We often get asked the question, ‘How is Waymaker different from….?’. In this article it is Waymaker vs EOS.
We tip our hat to all innovators, business builders, and leaders who made their tools happen. We love business and we want to honor those that come before us or meet us in the marketplace.
We’ve built Waymaker because the problem is still not solved, we’re out to solve it.
Work has gone digital, but management is still analog. We’re out to build the best platform in the world to help leaders build a better business.
We’ll keep these posts updated as Waymaker continues to grow and deliver better outcomes for leaders.
Summary: EOS vs Waymaker
- EOS is a book with a set of principles and some software that support the frameworks and language used.
- Waymaker is a cloud-based performance intelligence platform that ingests data from leaders and the team and helps diagnose, plan, coach, meet, and build a better business.
- EOS will require a 6 figure investment for their structured program with days offsite to plan and implement.
- Waymaker can help leaders get started in minutes and grow over time.
- EOS is a fixed ecosystem of thinking, Waymaker is a platform that is constantly improving and helping users make business improvement, business as usual.
What is EOS vs what is Waymaker?
EOS stands for entrepreneurial operating system. It is a set of simple business practices and tools documented in a book called Traction, written by founder Gino Wickman.
EOS is built around a framework of 6 key components of a business; vision, data, process, traction, issues and people. Then, there is a set of practices to implement to ‘get traction on the business’.
Waymaker is a real-time performance intelligence platform for continuous improvement. Waymaker is built around the idea of an ever-optimizing command center, like the White House Situation Room, that is constantly receiving data from across the business, and its people, for decisions to be made to create the highest amount of value in the shortest amount of time.
Waymaker uses the science of Waymaker’s Leadership Curve to show the way to make the business or a person ‘better’. By “better”, we mean able to achieve their goals.
Who is EOS for, who is Waymaker for?
EOS is for entrepreneurs whose business has 10 – 250 employees. It is a fixed operating system that is implemented into the business, allowing entrepreneurs to step back from daily management. It’s built on the idea that founders aren’t disciplined managers and implementing a strong structure into the business will help the business grow.
Waymaker is best suited for leaders and teams of 25+ employees. It’s built on the idea that work has gone digital, but management hasn’t. Waymaker helps leaders and teams, working anywhere, move from reactive chaos into strategic agility, with the ability diagnose, plan, and deliver goals that win.
EOS primarily works to serve business leaders and entrepreneurs, Waymaker supports the whole team, top to bottom with real-time performance intelligence.
What do you get in EOS and what do you get in Waymaker?
If you implement EOS you get an EOS certified implementer (a coach), a few binders worth of operating processes, a 10 year to 1 year business plan built during an offsite with your implementer, and then a quarterly implementation journey to embed management practices and deliver the fixed plan.
Your EOS implementer will facilitate your quarterly sessions.
EOS will help leaders build out KPIs, or ‘rocks’, and organize the team to deliver on these using the frameworks and practices of EOS.
In addition, there is a mix of software tools built to support the EOS language. However, we understand EOS have recently shifted from a licensing model to a franchise model and in doing so shut down third party software providers.
EOS is a fixed, capped ecosystem of thinking written down in a book and then translated into coaching kits and some recent software created to support that.
If you sign up with Waymaker you get a performance intelligence platform that will diagnose your business, your sales & marketing, your people & culture, and/or your leadership.
The platform will diagnose business functions or people, analyze diagnostic data to find growth gaps in business practices or people psychometrics, plan and execute goals, empower leaders or coaches to accelerate performance with smart meetings, and surface insights on dashboards.
There are 5 pathways to build a better business.
- Work better – build your collaborative high-performance goal culture
- Sell better – create a consistent selling system and a powerful customer experience
- Hire better – develop a quality employee experience to hire and retain the right people in the right roles
- Plan better – set the right strategy and execute with focus across the team
- Lead better – support leaders to become better leaders
The more activity in your Waymaker platform, the higher the value of the data network effect helping create a smarter, faster, more effective business over time.
Users of Waymaker can start where and how they like. They can focus on where the needs are most, or where they perceive the most value is with as many team members as they want.
The first thing you can do on Waymaker is diagnose your business or yourself. You’ll have results in minutes and be able to start working immediately.
These results are presented on Waymaker’s Leadership Curves, ready for teams or leaders to start objective conversations on growth.
The data on these leadership curves is tracked and with every update, teams can see how they’re progressing ‘up the curve’.
Waymaker is built around quarterly cycles and the business diagnostic tools run quarterly by default but can be adjusted to the business’s operating rhythm within the platform.
Waymaker has supporting playbooks and tool kits available on-demand in the Waymaker Academy, a digital resource baked into the platform which is free to all users.
Waymaker will either implement you over the first quarter or refer you to a partner who can implement the software and provide ongoing advisory services.
In contrast to the fixed, existing set of practices and frameworks in EOS, Waymaker is an open ecosystem which means we’re always listening and improving. Updates are made monthly to our platform, data models, and learning courses in the Academy.
How much does EOS cost, how much does Waymaker cost?
For EOS, expect to invest between $20,000 USD and $45,000 USD per year for 2 years to implement, but these costs can go as high as $200,000USD.
For Waymaker, licensing starts from as little as $9 per month and goes up to $49. For a team of 25 it would be reasonable to expect 5 business licenses and 20 goal (platform) licenses costing a total of $425 per month ($5,100 per year). This includes access to all learning resources, badges, courses, and playbooks in Waymaker Academy and knowledgebase.
There is an initial implementation fee of $5,000 payable to either Waymaker or a partner depending on who is implementing the business. Or, you can get started yourself at no cost using the resources in Waymaker Academy.
How long does it take to implement EOS or to implement Waymaker?
EOS is typically implemented over 2 years with training every quarter and a fixed beginning, middle, and end.
Waymaker is live in minutes and teams are usually self-sufficient on the fundamentals within 30 days.
Waymaker is a much lighter, faster, more agile platform to get going on. There is no beginning or end, but rather cycles of continuous improvement. This ensures organizations grow at the right pace and become sustainable in their own operating rhythm.
There are more advanced and sophisticated consulting frameworks that organizations can access on demand in Waymaker Academy or with their Waymaker Certified Advisor.
These cover but are not limited to content on vision & purpose, market & customer research, strategy & positioning, business model and value creation, customer experience, including sales, marketing, and service, employee experience, people & culture, goal setting and planning, and leadership development.
Is there a partner community in EOS or in Waymaker?
For EOS there is a partner community built up over the 20 years EOS has been operating. They are known as implementers and guide clients in the process and playbooks of EOS.
EOS Implementers are franchised operators and work exclusively with EOS processes and playbooks. EOS implementers gain certifications to work with specific processes and frameworks developed by EOS.
For Waymaker, there is a growing partner community with a broad cross-section of skills in coaching and consulting. For those interested, check out our partner resources here.
Waymaker has five certification pathways for partners across the different skill sets of implementation, consulting, and coaching. These certification pathways are open to both business users and partners.
Waymaker is a platform that offers certifications & training via a digital academy vs EOS which is a franchised system. This means there is a more diverse consulting pool within Waymaker even though as a much younger start-up, there are currently fewer partners.
Conclusion
EOS is based on a book first published in 2007, plus a coaching toolkit with some digital add-ons to execute the system.
Waymaker is a real-time intelligence performance platform with an ever-expanding data model of business improvement practices in its diagnostic tools, combined with an expanding digital learning academy packed with playbooks and frameworks focused on growing an organization and the team.
Waymaker will help leaders move from reactive chaos to strategic agility by helping them plan, lead, sell, hire, and work better.
Do you want to see the difference? Just book a time to talk to us here.
