Traction, by Gino Wickman, was first published in 2007 and has since sold over one million copies. Now a renowned business book, the author’s team estimates over 130,000 companies use its framework, Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), to achieve organizational success.
The book guides readers through defining a clear vision, setting long-term goals, establishing core values, and implementing practical tools for enhancing productivity and accountability, with emphasis on simplicity and practicality. Among the concepts introduced are rocks, meeting rhythms, scorecards and an issues list, for ambitious entrepreneurs not looking to reinvent the operational wheel.
John Ainsworth is founder of Data Driven Marketing, a company that helps online course creators 2-5x their revenue by converting their website to more leads, converting more leads to sales, and increasing the average order value of customers. Implementing Traction in his business helped it grow from annual revenues of $100,000 to $750,000, with the business running mostly without him. Ainsworth has since helped other businesses implement Traction, to similar success.
Combined with ChatGPT, Ainsworth suggests 5 simple ways to implement Traction’s teachings in your business. Copy and paste each prompt into ChatGPT, edit the square brackets, and keep the chat window open so your information carries through.
Implement Traction with these 5 ChatGPT prompts
Define your values
“We already had values, but they were only in my head,” said Ainsworth. “Identifying and writing them out made it easier to know who to hire and then to write the job description. We found better candidates, who knew what to focus on when they were hired.” Clear company values are a foundational element of Traction. Defined values lead to clear behaviours from everyone who represents a company. Behaviours can be scored, a benchmark can be set, and it’s easy to know who matches up and who has to go. Use this prompt to establish yours.
“Suggest my 5 core business values based on the information I provide. We focus on [type of customer you want], and provide [type of services] services to our customers. We want our customers to have an experience whereby [describe the experience your ideal customer has]. We contribute to society by [if relevant, describe how your work benefits society]. What matters to me about how the business runs