Just crossed 1,000 followers 🙏🏻 Who am I? I’m John. > Married to Celeste for 13 years > 4 awesome kids (10, 8, 6 and 2) > Spent first 11 years professionally running the family insurance business > Dad sold in 2021 and we sold our house, cars and most of our belongings to move to Guatemala in 2021, then Colorado Springs in 2022. > In 2022, as a family of 5, I made $30,000 total starting a new real estate business. > In Sept, my dad passed away suddenly with no warning > On Thanksgiving morning, I totaled our car > In December, i was completely broken and out of options > March 2023, took a job at a landscaping company back home in Texas as COO to stabilize and grow the business >Spent 2 years and 11 months fixing operations, improving culture and pushing towards the owner’s vision > August 2025, felt God calling us to risk in 2026. > Had 3 different people with no context of our situation tell us we were going to take a big risk in 2026 > In January of this year, let go from that by a friend in January (too long of a story) > Launched Frontier Business Design January 19th > February 24th, got client number 1 > March 24th, got client number 2 > August 2026, the W2 income was officially surpassed by Frontier > September 2026, launched the COO Collective as a peer advisory for second in command’s So what do I do? 2 things: 1. I help blue collar companies design, build and implement operational systems that relieve the owner from being responsible for everything. -I lead awesome team meetings -I bring visibility to the priority issues -I hold employees accountable through data -I build and implement SOPs through adoption -I walk alongside the owner to achieve their vision -I coach GMs and Directors of Ops to understand their role and do it with excellence 2. I bring COO’s and similar positions together in one room once a month to talk about the things no one understands. Through the Collective, they get access to each others networks and resources. -Quarterly gatherings -Annual summit -Speakers, presenters and people that actually help -A community of operators without and founders or CEO’s around I offer a free assessment of your business operations through the link in the first comment. No cost. No pitch. Just my assessment with a game plan for you to implement yourself to begin the process removing owner dependency. DM me. No pitching though. 😎

All games cancelled due to rain. Fall is here to stay. 8 YO at a sleep over. Everyone else asleep. Just the dog and me enjoying @PeteGreig

When Ryan calls, you answer. Period.

Old habits die hard. I just apologized to a vendor on behalf of my client stating it was “my mistake” when I wasn’t even involved. I did this all the time at the old co. Part of my role to protect the company and the founder. Truly was done out of habit today. 🤣 Owner even asked why I did that. 🤷‍♂️ THAT’S why the COO Collective exists. We take the blame for the mistakes our founders make even when we’re not employed! Hi, there liability. Good to see you again.

Weekly Recap… THE GOOD: 1. Sent out 10 referrals to people in my network. Current clients needing services I don’t offer. 2. Client outcomes were felt this week more than any other week. 3. COO Collective was a massive success 4. Had a 2 hour convo just now with a dude “just because”. No agenda. God, business, family. THE BAD: 1. Going into the weekend behind. 2. Haven’t talked to wife much this week because of too many commitments. 3. 6 YO got a front tooth knocked out for the 2nd time in 2 months THE UGLY: 1. Had a state tax return for a business rejected 2. Filed late for another business because an LP couldn’t get his taxes done 3. Woke up at 4:30a worried about taxes and finances 4. 2 invoices were late causing cash flow issues All in all, a good week. The good outweighed the bad. The good was practical and tangible. The ugly were stories I made up myself about what could go wrong. Onward.

It was a joke. I like Mercury and Books has been great for me.

I’m fed up with Mercury Books already. I connected all my accounts and reconciled every transaction. My finances don’t like any better than they did before. Same numbers. Still lower margins than I want. Same cash flow issues that the Google Sheet showed. SMH.

I’ve been asked 3 times in the past week why I don’t recommend EOS for small companies ($2M and under). Here’s why: 1. Owners can’t be visionary + integrator 2. A good integrator is minimum $150k salary 3. You don’t need a 10 year vision when your revenue is $800k 4. The owner would be responsible for holding everyone accountable which means no one gets held accountable 5. You don’t have a leadership team 6. You can’t take 2 full days for annual planning 7. You’re weekly pulse meetings would consume far too much of your week 8. You don’t have enough data to run scorecards properly 9. You’ve read the book but can’t define what a Level 10 is 10. It’s too restrictive Implement parts of it. Issues Rocks 3/1 Year plans Process Don’t try to implement EOS if you’re under $2M

Had a CSR today that made a commitment to hold down the after hours phone over the weekend. Owner was ticked when he had 2 missed calls that should have been handled. CSR comes into our 1 on 1 today, and I ask about it. No judgment. Just asking for the facts. “Yeah I didn’t do it. It was late. But it didn’t cost us anything. They went with another company anyway. But if he’s going to come at me like that, I don’t have to do it. It’s overtime. So I told him I wasn’t doing it. Know what I mean? Wasn’t that big of a deal.” His confidence shone through in his wry smile… So I told him, “I would have been extremely upset with you myself and he has every right to be mad. He trusted you to honor a commitment you made and you didn’t. You’ve sacrificed one of the most important things you earn - the owner’s trust.” The rest of the meeting was “yes sir”. Train them in the way they should go. This was a Radically Candid moment and he responded well.

Reason number 384 to build a referral partner network. I mentioned 3 people in my network to this prospect I did some free consulting for earlier this year. “How did you connect the dots?” I connected the dots because these were specific pain points he mentioned 2 months ago in our call and I needed another reason to reach back out to him. (Kind of selfish, yeah I know) I’ll send him 3 people that can help him today (including @seanmlyden). If he becomes a client, awesome. If not, awesome. Either way. I get to help 4 people regardless. I’ll say it again, it’s more fun to give a referral than receive one (just doesn’t pay as well 🤣)

First COO Collective forum in the books. Overall Forum grade - 8.2 Overall Member grade - 9.3 Overall Moderator (me) grade - 7.1 The COO’s fully participated, honored time, got deep fast and ultimately made 4 hours feel like 2. They were the real stars. Some nerves at first, opened up as we went. The forum itself did its job. Deep Dives worked to perfection. Shared experience needs work. I had 3 cringe moments as moderator no one will remember but me. I started the forum with my top 5% and bottom 5% to set the tone, but made two jokes out of impostor syndrome and defense mechanism when I got uncomfortable that didn’t land well. Bottom line: -More forums will happen for sure -There is a deep need -I’m not sure how I feel about the forum structure -Moderating a 4 hour forum is life-giving (and requires skill) I want to do these all over the place now, so the COO Collective will add chapters, cities and states over the next 12-24 months.

8 YO helping me set up today. Says “Dad, I can drink this. It’s aged 7 years and 1 month.” Bringing levity to a nervous day. Gotta love kids.

Ready for launch. $700 in introductory gifts for the founding 6 members. Table is set. Room is ready. COO’s about to get real for the next 4 hours.

When you open X and you have 37 notifications in 2 hours thinking you went viral only to realize all of the are from the same thread.

Current client wants to start EOS. I told him no. It irritated him. -No assigned visionary (owner still in the field) -No integrator (not in my scope) -Mostly 1099 contractors/subs -Less than $1m annual revenue He understood. That being said, we can build towards that and utilize the pieces that matter for him today. -3/1 Vision -Rocks/Issues/Scorecards -Shallow accountability chart + desired AC -SOP's/Process Companies of this size don't need (and can't afford) EOS. I'm a believer that implementers are worth their wait, but paying $30k/yr. in a company producing $800k gross revenue doesn't make sense.

A wise mentor once told me one of the more profound lessons. If you want to have the most influence, become the most genuinely curious person. This is all about asking the right question. Ops leaders are generally not great at asking questions. We tend to jump straight to guidance, advice and solving. Truly effective operations leaders ask probing questions that do two things: 1. Get to the root 2. Force understanding and ownership of solution Operational leadership is less about telling and more about directing.

My wife picked up a prescription for our 6 year old this weekend. “Are you paying with insurance?” “I don’t know yet. How much is it with insurance?” $52 [something] “What’s the cash price?” “$19.64” Big pharma and health insurance companies suck. This is why I got out of the insurance business and trust guys like this who are doing it the right way 👇 @Benefitsguynick @mattragudo @clintmwallace