Episode 105
E105: How to Scale Your Business Without Burning Out with Celi Arias
I had the pleasure of sitting down with Celi Arias, an entrepreneur, business strategist, and creator of the Grown Ass Business Method. Celi has spent her life building, running, and fixing businesses—from launching her first venture as a kid to working as a COO in the startup world and coaching business owners to scale with confidence. She’s passionate about helping entrepreneurs avoid costly mistakes, condense time, and build businesses that truly work for them.
Key Takeaways from Our Conversation
🔹 Growth vs. Scale—Know the Difference
- Many entrepreneurs confuse growth with scaling. Growth increases revenue but often increases costs at the same rate. Scaling, on the other hand, allows you to increase revenue without a proportional rise in expenses.
- Not all businesses are scalable—understanding your business model is key before trying to "scale."
🔹 Mindset Meets Strategy
- Mindset is crucial, but it doesn’t fix broken pricing models or business structures. True business success requires the right balance between strategy, tactics, and mindset.
- Celi’s journey as a mindset coach and business strategist led her to combine these elements into a holistic framework that empowers business owners.
🔹 The Power of Intellectual Property
- To truly scale, you need intellectual property—a framework, process, or tool that can exist beyond you.
- Business owners who document their methods and create repeatable systems can remove themselves from day-to-day operations and increase long-term value.
Resources Mentioned:
📌 Join Celi’s free monthly business roundtable discussions
More About Our Guest:
Celi Arias is the CEO and Founder of The Grown Ass Business, where she guides entrepreneurs through her proprietary methodology, Key Growth Systems, to build strong business foundations. Recognized as a top coach by The Upside in 2024, Celi helps clients break free from revenue plateaus and burnout by focusing on core business principles over quick fixes. Her approach emphasizes clarity and control, optimizing essential business departments to ensure solid foundations for scaling up to seven figures and beyond.
With an impressive educational background, including two bachelor's degrees, an MBA, a Master of Divinity, and two additional certificates, Celi brings a wealth of knowledge to her coaching practice. Her diverse experiences, from professional tango dancing to working in the fashion industry, coupled with her immigrant background from Argentina, have shaped her into a dynamic and passionate coach dedicated to helping entrepreneurs achieve their business goals and realize their full potential.
Connect with Our Guest:
Connect with Erin to learn how to Turn Your Expertise into Scalable Recurring Revenue.
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/erinaustin/
Think Beyond IP YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVztXnDYnZ83oIb-EGX9IGA/videos
Music credit: Paphos by Mountaineer
A Team Dklutr production
Transcript
Welcome everyone to this week's edition of the scaling expertise podcast.
Speaker:Very exciting to have a guest today who will not only talk about how
Speaker:she helps you scale your business, but also dig into the details of
Speaker:how she has scaled her business.
Speaker:So welcome to the podcast.
Speaker:Sully areas.
Speaker:Hi.
Speaker:Thanks for having me.
Speaker:Very excited.
Speaker:We have so much to talk about.
Speaker:You are such a perfect fit for this audience.
Speaker:But before we get started, would you please introduce yourself to
Speaker:the audience and also tell us who you serve and how you serve them.
Speaker:Yeah, sure.
Speaker:full name is Maria Celia Arias, which is why people just call me Celi.
Speaker:It's a lot, it's a lot easier.
Speaker:I'm from Argentina.
Speaker:I've been in business Since I was 10, basically, I've been building and
Speaker:creating businesses since I was a kid.
Speaker:It was my way, as an immigrant, to pay for things that I really wanted
Speaker:to do without having to ask my mom for ballet classes, basically.
Speaker:and I got really into the independence and freedom that came with, Oh, I could just
Speaker:Start a business and I could pay for that.
Speaker:I ran my first business all through middle school and high school And then in my
Speaker:20s, I got a BFA in modern dance And then I got another BFA in fashion design and
Speaker:I started a fashion label that I ran for 10 years So I've had this experience of
Speaker:making all the mistakes In business I've done it all I've made all the mistakes.
Speaker:I've worn all the hats.
Speaker:I've like everything that you Think is a mistake you've made.
Speaker:I'm with you.
Speaker:I've been there.
Speaker:I've done it.
Speaker:I've even been homeless thanks to business mistakes.
Speaker:Yeah, I've been there.
Speaker:So I'm very, very passionate about helping entrepreneurs really
Speaker:understand business and the game of business and scaling comes when you.
Speaker:really understand the game that you're playing, and then it gets easy, right?
Speaker:So my passion is to hopefully help people not make the mistakes that I
Speaker:made, and hopefully condense time, because a lot of times if you've
Speaker:ever experienced this, We make a lot of mistakes for many, many years.
Speaker:And then we learn from our mistakes and it kind of, you know, you can
Speaker:look back and go, okay, it took me 10 years to figure XYZ out the average
Speaker:business owner, it takes them 10 years to actually get to seven figures.
Speaker:And I'm like, okay, we could condense that time if we just shared our knowledge.
Speaker:And shared how it works with people.
Speaker:And that's what I do.
Speaker:I've been a COO for tech startups.
Speaker:I've worked in corporate, I've worked in my own companies.
Speaker:I've been a head coach for a coaching company.
Speaker:And then I created the grown ass business method, which is what I teach my clients
Speaker:so that I empower them to actually understand business, understand how to
Speaker:scale and understand how to become the CEO of their business without needing me.
Speaker:Ultimately, that's always the goal.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:Well, I must know, what was your first business?
Speaker:I was an avid reader as a kid and I read the Babysitter's Club
Speaker:series and I remember thinking it was kind of stupid and cheesy.
Speaker:But it did inspire me and I started a babysitting business and I wasn't just
Speaker:like randomly Babysitting like I went door to door sold services had several
Speaker:Regular families that I serviced regularly and I did have retainers I did there
Speaker:was no kind of I mean there's things that I did then intuitively as a kid
Speaker:now I'm like that was really clever.
Speaker:How did I figure that out?
Speaker:But I had two families that I worked for regularly all through middle
Speaker:school and all through high school.
Speaker:So by the time I got my driver's license in high school, I remember one of those
Speaker:families saying, Wait a minute, if you're just now getting your driver's
Speaker:license, does that mean I trusted you with my baby when you were 11?
Speaker:And I was like, Mm hmm.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And I was a very mature kid.
Speaker:I was not like, developed, but I was a very mature kid.
Speaker:So it was kind of funny by the time I, had a driver's license, I was a full on like
Speaker:full time nanny for one of these families.
Speaker:That is amazing.
Speaker:I love that story.
Speaker:Well, then you are the perfect person having made the mistakes and
Speaker:learn from them and grown from them.
Speaker:I would love to hear the story about where you started and I don't know if the
Speaker:grown ass business is a later iteration.
Speaker:Of your current business or if you started elsewhere, but What were
Speaker:the pains then and How did you scale it to where you are today?
Speaker:went from corporate Brand partnerships and sales back to the startup world.
Speaker:I got an MBA After my fashion line thinking I don't know
Speaker:enough I clearly made mistakes.
Speaker:I just didn't know enough.
Speaker:So I needed an MBA, got an MBA.
Speaker:And by the way, an MBA is great for climbing the corporate ladder.
Speaker:Not great if you're really an entrepreneur.
Speaker:so I got a corporate job and then went back into startups and I wanted.
Speaker:to be the COO of this startup.
Speaker:So I realized in my corporate job, had a conversation, I was in a meeting
Speaker:once actually, and my boss kind of yelled at me in front of everyone.
Speaker:He said, Stop trying to fix the system and just do your job and close sales.
Speaker:And I remember my nerdy brain was like, Hmm, fix the system.
Speaker:Is that a thing?
Speaker:are there like roles that where you could just fix the system?
Speaker:Because I'm a fixer.
Speaker:Like, that's my thing.
Speaker:I like to fix.
Speaker:I was only good at sales because I like to fix.
Speaker:The person's problem in front of me.
Speaker:I'm like, we can fix that.
Speaker:This product will do that.
Speaker:So I started researching and discovered there was a world called
Speaker:operations and discovered that there was this role called COO.
Speaker:And I was like, that would be my dream job.
Speaker:worked my way into a startup.
Speaker:they were like, you can't be our COO.
Speaker:you have a lot of things on your resume, but you don't have that.
Speaker:And I was like, I will prove it to you.
Speaker:So I, was hired as director of brand partnership.
Speaker:I was at a tech mental health startup, but I did brand partnerships plus
Speaker:all the things I restructured the team I restructured the systems I
Speaker:did all the things and, six months and I went to the CEO and I was
Speaker:like, I believe I am your CEO.
Speaker:What do you think?
Speaker:but what happened with that business, which happens.
Speaker:sometimes in that seat, if you are good at your job, if you are good at being a COO.
Speaker:About two years in, everything was kind of functioning without me.
Speaker:The team was humming, the systems we had built were humming.
Speaker:We had closed a few partnership deals that had us at regular multi seven
Speaker:figure revenue, and the board, who were investors in this business,
Speaker:had decided they wanted to sell.
Speaker:On growth anymore.
Speaker:They weren't pushing me to grow.
Speaker:They were more pushing me to make pitch decks and I was like,
Speaker:as a fixer, that's really fun.
Speaker:and I was also used to working from 8 am to midnight.
Speaker:Because that's what you do in startups.
Speaker:So when my job kind of got easier on me, I was single in the city and I
Speaker:was like, what do I do with myself?
Speaker:So I started going to like meetups and entrepreneur meetings and create it.
Speaker:I have a lot of creative friends cause I have a background in arts.
Speaker:I started advising and coaching on the side for free.
Speaker:I started going to meetups and going, Oh, I know how to answer.
Speaker:Oh no, don't do that.
Speaker:Do it like this.
Speaker:I found myself kind of coaching for free on the side and having fun.
Speaker:And that turned into people kind of asking me the same questions over and over again.
Speaker:And in my brain, as a systems person, if you get asked the same
Speaker:question twice, You make a training.
Speaker:How do I price my hour?
Speaker:Like this was one I would hear a lot from creatives, artists,
Speaker:consultants, small business owners.
Speaker:How do I price my time?
Speaker:I've heard the same question three times.
Speaker:Like, what do you mean?
Speaker:You don't know how to figure this out?
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Let me just make a training.
Speaker:So the very first training I've created about eight years ago
Speaker:is called Calculate Your Worth.
Speaker:Maybe seven years ago, and it was based off this idea of I keep
Speaker:getting asked the same question Let me just create a training.
Speaker:didn't know the online business space I didn't know there was this whole
Speaker:world of people making millions by being course creators or teaching
Speaker:people to be course creators I just approached this problem from people
Speaker:keep asking me the same question Let me just make a little training for
Speaker:them and present it to them and that turned into My first online course.
Speaker:And then I've kind of found myself in this world of like, what is this world?
Speaker:And how do I sell this?
Speaker:And how do I build a business off of this?
Speaker:And when I was selling my first group course, it was called smooth operator.
Speaker:I was talking to a friend and she said, Oh, you really think a lot
Speaker:like these guys that I recently met.
Speaker:you should read their book and you should know who they are and life is funny.
Speaker:Kismet is a real thing.
Speaker:read this book and I thought, Oh, that's really interesting.
Speaker:These guys think about business growth and scale via systems.
Speaker:And I'd never met anybody else that thought that way.
Speaker:and it just so happened that right as I read that book, I got on their
Speaker:email list and the founder of that company said they were actually
Speaker:hiring and looking for a head coach.
Speaker:So I reached out to them, I met them, and I applied.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And I went through a really rigorous interview process, a very competitive
Speaker:interview process, and eventually became the head coach of a coaching company.
Speaker:So it went from, you're playing around with something, going,
Speaker:what am I doing in life?
Speaker:And why am I coaching people for free on the side?
Speaker:Who knows?
Speaker:To, like, making a little training, going, is this even a thing?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:And making a course and going, what is this world?
Speaker:And could I do it?
Speaker:And then I became a head coach for a coaching company.
Speaker:and I was there for two years, a little over two years.
Speaker:And there were things in that system and in the way that they ran their
Speaker:business that I really wanted to change.
Speaker:And I was the only woman of color in the room and the only
Speaker:woman in the executive room.
Speaker:didn't have much of a voice.
Speaker:And so I was like, okay, I'll go and build it myself.
Speaker:I've done that before.
Speaker:And that was the birth of the Growness Business Method, which was ultimately.
Speaker:what I found lacking in their processes was it was all process
Speaker:and systems and tactics oriented, but there's an acknowledgement that
Speaker:mindset's a thing, but there was no support or training around mindset.
Speaker:And during the time that I was a head coach, I also got certified as a mindset
Speaker:coach because I found that that was something that we were lacking as coaches.
Speaker:and so I wanted to create a methodology that combined.
Speaker:strategy, tactics, but mindset as well.
Speaker:And how do you marry the two?
Speaker:I think that there's a lot of people who are just strategists or will teach
Speaker:you the tactics and the hard, step by step you just do this, and then there
Speaker:are people who are just mindset coaches and are like mindset fixes everything.
Speaker:In my point of view, mindset doesn't fix a broken pricing strategy.
Speaker:Mindset doesn't fix a business model, you need the hard tactics, you need
Speaker:to understand strategy, you need to understand the game of business, then you
Speaker:need to understand how you, your mindset, will affect the way you play the game.
Speaker:I ask a somewhat controversial question?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I have a theory.
Speaker:I love controversial questions.
Speaker:Let's go, Erin.
Speaker:I have a theory that Only women think about mindset issues
Speaker:and that men generally do not.
Speaker:What do you think?
Speaker:I don't know if they don't think about it.
Speaker:I think their approach to it is just like, Oh yeah, that's a mindset issue.
Speaker:Just push through.
Speaker:I mean, that was the response I got.
Speaker:I think women are more willing to acknowledge.
Speaker:That it's a thing and it's a real thing.
Speaker:I'm fortunate that I'm in a community, I'm in a mastermind with men.
Speaker:And I think the men in that room very much acknowledge the mindset part of business.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:would say that's not my experience.
Speaker:But in many, many cultures and communities, I would
Speaker:say the men are aware of it.
Speaker:It's just that their approach to it is like, Oh yeah, that's just mindset.
Speaker:You just do it anyway.
Speaker:it's almost like the awareness of that's a mindset issue is enough.
Speaker:But as we all know, like in therapy awareness.
Speaker:of the trauma or awareness of the belief or awareness of the thing
Speaker:doesn't actually heal the thing.
Speaker:That's just step one.
Speaker:I think a lot of men go, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a mindset thing.
Speaker:Okay, cool.
Speaker:Like, feel the
Speaker:fear, do it anyway.
Speaker:Feel the fear, do it anyway.
Speaker:I mean, that's like a meme everywhere, right?
Speaker:Everyone's posted that meme at some point in time.
Speaker:and I think that's what it is.
Speaker:It's that they go, got it, feel the fear, do it anyway.
Speaker:And it's like, well, no.
Speaker:There's a reason why you have fear.
Speaker:And it's actually a really good thing to work through and not push through.
Speaker:Because when you just push through fear, it will backfire.
Speaker:eventually.
Speaker:So I have many, many thoughts on that, but I think that that's the
Speaker:approach of like, okay, got it.
Speaker:Keep pushing through.
Speaker:It's like, no.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:let me get your definition of scale.
Speaker:Like it means different things, different people.
Speaker:How do you define scale?
Speaker:Oh, such a good question.
Speaker:I actually teach this stuff all the time.
Speaker:first of all, a lot of times people think scale is growth, So we need
Speaker:to understand when you're in a growth phase versus a scale phase.
Speaker:Two, not every business can scale.
Speaker:Sorry?
Speaker:Not sorry?
Speaker:In your bubble?
Speaker:I'm sorry.
Speaker:the truth is, if we think about scale, the word scale comes from
Speaker:the concept economies of scale.
Speaker:And that, has to do with supply chain and manufacturing and it has to do with
Speaker:I can reduce the cost of goods sold so I can reduce how much it costs me to
Speaker:produce a thing and make more of them,
Speaker:So when you are a one on one coach or consultant, You can't really scale
Speaker:that in terms of the definition, the actual definition of scale doesn't
Speaker:apply to you because you cannot reduce the cost of goods sold, which is your
Speaker:time and energy, So I find that a lot of times when people come to me and
Speaker:go, Oh, you're a scale coach and I need to scale, you probably find this too.
Speaker:I find that people say that to me because they're actually exhausted and burnt out.
Speaker:And they're hoping to make more money.
Speaker:They've heard this thing on the interwebs called make more money and work less.
Speaker:That's a piece of scale.
Speaker:That's like a byproduct of scale.
Speaker:But first of all, is your business model scalable?
Speaker:the actual definition is you're spending less money or less resources.
Speaker:To output the same product, therefore allowing you to sell more of it
Speaker:without it dwindling your resources.
Speaker:I was teaching this in a class the other day and somebody kind of said, Oh, I want
Speaker:to hire more people to sell more products.
Speaker:And I was like, great, that's not scale because you're still spending more money
Speaker:on your resources, which is the people on your team to deliver to make more money.
Speaker:So the scales.
Speaker:are still equal.
Speaker:That's not economies of scale.
Speaker:So yeah, that's a really good question.
Speaker:I get asked a lot to come to speak in communities and talk about scale.
Speaker:And it's always the first thing I say, just to get an idea of where
Speaker:people are in their thinking.
Speaker:It's like, what do you think scale is?
Speaker:Let's start there.
Speaker:I agree that everyone has a little bit different, notion of what it
Speaker:means and that it is interesting that there are, I mean, I think everyone
Speaker:understands that they're unscalable business models, but not that there's
Speaker:this distinction between growth.
Speaker:And you know, it's not just about earning more money because, if your costs go up
Speaker:at the same time, but that there is almost like an inflection point, like there
Speaker:needs to be a certain foundation required before you can like kind of flip that.
Speaker:Aaron, we're going to be best friends.
Speaker:That's literally what the grown ass business teaches.
Speaker:It's like, okay, so first.
Speaker:Let's get those foundations in place so that you can grow with ease so
Speaker:that you can eventually hit that inflection point and then you can scale.
Speaker:I'm like sneakily instilling foundation, solid foundations.
Speaker:And a lot of times I don't use that word in my marketing, for example, because
Speaker:people who are, multi six figure revenue, they're like, I have my foundations down.
Speaker:I'm like.
Speaker:So,
Speaker:will say I am trying to get better, frankly, at that, people they need a
Speaker:business coach, honestly, before they come to me, but they, you know, okay,
Speaker:I've got my workshop and I do my things.
Speaker:now I'm ready to scale.
Speaker:I do myself and the client a disservice when I'm like, great, and
Speaker:they're not quite there yet because it isn't just because you know,
Speaker:having, a offer that provides value.
Speaker:Fantastic.
Speaker:We all want that to happen, that doesn't.
Speaker:necessarily mean that you are, you know, have foundation to ready to scale.
Speaker:So that has been a struggle for me, when someone comes and they really
Speaker:need a business coach before me.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:no, totally.
Speaker:I've gotten really comfortable with telling people the truth I've done a
Speaker:lot of nervous system and energetic work to be comfortable with the
Speaker:fact that like people may not always like me and like what I have to say.
Speaker:Because I will tell somebody, I'm like, you're not ready to scale, but
Speaker:if you'd like to scale eventually, let's do this work together.
Speaker:This is the work I do, let's do this work.
Speaker:I'm not everyone's favorite person, but I sleep peacefully at night.
Speaker:Well, one of the things people really struggle with is especially when they're
Speaker:doing, highly customized, high level, work one on one work with their clients.
Speaker:It's the thing that their clients really value them for.
Speaker:It's what they're most comfortable with.
Speaker:They control the variables extent.
Speaker:We can control anything.
Speaker:And then when they think about scaling, they look at it as a loss of control.
Speaker:Like, how do you help them address that?
Speaker:Well, That's an interesting one.
Speaker:Thinking of it, to me, that's more of a mindset thing, because it's
Speaker:like, if you're thinking that that's a loss of control, then my question
Speaker:to you is, what do you really want?
Speaker:Because it's absolutely okay to want a business that you control everything.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:Let's do that.
Speaker:Let's build that.
Speaker:But if you actually want to, you now, let's work on the premise that you now
Speaker:understand what scale is and you still say, okay, yeah, I still want to scale.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Well, by definition, you cannot control all the things if
Speaker:you actually want to scale.
Speaker:So it always goes back.
Speaker:And this is why I do, vision work with my clients and business
Speaker:visioning because I always want to be clear as their business coach.
Speaker:We're
Speaker:both on the same page about what they want to build.
Speaker:Some of my clients are, even though it's a scale program, some of my
Speaker:clients are working towards a really consistent 500k a year, doing what
Speaker:they do or doing what they love.
Speaker:I was just talking to a client right before this, as I was driving
Speaker:over here to get on this call.
Speaker:And she was voxering me and I've been bugging her like, What do you want?
Speaker:What do you want?
Speaker:What do you want?
Speaker:What do you want?
Speaker:Because I can't build you your strategy plan if we're both not on the same
Speaker:page about what you really want.
Speaker:And she goes, By golly, I've got it.
Speaker:I want to work three days a week.
Speaker:It's like, awesome.
Speaker:We can build that.
Speaker:But she's not building a scalable model.
Speaker:But she has four kids.
Speaker:And the thought of actually getting to have her very comfortable six
Speaker:figure business doing something she loves and is excellent at and working
Speaker:three days a week is her dream job.
Speaker:That's her dream business.
Speaker:So cool.
Speaker:Let's do that.
Speaker:what it turns out that in her bigger vision, it's not scale and
Speaker:there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker:when somebody doesn't want to release control, like for example, I have
Speaker:a business that I want to scale.
Speaker:I also am the business strategist.
Speaker:And like manager for my husband's business.
Speaker:He has a business that he doesn't really want to scale because he's
Speaker:a little bit of a control freak.
Speaker:So we had to build a very healthy revenue business for him that we both joke,
Speaker:he's had his business longer than me.
Speaker:we know that mine will probably over time scale and grow and surpass him in revenue.
Speaker:Because of his like wanting to control certain variables.
Speaker:And my willingness to like, let the thing grow right now, he makes more
Speaker:revenue than me, but he's had his audience and his business for nine years.
Speaker:And I've had mine just for two.
Speaker:It'll be interesting.
Speaker:What happens in the next.
Speaker:three years,
Speaker:and that will be interesting.
Speaker:Yes,
Speaker:if, who's working less, I wonder as well when it comes.
Speaker:I know because he exactly because he's built a model that's built
Speaker:around him and requires him.
Speaker:he's a professional podcaster.
Speaker:We've created the subscription business model, a high end private community
Speaker:tier, but it requires him to output a certain Caliber of content week over week,
Speaker:Whereas like I am building my methodology into a software because my goal is
Speaker:to kind of remove the gatekeeping on business coaching and democratize
Speaker:who has access to the information.
Speaker:And give it to more people, but it will be a tool that lives without me needing
Speaker:to control the delivery that scale.
Speaker:So, yeah, over time, it will be interesting to see how the seesaw moves.
Speaker:Well, as you mentioned, your methodology and creating a software that, runs it.
Speaker:You bring me to another important topic that we cover here,
Speaker:which is intellectual property.
Speaker:Of course, one of my favorite things to talk about.
Speaker:And so obviously just what we've mentioned, we're talking about
Speaker:your intellectual property, but have you actively thought about it?
Speaker:Or I need to create intellectual property.
Speaker:Or have you gone like, Oh, look at this.
Speaker:I've got some intellectual property or like, how has it
Speaker:played out in your business?
Speaker:I do think the intellectual property is one of the ways you can scale.
Speaker:So I do think that is one of the avenues for scale, but I didn't
Speaker:build out my intellectual property with that in mind necessarily.
Speaker:Originally, I just sat down one day with a big piece of paper and said, okay, after,
Speaker:know, years and years of coaching and 20 years of running or working in businesses.
Speaker:What would I want business owners to know?
Speaker:What would I want them to absolutely know and have in place?
Speaker:And I started drawing this pyramid.
Speaker:And I started putting in order the pieces and the order of growth,
Speaker:the order in which growth happens.
Speaker:What I would want my dream, if a client came to me and said, I'm ready to scale.
Speaker:What I would want them to have in place already.
Speaker:is a clear vision, product-market fit, pricing strategy, profitability,
Speaker:sales projections, sales pipeline, a simple marketing plan.
Speaker:I was like, what are the things that I want them to absolutely have
Speaker:in place so that I can go short?
Speaker:Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker:Let's scale.
Speaker:So I built this like kind of modular thinking thing, this pyramid journey.
Speaker:And then as I started teaching it, I was like, Oh, I made IP.
Speaker:Look at the, look at that.
Speaker:but I do think IP is one of the ways to scale.
Speaker:I didn't go about it because of scale.
Speaker:Originally I was just like, what would I want people to know?
Speaker:What do I really want to hand over to the world and give it to them and give
Speaker:it to the world in a really simple packaged way, as simple as it can be.
Speaker:Cause you and I know it's.
Speaker:not actually simple,
Speaker:And that's how that happened.
Speaker:But now I do teach my clients.
Speaker:Hey, one of the ways you can scale is intellectual property.
Speaker:You might be sitting on your own intellectual property and
Speaker:not know it's unique to you.
Speaker:So that's something to think about.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, here's controversial opinion number two.
Speaker:think intellectual property is required to scale.
Speaker:And that's so if ever you're going to take your expertise out of your head,
Speaker:and Either hand it to another human to deliver, hand it to a book to deliver,
Speaker:hand it to a software program to deliver.
Speaker:Once it comes out of your head and it is available for someone other
Speaker:than you to deliver it, process is in and of itself intellectual property.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:It's not just software.
Speaker:It's not just books.
Speaker:It's not, it is when you have manifested your expertise outside of your head in
Speaker:some way, you have intellectual property.
Speaker:So even with.
Speaker:hiring employees.
Speaker:Like, how are you going to make sure your employees know what to do?
Speaker:how will you delegate any part of your expertise to them if you haven't
Speaker:somehow codified it, created some process, productized it, done something
Speaker:that Somebody else can follow.
Speaker:And so if we want anyone, either some or all of the transformation we provide
Speaker:to our clients, whether it's, from A to Z, or maybe we're only using third
Speaker:parties to do a, the C or from, whatever that portion of it needs to get out of
Speaker:your head into a format that some other.
Speaker:person, place, or thing can deliver.
Speaker:And that is intellectual property.
Speaker:So that's my take on that.
Speaker:how is that controversial?
Speaker:I mean, you know, I'm
Speaker:just, I'm
Speaker:just, I'm like, is this controversial?
Speaker:I think that's just, I think that's just truth.
Speaker:Isn't that true?
Speaker:I mean, I don't know about your, your lawyer, so you know this world more than
Speaker:I do, but I'm like, isn't that just.
Speaker:No, absolutely.
Speaker:What is?
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:That's his truth.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I don't think that's You're absolutely right.
Speaker:I mean, the truth is like This happens with my clients a lot.
Speaker:I teach them so much that they start thinking like me.
Speaker:start thinking in the process.
Speaker:And then I see them making content about the value chain.
Speaker:They call it
Speaker:the conveyor belt, which is what I call it.
Speaker:They're calling it the conveyor belt and think about this like a conveyor belt.
Speaker:And I see them making content in the world.
Speaker:And I have to be like, Hey, boo.
Speaker:I love you.
Speaker:and I'm really like with my clients, I love them so much.
Speaker:I'm like, it's cool.
Speaker:Can you just give me a shout out next you just be like, Oh, my coach
Speaker:Sally taught it to me like this.
Speaker:Because sometimes it happens.
Speaker:It's like I've created I have visuals for all my trainings.
Speaker:I've created several ways to think about each key department I have
Speaker:like, so when people start talking in my language, I'm like, Hey,
Speaker:but that's, yeah, that's
Speaker:great.
Speaker:I mean, to basically leading the conversation about, in a subject area
Speaker:is obviously a fantastic thing to be known as the person who identified,
Speaker:or named a way of doing business, although you now mentioned something.
Speaker:what also I will come across is people who are building their business
Speaker:based on third party materials.
Speaker:it may not be their coach, but it may be certification, it may be,
Speaker:and they don't really own anything.
Speaker:What do you do with those folks?
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, I don't know what the legalities are on this, and you
Speaker:probably know, but do, I think you have to be very, very careful about that.
Speaker:I do know somebody who did this, who built a seven figure business off of,
Speaker:this happened recently in the news.
Speaker:What's that?
Speaker:Beachbody?
Speaker:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like, they had people certified to teach their thing and sell their thing, and
Speaker:people built huge businesses, and then Beachbody decided to change their model.
Speaker:and basically said, you no longer can basically just teach our thing and deliver
Speaker:it and they changed from an MLM model to just an affiliate model, ruined certain
Speaker:people who built seven figure businesses.
Speaker:I know somebody in that space and she's really smart and has a
Speaker:supply chain operations background.
Speaker:So she immediately rebuilt her business.
Speaker:but there's a lot of people who completely lost their business and their revenue
Speaker:and probably don't even know, felt.
Speaker:Kind of screwed.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:By this model, I think that's also why you need your own IP to scale.
Speaker:can't scale on somebody else's.
Speaker:I am a certified mindset coach.
Speaker:I'm certified in somebody else's system.
Speaker:And I recognize if she were ever to change that model or change that
Speaker:certification, or I can no longer teach it, I would have to remove that.
Speaker:I also have a Masters in Theology, so I, out of a lot of my peers in that world.
Speaker:could lose that certification and still be able to teach mindset and this aspect of
Speaker:being and doing and thinking in the world.
Speaker:it's a tricky model if you're building your whole model off of some certification
Speaker:off of somebody else's training.
Speaker:So you want to think about that if that's what you're trying to scale.
Speaker:And
Speaker:for my business, I decided I don't want to create a certification of my methodology
Speaker:because I don't want to deal with that.
Speaker:I'm just gonna let people license the tool.
Speaker:If you want to just use the tool in your business, cool.
Speaker:That's this tier.
Speaker:If you are a coach and you want to license it and you want to use
Speaker:it with all your clients, cool.
Speaker:That's this tier.
Speaker:You can license the tool as long as you like.
Speaker:you can learn from me and choose to learn from me and use my training videos, or
Speaker:use the tool and use it, but like, I don't want to deal with that whole, like, right.
Speaker:Training them, making sure they stay certified and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:That's a lot.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That that's another.
Speaker:Bug for me are people who, they have a process that works and
Speaker:they have someone who says, Hey, I'd like to use your process.
Speaker:Suddenly they want a certification program.
Speaker:It's like, where's the demand or, you know, this whole,
Speaker:this is a whole new business.
Speaker:Like, do you really want to be in this business of trying to
Speaker:attract and continue to improve?
Speaker:And, you know, all these things it's big.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And like, for me, I, I don't know if you see this, but I see people getting
Speaker:certified in systems that aren't original.
Speaker:We're going to really call it out,
Speaker:well, that is interesting because I would imagine that the original
Speaker:system, whoever owns that, would they have given them permission to certify?
Speaker:Let me give you.
Speaker:So an example is.
Speaker:There are, operations certificates, right?
Speaker:You can be certified as a director of operations.
Speaker:Yes, I've seen those.
Speaker:You can be certified as an OBM, an online business manager.
Speaker:that's based on what principles and teachings that have existed in business
Speaker:for, I don't know, a hundred years.
Speaker:So whoever put together that certification put together the
Speaker:concepts of project management.
Speaker:SOPs, time management, team leading, right?
Speaker:Like they put together these concepts, teach them to people, concepts that
Speaker:have existed for a very long, they didn't invent any of those things.
Speaker:They put it together in a system and then go, now you are certified in operations.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The same is happening in mindset, by the way.
Speaker:Mindset principles and teachings have been around for a hundred years.
Speaker:But mine, certified mindset teachers today, their teachings
Speaker:are not things they came up with.
Speaker:They're teachings from books that they've been reading,
Speaker:other life coaching programs.
Speaker:they put together all these teachings, put it in an order, put it in a system
Speaker:and said, this is my certification.
Speaker:But if we're going to be real, real, real, it's not original work.
Speaker:Like you didn't come up with the thought loop in 2020.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:The concept of the thought loop is in like neuroscience, psychology, teaching from,
Speaker:I don't know, the forties, the fifties.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:don't even know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How did you grow rich?
Speaker:That book, like Napoleon Hill, what year was that written in?
Speaker:1920?
Speaker:I believe so.
Speaker:Maybe coming up into public domain pretty soon, if it was ever original,
Speaker:I don't know if it was or not, you bring up an important point that if you
Speaker:want something that you have exclusive rights to, it does need to be original.
Speaker:So if you are just taking, truisms and putting them in a package,
Speaker:Which is also why I wouldn't need
Speaker:the certification in my program, because I'm honest about like,
Speaker:profitability profitability.
Speaker:I just put it in a calculator for you, so that I made it
Speaker:easy for you to figure it out.
Speaker:But I didn't create profitability.
Speaker:I didn't create sales projections.
Speaker:I didn't come up with the concept.
Speaker:I just put it inside a tool that makes it easy to figure out.
Speaker:There's something about that that does, I don't feel right about creating
Speaker:Yes, certification around trainings that have like already existed.
Speaker:I just put it together in this all in one place dashboard and methodology.
Speaker:Makes sense to me.
Speaker:I admire that.
Speaker:And I do think people, when they're thinking about, even with licensing,
Speaker:frankly, that when they Run into, cashflow problems or, you know, that they think
Speaker:if I add this other line of business, that'll help me bring in more cash.
Speaker:that I'm like, oof, that's always, that's when I'm like business coach.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's like, let's really break that down because is that really true?
Speaker:And.
Speaker:It's again, back to the thing we talked about in the very beginning,
Speaker:adding another line of revenue, which might add more work for you to do.
Speaker:Another person you may need to hire more consultants.
Speaker:You may need to hire to make that thing happen again.
Speaker:We just upped our resources to make more money.
Speaker:We didn't solve the cashflow problem.
Speaker:this brings us to, I mean, I think you kind of answered this, like what's
Speaker:happening, what's new on the horizon with your business, which sounds
Speaker:like it is this software platform.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Tell us more about it.
Speaker:So what I did was I ran my program and I say this because steal my
Speaker:method, guys, if you're listening.
Speaker:So what I did was I created this This method, this journey.
Speaker:I ran it as a beta program twice.
Speaker:So I ran it as a beta two and a half years ago at a really reduced rate.
Speaker:in exchange for feedback and testimonials.
Speaker:And then after that, I started upping the price every time I ran a live cohort.
Speaker:and then after that, my goal was to get to a hundred percent satisfaction
Speaker:rate, like a hundred percent of people who actually do the process,
Speaker:get results and make more money.
Speaker:as I was going through this process, I was like, Oh, I have
Speaker:to turn this into software.
Speaker:that was kind of the journey of it, which is.
Speaker:It's mostly because I just want to give it to more people,
Speaker:more freely and more easily.
Speaker:And it's not about joining some live coaching cohort that costs money
Speaker:because it's my time like coach live every time I run the cohort, there's
Speaker:no recordings because I don't.
Speaker:I believe in that.
Speaker:So, that's kind of the journey.
Speaker:So this year will be an interesting year for us because I won't be doing
Speaker:four live cohorts of my program, the Grinnett's Business Accelerator.
Speaker:I'm only going to be doing it two times because on the back end we're
Speaker:developing the software and testing the software with current clients.
Speaker:And then we'll launch evergreen version of going through this methodology.
Speaker:This year.
Speaker:That's fantastic.
Speaker:That is very exciting.
Speaker:Well, where can people find out more about you, about your new, programs coming up?
Speaker:And yeah.
Speaker:I
Speaker:have some really fun stuff coming up.
Speaker:So I do a free round table every month on some different
Speaker:subject around scale and growth.
Speaker:so Instagram.
Speaker:It's celly grows.
Speaker:Business, C E L I, grows, business, or you can find me on LinkedIn
Speaker:or YouTube under that same name.
Speaker:and yeah, come to a round table, come hang out, come learn some things.
Speaker:It's fun.
Speaker:We have fun.
Speaker:Fantastic.
Speaker:Well, I'm sure it will be.
Speaker:And so we will make sure that the links to all of your places to find
Speaker:you and connect with you and find out more are in the show notes.
Speaker:And I thank you very much for joining me today.
Speaker:I think it's been a wonderful conversation and that the
Speaker:audience will get a lot out of it.
Speaker:So thanks so much, Sally.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Thanks for having me.
Speaker:I appreciate your controversial opinions.
Speaker:I've got to work on those.
Speaker:You've got to get spicier for me.
Speaker:Yeah, it's a little more spiced in my controversial opinions.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Thanks again.
Speaker:Yeah.
