Growing your company, starting your company, and overcoming growth blockers

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer podcast where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well hello and welcome back. We are continuing a season of interviews and we are starting a new interview today with Biate Chalet, the growth architect. It's a little easier to say than her name. And we're going to talk about growing your company. We're going to talk about starting your company. We're going to talk about all those reasons why maybe you don't want to take that leap, but why you should take that leap anyways. But I want to get right into our conversation. So let's start our conversation off. Well today we are speaking with Biate Chalet. We are going to be talking with her about growth blockers and growing your business because we spent a lot of time talking about sort of that first step of things like what's your idea? How do you convert that? How do you go out there and start building an audience and building your customer base, all those kinds of things. But now this is somebody's going to sort of bring it back to distill it into an idea that you can take some steps and say, what am I doing? What am I maybe doing wrong? What am I doing right? How do I take that next step and actually find a way to turn my all my hard work and energy into a product that's actually, you know, other people are buying and that they get to benefit from it. So without any further ado, I'm going to throw it to you. And if you could introduce us, tell us a little bit about yourself and then we'll get going on this. Yeah, sounds great. Yeah. So my name is Biate Chalet. I'm known as the growth architect to work with a lot of visionaries, thought leaders. I work with a lot of people that don't always fit the normal mold. And I help them to come up with the strategies, the workflows, the processes and value propositions so that they can grow their authority and scale their impact. And I come from the creative industry where I have been, we have worked with a lot of very colorful people and I like helping people land planes because I find a lot of people and then they don't know how to actually land the plane. And I do love technology. I feel that we have to really understand and how we can make technology useful. And I work with companies from Amazon all the way to small entrepreneurs, solopreneurs that want to build their business, have a brilliant idea. Because to me, there's always two things when people come to me for and that is number one, Rob, is they come to me because they want to grow their business and they need a strategy to figure out how to do that. Or they've grown so rapidly that they're now going, holy smokes, I need my freedom back. How do I how do I create a strategy, a system for that so that I don't have to work 100 hours a week so I don't have to work 40? I think that's everybody's that's one of those things. It's almost an untold challenge that happens with a lot of entrepreneurs. I don't know how many times we've talked to people that have been very successful. And you can see those stories, they're highly successful and they're basically handcuffed by their success, by their businesses. They build it and they don't do it in a way that they're intentional enough that they have a way to step back. There's a point where you've sort of created your own Frankenstein's monster, basically, that this thing needs you. And those are the you know, that's kind of words you'll say. And it's like, I can't leave this because it's going to fall apart. It's it's not going to survive if I'm not here. So I think that's a that is a critical step to take with with any business. And so actually sort of starting at that point, is there because as you said, a lot of times people get to that point and they say, hey, you know, I'm stuck. I need to get out of this. I need to actually be able to breathe. Are there some things that you do for the first part where people are trying to grow their business? Maybe some suggestions, some suggestions. So they don't end up coming back to you and saying, hey, wait a minute. Now we grew it too much. Yeah, I like the way you formulated this question, because the idea always is about Rob, that you can build a business model that is specific to you. And oftentimes people are really shocked and they because they go, well, I'm in it. And then this happened. And then I thought that might be a good idea. And then I did that. And then they're in a business that is not suiting their personality or their temper. And I'm going to give you some examples so people understand what I'm talking about. So, for example, when you go into lead generation and growing your business, there are many ways to do this. So you could be, you know, podcasting like what we are doing. You could be a public speaker. Now, when you are a public speaker, you have to remember that sounds very glamorous. But if you speak for an hour in New York, you live in Los Angeles. You have to fly there for a full day. You have to stay in a hotel overnight. You have a jet lag. You need to then they have you be the first speaker in the morning at 8 a.m. That's five o'clock your time. You're going to be complete mush when you get up. You got to be at your very best. And then you're going to fly back to Los Angeles. And then you still have to do your business. Are you working on the plane? You're overtired. Now do that 200 times a year. And yeah, you make money with speaking, but you don't have a life again. So so think about on whether or not what the consequence is of the choices that you make and whether that suits you or not. I love speaking. But the problem with speaking was that you're on the road all the time and then you and then you get burned out. So then the business model for lead generation would not include public speaking, or it would include only public speaking if it is within, you know, your local area. Or you say, I do this within a three hour driving radius. So then you have a clear outline on how you would do that. So that then fits into your business model. The other thing is, for example, there are people that have a different bio rhythm, so they're not good in the morning. So now if you are again, let's say if you are in. How why, right, which is the last state is like five hours behind New York, and now you pick clients in New York, you just completely screwed yourself because you will be up every morning at four o'clock to service your clients in New York. So that would then not be a smart business model because then you get to live where you want to live and you get to do work, you know, where the work is. But now you're in perpetual misery because you're always getting up early because the business demands it. But it was you who set this thing up. So then then the question always is, is like, how does this need to be set up for you for you to work? So. Same thing with a family, if you have children that are, you know, let's say five, seven, ten years old and they still think you're the greatest person on the planet. This is the time where you build the foundation for the relationship that they still want to talk to you when they're 18. Because if you screw this part up, there isn't going to be another fun part later, because then you have all this family trauma and you never did this and you never were home and you never paid any attention to me. So if that's what you want or you say, well, the business demanded it, then again, it's a business model that doesn't work for you. So then your business model needs to include on Wednesday nights. I booked myself out. I go in my calendar. I booked myself out after four o'clock. That's family time. You know, if your wife leaves you because you are miserable and grumpy or your husband leaves you because you're miserable and grumpy, because you're always working and because you're married to your business. And that's not going to help you either, because then you have to do a whole set of everything again. You know, you've got to go back out date again. You've got to pay through the gazoo for the divorce. Your kids going to hate you. I mean, so you want to really get very clear about as you're building this model, what matters to me, there is nobody out there who forces you to say you must be in a slave relationship to your business because that's not the way it's supposed to be. And now what's interesting in the mindset part of things, if you actually, you know, step into the passion of the business, your chances that you having fun and being passionate about your work probably produces better results as you being miserable all the time and burned out. There's a lot there. I want basically that in that little description, because we're definitely going to come back to that. But I do want to step back to what you said. Somebody said early on, as you say, one of the things you do, you work with people that are with a lot of organizations are not sort of that common mold. They're all different that are trying to start out and how they get and grow their business. What is it that what makes that? What is the common mold versus the non-common mold there? Because it sounds like that may be a little bit of touching into what you just what you just touched on and some of the things that you know, some of those points you brought up. Yeah, I mean, I look at this from the perspective, if you look at our educational system, so it's designed to say there's existing information. If you learn existing information, you regurgitate existing information, you get an A. Now you go to college and they say there's existing information. If you remember existing information and you can regurgitate it, you get an A. And then you go in the real world and people say, but what it's really about is for you to think outside the box and you go WTF, what? Oh, wait, what? Nobody ever talked about that. The teachers said, don't talk too much. The teachers said, sit down. They said, do your work. Have you studied enough? Why did you not get an A? Can't you not? Can you not remember what we told you? And now they go, forget all of that. And now we want to hear what you, you and you only can bring to the table. And you go, it's just that's completely not what what I've been taught the entire time. And so I work with people a lot of times who probably had in their report, cut speaks too much or interrupts class or people that that understand that there is a that the real sweet stuff happens when. You learn that the existing information and the regurgitating of information keeps you at the status quo. Now, mind you, the whole system in America and the world is set up like that. I mean, that's how the political system is set up. They give you bread and games and then you're happy and you don't ever want more. But ever so often, somebody breaks out and says, that doesn't work for me. So probably a lot of the people that listening to the show go, well, I work for the man to some extent or have worked for the man to some extent. And I'm realizing that I probably can make as much, if not more money, if I'm on my on my own and I probably can have a better life, more vacation. And, you know, I don't have to put up with the stupid stuff that everybody else is doing if I do this on my own. So that shows me that, you know, now you're starting to wanting to break out of the mold because that mold doesn't fit you anymore. But there is very little information that shows you how to break out of a mold, because anybody goes like, don't go there. You can't jeopardize your family. You know, you need the income. Have you thought about the health insurance? You can't lose your benefits. What about the paid vacation? What two weeks paid vacation? Seriously, when I can set this up, so I have six weeks of vacation that the business can pay for. Or eight weeks or maybe I live off the boat. I mean, so. The breaking out of the mold or the recognition of what works for me is very difficult because our structure, the business structure, the old business code does not encourage you to do it, nor does it want you to do it. Because then it makes it much more difficult for them to say you should be very happy. You have a job, show up for work, do your job. You get a paycheck. We need you really a lot. And you're very valuable until something changes. And then we go like, oops, sorry, just kidding. Economy slowed down. Now we have to lay you off. Now it's suddenly all meaningless. So there really is no safety in jobs anyway. So the objective is that you need to think about how serious you want to take this. Integrating the freedom, because true freedom is to say, I know who I am, I know what I like, I know who I can help. And that's what I'm stepping into doing. So I don't know if I answered your question. I think I went on a little bit of a tangent here, but I'm really passionate about this. But shows and no, but that's good. And it does. The interesting thing is it seems like you're you're then hitting people that are sort of in a almost double minded because you have these people that are they're they're entrepreneurs. So by nature, like you said, this is like a lot of people in audience where it's I'm working for, you know, the man. But I know I can do better or I see where I can potentially do better. So they take that step. An entrepreneur is always going to start with that step of I can go outside of the box. I mean, maybe some can do it, but or maybe they're holding onto the box while they're doing it, but they're they're getting out because they're saying I can do it differently. And so as you get into that, why? And this you may not know, maybe this is part of what you're working through, but it's why is there then that challenge that they step out of the box to create that new product, that new idea, that new service and then almost immediately are challenged by. But I've got to do it the way everybody else does. That is because we you know, that's where the mindset or the psychological part of of neurolinguistic programming comes in. There's real psychology and science behind this. So we have to remember that by the time we seven years old, we, you know, that's when we start thinking for ourselves. So all the indoctrination of our parents have been brought into our life, not from us, but from the belief system of our parents. So if our parents had a scarcity or safety thinking and whatever they went through, that's now yours. And you probably, you know, if you're listening again to this podcast, then you probably go like, well, to some extent, I recognize that mom and dad had their limitations because you look at this and I look at my my mom and go like, well, that really didn't work out so well for you, did it? And I, you know, and I look at my dad, you know, who passed away many years ago. And I'm going like, well, that didn't really work out so well for him either. So you you go, wait, what? So you told me all of this in the in the in the conviction that that story is true, but a, you didn't live it or B, you didn't live it successfully or C, you got a pretty bad beating living that way. And you're still telling me that that's the way I should go. So there's this conflict. And this conflict is called a double binding message. So you have this inner belief system that tells you you can be more. You have this belief system. I want to be more. And then there's your old belief system. You know, I always compare it to an original programming. Like if I have the original Mac, right. What was it? 256 megs of space. So I can't put a disk in there. I can put a video game on that computer. It's the old operating system. So there's only this much you can do with an operating system. So unless I would find a workaround to utilize this machine in some sort and put, you know, external drives and workarounds and all kinds and rebuilt a whole new thing, this thing won't work. So you have to think about this as your abilities from the perspective of my operating system that I've been that I'm running is one point. Oh. But I need to be running on five point all to be a successful business owner. So what are the steps from one point to five point? Oh, for me to step into who I'm meant to be to lose the fear that I'm failing, which is really what everybody's afraid of, or, you know, it's also called the imposter syndrome. And how do I how do I convince myself that what I'm doing right now, that somebody obviously already pays me money for and things I'm valuable that that that I can do for myself. So if somebody pays me, let's say, in a technology, you know, I mean, a lot of the money that's being paid is just insane. I mean, people make what five hundred thousand dollars, six hundred thousand dollars at some of the programming at Google and these places. So if somebody already pays you a half a million. Then you're already worth a half a million. So why would you not be able to go out in the marketplace and repeat that? And so it doesn't even logically make any sense because you're already getting this money right now. So if you're getting this money right now, you already have that value, already proven this to yourself. But now they go out in the real world and they go like, I don't know if I can charge that much, but you already charge that much. And so that's the double binding message that this constant like. This grind in your head that tries to pull you back to. Safety, and that's what you have to break through to come out on the other side. So how does that? And I know we're bouncing a little bit, but I want to get some of the foundational stuff. So how does that apply as a as a growth architect? How do you look at that? I mean, there's everybody is that's actually trying. I don't think I've seen very often as people talk about growth or they're they help businesses grow, but actually adding that title of architect seems to imply something. So what makes that what makes you a growth architect or the growth architect? Thank you. Yeah. Let's just refer to me as the growth architect. I think that's way better. You know, it's like somebody once said to me, why don't you just go by your first name, you know, like Oprah? It would be Beate. And I said, well, the problem is, if you Google that name, you know, there is somebody in Germany who has a business that let's just say would not be beneficial to my business. And so the growth architect is way better than that. So the entire idea of growth architecture came came from that I'm looking at. How do we build something from the ground up? And so when we build something from the ground up, there's a foundation. And the foundation is non-negotiable. Like we've seen this in hurricanes, we've seen this in floods. We've seen this with everything. If a house build is built on sand, you can look as good as you want. It's not going to work. We've seen in Los Angeles, you build a house on sand. Even you put cement down the minute there's an earthquake, it becomes liquid. And it means nothing. So you have to understand where you are and what you're building and then build the foundation based up on that. Once you have a foundation and you build a house, it's probably going to be four cornerstones. Right. So what are these cornerstones? And then you need to and then you need to figure out how am I going to be building this house? Which way am I going to face? Am I going to want, you know, am I going to want this? Am I going to want this? Do I want to be in a tropical climate? Do I want to be in New York? Where do I want to be? So you always have to make many, many decisions when you're building something. All these micro decisions and business building is very much like that. So as a growth architect, I help people to figure out which pieces that they need to build the house. And, you know, we'll probably talk about the five star success blueprint in a minute. How do you how do you want to build the framework for this? And then once we've built the framework, I don't care if you paint your walls blue or green or yellow. I don't care if you have a big, you know, two people bathtub or a small one or just a shower. That's irrelevant. Those are the details. But the architecture of what are we building? How many people does this house have to accommodate? Am I going to build this house with space to grow? Am I going to build this house just for me? Am I going to build this house to sell? Because then I'm going to not spare a dime on the fixtures. Then I'm going to make this the best house possible as I build it, because I want somebody else to see the value in it, because then it does make a difference on what I put, you know, what fixtures I put in and what kind of doors I'm using and what kind of toilets and other things I'm putting into the house. So these are all decisions people don't think about when they architect their business, because nobody's ever taught them that. So that's what I do is I say, well, what are we building? You know, I just started coaching a group, little side story here. And and I have a reputation as being very direct and no no BS. And then they said to me, well, we've been waiting for you to be, you know, tougher on us, but you haven't. And I said, how am I going to be tough on you? We don't even you haven't even told me what you're building. How can I hold you responsible and accountable for something you haven't told me that you want to do? Oh, OK. I said, so that's why the first step is I'm telling you, what is it that you want? And then there's blank stares. And they say, well, I want my business to make money. And I said, well, how much and what for? Why? Well, because we are part of this organization and we need to make a million dollars. I said, OK, but why do you want that? Well, and now we're getting to the the part of why this really matters. So so that's I think really important is for you to understand why does this even matter to you? I have people that say all I want is I want to make two hundred fifty thousand dollars, replace my income and and work four days a week so I can spend time with my family because they're 12 and 13. I know there's only a couple of years left. This is enough for my lifestyle right now to get through this. And then once the kids are gone to college, then I'm going to turn up the heat. That's the plan. That's something we can do. But don't go into this and just like. React to what's happening without the plan. You need the plan first. And that will do it. Yes, we paused right in the middle of a multipoint discussion, but we will come back. We'll talk about that next time around. And we're going to continue. I think you've seen that Biaté is a very passionate person as far as what we're talking about about this topic. And so it continues to be interesting as we get into the next episode as well. We're going to talk a little bit more about some of the things that you can do to help your company grow or help you grow into a company. But that being said, it's time to go out and do whatever it is to actually shrink your to do list today and go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week. And we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success. Hi, this is Rob from Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast. We're excited to be on Alexa now. You can enable us by simply saying Alexa, enable Building Better Developers. And we will be there ready for you every time you want to listen to your now favorite podcast, whether we are your favorite podcast or not. We would love to hear from you. So please leave a review on Amazon.