Ep 105: How to Scale Your Business Without Burning Out with Celi Arias Transcript

Erin Austin [00:00:00]:

Welcome, everyone, to this week's edition of the Scaling Expertise podcast. Very exciting to have a guest today who will not only talk about how she helps you scale your business, but also dig into the details of how she has scaled her business. So welcome to the podcast, Sally Arias.

Celi Arias [00:00:19]:

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Erin Austin [00:00:21]:

Very excited. We have so much to talk about. You are such a perfect fit for this audience. But before we get started, would you please introduce yourself to the audience and also tell us who you serve and how you serve them?

Celi Arias [00:00:34]:

Yeah, sure. My full name is Maria Celia Arias, which is why people just call me Celi. It's a lot easier. I'm from Argentina. I've been in business since I was 10, basically. I've been building and creating businesses since I was a kid. It was my way, as an immigrant to pay for things that I really wanted to do without having to ask my mom for ballet classes, basically. And I got really into the independence and freedom that came with, oh, I could just start a business and I could pay for that.

Celi Arias [00:01:07]:

I ran my first business all through middle school and high school, and then in my 20s, I got a BFA in modern dance, and then I got another BFA in fashion design, and I started a fashion label that I ran for 10 years. So I've had this experience of making all the mistakes in business. I've done it all. I've made all the mistakes. I've worn all the hats. I've like, everything that you think is a mistake you've made, I'm with you. I've been there, I've done it. I've even been homeless thanks to business mistakes.

Celi Arias [00:01:38]:

Yeah, I've been there. So I'm very, very passionate about helping entrepreneurs really understand business. And the game of business and scaling comes when you really understand the game that you're playing, and then it gets easy, right? So my passion is to hopefully help people not make the mistakes that I made and hopefully condense time. Because a lot of times, if you've ever experienced this, we make a lot of mistakes for many, many years, and then we learn from our mistakes. And it kind of, you know, you can look back and go, okay, it took me 10 years to figure XYZ out. The average business owner, it takes them 10 years to actually get to seven figures. And I'm like, okay, we could condense that time if we just shared our knowledge and shared how it works with people. And that's what I do.

Celi Arias [00:02:25]:

I've been a COO for tech startups. I've worked in corporate. I've worked in my own companies. I've been a head coach for a coaching company and then I created the grown ass business method, which is what I teach my clients so that I empower them to actually understand business, understand how to scale, and understand how to become the CEO of their business without needing me. Ultimately, that's always the goal.

Erin Austin [00:02:45]:

Perfect. Well, I must know what was your first business?

Celi Arias [00:02:48]:

I was an avid reader as a kid and I read the Babysitter's Club series and I remember thinking it was kind of stupid and cheesy, but it did inspire me and I started a babysitting business. And I wasn't just like randomly babysitting. Like I went door to door, sold services, had several regular families that I serviced regularly and I.

Erin Austin [00:03:09]:

Did you have retainers?

Celi Arias [00:03:11]:

I did. There was, well, kind of. I mean there's things that I did then intuitively as a kid that now I'm like, that was really clever. How did I figure that out? But I had two families that I worked for regularly all through middle school and all through high school. So by the time I got my driver's license in high school, I remember one of those families saying, wait a minute, if you're just now getting your driver's license, does that mean I trusted you with my baby when you were 11? I was like, mm, yep, I was a very mature kid. I was not like developed, but I was a very mature kid. And so it was kind of funny. By the time I had a driver's license, I was a full on like full time nanny for one of these families.

Erin Austin [00:03:53]:

That is amazing. I love that story. Well then you are the perfect person. Having made the mistakes and learned from them and grown from them, I would love to hear the story about where you started. And I don't know if the grown ass business is a later iteration of your current business or if you started elsewhere. But what were the pains then and how did you scale it to where you are today?

Celi Arias [00:04:15]:

I went from corporate brand partnerships and sales back to the startup world. I got an MBA after my fashion line thinking I don't know enough. I clearly made mistakes, I just didn't know enough. So I needed an mba, got an mba. And by the way, an MBA is great for climbing the corporate ladder. Not great if you're really an entrepreneur. So I got a corporate job and then went back into startups and I wanted to be the COO of this startup. So I realized in my corporate job I had a conversation, I was in a meeting once actually and my boss kind of Yelled at me in front of everyone.

Celi Arias [00:04:50]:

He said, stop trying to fix the system and just do your job and close sales. And I remember my nerdy brain was like, hmm, fix the system? Is that a thing? Are there like roles where you could just fix the system? Because I'm a fixer, like, that's my thing. I like to fix. I was only good at sales because I like to fix the person's problem in front of me. I'm like, we can fix that. This product will do that. So I started researching and discovered there was a world called operations and discovered that there was this role called coo. And I was like, that would be my dream job.

Celi Arias [00:05:21]:

I worked my way into a startup. They were like, you can't be our coo. You have a lot of things on your resume, but you don't have that. And I was like, I will prove it to you. So I was hired as director of brand partnerships at a tech mental health startup. But I did brand partnerships plus all the things. I restructured the team, I restructured the systems, I did all the things. And six months in I went to the CEO and I was like, I believe I am your coo.

Celi Arias [00:05:46]:

What do you think? But what happened with that business, which happens sometimes in that seat, if you are good at your job, if you are good at being a coo? About two years in, everything was kind of functioning without me. The team was humming. The systems we had built were humming. We had closed a few partnership deals that had us at regular multi seven figure revenue. And the board who were investors in this business had decided they wanted to sell. So there wasn't a focus on growth anymore. They weren't pushing me to grow. They were more pushing me to make pitch decks for buyers.

Celi Arias [00:06:21]:

And I was like, as a fixer, that's really fun. And I was also used to working from 8am to midnight because that's what you do in startups. So when my job kind of got easier on me, I was single in the city and I was like, what do I do with myself? So I started going to like meetups and entrepreneur meetings and creative. I have a lot of creative friends because I have a background in arts. I started advising and coaching on the side for free. I started going to meetups and going, oh, I know how that answer, oh, no, don't do that. Do it like this. I found myself kind of coaching for free on the side and having fun doing it.

Celi Arias [00:06:59]:

And that turned into people kind of asking me the same questions over and over again. And in my brain as A systems person, if you get asked the same question twice, you make a training. If people go, how do I price my hour? This was one I would hear a lot from. Creatives, artists, consultants, small business owners. How do I price my time? I've heard the same question three times. What do you mean you don't know how to figure this out, really? Let me just make a training. So the very first training I created about eight years ago, it was called Calculate youe Worth maybe seven years ago. And it was based off this idea of, I keep getting asked the same question.

Celi Arias [00:07:36]:

Let me just create a training. I didn't know the online business space. I didn't know there was this whole world of people making millions by being course creators or teaching people to be course creators. I just approached this problem from people keep asking me the same question. Let me just make a little training for them and. And present it to them. And that turned into my first online course. And then I kind of found myself in this world of like, what is this world? And how do I sell this? And how do I build a business off of this? And when I was selling my first group course, it was called Smooth Operator, I was talking to a friend and she said, oh, you really think a lot.

Celi Arias [00:08:15]:

Like these guys that I recently met. You should read their book and you should know who they are. And Life is Funny. Kismet is a real thing. I read this book and I thought, oh, that's really interesting. These guys think about business growth and scale via systems. And I'd never met anybody else that thought that way. And it just so happened that right as I read that book, I got on their email list and the founder of that company said they were actually hiring and looking for a head coach.

Celi Arias [00:08:40]:

So I reached out to them, I met them, and I applied.

Erin Austin [00:08:43]:

Wow.

Celi Arias [00:08:43]:

And I went through a really rigorous interview process, very competitive interview process, and eventually became the head coach of a coaching company. So I went from you playing around with something going, what am I doing in life and why am I coaching people for free on the side? Who knows? To like making a little training, going, is this even a thing? I don't know. And making a course and going, what is this world? And could I do it? And then I became a head coach for a coaching company. And I was there for two years, a little over two years. And there were things in that system and in the way that they ran their business that I really wanted to change. And I was the only woman of color in the room and the only woman in the executive Room didn't have much of a voice. And so I was like, okay, I'll go and build it myself. I've done that before.

Celi Arias [00:09:32]:

And that was the birth of the grow ness business method, which was ultimately what I found lacking in their processes was it was all process and systems and tactics oriented. But there's an acknowledgement that mindset's a thing. But there was no support or training around mindset during the time that I was a head coach. I also got certified as a mindset coach because I found that that was something that we were lacking as coaches. And so I wanted to create a methodology that combined strategy tactics, but mindset as well. And how do you marry the two? I think that there's a lot of people who are just strategists or will teach you the tactics and the hard step by step. You just do this. And then there are people who are just mindset coaches and are like, mindset fixes everything.

Celi Arias [00:10:16]:

In my point of view, mindset doesn't fix a broken pricing strategy. Mindset doesn't fix a business model. You need the hard tactics. You need to understand strategy. You need to understand the game of business, and then you need to understand how you. Your mindset will affect the way you play the game.

Erin Austin [00:10:34]:

I have a somewhat controversial question. Yeah, I have a theory.

Celi Arias [00:10:39]:

I love controversial questions. Let's go, Erin.

Erin Austin [00:10:43]:

I have a theory that only women think about mindset issues and that men generally do not. What do you think?

Celi Arias [00:10:52]:

I don't know if they don't think about it. I think their approach to it is just like, oh, yeah, that's a mindset issue. Just push through. I mean, that was the response I got. I think women are more willing to acknowledge that it's a thing, and it's a real thing. I'm fortunate that I'm in a community, I'm in a mastermind with men, and I think the men in that room very much acknowledge the mindset part of business. Absolutely. I would say that's not my experience, but in many, many cultures and communities, I would say the men are aware of it.

Celi Arias [00:11:25]:

It's just that their approach to it is like, oh, yeah, that's just mindset. You just do it anyway. It's almost like the awareness of that's a mindset issue is enough. But as we all know, like, in therapy, awareness of the trauma or awareness of the belief or awareness of the thing doesn't actually heal the thing. That's just step one. I think a lot of men go, oh, yeah, yeah, that's a Mindset thing. Okay, cool.

Erin Austin [00:11:48]:

Feel the fear, do it anyway.

Celi Arias [00:11:50]:

Feel the fear, do it anyway. I mean, that's like a meme everywhere, right? Everyone's posted that meme at some point in time. And I think that's what it is. It's that they go, got it. Feel the fear, do it anyway. And it's like, well, no, there's a reason why you have fear. It's actually a really good thing to work through and not push through. Because when you just push through fear, it will backfire eventually.

Celi Arias [00:12:13]:

So I have many, many thoughts on that. But I think that that's the approach of like, okay, got it. Keep pushing through. It's like, no.

Erin Austin [00:12:23]:

Yeah, let me get your definition of scale. Like it means different things to different people. How do you define scale?

Celi Arias [00:12:29]:

Oh, such a good question. I actually teach this stuff all the time. First of all, a lot of times people think scale is growth. So we need to understand when you're in a growth phase versus a scale. Phase two, not every business can scale. Sorry, not sorry, your bubble. I'm sorry. The truth is, if we think about scale, the word scale comes from the concept economies of scale.

Celi Arias [00:12:56]:

And that has to do with supply chain and manufacturing, and it has to do with I can reduce the cost of goods sold, so I can reduce how much it costs me to produce a thing and make more of them. So when you are a one on one coach or consultant, you can't really scale that in terms of the definition. The actual definition of scale doesn't apply to you because you cannot reduce the cost of goods sold, which is your time and energy. So I find that a lot of times when people come to me and go, oh, you're a scale coach and I need to scale, you probably find this too. I find that people say that to me because they're actually exhausted and burnt out and they're hoping to make more money. They've heard this thing on the interwebs called make more money and work less. That's a piece of scale. That's like a byproduct of scale.

Celi Arias [00:13:50]:

But first of all, is your business model scalable? Because the actual definition is you're spending less money or less resources to output the same product, therefore allowing you to sell more of it without it dwindling your resources. I was teaching this in a class the other day and somebody kind of said, oh, I want to hire more people to sell more products. And I was like, great, that's not scale because you're still spending more money on your resources, which is the people on your team to deliver, to make more money so the scales are still equal. That's not economies of scale. So yeah, that's a really good question. I get asked a lot to come to speak in communities and talk about scale and it's always the first thing I say just to get an idea of where people are in their thinking. It's like, what do you think scale is? Let's start there.

Erin Austin [00:14:42]:

I agree that everyone has a little bit different notion of what it means and that it is interesting that there are, I mean, I think everyone understands that there are unscalable business models, but not that there's this distinction between growth and scale and that, you know, it's not just about earning more money because if your costs go up at the same time, but that there is almost like an inflection point. Like there needs to be a certain foundation required before you can like kind of flip that.

Celi Arias [00:15:17]:

Erin, we're going to be best friends. I mean that's literally what the grown ass business teaches. It's like, okay, so first let's get those foundations in place so that you can grow with ease, so that you can eventually hit that inflection point and then you can scale. I'm like sneakily instilling foundations, solid foundations. And a lot of times I don't use that word in my marketing, for example, because people who are multi six figure revenue, they're like, I have my foundations down. I'm like.

Erin Austin [00:15:52]:

Right, yeah. I will say I am trying to get better frankly at that. People, they need a business coach, honestly before they come to me. But they, you know, okay, I've got my workshop and I do my things now I'm ready to scale. I do myself and the client and disservice when I'm like, great. And they're not quite there yet because it isn't just because, you know, having a offer that provides value, fantastic. We all want that to happen. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you are, you know, have the foundation to ready to scale.

Erin Austin [00:16:27]:

So that has been a struggle for me when someone comes and they really need a business case before me so that.

Celi Arias [00:16:34]:

Yeah, no, totally. I've gotten really comfortable with telling people the truth. I've done a lot of nervous system and energetic work to be comfortable with the fact that like people may not always like me and like what I have to say because I will tell somebody, I'm like, you're not ready to scale, but if you'd like to scale eventually, let's do this work. This is the work I do. Let's do this work. I'm not everyone's favorite person, but I sleep peacefully at night.

Erin Austin [00:16:58]:

Well, one of the things people really struggle with is especially when they're doing highly customized, high level work, one on one work with their clients. It's the thing that their clients really value them for. It's what they're most comfortable with. They control the variables, extent, we can control anything. And then when they think about scaling, they look at it as a loss of control. Like, how do you help them address that?

Celi Arias [00:17:25]:

Well, that's an interesting one. Thinking of it. To me, that's more of a mindset thing because it's like if you're thinking that that's a loss of control, then my question to you is, what do you really want? Because it's absolutely okay to want a business that you control everything. Cool, let's do that, let's build that. But if you actually want to, if you now let's work on the premise that you now understand what scale is and you still say, okay, yeah, I still want to scale.

Erin Austin [00:17:52]:

Okay.

Celi Arias [00:17:53]:

Well, by definition, you cannot control all the things if you actually want to scale. So it always goes back. And this is why I do vision work with my clients and business visioning, because I always want to be clear as their business coach and we're both on the same page about what they want to build. Some of my clients are. Even though it's a scale program, some of my clients are working towards a really consistent 500k a year doing what they do or doing what they love. I was just talking to a client right before this as I was driving over here to get on this call and she was voxering me and I've been bugging her like, what do you want? What do you want? What do you want? What do you want? Because I can't build you your strategy plan if we're both not on the same page about what you really want. She goes, by golly, I've got it. I want to work three days a week.

Celi Arias [00:18:34]:

It's like awesome. We can build that. But she's not building a scalable model. But she has four kids and the thought of actually getting to have her very comfortable six figure business, doing something she loves and is excellent at, and working three days a week is her dream job. It's her dream business. So cool, let's do that. It turns out that in her bigger vision, it's not scale and there's nothing wrong with that. When somebody doesn't want to release Control.

Celi Arias [00:19:02]:

Like, for example, I have a business that I want to scale. I also am the business strategist and manager for my husband's business. He has a business that he doesn't really want to scale because he's a little bit of a control freak. So we had to build a very healthy revenue business for him that we both joke he's had his business longer than me, but we know that mine will probably over time scale and grow and surpass him in revenue because of his wanting to control certain variables and my willingness to, like, let the thing grow. Right now he makes more revenue than me, but he's had his audience and his business for nine years and I've had mine just for two. It'll be interesting what happens in the.

Erin Austin [00:19:46]:

Next three years that will be interesting.

Celi Arias [00:19:50]:

Yes.

Erin Austin [00:19:50]:

If who's working less. I wonder as well when it comes to.

Celi Arias [00:19:54]:

I know because he. Exactly. Because he's built a model that's built around him and requires him. He's a professional podcaster. We've created the subscription business subscription model, a high end deal private community tier, but it requires him to output a certain caliber of content week over week. Whereas I am building my methodology into a software because my goal is to kind of remove the gatekeeping on business coaching and democratize who has access to the information and give it to more people. But it will be a tool that lives without me needing to control the delivery that scale. So yeah, over time it will be interesting to see how the seesaw moves.

Erin Austin [00:20:38]:

Well, as you mentioned, your methodology and creating a software that runs it. You bring me to another important topic that we cover here, which is intellectual property. Of course, one of my favorite things to talk about. And so obviously just what we mentioned, we're talking about your intellectual property, but have you actively thought about it? Or I need to create intellectual property or have you gone like, oh, look at this, I've got some intellectual property, or how has it played out in your business?

Celi Arias [00:21:04]:

I do think that intellectual property is one of the ways you can scale. So I do think that is one of the avenues for scale. But I didn't build out my intellectual property with that in mind necessarily. Originally, I just sat down one day with a big piece of paper and said, okay, after years and years of coaching and 20 years of running or working in businesses, what would I want business owners to know? What would I want them to absolutely know and have in place? And I started drawing this pyramid and I started putting in order the pieces and the order of growth, the order in which growth Happens. What I would want my dream if a client came to me and said, I'm ready to scale, what I would want them to have in place already is a clear vision, product, market, fit, pricing strategy, profitability, sales projections, sales pipeline, a simple marketing plan. I was like, what are the things that I want them to absolutely have in place so that I can go short? Yeah, let's do that. Let's scale. So I built this kind of modular thinking thing, this pyramid journey.

Celi Arias [00:22:05]:

And then as I started teaching it, I was like, oh, I made ip, look at the. Wolfgang, look at that. But I do think IP is one of the ways to scale. So I didn't go about it because of scale originally. I was just like, what would I want people to know? What do I really want to hand over to the world and give it to them and give it to the world in a really simple packaged way, as simple as it can be. Because you and I know it's not actually simple, and that's how that happened. But now I do teach my clients, hey, one of the ways you can scale is intellectual property. You might be sitting on your own intellectual property and not know it's unique to you.

Celi Arias [00:22:39]:

So that's something to think about.

Erin Austin [00:22:41]:

All right, well, here's controversial opinion number two. I think intellectual property is required to scale. And that's if ever you're going to take your expertise out of your head and either hand it to another human to deliver, hand it to a book to deliver, hand it to software program, deliver. Once it comes out of your head and it is available for someone other than you to deliver it, that process is in and of itself, intellectual property.

Celi Arias [00:23:10]:

Absolutely.

Erin Austin [00:23:11]:

It's not just software, it's not just books, it's not just courses. It is when you have manifested your expertise outside of your head in some way, you have intellectual property. So even with hiring employees, like, how are you going to make sure your employees know what to do? How will you delegate any part of your expertise to them if you haven't somehow codified it, created some process, productized it, done something that somebody else can follow? And so if we want anyone, either some or all of the transformation we provide to our clients, whether it's from A to Z, or maybe we're only using third parties to do A to C or from whatever that portion of it needs to get out of your head into a format that some other person, place, or thing can deliver, and that is intellectual property. So that's my take on how is that controversial?

Celi Arias [00:24:09]:

I mean, you know more about I'm just, I'm just, I'm like, is this controversial? I think that's just, I think that's just truth. Aaron, isn't that true? I mean, I don't know about. You're a lawyer, so you know about this world more than I do. But I'm like, isn't that just.

Erin Austin [00:24:22]:

No, Absolutely no.

Celi Arias [00:24:24]:

What is it? Is that's his truth? Yes. I don't think that's. You're absolutely right. I mean, the truth is like this happens with my clients a lot. I teach them so much that they start thinking like me. They start thinking in the process. And then I see them making content about the value chain. They call it the conveyor belt, which is what I call it, Start calling it the conveyor belt and think about this like a conveyor belt.

Celi Arias [00:24:48]:

And I see them making content in the world and I have to be like, hey boo, I love you. And I'm really like with my clients, I love them so much. I'm like, it's cool, you just give me a shout out next time. Like, you just be like, oh, my coach Sally taught it to me like this because sometimes it happens. It's like I've created, I have visuals for all my trainings. I've created several ways to think about each key department. I have like. So when people start talking in my language, I'm like, hey, but that's.

Celi Arias [00:25:19]:

Yeah, that's great.

Erin Austin [00:25:21]:

I mean to basically leading the conversation about in a subject area is obviously a fantastic thing to be known as the person who identified or named a way of doing business. You now mentioned something. What also I will come across is people who are building their business based on third party materials. It may not be their coach, but it may be certification maybe and they don't really own anything. What do you do with those folks?

Celi Arias [00:25:51]:

Yeah, I mean, I don't know what the legalities are on this and you probably know, but I do think you have to be very, very careful about that. I do know somebody who did this, who built a seven figure business off of this. Happened recently in the news. What's that? Beachbody?

Erin Austin [00:26:07]:

Oh, yeah, yeah, right.

Celi Arias [00:26:08]:

Like they had people certified to teach their thing and sell their thing. And people built huge businesses and then Beachbody decided to change their model and basically said, you no longer can basically just teach our thing and deliver it. And they changed from an MLM model to just an affiliate model. Ruined certain people who built seven figure businesses. I know somebody in that space and she's really smart and has a supply chain Operations background. So she immediately rebuilt her business. But there's a lot of people who completely lost their business and their revenue and probably don't even know. Felt kind of screwed.

Erin Austin [00:26:45]:

Yes.

Celi Arias [00:26:46]:

By this model. I think that's also why you need your own IP to scale. Can't scale on somebody else's. I am a certified mindset coach. I'm certified in somebody else's system. And I recognize if she were ever to change that model or change that certification or I can no longer teach it, I would have to remove that. I also have a master's in theology, so I, out of a lot of my peers in that world, could lose that certification and still be able to teach mindset and this aspect of being and doing and thinking in the world, it's a tricky model if you're building your whole model off of some certification off of somebody else's training. So you want to think about that if that's what you're trying to scale.

Celi Arias [00:27:26]:

For my business, I decided I don't want to create a certification of my methodology because I don't want to deal with that. I'm just going to let people license the tool. If you want to just use the tool in your business, cool. That's this tier. If you are a coach and you want to license it and you want to use it with all your clients, cool. That's this tier. You can license the tool as long as you like. You can learn from me and choose to learn from me and use my training videos or use the tool and use it.

Celi Arias [00:27:51]:

But, like, I don't want to deal with that whole, like.

Erin Austin [00:27:54]:

Right. Training them, making sure they stay certified. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That. That's another bug for me. People who, they have a process that works and they have someone who says, hey, I'd like to use your process, Suddenly they want a certification program. It's like, where's the demand? Or, you know, this whole.

Erin Austin [00:28:15]:

This is a whole new business. Like, do you really want to be in this business of trying to attract and continue to improve and, you know, all these things?

Celi Arias [00:28:23]:

It's big. Yeah. And like, for me, I don't know if you see this, but I see people getting certified in systems that aren't original. We're going to really call it out.

Erin Austin [00:28:32]:

Well, that is interesting because I would imagine that the original system, whoever owns that, would they have given them permission to.

Celi Arias [00:28:44]:

Well, let me give you. So an example is there are operations certificates, right. You can be certified as a director of operations. Yes. I've Seen that you can be certified as an obm, an online business manager, but that's based on what principles and teachings that have existed in business for, I don't know, 100 years. So whoever put together that certification, put together the concepts of project management, SOPs, time management, team leading. They put together these concepts, teach them to people. Concepts that have existed for very long.

Celi Arias [00:29:22]:

They didn't invent any of those things. They put it together in a system and then go. Now you are certified in operations.

Erin Austin [00:29:29]:

Yeah.

Celi Arias [00:29:30]:

The same is happening in mindset. By the way, Mindset principles and teachings have been around for a hundred years. The mind certified mindset teachers today, their teachings are not things they came up with their teachings from books that they've been reading, other life coaching programs. They put together all these teachings, put it in an order, put it in a system and said, this is my certification. But if we're going to be real, real, real, it's not original work. You didn't come up with the thought loop in 2020.

Erin Austin [00:30:00]:

Right?

Celi Arias [00:30:00]:

The concept of the thought loop is in like neuroscience, psychology, teaching from, I don't know, the 40s, the 50s, I don't even know.

Erin Austin [00:30:09]:

Right.

Celi Arias [00:30:10]:

Grow rich. That book like Napoleon Hill, what year was that written in? 1920, I believe.

Erin Austin [00:30:15]:

So maybe coming up into public domain pretty soon. If it was ever original. I don't know if it was, was or not. Right. You bring up an important point that if you want something that you have exclusive rights to, it does need to be original. So if you are just taking truisms and putting them in a package you can own.

Celi Arias [00:30:33]:

Which is also why I wouldn't make a certification of my program because I'm honest about like profitability is profitability. I just put it in a calculator for you.

Erin Austin [00:30:43]:

Right.

Celi Arias [00:30:43]:

So then I made it easy for you to figure it out. But I didn't create profitability, I didn't create sales projections. I didn't come up with the concept. I just put it inside a tool and it makes it easy to figure out. There's something about that that does. I don't feel right about creating a certification around trainings that have like already existed. I just put it together in this all in one place. Dashboard and methodology makes sense to me.

Erin Austin [00:31:09]:

I admire that. And I do think people when they're thinking about, even with licensing, frankly at that when they run into cash flow problems or you know, that they think if I add this other line of business that'll help me bring in more cash, that I'm like, oof, that's always. That's when I'm like, business coach.

Celi Arias [00:31:32]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, let's really break that down because is that really true? And it's again, back to the thing we talked about in the very beginning. Adding another line of revenue which might add more work for you to do. Another person you may need to hire, more consultants you may need to hire to make that thing happen again. We just upped our resources to make more money. We didn't solve the cash flow problem.

Erin Austin [00:31:57]:

This brings us to, I mean, I think you kind of answered this like, what's happening? What's new on the horizon with your business? Which sounds like it is this software platform. Tell us more about it.

Celi Arias [00:32:09]:

So what I did was I ran my program and I say this because steal my method. Guys, if you're listening. So what I did was I created this method, this journey. I ran it as a beta program twice. So I ran it as a beta 2 1/2 years ago at a really reduced rate in exchange for feedback and testimonials. And then after that I started upping the price every time I ran a live cohort. And then after that my goal was to get to 100% satisfaction rate, like 100% of people who actually do the process, get results and make more money. As I was going through this process, I was like, oh, I have to turn this into software.

Celi Arias [00:32:46]:

That was kind of the journey of it, which is mostly because I just want to give it to more people more freely and more easily. And it's not about joining some live coaching cohort that costs money because it's my time. I coach live every time I run the cohort. There's no recordings because I don't believe in that. So that's kind of the journey. So this year will be an interesting year for us because I won't be doing four live cohorts of my program, the Grown Ass Business Business Accelerator. I'm only going to be doing it two times because on the back end we're developing the software and testing the software with current clients and then we'll launch the evergreen version of going through this methodology this year.

Erin Austin [00:33:26]:

Fantastic. That is very exciting. Well, where can people find out more about you, about your new programs coming up? And yeah, and connect.

Celi Arias [00:33:36]:

I have some really fun stuff coming up. So I do a free roundtable every month on some different subject around scale and growth. So you can find me on Instagram, it's celigrows Business C E L I grows business. Or you can find me on LinkedIn or YouTube under that same name. And yeah, come to a roundtable. Come hang out, come learn some things. It's fun. We have fun.

Erin Austin [00:34:00]:

Fantastic. Well, I'm sure it will be. And so we will make sure that the links to all of your places to find you and connect with you and find out more are in the show notes. And I thank you very much for joining me today. I think it's been a wonderful conversation and that the audience will get a lot out of it. So thank you so much, Sally.

Celi Arias [00:34:18]:

Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate your controversial opinions.

Erin Austin [00:34:24]:

I'm gonna work on those.

Celi Arias [00:34:26]:

You gotta get spicy.

Erin Austin [00:34:28]:

Yes. A little more spiced in my controversial opinion. All right. Thanks again.

Celi Arias [00:34:34]:

Yeah.