The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Miracle Manager: Why True Leaders Rarely Make Great Managers by Kevin G. Armstrong

Episode Date: September 27, 2025

The Miracle Manager: Why True Leaders Rarely Make Great Managers by Kevin G. Armstrong https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Manager-Leaders-Rarely-Managers/dp/1946633003/Kevingarmstrong.com KEVIN G. ARMSTRONG - THE MIRACLE MANAGER "My MBA degree did not teach me what Kevin Armstrong has to say in this book." ―BRUCE DER, P. ENG., MBA, president and CEO, A.H. Lundberg Systems Manage A Team That Will Follow You Anywhere! In The Miracle Manager, Kevin G. Armstrong argues that placing true leaders in management positions has become an epidemic that is destroying businesses. Armstrong―a successful speaker, business owner, advisor, disruptor, and best-selling author―knows first-hand the consequences of mistaking great leadership for effective management. With knowledge gained from 20-plus years of exclusively advising CEOs, business owners and their management teams, the author presents a revolutionary approach to organizational management. Utilizing professional researchers and actual case studies of great leaders and coaches of the past, Armstrong illustrates why being a stellar player rarely equates to being a great coach - why businesses have to start rewarding and recognizing their leaders, and valuing the special talents of their managers. "Throughout history, many influential people have earned the title of leader," says Armstrong. "Leaders look to the future, oblivious to who or how many are following. Being an effective manager requires you to efficiently and effectively work through others ― to be what I call a 'manacoach.'" Armstrong shares his proven strategies for implementing management techniques based upon revolutionary concepts to create scalable and sustainable cultures of accountability. For business owners and their management teams, The Miracle Manager is your guide to aligning people with your company culture and creating a healthy environment through accountability where politics cannot survive. About the author Kevin G. Armstrong is an author, speaker, business advisor, disruptor and authority in implementing simple, proven management solutions – but simple doesn’t mean easy. In his diverse and accomplished career, he has taught at the high school and college levels, owned and sold small businesses, been an investment firm top seller, and worked in management as a VP at the corporate level, overseeing agencies throughout North America. Kevin has decades of experience helping business owners—from “mom and pops” to Fortune 500s—get more out of their business. Kevin currently leads a group of advisors at the Interdependent Training Group (ITG) which advises business leaders on creating clear vision and implementing strategies to hold their management teams accountable for delivering on their vision. For the past 20+ years of his career, Kevin has studied the important differences between the roles of ‘leader’ and ‘manager’ in business. His speaking engagements expand on this concept in an interactive, thought-provoking manner which disrupts current thinking and leaves audiences with a new understanding of how leaders can be leveraged through exceptional management to achieve business and personal success.

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Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today we have an amazing young man on the show where we're talking about as a insightful new book. And as you guys know, one of my favorite topics, leadership, because leading is really important, especially in today's role. He's the author of the book that came out March 31st, 2017. It is entitled The Miracle Manager, Why True Leaders Rarely Make Great Managers by Kevin G. Armstrong. We're going to get into it, and I'm smiling and laughing a little bit in my voice because, boy, I know that's a true topic right there. So we're going to get into it with him. He is a best-selling Forbes book's author, TEDx Speaker, and Top EOS Implementer, who helps

founders build businesses that run without them. He's delivered thousands of sessions turning chaos into clarity with systems that scale. If you're ready to escape the grind, embrace accountability, and lead with freedom, this episode's for you. Welcome to the show, Kevin. How are you? I'm fantastic. Chris, thanks very much.

That was a great introduction. I wish I wrote it. Well, I think someone from your PR department did, so I'd love to take credit for it. It's a good job. Yeah, I'd like to take credit for it. I just riffed that up the spot. I don't even know you. So, Kevin, givis your dot-coms.

Where can people find you on the interwebs? So you can find me at Kevin G. Armstrong.com. Or EOSWorldwide.com is a management operating system, and you can view my profile and reach out to me if that interests you. And then if you want to really get the philosophy behind what we're talking about today, if you just go to YouTube and search, stop sending. ducks to Eagle School. That'll take you straight to my TED talk. There you go. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside this book? What's inside the book is basically separating the role of

leader and manager and then really defining what a great manager is. It's also defining a leader, but people don't understand that that coach and manager are really synonymous, getting things done efficiently and effectively through others. It's a very unique skill set. you know yeah and so you know it's it's it's completely different and the problem is is that i think we're really confusing our young people because we throw all this stuff at the wall in terms of this is leadership and that's leadership and and and you stand in front of a group of high school students and say raise your hands if you're a leader they're afraid to raise their hands because they're no longer they're not sure what that is or what does that mean yeah and they do raise

your hand and say, okay, so what is a leader to you? And you get, if there's 200 kids in the room, you get 200 different answers. So it's, to me, it just makes society, not just organizations, especially organizations, but society in general, if we get very clear that a leader just looks to the future and does what they feel is right. I do it a quick story. I go, you know, Rosa Parks, or even a simpler story, you know, a kid up at Whistler. He's out drinking with, he goes skiing all day, skis hard, they go for dinner with his buddies, he drinks beer, he walks through this parking lot on the way home at 2 o'clock in the morning, and there's a garbage turned over in the corner, so he goes over and picks up all the garbage, nobody's around, it's completely dark, seals the can and goes on his way home. Is that leadership?

Raise your hands if you think that's leadership, and you will not get a consensus on that. Some people say, yeah. Oh, yeah, you won't get, you know, people go, no, it's a good deed and is that, but, you know, What do you think on that? It's leadership in its purest form. You know, the fact is this kid was worried about, you know, kids come and skiing in about four or five hours and bears hanging around. And it's not fair to the bears that they're eating.

Oh, the bearers. So he's looking to the future and he's doing the right thing. So really, when you look at Rosa Parks getting on a bus, just as a domestic worker, very humble. And the bus driver says, get up where you're going. going to jail and she refuses to get up, you know, it's she's just had enough. She's looking to the future and she goes, this isn't right. And if we just keep it to that definition, when you look at, you've had businesses, you know, when you've experienced leaders and you can have a whole

bunch of leaders in a company, they just look to the future and do what they feel is right. No matter who's looking, no matter what this, the threat might be, no matter whether people might reject you any great leader that's ever accomplished anything most people well i got a list of leaders that we didn't discover their leaders until 200 years after they were dead so you know that it's not about followers it's not about the number of followers people usually think you're crazy right so that is that the key metric the the people who look to the future because i mean i and i don't mean to say that managers don't have a viable you know work value but you know a lot of managers in my mind, and I'll throw this out here and so you can analyze it and break it down if you want.

But in my mind, a manager is really good at keeping the plates spinning. And they're really focused on what's spinning before them. And so a lot of times they're not into that vision segment of leadership that you're talking about where they're seeing the future, they're just really good at babysitting, spinning the plates. Is that a good analogy? I think it underplays the talent and the necessary characteristics of a great manager because I think a great manager, I call them a man-coach because a manager and a coach are synonymous, right?

They get things done efficiently and effectively through others. They have empathy so they can read people, right? They're highly organized, which is why I was a terrible manager. I was a top salesperson in Canada in this firm, and they, because of that, only because that. So I was a great leader. I could look at the future and do the right things in terms of putting sales together. And I was really good at what I did. And then they made the classic mistake going, hey, you should manage the whole country. It's 37 branches. Well, I wasn't organized, right? I didn't have an obsession for data. Yeah. You know, I think I have empathy.

You have to have, I do think I have the courage to have the tough conversations, you know, And you've got to be totally processed. You have to be process oriented, you know, like really obsessed with people following the processes in an organization. Once you make the people more important than the process, then you've hit a ceiling. And so when you look at Berg Brooks or John Woodner, you name any great coach in history, they had all these characteristics. And they knew, you know, with one person, that would push their button and they would get them

motivated. But if you did the same thing to another person, it would destroy them. So that empathy and understanding people and what you're going to get out of other people, right? But here's the thing. Leaders, they look to the future and they do the right thing. We follow them because we trust that. We go, this person's willing to do it. And I think they've got an idea here.

So I'm going to follow Steve Jobs or I'm going to follow Elon Musk because they just don't care. They look to the future and either you're in or you're out, right? So a manager has all these other traits I just mentioned. And so what happens, once people start to understand this, they understand what I'm about the same. A leader does not have to have any manager traits. Steve Jobs had no empathy. And how about Elon Musk?

I mean, you just look at these people who are, go back and look at Abraham Lincoln and stuttered and he was very uncomfortable around people, right? on TV, he wouldn't make it as president because you have to, you know, be able to stand. He wouldn't have. That's a good point. Right? Yeah, he wouldn't have. But he was a great leader.

And so leaders don't have to have any of those attributes I just mentioned. Managers have to have some leadership attributes, but they don't have, but they have to have some of the leadership attributes. But they have to have those management attributes I just mentioned. Leaders don't have to have a man to coach attributes. And so if we separate that, we stop taking a person. because they're the owner's son or because of the top salesperson or whatever and making them a manager when this person is you know the big thing too Chris is that their passion here's where I don't qualify I got too big of an ego you know your real passion is helping people

grow that's what you want to do you want to help people get better at what they're doing that's what great coaches and managers do and when you really get down to it people are just and unfortunately in business, you know, like you look at North America, if I said, do you know who Wayne Greshke is? You'd say, sure, okay, so who is his coach? And you wouldn't know, you know, nobody, no, because in sports, in music, direct,

the person of the waving the baton, the director, we don't remember, we know the boss and pops, and we know, you know, the top players. But that coach is got, is humble, and doesn't put themselves out there as a star attraction. They're really interested in getting the most out of the team. And they follow a process. And if you don't want to follow a process,

if you don't want to tie your shoes the way John Wooden told you to tie your shoes, or if you didn't skate lines when Herb Brooks told you to skate lines, you weren't going to play. Yeah. Right? Because they had a process. And James Clearer with the, you know, he really turned my life around two years ago when he said, what's more important, a goal or a process?

And I'm driving down to Seattle, some nice, beautiful day. I remember the minute. I went, it's goals, man. I'm Tony Robbins fan. It's all about goals. And he said, no, it's process. That 12-year-old girl this morning at 5 o'clock was with her coach, and her coach is a good coach. She's following, making her follow a proven process in terms of deline her skills.

Fast forward 10 years to when she's 22, and she's on the top podium at the Olympics getting the gold medal. That wasn't her goal this morning. and so if we have organizations following their process like in and out burger very simple model very successful what do they do they follow a fricking process so it's like that's what managers are good at you follow the process or you won't be here nobody gets to no matter how talented as smart you are we don't make this about you it's about process you know i totally agree with you i never thought it that way in fact i would have knee jerked to the same result you did oh goals are important, the vision, you know, because we're a visionary, so I'm kind of biased that way.

Yeah. But that's really true, you know, and a good example of that is we reached a level, we started loaning money out to companies that were in trouble that were entrepreneur startups. And we, back in the day, we put it out in the paper, hey, we've loan money to, you know, entrepreneurs who were struggling or going through, you know, whatever. Nine times at a 10, when we interview them, they had a great goal, you know, a great vision. Sometimes the company had started out with the working model, and then the model had changed, and they had it. And so they were still using sometimes a process that didn't work, or sometimes they just had, you know, $200,000 in cash, and they were just burning through it trying to force a model to work that would never work.

And so that process was their model. And, you know, like you say, you can have great goals. Like, we're going to make this company huge, but if your processes suck, you're not going to get, past first base and usually when I go into companies it was really it was a really great thing because people would you know if you asked ever any company for their P&Ls and their data they'd be like go fuck yourself it's proprietary but if they need money they would send us everything in the kitchen sink and so it was great for looking at business models and and business but yeah a lot of times they were just their process had them on the way to bankruptcy and it was finally

they were finally you know they've gone through their burn rate of money and they were about to hit the wall. And so, you know, we, a lot of times we were just looking for people that, you know, they were asset rich and cash poor. A lot of business brokers do that. You know, they're the first ones on the, on the site for someone who wants to sell the business or is in trouble. So, but that's the example of where, you know, process, you know, if you got a crappy process, and I guess technically, yeah, if you think about it, any goal you aspire to, if you don't go about it the right way, you're never going to get there. And it's also, you know, when you talk about leaders, you think about yourself, think about I'm getting a feeling you are a true visionary, right, who I work with, you know, 99% of my clients are business owners who want to get more freedom. Some people say I'm just insane. Yeah, well, they're all insane. They're 80% chance you're an ADD, you know, like they're just.

That's me, ADD, ADHD, the CEO disease. Yeah, you start your own business because you couldn't stand being told what to do. Like, there's a whole profile on it. When I sit down with them, and I usually sit down on them when they're frustrated. And I go, okay, you're going to have to understand that I'm going to challenge you that I'm going to piss you off in front of your team when we meet. And I'm going to pick on you. And because your team has to know that I'm not in your pocket. And what we're going to do is we're going to develop a team that can manage this business for you because your management sucks.

And all you have to, you know, when you think about it, what a great coach does is like the best story I've heard recently is Scotty Sheffler, right? Who's just knocking the planet off with golf, right? And Ted, I think it's Ted Scott, yeah, his caddy. So four years ago, Scotty Sheffler's basically Ted Scott to Bobba Watson to a couple of green jackets, right? And yeah, and then Bob had enough of them so he let him go. So Scotty shows, Ted Scott says, Ted, when you, you know, and he's thinking, he's thinking Ted's going to jump for this opportunity. He, it's Scotty Shephler, Ted, would you like to be my caddy and Ted Scott said, I don't

think so. And he was just taken back, right? Like, what? He said, why not? And he goes, because we're going to have to do a lot of work on your emotional outburst, which is just typical of a visionary, right? Oh, yeah. True leader.

And we're going to have to do a lot on your, when you get frustrated and your emotional outburst and I don't think you're you know I don't think you'd be open to that because I'm it's going to be a deal breaker and and Scotty Sheffler was like I think I can work on that you know and then you find out Scotty Sheffler this year even though he's like playing aren't crazy as weak as part of his game as his putter he went to a putting coach who changed his grip and changed the way he was swinging and and he was willing to give all that up with faith in this this man a coach who could who could deliver and he did because now scotty can never misses a five foot putt right yeah it's you i could go i hired a research and when i first

started on this book in 2005 i walked into a group of business owners they were saying wayne gresky just got to the coaching gig in phoenix coyotes and i said just off the top of my head i didn't know why i said i said he's not going to succeed because it's a different skill set right sure enough he was there for four years they would have fired him his first year but he owned part of the team he had losing four years as a coach we've got to stop taking these people who are leaders without evaluating what makes a great manager and throwing him in that or her into that role yeah i found out the hard way over my companies i mean one of my early mistakes was taking my best salespeople and trying to make them a sales manager and boy that that fucking bomb

hard. I learned the hard way about that one. That was painful because you can't demote them at that point. And once you pulled them out of the system that they're used to, it's hard to put them back or demote them. Well, their ego's gone. So they're leaving. And now you've lost a great salesperson, right? And you just shoot yourself in the foot. If you've owned a business, if you ran businesses, you've seen this a million times. And it happened to me, right? Because I went in and I said, I'm the top person in the country in this business, top salesperson. That's why they made me, the leader, they took the leader and made him a manager. And I went in and said, you got to do things the way I tell you to do them.

You got to wear your shirt and your jacket the way I tell you to wear it or you know, if you're a woman, you know, your outfit, got to be its color, got to be sharp, got to know your presentation. The presentation is going to be my presentation because that's the way I became successful as a salesperson. I hooked on to the top salesperson and just scripted it and memorized it and went out there and did it. you know and so and so they had to do the same thing well there's principles and their styles

managers understand that they go here's the principle you can take you can bring your own style to it and uh we we don't have to do it like i do it and and then there's the ego there's no room for ego with a manager or coach right they're very humble very very humble so are you saying that uh us big leaders are egomaniacs you know not always not always gino wickman gino wickman is a very humble person I mean here's a guy who you rarely see

I've never seen it he builds this organization sells it four year or five years ago right he sells it and keeps 15% is worth what he sold it for five years ago because he knew he didn't want to do it he knew there's big money and big influence that could take it to another level so he stepped aside

he still works with clients and he's still in the audience but doesn't say it word the whole day we spend together well sometimes if he's asked he'll speak but one of the most humble people i've ever met in terms of a leader but that is so rare that's an exception right yeah i want to be in the front of the room i want my ego you know it's like and and i want to build this and i want to do this and i want to create this if you just understand your get somebody else to manage that process for you yeah well i sorry steve watson act for steve jobs right or you you go down anybody and they've got this caddy in the background who's

smoothing things over and managing and picking up pieces behind and coaching yeah there was a lot of pieces people had to pick up with steve jobs i had a friend who was on the iphone team and uh i've had a few other friends that work with steve especially in the early days and yeah that guy was a fucking prick yeah that's an understatement yeah the uh but i mean he knew how to get shit done and keep people whipped up and put the fear of god into him people trusted him because what he came up with was successful. People following him, too. I mean, what he was trying to do, you know, my friend talks about it. What he was trying to do was cram like 12 different hard products, fax machine, mail, you know, phone, texting, typing, you know, put the keyboard

on the screen as opposed to the ones you'd have to buy with Blackberry. And he was trying to make it, you know, an all in one. And so they were cramming on that thing to make it work. the only time it didn't fail was when he went on stage and did it live it was failing up until then and there was actually multiple iPhones in a desk that he was supposed to switch out because

it was failing every third or fourth app it would open it would crash and so he wasn't supposed to keep using it he was supposed to switch him out like a hat trick then he didn't and it's the only time it fucking worked and didn't crash

and if you look at the recent microphone or micros or no it was facebook announcing their meta the thing crashed on it wouldn't make a call and shit during the show uh of his presentation and you you have to wonder how the world might be different if if if if it had you know just embarrassed itself on its launch but yeah that was the hit my friend sat you know who's on the team it was failing every third or fourth app open so his instructions were he was supposed to flip between the phones that were hidden in the desk and uh he didn't and they sat there in horror watching him open app after app and they're just they just sat there going we're we're we're dead we're going to have to find jobs uh after this you

know and they've been stuck with him in that in that uh in that theater that whole week too so it was they were on pins and nails yeah it was the only time it didn't fail So, and, you know, I mean, I think they took six to eight months to fix everything still because the phone still wasn't ready. So let me ask you this. You have this TED talk that's got over a million views. And you talk about this concept, and we've kind of hinted on a little bit, but you have a ducks versus eagle idea. Tell us about how that works. And then is it absolute where, you know, managers really can't be leaders or can we grow them?

That's, you know, I think we can, you know, when we really, if we just stick to that, you tell me, let me talk about any leader. And I will tell you, there's a person who looked to the future and did the right thing, no matter what anybody else thought, right? That's what I would like to teach young people, that it's just looking to the future and doing the right thing. In an organization, if you start to say to people, you can be a leader, all you got to do is, you know, look to the future and then make a decision and do the right thing. What you think is the right thing. Okay.

So if I say that, then, you know, and then the managers, I went over the characteristics, right, empathetic, willing to have a tough conversations, obsessed about data, you know, these are the, and these are independent. You can't just go, well, I've got three, I got three out of five, so I'm good. No, you've got to have every one of them of those seven things I mentioned. And I would think so to be really good at coaching. And so, you know, if I go to, if you go to another conference and a speaker on the stage says, Chris, you need to work on your weaknesses. You need to get up and leave the room. All right. You're not genetically encoded.

I love people. The reason I love sales is I love the challenge of getting in front of. somebody and screwing with their mind and you know and take it and wait i wanted i wanted to get them the no and then i wanted to take that and i wanted to switch it around and that would make my day right that's something i got off my wife would as an introvert would rather snort rat poison and when you say can you change that no you cannot she can put a she can take a spreadsheet an excel spreadsheet and she can have seven pages singing together yeah about 27 minutes I couldn't do that in 27 years.

Okay, so, and I have no, and I remember taking a bookkeeping course because someone said, you know, Kevin, you're going to coach business owners. You should take a bookkeeping course and really understand accounting. I said, okay, I took a bookkeeping course. I was basically got an assignment on a Wednesday night, and I spent Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday trying to work out this project that we were assigned. I came back, and the girl next to me, I said, how long do you work on this project for? She got like 90% on it, and I got nothing.

I got failed it. And she got like 90% and I said, how long did you work on this for? And she goes, oh, about four, three hours. And I just got up and left the room because I'm not genetically encoded. It's not my talent. I have spent, I can't tell you how much I have spent on golf instruction in the last 20 years.

And if I hit in the 80s, I'm happy. I've shot in the 70s once in my life with an honest score. Right. So, you know, but I have a friend that takes up golf six years going. all he does is watch freaking YouTube videos and he's shooting in the low 80s and he only took it up a year ago, right?

Like, he is just genetically encoded for this activity. So when you talk about ducks and eagles, it's not saying that ducks are bad. Ducks can swim like, and if they have a swimming race with an eagle, eagle's going to lose every time.

I don't even think that he'll get in the water. So, you know, they dive in and fly out. That's it. And so, you know, they're totally genetically encoded to differently. And so when I was in sales, I did sales training. I'm not really that good at a trainer, but it made more sense because I really understood

what good to sales was. So I did sales training, but I wasn't a sales manager. And, you know, usually the sales manager isn't even good at sales. So when you say, stop sending ducks to Eagle School, you know, it's not about labeling. It's about alignment. What are you aligned with in terms of your natural strength?

Are you an extrovert? Do you like hanging out with people? So, like, pretend my wife and I are going to a conference. Rachel and I are going to conference. And there's a meet and greet at 5 o'clock cocktail hour. I'm circling that on the agenda, man. That's the only thing in the conference I'm going for. I'm going to, I wouldn't miss that for the world.

Yeah. If there's a good TV show on in the hotel room, she's not going down. Yeah. And then if you hire Rachel with those skill sets she has for all those wonderful things she can do, you know, CPA, MBA, she got the designations, if you hire her for that, but you're going to put her into something that she's not genetically encoded for, she's going to fail. And same with me.

So what we have to do is get really clear. And most visionaries are self-employed because they couldn't make it as an employee. Nobody put up with them. They just bounce off the walls. They're looking at ideas. They can't be managed. You're better off just letting them go and do their thing. But then when they get to 40 employees, they can't grow because they're,

because they built the business on them just telling people what to do. Not growing great managers and growing people that can get behind them. Yeah. I was lucky when I was young. I started several small businesses from 18 on. And then around 22, my best friend that I've known since junior high of probably 12 years at that time, he had an idea for business baseball on where he was working. I knew how to implement it.

you know, because I'd start a social company's, and we came with the idea to run with it. And what I didn't realize at the time was I was a very visionary mindset, leadership sort of person. I mean, it kind of had an inkling to that. But he was a very manager sort of person, rudimentary, you know. And we ended up making a really great team for 13 years until I got, I got Yoko Onod by his girlfriend. And he got Yoko Ono by his girlfriend. So what was great about it was I could be the visionary. I could run around, you know, building systems and then giving them to him to utilize.

And he was great at that. You could give him any, I could design anything, you know, I was the guy you could drop into Vietnam in the middle of the jungle. And by the time the management team arrives, I've got, you know, I've got the basics running. I've got past cleared. I'm ready to set up. But I don't do good. I die internally if I have to work systems that are up. I die inside. I just, and I get caught up in that sometimes because, you know, I play with my systems and, and, you know, you have to lay them out. Sometimes you get too embedded in them. But he was great where I could hand that to him. But if I ever needed innovation, if I ever needed problem solving, if I ever needed ideas, he was worthless. You know, I remember there was a couple times where we had some processes that, you know, worked and then the market changed. We started bleeding out. And I'm like, we got to fix this fast.

because we can't keep bleeding and and I would I sent him home several times with the yellow pad and we'd use yellow pads back in the days just to blast out ideas and you know I'm a I'm a puker so I'll just puke like 5,000 ideas and I'll just I don't even I don't even worry if whether they're credible and I'm just like try this try that try that and sometimes you can build and assemble off that strategy that wins but he would come back and with nothing and I'd be like how do you hang out with me all day long and I mean you can't come up with one idea just anything

like I don't know throw rocks at a wall just any fucking anything like one you can't come with one but that was the way he was and but that that function really well for us as a

partnership oh if you can get you know if you read there if you read my book if you read Rocket Fuel by Mark Winters it's an EOS book if you read the power of two, it's, when you can get, if you can learn how to work with each other,

because he probably drove you crazy because he's so slow and he, and he had to think things through, and he were just driving you nuts. It's not that he's wrong. It's in somewhere then there's a middle. You make decisions way too fast. He makes them too slow.

I mean, if you look at, if you look at Walt Disney, would have never been who he was without his brother Roy. And totally personal, pal, you know, he'd go to his brother and go, well, we don't have that money.

You can't keep trying to perfect these. We've got to get them out. The bank wants money, right? And so it was just a really good symbionic relationship where you have this person. And if you can bring on a partner, if you look at any successful partnership in golf, you know, Williams with Tiger, you know, you just go through all of these supportive roles with the visionary. It is magic. And I think it's essential.

Yeah. Yeah. And being able identify that when you. when you bring up people, when you promote them and stuff. I mean, can we, can we, do you think, I just want to keep kind of pushing this idea? Is it possible, you know, we have these people that do leadership trainings and readership concepts. Is it possible to do enough leadership education, or is there just something about that spark of someone who can see a vision? Yeah, you can do the leadership training.

And more about because leaders already think are usually pretty high, pretty have a high esteem of themselves, right? And, you know, they, they're outwardly, they're very proud of what they do. Inwardly, they're, there is as insecure as we all are, right? But, but, but when you, if you talk about business owner, a visionary, a leader, when you train them, we, we have training for that. There's training that you can go to for that, you know, for visionary training. But as long as we're clear, is that the personality we're trying to train?

Because a lot of people say, come to my leadership training, and it's really management coaching training. It's not training, right? And so this is where the confusion happens because I'm going to make more money. It's the only thing in business in North America is the only thing where I get to have the center spotlight and make the most money if I'm a great manager. And that shouldn't be the case. Our top salesperson should be in the newsletter. every month. They should be getting all the money. You know, I have business owners go, my top salesperson makes more money than I do. And I meant they should. They should make the way to

you, right? Because this is your business. They're building it. You're going to have an asset at the end of this, at the end of the journey. They're not. And so they better be in some of that money they're making. But now that they're going up and they're making money, let them go, you know, and get out of their way. Just get out of their way. So because they're a leader too. And let them lead in sales and let them and reward them and recognize. them right and all that stuff that as a manager you're only want to watch them grow and succeed so why is it you're thinking you should make more money than now that you should get more recognition than them but only in business because in all sports the coach is just on the sidelines sometimes you know his or her name we know all the top players names we don't know the coach's name right they're just behind that line making things happen and making that team follow what is a very good process yeah and it's And it's kind of a team effort, too. So it's not just about, you know, do I make more than my top salesman?

You know, it's really all about the team because, you know, most of your revenue is going to, what's the 80-20 rule for most of your top salesmen, you know? They're the guys who are bringing 80% of your income. But, yeah, taking care of that 20% of them that Excel, you know, that's going to make your bank every month because, you know, you're going to be living on the curve. You can't live off of one top salesman, nor can you live off of just the whole crew of mediocre salesman. You ought to have that mix. The 80-20 rule

seems always apply. So as we round out the show, let's talk about some of the offerings you have on your website. I think you want to talk about EOS business systems and a few other things you offer there. Yeah, I mean, most of my work is implementing a proven process for people like you

when you were a business owner, right? And sitting down and saying, hey, let's, here's a process. It's very simple. It works. We have 40,000 clients that have gone through it. And And the client I've been working for 14 years out of two-day annual with them, part of our process. At a two-day annual in them last Thursday and Friday, they've grown their business. They've doubled it every four years for the last eight years.

So basically they doubled their business twice by just, and he will tell you it's because they've followed this management system. And he's working half the amount of time. You know, they're the same. The more I work in my business, the less it's worth. And so some of the objections when people are listening to this, they go, well, can't bring the same templated business system to my business because my business is different. And I go, hey, let me ask you a question. Does everybody have a blueprint of what you're trying to build a business plan in terms of where we're going to be in five years and what has

to be achieved in one year to get there? And is it all in writing because it's not a ready doesn't exist? Do you have all the people, the right people in terms of good people who meet your core values and align with your core values and also they know they know how to do their jobs and they're in the right seat right person right seat do you do you have a way of measuring their progress on a weekly basis do you have a measure they all have a number that they have to achieve right is there a way where they can regularly meet and discuss their issues do we have a process for every department in your business that they have to follow and in terms of discipline and accountability at the bottom of these six key components, you know, we call it traction, because that's what the book's

called. Traction defines discipline and accountability, because if you have vision without discipline accountability, it's hallucination. You know, when someone says, you can't bring that to my business, I said, how could that hurt your business? How could it hurt your business? To have everybody in the company, you know what you're trying to achieve and it's in a written blueprint in front of them, right? So, you know, that's, that really is that the number one argument, I guess, about using an improvement system. They go, oh, it doesn't apply to my business. They say, well, how could that hurt it?

You know, it's, it's, I learned this wrote about my book, I learned this with my first CEO. Everything's a widget, whether it's service or product. And, yeah, I've, I've started dozens of companies, you know, a lot of them were projects that didn't really, we couldn't keep stacking on our management team and make them, get them all the untenable time they needed. But sometimes it was like

seeing if they caught fire we throw some money at it see if it got sprung legs and you know some things do and some things don't and uh yeah i've i've started dozens of companies and i mean over i'll be 58 next year so i guess 18 so i'm 40 years in of owning companies uh it's all the same process like that's the easiest part of me is coming up with a new name and new dot com and, you know, just innovating the widget, but even that's kind of old hat to me. And all the processes are the same. Like, I could do it in my fucking sleep.

I can start your company my sleep. Yeah. You know, the biggest year I usually have is just trying to figure out what to name it. You know, what I love about what we do is there's no contracts or retainers. There's how much you're going to pay me. And if you don't get value, you don't pay me at the end of the day, right? It's really simple. or I want to get clients who will do this.

Let's just sign it. We'll agree on a evaluator. We'll evaluate your business. And five years from now, you're going to pay me 20% of anything over what the valuation is today. I will work for like a dog for you for five years in terms of getting that team. The more you, the more you as you work in your business, right, the less it's worth. So the whole process over the next five years will be pulling you out and getting these managers to step up or get out in terms of doing those roles that they need to do in terms

of finance, sales and marketing operations, the three companies that I manage that sold this year that I work with would have had to pay me between them about $49 million on that year, right? So I'm happy. I am so happy to sign a one pager and just get your team and your company, aligned with the vision, following the processes, and holding each other accountable, and then magic starts to happen. Yeah, there you go. Well, it's been wonderful to have you on. Any other final thoughts as we go out that we miss?

Do you want to plug? No. I mean, you know, buy the book traction. Or get a grip by Mike Payton. Take a look at that. And then if you want to reach out to me, you would just go to the, if you just have questions. I mean, if you're in, if you're somewhere in the U.S. I only service like Seattle to Vancouver, B.C., and that's it.

And so I will do some clients. I just got back from Anchorage yesterday. And last night, actually, I'm glad I caught that flight. It might have been in trouble today with you. So, yeah, usually it's a one-hour time changer and no more than an hour flight. So I can align you with somebody with what we do and endorse them if you're out of my area or if we can't make it work. But definitely reach out to me and I'd love to help you with it. and you just go to

Kevin G. Armstrong.com and get hold of me. There we go. Well, thank you very much for coming on the show, Kevin. We really appreciate it. Chris, thank you. You're a dynamic visionary. Yes.

That's what I do in my spare time or something. Right on. So, folks, order up the book wherever fine books are sold. It's entitled, The Miracle Manager. Why True Leaders rarely make great managers and read the book because you can save a lot of money. I burn a lot of money.

money promoting the wrong people, the wrong positions to learn the hard way. And fortunately, I had learned, but it was painful, very painful. So avoid that. That's the best advice. Go to goodrease.com, Fortresschus Christch, Chris Foss, refer to the show to your family, friends, and relatives, Facebook.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, and that was a crazy place you can find us on the internet. Be good to each other.

Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. There you go. Great show.