I Know What It's Like to Be in Your Seat
MY STORY
2001 - The Early Years
In 1996, my brother Brad and I started Acropolis Computers out of our homes. What would later become Acropolis Technology Group started like a lot of businesses do: we saw an opportunity, believed we could do it better, and went to work.
What started with two brothers grew into a real company—with employees, customers, payroll, leadership challenges, growing pains and all the issues that come with building a business. Over the next 27 years, I learned firsthand that running a successful company takes a lot more than being good at what you do.
I've lived the same frustrations I now help business owners work through: getting the right people in the right seats, creating accountability, solving issues at their root, keeping everyone aligned and building a business that doesn't depend on the owner for everything.
BUILDING THE BUSINESS
What 27 Years of Ownership Taught Me
GROWTH CREATES COMPLEXITY
PEOPLE ARE EVERYTHING
As the company grew, so did the challenges. More customers, more employees and more opportunity also meant more moving parts, more decisions and more things that could go wrong
I learned that having great people isn't enough. They need to be in the right seats, know exactly what's expected of them and be accountable to each other
YOU CAN BE THE BOTTLENCK
SIMPLE ALWAYS BEATS COMPLICATED
Like many entrepreneurs, I had to learn that working harder wasn't always the answer. A healthy business can't depend on the owner making every decision and solving every problem.
The best systems are the ones people actually use. Clarity, discipline and a handful of simple tools consistently beat complicated processes and management theory.
A TURNING POINT
Finding EOS®
Acropolis Annual Meeting — 2/16/2022
A Better Way to Run the Business
In 2014, my brother Brad and I shared ownership of Acropolis Technology Group with our employees through an ESOP. As employee owners, we wanted to build a more valuable company—not just for ourselves, but for everyone who now had a stake in it.
I asked our independent business appraiser what we could do to increase the value of the company. His answer was simple: Brad and I needed to engineer ourselves out of being involved in every decision.
When I asked him how, he laughed and said, “I don't know. That's your problem.”
So I went looking for an answer. That's how I found EOS®.
We brought in an EOS Implementer, heard how the system worked, and I think we had hired them before they made it out of the parking lot.
We worked with our Implementer for about two years. After we graduated, I took responsibility as Acropolis' Integrator for running EOS inside the business for the next several years—leading quarterly and annual planning sessions, State of the Company meetings, kickoffs and hundreds of Level 10 Meetings™.
I didn't learn EOS in order to become an EOS Implementer. I learned it because I needed a better way to run my own business. And it worked.
I Didn't Need Another Career.
I Found Something Worth Doing.
If you had successfully built and sold Acropolis, why become an EOS Implementer?
When I sold Acropolis, I planned to retire. I had been given the same advice by several people I respected: Don't make any big decisions for 2 years. So that's exactly what I did. Before I left, members of my leadership team told me, 'You need to become an EOS Implementer.' My wife said the same thing. I told them all I wasn't ready to do anything but take it easy for a little while. Two years later my wife brought it up again. That conversation led me to call the EOS Implementer who had coached our team and explore the idea seriously.
Over nearly 30 years in business, I had seen a lot of management systems and ideas. Some helped, many didn't. But aside from being part of a strong peer group, EOS was the single most important thing I did for Acropolis. It simply worked better than anything else we tried.
EOS taught our leadership team how to run our business better. It gave us a common language, a way to solve issues, create accountability, and operate as a team. Today, members of that leadership team hold significant roles in the much larger organization Acropolis became a strategic part of that now operates across the United States and Canada. The benefits weren't just financial — they were developmental and lasting.
Today, I'm at a point in life where I can choose whether to work or not. I chose this. Your goal doesn't have to be selling your company. You just have to want a better way to run your business. If I can help even a handful of business owners build better-running companies and stronger leadership teams and get more of what they want from the businesses they've worked so hard to build, that's a successful next chapter for me.
