Table Of ContentThe Business Sergeant’s
Field Manual
Military Grade Business Execution
Without the Yelling and Push-ups
By Chris Hallberg
Today’s date:
Field Manual Owner’s name:
I bought this Field Manual for myself
(I’m ready to take complete control of my team’s future!)
My Business Battle Buddy
bought it for me because I’m important to them and they really want to see
me achieve my goals and dreams.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my many mentors, clients, peers, and friends: This book would not be
possible without you and your roles shaping my military, paramilitary, and
professional life experiences. You know who you are. Thank You!
To my family: my wife of 20 years, Melissa, sons Hunter and Hayden, father
Lars (U.S. Army Vet) and stepmother Terrie, mother Cheryl and stepfather
Robert (U.S. Air Force vet), brothers Erik and Jon, stepsisters Jennifer and
Jessica and all the rest of our awesome extend family, you have always believed
in me, and I thank you deeply for that.
To my good friend and mentor Gino Wickman, thank you for your brilliant
gift of EOS® and to the world class community of EOS Implementers™ who
continue to amaze me with their abundance mindset, collaboration, and
support on this amazing and wondrous journey to mastery that will never be
achieved. Wax on, wax off.
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Copyright 2017 Chris Hallberg
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
or my information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission
of the author, expect for the inclusion of brief quotations in critical reviews and
certain other non- commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission
requests, contact the author at [email protected]
EOS®, The Entrepreneurial Operating System® and Traction® are registered trademarks
of Gino Wickman. All rights reserved. Accountability Chart™, Clarity Break™,
Compartmentalize™, Core Focus™, Core Target™, LMA™, The Level 10 Meeting™, The
Vision Component™, The Vision/Traction Organizer™, V/TO™, EOS Process™ , The
People Analyzer™, The 90-Day World™, The 90 Minute Meeting™ are trademarks of
Gino Wickman used with permission.
Business Sergeant Books
www.bizsgt.com
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 978-0-9991018-0-3 (Paperback)
Editing by Jake Brown, Al Desetta, and Dave Flomberg
Cover Design: concept by Chris Hallberg, design by Keith Roberts & Thomas Hutton
Text design, graphics, and composition by Thomas Hutton
Printed and Distributed by Bookmasters
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 7
Chapter One: Are You Committed? 19
Chapter Two: Leadership: Are You a Leader Worth Following? 36
Chapter Three: One Team, One Vision 57
Chapter Four: How to Build a Strong Culture: Slow to Hire 75
Chapter Five: Accountability: Quick to Fire 99
Chapter Six: Marketing and Branding 123
Chapter Seven: Sales and Sales Management 138
Chapter Eight: Know Your Numbers! 158
Chapter Nine: Mission Execution (GSD) 170
Chapter Ten: You’ll Need Some Help! 186
Chapter Eleven: Take Care of #1 198
Conclusion 210
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FOREWORD
I’m so glad and proud that Chris has invested the time to share his experience
and this powerful message with you.
This book is a rare treat. At EOS Worldwide, we have almost 200 extraordinary
EOS Implementers around the world who work hands-on with their clients,
helping them implement EOS in their businesses. By fully implementing EOS®
(The Entrepreneurial Operating System®) in their businesses, our clients realize
amazing results: growth, better life balance, increased profits, and the ability to
make a huge impact on their employees, their customers, and the world.
Every one of our EOS Implementers has their own style that makes them
unique. Chris Hallberg is truly one of our best EOS Implementers.
The reason this book is a rare treat is that Chris shares his real-world life
experience and stories of how his clients have benefited from EOS and his
uncommon background.
Chris’s military, law enforcement, and business background, along with his
intense, disciplined, fun and energetic style, makes for a thrilling experience
for his clients and for you as the reader.
Chris shares his extensive, emotional, and inspiring background with stories,
insights, and teaching that have made him who he is.
This book will help you become a more disciplined leader and build a
great organization.
Enjoy!
Gino Wickman
Author of Traction and Creator of EOS Worldwide
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INTRODUCTION
ENLISTING TO BECOME A BUSINESS SERGEANT
A-ten-tion!
My name is Chris Hallberg, and I’m known in entrepreneurial circles as the
“Business Sergeant.” As a leadership and management coach to entrepreneurs
and their leadership teams, my job is to help you get control of your business,
so you can achieve your mission—it’s that simple. How do I do that? By
distilling the best practices of military and para-military organizations and
helping you apply them to your business. I believe that a military team-
building mindset plus a proven business operating system = a better, faster,
and more predictable way to achieve business success.
The military has a system for everything, and those systems can help you
harness the energy of your employees and lead them to greatness. This
book is simply a modified version of that military training, designed to
help entrepreneurs of small and medium sized businesses, their leaders and
managers, and even much larger organizations in the corporate world. These
concepts apply in any field to gain optimal performance from their business.
Because without a proven system, I find it’s very difficult to consistently run a
business of any size successfully.
To be clear, The Business Sergeant’s Field Manual is not about my career in
elite military units and all the unbelievable things I did in the most dangerous
places in the world. The world already has several of those kinds of books and
amazing heroes. Rather, this book is about how I’ve successfully borrowed
and adapted many strategies, tools, and lessons from my military and law
enforcement leadership training, and adapted these concepts with great
success during my nearly 20 years in leadership roles in the business world.
My clients asked me to write this book because they loved the Business
Sergeant mentality I brought to their business problems. They thought other
entrepreneurs and business leaders would appreciate my “no-nonsense,
let’s-get-it-done” perspective at a time when leadership and management
are woefully lacking in the workplace. Because of their encouragement and
support, I will now share my methods with you.
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The whole point of the Business Sergeant mentality is to build a powerful and
dynamic team that provides results, not excuses. The reason why people are
disengaged at work is because most managers and senior leaders are generally
inept at effective leadership (and can be oblivious to this fact). But when you’re
very intentional about the type of unit you want to create and the goals you
want to reach, you can create a cohesive workforce where your staff will want
to re-enlist every quarter, voluntarily and happily.
You should think of this book as a reference guide, a field manual, a handbook
of field-tested best practices that you’ll be referring to over and over again
during the course of your entrepreneurial journey. In the military, we don’t
teach something to a soldier only once. We teach it to them a hundred times,
so they know exactly what to do when they’re in a difficult and stressful
situation. They’ve been trained in a system and they know exactly how to put
that training into action—especially when times get tough.
The best Sergeants know their job inside out. In the military, we call it being
technically and tactically proficient. They lead from the front, they earn the
respect of their troops, they’re very approachable, and they’re not afraid to get
their hands dirty. They are ultimately responsible for the health and welfare
of their team and the execution and success of any mission. Entrepreneurs
and business leaders really need to have that kind of mindset to succeed in the
business world.
Like a lot of young people, I desperately needed some discipline and
accountability when I graduated from high school. And like most young men
lacking direction, the military gave me the focus to harness my energy. It
gave me a framework for life that empowered me to operate at a high level of
excellence, rather than just trying to figure it out or wing it as I went along.
I enlisted at 17 (with Mom and Dad’s signature on the age waiver). I served for
nine years as an M.P. in the Army National Guard in the 34th Military Police
Company, rising to the position of Squad Leader at the rank of Staff Sergeant.
During my nine-year, part-time military career in the National Guard, I
became a corrections officer at a super maximum security correctional facility
in Minnesota for violent felons, the worst of the worst, so to speak. Not a place
where you could let your guard down, even for a minute. I learned a ton from
that experience, mostly about following process to the letter, understanding
and respecting other people, watching body language, “feeling” the mood or
direction of the day, because if you were to misjudge a potentially dangerous
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situation building or disrespect the wrong person on the wrong day that could
be your last day on the job or on this planet. Very high stakes on a day-to-day
basis for several years of my life.
From my experience in the military and as a correctional officer, I saw the
difference between Non-Commissioned Officers (Corporals to Command
Sergeant Majors) and Commissioned Officers (Lieutenants to Generals) who
were respected and those who were not. I prided myself on being a dedicated,
squared-away leader, which is why I got my Sergeant stripes a few years early
at age 21. I succeeded because I was 100% committed to be being a leader.
In a business setting your troops will take their cues from your consistent
day-in-and-out dedication, one of your most important priorities as a
Business Sergeant.
After leaving both uniforms in 1999, I started a sales career in the home
improvement industry, first selling exterior remodeling for a remodeling
company. As a sales representative, I closed well over a million dollars of
remodeling in each year. As a sales manager, I helped a remodeling company
grow from $3 million in sales to $8 million in sales in three years, and a
restoration company grow from $9 million in sales to $20 million in one year.
How did I make that happen? I was simply using the same leadership style I
picked up in the Army and the Department of Corrections, and it’s the same
leadership style I’ll be teaching you.
And, like any entrepreneur, I’ve also had my setbacks and failures. So, part
of my success is based on having rebounded and learned from those failures,
making sure they didn’t repeat themselves in my future business endeavors.
During my time in the military and law enforcement, I paid close attention to
my people. That was my job, because I was in leadership positions almost the
whole way. I learned a ton about what makes people tick and how to get them
moving in the right direction. In short, I learned how to lead and manage
people in challenging, often dangerous circumstances, where there was little
or no margin for error.
As a business coach, I’ve been able to translate those leadership lessons
and teach them to other business owners and leaders. And the essence of
leadership is following and carefully executing a system, day in and day
out. To apply this military mindset effectively, to harness the power of this
Business Sergeant attitude, you need to adopt a business operating system.
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