Frequently Asked Questions
About Next Level Growth
Next Level Growth is a business coaching and consulting firm that helps entrepreneurial leaders build elite organizations. We focus on a customized, outcomes-based approach to business operating system implementation and ongoing guidance. Unlike one-size-fits-all systems, we meet you where you are and bring the right tools and concepts, at the right times, regardless of the source, based on YOUR individual needs.
Next Level Growth differentiates itself by focusing on YOU and RESULTS over purity to a prescriptive, one-size-fits-all system. While EOS® and Scaling Up offer valuable frameworks, they often require businesses to conform to their specific methodologies. At Next Level Growth, we customize our approach to your unique business needs, leveraging our Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations® framework to help you reach the summit of the mountain YOU are climbing.
Next Level Growth was founded by Michael Erath, a successful entrepreneur who experienced both tremendous success and devastating failure. After losing everything in the 2009 housing market crash, Michael rebuilt his life and business, documenting his journey in his bestselling book “RISE: The Reincarnation of an Entrepreneur.” His personal experience drives our mission to help entrepreneurs achieve not just a return on investment, but a meaningful return on life.
We work with entrepreneurial organizations of various sizes and across different industries. Our Business Guides have all been Owners, CEOs or Presidents of organizations that had at least $10 million in revenue and 50+ employees, allowing us to provide valuable insights and guidance to businesses at different stages of growth and be more than just a coach with a system. We are true partners.
The Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations®
The Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations® is our proprietary framework that focuses on the key areas every business must master to become truly elite:
- Great People – Building and developing a team of solid A-Players
- Inspiring Purpose – Creating a clear vision and purpose that motivates your team
- Optimized Playbooks – Developing efficient processes and systems
- Culture of Performance – Establishing accountability and a results-oriented environment
- Growing Profits & Cash Flow – Ensuring sustainable financial growth
The Great People obsession focuses on finding, developing, and retaining A-Players in your organization. We help you establish clear expectations through our Next Level Accountability Chart™ with Mission, Most Critical Outcome, and Obsessions™ for every seat. This clarity helps team members understand if they’re in the right seat and where they need coaching and development. Remember, your A-Players are free, and they come with interest free financing – the marginal value they bring far outweighs the marginal cost of the upgrade.
An Inspiring Purpose combines your Just Cause (a specific vision of a future state that does not yet exist) with your Daily Purpose (what drives your day-to-day actions). At Next Level Growth, our Just Cause is “We believe entrepreneurs deserve more than a return on investment from their business, they deserve to earn a meaningful return on life.” This drives our Daily Purpose of “Helping Entrepreneurial Leaders Build Elite Organizations®.” When your team understands and connects with your Inspiring Purpose, it creates alignment and motivation throughout the organization.
Optimized Playbooks are high-level checklists that document your critical business processes. They help you “systemize the predictable so you can humanize the exceptional” (Isadore Sharp, Founder of Four Seasons). By documenting the 20% of inputs that get you 80% of your results, you create consistency, reduce errors, and free up your team to focus on creative problem-solving. This approach takes pressure off people and allows for better training and onboarding.
A Culture of Performance is built on clear expectations, measurement, and accountability. We help you implement tools like scorecards and scoreboards to track key metrics, establish a coaching system with quarterly calibrations, and create a meritocracy where high performers are recognized and rewarded. This creates healthy competition and drives continuous improvement throughout your organization.
We help you identify and focus on your Profit per X (the economic engine of your business), implement strategic pricing, and optimize your cash conversion cycle. By understanding the key drivers of profitability in your business and making data-driven decisions, you can achieve sustainable financial growth and build a more valuable, and recession-proof, company.
Our Approach
The Next Level Accountability Chart™ is our enhanced version of the traditional organizational chart. It establishes what we call MMOs™: Mission, Most Critical Outcome, and Obsessions® for every seat in your organization. The Mission is a one-sentence description of the consistent, high-level deliverable a seat must achieve. The Most Critical Outcome® is the single most important and measurable outcome for a function. The Obsessions are 2-6 things that a seat-holder must focus on daily to be successful. This clarity creates alignment and accountability throughout your organization.
A Most Critical Outcome® (MCO™) is the single most important and measurable outcome for a function. It answers the question, “If you were asked to measure one thing that most accurately proves you are getting a return on investment for the fully burdened human capital cost of a specific person in a given seat, what would you measure?” For example, a Director of Sales and Marketing might have “Revenue Dollars to Goal (budget/forecast)” as their MCO. This clarity helps both leaders and team members understand what success looks like.
While we respect the value that EOS® has brought to many organizations, our approach differs in several key ways:
- We customize our methodology to your specific needs rather than requiring adherence to a rigid system
- Our Business Guides have all been owners or C-Suite operators of businesses with at least $10M in revenue and 50+ employees
- We focus on outcomes rather than process purity
- We’ve enhanced tools like the Accountability Chart to provide greater clarity and accountability
- We meet you where you are in your journey rather than forcing you into a predetermined path
While Scaling Up offers valuable tools and concepts around their 4 Decisions™ methodology (People, Strategy, Execution, Cash), Next Level Growth provides a more customized approach through our Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations® framework. We focus on building elite organizations through a tailored implementation of business operating systems, meeting you where you are and bringing the right tools at the right time. Our Business Guides have real-world experience running substantial businesses, allowing them to provide practical guidance beyond theoretical frameworks.
At Next Level Growth, we only allow people who have been owners or C-Suite operators of businesses with at least ten million in revenue and fifty or more employees to apply to be a Business Guide. This level of real-world experience allows our guides to take a freestyle approach in working with clients whenever necessary to achieve desired outcomes. Our guides have “been there, done that” and can provide practical advice based on their own experiences.
Implementation and Results
Implementation timelines vary based on your organization’s size, complexity, and readiness for change. However, most clients begin seeing measurable improvements within the first 90 days. Full implementation typically takes 12-24 months, with ongoing refinement and optimization continuing beyond that. We work at a pace that’s appropriate for your organization, ensuring sustainable change rather than quick fixes.
Yes, our partners and business guides also offer monthly one-on-one CEO calls for coaching and accountability. In addition, for companies who want a more hands-on approach, especially in the initial phase, we offer an “Accelerator Service,” where we have former COO’s of client companies come into our clients’ businesses to train leaders and mid-level managers and supervisors on the customize tools being rolled out in the organizations.
Clients who fully engage with our process typically experience:
- Improved team alignment and accountability
- Clearer strategic direction
- More efficient operations through optimized processes
- Enhanced leadership capabilities
- Stronger financial performance
- Better work-life balance for the leadership team
- A more valuable and scalable business
We measure success based on the specific goals and outcomes you want to achieve. This often includes both quantitative metrics (revenue growth, profitability, cash flow) and qualitative improvements (team alignment, leadership effectiveness, reduced stress). We establish clear expectations at the beginning of our engagement and regularly review progress to ensure we’re delivering value. We survey our clients twice per year and make adjustments based on their feedback to ensure we are evolving in ways that maximize value for everyone.
While we can’t guarantee specific financial results (as these depend on many factors, including your team’s disciplined implementation of our guidance), we do guarantee our commitment to your success. If you’re not satisfied with our service or the value we’re providing, we’ll work with you to make it right or part ways amicably. We don’t require contract or prepayments, and every new client’s first day with one of our partners comes with a money-back guarantee – if they don’t think the day was valuable, they don’t have to pay.
Our investment structure varies based on the scope of work, the individual partner, and your organizations specific needs. While we are not cheap to work with, we are likely no more than you spend annually on your least effective manager, and will surely be the most affordable business partner you could ever have. We’re happy to discuss your specific situation and provide a customized proposal that aligns with your budget and expected ROI.
Getting Started
Your business may be ready for Next Level Growth if you’re experiencing challenges like:
- Hitting a growth ceiling
- Lacking team alignment and accountability
- Feeling overwhelmed by day-to-day operations
- Struggling with profitability or cash flow
- Wanting to scale but unsure how to do it systematically
- Seeking better work-life balance while growing your business
If you’re committed to building an elite organization and open to implementing new systems and processes, we’d love to explore how we can help.
The first step is to schedule a conversation with one of our Partners & Business Guides. During this initial discussion, we’ll learn about your business, challenges, and goals to determine if there’s a potential fit. If there is, we’ll outline a customized approach to help you achieve your objectives and discuss next steps.
We offer both remote and in-person options to accommodate your preferences and location. Many of our coaching sessions and team facilitations can be conducted effectively via video conference, while certain workshops and strategic planning sessions may benefit from in-person interaction. We’ll work with you to determine the most effective delivery method for your specific needs.
The frequency of meetings depends on your specific engagement and needs. Typically, we start with more frequent interactions (often monthly) during the initial implementation phase (Base Camp), then transition to quarterly sessions with monthly 1:1 calls with the owner/CEO as your team becomes more self-sufficient (The Climb). We’re also available for ad-hoc support for your entire leadership team between scheduled meetings as needed.
Unlike traditional consultants who often provide recommendations but leave implementation to you, our Business Guides work alongside your team as accountability coaches, to help them implement practical solutions and build sustainable capabilities. We don’t just identify what needs to change; we help you make those changes and embed them in your organization’s culture and operations. Additionally, our guides have all built and run successful businesses themselves, providing real-world experience rather than just theoretical knowledge.
Common Concerns
While our Business Guides have experience leading larger organizations (10M+ revenue, 50+ employees), we work with businesses of various sizes. The key factor is not your current size but your ambition and commitment to building an elite organization. Our approach can be scaled appropriately for your business’s current stage while setting you up for future growth.
Every business is indeed unique, which is why we don’t offer a one-size-fits-all approach. The Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations® framework provides a structure that can be customized to your specific industry, business model, and challenges. Our Business Guides take the time to understand what makes your business unique and adapt our approach accordingly.
Many businesses struggle with implementing systems like EOS® or Scaling Up because these approaches often require conforming to a rigid methodology. Next Level Growth differentiates itself by focusing on customization and outcomes rather than process purity. We meet you where you are and bring the right tools at the right time, based on your specific needs and readiness. Our Business Guides also have substantial real-world experience, allowing them to provide practical guidance beyond theoretical frameworks.
Implementing any business operating system requires a commitment of time and energy from you and your leadership team. However, we structure our approach to maximize efficiency and minimize disruption to your day-to-day operations. The initial implementation phase typically requires more time investment, but this decreases as your team becomes more proficient with the tools and processes. The time invested upfront pays dividends through increased efficiency, reduced firefighting, and improved work-life balance over time.
Resistance to change is natural and something we anticipate in any implementation. Our Business Guides are experienced in change management and will help you navigate resistance constructively. We focus on building understanding and buy-in rather than forcing compliance. In some cases, the process may reveal that certain team members are not aligned with your vision for the future, which, while challenging, provides clarity for making necessary changes to build your elite team.
Business Growth Challenges
The Next Level Accountability Chart™ with MMOs™ (Mission, Most Critical Outcome, and Obsessions™) provides clarity on what success looks like for each seat in your organization. This allows you to objectively assess whether team members are performing to expectations and aligned with your core values. Our quarterly coaching/calibration process also helps you have structured conversations about performance and development needs.
Alignment starts with clarity around your Inspiring Purpose and strategic priorities. We help you establish clear expectations, roles, and accountabilities through tools like the Next Level Accountability Chart™. Regular, structured meetings with defined agendas keep everyone focused on priorities and foster open communication. Our Business Guides facilitate team sessions designed to build trust, encourage healthy debate, and drive collective commitment to decisions.
Scaling successfully requires having the right systems and processes in place (Optimized Playbooks), the right people in the right seats (Great People), clear direction (Inspiring Purpose), accountability (Culture of Performance), and financial discipline (Growing Profits & Cash Flow). Our Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations® framework addresses each of these areas systematically, allowing you to scale without compromising quality or personal well-being.
Improving profitability while growing requires a clear understanding of your economic engine (Profit per X) and disciplined execution. We help you identify the key drivers of profitability in your business, implement strategic pricing, optimize your cost structure, and make data-driven decisions about where to invest for growth. By focusing on profitable growth rather than growth at any cost, you can build a more sustainable and valuable business.
Finding time to work on strategic initiatives rather than day-to-day operations is a common challenge for entrepreneurs. We help you implement systems and processes that reduce your involvement in routine activities, develop your leadership team to take on more responsibility, and establish a rhythm of strategic planning and execution. As these systems mature, you’ll gain more freedom to focus on the market-facing activities that drive growth and innovation.
Additional Resources
Yes, we offer several resources to help you learn more about our approach:
- Our founder Michael Erath’s books: “RISE: The Reincarnation of an Entrepreneur” and “Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations“
- Our blog and newsletter with articles on each of the Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations®
- Our YouTube Channel with case studies of clients who have successfully implemented our approach as well as lots of helpful content around improving your business and growing leadership skills
- Free resources and tools on our website
- Workshops and events that introduce key concepts
Yes, we offer various workshops and training programs designed to introduce key concepts and tools from our approach. These can be a great way to experience our methodology before committing to a full engagement, or to supplement one-on-one coaching for your broader team. Contact us for information about upcoming workshops or to discuss a customized training program for your organization. You can also click Workshops to see what is currently available.
You can learn more about the Five Obsessions on our Approach page, blog, and our founder’s books. We also regularly share insights and case studies through our newsletter and social media channels. For a deeper dive, schedule a conversation with one of our Business Guides who can explain how each obsession applies to your specific situation.
We have worked with businesses across various industries and at different stages of growth. While every business is unique, we likely have experience with organizations facing similar challenges to yours. During our initial conversation, we can share relevant case studies and, where appropriate, connect you with current or former clients who can share their experiences working with us.
You can subscribe to our newsletter on our website, follow us on social media, and regularly check our blog for new content. We’re committed to sharing valuable insights and practical tools to help entrepreneurial leaders build elite organizations, even if you’re not currently working with us directly.
