We're a fabricator. We do about 800 to 1,000 square feet — that's kind of our sweet spot. We do some Home Depot jobs, and then we have contractors, builders, and homeowners. Most of our work comes from referrals.But in 2020 we were a much larger company, and we got hit with a tornado that wiped out the whole business. A week after the tornado hit us, COVID started — all of those things hit us in the same year. It was crazy. We had to regroup and find a new place. We used to do all the Lowe's and Home Depot work, but we had to cut back and scale back because there was no way to survive with all that. So we changed our mix a little and how we do business. We found a new spot in three months.Joe from Poseidon and John helped me tremendously with equipment and setting up my shop, so we were lucky — within three months we were back up and running in a whole new shop. John helped me organize my business. I was everywhere but I was nowhere. You know, when you start a small business and your business grows you think you can handle it all and manage it all, but you actually get in the way. I got in the way of my company's growth, and that's when John helped me with procedures and having my manager take over so I don't have to do everything. It's just more about our structure, procedures, and operating system.He helped us with Stone Profits and got us up and running with that. He knows the numbers, he knows the books, but he also ran his own fabrication shop, which is really rare now. For me, I'm not a numbers guy — I can run my shop and I can sell — but John, he's really lucky because he has both. Very few people can do the numbers really, really well. I mean, we all know the numbers we need to be in business, but we don't know the numbers like John does. John also knows the fabrication side — what it takes on the floor, what equipment, how to run it — which helped me tremendously because he could help me on the financial side but also on streamlining my operations and putting procedures in place to minimize mistakes.Then you're like, "Man, this is a lot of money — is it really worth it?" But I promise you, today it was the best investment I ever made in my [Music] life. As I said, we're more profitable and have a better quality of life, which is huge. I mean, that's measurable — you can measure that every day. I just have time with my family. I enjoy coming to work, and so do all my people. I have very few people that come in here with a long face. We're a bigger business, but we're still like a family business. It's absolutely worth it. Look past the financial commitment — you might not see results in the first two, three, or six months. Some people do because their businesses are such a mess.We have another customer I introduced to John: Derek, who unfortunately has silicosis and isn't doing well. He's young — he's in his 30s. I told him he had to get John to help him structure his business and get through this thing. When he heard that, he didn't know what to do or where to go. "Do I sell my business? Do I keep my business?" You can't sell your business right now because your business is a mess. Get John — let him come in, let him clean it up, let him tell you what to do. Derek is doing so much better.

They wouldn't have bought the company because I wouldn't have taken this position. They don't have anybody in that particular group of investors that would be in position to do this based on experience. I was kind of in a unique position in that most people would have come and taken a look at what was going on two and a half years ago — the position of the company in terms of losing money, staffing, the whole picture — and they would have said, "This is not worth doing; better to close the whole thing down and just reopen instead of trying to keep this going."Well, basically John and I just continued to do what we were doing when I was just operations. We had leadership meetings weekly. He made himself available to discuss and review and make decisions on things that executive-level members have to make. I was really by myself in the beginning to some degree — I had a few staff members — but really there was a huge void in leadership. We recently solved that problem when we hired our general manager this last April.But I will tell you this: when we interviewed — his name is Jake Graham — he has a lot of experience in the business. One of the things he told me was that everything looked good on paper, which you can sell businesses on paper. It's really what's going on in the back room that makes a difference. He had asked me if he could have half a day to work with the guys in the back to see exactly what was going on on the floor, and he did that. That was what solidified his decision to come on board. It wasn't a dumpster fire — we got processes, we got the right people, we got flow, we got a lot of things in place that, if they hadn't been, he would not have come on board.He's an experienced GM in the granite and countertop cabinet business, so he could very quickly see whether something's running well or not. He has already been hired to turn around shops that were dumpster fires — "I'm not interested in that; there's no dumpster fires here, so I'm willing to come on board." So again, that didn't happen without John. We didn't really have any strong leadership in the beginning. For the first couple of years John and I were really making all the decisions, and I was executing on those decisions.It's hard to really share in a way that you might fully understand. You probably had other clients that you talk to about this kind of environment. There were probably two out of 30 people left when I started two years ago. What that means is I didn't have very many people who knew what they were doing well, and I had to go through the process of getting 28 people on board that could either learn or be in a position to grow and keep a $10 million operation in the black. Within the first three months that I was the operations consultant, the entire shop — well, I say the entire shop, the leadership in the shop and at least 50% of the shop — literally had a revolt.I mean, yeah, that's the big one and it's probably the most important one. We were able to see the reason it went from losing $50,000 to $100,000 a month to immediately stopping that in February and January when we bought the company in February. A lot of the cash loss was due to the marketing investments the previous owner was determined to pour into the company. I have experience in running companies with almost non-existent marketing funds, and John — I can't remember the term — it's really performance, where your performance is what builds your company: how you do things, what kind of company you are, how you do business. That's what grows your business instead of paying for business on the front end. We much more prefer performance marketing, and he understands that very well. He was able to help us look at what we needed to review — getting those five-star ratings from a 2.2 to a 4.8. That's measurable. Google reviews is very much a measurable thing that he had a big hand in.See, John is not only a consultant with EOS, but he has an accounting background. Here's what you get with John — I don't know if you would count these as measurables, but there are things that, if you're in my particular line of business (and I know he does probably other businesses that are not granite and cabinets), the reason he is so impactful in my business is he's had granite shops, he's run them, he's started them, he's made them profitable. I don't have to reinvent the wheel every time something comes up; he literally already has experience. When I'm presented with something, he has the answer because he's already solved it, and that's across the board because he's actually been in the industry.But also on the financial side, he's an accountant and he understands all the financial importance. I run a small business — it's a general contracting business, one to two million a year — basically run that company off a checkbook register, right? I have accountants on that, but I don't need complex financial reports. Not that complicated — it's very simple. Well, there are too many nuances. For example, the way you've got to calculate what a slab value is based on what you cut out of it, what waste is left, how much you're going to attribute to breakage — all of that is accounting. It's the physical stuff, but all those aspects have to be applied in an accounting method and process, and he understands that completely.Also, he's a super smart guy. Not only is he a granite and cabinet guy, but he's a psychologist — he understands personalities, he understands motivations, he can read between the lines. There's not a better person that I've ever met that can interview somebody and really know what that person is about based on the way he interviews. He's super smart, and then he's also just a really, really good guy. I consider him one of my closest friends. He's one of my closest friends that I spend no time with — I mean, he's in other states and we cross paths at conferences and stuff like that, but we've been talking about wives together and this and that. It's never been where we've lived in the same city and could do things together, but he's just a really great guy.Also, he is an incredible leader in that if he has to take care of business with anybody, he can take care of business. You know what I'm saying? I tease him about this all the time and he won't mind me saying this, but he's one of the smartest people in the world. For me, he's just a really great guy doing exactly what he was created to do — exactly what every business needs. I don't care what you're doing: if you're a repair shop, he would help you grow your business. It would be worth whatever you asked. Get him to help you grow your business. If you don't, you're making a bad decision. If you don't hire him right now, every minute you wait on hiring him you're just putting off the opportunities that he's going to help you bring to the table.

We are Rock Tops. We are a granite fabrication company in Kansas City. I would say we're probably the largest fabricator in Kansas City. We do a lot of new single-family home construction, a lot of retail work, contractor and designer jobs.I met John at a Rockheads event — gosh, it would have been, I guess, five or six years ago. Those events are helpful; Rockheads is a good organization to share best practices and see what everyone else around the country is doing. I met John through conversation and told him what I had going on in my business at the time. The business was growing rapidly — this was probably back in 2018. I had started the business in 2013 and growth was huge up until I met John.Honestly, through John I started a conversation about our growth and how we got to this point where, as a one-man show, I needed assistance structuring the team a little better. As we grew to about 40 employees, I could touch everything — every job, every employee, every phase of the business. Once we started to surpass 40 or 45 employees it just got very difficult. When you're growing at that rapid pace, it's hard to implement process and procedure and structure. It was more me hiring people I knew — friends and family. The good outweighed the bad, but there was still bad. I couldn't implement certain things; people get complacent, stagnant, entitled.I really wanted to lean on John to come in and essentially be that guy that created the process and cue my team to take direction from him. It worked out well because I could sit in the background and tell him what I was trying to accomplish and he could help implement it.A little background: in 2004 I became a contractor and new home builder. I did basement finishes and remodels; I didn't build new homes initially. I started pulling bank loans around 2006–2007 — bad timing — but I still built maybe 20–25 homes in that period and was able to sell them. I stayed afloat with contracting work. A friend owned a large stone veneer manufacturing business and asked me to run his division for a new countertop shop. I didn't know much about the industry, but I purchased countertops and did some math, came up with a theory, and helped them get started in 2006–2007. I did that for a couple of years, then was too busy with my own work.Fast forward to 2012 they called me back to run the company again. I did it for about 10 months and realized they were just broken — some people in place were the problem. I didn't want to be responsible for letting them all go. Ultimately they offered me half the company for nothing, and I told them I was going to go down the street and start my own granite company. I wouldn't poach their work or their employees, and we ended up having a good relationship as I built my company. In 2019 I bought what I now call the lack of assets of their business. I needed their building — a 50,000 sq ft facility with an undervalued lease they didn't even know they had — and that was what I was after. I was able to pick up their lease, which had three options on it, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. I bought them out for about half a million, made creative payments to the owner because we were friends, and moved into their facility. They had 35–40 employees and within three months I took that down to five; I had my own 55 or so, so we ended up around the 60 mark — probably 55–60 — and that's when I brought John into the equation.I met him at a meeting and told him I needed help structuring the company. John's personality won me over. His industry knowledge was great, but the way he goes about business — his personality — essentially evaluated the business, circled back with me, told me what he thought he could help with, and we signed on pretty quickly.I had some key employees pushing for more structure, but they were getting pushback from other employees. Without John, we would have been slower, no doubt. He implemented Traction, which formed regular meetings for us, implemented process and procedure, and helped structure the business. I think without that I would have been years behind. At one point I had 92 employees and $150,000 a week in payroll — it was a little unsettling. We pulled through and increased our business through 2020–2022, and I timed the sale of the company on an uphill. I achieved a multiplier I think is top for our industry, and John was helpful with that as well.We used John from around 2018–2019 through 2021, and I still used him as a consultant to bounce things off. I probably could have carved John into the business, but he was growing as well. He did what he was there to do. He made regular visits and was readily available — not just to me but to my team. He really won over the staff, which is hard to do. I had interviewed a couple other options and don't believe they would have had the personality characteristics to manage or work with the team.I've referred John to a few different businesses over the years because, regardless of industry, he can help. Some people think if you don't know a plumbing company you can't help them, but that's not necessarily true. I'm biased, but our market is tough — construction is tough, and manufacturing a custom product where we've never made one piece twice is challenging. Countertops and cabinets are among the most challenging parts of the industry.Here's a unique situation: I had a phantom partner — an employee who started with me on the construction side and came into the business. He didn't want ownership at first but through sweat equity I gave him 5%. He later felt entitled to more, worked less, and didn't want to contribute even though he was my number two. I couldn't figure out how to fix that. John came in and helped me solve the problem, and we ultimately split ways. He was beneficial in that.Undoubtedly, from my experience, I couldn't find someone better suited in personality or fit for my staff and myself. John helped organize my company and strategically positioned me to sell the company or move it along more profitably. I didn't even know what EBITDA was until John came in — I'm too busy in the weeds and not a finance guy. He broke it down and explained a path so I had options. It was worth every penny.One thing people struggle with is biting the fee to hire someone. I can testify that it comes back tenfold. In fact, I had a number in my head for what I thought my business was worth, and after John's help it was double that.

I'm Andrew Dr. I'm the CEO of Accent Countertops. Our business has been around since 1985; I bought it in 2014 with a partner. We've grown — we've just about tripled the size of the company since then. We have just under 100 employees. We're located in Salt Lake City and we've expanded to Reno, Nevada. We fabricate out of one 40,000 sq ft facility in Salt Lake and we ship to cover all of Northern Nevada and into Northern California from that location. Our business is primarily B2B — I'd say 70–80% B2B — and the rest is direct-to-consumer.Our business was in a pretty good spot but a bit stagnant. We were running well and profitable, but I felt we weren't progressing or improving at a high enough rate. When I started talking with John Kaplan about his consulting services and learned he was an EOS expert, I thought this might be the right system to help us grow and improve faster.Overall it was a great, extremely positive experience. John Kaplan is experienced in our industry and has implemented EOS at several other businesses, so he was clearly an expert. He was very easy to work with and set and managed expectations appropriately. We have some strong personalities in our business and sometimes we can be a little dysfunctional — John was able to work with us through all of that.It was about a year-long implementation. He started off slowly, we ramped up, and he helped us set our 10-year target, three-year goals, one-year goals, and then put the entire EOS structure into our business. Now it's part of our culture. He was always available for questions or follow-up outside of our normal weekly meetings.What came of it was the structure — the EOS structure: setting goals and regularly meeting to discuss our rocks (quarterly goals), focusing on the highest-priority issues, and resolving them. The results were tremendous. We focused heavily on rework: we were a quality shop before, but not in the top tier we wanted to be. We were able to cut our rework in half, and our first-time installation rate increased significantly. Today our shop runs much more efficiently and at a lower cost than before working with John.The system freed up a lot of my time and the time of other managers to focus on higher-level strategic initiatives. I was able to work more on the business rather than just in the business — launching new programs, implementing sales training, making acquisitions, and other strategic work.Since implementing EOS, both our EBITDA and our EBITDA margin are higher than they've ever been. As a business owner, profit must be the highest priority, and we've seen tremendous growth in EBITDA and margin as a result.If you're looking for someone to implement EOS specifically, Kaplan has been a great fit for us — especially because he knows our industry. Be ready for a fundamental change in how you manage your business: you and your team will be held accountable to each other. It's a lot of work, but unless you already have a similar system running, you're likely to see higher rates of improvement than you've ever seen before.

I had no freedom. I really didn't know if I was making money — I wasn't making money. It brought to light a lot of blind spots and changed the dynamic of the business. You can build something so far; you have so much knowledge and so much drive, but at a certain point you're going to start second-guessing yourself. To me, it was huge to have someone come in and say, “Look, you're on the right path,” or “You're not — let's steer it back on, let’s get you redirected to where you want it to be.” It was more reinforcement, knowledge, and basic help.You could have all the employees in the world and everybody could tell you, “Oh yeah, your ideas are great, you're the greatest person in the world,” because they derive a check from you — they’re going to pat that ego. Anyone in this industry has an ego. For me it was great — everybody was telling me how great I was doing — but I was still doing 18-hour days. I was still waking up with night sweats at 3:00 a.m., wondering, “Did I do the right thing? Did I make the right decision?”So to have someone come in who had knowledge of my industry — not just some other consultant, because there are a bunch of consultants — but someone who knows it, who walked through the same mud hole I’ve been through, and could say, “Okay, this guy knows what he's talking about; I can relate to him,” was important. I didn't want some stuffed-shirt, college-educated person telling me, “You’ve got to do X, Y, Z.” I want to know why I’ve got to do it — I want the background. I enjoy that aspect of it.More than anything, over the past two and a half years — we've had this conversation before — my hands used to shake for five days. I would get two phone calls: one because someone's out with the flu and another just to see what I was doing. It brought me a lot of peace and tranquility. I know what my numbers are now. When I first started, I didn’t know what the hell that meant. From the standpoint of loving what I do and being able to love what I do and actually transform it into something bigger and better — and knowing you're on the right path and having someone to lean on to say, “Hey, I'm thinking about doing this — what do you think? Is it the right decision? Am I going down the right path? Is it a small-business move?” — that is invaluable.Also having the knowledge of all my numbers and knowing, “Hey, I am making money; this is my break-even point; I can go down here to help out or I can't,” matters. One day I'm going to want to retire, and I ain't waiting for Social Security because they ain't going to be there. To know I'm in a good position, that I can sell the business and retire — that means a lot. I can understand it going into it.You say, “Well, there's a fee and nothing's free in this world — what's your peace and tranquility cost?” Some guys might be willing to pay $30,000, $110,000, whatever it is. That magic number you have to justify to yourself: listen, I'm paying this fee, but I can sleep. I know my business can run without me being there.Over two and a half years, that's over a 50% increase. My margins went up tremendously, losses went down, margins went up. We tailored the work staff, took positions, empowered them, and freed me up. We also eliminated a lot of waste and captured revenue that we were throwing away but didn't see. To me, it was a different world.When people ask me, I tell them: look, if you want freedom and you really want to know, that's the cost.

We're like a midsize company — somewhere around 40 employees — and we service high-end residential, commercial, and multifamily. We are currently in a 10,000 square-foot facility. I started the business on my own, learned everything from ground zero. I started with a handsaw and learned every step along the way until I took it to a point I couldn't take it any further. I needed help.I found out, through a colleague of mine in the same business, about John Kaplan. What I liked at the beginning was that I thought nobody could understand the pain I was going through — not just any consultant, only somebody coming from the industry. That's why I liked John a lot: he really understands what needs to be done more than any other consultant out there.I had managers, assistant managers, install managers, fabrication managers, and a lot of salespeople — it was chaos every day. I told my wife that if it goes on, I'm going to have a heart attack. Everybody was working tons of overtime to get jobs through the door. Even the managers were working until 11 or 12 at night. Everybody was overloaded and it was still chaos because we had no system in place — until John taught us a real process and we implemented it.It wasn't easy and it took time, but now it's a whole different ballgame. I come in the morning and I don't have to tell anybody — everybody knows what to do. It's calm and relaxed. Everybody's happy to be here and happy to work here. There are morning huddles for every department and it's like it's on autopilot. We know how to measure everyone's success, everyone sees a future, and everybody's loving it.Since John came in, the appetite to work here increased. Employees love being here; they see it as a place where we care about everyone, where every opinion counts, and we try to take feedback from everyone. The experience working with Kaplan is unbelievable — I say it with a full heart. Even though they get paid, I don't think I can really pay them back. I owe them a great amount of gratitude for what they did for our business.They helped us streamline everything and really cared for our business. They made sure everybody understands what they have to do; everybody's happy and everybody wants it. They're here for us at all times of the day — "Don't hesitate, just call us." That was huge.First of all, it was the first time I took a vacation and didn't come back to problems — it was even better when I wasn't here. We're not doing simple jobs — we're doing real, hard, complicated jobs that need a lot of experience — and they helped us document everything so everybody knows what they need to do. I felt I could have taken a longer vacation, and that's the first time I felt like that in 17 years.I'd say you're silly if you don't take them. Even if you think you can't afford it, you'll realize you have much more time in the day and much more money. It gives you visibility on your business — exactly where you stand — and you won't be able to fool yourself. Every dollar spent, you'll triple your money.