The Operating System of a Value Creator Culture

Speaker A: Value acceleration methodology is also based in proof. Right. If Chris Snyder was sitting here, he would say, you could say that you have a best in class culture, Chase, but can you prove it?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Foreign. And welcome back to the Exit is Now podcast with me, your host, Scott Snyder, hanging out with one of our own here, uh, Chase Ross, who's our senior director of operations at epi. Thanks for coming back to the show, my friend.

Speaker B: Thanks, Scott, for having me. Excited to be here.

Speaker A: Yeah. We, uh, in this half, uh, of our, uh, Exit is Now season, we started this season by really investigating these four elements at EPI that we believe create a value creator culture. We've talked to rhythm, we've talked to performance, mentality and vision. And the style of the last few shows is we've introduced, uh, two episodes with a subject matter expert. Then we've brought in an EPI executive to dive a little bit deeper. And so with Chase, I wanted to bring Chase into the studio to round out this first half of our season together, to now dive deep into the things that Rene Russo, our exit planner of the year, talked to and introduced, primarily around things that I think Chase really helps manage, uh, manage here at, at epi. When I think about Chase and his role as a. Now as an operator, he really focuses on the rhythm. So the jive of our company. How are we making decisions, how are we communicating, uh, you know, how are we interacting, how are we collaborating? And then, of course, performance, the last, the fourth, but certainly not least, uh, uh, element of value creator culture. Because I think if you looked at it, everything has to add up to performance. You have mentality, the way we think, vision, uh, the where the strategy and where we want to go. Uh, we have rhythm, the way we're communicating, and it all has to lead towards performance. So Chase, you have a kind of an interesting career background here at epi. Uh, you started as a marketer, so you're on the marketing team.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Then you went over to product development, and then you now are in operation. So kind of a. I, uh, would say a different trajectory. That's why I smile. And, uh, so tell us about your role that you have now at EPI as an executive.

Speaker B: Sure. So I view it as overseeing four different departments or branches, uh, here at epi. So the first one being product development. So these are the folks who are creating our different, mainly our different online courses, your SIPA program, EPI Academy, uh, plus some other, you know, ancillary products that we have or new things that come up that we want to try and Put together, then that moves into our fulfillment team. Who are the folks who are working with, uh, what we describe as your SEPA candidates, Those who have purchased the program but have not actively completed it yet. Either they are waiting for their program to approach or they are actively going through it. It's the week of or the exam week after, and you're going to work with the fulfillment team up until the point of passing your exam. And then from there you move into member experience. Uh, who are the folks that once you are a actual member of the organization, you've, uh, passed your exam, you've become a sepa. You are going to work with your dedicated member experience representative. And then lastly, we also have what we would consider like our internal operations, like those who are working with the different, you know, office management, different vendors that we have, uh, you know, uh, hr, uh, working with employees, et cetera. So those, those four different branches we have all under the overarching umbrella of operations. Each one has their own manager that is, you know, working closely with, um, the folks of that department each day. And then I'm helping support each of those managers in their role. I like to describe my job as saying, like, my job is to make everyone else's job easier and how can I make your job, you know, more efficient? And um, you know, take away some of the stuff that is bogging you down so that we can, you know, have conversations to make everyone's lives easier.

Speaker A: I think you're, uh, I think it's really interesting and I think it's a great, I think it's a great story for our audience as well as particularly even younger folks that are aspiring executives one day is that Chase says it's really unique right now. There's not many people operating a business that came out of creative marketing, right? And so when we had this opportunity at our organization, uh, uh, to bring Chase in now as a, as a senior director of operations, I loved that he could take his. And I'd want to see how you feel about this is like I, I love that how you took your creativity that made you a really good marketer. Mix, uh, it with your quality control. Because I think you actually came in first on the marketing team to also help quality control, if you remember, uh, to then take your. Your like, you're a very systematic guy, right? You're very, uh, timeline oriented guy. And so for me, you take all those together. Uh, and I could tell you that it's really helped us at epi just in the first eight months or so. This Year.

Speaker B: Sure. Well, thank you. Yeah, I, it's funny, I think when I was, you know, I started here in like late 2019, my title was just Marketing Coordinator. But I feel like pretty much immediately I kind of got thrust into this like becoming more systems oriented where we were moving our CRM platform at the time uh, to start using HubSpot. So I kind of took over that project of um, like getting all the information from our old CRM transported into the new one and then you know, getting it set up and getting everyone else taught on how to use it. Uh, so I think that really just kind of um, you know, was a good jumping off point for everything else I've done here at epi was that as a starting point of like getting a foundation of that um, like main system that really has become like uh, the crux of so many things that we do here are within HubSpot.

Speaker A: And the other thing that I think has been kind of an interesting evolution for you is that on the marketing side and the product development side, your customers were your typical customers, right? The end user, our certified Exit Planning advisors and professional advisors that were basically utilizing our advisor development and community based programs. Now you mentioned it kind of in your opening. Your customers are also your own employees, the 56 people that work at Exit Planning Institute. Mhm. So you have a whole nother customer base that's quite, I think quite a bit different from the end user base, the external, the customer. And so how's that transition been for you?

Speaker B: Yeah, you know I just last week I had a meeting with our member experience team where they basically you know, aired their grievances to me in a way. Not, not in like a bad way but in just in a way of like I mentioned it in the opening about like this is the stuff that's bogging us down. Like we need you to help us, we need you to help us with this. Um, and I think that's like, that's really what I um, find like ah, that's really what I enjoy about the role is trying to help other members of our team, um, and trying to find ways to just make their lives easier like I said. And um, I think that was a really good like example of that. And now I have like a laundry list of action items that I can take that are. Some of them are small but you know, if you do all of them then ultimately they're going to have a lot of time saved to be focused on the stuff that they really want to.

Speaker A: I think that's something that uh, Was that made you write for this role as well as. I honestly think like you're like a master puzzler. I don't know if you actually puzzle or not, but you love solving problems.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure, I, you know, I would puzzle more. I have cats and they would just lose all the pieces. But uh, yes, I do think that of the things that's made me successful and you know, in pretty much every role that, that I've had, even you know, before leading into this one is just being someone who is able to, or willing even sometimes to just be the problem solver that when you're in a situation where nobody knows the answer, that you are saying, all right, I'll, I'll think I don't know either, but I'll, I'll figure it out.

Speaker A: Yeah, I would say uh, it's really been a delight for me, Chase in 2026 here because we've really moved into I think highest and best use. You've even allowed me to optimize my time and work on the things that I think should be doing where you're like, Scott, just move away from that because you should be going to do this. And in fact you could make things like our company wide meeting more effective and more efficient. So just a big thank you I guess.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: You know, uh, into what we've become, what we've been able to do this year and what we've become, I think for many of us, uh, our listeners and for many of our advisors, they know um, uh, the EOS model. Right. So I try to lean in that, into that a little bit. And the language that they use in the entrepreneurial operating system is integrator, uh, is integrator and visionary. And me and you, that's your. Basically for those of you listening for viewing online, you have those two kind of uh, relationships. You have the person now running the business and the person that the visionary. So it's kind of cool to sit on the show with you. So let's dive into it. I want to particularly brought you here again to discuss uh, two of the four elements of value, creator, culture, rhythm and performance. Because I think it really is critical uh, to an operator. So let's start uh, with, with uh, uh, with rhythm at our, at our company, which I think is actually pretty critical to our culture. It's the way we communicate, uh, the way we come together, the way we, I say the way we jive. Can you talk to us about how uh, you start the week. We start the week at a company wide meeting at 10:10am I think the biggest transition for me and you, which I used to run that meeting, now our operator runs the meeting. You know, why do you feel that that meeting is important and now how do you prepare for it?

Speaker B: Sure, yeah, I actually maybe I'll ask you to team me up first. I'm sure this is a story that you might have told on the podcast, but I've heard you talk about this before, is you're talking with a business own time and you were asking them like, so when do you guy. When does the whole team meet? You know, so if you like and just, you know, give people a quick recap.

Speaker A: Yeah, sure. The recap story is I'm always so I'm always a little shocked going into businesses that I know, even some of the folks that are friends of mine that own companies. And the story goes is we're having, we're at like a chamber kind of meeting, right? And the story goes is that they were talking to us about a part of our rhythm. So this a part of our rhythm is this company wide meeting. 10:00am every single Monday. We get everybody aligned. There's metrics, there's big rocks, there's strategic initiatives, there's a little bit of fun that happens and camaraderie that's built, but it just takes an hour of our time, if not less. Chase makes it more efficient than I do. And it's just a time to bring people together. And so I'm sitting in this chamber meeting and they're like, wow, yeah, you do that every Monday. I'm like, yeah, like you don't. And they're like, wow.

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: And I'm like. And I was just always shocked. And it's for the listeners, right? I'm like a product of my dad's methodology. It's the way that I was taught how to run a business. I looked at this woman and I said, well, like how the hell do people know like what to do or where to go or the camaraderie that's built. You just like walk into the office, sit down in your cubicles and walk out like that. Definitely not a value creator, but yeah, that's.

Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, I think that that really tees up. You know, I try and keep that in mind like that. I use that mindset when we're, when we're doing these, these meetings. I find that it's um. And we talk about this all the time, that as the company grows, it becomes increasingly harder and harder for each department to know what every other department is doing. Um, and so that's, I think, one of the big keys to this Monday morning meeting where we have everybody come together is we're trying to keep everybody informed. We have an ongoing theme of the year internally, at least on clarity and connection is what we're saying for everybody. And that's really what we're trying to do here, is to say, like, okay, hey, product development, they're working on this new thing, but did they talk to sales about it yet? Does sales think they can actually sell it? Like, is it worth their time? Like, these are the types of things that, you know, people need to be keeping in mind and knowing that, like, hey, here's an announcement and that everybody is aware of what's going on. Another example could be, you know, on the operations side from the, uh, for the internal team, if we're going to implement a new policy that is announced here so everybody knows it's not just an email that gets sent out and that gets left in the inbox. Um, and then you can also use it as a way to check in on those new policies, you know, for example, and not to, you know, throw any members of the team under the bus here. But I think, I think this is a good example, is that we recently implemented a new policy that comes down to like, when an internal employee is going to send an invoice in to be paid. And, um, trying to formalize that process a little bit more. And so we put out this pro. This. We put out this policy, we announced it to the team, and then I kind of did it as like a test, like, uh, to like, I sent in an invoice. I was like, okay, they're going to follow the policy. And then, uh, and then they didn't. Um, so, you know, it's the first time it's a new thing. So I'm like, hey, guys, this is like this again, like, brand new thing here. We're gonna check in on this again and make sure that we, we get this going. But all that to say this is like, these are the types of conversations that you're having in this Monday morning team meeting is you're reminding people of things that you've already reminded them of four times so that it just, it sticks with them. Yeah, you're, um, and you're just making sure everybody's aware of what's going on. Uh, the other part of your question was, how do I prep for it?

Speaker A: Yeah, right.

Speaker B: Um, one of the things that I've been doing is throughout, as I just am hearing people talk about Things or I'm on meetings as a certain topic comes up, I'm like, oh, that's a great topic for the Monday morning meeting. Jot it down. And then I'll have my running list that when Monday morning comes I'm like, okay, I have my list pretty much already created because it was being created throughout the previous week. Um, but then you're also. Some of it comes down to prepping other people because sometimes it's not just me. I'll call on other people to talk about, hey, you went to this event, you hosted this, this webinar. How did it go? And just giving them a heads up and telling them like, hey, here's what I want you to cover. Uh, and then we have, you know, our big rocks as well, which m. I think we'll get into a little bit later. Uh, but you have uh, your individual champions of, of the rocks and then they're going to give a report out on what they're doing. Um, and so there's a, there's a good flow that uh, goes through the meeting. And then we also try and make it a little educational too. Is that we like, I would say maybe about like a year or so ago, we decided it would be important that the internal team at EP understands the value acceleration methodology more than, you know, uh, just knowing what it is. You know, even though they're not going through it at your training, there's, you know, the majority of people at our company are not professional advisors working with business owners. They have their own individual roles in sales, marketing, product development, operations. But that we want all of them to still be aware and educated so that they can have like a, you know, an educational conversation if the uh, opportunity arises. And we think it can help them in their day to day lives too. Uh, so what we'll also do is towards the beginning of the meeting is we'll, we'll start to take questions from VAL acceleration methodology. This could be questions that are on the exam that we asked during sipa. It could be questions that come in from other people who are going through the program and just talk about them with the whole team and then we'll talk through what the answer is or at least what we believe. Um, the answer should be. Sometimes they're, you know, it's, it's a debate, which is why the question came up. Uh, but I think that is, in my opinion, I think that's seems to be beneficial for the team that they're just more educated on what we're doing.

Speaker A: Yeah, I would say A, uh, key part I. In listen. Listening to Chase. Answer that question for business owners listening in. We talk a lot on this podcast about decentralizing yourself. Right. Pulling the owner out of the business so they can work on their highest and best use. And the problem that I saw even last year as we started to kind of reorganize our executive leadership team, uh, and then open up this role in the way that we did and bring you in is that critical piece. There is. It seems so simple, but I think it's absolutely critical is throughout the week, Chase is taking notes on things that are pain points or struggles. So let's talk about those with this company wide meeting. Because if these five people are having it, maybe these other five people are having it as well. It's educational moments to say, look, this is a customer service type question that I think everybody should know. Or here's a question from the exam that we can investigate. Uh, and I also think it's a just an information driver. Right? Like what's this team doing in this? I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's increasingly harder as we've gone from a, uh, I think when you first started with 11 people at EPI to go from 56 people. How are we making sure that everybody is on the same page? I think that clarity and connection is absolutely critical. But by taking that, you're. What became increasingly harder for me was that I wasn't involved as much in the day to day of the business. So it became increasingly harder to understand what actually the 56 people really needed. And today, given that you live in it with everybody, uh, where I might travel 180 days a year, out in the, out in the field, teaching and speaking, you're just much more at the heart of rhythm than I think you've ever been.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a good point. I would say that I even, even I though do sometimes say like, oh, people will mention things. And I'm like, oh, I didn't know that. But I think that the key is to makes people feel, um, empowered to speak up during those meetings and give them the opportunity. We have like a sound off section at the end of the meeting that's like, okay, who wants to speak? Speak now forever. Hold your piece. Right.

Speaker A: Like, here's what's. Yeah, please. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, and then, you know, please share something that I haven't already covered. Yeah, um, with.

Speaker A: Well, that's critical. That's coming up. What I like too is that you're always like, you're Always like two weeks ahead in your meetings. Right. So you're looking not just what's going on this week, but what's next. So you're always looking forward. So that again, it is a great time. If you have a question to your point, it's we're all going to get back into the day to day grind of growing a business. Yeah, this is a great time to have a clarity moment. But going back to the components of rhythm, a weekly, a weekly huddle, uh, company wide, not just with an individual department of team, but company wide, 45 minutes to an hour is absolutely critical. So let's jump up then. What we have is also, uh, part of rhythm is a quarterly renewal. The quarterly renewal is really modeled after what we are taught inside of the value acceleration methodology. Chris talks about these 90 day sprints that always end with a quarterly renewal where in part we're renewing things like mission, vision and values. We're providing examples of those things. Uh, but we're also understanding what was good, what was, what was bad for the quarter. And you always challenged me in the past, now you run these, these workshops as well is you've always challenged me to uh, uh, do these start stop exercises in the last 90 days. What went really well, that we should keep doing, what is not going well, that we should probably not, you know, probably stop doing and what are the things that we feel we should start doing. So talk to me about that quarterly renewal and why that is an important segment of rhythm as well.

Speaker B: Sure. So I think over the years we've done a lot of different renditions of this. Probably, you know, we've had different elements of um, you know, what, what pieces we're covering during these, I think over the last, you know, maybe two or three quarters, I think we've got a really good format down that we've kind of been sticking with. So we would start off with talking through a renewal of core values. So we have our seven core values at DPI that we try to like, truly live by. UM and to provide the proof to that is to have UM members of the team come to the quarterly renewal and just share examples of UM teammates they saw living the core value. Um. And then I think it's also a very good, feel good moment that you're able to compliment other members of the team and people are feeling good that they were complimented. So I think that you're kind of accomplishing two things here. One, you're confirming that their core values are actually being lived, and two, you're recognizing people at the company for going above and beyond. Then you would move into an activity of some kind. This is kind of where we would pick, uh, uh, we kind of change it up a little bit depending on what we want to do. Like for example last quarter we did one where we picked four topics that we find are important at epi. And this is where I'm talking things like the SIPA program or summit. And we asked the team to break up into groups. Very important here that the groups are, you know, random. Random, you know, don't tell anybody. But they're also kind of not random. Because it's important here that we try and mix it up so that you are with a group of people you don't normally work with. You know, it's not a group of salespeople and a group of marketing people. Um, they're all intertwined. So you're going to work with someone in this group of um, maybe you're a salesperson and you have one marketing person, one operations person, one member experience person, etc. Um, so you're getting to actually have conversations with people that you're not talking to every day. Um, and uh, in this particular exercise we said define how you, in your own words without looking up, don't go to any websites, don't pull up the book, define in your words the SIPA program or the summit. And then let's all get together and see what everybody said. The idea here being that when everybody comes back together, I'm anticipating people have different answers. Uh, which then at that point we have uh, a continued conversation with everybody altogether where we try and formalize the definition so that everybody's on the same page to this clarity and connection point where we're actually going to try and work towards. Everybody should be explaining this in the same way. So that's just an example of an activity. Um, I have a good one planned for next quarter. I won't reveal it yet.

Speaker A: Oh yeah, I love the surprise.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But yeah, I think it's another, another great example. I think again to pull from what Chase was talking about for our audience. I think value acceleration methodology is also based in proof. Right. If Chris Snyder was sitting here, he would say you could say that you have a best in class culture, Chase, but can you prove it?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so I love what Chase was talking about in core values is everybody can put the core values up on the wall around the dashboard. But uh, do we have multiple examples in a 90 day period? Not even in a year, but in a short 90 day period. Are there multiple examples of teams, the whole company living those core values? I think it's a really. Talk about a renewal. Right. It's like a really good pause point for the individual and the organization to say, well there's not many examples. We're either not living on core values or the core values aren't the right ones.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And so uh, another good pause point to just kind of in a, in a high growth company, pause and bring everybody back together. So now we're going to take a step up again and go look at the way we handle things on a annual basis. One of the things uh, is our pre retreat and retreat. I want to focus a little bit more on the pre retreat because it's a little bit more embracing of the whole company. Uh, the retreat for the audience is an, is an executive retreat that really is a culmination of the entire year. We're taking insights from company wide meetings, quarterly renewals and then this pre retreat and the five executives go in and then uh, and then jive on a, uh, on a, on, on all of this information to really kind of recreate the three year strategy, the one year plan and then first 90 day sprint of the year. So looking at pre retreat, why do you believe this event is significant?

Speaker B: Sure. So I'll give an example and I think this is uh, a great segue from what we were just talking about, the core values to pre retreat. So pre retreat is the time the whole company comes together and talks through what we've done so far in the year and looking ahead to next year, talking through and really just the time for people to share their opinions and insights of what they think is needed. Um, and a great example that's core values related is this would have been I think 2021 where we had at one of these pre retreats we had the whole team come together and one of the activities we did was let's look at our core values that we have right now. Do we feel we're living by them or are we, you know like aligning with them? The answer at that point was no. Basically we really weren't focused on them at all and not say they were bad, but you know, just nobody really cared I guess. Um, and so we got rid of them and then the activity that day became all right as a team collectively, everybody sitting here right now, let's just decide what our new core values are. And then those have stuck ever since, um, from that point until today. So I think that's just one example of allowing the employees at the company to feel like they're contributing and heard. Uh, but, you know, outside of that, you also have things like we do a, uh, One Big Idea competition during this event where uh, you as an individual employee can submit an idea of any kind. It could be something that is a new product, it could be a new, you know, vendor that we should sign up with or something, you know, completely brand new that nobody's even thinking of. Um, and then you will present on that and then after a few presentations, go, the rest of the team will vote on which idea they want to do. And then we have a pretty good track record. Sometimes it takes a while of actually implementing whatever idea wins. Um, and some of them have been, uh, pretty significant for our team. Things like EPI Academy. That was one big idea. We have our SIPA Connect platform recently launched that also One big idea. Um, so super helpful to just get uh, opinions from individual contributors on the team who might not have an opportunity to do so.

Speaker A: Uh, usually I think the power of feedback is absolutely critical. I mean, what all of this leads to. The whole really first half of the, of our season here on the Exit is Now podcast is building a culture about we, not me. Right? And so what I, what I love about this is that it does, it gets you. I always say to owners, if you just ask, they'll tell you, you know, and I think that the pre retreat is a great example of that with the One Big Idea competition. I mean, can you imagine having three to five strategic ideas come from the, come from the uh, come from the employee base? I mean, it's absolutely critical. And to your point, Chase too, it's not even just about the winner. Sometimes somebody might not win, but we might go. That's actually a really good idea too. So we're going to implement that one as well. But nonetheless, um, that kind of rounds some of the key components of rhythm, right? But they're. The gist of it is there's got to be stuff that's done on an annual basis, stuff that's done on a quarterly basis and stuff that's done on a weekly basis to really hone in on mentality and hone in on, on vision and drive that all home. But it also all leads to the last element of a value creator culture, which is performance. So, and I heard at the top of the show, I said it to me, Chase, it's like you could have mentality, core values, trust accelerators. You can have long term m. Short term vision. You could be communicating information. But it all has to add up to, you know, to success, to performance at the end of the day. So one of the things we talk about inside of performance, because I think a lesson for many, uh, entrepreneurs, particularly young in their careers, is you have to be able to run the business by the numbers. It's probably something that me and you are still jiving on as you move into this. I've moved into this senior operations role, senior director of operations role. So talk to me kind of, you know, you've been in the role for eight months or so. What does running the business by the numbers really look like or mean. Mean to you?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I think one of the. The key parts of my job, at least in my opinion, is to help make the company more profitable.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Um, and I think one thing that I'm very conscious of is I think when you say that and you, you know, say that to, you know, all the employees at the, at the team, they might think so. They might think to themselves, oh, man, like, this guy's gonna come in, he's gonna slash our budgets. He's not gonna, like, hire people when we need to hire people. He's not going to let me, like, sign up for this vendor that I need where I, like. Like I said, I'm very conscious of, like, really trying to not use that mindset when you're trying to do this and more. So it's, uh, also what I said about efficiency. You know, how can I improve someone's time so that if you have. If it takes you shorter to do something, then you can move on to something else, and therefore you're just accomplishing more in a shorter amount of time. That's probably going to lead to more profits down the line. Of course. Um, or you're looking at different vendors. Is there a different vendor out there that's going to be a better fit for us? Um, or are going to be able to save money in things that people aren't really using? Like, is there a platform that we signed up for two years ago, but nobody is using it anymore? Um, so those are the ways that I try to approach it when it comes to how to make the company more profitable. I think one of the other things you and I had a conversation on recently was sometimes in the past, you might just look at the numbers and say, okay, revenue was this. Profit was this looks good. That was the goal. Um, that was the goal. We hit the goal. Let's move on. But what if you dove a little deeper and looked at all those expenses on an individual level? Even though you hit goal, is there something that you can improve on?

Speaker A: Yeah, an individual line item perhaps that stands out. I mean, and that's a great segue, Chase, because I think a part of running the business by the numbers is having great dashboards. Right. We have to be able to track key performance indicators along the way. And I think we have two sets that we look at. I think they're, I guess for the audience, they're similar group of numbers. One's more expanded, one's at the company wide level. And then there's a certain, uh, that embraces some of the stuff we want to see at the executive level. And then we, we certainly run a little deeper. Can you talk about the. Let's talk about our executive meeting Chase, and some of the numbers that we're tracking there and show them some of those metrics and why that matters.

Speaker B: Sure, yeah. I think that one thing that a, a helpful dashboard does is it just, again, this theme of efficiency. It just makes you faster when you, if you were to say, hey, I need data on how many of X product, X person sold, well, okay, all right, I gotta go. I'm gonna spend half a day like going through the rest of the deals from the past month and then like getting the number for you and then sending it over when instead I have a dashboard that's been actively tracking this automatically as we've been going again, we use HubSpot for this, um, where as soon as a deal closes, that information is added to the dashboard that we are actively using. Um, and then we're able to customize how we want to see it based on, you know, each member of the team or a certain period of time. And then we're just, you know, we're able to get answers really quickly when, when we need them. And then, you know, to your point, on the, the dashboard that we use during the, the executive meeting, you can see, you see trends super, super easily to say like, all right everybody, this was the goal. And now for three weeks that goal for that metric was, was not hit. So now we're gonna, we're gonna highlight this and we're gonna talk about it deeper. Um, it just makes things more top of mind and it does, it allows you to, uh, not fall too far behind. So you're not three months behind, you're just three weeks behind. We can take a pause point and then try and reevaluate.

Speaker A: There's a concept between like leading and lagging indicators.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: I mean, again, if you have them up and you're spending even 15 minutes on it or even 5 minutes on it every executive meeting. And again also happening every single Monday where the executives get together on a weekly basis and we could run a half hour, we might be run two hours. It kind of just depends on what's going on in any given moment. But we always start that meeting with uh, a look at the dashboard. To chase his point allows you to just make quicker, better decisions. And he absolutely has that theme of efficiencies, no doubt. So part of the performance as well isn't just the metrics that allow us to move the company forward or pivot or make decisions. It's also this concept of powerful feedback. And you produce, uh, each year for us a third party customer satisfaction survey, which I think has really helped shape things like our new member model. Things uh, like our exit planning summit. And I thought it was critical when you challenged us not to just do a member survey, but to go outside and have a third party come in and have them survey our customers. Can you talk to how you've leveraged that, that data and what we're doing at epi?

Speaker B: Yeah, because I think with this third party organization that we worked with, they a presented ideas for questions that we maybe didn't think to ask and then two are analyzing the data without bias so that they're able to present us what their opinion is. Um, but it might be different than how we would have analyzed the data. And I really think it's led to one of the more significant, you know, shifts in our company in a long time with the way that we approach. You mentioned the member model. But even, you know, a step behind that is how we present, uh, as a team with our member experience team in particular. So, you know, just to provide a little context. So previously our member, uh, experience, we only had, uh, account managers.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: That was their title. There wasn't, there wasn't a member experience. There was just the account management team. And they were in charge of being that member support that people need. If you need to call someone and that's your member rep and you have a question, then that's who you're going to go to. But they also had a sales quota and so that they were also in charge of being the ones to sell to you as well. And part of the feedback that we got from the third party survey was that this was conflicting, that, you know, people wanted to talk to someone about something. You know, it could be, hey, I need a referral or I'm, uh, struggling to understand this concept and I Just want to have a conversation like, I'm not in the mood right now to be sold to. And so we've, you know, pivoted that to have two separate teams. So you have your member experience team and you have your account manager team. Obviously you're a business, you know, you're going to have to sell something. That's, that's how you got to keep the lights. Yeah, that's how you keep the lights on.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So you have your account managers who, when you are, you know, looking to purchase a product, that's who you talk to. And then you have your member experience team. When you just need more general support or advice, then, then you have a team, uh, that is your, your go to.

Speaker A: So the other. Well, uh, the flip side of customer feedback is also feedback from your own employees. Right. So similarly, not in a third party way, but a part of performance is we actually do two employee satisfaction surveys each year. One in the summer basically going on right now so that we can have like a, you know, just a pulse moment and then one at the end of the year. How has that been going for you? Because you're in it right now. And I asked that too, being now that you kind of own that. Right. Like your customers, just like you would be third party interviewing your, your sipas and the advisors. Now you're interviewing your own. But again your role is to make them happy, efficient, uh, and to keep them to, and get them to stay.

Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I would say that one thing that is, uh, you know, very nice for me and I can't take total credit for is that there was certainly a strong foundation, foundation built when I stepped into it. Um, one of the things I've always been super, uh, proud of, or not even when I was directly managing it, but impressed by from EPI is our employee retention rate. It's, you know, we've had a really strong one over the years since I've been here over the past, you know, six years or so. It's, you know, it happens, people will leave. But I just think it's, it's. Our rates have to be higher than, you know, your average company for sure. And I think you can see that. Again, to point on proof in these, uh, employee surveys that we're sending out that typically they're pretty positive, honestly. Like, um, and you'll have your. There are certain comments where like, hey, I think you guys could improve in this one particular area. But it's not like, uh, everything's terrible. It's uh, overall pretty good. I would recommend some improvements here and there. And then we take that feedback seriously and then we do read it. We don't just ask and then throw it to the side. We take it to that L10 meeting as the executives and review it as a team, uh, and then decide on what changes we think should be made.

Speaker A: Yeah, I always found it in, um, uh, it's like, ah, we've always gotten great, great feedback. Right. I think that we spend a very intentional and focused amount of time on making sure people love what they do here at epi, show up in a positive and impactful place and enjoy their culture that they work in. A true business that's really built around the collective, the we, not the, not the me function of it. But I do sometimes feel like when it's like how we talk about an exit planning Chase, how it's like somebody's calling your baby ugly.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Like they give you feedback. You're in charge of like making people more efficient people, process systems. And like, you could be a little bit better here. Sometimes it gets like a little like, oh, God, like, I can't believe I've been failing them.

Speaker B: And it could just be, and it could just be like, you know, one person, you know, you could have, you know, majority of people say, hey, this is really good. But then one person says, hey, I'm not happy for XYZ reason, but that like, really stands out, you know. And you're like, man, I couldn't get 100%.

Speaker A: Yeah, right, exactly. Like, you really wanted it. You really wanted it. So that leads us to the top of the show Chase. I want to, I want to part by, uh, talking to you about what this whole first half of the season has, has led to for everybody, which is showcasing to our audience of business owners, leaders and advisors and certified exit planning advisors on what does a value creator culture look like and mean? So in, in conclusion for the show Chase, what does that mean to you when uh, I, uh, when you look at becoming a value creator, what does that mean?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think I would go back to kind of what I was talking about. How we find it important to educate the team on value acceleration. Even though they're not actively practicing advisors, they're not going to sell a business. They're not going to, you know, um, uh, have business owner clients. But what they would do is if they understand how value is created, they would have that top of mind while they're in their active role in our company. So like, they are intentionally trying to grow value at an individual level, even Though they're not an owner, um, and that they're trying to find ways to make their role more valuable. I also think that if you really buy into it, you are actively using this in your everyday life. It's not just in your business. You can create value in a lot of different places. I ran into this somewhat recently. I was just telling you before the show how I sold my house recently and I sold pretty fast. And I think one of the reasons that that happened was that over the last couple of years that I've owned it, I'll do updates to the house and in the back of my head I say, oh, this is kind of expensive, but it increases the value of the house.

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, exactly.

Speaker B: And so I. There's stuff like that that I think just can be applied to your life even outside the business. So it's kind of, kind of twofold.

Speaker A: I love that I always talk about living a more value, uh, a value acceleration centric life. It's uh, Chase's team. In our last quarterly renewal, we have, uh, a scorecard, right? Or not a scorecard. We have a little bit of a visual dashboard that we like to hang up on our cubicles or put on our walls in our offices that showcases the theme that Chase has, which is clarity and connection. Showcases the annual goals, the quarterly goals, the rocks, and so on and so forth. Right. A pretty, something traditional in form dashboard, uh, that we can refer to. But we challenged our folks, uh, last quarter to actually fill out their personal dashboard as well. So we took the, the same scorecard and said if you, if you overlaid your life on this and said, you know, what are my themes this year? What am I trying to work towards? What are some strategic initiative? What are some key performance indicators for life that I'm, I'm looking at and challenge ourselves, uh, and challenge ourselves there as well. But I agree, I think, you know, looking at a value. What does a value creator mean? I think they're bringing some of the stuff that we traditionally as employees focus in on business. We're actually bringing it into our personal life as well. So I think. Very well said. Well, Chase, I appreciate you coming on the show again and teaching us about how you run Exit Planning Institute and think through rhythm and performance. So folks, uh, looking forward to the second half of our season together here on the Exit Is now podcast, where we pivot, moving from our value acceleration or value creation, uh, culture and mindset to how are we activating the business owner as advisors. What are the things that we are doing to help us connect better with business owners and move the business owner into the value acceleration methodology. So looking forward to that and uh, Our next episode July 8th. So please, uh, listen, Leave a review Share the podcast Appreciate it guys. Appreciate it. Chase.

Speaker B: Appreciate it. Sa.