Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Amanda Barkey. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Amanda, thanks for joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

As the granddaughter of political refugees and the daughter of immigrants growing up with humble means, along with my husband who grew up in a third world country with parents who are lifelong missionaries my husband, Joben, and I have a unique world view and diverse perspective which has intrinsicly driven us to intentionally create an employee led, giving back for profit organization that soley funds our non profit work which is the why behind everything that we do. Initially starting out as a one off donation project a decade ago donating gently used soccer equipment and business coaching to a local peruvian childhood friend in the middle of the jungle where Joben grew up has turned into similar donation projects in many places such as Rawanda and Ethiopia to our long term work in Cameroon, Africa where we have funded a soccer academy for thousands of children, created inclusive spaces for girls to play soccer, trained locals in business, started a moto taxi company, started and continually fund a village school for children in a conflict zone, dug wells and funded a sewing school for girls to created opportunities for female entrepreneurship. Our “why” is what drives us to continue to do what we do in our for profit work to contribute to something bigger than ourselves and make a positive and lasting impact on future generations.

Amanda, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Born and raised in Canada to immigrants who came from political refugees, Amanda Barkey discovered her entrepreneurial passion ignited when she immigrated to the US in 2009 to start the Soccer Shots Orange County franchise. Grit, hardwork and determination is in her DNA and starting a business during a recession proved that to be true. She is a successful entrepreneur with over 13 years of experience in leadership and coaching as a small business owner; growing a thriving business and a non profit all while managing a busy household with 5 children.

Like most entrepreneurs, Amanda grew her business learning over and over from her mistakes as she went until she read Traction in 2014 and discovered EOS. It was a huge AHA moment and she realized there is a better and easier way to run your business. After implementing EOS, Amanda grew her Soccer Shots franchise to one of the top five grossing businesses in the country, awarded Franchise Rockstar of the year by Franchise Business Review and her team has impacted thousands of coaches, children and families through the beautiful game of soccer all over the world through her business and nonprofit.

Amanda is passionate about helping entrepreneurs and small business owners increase and maximize their growth while spending less time drowning in the day to day operations. She works with entrepreneurial leaders and their teams to get three things; Vision, Traction and Healthy. Traction from the standpoint of getting leaders all on the same page with their vision and plan, Traction from the standpoint of being much more disciplined and accountable to gain Traction on the company’s vision and Healthy meaning becoming a healthy, cohesive and functional leadership team because unfortunately most often times leaders don’t operate that way. From there, as goes the leadership team so goes the rest of the organization and you’ll see everyone in your organization rowing in the same direction with discipline and accountability as a healthy, fun group of people who enjoy spending time together. Are you an entrepreneur who is interested in doing more of what you love, being fairly compensated while having the time for other passions? You can gain control and live your ideal life and Amanda will help you get there! Amanda makes things happen: she helps people transform their thoughts into action. She is highly motivated and delivers excellence with care and a positive growth mindset.

Amanda lives in Southern California with her husband, 5 children and their dog Happy. She loves traveling, succulents, coffee and the beach! You can find out more about Amanda and her work at @amandabarkeyeos on Instagram.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

I often get asked How do I make my people be accountable? Accountability isn’t something that you DO to people its a result of great leadership and great management. The equation is called LMA Leadership + Management = Accountability. I teach my clients the 5 leadership practices and the 5 management practices and the result, or the byproduct, is accountability. The 5 management practices are Keeping expectations clear, communicating well, having the right meeting pulse, having quarterly conversations and rewarding & recognizing. High accountability that produces results, consistently goal setting and working on team health and ensuring we have the right people in the right seats using tools such as core values helps to keep a team’s morale high.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We moved to America in 2008 from Canada due to my husbands circulatory decease. When we moved down to the states we literally packed everything we owned in the back of our honda civic, left our home in Canada (which we were upside-down on due to the 2008 housing crisis) started our small business in a recession on our own dime with literally not a single business loan or line of credit, sleeping on floors and even resorting to going on government assistance (WIC/food stamps) at one point to make it through. We truly built everything we have from the ground up which has created an unbreakable resilient spirit that was tested in 2020 when the covid pandemic absolutely decimated the business that we built up for over a decade when we made 2% of our gross revenue in the 2 quarters following the lockdown compared to the previous years same quarters. We had faced hard times before and we knew that we could do it again and using the EOS tools and disciplines that we had implemented in our business we built our business back up and in our first full year back in business upon reopening following the pandemic we doubled our gross revenues in a fifth of the time it took us to get to where we were at pre-pandemic.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.eosworldwide.com/amanda-barkey
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandabarkeyeos/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-barkey-409908107/

Image Credits
Susie Bakonis