The Interview with Kelly Roach, THE BUSINESS CATALYST | Ep #39

Hey everyone, I'm Chris Plackey and this is how to Lead for Female entrepreneurs and founders. Because the best way to grow a business is to grow the person who's running it. Let's go ahead and get started.

Hello everyone.

Welcome, welcome. I'm so excited to share the interview that I prepared for you today with Kelly Roach. Kelly is really known as the business catalyst. She helps elite business owners become game changers really in their field and achieve million dollar breakthroughs in their business. Her perspective, her energy, her experience are such powerful. It's a powerful combination to share with you. She's got so many great things to add to the conversation that we have every week when it comes to leading and managing and growing your business. So a few things that I'll point out to you that we talk about. We do talk about the difference between tactical versus strategic employees, which I know you've heard me talk about before. So I want to. I love her perspective and how she really lends some valuable insight to that discussion. We also talk about the difference between being a solopreneur and an entrepreneur and really building that relationship with your business. But she also has a couple things that she mentions that are sort of her way of thinking about things which I loved. She talks about in the mirror leadership and also franken businesses. So you'll have to listen for that because it was really funny and also spot on. Kelly is also the host of top 100 marketing and management podcast, Unstoppable Success Radio. It's brilliant. She has so much packed in there. So if you haven't tuned in, I strongly recommend you do that before I turn over the interview. I know I've been talking with you all about the Founders Lab and I've also been talking with you about the rollout of the entrepreneurial management program that I co created with Brooke Castillo. We are in the process right now of actively enrolling new clients who want to work with me in the next six weeks to get started on really digging into your business and evaluating all of the things that you need to evaluate to have a successful business that is managed and led. Well, I know that when you learn the management skills and the leadership skills to help you manage your people, hire your people, and yeah, even fire your people, everything becomes easier. So as you think about 2020, if this is part of what you really want to work on, you, you know that you've grown the business, you've got the revenue, but you're just about to get started in hiring or maybe you have a big team but you really haven't ever learned how to manage them. I want invite you to think about is now the time for us to meet and talk about how the Founders Lab is a perfect complement to what you want to do in your business in 2020. So if that's you and you want to learn about the Founders Lab and you want to learn about how entrepreneurial management is complemented into that program, go ahead and go to Chrisplackie.com appointment and we'll book a call. It's 20 minutes. It's a, it's a dedicated time with me to talk to you about your business, about what your challenges are when it comes all of the systems and processes you need to have more of a self managing company and how to deal with your employees better. I think you're going to find that call to be really powerful. You'll know for sure by the time we're done on that 20 minute call. If it's what you want to do and if that's on your list for 2020, if it's time, I would love to invite you to get on my calendar now. Okay, so without further ado, I'm going to turn the interview over to Kelly.

Well, welcome Kelly. I'm so excited to have you here on the how to Lead podcast. As I've mentioned to you, I heard you on Allie Brown's podcast, which of course I love, Ali and so much of her wisdom and then the two of you, listening to the two of you together was really inspiring. So then I got turned on to your podcast which I want to make sure we share with everyone before we're done here today. So really excited to learn from you and also have you share your insights with everyone else who's listening. So welcome.

Thank you so much for having me.

And where are you today?

I am in Westchester, Pennsylvania, the frozen tundra. We are in like snowstorm 18 right now. But we're hanging in there. We're hanging in there.

I'm so sorry, it's been a trifle. Winter hasn't, has it?

Has.

Yeah. Well, I'm in California and I don't think it's stopped raining since like November. So there's that. But I shouldn't complain, but I'm so sick of the rain.

Yeah. Yeah. We're all ready for a new season.

New life. New life. Spring. Bring in spring. Okay, so for people who are not familiar with you, why don't we just take a minute and I'll turn it over to you and tell us about who is Kelly Roach. And what do you do in the world? And what should we know about you?

Yeah, yeah. So I'll share a little bit about my work and then I'll share a little bit about me. So I do business growth strategy for high six and seven figure entrepreneurs that are really focused on building a business that is bigger than themselves, building a winning team that they can elevate and allow to lead from within their organizations. And I am a ninja at sales and marketing. I love, love, love online marketing and live streaming and all the fun, new, exciting ways that we can use our phones to do business, which I'm just fascinated by. I think it's actually unbelievable because I started my business before this whole livestreaming thing was available. So to me it is like mind blowing what we can do to touch and captivate people around the world with video and podcasting like we're doing today.

Exactly.

And my background was working for Fortune 500. So I was really trained in outside sales and sales leadership as a corporate executive. I started in an entry level sales role and I ended up, you know, promoting and promoting until I actually had a team of 100. And I decided to start my business in 2012 for. For two big reasons. One, obviously, I wanted my life back. I wanted to work less and earn more and do it on my own terms and all of that. So that was my selfish reason for starting my business. But my impact reason, my life purpose reason for starting my business, was to really focus on economic empowerment of individuals that know and understand that they have a bigger plan and purpose for being on the planet. And I see my number one role in the lives of my clients and my audience as helping people develop the skills to sell, market and lead effectively so that they can achieve their income goals and their lifestyle goals and to do it with grace, you know, and to do it in a meaningful way that, you know, it creates positivity in the world and yields the results that they want and deserve. So that's a little bit about the business side. Personally, I'm a wife and mom. I have a daughter that just turned five on Monday, so you can catch me live streaming with her climbing on me half the time. A lot of times when I'm recording podcasts, she's sitting on my lap and that's like the joy of my life. That's, you know, that's what it's all about.

Yeah, kids are fun. Yeah, five is fun. Five is.

Five is so fun. It's so, so fun. Yeah.

I have three kids. One is 18 and two I have twins who are 14, a son and daughter. And so every level I've certainly found has been just like. It's honestly like being an entrepreneur. Right. Like each stage of parenting, just like each stage of your business sort of call upon you to redefine who you are for sure. Now the mom of a teenager. Teenagers is a different mom than she was.

I'm a little terrified for that stage. I'm trying to enjoy the one that I'm in right now.

They all bring their own. But I will say that I've learned a lot about myself, the most about myself, I think, at this point. And it's good though. It's. I actually like that it's coinciding with my business growth.

Yeah.

Like, I'm just sort of auditing.

What is leadership? It is leadership. Right. You know, the way that you're interacting at home and with your kids. It requires so much leadership to raise the kind of kids that you want to. Yeah, right. And so I found that. Yeah. Yeah.

It's good times. Kids are fun. They don't tell you that part when you're thinking about getting pregnant. There's none of that. It's like, you get pregnant.

Right, Right.

Not like, oh, how cute. You're going to become an entirely different person. Just.

Yes. No one tells you that.

Yeah, we don't get that part exactly. Okay, well, you just said so many things that I could take in so many different directions just from your introduction. So thank you for being so thorough and sharing so much great information. But what I also talk about how it just is such a good time to be especially a woman in this world today. If you have a laptop and a phone and a little. A couple bucks to put into a Facebook ad, man, you can create pretty much whatever you want.

Yeah, it's mind blowing. I talk about it almost daily because I think there is a great danger in our time of taking for granted the opportunity and the abundance that is available to us in this moment. And I think that those of us that forget that for a single second will look back with deep regret because this is no doubt the greatest moment in all of history to make it come true. And we have more at our access and fingertips for free then I mean, think 10 years ago, people, you know, live streaming alone. I know I keep coming back to that, but it's so, so powerful. I just, you know, I'm closed, Cart today on a launch and I did the entire thing with live streaming. It's the best launch we ever did. And I say 10 years ago, people would invest $100,000 to go into a video studio to have production done on the types of things we do from our cozy home office. You know, a couple steps the hall from the kitchen or from the bedroom. That's mind blowing.

It is. It's absolutely mind blowing. So when you talk to people, because I'm sure you also run into women who have amazing ideas, have a real purpose, have what they see they can serve and offer to the world, but then they, they put restriction on themselves. Like what, what do you tell them?

Yeah, I mean, all of the restrictions that we have in life are self inflicted, right. It's all in our head. And, you know, I think it's, it's fear, obviously. Fear of rejection, fe of failure, fear of, you know, other people judging us. And, you know, first of all, you know, I think the fear of failure really touches on all three of those things. But the people who are ahead of you that have their own thing going on are always the one cheering for you. They're always the one pulling you up. They're always the one who, when you fall down, they're going to pull you back up. The people that have an opinion or that are going to make you feel bad or doubt your idea or put it down are the people that have nothing going on anyway. And so this fear that keeps us stuck in these tiny little boxes because we don't want to be publicly humiliated, we don't want to fail in public setting. You know, we don't want to take a risk and be wrong.

Those people that have, you know, a judgment about that are the wrong people to be assessing.

Exactly. In the arena concept. Right. Like, are in there with us instead of the ones standing out there pointing at us, making comments.

And, you know, my biggest learning was coming from a Fortune 500 background where I had total mastery. Like, total and complete mastery. I had so much control, I could do it with my eyes shut. It was a joke for me. At that point. Coming into entrepreneurship, it was really difficult for me to get comfortable with failure. My ego was like on full tilt. Because you're so used to the accolades and the awards and being good and being strong, and all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. Right. But my biggest learning in all my years and the most important thing culturally that has allowed my team to rise up and lead and be exceptional at what we now do, is that it's through that failure that you learn to become exceptional. You cut years and Years off of the heartache and the stress by just allowing yourself to do so. It's like, get out of your head. Get into action. Ask yourself, what's the worst thing that can happen if this can go wrong? And the worst thing that can happen is usually us feeling bad for ourselves.

Exactly.

Yeah. It's a little bit of embarrassment, but again, the people who matter are the ones pulling you back up when you fall down anyway. So it's like, why even worry about that? Right? Yeah.

I really love that visual because I believe the same thing, and I hadn't really ever expressed it the way that you just did, but that all of us who are out here doing it, we want you to be successful. Like, we're all in. And so then I think about, who are those women for me? Right. Who do they always pick you back up? They always say, well, that. Don't do that again, but do this instead. Right. Or just so powerful to remember that we're a huge community of individual leaders who collectively have a lot of influence. So I think that's brilliantly said. I want to ask you about your switch from working in a company and being more of a corporate Fortune 500 then switching into entrepreneurship, especially from a leadership perspective. What did you find was the. I guess the biggest challenge. Maybe you just shared it, right. Was the level of failure is just ridiculous. And then really, what are the biggest differences that leading in a business, in a company versus then leading your own company?

Yeah. Yeah, I think. And that's such a great question. You know, it's so different, right? Because when you're leading in a company and you have mastered your role, it is very easy quickly to teach a system to a team that is almost like no fail. It's like an engineer that has a blueprint, and you just execute that blueprint over and over again. And, you know, certain elements of entrepreneurship can be run that way as well. I teach a lot on systems and strategy. However, if you're building an online business, the speed of change and the speed of the evolution and the innovation that's required to lead in the entrepreneur space is so fast that if you don't embrace failure, if you don't create a culture where you're teaching your team, you know, I literally say to my PR person every single day, if you don't get a rejection today, Lindsay, you did not do your job. I said, do not go for the easy wins. I want you going for the no. And, you know, if you don't have the confidence to lead completely opposite in entrepreneurial you know, the entrepreneurial space as in the corporate space. In the corporate space, you're taught to play safe. It's just like school. It's like color inside these lines. Follow this blueprint, do ABC xyz and you'll get this outcome. In entrepreneurship, the way that you win is understanding that this is a jungle. Right? This is a jungle. And every day you are working to build your muscle and build your strength in innovation, creativity, differentiation, trying new things, reinventing yourself. And that is how you lead in the entrepreneur space. And it's different and more challenging because it requires so much more personal growth and personal development. Because failure is the essential heartbeat of creating those constant breakthroughs. Right?

Absolutely. And I think it's.

Hopefully I'll express this right, or I'll ask it right? But when you're an entrepreneur, then, and you hire people, right. To now come work for you, Most people, their experience is not working for entrepreneurs. Right. Their experience is working in a company and then they come work for you and they think you're cray cray. Oh yeah, you change your mind all the time.

So what is that too? Like when you think about the ideal employee for a female founder or entrepreneur?

Right.

That's part of what I know for sure. I talk to my clients about a of lot lot.

Oh my gosh.

Yes, terribly. Right. And then. But that's part of the process. You have to figure that out. I call it an employee niche. Really have to figure out who is your employee niche because you, you have to know yourself well enough to know who's going to be able to work with you. But what do you offer up to people about that? I'm curious.

Yeah, definitely. So that's such a good question. So you know, to me, what I always teach is when you look at the type of person that will survive and thrive in a business that is growing, flexibility is the number one attribute of someone that is going to be able to mentally, mentally handle that type of work environment. And you have to get good at being able to assess personality and resilience and stress levels. It is not about skill. And here's the, here's the really interesting thing. And I talk to my clients about this all the time. I'm like, stop trying to go hire someone to be able to do what you need them to do right now because it's going to change in five minutes.

Yep.

There's no way that you can go hire someone to, for example. I'll give, I'll give a great example. So one of the things that I've really anchored in. In 2019 that I'm teaching a lot about is social selling. And, you know, selling using social media and live streaming and stories and all of that. You know, do you think there's someone that's going to graduate from college that understands how to do social selling? Right. So this is the example I give to my clients. I'm like, stop trying to shortcut the process and think you're going to go hire an expert to do this for you. You're not.

And experience is not able to keep pace with entrepreneurialism. So what I do is I hire all entry level new college graduates. My entire team has been trained. Coming in with zero business knowledge. I'm like, the less business knowledge, the better. I have a clean slate.

No deprogramming.

No deprogramming. Because that's a whole nother, right? That's like, oh, Jesus. Yeah. So no deprogramming. We're coming in clean slate. And I am literally, like, teaching them their only vision for what business success looks like. And even then there's so much deprogramming because they came out of school, right? And in school you learn that failure is bad, and then they come work for me and I'm like, if you're not failing every day.

Yeah. And that was terrible. I don't like it that way. Yeah. Try it again. Absolutely. Yeah.

But I would say getting away from focusing on skills and really leaning into focusing on personal attributes. Flexibility, communication, work ethic, integrity. You know, those are the things that are gonna, you know, allow someone to make it. Working for a female founder and, you know, looking at again, like, who and what profile is gonna give you the best chance of being able to replicate and duplicate a hiring process that works over and over again, just like you said, is so, so critical. But coinciding with that. I talk a lot about this in Bigger Than youn in my last book.

As a leader, you have to commit to becoming a great coach and trainer and teacher if you want to have this culture of innovation and leadership and all of that. Because what I see so often is we hire people, we dump a bunch of tasks on them, and it creates this boomerang effect of like, this whirlwind of like, we pushed everything off of our desk, it comes flying back to us. The person quits or we fire them. Rid of the. The case needs to start over again. So it's really taking a step back and realizing that, you know, 80 to 90% of that person's success is up to you anyway. So even if you get the person with the perfect DNA and blueprint to be successful in your company, if you don't show up the right way, it's not going to make a difference for you. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. I think it's a. I think we have to be incredibly. It's. It's the one. I think a lot. Well, let me. I have a lot of things going on in my brain.

The thing that I hear my clients want most. Right. Is I just need help. I just need somebody. I just need somebody to take this. I need somebody to do this. Somebody to do this. And what happens when we focus on I need somebody to do this is that we're just focusing on the work. We're not actually focusing on the result that we're trying to create by getting the work done. And so that Mrs. In communication is why we never really. Like. Like you said, the whirlwind is the expression you use. Right. I give it to someone to do it, then it sucks, and it has to come back to me. Yes. We do it anyway.

Yes.

And that's because we're focusing on the.

Tasky, worky stuff and not.

Not the. This is the outcome that I want to see.

And I do think that's also different than if you're an employee and a business. Right. Because he is paid to show up.

Mm.

And I ask. I ask a lot of my clients because they replicate employer systems in their business.

Yeah. Yeah.

Then I asked them, like, are you in. Are you in business here to make money and serve your community and whoever it is, are you in business to be an employer?

Right.

Because you've built an employer's business.

Yes.

You have people who act like employees.

Yes. So you can't be surprised.

So that. Yeah, I absolutely agree. You have to be incredibly clear about the kind of person that you want to have on your team, and what are you looking for and what do you need to drive the result that you want to achieve?

Yeah. Yeah. And I think. I think a great way to think about it, too, is you need a tactical doer, but also a strategic thinker. And you know, so many times what I see, and it's exactly what you just said. You get desperate and you go find a tactical doer, and then two weeks later, you're like, I don't understand why this person is doing A, B, C, X, Y, Z. Because you just hired a taskmaster. All they're doing is checking things off a list. They're not thinking about your business. They're not Thinking about the end goal, and they don't even understand that perspective in how they're approaching the job. But really, again, it comes back to us. I always call it look in the mirror leadership. You know, that's a look in the mirror leadership because everything's just a mirror that's reflecting back your leadership. So when your employees are. And I do this all the time, if I get frustrated with my team about something that they're not doing or something that they're doing that doesn't align with what my vision was, the first thing I always do is I ask myself, well, what about how I'm leading them is causing this? Because I know they have the integrity, I know they have the work ethic. I know they have the drive, the passion, the commitment. So when I'm not seeing what I want, that's on me because I need to lead in a way that they're effectively able to understand what I need from them and then take the ball and run with it. Right? So I think that that self awareness and that focus on self reflection is so, so critical. And I think that employee turnover is one of the biggest things that stifles, you know, founder women founded businesses because we're so type A, we're so driven, we're moving so fast and furious, and we want people to come in and just swim at the pace that we are. But we're dropping balls all over the place. And people are like, you are crazy. Like, I'm out of here. You know, so just a little bit of thinking through their experience, right? What is their experience? How do they do?

Yeah, I always know. It's like, you know, a client will say, well, I just lost another employee today, or my employee didn't do, you know, it's a mess. And that they didn't do what I want. And yeah, it's such a drag that we actually have to be the one who does the work here. Right. Like, we have to look at ourselves and see, was I clear my expectation? Did I follow up? Did I hold, you know, set them up to be successful? It always comes back to us, you know, every now and then, could it just be someone else's? Right, right.

I know. Don't we wish? Don't we wish.

And that's the truth really too. I think from being. I think that going from being a solopreneur where, you know, and in my experience, I would love to know what you think about this. I think people can hustle and solopreneur their way almost to a million. I've seen a few do it. I think it's. It depends on their business model. But.

Every single woman that reaches out to me who is between 2 and 5 million and hasn't done this work, the wheels are flying off of there.

Oh, it's a disaster. I've seen the exact same thing. They're the Franken businesses where it's like they've just worked themselves so hard to get that boulder up to the top, but everything is just. It's just falling all over the place. So it's like doing that work on yourself and learning, learning those systems is everything. And not only that, but like, just to be able to enjoy your business. Like the pride and the joy and the fun and the freedom comes when you effectively teach people how to lead from within so that you are not the business. Right. Like I was saying when we got on the podcast today, like, today's closed cart for me. We're like, live in our launch as we speak. And, like, not. My team's running the show. My clients are running the show. Like they're handling it, and I am trusting them and I don't need to be managing every detail of that. And I think that I made a commitment to myself when I found out I was pregnant with Madison. I made a commitment to myself that my number one priority was team, so that as she was getting older and knew what was going on and got to this point, that I would be able to take her to school and pick her up and do the activities with her and be present for all the things. And, you know, I think people get really frustrated when they work on building a team for six months or a year and stuff goes wrong and they have setbacks. And that's very, very natural. You know, you don't build a winning team in a single year. And I think so many people give up and revert back to those solopreneur tactics when things go wrong with people not realizing that it is a multi year building process. Right.

But that. That it's just easier for me to do it myself. Yeah, that's always what we come. And I was just reading, I think I was reading the last word on power, and that was one of the things that she talks about is that quote, right, if you want something done right, you just need to do it yourself, which is just such a terrible lie.

Horrible. Horrible.

Yeah. But so many of us buy into it.

If you want something done right, hire someone that can do it better than.

You, which is frankly, most things, except for the thing like we have to Know, what is our thing, the thing.

Couldn't agree more.

And I do work with each that. We talk about that a lot. Like, you're way involved in stuff that is absolutely exhausting you and isn't allowing you to do your thing.

For sure.

You said something that I wanted to ask you also, because I talk a lot about there's you and then there's a business. Right. Which I think we agree there. Like, you are here and your business is here. You are not your business.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

How do you describe the relationship that you have with your business?

Yeah. So I had a client actually ask me a similar question the other day. She was asking me, like, what do you see as. Like, what is the story that you tell yourself about yourself that you feel makes you successful? And I said that to me, like, I am not the business, and the business is not me. I understand that. My purpose for being on the planet is to economically empower people with the skills to achieve financial freedom. And so nothing is personal. Like, it's not like, the business is not me. Like, I'm just. I'm just, you know, a vessel that is here. I was given specific gifts that were intended to be used a certain way. I'm doing my best to try and live up to that, but it's not me, and I'm not it. And I also think that we have. We evolve and we change and we grow. And at different times of life, there's different seasons for different reasons. But I think being able to make that distinction and not having your ego ride on the successes or failures or setbacks or trials or tribulations or taking things personally, I think that's the biggest thing for me is recognizing that it's not personal. None of it's personal. Whether it's about an employee or it's a client or it's an issue that happened or whatever the case, we're all here to just do our best and be our best to try and understand what our purpose and our mission for being on the planet is and to try and live up to our highest potential. And, you know, the business is part of that, but it's not all of that.

Right. It's so good. And I think when you say it's not personal. Right. It's almost the opposite. That when you personalize your business, you minimize its ability. Right. Because then you're in the way. And so if your relationship is that this is me and this is my business, I'm the custodian, I'm the caretaker, I'm in, you know, I had somebody. Actually we had this really powerful conversation about, you know, being in love with your business. Like it was a person. And I had, in that moment I had this really trippy realization like, oh, wait a minute, I'm in love with my clients, but I don't ever think about being in love with my business.

Uh huh, uh huh.

And so then I was like, wait a minute.

Right. And then I had this whole other like, oh, well, what if, what if my business, what if my business was a human? Like, what would this personality be? And then I took it to an nth degree, like, what would she wear? How would she show up in the world? But it was so powerful to kind of get to know her separate from me and then.

Ask myself, am I the kind of person this business would want to have a relationship with or am I like the neglectful friend who doesn't reply to texts? Or am I the friend who always thinks, you should let me, you should do what I want, but I should never do what you want.

Right? Yeah, I love that you said that.

Because personalizing what happens in your business I think diminishes the business's ability to thrive.

Yeah, I agree.

You're just an obstacle. That's so good. Okay, a couple more questions and then we'll let you go check and see how your open cart is doing. What are you actually launching right now? What's your product?

Yeah, it's called the Unstoppable Entrepreneur and it's a 12 month business incubator. So we help online entrepreneurs master sales and marketing, social selling, team building, you know, etc. And to scale and build an online brand and so fun. It's so fun.

I love that. I love it. I just love how much attention and energy is on entrepreneurs. I think we've come a long way right, in terms of what's available. And I've watched so many of the clients that I've worked with and just people that I know in the space, they've tried to lean into traditional leadership mechanics, you know, things that, that you know, Jack Welch taught or. Yeah, and it's not to say that those aren't helpful. It's just entrepreneurs have to think and approach how they lead their businesses so differently that we've. So the world now just has so much, many vital, powerful resources.

One other question I have about your book, right? So you talk about Bigger Than youn, which sounds very fascinating. So I'm super excited to know about that and share that with everybody listening. What else would you say? Are some of the big kind of things we need to think about as female entrepreneurs when we're thinking about scaling our business and being letting the business get bigger than us.

Yeah, yeah. So the number one thing and the system that I teach in my Legacy leaders program and in the book Bigger Than youn is the Forex model for profitability. So the biggest mistake that I see when entrepreneurs decide to go from being a solopreneur to actually building a team in a company is that the way that they design the roles within the company are not for profit and they don't see each role in the company as a profit center. And so that's incredibly dangerous because obviously the only way that that payroll is being paid is out of the income of the business owner now. And then what happens is as the business continues to grow and grow and grow, the business owner actually becomes a servant to the employees because they have to produce and then produce more and produce more to be able to make enough revenue to cover all of these now service based employees that they have that are not generating revenue. And so what I teach in the book is how to develop a model for any position in your company where you can bring in at least four times what that position costs you on a monthly basis. So that one position pays for the next position, pays for the next position, pays for the next position, which is the only way that you can truly scale in a healthy way. Because otherwise all you're doing is increasing your expenses and increasing the pressure on you to produce more. Which is which, I mean, no thanks.

The point opposite. Right?

Right.

That's like Darren Hardy talks about, I think in his entrepreneurial roller coaster. Right. He says you're taking it next to the next level. He says every hire you make should be free. Right. So if you pay 100k, you should get at least 100k back in.

But think about that for a second. Think about how off that is. What's the point of even having an employee if you're able to grow 100k but it costs you 100k? Well, why not just not kill yourself to grow 100k if it's going to cost you 100k?

Right.

That's the kind of thinking that I think gets entrepreneurs in so much trouble. Because the goal isn't, as you said earlier, the goal is not for you to be an employer that pays the salaries of all these people. The goal is to build something exceptional. Right. And you have a responsibility to be fiscally and financially responsible as a leader and as a business owner. Especially if you're going to have employees and it is fiscally irrelevant, responsible to not be making a profit on your employees because you're putting the entire company and all of those people's livelihood at risk. So I think that, you know, that's a great example that you just gave of like, why that thinking does not support entrepreneurs in a really productive way. Right. Like, even in what world is that good?

It's really, it shows how we stay in this cycle of burden and exhaustion. Right.

Because we're growing 100%.

And that's also true. Right. A lot of people do get to that point and they think, I would rather just make $800,000 a year than try to make 4 million because it's just too much work. People part. Right. Okay, two last questions. What do you think is the biggest challenge you've experienced as a woman who's grown a business and scaled it to add people, humans into it that work for you?

Yeah, I think slowing down to speed up, you know, I think that's the number one thing. I mean, I'm high D type A, Right. So I run at like a million miles an hour, 24 hours a day. Like I am just go. And you know, I understand that in order to build a winning team that they need me to be the coach, the nurturer. You know, you have to lovingly tend to that garden if you want it to grow. And so just making sure that in every moment I'm really being self aware of their experience and their perspective and the pace that they can handle. My team is more mature now, and so they're better able to handle the craziness because they've been with me for a while. But even still, when we bring new people in, you know, it's difficult to slow down as a company enough to embrace them and lift them up. And so that's a constant thing that you have to actually put thought and intention into, you know, in order to continue to grow together.

Yep, absolutely. So well said. I think that's a common issue. Right. Just keep up with me, Just follow me. Just do what I do. Just learn as we go. Right. Let's put those. We'll put new wings on the plane while we're flying. And there's so much wisdom in taking a minute. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's powerful. Yeah. And then I guess I would ask the flip side of that is what do you think is the attribute or characteristic that you bring to leadership that really has helped your business grow and scale?

Yeah, I would say More than anything, just discipline. You know, I think discipline because, you know, the way I describe discipline is doing what needs to be done when you don't feel like doing it. And you know, as leaders, there's a lot that we're called to do in order to do our jobs. Well, that may not come naturally or may not be what we prefer to do in that moment or whatever the case. But you have to be playing a long game. You have to be looking at the implications of what is. And how is what I'm doing today going to impact where we are five years from now? How is this going to impact where we are 10 years from now? So I think that discipline is really everything. And it's not just, just leadership, but growth. Growth is discipline, you know, and I think so many have such a short term attention span or ability to commit, to follow through that that's, that's why so many businesses still fail. You know, it's really more than anything a lack of discipline.

I totally agree. I was just talking to a client this morning who is finding herself back in the same circumstance that she was in, you know, a year ago. And the. There are two. We have plenty of opportunities when we're met and it's because of staff challenges. Right. But to her credit, one of the things that happened is she doubled her revenue last year. A lot of growth happened and she was still framing her business through the same business model, especially from a staffing perspective, and it wasn't sustainable. And the first, you know, 25 minutes of our call was kind of her feeling sorry for herself. I don't want to have to. I don't want to have to. I don't want to. I don't want to have. Right. Like just those kinds of things were coming out of her mouth. And so I love that you chose discipline because. And the way that you defined it, like, yeah, it's not.

Yeah.

But now, you know, it's time. It's time to actually clean the slate and redesign your business. Because the way that you've been running it is the way you've been running it for the last 10 years. That's not going to work anymore.

Yes.

Are you willing to reevaluate everything? I talk to my clients about this a lot. I'm sure you do as well. Like we're going to edit all the shit we're going to figure out.

Are these the right people?

Is this the right process? Is this the right system? Is this the right client?

Is this the right building?

Should we be sitting in this building anymore.

Right.

Willing to do that. And the discipline that takes.

Oh, my gosh.

Out of the way. Right. Out of your own frustration. And, like, really.

It'S not helpful. It doesn't help you to get there. That's the difference between speed. Right?

Yeah.

It's not how many clients you get.

Yeah, exactly.

Speed of yourself. Well, you build the thing that holds it up. Yeah.

100%. 100%. Couldn't agree more.

So fun. I could talk to you forever.

I know. I know. I definitely. I feel the same.

I love mind sharing. So I want to make sure people know how to reach you, find you know all about you. We will put all of that in the show notes. But why don't you tell us a little bit about, for anybody who's listening today, what the next thing they should do if they want to learn more about you.

Yeah, definitely. Well, my podcast, Unstoppable Success Radio, is In the top 100 marketing and management podcasts. And it's really focused on sales, strategy, innovation, marketing, you know, how to put systems in place for scale and the mindset around that. So if that's a topic, you know, that interests anyone listening, I would say check out Unstoppable Success Radio. And I have an awesome group on Facebook that I do free live trainings in every single week. It's called the Tribe of Unstoppable. So if anybody wants to join me there, I'd be happy to. I'd be happy to meet you. Drop me a note and let me know.

Stop on by.

I've listened to your podcast, so for those of you who are listening, Kelly's is a great one to add to your your list, and I'm sure you picked up on. She's an incredible amount of energy, very enthusiastic, a real bright light in this space to learn from. So please tune in and listen on a regular basis. But I'm super grateful for you spending some time with us today and sharing your wisdom. You clearly have a ton of it and you've done great work so far in the world, so it'll be fun to see what else you produce.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm really appreciative of the conversation today. Today.

Thank you.

Hey, don't miss a thing. Make sure you join my community@chrisplackie.com connect. Once you join, you'll get all the information on exclusive and private experiences that I'm offering to my clients. I can't wait to see you there, Sam.