The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
I am more convinced than ever that nothing that traditional bar organizations are doing is going to move the needle on the sad stats on lawyer happiness ...
The root cause of all lawyers' problems is financial stress. Financial stress holds you back from getting the right people on the bus, running the right systems, and being able to only do work for clients you want to work with. Financial stress keeps you in the office on nights and weekends, often doing work you hate for people you don't like, and doing that work alone.
(Yes, you have permission to do only work you like doing and doing it with people you like working with.)
The money stress is not because the lawyers are bad lawyers or bad people. In fact, most lawyers are good at the lawyering part and they are good people.
The money stress is caused by the general lack of both business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Thus, good lawyers who are good people get caught up and slowed down in bringing their gifts to the world. Their families, teams, clients, and communities are not well-served because you can't serve others at your top level when you are constantly worrying about money.
We can blame the law schools and the elites of the profession who are running bar organizations, but to blame anyone else for your own woes is a loser's game. It is, in itself, a restrictive, narrow, mindset that will keep you from ever seeing, let alone experiencing, a better future.
Lawyers need to be in rooms with other entrepreneurs. They need to hang with people who won't tell you that your dreams are too big or that "they" or "the system "won't allow you to achieve them. They need to be in rooms where people will be in their ear telling them that their dreams are too small.
Get in better rooms. That would be the first step.
Second step, ignore every piece of advice any general organized bar is giving about how to make your firm or your life better.
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
Ep. 198 – Are You Running Your Law Firm… Or Is It Running You? (Live from the GLM Summit)
This episode is an absolute masterclass on the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)—delivered live at the GLM Summit. If you’ve ever felt like your law firm is running your life instead of the other way around, this is the clarity bomb you need.
Our EOS expert walks you through what it really means to build a practice that grows and thrives without you being in the center of every single decision. You’ll hear how EOS helps law firm owners get control of their time, profit, people, and systems—using a proven, six-component framework that’s now implemented in over 250,000 companies worldwide.
💡 Key Takeaways:
- Why you must shift from “flying by the seat of your pants” to running a systemized business
- The six core components of EOS and how to strengthen them: Vision, People, Data, Issues, Process, and Traction
- How to identify and solve “hidden” issues in your firm using the IDS method (Identify–Discuss–Solve)
- How to structure your accountability chart the right way—so you're not creating seats around people’s egos
- What it means to run your firm in a 90-day world
- How to run a Level 10 meeting that actually gets results
If you’re in the weeds, buried under client work, and your team relies on you for everything—this is the blueprint to change that.
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
We've got more coming up, but first a quick break. Here's something we think you'll want to hear.
SPEAKER_04:Are you running your practice or is it running you? Think about that. Are there times when you're deep into the practice and things are happening that feel like they're out of your control? And they're things that you really don't know what to do about at times. And if you were to step back and answer that question, you might say, if you're honest, at this point in time the practice is running me. I'm not running it.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show that challenges the way lawyers and professionals think about life, business, and success. Hosted by Ben Glass, attorney, entrepreneur, coach, and father of nine, this show is about more than just practicing law. For over 40 years, Ben has built a law firm that stands for something bigger. He's helped thousands of lawyers create practices that make good money, do meaningful work, and still make it home for him. Each week, Ben brings you real conversations with guests who are challenging the stem as well. Lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, thinkers, and builders. These are people creating bold careers and meaningful lives without burning out or selling out. If you're ready to stop playing small and start thinking like a renegade, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.
SPEAKER_03:Hi everyone, this is Ben, and welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast. Um, in today's episode, you're going to hear from Randy Tausig. Randy is our original EOS coach here at Ben Glass Law. And Randy spoke for us at the Great Legal Marketing Summit a couple of summits ago. Uh, the reason this talk is important now is because we are I'm recording this in the first week of December. Um I'm actually taking some time out of preparing for a fourth circuit argument that I have uh in Richmond next Tuesday in a wrist-sell long-term disability case. But earlier today, Brian and I were sitting here and said we're preparing for our two-day annual off-site retreat, which takes place in January, where our entire leadership team goes to an IC Airbnb with our current coach and uh you know reviews 2025 and sets plans and goals for 26 uh and 10 years down the line. And part of what the discussion that Brian and I were having in the office today was you know, what was 25 really like for us? Like we, you know, we hit our numbers. It's amazing when you set goals, you actually can hit them no matter how audacious they actually seem to be. Um but our but our question to ourselves is before we bring this to the leadership team, is are we still building something that that really energizes our own lives first? Because the owners' lives have to be energized first before the before you can energize a team. And if the owners are energized, the team is energized, then the clients will be well served. And so we're starting to ask ourselves like, where are we still stuck? Do we have all of the right people? If Brian and I were to you know get totally out of doing the legal processing of work altogether, we're almost there. Would we still have the team? Would the team be able to carry forward with the same energy, the same growth that we have today? What if one of us left? I'll be 68 in February. Like, what if I decide that you know it's no longer important for Ben to be part of the legal team here at Ben Glass Hall? I'm not saying that's gonna happen just yet, but it's gotta be there in the future. And so Randy's talk is great. Uh, as you were thinking about your 2025 and starting to think about what you want your 2026 to be. Randy is reflecting on some of the challenges of being an entrepreneur and being and running an entrepreneurial law firm. He's gonna talk a lot about the pain of being out of control, the pain of not making enough money, the pain of being the one that runs everything and makes all the decisions, and how EOS, the book is traction, if you want to read something over the holidays, how EOS really helped uh for us ease that and make all of those problems not go away, but allowed us to minimize the problems and to exploit the opportunities that we have. So take your notebook out, um, listen to this, use it in your own thinking, uh, either by yourself or with your leadership team or your business partner or your spouse or whoever else you talk to about your law firm, as you reflect on 2025, think about um some of the great ideas Randy's gonna give you about how to build a machine, a profit-creating machine that when well run, produces a great experience for your clients, produces most importantly, a great life for you. Alrighty, let's listen to Randy.
SPEAKER_04:If there's anything that really mirrors the entrepreneurial journey, it's pain and it's a belief behind that pain. And I think you know what I mean when I talk about the pain, because when you're working in a business trying to build something great, there are points when the pain is just extreme. And really, this leads to the uh the title of this this talk. Are you running your practice or is it running you? Think about that. Are there times when you're deep into the practice and things are happening that feel like they're out of your control? And they're things that you really don't know what to do about at times. And if you were to step back and answer that question, you might say, if you're honest, at this point in time the practice is running me. I'm not running it. Really leads to another question is would your practice be able to run and grow and thrive without you? Put your hands up if you left tomorrow, you have a practice that today would grow, it would run, grow, and thrive without you. Hands up, none. Okay. Hands up if you at some day would like to answer that question at uh a yes to that question. Okay, great. So you're in the right spot because we're going to talk about that. And one thing I want to say also about that is it doesn't mean you need to leave your practice. There are uh there are many people that want to be in a great practice and be part of it. But the fact that if you get to your business to the point where you can walk away, you know you've created something of value and you have that choice. That's the beauty, you have that choice. So that's what we're going to dive into today. We're going to dive into the entrepreneurial operating system. Ben's talked about it. I think you know a lot about maybe some of you are running on EOS. Uh, and I really want to do uh just one thing. I want to be able to give you a high level of what the system is. And if you're going to dive into it, if you believe that it's going to help your practice, I want you to see how you can go about doing that. Now we have a very short period of time, and this is sort of a mini, mini workshop. So I'm going to be going through a lot. It's going to be like drinking from the fire hose. But I'm going to give you opportunities. So at the end, we're going to make sure that if you need any help, I'm going to lead you to the right direction. And uh, you know, there are great implementers in our community. And so if you want a professional implementation, we're going to help you get connected to the right resources. So I just want to say that up front. As Ben said, there'll be a table out there. They said I could have a table out there if I wanted to, to have people come and you know, ask questions and help them. I asked them, can I take the table home? They said no. So I just got that clear. It really wasn't my table. But I'm going to have it for a couple hours. And so here we're going to talk about uh three things with our time together. Three things that are important. One is I want us to get real. And when I say get real, I mean your business. I want you to think about where you are with your business. I want you to be honest with yourselves. You don't have to say it to anybody else. You can if you want to, but I want you to be honest about where you are and where you want to go. Also, we're going to keep it simple. You'll see that EOS as a system, and that's what it is. It's a system to run your business. It's to support your success. It's simple. The one thing I want to warn about is don't confuse simple with easy. It's not easy. But it's there for you, and it's there to help you get what you want from your business. And then we're going to talk about results. It should provide results. And I hope you leave here today with a better feel for what you think you can achieve if you were to take on a system like EOS. So getting real. Well, I said this before. In terms of you, your practice, what do you want? What do you really want from the practice? What are you looking to achieve? If you were to look down the road and say, this is what I want. I'm excited about it. What would that be? And what's missing? You know the answers to these questions. What's missing? It's important for you to be real about where you are and where you want to go. Here's my promise. Today we're we're going through what we're going through is no theory. There are approximately 25,000 companies that are going through a professional EOS implementation. They're running their businesses on EOS. I'm just saying that as a fact. I've been doing this for 11 years now, and it wasn't near that number. And there are people that self-implement, and you can do that as well. So there's probably about 250,000 companies that are out there that are running their business on EOS. This thing works. We'll keep it simple because the system is simple. And as I said before, I want to leave you with options because we're going to go through a lot. It's going to be like the fire hose, so excuse me on that, but this is like a workshop, but we don't have workshop time today. We'll make sure that if you want more, you're going to get more. Okay, frustrations. We talked about that. This is typically what we hear from our clients. Number one, frustration is control. That's lack of it. That's what I was talking about today. Are you running your practice or is it running you? That's a frustration. Profit, usually not enough. You feel like you need more, maybe to sustain the business, or perhaps to get to a business where it's worth it for you. People. It's a big part of our business. And we love our people, and sometimes we're frustrated with our people. People is very difficult. And so there are a lot of issues around people and frustrations, especially as your firm starts to grow. You know this. You're hitting the ceiling, and what we talk about is at some point you're making some really great progress, and then all of a sudden it feels like the progress stops, and uh essentially you get stuck, and you may feel that nothing works. If you feel any of that, hopefully today will be helpful for you. So we're gonna keep it simple. I'm gonna go through the system. And so here's the system. It's six uh key components. And this is all you have to think about today, and just this is the context. I'm gonna show you six key components of your business. It's part of the system. And your only job is to figure out how to make each one of those components as strong as they can be. And I'm gonna give you some insights on how to do that. But that's it. EOS is about six key components. You understand what they are, you're making them strong, you make them all strong. Your life is good because there is a direct correlation in terms of how your business is being served. So let's go around the wheel. I'm gonna go around the wheel, and I'm just gonna give you the six key components, then we're gonna go deeper into it because I'm gonna show you some tools and some disciplines that you can use to strengthen each one of these components. That's what you need to do. So the first is the vision. Vision is simply the clarity and the alignment around where you're going and how you're gonna get there. And I say this, some of you might say, yeah, we've got that figured out. Well, here's the problem. More times than not, it's in the founder's head or the visionary's head. They think everybody can read their minds, they think that they understand it, and they don't. They're sort of guessing. So we want clarity, and then we're looking for the alignment around that clarity throughout the organization. People, it's a component itself. And what I always hear is we need great people. I think everybody wants great people. Here's a secret the definition for great people is different in every company. So we always use this topic, we want great people, but well, what are we saying? What does great people look like here? What do they look like? We need to define that. Data. There is gobs of data out there. So much data. Here's what we need to do. We need to figure the data that helps us get in front of the business. So we're running it, it's not running us. So there's really just uh, you know, a finite amount of data that matters. We got to figure out what data matters for our business. We need to get real about seeing that data and making sure that we can act proactively, not reactively, to what's happening. So the data component. So these are three out of the six components. If you can imagine your business or any or any business, clear vision, everybody's aligned. You figured out what great people are, you're attracting great people, you're retaining them, and the data is telling you whether you're on track or not and allowing you to make tweaks along the way before it's too late. That brings us into the fourth component, which is the issues component. Every organization has issues, every great organization has issues. And in fact, I think we do it a little disservice in EOS because everybody thinks issues are problems, and for the most part they are. But issues can be opportunities. Putting opportunities on what we call an issues list and dive in that into them at the right time and take action. That's what we're looking to do. So issues, a very important piece to be able to tee them up, knock them down, process. Probably the most neglected piece of the whole puzzle. Why is that? Because as entrepreneurs, we've done real well flying by the seat of our pants. I'm a pilot. I flew in here myself, that's I'm a I'm passionate about flying. And, you know, I I get this sense of flying by the seat of your pants, it's fun. But there are points where it gets very serious where we can't fly by the seat of our pants. It gets dangerous. When your business is growing, if you're doing that, there's a point where it's going to get it's going to get beyond you. And the beauty is you have certain things you do over and over again. Why not get them in a system where you're doing them over and over again, getting the results you need, and being able to have the consistency that you would look for in a well-run business. And the last piece is the traction piece. It's the discipline, it's the accountability, it's the execution on a great vision. Geno Wickman is famous in this one uh statement. He says, Vision without traction is hallucination. And it's true. There are a lot of great ideas out there. There are a lot of you that have really good ideas, really good energy behind what you're creating, but you haven't figured out the execution side, and so it falls short. And that's a problem. So this is what we're trying to put together here. So this is the model, and I'll just say this. If you're doing an EOS implementation, here's what you're like want to do. You want to make each one of these components really strong. So theoretically, you could measure it and say we're somewhere between zero and a hundred percent. In reality, we're trying to get you to 80% or better. None of our clients are 100%. We'd be lying if we said that. But if you get to 80% or better, and the way you judge it, I'm going to give you a context in terms of what 100% looks like. And our clients tell us where they are. Most come into this process somewhere around 20 or 40%, if they're honest and they're self-reporting. And by the way, these are companies that are making money. They're not going out of business, but they're somewhere between 20 and 40%. So that gap really gives you an opportunity to accelerate. So we're going to pop in here. Now I'm going to go into sort of a little bit of the fire hose. So I'm going to go into each one of the components. What I want to do is I want to pull out the main tools that we use and the disciplines around them to help you absolutely focus on your business and get everything you want from it. Starting with vision, we start with what we call answering the eight questions. There are eight questions on a tool called the VTO. The VTO stands for the Vision Traction Organizer. This is the vision side. I'm going to show you the traction side in a moment. By the way, when we talk about vision and EOS, we're not talking about one line. We're not talking about one number. We're talking about all five of these. And it goes from core values all the way down to the three-year picture. I think you've heard a lot about core values and culture. Bottom line with core values is it is who you are as an organization. It's your personality. It's the culture that you want to hold true to. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that, but that's very important because if we figure that, it's all about right people. The right people. That's helping us determine what people we really need to have in our organization. I'm going to give you an example, some core values in a moment. Actually, I'm going to go back here. So we're going to we're going to go through all of these. Core focus. Core focus is really your ability to determine your lane. It helps you decide. There's two parts of it. So why do you do what you do and what do you do best? And I think it about, think about as sort of what's your lane. You want the lane to be just right, not too big where it's just not really well defined. And you don't want that lane to be too small where there's not enough opportunity. You define that with your purpose, cause, and passion and uh what your niche is, what you do best. The 10-year target, so that's here as a name only. It doesn't have to be 10 years. When this whole system was developed about 15 or so years ago, 10 years was a nice time frame. And in fact, we still say anywhere between five and 30 years. I don't have one client that's anywhere close to figuring out where they want to be in 30 years. But usually it's between five and 15 years. What's that big goal that you have, that stake in the ground that you're saying that's our target, that's what we're shooting for, and we're going to keep our sights on that. That's the 10-year target. The marketing strategy is your opportunity to determine what are the right clients for us? Who is it that is the ideal clients? And it doesn't mean you're going to have all those ideal clients, but it says your marketing should be communicating to them in such a way where it's attracting them to you. They want to be part of what you've got. And so that's the marketing strategy. That's part of your vision. And the last piece here is the three-year picture. That three-year picture is an opportunity to look three years in the future. Get a little bit of metrics in there. What's it going to look like from a revenue and a profit and any specific measurables that are important for your company? And then you've got what does it look like? This is where you have free reign. Bullet points. Tell the story. This is what we envision. I can't promise it, but this is what we see. Do you want to be part of it? This is part of the value of the three-year picture is to share that with everybody in your organization, get them excited about that, debate it, but really be focused on it. And then what it does is it takes us into the traction side. Because when we look at that three-year picture, then we're going to say, okay, let's bring it down to the ground. What are we going to do this year? So you see the one-year plan, it's a section of the VTO. You're going to determine if we were doing 2024, what is the revenue, the profit, any specific other measurables that make sense, and then the three to seven most important priorities that are going to move the needle. Not the 37, not the 307, the three to seven. You need to debate it and need to be very focused for the whole year and saying, if we accomplish these, we're moving the needle. Our business is moving forward. And then rocks. This is the bread, bread and butter of EOS. This is the nucleus, in my opinion. Because we are creating this concept of a 90-day world. Why is that important? I'll tell you why it's important. What we have figured out in just observing human nature, there's something around 90 days that if we decide we're going to focus on something, you go beyond any, you know, much beyond 90 days, you're losing focus. So what we do is we just say, let's set rocks, which are really 90-day goals for the next quarter. And let's get those metrics in place and those rocks. And you can see there's a WHO column. So now we're getting clear about who's accountable for the getting those rocks completed. And here's what's the power behind this. We set rocks, we determine that these are the priorities, they're probably supporting annual goals. We report on them weekly. I'll show you that in a moment. And then after 90 days, we come back up for air, we see how we did, we celebrate our successes, and we learn from this quarter what could we have done better? And here's the beauty of it. We take what we just uh set up to do, we put it to the side because it's now history, it means nothing. Take a deep breath, and we set up for another 90 days. What are our priorities for this next 90 days? Can you imagine if you get into that discipline, doing that every 90 days for life in your business? There is nowhere for anything or anybody to hide. That business is being surrounded, and you're surrounding it by all the things that need attention to be able to support the vision that you have for that business. It's very powerful. And then there's the issues list, and all that is is a parking lot. In a way, think about it as a time management tool. Because if you're like me, sometimes when things hit me, I feel like I've got to do something with those things right away because they're just right on my mind. But if you have the discipline of saying that's an issue, let's get on the issues list, and you know that you're gonna hit that, potentially hit that issue sometime during the week, you can put it aside and put your focus on the right stuff. So the issues list is there to be able to provide the discipline of deciding what you dive into and when you dive into it. So I'm just gonna give you a few examples. So the core values, as I said, they're discovered, defined, and absolutely you need to live and breathe them. If you're not living and breathing them, they're just words. You need to be able to make decisions on people either being hired or even fired based upon core values. That's how important they are. They are your culture. You're supporting your culture. Giving you an example of core values, these are our core values, mine, blue core leadership, my company. Small firm, four people. But this is what we look at every once in a while. This is basically who we are as people, and it's important for us to support this culture. So there's an example. You've got to figure out yours. We go into the core focus. Here's an example of another client. It's interesting, their purpose, cause, or passion, which is their why, it's improving people's lives. You would have no idea what business they're in if we just left it at that. They didn't care. That's what we like to do. They just happen to be creating that in the real estate environment, creating and sustaining value in real residential real estate. That's their niche. That's what they do best. And they use that because as they're looking at opportunities going forward, they're going to put everything through that filter and saying, does it fit in this filter? And if it's no, we take it off the plate. If it's a yes, then it can continue to be vetted as something that we want may want to do. That's the core focus. 10-year target. I told you before, it is not necessarily 10 years, but it is that number one goal. This is the stake in the ground. It can be very tangible, so it can be quantitative, it can be qualitative, it can be both. But it's something that ideally you want your whole organization to be able to rally around. And it's that stake in the ground year by year, really quarter by quarter. You're moving towards and saying, How are we doing? It's exciting. That's what you want. Then we get into the marketing strategy. I just want to throw that out there because that's part of my business that I've just started masterminds for integrators. So the integrator you're going to see is an important role in a company. But we have 48 by 28 because that's something easy to remember. 48 mastermind groups by 2028. So what I'm going to suggest for you is you get something there that everybody can relate to and say, I got it. I see that, and we're working towards that. In a way that's quantitative, but it's also got a qualitative piece to it. And so the marketing strategy, there's an example here. It's basically saying, who are the profile of our ideal clients, usually demographics, geographics, psychographics, and then the uniques? What do you bring to that ideal client that would make it interesting for them to have a conversation with you? And then a proven process is just do you have a process that you would share with them very high level that would give them confidence that you're going to get them where they need to go? And then a guarantee or a promise. Anybody, is that promise or guarantee look familiar to anybody? Does anybody know who that is? Like it never happened? Have you heard that tagline? That's ServePro. So ServePro, right? You have a fire, a flood, it's like it never happened. When they get there, it's like it never happened. So I have a client that had several franchises. That's what they decided to keep there. And then the three-year picture, we do the same thing, can move through that. But uh, and this is an example of another client, and basically you're gonna fill that in, and that three-year picture is gonna help you move it to the one-year plan example here as well. Just gonna show you that. Just three goals. You know, when we say three to seven goals for the upcoming year, when you really get good at this, it's three, not seven. And when my clients start with, they have a hard time just getting it down to seven. They'll say, Can't I just have eight or nine? No, seven. You can figure it out. And then over time it becomes, no, these are the three, these are the stake in the ground. We get this accomplished, we are kicking butt. And then we bring it down to the rocks to do the same thing. Here's an example. You notice a Who column, because when we get to the rocks, accountability is so huge in the EOS ecosystem. Accountability is huge, and we have something called the accountability chart. I'm going to show you that in a little bit. And then the issues list. You just have this ongoing issues list and not worry about it. Some of my clients get concerned because when they start the process, the issues list starts getting bigger and bigger, and it's like we're doing something wrong. No, you're finally being real. This stuff's there. Just get it out there. You can deal with it. You know, we have a saying, it's only an issue. There is no issue that can't be solved. None. When you get good people together and you're committed to doing that. All right, so that's the vision side. And then what we want is make sure that everybody shares it. So it's shared by all. So 100% would be that you're confident that you've clarified all of what's on that VTO and that everybody in your organization shares it. They understand it and they share it. You want everybody to be on the same page. We move into the people side. People side is two things. You've heard this, we want the right people in the right seats. Right people we just talked about. You figured out your core values. We have a tool called the people analyzer. Don't have time to go through that now, but that's a way to determine whether your people are on board with your core values. The right seats. Well, it starts with this. And if there's only one thing that you take away from this piece in terms of uh the right people and right seats, it's this structure first, then plug in great people. That may feel a little weird because you've got a lot of people, you have people in your organization, and I'm not saying you fire everybody, just saying get clear about what the organization needs, consider its needs, structure it with the functions, the roles and responsibilities, the expectations. Then plug in great people to the structure that you know will get you where you need to go, not the other way around. Too many times I find a problem of creating a structure around any one person's strengths or weaknesses. You don't want to create a structure or seats based upon someone's strengths or their weaknesses. The organization needs this function. Here's what it needs to be able to accomplish. Great. Now let's plug in great people, the right people for those seats. Very important. And it brings up this concept of the accountability chart. Accountability chart is like an org chart on steroids because it's all about accountability. It's not ego. Typically, when I do this with my clients, I try to get it out of a feeling like it's a uh it's a it's a uh uh a job title. We've got visionary and integrator. We call that we could call that vision and integration, marketing, sales, operations, finance. These are the typical things, but you typically are going to create an uh uh Accountability chart that works for your organization with all the right seats. We say seats, functions, the same thing. And what we're doing is we just had the function name and then the roles and responsibilities. High level, three to seven. So I told you I'm a pilot. I like to fly. Let's just say that I own an airline. Let's give that an example. And we had a seat called airline pilot. Everybody agree that might be a seat in a company that's an airline company? Yeah. And so here's what might be the five roles and responsibilities safety first, continued proficiency, cockpit collaboration, love your passengers, cool under pressure. I could go with those five and say that's what is a starting point for what we need and what we need every pilot to know we expect if they're going to be flying for our airline. And then that brings up a proactive way to be able to evaluate this in terms of whether they are the right person in that seat. It's called GWC. Those of you that know EOS, anybody want to take a stab at what GWC means?
SPEAKER_02:We've got more coming up, but first, a quick break. Here's something we think you'll want to hear.
SPEAKER_03:If you were at the summit this past October, or if you missed it, we've put together complete summit notes for you at GLM SummitNotes.com. These aren't summaries, they're the exact strategies, quotes, frameworks, and action steps that the smartest firm owners in the room took home and are already implementing. And now we're taking all of that momentum straight into the 2026 GLM boot camps. Bootcamp is where you stop consuming ideas and start implementing. So grab the summit notes at GLM Summitnotes.com. Then join us at boot camp. Let's make 2026 the year your law firm stops being a job and starts becoming the life you actually want to live.
SPEAKER_02:All right, let's get back to the conversation.
SPEAKER_04:There it is. Gets it, wants it, capacity to do it. So here it is. We got Joe Cool, and I'm deciding whether Joe Cool is right for that seat. Does he get it? Does he look at all those and say, I get what you're talking about? I even understand what you mean by love my passengers. That's not nothing to do with flying, but I need to love the people that I'm flying. I want it. I absolutely want to be my best when it comes to this function, and then I have the capacity to do it. In this case, capacity is not as much time as it is the ability. So if I don't have a commercial pilot's license, I probably don't have the capacity to do this because there's I don't have the ability to fly an airplane. But this is the seat side of it, and it's very critical. So this is what happens. You create your accountability chart. I will tell you this. Excuse me. Been doing this 11 years, and I've gained more and more respect for the accountability chart year by year. This thing will tell you everything. When you have set up your organization where you have the right structure, the expectations with the structure, and then you put people in that structure, what will happen is you'll have the objectivity where the right issues will flow to the top. The accountability chart tells you a lot about what's going on based upon where you are and where you need to go. Two kinds of people issues when you're dealing with the right people in the right seats. The first issue is you get the right person in the wrong seat. You love them, they fit your culture like a glove, but for whatever reason, there's something wrong in terms of their ability to be able to be in the seat. The seat might be too big, it may be too small. Good news is if you've got an organization that has a number of seats and they're the right person, you may legitimately look and see if they are there's a seat for them. If not, you've got to make those decisions for the greater good of the organization. You've got to have a strong organization. The other issue is the tougher issue, and I would say that's the issue that can be the most damaging. The wrong person in the right seat. Someone who does their job really well. I've had this example sometimes in the sales arena, someone is just kicking it out of the ballpark, they're bringing in so much revenue, but they're toxic, and leadership just decides to put up with it because they feel like they need they need that result. I will tell you this is going to do more damage to your business than if you have the right person in the wrong seat. Because here's what happens. Over time, people, good people start leaving. You're creating a toxic environment, someone who doesn't fit in your culture, but you're feeling as though I gotta keep them. It's doing such a great job. That's the harder decision. That's a leadership decision. And that's the two pieces that can come up onto that one. So 100% strong would be this that you look at your organization, we've done a great accountability chart, and 100% as we've got all the right people in the right seats, it's typically not possible. But you can come close to it. So the next is the data component. The data component is interesting. So I love this quote. If we have the data, let's look at the data. If all we have are opinions, let's go with mine. And you know what's interesting? This happens a lot because what happens, we get around the table, we don't really have the right data. So the person with the loudest voice or the most authoritative voice, maybe the founder, is gonna say this is what we're gonna do. And it's not based upon good data. So let's get good data that helps us make good decisions. And you've got to figure out what that data looks like. So it starts with the concept, a tool called the scorecard. The scorecard is a pretty straightforward tool, but I'll tell you it's one of the things that takes some time to get good at, but it's really straightforward. It basically you can put it on a spreadsheet, and what it is in a nutshell is measurables, so weekly measurables that are activity-based, that based on a goal every week, will lead to a specific result. So it will lead to the results you're looking for. So you're typically not going to measure the end results that you're looking for. You're gonna measure the things that are supporting those end results. So, an example. So we've got to figure out measurables. So here's an example of some measurables that you might put on a scorecard. You figure out what the measurables are on your end. Then we've got to figure out what the goal is. Each week, on average, here's where we feel we need to be, to feel confident that we're on track. Oh, and then we've got to add some accountability. So I decide who is accountable ultimately at this table for those results is going to report on them. And then we start to measure. And we get those results week by week. You're gonna see it's gonna be put in a meeting, we call level 10 meeting. I'll talk about that in a moment, where every week you're looking at the trends and just deciding is there something here that's telling us that we're starting to fall off track. A good way to do it is to have red as an indicator of where you're not meeting a goal. If you've got some reds going on, it should be like an alarm system, because that's an early warning that something's not going to be good in a while. You're not going to get a result you want. So it's early warning. You want to open up the hood and say, what's going on if these numbers aren't being met. Scorecard is very powerful when you get it right. And then measurables. We want everybody 100% in terms of 100% run company, is that everybody in the company has at least one measurable that they're accountable for on a scorecard. That would be ideal because then everybody has some kind of a proactive look in what they're doing. That's what we shoot for. So there we are, vision, people, data. Again, if all that's coming together, what happens is we got stuff that's starting to flow to the top. These are the issues. And we've already talked about one of the disciplines was the issues list. And part of that is a mindset. They actually are you have a culture where it is good to get issues on a list. Yes, let's get them on the list. Let's not sweep them under the carpet. Let's get anything we think needs attention on the issues list. And then what we have is a way in which these issues are efficiently and effectively knocked down. It's called IDS. So let's take that issues list I had before and we're going to give you some examples. So maybe someone else, you if if no one else answers, what does IDS stand for? Anyone know? Not you, Ben. Oh, Ben. So it's identify, discuss, solve. So typically what we want to do is here's this. The issue as stated, this is really important because this is hard to get good at. We throw an issue on an issues list and we'll say that's the issue. I'll tell you nine times out of ten, that's not the issue. We have to figure out, okay, that's the stated issue. We need to dig down and determine what's the root issue. What is it we really need to solve here today? Because if we're not solving at the root, we're just solving symptoms and they'll keep on popping up. Then we have to discuss. We want to get input around the table. Okay, we've got clarity in terms of what the issue is. Now let's get input in discussion. The problem is uh typically when we're around the table trying to solve issues, we get stuck on discuss. We start getting into a lot of conversations, we get off track, and then all of a sudden that issue now doesn't get solved the way it could be solved. So we want to get real clear input that uh results to a solve or an action. So of an example on this issue list, we would tee up three issues at the time we're doing IDS, and we say, well, number one issue is Andy. I'm questioning whether Andy's in the right seat. So we would tee that up if it was me that that teed it up and said, okay, Andy has been missing deadlines, uh, been having some problems with accuracy. I'm really concerned as to whether he's really gonna be able to step up to the seat that he's in. So maybe we go then into the discuss phase. And then someone asks, Well, have you sat down with Andy? Have you talked to Andy about what your concerns are? Well, not yet. I just want to throw this out here. Well, why don't you sit down with him and ask Andy what he thinks is going on? And maybe the end of that conversation, you're gonna have a plan. You're gonna decide here's our action plan. He's clear about what you're concerned about, you're gonna get a better feel for whether there's a real problem here, and you're gonna have an action plan. And that would be the solve. So at the moment, we could take this off the issues list because you said that's what we're gonna do. If it becomes an issue again that I feel the leadership team needs to resolve, it will come back on the issues list. And we get through them one by one. We do this in a very powerful meeting that I'm gonna go over in a moment, but this is what IDS is. 100% strong is that throughout the whole organization. 100% strong is that everywhere in the organization you have issues lists, and people are good at IDSing. They're good at identifying, discussing, and solving the issue. And now process. We get into the process component. So process is an interesting one because as I said before, it's usually the one that's put to the side the longest because you can live without it. But frankly, as you're growing and you're really trying to get to a business that when your hands were up and saying at some day I'd like to be able to say I could exit this business and it would be fine, process is a key part of it. First, it is you got to identify your core processes. What are those big buckets? And you gotta document them at a very high level. And when I say high level, I mean simple high level. I'm gonna show you that in a moment. Usually there's just a handful of things that we would call core. Things like your people process, you may call it HR, your marketing process. How do we attract the right kind of clients? How do we close them? Sales, operations, how do we provide the services and the products that we're promising? Maybe how do we take care of our customers? And then how do we take care of our money? Frankly, if you had these seven as core processes, you'd probably be as close as you need to be in terms of your business. But everybody has different names for things, and they may have more, they may have less, but it's in that ballpark because of the big buckets. And then what we want to do is go about creating your your core process um you know booklet or or methodology for people to access. So you got your table of contents, and then you go in there and simplify. Here's the uh the people process, one page. You might say that is way too simple, and it is simple. You go identify the need to find the seed, you hire onboard LMA, which is manage, and if you have termination, that's what you do. But these are the what's, these are the steps in your people process. Yes, there are details behind this, but I would suggest that you can get your core processes to one to three pages maximum, and then they're easy to follow. And details will follow as they need to. You could do the same thing for the sales process. There it is. I'm just suggesting it can be really straightforward. It does not have to be highly detailed. The details can be underneath this, but you want everybody to understand those processes if they touch them, and then to follow them and do them your way, because that's the consistency that you're going to get. I love this quote by Isidore Sharp. Systemize the predictable so you can humanize the exceptional. What does that mean to you? Most of what goes on in our practice are things we repeat. So let's systemize those so then we can open the space where the things that need to be exceptional, the human element can come in. Now I'm not saying the human element doesn't come on even the processes that are documented, but I'm saying you know 80% of the things that happen, they happen over and over again. Get them contained. That's your genius. Do it over and over and over again. Get the results that you want, and then create that space. It's really powerful. And so ultimately, 100% is that you've documented, you've identified, documented all your core processes, and that you're confident that you have a mechanism for everyone to follow them. So this moves into the last piece here, the traction piece. That discipline, the accountability, the execution. We've already talked about rocks. Very powerful piece. Again, if you just did that and got into this 90-day world, oh my God, this business would just be on fire. And then you get into the meetings, which is usually where we start losing enthusiasm and losing momentum. But meetings shouldn't be that way. We talk about the meeting pulse. That 90-day world is what I just mentioned with the rocks, but then we've got this weekly meeting, and it's a level 10 meeting. I'm going to show you that in a moment. And it basically it's the same day, same time, starting on time, ending on time, same agenda. These are the things that are important pieces of the level 10 meeting. Anybody that's done them can probably vouch for them. And this level 10 meeting that I'm going to show you is a 90-minute meeting. And usually when I introduce this to clients, they're like, no, we don't have time for a 90-minute meeting. Part of it is usually you've got to look at what are the what's the meeting that this is going to replace. But if you were to believe that you would get a 3 to 5x return on your time by having weekly level 10 meetings, would you do it? Of course you'd do it. It's like a return on your time. And I'll tell you, that's the results that we get reported. It starts like this it's 90 minutes. First part of it is reporting. Got some good news, scorecard review, the rock review, things on track or not, put them on the uh issues list if not, customer employee headlines. Then we go into the to-do list. To-dos for us are just the action items from last week. They're weekly action items. 90% done is what we look for. 90% done week by week. We had to-dos, we had 10 to-dos, nine or more are done. And then we get 60 minutes. Two-thirds of the meeting is spent in solving issues. IDS, what we just talked about. Every week you have an opportunity to tee up the most important issues, and then you conclude and you're gone. Ninety minutes, keep that pulse going. Three to five X return on your time. I stand by that. That is what is reported. And frankly, when you pull everything together and what you do in the level 10 meeting, there's nowhere for anything to hide. So there it is, 100% strong is that in the whole organization, everybody has some level of assigning or creating rocks in a 90-day period, and you've got a very strong meeting pulse. So there it is. That's the system. And I'm hoping you can see that there are opportunities as you embrace this to be able to get the results that you're looking for. Foundational tools are everything. So in EOS, we have 20 official tools. Five of them are the most important. They give you 80% or better of the results. It's what we just went over. The VTO. Get absolutely clear about your vision. Get committed to that and making sure everybody is aligned with it and you can go forward with that. The accountability chart, I can't tell you how powerful of a tool this is. It leads to the right issues. The problem is that so many times we're going down a path where we're trying to tackle the wrong issues because they're symptoms, they're not real. When we get clear about what we need to be structured like, what we expect within that structure, and then we have good management and leadership of people, and we're making decisions that are the greater good for the organization, the accountability chart will serve you. The rocks we talked about, meeting pulse we just talked about, and the scorecard, getting that data that gives you a nice pulse for your business. So we're going to have a few minutes for uh questions or comments. Um, but just let me just talk a little bit about what's next. You all have a sheet, I think, on your table, which has a QR code, but also it has the EOS Worldwide website. It also has a website for Blue Core Leadership, my company. You can go to EOS Worldwide. The traction library is really fabulous. You can download information. Basecamp is a subscription. If you wanted to self-implement, you would probably want to do Basecamp. And there's a guide, there's a directory of EOS implementers. On top of that, what I want to offer to all of you here is an opportunity to help you even more in a custom way get to where you need to go. So if you uh go to that QR code, uh go to our website, and just put into that's the contact page, just put in GLM Summit and just say what you want. But basically, if you're interested in being connected with a potential professional implementer that could help you, we know a lot of them. Uh we'll do our best to connect you with the right implementer. So just uh reach out to us. We can uh get a free discovery meeting, a 90-minute meeting with the implementer. It's really valuable, and the only cost is your time and their time. Uh organizational checkup, you can go on our site as well. When I was talking about where uh companies are zero to 100% in terms of those six key components, there's 20 questions that you can answer candidly to give yourself uh some uh feedback. And so the organizational checkup is something there. You can let us know, and again, scan the QR code. We're here to help. Just final thoughts before a few questions. Two thoughts. One is choose and use a system. I want to remind you what we just went over is a system that's there to support your business. It's not another little thing that you do here and there. It is a system to help you scale your business. Choose a system. EOS is not the only system out there. It's the one I know, it's the one I love, this is why I'm preaching it here today. And then bring reality to your vision. Remember, vision without traction is hallucination. Be committed, do the work, and I think you'll get there. So we've got about two minutes left before my time is up. Uh, I'm happy to entertain any questions or any comments. Anyone have any questions, any comments?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, sir. You know, I've heard EOS is good for companies with nine or more people. And I don't know if that's like a hard rule or if that's a flexible concept. If you're a smaller firm with maybe around that many people, what changes or what advice would you give?
SPEAKER_04:So I I I'd say maybe the only thing that uh shifts is how EOS is implemented in your business. Uh at what point do you potentially have a professional implementer? All the concepts here would work with a I have a I have a four-person firm I I run on EOS. To, you know, I have clients that have over a thousand employees. So the concepts are it's just business-centric. So I would say learn everything you can. The first thing is just read the book Tractioned, if you haven't read it. There it is. That's the bread and butter. And then you can look at other ways to get it. But I would say it's perfect for a nine-person because those seats, they're all there. You you'd have the seats, you just are gonna have names in multiple seats. Right? In my firm, I've got my name in several seats. It works. You add up all the seats, it's about 100% of my time. When it starts growing and you add up the seats you're in, and it's over 100% of your time, you got a problem. You're gonna have to somehow get that seat delegated. So hopefully that helps. Yeah. There was a question over there here somewhere.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I had a question. Actually, it was kind of touched on it. It was just kind of at what point is the right to uh start with an implementer because I've red traction. It's just like I understand, but I don't know if I'm ready for that next time.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think part of it is is ask yourself the question of where am I now in my uh in the progression of my my company? Where do I ultimately want to get to? And how quickly do I want to get there? I think that your vision is going to lead that that answer. The sooner, if you if it's a vision that you really are uh passionate about and really is uh showing great progress, you may want to uh uh really latch onto that sooner rather than later. Because the point where you're no longer the person that has to learn all this on your own and implement it, and you can be part of just let's just do it, let's do the hard work and help me get there, and you have an accountable partner to do it, that'd be the time to do it. I would say though, if you're considering it, connect with an implementer, do a 90-minute meeting with your leadership team, and then uh allow that to drive it for you.
SPEAKER_02:That's it for today's episode of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where we're rewriting the rules of what it means to build a great law practice and a great life. If something sparked a new idea or gave you clarity, pass it on. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with someone who's ready to think bigger. Want more tools, strategies, and stories from the trenches? Visit GreatLegalMarketing.com or connect with Ben Glass and the team on LinkedIn. Keep building boldly. We'll see you next time.
