at the end of last year with a visionary integrator matchmaker program. So there’s that too. So there’s a lot of resources out there. But right people, right seats, you gotta have both. So that’s sort of the idea there with people. And when you do this work, you run into two people issues. You’ll have the right person in the wrong seat.

Amanda Barkey [00:47:48]:
And so this is somebody who fits your culture like a glove. They, you know, they’re aligned with your core values, you love having them around. They, but they’re in the wrong seat. And so if you’ve built an accountability chart, and we do the work to fully build out your accountability chart, all, you know, clarify all the seats, the roles, crystallize all of those, you might be able to find a seat for that person. But if you can’t, if you’re a for profit organization, as much as you love that person, you’re going to have to make that tough call. If you have a wrong person in the right seat, this is somebody who is executing. They’re firing on all cylinders, they’re hitting all their numbers, but they’re chipping away at your culture in ways that you don’t even see. And in the long term they’re going to do more damage than good.

Amanda Barkey [00:48:34]:
They’re like a cancer in your organization. And if that’s the case, I’m going to urge you, beg with you, plead with you to make the change, liberate Them to the workforce and. And make that. Have that tough conversation. Because if you have the wrong person in the right seat, they’re never going to turn into the right person. Right? And so that’s the. Those are the two people issues that we face when we’re doing this work. But I’m working with my clients to.

Amanda Barkey [00:49:04]:
The goal is to get 100% of the right people in the right seat. Seats. You gotta have both.

Jordan Berry [00:49:09]:
Yeah. I can’t tell you. I mean, Rocket Fuel is like the best name for that book because that’s what it feels like. I remember, like, I remember when I was a youth pastor. I was a youth pastor for like, 15 years or like, pastor and youth pastor. But I remember as a youth pastor early on and, like, I just struggled with all things admin, right? Like, I just. And, like, I would, like, think of these, like, great events that we could do. And.

Jordan Berry [00:49:33]:
And then I just, like, struggle to, like. And then they don’t happen, right? I’m like. Or they happen. It’s just like, it’s chaos, right? It’s like. And I’m like, I don’t care. It’s chaos, but it’s fun. And most time the kids don’t care, but the parents are like, what is happening here? Right? And then I remember the first youth pastor job I got at a larger church that had an administrative assistant, and it was like breathing fresh air for the first time. And I was like, like, I can come up with these ideas and not only can you make them happen, like, you enjoy it, you love this, like, oh, my God, like, it really, like, was a mindset shift for me, you know, and you talk about, like, right person, wrong seat, you know, and then the vice versa, right? Wrong person, right seat, right? You know, I think there’s probably a lot of people listening to this who are owners right now who are the right person in some of the wrong seats, right? And sometimes you got to do what you got to do, right? Early on.

Jordan Berry [00:50:35]:
Sometimes you got to wear all the hats, you got to sit in all the seats, right? But the goal is to move us up the ladder here to get us in the optimal seat and get the right people in the other seats, right? And nobody gave me. Nobody. Nobody told me that it was okay to not have all the skills to not be good at all the things and that it’s okay that some people actually enjoy the things that I loathe. I didn’t. I genuinely. I did not know that. Right?

Amanda Barkey [00:51:05]:
You can’t, like, so. So say you were running a Restaurant. You can’t be the server, and the, you know, the. The washer and the cook do it all like, it just simply. You just simply cannot. And so the rule of thumb, you know, you mentioned someone sitting in multiple seats. Seats. You can sit in multiple seats.

Amanda Barkey [00:51:28]:
Depends what your capacity is. Right. And, like, look, to be honest, no entrepreneur is working 40 hours a week. We’re all working way more than that. But you need to. You can only give your 100. You need to determine what that is. And so maybe you can sit in multiple seats and still give your 100%, but you can’t have multiple people in a seat.

Amanda Barkey [00:51:48]:
Okay? So you clearly, like I said, we’re structure first, people second. You clearly define what that seat looks like, and then one person sits in that seat. Because if you have multiple people in a seat, then you’ve got a lot of this happening. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:52:00]:
Like two cooks in the kitchen.

Amanda Barkey [00:52:04]:
Yeah. When everyone’s. No one’s accountable. That’s right.

Jordan Berry [00:52:07]:
That’s right.

Amanda Barkey [00:52:08]:
So it’s all about accountability, and that’s why we call it the accountability chart. Who’s accountable for what and when. I’m doing that exercise with my clients, I tell them, look, I make a joke with them on focus Dates are the very first exercise that we do, because Gino Wickman says the root of all evil lies in the accountability chart. And he’s right. Like, you really. You can’t do anything until you have that thing figured out. And. And so we get to work building an accountability chart.

Amanda Barkey [00:52:34]:
I say, look, you’re all fired, okay? Titles don’t mean anything to me. That’s all, like, ego stuff. And so I’m like, whatever your title is, like, leave that at the door. You’re all fired. We’re a board of directors here today, okay? And so we are going to build out the best and right structure for ABC Laundromat. And we’re thinking six to 12 months out. So what accountability chart? What functions do we need in this business to get us to where we want to go in six to 12 months? We create those seats, and we put the roles in the seats. Five roles in each function, not 25, because less is more.

Amanda Barkey [00:53:11]:
And we just. We define what those five roles are in each seat, and then we put the right people in the right seats. And look, sometimes some seats, you’ll sit in multiple seats. Sometimes some seats will be empty, and that’s okay. That shows us where we’re going. That that gives us a framework or a structure to say, look, this is what we need. How do you know what you need in your business if you, if you can’t see it? Right. Like if you don’t have that, that structure, that system in place.

Amanda Barkey [00:53:40]:
And so, so the accountability chart does a lot of things. It’s a tool that, it’s a heavy lifting tool. And so that’s why it’s the very first exercise that I do with my clients on Focus Day. It’s really important to get clear on that accountability chart and then work the rest out from there.

Jordan Berry [00:54:00]:
Let me ask you a question that I think will be relevant to some people listening right now. And I’ve got some thoughts on this, but I’m really curious what you would say to this is. Let’s talk to, just for a second. I mean, obviously there’s a lot of laundromat owners who have larger portfolios, bigger businesses, but real quick, let’s just talk to the person who’s got maybe one or two laundromats that has maybe one to four employees.

Amanda Barkey [00:54:20]:
Yep.

Jordan Berry [00:54:21]:
Is, is this still, I mean, you said this, this chart, this accountability chart here does some heavy lifting. Is this still a worthwhile exercise to go through?

Amanda Barkey [00:54:29]:
Absolutely. So I’m a one woman show, remember? Like I said, I run my EOS business practice on Eos. And so I have an accountability chart with the major functions, sales and marketing. I sit in that seat. Okay. Operations, that’s everything I do in the session room with my clients. Obviously I sit in that seat. Finance, that’s not my strong suit.

Amanda Barkey [00:54:53]:
I’m not, I, I was a solid C student in math. Okay. So I don’t want to sit in that seat. Nobody wants me. The, the government, the tax man certainly does not want me sitting in that seat. So someone else sits in that seat. I’ve outsourced that seat seat. I have an executive assistant, so I have technically one employee and she sits in the integrator seat because guess what? I’m a visionary too.

Amanda Barkey [00:55:17]:
And I think there’s a spectrum. I’m maybe not like, you know, you know, my husband. So like, you’re probably like, you’re a visionary. Yeah, I am. I’m just not, I’m not on that end of the spectrum. Okay.

Jordan Berry [00:55:28]:
Can’t put Jobin up next to. I’m like pretty extreme and he’s beyond me. So.

Amanda Barkey [00:55:36]:
But I’m not good at the things that my assistant is good at as far as the scheduling and the task management and the CRM and QuickBooks. I don’t even know my QuickBooks login. She does that all. So she Started out as my assistant and now I’ve elevated her to practice manager. And so she sits in that integrator seat. Seat. So I have a fully fleshed out accountability chart for my one woman show. Right.

Amanda Barkey [00:56:06]:
And so if you have one or two laundromats in your portfolio and you’ve got like, you know, just a handful of employees, a hundred percent, you should be doing this work because, you know, you need to know who does what, who is absolutely accountable for what. So nothing slips. And also so that, you know, you know, if you want to scale, like where, how, where are the empty seats or how, you know, the people that you do have, how are they going to. It gives them like a career path, a path to advancement, or, you know, there are so many things that it provides. It’s just at the end of the day, it provides clarity. And so you got to get clear on what those functions are, what those roles are, crystallize those roles, and then put the butts in seats and make sure that, you know, only one person in a seat. Like, you got to make sure that’s happening too because like, so I could imagine in a, in a laundromat, like, maybe there’s a mom and pop kind of shop laundry mat, and it literally, it’s literally mom and dad. Maybe it’s a husband and wife.

Amanda Barkey [00:57:09]:
Right. Like, I can’t. I could imagine that if you would build out an accountability chart, it would probably help you not only in your professional relationship, but also in your personal relationship. Right. Because it’s. I work with my husband. We own it. We own businesses together.

Amanda Barkey [00:57:28]:
And in the early days before we were using these tools, it was a lot of like, well, I thought you said you were going to do that. I thought you were going to do that. You know, like. But if you’ve got an accountability chart, you know exactly who does what and who is accountable for what. And there’s just, there’s no question. And so it just helps you to live out a better entrepreneurial life.

Jordan Berry [00:57:47]:
Yeah. And one thing I’ll add to that, because I couldn’t agree more. So in our Laundromat Playbook program, we have a section where we help you optimize your laundromats. Right. And in that we’ve got like a hierarchy of not necessarily for your business. I mean, it can be for your business, but we’ve got like a hierarchy of like here tasks that are fundamental, bottom level. You could hire it out for minimum wage tasks and then moving all the way up. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:58:13]:
And, and for me, when I first bought my first laundromat. I sat in every seat of the entire hierarchy, whether I liked it or not. That’s just what I had to do because I was losing money and I had to just do what I had to do.

Amanda Barkey [00:58:25]:
Sometimes you gotta wear all the hats.

Jordan Berry [00:58:26]:
Sometimes you guys gotta do everything you gotta do. Right? So. Right. But the goal and why I think this is super valuable also, even if you’re just doing it yourself or you got maybe one or two people cleaning your laundromat or whatever is at least then you’ll have clarity on what all the roles are. So number one, you know what you should be doing. And then number two, one thing that we do is we try to help our clients move up the pyramid here, move up the hierarchy, right? And begin hiring out, leveraging out the things that are not in your core competency, right. In your unique ability. And one of the things we do with our clients is periodically we have them do a time audit, right? Where what are you spending your time on in order to see, like, hey, you’re spending a whole lot of time at this bottom level here of your org chart here.

Jordan Berry [00:59:21]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So how do we get that off your plate so that you can focus on the higher value tasks? And when you’re clear about what are all the seats and who’s sitting in them, you can begin to grow your business by getting the right people in those seats and getting yourself out of some of those seats you shouldn’t be.

Amanda Barkey [00:59:40]:
We have a great tool. It’s very simple. It’s called delegate and elevate. And so it sounds a lot like what you’re talking about. So I tell my clients, take a notebook or legal pad, whatever, and carry it around with you for a week. Write down every single thing that you do, even the embarrassing stuff, right? If you’re counting the coins, you’re taking out the trash or scrubbing the toilets, whatever it is, write down every single thing that you do over the course of a week. And then take that list of things and you’re going to put them into four quadrants. So you’re going to divide a piece of paper into four quadrants.

Amanda Barkey [01:00:13]:
What you love to do and you’re great at, what you like to do, and you’re good at what you don’t like to do and you’re good at. That’s people’s personal health, right? And what you don’t like to do and you’re not good at. And so you’re going to take all of those things and you’re going to put them into those quadrants. Before you move those things over, you time them out. And so you say, okay, you know, it takes me about this long to take out the garbage, takes me this long to scrub the toilets. It takes me this long to, you know, reconcile the books, whatever, whatever those things are that you do. Timestamp them out, move them over into those four quadrants and then you’ll know those bottom two quadrants are the things that you want to get off your plate as soon as possible. Right.

Amanda Barkey [01:00:57]:
And that’s how you elevate yourself to your unique ability. Your unique ability lives in those top two quadrants. What you love to do in your grade at, and what you like to do, and you’re good at that. And, and when you put a time on those things, it’s illuminating. Right. Like when you, because you’re like, it’s really interesting when you’re just going about your day to day and you’re just, you’re going along to get along and you’re just doing those things. It’s like you don’t really think about how long those things take you and what a time suck they are. But then when you time them out, you, you, you know, you put a timestamp on them and then you move them over and you see those things in the bottom two quadrants that are taking up so much of your time, you’re like, oh, okay, something needs to change right quick.

Amanda Barkey [01:01:37]:
So, so that’s a really great tool. It’s not, it’s actually not one of the tools that we use to strengthen those 60 components, but we have 20 additional tools in this EOS toolbox that we teach our clients on our way to getting to 80% strong. So that’s a tool and you can look it up. It’s called delegate and elevate. So simple, so powerful. I would encourage any entrepreneur to take the time to do that, that. To show you what you should get off of your plate.

Jordan Berry [01:02:06]:
Yeah. So where do I put singing? Because I like to do it, but I’m terrible at it. And I didn’t see that in the quadrant.

Amanda Barkey [01:02:14]:
Is that part of your job or.

Jordan Berry [01:02:15]:
Is that, I mean, I would, I would like to be a pop star, a boy band, something.

Amanda Barkey [01:02:21]:
I don’t know where you put that. You decide.

Jordan Berry [01:02:23]:
Okay.

Amanda Barkey [01:02:25]:
Yeah, that’s a good point too. A lot of us are doing things that we like to do that we shouldn’t be doing. Right, Right. And so that’s a good point too. Like get really honest with yourself. Right, Totally.

Jordan Berry [01:02:40]:
Yeah.

Amanda Barkey [01:02:41]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:02:43]:
Opening up that, you know, too personal. Too personal. Forget I said that.

Amanda Barkey [01:02:50]:
But get honest with yourself.

Jordan Berry [01:02:52]:
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that’s, that’s a lot of what this was. I mean, you mentioned something earlier and I was like, it was one of the assessments that you made. I can’t remember which one it was now, but I was thinking like, hey, be in a good headspace when you go and take this assessment, because it’s going to tell you the truth here. And you need to know, you know, and, and part of it too, you know, we didn’t really get to it, but the issues list too, like, that’s. That can be tough, right? When you hear issues or somebody has an issue with the way you’re leading or the way the business is going or something. That could be tough to hear that stuff, but really, like, you gotta. We gotta kind of separate a little bit our feelings from some of this stuff.

Jordan Berry [01:03:30]:
If we’re trying to accomplish a goal, if we’re trying to build a business, if we’re trying to hit a revenue, if we’re trying to, you know, build a culture in our business, we’ve got a little bit take our ego out of it, take our emotions away from it and be willing to hear, hey, what am I not good at that I’m spending time on that I shouldn’t be? What. What am I doing that’s causing issue? I mean, I, I know all the time I got to talk to my admin a driver insane. Because I’m super visionary and spontaneous and impulsive and all that stuff. And I come up with an idea. I’m like, hey, we’re doing this now. And she’s like, well, we have these other things that we haven’t even like, finished yet. We got multiple projects open here. You come up with another one, drives her insane.

Jordan Berry [01:04:09]:
And I’m like, yeah, let’s do it. Right? But it could be hard to hear, like, hey, this is hurting the business that you keep coming out with these ideas and we’re not completing anything. But this is a lot of, like that, that transparency and that being honest with ourselves and honest about our. Where our business is at. Right. And I talk to people a lot where businesses are struggling. I’ve been there, right? And you just got to kind of be honest, like, hey, business is struggling. Here’s where I’m at with it.

Jordan Berry [01:04:40]:
Here’s what we need to do to either get you out of the situation or get you out of the business. And there’s a lot of feelings that get tied up with that and you just deal with the feelings and then you, you move on.

Amanda Barkey [01:04:53]:
Like, look like getting offended and lying to yourself, it’s not going to serve you well.

Jordan Berry [01:05:00]:
That’s right.

Amanda Barkey [01:05:00]:
Who are we kidding? And oftentime times it’s like that Taylor Swift song, like, hi, it’s me. I’m the problem. It’s me. Like, yeah, yeah, if you want to be.

Jordan Berry [01:05:11]:
I mean, I’d have never heard of it. I don’t know.

Amanda Barkey [01:05:12]:
No, sure. Of course not. Jordan’s not as much. I don’t know if you can see I have the EOS Healthy rules behind me here on the wall. And one of them is, I can’t work my finger today here. Be open and honest. So that’s a. When I was talking about.

Amanda Barkey [01:05:31]:
That’s one of the US Healthy rules. And when I was talking about the types of people that I work with, you know, entrepreneurs that have small to medium sized businesses, 10 to 250 employees, yada, yada, that’s all great. But like, most importantly, I work with leaders who want to go from good to great. They are open and honest and vulnerable. They’re respectful, they’re appreciative. They’re more afraid of the status quo than they are of change. Change. And if that’s you, you don’t have, you can’t afford to be offended and to lie to yourself and to, you know, like, you can’t afford it.

Amanda Barkey [01:06:07]:
It’s just, it’s not going to serve you. It’s not going to get you anywhere. And so, yeah, it’s just that, that’s the name of the game. You have to be open and honest and vulnerable.

Jordan Berry [01:06:16]:
Yeah. Yeah. And again, like another great reason to have like a mastermind group or one of these communities where, where you can be in a place that’s safe, where. I mean, just today I had a, I had a meeting with my Go pod from Go Bundance, right? And my Go bros. What’s up bros? And they were, you know, I mean, listen, I was just telling them, like, hey, like I’m, I’m struggling. Like doing the same thing over and over and over again is like death to me, you know, as a, as a visionary especially. And like, you know, listen, I mean, if I’m just gonna, like, be honest, like I’m over 200 episodes in the podcast, which actually I love doing. But all the stuff that goes into doing a podcast is hard and all the stuff around it I’m doing, you know, I’m on calls with people all week, every week, which Again, I love, but it just gets hard when you’re doing it.

Jordan Berry [01:07:11]:
Like, I’m just kind of sharing with them and they’re like, hey, you just need to take a break, right? You just, just need to take. You need to stop for a little bit. And I’m like, I can’t because of yada, yada yada. And they’re like, hey, like, are, are you quitting or are you in it for the long run? Because you’re in it for the long run. You, you’ve got to like, take care of yourself here and like, Right. Give yourself a break here. And, you know, it’s good to have people in your life who are willing to be like, are you making the right decision here? You know, based on what you’ve told us? It doesn’t sound like it.

Amanda Barkey [01:07:39]:
Yeah. And that’s the beautiful thing of like a peer group group. A coach, right. Like me as a coach, I get to play the game where I go into an entrepreneurial business and I see things from a different vantage point, right. Like, I’m on the sidelines, they’re playing in the game, and I’m on the sidelines. And I see things differently. And I coach people to be. To get more out of themselves than maybe they thought they could.

Amanda Barkey [01:08:02]:
And, and sometimes it takes a different perspective. Someone out come from the outside looking in to call it out. And you have to be humble enough to accept that feedback and, you know, and it has to come from the right place. But it’s so important. It’s super crucial. Like, it’s really easy to hide as an entrepreneur. Right. But if you want to be better, you have to bring those things to light.

Amanda Barkey [01:08:29]:
Be vulnerable, open and honest, and be willing to seek with curiosity, be willing to accept help and feedback. That’s so important. So whether it’s from a peer group or a coach like myself, I just think that’s crucial. And I wanted to touch on issues real quick, too. You mentioned issues a couple times. And so, you know, the issues list is a really good.

Jordan Berry [01:08:49]:
Have so many. Is why I mentioned it.

Amanda Barkey [01:08:52]:
Well, so I’m going to talk about that in a second because issues have. It’s sort of. There’s a negative connotation to that word. Right. But issues can be anything that’s on your mind that needs to be resolved. They can be problems, obstacles, challenges, whatever is frustrating you, Opportunities, ideas. Right. The idea of the issues list is to get all of those things out of your head and onto a list somewhere in the organization.

Amanda Barkey [01:09:19]:
There’s therapy in that. And so having access to an issues list, whether you’re the visionary of an organization or you’re the newest hire, having access to an issues list and getting all of those things out of your head and onto a list is really an important practice to put into place. In an EOS run company, we have two issues lists. One is for short term issues. That’s anything that’s within the 90 day world. And long term issues are anything that are 90 days and out. Right. But nevertheless, you want to get those things out of your head and onto a list.

Amanda Barkey [01:09:55]:
So really important practice to put into place.

Jordan Berry [01:09:58]:
Yeah, I love it. Well, listen, I mean, listen, we, we barely scratched the surface of a couple of these things here, but I hope, you know, if you’re listening to this or watching this, like, I hope you’re getting excited about, like we, you know, as laundromats, we’ve been this like small little mom and pop industry forever. But exciting things are happening in our industry right now. We’re getting access to technology that we have not had access to, frankly, for like, ever. And we’re able to utilize things like AI. I just did an interview that’ll come out in a couple weeks with an owner in Sacramento that’s got a folding robot in their store and the robot folds laundry all day, you know, for them. And, you know, so we’ve got all this stuff, you know, we’re utilizing AI all, all the time. Like, we got a lot of, of access to tools, digital payment systems data, which we didn’t get to again, which would be huge.

Jordan Berry [01:10:57]:
You know, come to the automatic accelerator. Book a call with Amanda to hear more about that too. But we get all this access to all this stuff, but we also need to know what to do with it. Right? We also need to know how to organize it and how to translate it into running a good business. And a tool like eos, I’ll call it like one big tool, even though it’s comprised of a lot of tools. But a tool or a system like EOS helps organize all of this stuff and helps us actually implement it and translate it into our businesses. And this has not been the way that our industry has thought ever. Very few people in our industry have thought this way.

Jordan Berry [01:11:40]:
And so if you’re listening to this or watching this right now, I hope you’re getting super excited because this is, I don’t want to call it low hanging fruit because honestly, like, this is a, this is a lot of work that you got to put in to get your business up and running. Like Amanda Said if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna hire Amanda or another implementer to help you, it’s a two year process. You can do it on your own. Frankly, it’s probably gonna be a longer process than that to get there, which again is okay. But this is time, effort that you got to put in. So it’s not low hanging in that it’s easy, but it’s low hanging in that that if you do this, it is going to transform your business, it is going to help you grow your business, and it’s going to give you a huge advantage over the 99.9% of laundromats that are not implementing the stuff in their businesses. So hopefully you’re getting super excited. I’m getting super excited, frankly.

Amanda Barkey [01:12:30]:
Yeah, I’m glad. Yeah. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. Right. And so, you know, but nothing in life that’s worthwhile really ever is. So. Yeah. But at the bottom, at the end of the day, bottom line, it is simple stuff.

Amanda Barkey [01:12:46]:
So, you know, it’s. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Jordan Berry [01:12:49]:
That’s right.

Amanda Barkey [01:12:50]:
But I’m here for you. There are lots of other people and resources that are out there for you. So. Yeah, I’m excited about this stuff too, obviously.

Jordan Berry [01:13:00]:
Yeah. Well, speaking of which, listen, I. I know there’s people out there who definitely want to book that 90 minute call with you, and I know there’s people out there who need to book it and probably who need to just hire you for their business. Again, I’m not trying to, you know, sell your stuff, but I mean, I just, I know people who need somebody like you in their business. Yeah, no, it does. It does. So what’s the best way for people to get a hold of you to ask you more questions, to get more information, to book that 90 minute call to hire you and give you buckets of money so that you can help them build businesses, to give them truckloads of money, which is what you do.

Amanda Barkey [01:13:34]:
Yeah. Back up that truck. So I’m all over social media. You can find me. My name’s Amanda Barkey. It’s like the key to the bar. No, L. I know.

Amanda Barkey [01:13:44]:
You know, resemblance is uncanny, but I’m not related to Charles Barkley. It’s Barki. So you can find me all over socials. I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Instagram, I’m all over the place. You can email me at Amanda Barkeyos worldwide.com and you can find me on the EOS directory. So go to The EOS Worldwide website. Look me up on the directory and I’m there. You’ll find my micro site.

Amanda Barkey [01:14:12]:
I have a website that I’m working on that’s going live soon, so check me out. I’m all over the place. And, you know, connect with me. I’d love to connect. I’d love to help you run a better business and live a better life.

Jordan Berry [01:14:25]:
Yeah. And we’ll have links to everything there, too, just so you can in the show notes or down below if you’re on YouTube. Real quick point of clarification. I just want to make sure everybody’s kind of clear on this. I know you’ve. We’ve talked about how you’re in SoCal, you’re in Hawaii. Do I need to be in SoCal or Hawaii for you to work with me? Or what if I’m in. On the east coast or Midwest or something like that? What’s.

Jordan Berry [01:14:46]:
What does that look like?

Amanda Barkey [01:14:48]:
Yeah. So I split my time between Southern California and Hawaii. Most of my clients are in those two locations. And so that’s where I meet with people in person. But I’ve done every single EOS session all in person hybrid. And so some of some people were in the room in person, and. And we brought some other people in virtually, and then I’ve done all of the sessions also completely virtual. So I am open to work with anyone anywhere in the world.

Amanda Barkey [01:15:17]:
If you’re open to, you know, be flexible and figure out how to do it virtually with me, I’ve got that all squared away. So really doesn’t matter where you are in this world. I’m open to work with you and so connect with me and we’ll figure it out.

Jordan Berry [01:15:32]:
Awesome. Awesome, Amanda. Incredible. Seriously, I’m, like, so jazzed up right now. We’re doing this on a Friday afternoon, and I’m ready to, like, hit the beach because I’m just so excited right now.

Amanda Barkey [01:15:46]:
I’m always ready to hit the beach.

Jordan Berry [01:15:47]:
I know, I know. Well, listen, I appreciate you taking the time to come on. Cannot wait to hang out with you at Laundromat accelerator Hawaii. Coming up November 21st, 24th. Laundromatresource.com Hawaii, if you’re interested in that. And listen, I know you’re coming back to the island next week, so we’ll have to get together again and. And hang out.

Amanda Barkey [01:16:08]:
See you there.

Jordan Berry [01:16:09]:
Awesome. Appreciate you so much.

Amanda Barkey [01:16:11]:
Happy Aloha Friday.