Four Businesses Absolutely Crushing It (Featuring Vanessa Lau, Robert Hartwell, Ariel Miller, and Ticora Davis)

This is the Momentum podcast.

Hello and welcome to a very special episode of the Momentum podcast. In this episode, you're going to hear a clip from a recent Charfen summit. In this clip, Alex is interviewing four incredible members of our program, Ariel Miller to Davis, Vanessa Liow and Robert Harwell. These members have implemented our systems and processes into their business and have seen massive growth. Specifically, they're going to share the biggest problems that they were facing in their business and the one thing that they've seen that has made the biggest change for them. There was so much incredible information shared in this panel. So sit back, relax. I hope you enjoy.

I'm Alex Charfen, and this is the momentum podcast made for empire builders, game changers, trailblazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers and creators of all kinds, those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution. Sure, we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny. We define it. We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop. And we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority, the few who are willing to hallucinate. There could be a better future. And instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters, clearly the most important people in the world, because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution and we always will be.

All right, so let's start with so we have an SLR, which, by the way, if you don't follow on YouTube or Instagram, you should she gives a ton of really good information and she's hilarious, like really like sometimes laugh out loud. Funny. We have a Robert Heartwell. Who where's Robert? There he is. Robert Holwell, who runs Haloed Broadway live on one of the most gifted speakers. And my daughter was actually in his program, his shorter program about the extended one. And my wife and I sat there watching Robert and Mike. By the end of the day, we're like, I'm here for it. And we were having so much fun because it was like the most entertaining presentation ever. And so Robert runs this incredible, phenomenal business. And then Aryal million.

Where are you? Where you are am not seeing on the screen like there we are. Perfect. So aerial runs my daughter's school and where they go every day where they just came home from. And so we're going to bring the three of you up and then hopefully we have to kind of join us as well. And the whole point of this panel is we want some interaction here. So we're bringing we specifically selected these members so that they could share the progress that they've made in this program, the the benefits that they've gotten out of this program. But I also want all of you to be both thinking about and then absolutely asking questions. And so I just want to start with quick introductions, the same way we always do introductions here. So, Vanessa, can you please share with everybody the type of company you have, how many team members you have, the revenue that you have right now, and why it is the year in this program?

Yeah. So thanks, Alex, for the amazing introduction. So we join the Charfen program exactly a year ago in August. I think so. We're just over a year. Our business size, we do about two hundred thousand cash collected per month. So our size is a little less than three million a year. But we have seven full time team members and also like some contractors that we typically work with and sorry, Alex, what was the other things you wanted me to answer?

So team members revenue and then why it is that you're in this program?

Oh, yeah. So we were we enrolled in this program because at that point I had actually just hired an operations manager, Alex, who is actually on this call. And tomorrow she's going to be in the panel for the operators. And I personally, as the CEO, had no idea. I had no resources or skills or any type of training that I could give Alex. I also realized that we didn't I was at a point my business where, you know, there was no projects really in place. There was no strategic direction. There's no structure. And up until that point, so many programs that I enrolled in were more about sales and marketing and sales and marketing only brought my business to a certain place. But when it came to hiring, when it came to project management, when it came to so many of these different things that you have to do as a business owner, because I was at that point scaling up, I felt very lost and confused. And so that is exactly why I joined the Charfen program, mainly at first to give Alex the tools that she needed to be an operator for me, but also to access all the resources that would help us scale on an organizational level.

Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you, Vanessa, and I meant the introduction, I don't really, like, follow or watch a lot of people, but you are truly hilarious the way that you walk around with the headphones in. I'm like every time. This is my favorite. So check it out. So I just line everybody up at the top of my screen here. So, Robert, same questions. Can you please introduce yourself?

Yes. It's so good to see you all. I'm Robert Heartwell and the founder and artistic director of the Broadway Collective here in New York City. We have ten full time employees and about one hundred contractors. It's a pretty know we are coaching young students 12 to 18 who want to be on Broadway. So we have a lot of Broadway performers and directors and choreographers that serve as their coaches and their mentors. We get two point four million last year and we'll do three million this year. It's been a really hard year for us because our industry is still shut down. It's a little tricky to, you know, sell coaching programs for an industry that the doors have been closed for 18 months. And so we've had to get really, really creative in our delivery, but also in our marketing. How we talk about our programs. And the reason that we joined the program was I started this like in my kitchen by myself six years ago. And I am I have a BFA, a musical theater, spent 10 years as a Broadway performer. And so I'm pretty active. But there was very much so like Vanessa back in get you. But so far and you really need systems and processes and structure and routine so that predictability becomes like the norm in your business. And that's definitely what we've been able to do with the cadence. So that's that's really why we joined, because there was nothing other than my God leading the company.

No doubt that I'm leading by God is interesting. But, man, there's there's a better way. Thanks for that, Robert Aryal. Same question. So the name of the company number of people revenue and then why you're in this program.

So we have the SkyBridge Academy is our sixth through 12th grade program and then Walbridge is our K through five. We have 15 employees. Our run rate right now is just under one point two million. And I'm in the program, obviously, Alex and Cadey children who are enrolled. But I've been I had platformed this number of students and at about eight thousand annual revenue for a couple of years and wound up getting pretty sick because I had reached the number of students that I could hold space for. And I take this work so personally because it's people's children. We're dealing with the most sacred thing to any parent anywhere. And I didn't know how to grow it beyond me and be healthy, sane individual who slept well at night not thinking, OK, did this child take their medication today, did this. So I Alex by coming into the school one day, said to me, what if you're the thing that's getting in your own way of your company growing? And that was a big aha moment for me. And because I'm I'm really high on the disk profile and whatever the detail oriented one is, I basically have none of that. And so I'm really loathe. I just I'm not a systems person. And the this process is giving me the systems to understand how to put myself out of it. And like, it wasn't even an ego thing. It was just like, who's going to watch the kids as closely as me? And of course, we have people who watch the kids as closely as me. But I just was so wrapped up in the psychology and the emotions of it that I didn't know how to let other people into that kind of warm up air space to grow up. And so now we're at one point, just under one point two, which is interesting because we've already met our goal for the year and we're only like three weeks into the school year. So that's really fun. So I look forward to sharing more about how we got there.

I didn't know that. That's awesome. Congratulations on getting the gold that early, and I'm not surprised like what you're doing in SkyBridge is game changing. So I want to ask a couple of questions and then I want to open this for all of you to ask questions. And please start thinking about what your questions are now. By the way, when you said you couldn't, it's funny that you said whatever the detail oriented is one. It's like so little attention to detail. You can't remember the part of the disprovable. Robert started dying laughing and he typed in the comment for you, I feel Senzo. So I just want you to see each other in the body language was awesome. So I have a question. The first question I like to ask is, if you look back over, say, the last 90 days to six months, what do you feel like is the most important thing you've implemented in your business? What has what has been what has created the biggest shift for you? What has created the biggest momentum for you and who like to start? Because if you're thinking about it, I'll give you a second.

I can go. Listen, this is something that we recently implemented because up until maybe like last quarter, which was not too long ago, we realized that even though we were following the Charfen cadence, there were so many things that we weren't implementing properly almost. So the whole time we're like, yeah, we're doing it, we're doing it. And one thing I love about the waterfall, once you implement it, is it truly reflects back what you're working on in your business. You can see all the projects that are spilling over everything that you've ever canceled, everything that you've ever like, increased scope for. And we got to a place where we've plateaued in revenue and we're like, what the heck is going on? And it was really cool to be able to kind of like, actually not just use the waterfall, but take a step back and analyze it. And from there we were able to see each quarter we try to do like 15 projects per quarter because we felt that each department needed two to three projects.

So we were just like running everything to the ground. We're sitting here wondering, like, why the heck are we plateauing? Why the heck are things spilling over? And the waterfall allowed me to see that another thing, too. And so we clean that up. And so now we're reducing scope for everything. We are just focusing on maybe like one or two projects per quarter. Everyone is so relieved and so much happier since we did that. And it was very cool because when you actually not just use the waterfall, there's a difference between using it day to day, but actually analyzing it, looking back on it, reflecting on it, optimizing it, tweaking it to what works best for your team and your business, because then you're going to have actual feedback to work off of. You know, I'm learning that everything kind of stacks on to each other. And so that's been definitely the most game changing thing is taking that step back to analyze the waterfall instead of just using it. And then secondly, also being more data driven. Because what we were doing is every single quarter we did the five core functions. But the way that we were assessing the five core functions was very feelings based.

Every department advocated for their own function almost. And so that also led us to picking the wrong projects. And even though as a company, we were tracking all of our metrics, the the the big turning point for us was actually reorganizing the metrics to match and to file them under each five core function, which sounds like a no brainer. But we didn't. So it was just like we were already collecting the data, but it just wasn't structured in the way that we could clearly see what was broken. I function before we were structuring our metrics by department, but it wasn't my function. And so that also contributed to why each department had so many projects. So definitely the last six to three, three to six months, just being able to take a step back and assess what's working, what's not. And making those tweaks has definitely been game changing. And you can see the enthusiasm that the team members have, especially after a few quarters of using the key, using the waterfall and having people kind of give their feedback on what's working and what's not.

And then that's I love that. So I want it for all the entrepreneurs in the room who just heard you say you went from 15 projects to two or three and help them get over the anxiety of like, because here's what happens a lot in our systems is that your story is a very common story. We always try to do way too much on the waterfall. How did you let go of not having so much on the waterfall and really having the high level of focus? What was the thought process for you?

My income plateau. And, you know, realizing that none of the projects like we actually were there were so many projects that were being done, but not many projects that were being completed and. Me seeing that the projects that were completed, realizing like, wait, what was the result of this project, like, you know, we were kind of rewarding our team members based off of completion, but not necessarily results. And that was because we had so many projects. So we were just trying to, like, get things done instead of slowing down. Because the last projects you've got, the more time you have to No. One, do it well and no to assess it right after. And so for me, it was like a black and I wouldn't say black and white, but it was to me, it got to the point where, like, there was no other option than to remove the projects because it was very clear. And also hearing team members always talking about spilling over their projects.

Every time we had to talk about the next quarter and we go through the waterfall, we assess each task, each project. I noticed on the waterfall there was more renews. Then they were completed in that told me something. And so that's why I think that the waterfall it's like a paper trail for your business, almost. And so when you get to that place where you're trying to figure out why the heck is nothing working or why the heck isn't my income increasing or why aren't why isn't anything getting done? You can just go back to the waterfall and it'll clearly tell you what why, why, why your situation is the way that it is. Another thing to do that made the decision easier is because when you have these OTAs and when you have this waterfall, it kind of helps your team members advocate for their workload and clearly show you why things aren't working, especially if you layer on the time study. So we don't do time studies often, but we got to a place where we're like, OK, we're hearing a lot of I'm burning out. You know, we're seeing a lot of our news. We're seeing all these things. What is going on? We did the time studies and we could just clearly see the information. The data doesn't lie. And I think that as CEO, if we didn't have the waterfall and we didn't have the OTAs and we didn't have the time studies, I can totally see myself not be able to see the problems as clearly as I do now.

But as he articulated that so well, because not only often the CEOs do we not see the problems, but if we don't have that waterfall as a historical document, that we can go look at it and say, like, by the way, anybody in this group, if you if you feel stuck right now, go look at your last five or six waterfalls and it's going to tell you why. And, you know, oftentimes we don't have a historical document. So in the situation this was in where there's 15 projects and the business isn't growing as CEOs, as entrepreneurs, usually as hired driver personalities, we come in and add more and that the instinct is we need to do more work, not working. We need to do more. It's not working. And it's so hard for us to wire in that sometimes when things aren't working, you have to do way less. I mean, like you just heard of an asset going from 15 projects to two or three. That's a massive that's like a 70, 80 percent reduction in projects, but that's going to be way more productivity. So I really, really appreciate that answer. Vanessa. Same question for you, Robert. And so you look back to the last 90 to 180 days. What's what's had the biggest impact for you?

A lot of it really ties into what Vanessa was sharing. And it came from you, Alex, which was and it's something that you and I have talked about. But you reached out to me and you said, I want you to really lean into leading with neutrality. And for someone that comes from a musical theater background, another thing that you asked me to do was really, you know, you're always asking us to look left. You know, why are your hiring processes currently what they are? Well, I spent ten years going into multiple job interviews every day as an actor, like asking someone, please like me, please accept me, you know? And so I started to realize, oh, this is why I'm super gravitated towards high eyes and our hiring process. Right. Because as a casting director, that's what you would be attracted to, are like, you know, effervescent personalities.

So when you asked me to do that, it. Just little word. My natural instinct, you know, and I just got quieter, and when I did that, you also said just be where you're going to start seeing things and it's going to look real. Your company is going to look really different and you're going to have a lot of feeling. So just get ready, you know? And so I did that and I was like, whoa, I don't like any of this. So I decided to essentially travel the whole summer and it was glorious. And I got away and I reduced pressure and noise. And when I came back, I was like, oh, I know exactly what needs to happen. And this is how it ties into Vanessa. It's that we have five programs that we run throughout the year, you know, summer and person, summer digital and from being away and then coming back and realizing why is the team always so tapped out of resources? It showed me, oh, my gosh. Well, every other month we're launching a program. Every other month we're delivering a program like you're just like constantly running, you know? And I didn't realize it until I got off of the race track and really looked at it neutrally, you know, and while I was away, we had the operations department sit with everyone and go through there for our docs. And that was very illuminating. And from that, I then just said, OK, you really have to now trust what the cadence is showing you. So because of that, we then started to just have redeployments because we really committed to that weekly commitment meeting. Every every Monday, I realized, oh, wow, there are people in manager level positions that are there are more venues are there are more diverse or there is not a level of leadership that I know the organization requires. And so it just made the redeployment conversations so much simpler. I feel like my instinct has also raised as well because of it, because I just said, let's just stay neutral on this book because there is something for us to lean on as far as like the redeployment checklist that's in the cadence of this one, two, three and four, and now requires none of my emotion. It's just this is the process and this is going to help everyone, you know, help everyone in the future. So I would definitely say doing leading from neutrality, that word that you gave me.

The second would be stepping back and then coming back and realizing, hey, look at the four hours. Also really look at how people are showing up or not showing up to the cadence. And if they're not, it then shows me exactly like what you talk about a lot, which is the true believer. And so we've had three people that actually were just redeployed this week, actually. And I haven't slept better like I have. Like, it's like it's just it's so great. And because of it, we now have, like, a very clear picture of how we're going to restructure to one program, but then also the team that's going to be needed to make that happen. Yes. One thing that's so good, Robert Cadey and I also traveled this this summer. We went on like four and a half week road trip and we spent a ton of time out of the office. You know, sometimes when an entrepreneur is having challenges, I'll tell to take a vacation and they think I'm kidding and I'm not. I'm like, get out of the office, get out of the business. Like, let them take care of stuff for a while. This concept of neutrality, can you share a little more from your impression, Robert, what that means and what mindset you approach things with when neutrality? I was going to explain it, but I I'd rather hear you explain it because I think this is something that you've really taken to heart and that it's almost become kind of a mantra for you like it is for me.

To look at facts like this, but look at the facts and really look at the time study to really look at does it match the four hour to really know that my love and my care for someone is absolutely important and I will always like that is who I am. That's the core of who I am. But my job as the CEO is to protect this empathy, because I know that in protecting the empathy, I can then actually be the embodiment of our student centric mission. And the only thing that I am doing is concerning myself with the thoughts and the feelings of the creators of everyone in the company. Yes, that is important. Then I cannot effectively like out. The organization can't carry out its mission. So the moment that I stopped worrying of what is someone on the team going to think if I fire someone, what is going to happen? Actually, if I let that person go do really what they should be doing on this earth so that I can then find someone who then can have an effect on hundreds and thousands of young people like that I can lean into. But I can't lean into that unless I get neutral, you know, so, so good, Robert. We had a question over here like, what is redeployment? It's it's our word for termination. I think termination sounds like you killed someone. We don't kill people. We redeploy them. We redeploy them out of our business so that they can go work somewhere else where they can be successful. And we even have that conversation when we have a redeployment, we say and we redeployed this person. There's nothing wrong with a human being. This was it was just the wrong situation. They're going to go be successful somewhere else. And then as far as this concept of neutrality, I love what you said, Robert. You know, I said this earlier. I think when if you bring too much energy or if you're energetic is to charge to solve a problem, you become the problem. If you're in a meeting with your team and you are energetically overriding what they're feeling or thinking, if you're energetically too vested in what's going on and you're not letting them make decisions, then you're taking the responsibility and you're taking decision making away from that. And so the more neutral you can be as a leader, the more neutral you can show up, the more your team will show up. So I love how you said that. Robert Aryal, same question last 90 to one hundred and eighty days. What has been the big game changer for SkyBridge and Moggridge?

It's definitely been keeping in my mind all the time. How do I take myself out of this and empower the team? When I presented my first waterfall to Diana, the ownership for everything was me. And she said, Well, Aryal, the idea behind this is really to have you not owning anything. And that was so shocking to me. And I had this existential crisis because I was doing our recruiting now on our back to school party, because I said for the first time ever, there's going to be kids and parents whose names, I don't know, Dave, like, I really was like really kind of struggling with the dynamic of that. And he said, well, Aryal, the goal in two years is to have you not know anybody that's coming to this back to school party. And so for me, it's given me permission to think that way and think that that's not selfish.

It's actually really empowering the team. And so these magical things have started showing up since like we have three spots left on the whole campus, like we're full. So the right families are showing up. But also within our team, I really was struggling with well, if I'm opening another campus in two years, which is Davis and my goal whole space, like I hold space because everybody knows that mama bear energy is the most powerful energy in the animal kingdom. And that's the space I hold. And this staff member is having a kind of a reinvention of himself. And I said today a couple of weeks ago, like, it's this person, like this is the person who's going to be taking my piece of this puzzle. And so I sat down with them a couple of weeks ago and said, this is what I'm visioning. And they just like they're on a completely different wavelength now because they feel so seen and I'm enrolling them. We're going to have a staff meeting or a school wide meeting next week. And she and I are going to be doing it together because it's my energetically beginning to turn this mama bear energy over to her because she watches the kids like I watch the kids. And so, you know, I'm just I'm going home and I'm sleeping so well. And on Friday, Dave went home early and 50 kids. And I said, come to me and said Ariel was doing a campaign. Dave is Dave here? And I was just like I went home and I was like, yes, because people kids aren't even asking for me anymore. They're asking for him. Like a year ago, I think that would have actually really pissed me off and I would have been like really hurt by that. But being in this process, I feel so liberated because it's freed up so much mental space to now think about.

Like, yeah, we actually could open a school in two years that could totally kick and not be compromised because I'm feeling so overextended. So everything that I'm doing, I have Dave and Deanna and Alex and Cadey in the back of my mind thinking like, OK, is this role to this person clear and how am I removing myself from this dynamic? And I heard Brent Pohlman say that's a very end of the last event in the summer. This Alex was just speaking to in this like overdrive over chargesheet energy, like I'm going to come in and I'm going to fix everything. And I was operating in that one hundred percent of the time. And now I think I've maybe gotten to 50 percent, like I'm not all the way there. But I'm doing so much better at not letting the staff fix things themselves and not jumping in. And it's not even because it has to be me. It's just I love the work so much and I love the kids so much that I just want what's best for everybody. But now I realize that I'm not that. I don't know, it's best for everybody anymore, like it's like the team together is coming up with that, so I no longer have to hold that space. So I just feel I feel free. I feel like I'm less burdened and so much less physiologically stressed. I'm just much healthier as an individual. So I'm grateful. And I also want to say I feel like I have community and business for the first time ever, like I was really feeling sad and lonely over the Fourth of July weekend. And my husband was out of town and I watched the expert videos all weekend long and I felt so. And since then, I'm doing a trademark with Takura and I have another person I'm reaching out to. I just feel so grateful, like that's the second layer of it to me. Like to be in a business community with people that I feel like I really deeply have something in common with, even though we're not all in Austin or we're not all in St. Louis or not all in San Francisco, we're spread out all over. That has been pretty big for me energetically.

That's huge. I want to draw out something that you said, you said once you started giving these things up, magical things started happening. One of the things that I shared with Rossdale yesterday was the more here's what I said. You will never run out of strategic input to get your business. And I think we all have this fear that if I give up what I'm doing right now, what the heck is going to happen next? And what normally happens is when you give up what you're doing right now, the business fills in around you. And then there's this new strategic level that appears that like it literally appears out of out of nowhere sometimes. And so, Ariel, as you've given things up, what I hear in magical things started happening is that you give the things up and the team around you fills in and the school around you fills in and the business fills in. Is that how it felt?

How? One hundred percent. Yes.

Yeah. I just want everyone to hear that, because as entrepreneurs and as a coach for entrepreneurs, one of the hardest things for me to coach is like stop doing everything and give yourself some space. So to Cora, are you able to talk in it looks like you had to jump in a car. So are you able to just jump in here?

I can can you hear me?

Absolutely, we can actually hear you pretty well. So can you just show them that I want to bring you into this panel. Can you share the name of the company, the size of your team, your annual revenue, and why you're in this program?

Sure. I'm Zachary Davis. I'm the CEO of the creator's law firm. So I have I own a I love to say, a black woman powered law firm. So we do a of what most people come to us for trademarks, but now we are really transitioning into serving multimillion dollar businesses and helping them protect their smarts. And so a lot of it is licensing contract, a high level advisement, strategic type of stuff, general counseling. So I know. And right now this year, it's eight hundred and eighty thousand dollar run rate. Last year was one point two million. And I joined this program because my business exploded last year and I was like, mama help. Like I said, I looked around and I was like, OK, know, all of my other friends are experiencing this massive growth as well. And what consistently continue to happen in my business was I would make mistakes and I would come to, you know, wise company, not wise counsel. And so why if company are people who are like girl. Yeah, I have a terrible accountant, too. Oh yeah.

I made six figures a month to. So they are able to say, yes, I did. This same thing happened to me, but I was like, I really need wise counsel, meaning someone who has a community of people who have been further ahead than me, who can tell me what it is that I don't know, who can help guide me around these issues that I continue to face and just hold me up and and be and I had to hire because, I mean, there was so much wealth that fell into my lap with so many new clients. I was like, oh, my gosh, look at how these people I need to do all these things. And then I'm like, how do I lead this team? Like, it was a team of a couple like to part time workers, one full time person, and now we're a team of ten. And I know the type of environments that I have grown and thrived in. And I knew I wanted to create a loving and nurturing environment that was a serious environment, but also just a place that people really love, come to love to know and work. So that's why I joined. That's why I'm here. And I'm here to say each time that we do these men member panels, I feel like some of the most intense content comes out of this. And I've got a page of notes here from Vanessa, Robert Aryal and Tokura. And thank you, the four of you, so much for sharing and for being so transparent and for revealing the things that we're insecurities that you've gotten over it. And for me, so real, like even being real about the stuff that's in the past that maybe would have been uncomfortable to talk about that. Now, your past, I think it just gives everyone here a vision. What's possible. The four of you are incredibly inspiring. So thank you very much. And let's let's do some jazz hands and some applause. Man, I can't wait to hear applause again in person. Can you write?

Hey there, this is Eddie Kurk with Alex Charfen team, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Momentum podcast. Listen, if you're ready to take the next step, if you're ready to understand the systems and processes and frameworks that we teach entrepreneurs to grow and scale their business with confidence, we're ready to help you. If you go to billionaire Koch Dotcom right now, you can get on a call with a member of our coaching team and find out which one of our coaching programs best fit the needs of your business. Right now, we know that when you are clear on where you're going and you're excited about the outcome, you will put the accelerator pedal to the floor and you won't let up. Let us help you get into momentum, grow and scale your business and make the impact that you've always known. You should go to billionaire coach Dotcom right now to get started. We'll see you there.