The Secret to Scaling Your Creator Business Without Burning Out with Caleb Wojcik

Dustin: [00:00:00] What is the next right system that's holding you back from scaling your business? I have one of the world's best experts to answer that question with me today and someone who I really admire, someone I've gotten to know really well recently, who I feel like I've known for a long time. His name's Caleb Logic, and Caleb and I, , actually encountered each other last year at Craft and Commerce in Boise, Idaho.
Very quickly after a dinner, and it led to a follow-up text which led to a conversation which has led to a burgeoning friendship and, , someone I really respect and have gotten to know on a much more personal basis. So, Caleb, I know we have a ton to unpack. You have an amazing story. You have a lot to teach us.
So I want to kind of get us going, hand the mic over to you and just give us a taste of your entrepreneurial story and then we'll, double tap into the places that we need to give the audience more value.
Caleb: Sounds good. Yeah. I think, you know, going all the way back to when I was a kid, my dad was an entrepreneur. He played music, he was a photographer. , We lived in northern Michigan, which is very seasonal, you know, it's nice in the summer and tours. Come up and then the winter there's like nothing. So he had [00:01:00] like different businesses where he played music in the summer and do photography in the winter.
And honestly, I saw the ups and downs of that and I didn't really want to be an entrepreneur. You know, this is early internet days. There is not social media. , And I just saw the ups and downs of busy seasons and not, and financial, turmoil of being an entrepreneur in the services business like he was.
So I went to college and basically worked hard to have a perfect resume where I would get a traditional job at a Fortune 100 company and could, you know, ride it out until, you know, retirement and , that sort of thing. But I graduated in 2008 and within a couple months of graduating college, there was a global recession essentially.
And so my first job outta college was at the Boeing Company and. I worked in finance and I had spreadsheets that were literally every department at the factory. I worked at having to reduce head count, , in like the next few months because Boeing was laying off like 10 or 15,000 people, , across the company.
And immediately it was like what I thought was gonna be [00:02:00] the plan for me, it was like, oh, these companies actually don't take care of you the way that I thought they did. You know, at any moment someone at the top can just be like, we need to reduce 7% of the company and they'll just have to go figure it out.
So. That kind of kickstarted me into like, oh, I need to start learning how to be an entrepreneur. I like swung all the way back to the other side of things. , Started reading books about it, you know, four Hour Work Week, a bunch of personal finance and entrepreneurship blogs at the time were popular podcasts were, you know, just kind of getting started.
And that was where I first heard of Pat Flynn, A Smart Passive Income. And I listened to an episode of his podcast that Corbit Barr was on who ran a website called Think Traffic. You know, fast forward a few months later, I bought a product from Corbett. Fast forward another like nine months, I left my job at Boeing to go work for him full-time.
So I quit my corporate job with benefits and everything to go work for a blogger, essentially in 2011. , Which was, , definitely a risk. I waited till like my student loans were paid off. , I got my MBA while I was at Boeing, and they paid for 75% of it. This is [00:03:00] like a risk I took right when I got married.
So my wife was on board with it and everything, but , looking back my parents were probably like, what are you doing? So, I spent, few years there and kinda learned from someone doing it full-time, essentially, I.
Dustin: That's cool. I think you're the first person I've ever interviewed who pointed to their parent, who was a creative entrepreneur. You know, like he, he was a musician and a photographer and then they're like, I don't want to do that. , That's actually really refreshing. 'cause most of us, and most of the people I interview are like.
Add to nine to five, you know, corporate and golden handcuffs. I wanted to go like strike out on my own. , Or they ran a shop. It was fun. I worked there my whole childhood and I knew I wanted to follow in those footsteps. It's really fun to kind of hear that in the seasonal Northern Michigan environment, you're kinda like.
I don't want my dad's existence. , And so you go take the quote unquote safe path, get outta college in a financial crisis, and your first job is basically doing all the math to lay off, you know, 10,000, 15,000 people from a company that
everyone thought they were gonna retire from. And so, yeah, we have a lot of commonalities.
I don't need to, hit on all [00:04:00] of 'em, but obviously, you know, we just had an interview with Pat, go live on this podcast, and I encountered him about the same time you did. , And then the thing you did with Corbet, was that fizzle or did that become fizzle?
Caleb: it became fizzle. Yeah. So at the time he had a website called Think Traffic, and then we started another one called Expert Enough. Then we brought on Chase Reeves as a part of the team and eventually launched Fizzle, , which was a. Online entrepreneurial membership. It had courses, forums, things like that.
It was pretty kind of early for that model. Now, you know, it's a very similar model we have now at Smart Passive Income where you pay, you know, membership access to get the library of courses and exclusive, access to other people. So, that's what that eventually became in 2013.
Dustin: Okay. Awesome. I was a fizzler as they were called, and I listened to the podcast and had a lot of fond memories of those guys. , and you kind of got to know you, even though you didn't know me of. being known when someone doesn't know you. All right. So that's kinda gets you up to 2013.
So now you're a full-time entrepreneur, young, married, , wife was supportive of this, but you had, you know, kind of [00:05:00] given up the corporate, identity and moved over into entrepreneurship with some partners, right? So it sounds like it is a partnership. take us, we don't have to go through every year in chronological order, but I know there's a chapter here where you're like, full time videography business.
And then obviously we'll get into Switch pod and the role that you have at SBI today. But yeah, kind of bridge that gap and we'll, spend most of our time talking about today and moving forward with, , all the things that you've learned and all the things you have to teach.
Caleb: Yeah, so by 2014 or so, I had developed a lot of video production skills when I was working with Corbett and at Fizzle we, put a lot of energy and effort into high quality courses, high quality. Interviews with entrepreneurs and I really kind of dove into learning how to do that. It was much harder back then tool-wise, you know, like cameras didn't even autofocus on faces and things are more expensive and phones weren't at the quality that they are today.
And I felt like I loved that part enough that that was all I really wanted to do. And so I left [00:06:00] working with Corbett in the fall of 2014. Start up a video production company and I started to work with a lot of the entrepreneurs and startups in the what we now call the Creator Economy. Back then it wasn't, called that, but just a lot of online entrepreneurs, bloggers, people that were wanting to make courses, launch videos, they were having conferences in person stuff. And so that was my bread and butter for a good 10 years was Working with authors on courses, people teaching things. I did videos on everything from watercolor painting and , like authors doing books to like teaching podcasting or personal finance or whatever else. So I. I did about 2 million in revenue with my camera, essentially, of like client projects over that 10 year period.
, But I had, small team from time to time. You know, I'd had multiple people show up to film, had an editor almost full-time for seven or eight of those years as well, and. I would do digital products on the side [00:07:00] of my own. You know, I would review camera gear that I would get, I would teach people how to edit in Premier Pro.
And so I, I was balancing this client work and I was doing a digital business kind of concurrently for that timeframe. And then about halfway through that 10 years, pat and I read a video conference and came up with the idea for Switch Pod, which is a tripod that is handheld and collapses on itself. And so that was another like.
Five, six year journey over the past as well of launching that on Kickstarter and going to China, the factories and handling, you know, fulfillment and making new products and things like that. So I've kinda had my hands in client business, digital business with more like affiliate and ad and course revenue and doing physical product stuff.
Dustin: So cool about your story and what gives you such perspective to answer that opening question, , about like what's the right next step or the right next system for the listener to scale. Because yeah, you've had a corporate job, you've had a partnership with Fizzle, had your own, , videography business, [00:08:00] and then on the side of that you were doing sort of the digital affiliate YouTube review thing, and now you've got a physical product, which as someone who's had a physical product.
It's a whole different bear. It's a whole different world. , And then so that switch pod, so just to spend a minute on that, because that's unique, like most people don't have a physical product. , Kinda like, how's that doing today? Pat talked a
little bit about the Kickstarter campaign and, figuring out how to get this thing built.
, But it's still a, thing. And then you and him are still partners in it, right?
Caleb: Correct. Yeah. So we kick started it at the beginning of 2019 and then. Honestly due to COVID and stuff, we had strong 2020 and 2021. 'cause a lot of people had additional money to, you know, invest in their home. You know, recording setups and you know, virtual meetings and you know, YouTube and everything else.
, And then it kind of tapered off after that essentially. , But I think Pat and I have both come to the understanding that like. We don't want to be solely physical product business owners and development. And we've [00:09:00] learned the, gamble and the risk that doing that entails essentially of placing big orders, having unforeseen things like tariffs that impact your business heavily.
You know, like before we got one of our first big shipments, there was an original round of tariffs, in the first Trump administration. So not to like get too political, but there's like stuff outta your control where the stuff is literally already on the boat heading over from another country and something outta your control politically makes it cost more cuts into your margins.
And so having done digital businesses with higher profit margins and client businesses with higher profit margins, the physical business is just different. It's just different kind of scale needed to be as profitable
Dustin: Or into the whole retail wholesale model.
Caleb: We've done retail as well. We are on a few online retailers, like camera ones related to it, you know, like b and h and places like that. But you know, we tried to go down to through the brick and mortar as well, but we were timing it right when [00:10:00] COVID where a lot of 'em tightened up. like we were in Best Buy, they were out of Best Buy, but like you couldn't even shop in a Best Buy at the time.
So it was like. there's just different, you know, timing things that are involved with that as well.
Dustin: People that haven't experienced this, but have a really hard time appreciating it. You know, like as someone who's sold meat sticks in a time when there was a beef shortage, you know, it's like, I don't control the beef
shortage, I don't control all this weird stuff. And I have a client right now who does like, she's in the like.
Gift industry and like trained sales reps for trade shows. Well, I mean, completely annihilated with the tariff situation, right? It has. She's like the third order effect from it. But she's losing consulting contracts with companies who can no longer pay her 'cause they have to pay 140% for something that was, that left the port 10 days ago.
You know? So anyway, we won't have to. Kinda like you entered your professional career in, in 2008. You know, you got like all this uncertainty in the financial crisis and that just is like always gonna happen, right? Like, there's always something you may or may not be affected by it. I think in a physical product business, you're more likely to be [00:11:00] affected by it, right?
Than, , information or a, a coaching type of business that we mostly focus on. But really important onto that chapter is obviously you created a. Even tighter relationship with Pat and has led you, and I don't wanna skip any steps, so feel free to fill in the gaps, but I know as of basically a year ago you came on board
at SPI as a full-time team member, and now you're the CEO of SPI, AKA, smart passive income.
So feel free to fill in any gaps there, but otherwise we can kind of lean into what's that like, What's that about right now? Being the CEO of SBI.
Caleb: Yeah, I mean, right when we launched on Kickstarter for Switch Pod, , I believe it was January 27th or 29th. In 20 19, 2 days later, my wife found out she's pregnant. And then, about, you know, roughly nine months later, we had a kid and about a week or two after that, we shipped all the initial orders of Switch Pod.
So it was like Switch pod has a birth story as well as my first
child. And then, you know, four or five months later, COVID hit everything, shut down. My wife and I wanted two kids, so we decided to have. [00:12:00] Another, , turns out that was twins. And so within a span of, you know, a year and a half, basically we went from no kids to three kids.
And that definitely put, , things into perspective a bit more. And what my video production work looked like a lot of the time was packing up a lot of geared equipment, flying somewhere, either in the US or around the world, and being
gone for four or five days at a time. during, like my height, I was gone anywhere from 40 to 50 nights a year doing projects.
So, you know, that's 10 ish trips away. And so I just didn't really want to honestly do that anymore as well as the landscape changed where, , just tools became easier to use on your own. So people are filming self on their own a bit more coming out of COVID especially, and. Every year there's another generation of kids that will, you know, there's seeing other people ahead of them being like, oh, I can do this as a career.
I can, charge less. so it got more and more competitive and easier to do. And so I [00:13:00] essentially wanted to just step back from video production, , in the long term. So that's where I, I shifted into this role at SBI, honestly, I was just having a conversation with. Matt and Pat over there about what I wanted to do, and they're like, interesting.
We're looking for someone that wants to help lead the company. So it kind of just timed out that it worked like that.
Dustin: No coincidences. I always, say so. , tell us, just give us a snapshot, like kinda what's the role at SPI? So you've been there a year, I know you've been the CEO like nine months, something like that. And, , in an official capacity. So yeah, tell us what that's like and then we'll talk about life in and, , even more so life outside of SPI and some of the other work that you're doing.
And then we'll use that as sort of the, , foundation to. On some of the lessons, how business, yeah, what's your role like at.
Caleb: Yeah, I mean if Pat was just on recently and you guys listened to that one, you know, a bit about smart passive income, but his business also went through multiple stages where, you know, he was doing it all on his own. when the. Log, first start in the podcast and you start to build up a, a group of [00:14:00] contractors.
Then at some point he decided to, you know, join forces with, , Mac Garland's company and have like a team of people, like a, group of full-time people on staff and helping with things. And that's essentially where it's at now, where, including Matt and Pat and myself, we're at around nine people full-time that work on it Half is on the marketing side, half is on the community side because we have a, community of entrepreneurs that, , people pay for monthly to access. And there's various content we're putting out all the time. We get YouTube videos, podcasts, newsletters, social posts, all kinds of things, and continually
making courses to train people in the community, having events in there, partnering with sponsors.
And there's a lot of different activities that go and. Into a personal brand creator business that I help run the day-to-day of
Dustin: I would just selfishly love to hear sort of you guys, I actually have had Matt Gartland on this podcast as well. So we have Matt, pat, and Caleb, and actually now all three have been here. but you're in a unique perspective because. [00:15:00] It's the pat fill show for so many years. Right?
And then Matt's sort of the behind the scenes connection, but he is more of the team guy you're coming in with, , I think a, a even different perspective. And you've been there like a year entrenched and now leading the new vision. Right. And I think that's a really interesting thing. 'cause now you're becoming the captain and you're leading this ship that's got two really smart m.
. But like when you think about SPI in five years, is it like community first? Are courses still a thing? Does there need to be high, touch coaching because that's what matters? Like what do you think matters in this creator economy?
When we look three to five years out with AI and all the things that we're facing right now.
Caleb: Right. Yeah, I mean, AI is definitely a big part of it. I know what Pat would say is, information is more available than ever, and that's, you know, part of why he wrote Lean Learning, but is like to not get overwhelmed by it. And so I. I feel like there is still value in teaching. There is still value in [00:16:00] courses.
If you can take someone along a journey from a start to finish, get them through a transformation, people are still going to be willing to pay for that and they're gonna be willing to pay for it from a specific person that's maybe done it before, you know, can prove that they are an expert on this thing. On the flip side of that is like, yeah, you need to know anything. You could probably find it out there. It's still been like that. Even before AI became a thing, you could still Google stuff. You could still search and find whatever you wanted to, to learn how to do. it's about packaging it, about, can they.
Go from A to B faster. Can you save them time? Can you share your particular insight on that thing that worked for you? I think the personalization is gonna be a big part of what makes brands survive is having personality behind them and
not just information behind them. You know, any sort of. Brand that's almost faceless and driven on SEO and those types of things, I think are just gonna, go away because you're gonna have AI summaries, , [00:17:00] that they're just pulling from those websites.
No one's ever gonna land on your website, buy whatever things, or click your affiliate links so that I think the, the stronger brands are gonna have actual people in front of them. And to me, what, the most interesting thing is, is how do you stand out? Among the people that are also going to be quote unquote faceless and use AI avatars to pretend like they're a person.
So I think there's going to be this mini revolution of people going back to incredibly raw and personal things about them so that someone can tell that they're not ai. there's already been examples of. Instagram influencers and YouTubers and stuff that people thought were real, that weren't like, I remember there was like a female motorcyclist or something in Asia that had like a big following, but it like, turned out it was just like this older dude he would drive to the spot, take the photo and like AI replace or whatever.
And so it's like you're gonna have this whole wave of fake, you just get this huge wave of fake. [00:18:00] But I do think anyone that's probably doing that is just trying to find a shortcut and is not in it for the long haul. And those will just like flare up and kind of go away and it's gonna be you picking something and sticking with it long enough.
And so I know people that are purposely leaving in typos, leaving in mistakes in their Instagram reels and stuff like, so it does not seem like it's ai. It's just a unique kind of thing that's happening because of how easy it is to fake stuff now.
Dustin: That's interesting you said, packaging and I get that. First time in my life I've made this connection. As you were describing it, you said personalization, which I've always, my brain's always defaulted. Like personalization means that if Caleb has content, it's personalized to me as the recipient.
Meaning like it's personalized to me. Like it's custom content to Dustin. It's curated to Dustin, but the way that you've framed it was actually personalized. Meaning it's got Caleb's personality in it. So the leader's personality is imbued in the experience and the content and the insights. for some reason when [00:19:00] people say personalized content, I've always just thought of like the
recipient, it being custom, but not that, like keeping the personality of the creator in it.
And I think both those are important, but the personality of the creator is really important. , I like what you said about all that. And then the last, question I, and we will get over into the other projects that you're involved in. How does community fit in? It seems to me, as a observer at SPI and someone who's gonna do some guest training in a couple of your communities, that this has become, at least the forward facing focus of SPI as the monetization model.
But like you think community is like the big hedge against ai. are you guys really leveraging community as like a primary part of your product portfolio to use all the PS I can think of.
Caleb: Yeah, absolutely. I think what, Pat and Matt learned with SPI over the years is. They made a lot of courses. I helped film and edit a lot of them over the years and they could be profitable for the business. But you find completion percentages are fairly low of people that go through it, actually do the work that's in it.
so what we do now with our [00:20:00] accelerators inside the SBI community is essentially break it into a week by week chunks. People go through it in a cohort together, the completion rates are four or five times higher 'cause people have more accountability to get it done. And you see that with, I'm sure, like having a partner to go to the gym with or whatever else it is.
Like accountability is a big part of it as well as getting feedback along the way. So, I hop on calls occasionally, you know, for the podcasting or YouTube course and people give their podcast artwork or thumbnails and we talk about them and we give feedback on 'em and we. You know, they post in the community and they get, you know, insight and stuff.
And I feel like that personal connection is something people are willing to pay for. They're willing to pay for being in the right room with the right people that know how to think about stuff versus taking it to their friend or their spouse or whoever. That's not like in the day-to-day of knowing what, works.
And I think that people are willing to pay for. Advice and feedback and accountability, and those are all things that community can do.
Dustin: I like that a [00:21:00] lot and everything we do is based in a community. Our flagship program, podcast, profits, accelerators, cohort based,
I've had a lot of. Pushback, I guess maybe is, I know if that's the right word, but I've had a lot of advice from, you know, people, Hey, you can't scale cohorts.
, And I've resisted that because I'm like, no, I, I see the magic in the cohorts, right? We've done 14 of these cohorts and I was cohorts the only way to drive value. No, but I think it ain't broke. Like I don't wanna fix it. You know? It's like this is really working and the things you said are totally.
Part of that, like the accountability, the structure, the, insights from the leader. You know, like they get Caleb or they get Pat or whatever, like direct insights, like that's all good. And then the two things that come up a lot for us, I'm sure
you guys get this, especially in your like thrive level of your community, is clarity and connection, right?
And it's people like. I didn't really wanna be in a group, but I didn't think I needed a group and I don't need any more Zoom calls in my life, but oh my gosh, I've got so much clarity, from the other people in this group. Like they've provided me this kind of 360 feedback that I could've never [00:22:00] got anywhere else.
And of course connection, like, I've got friends in here, people really understand what I'm going through. Someone referred me to a client or in our case, and so Viewing this and it feels like you guys are too. At SPI, like, I don't know who knows what AI's gonna do to my business in a year, three years.
But I think community is my best hedge. I think it's like the best way to actually serve the people now, and it's the best hedge against ai, ification of all my stuff. It's like. You can go right now really into the chat GBT and have Dustin write your podcast pitch and do the more mechanical things. But you can't yet replace what it's like to be in a group of 200 other people who think and share your values and care about you and collaborate with you and hold you accountable.
And so I, I love, in other words, that you guys are using community as like a primary part of your value I think that's gonna be good as we get into the more AI stuff and the, fakery and all the, all the things we talked, any closing thoughts on, and we'll move on.
Caleb: Yeah, I mean, I think we saw it and I feel like we keep bringing up COVID, but we saw it during that timeframe where people [00:23:00] seek the human connection when everyone was supposed to stay home and they found a way to, . Connect with other people. And we did see cohort based stuff take off a lot. , You know, a lot of our peers as well as, , the SPI community was kind of
launching in COVID to help, foster that request from people in the audience of like, we want to be get connected to people that are at our levels so we can have certain conversations that we can't just have publicly on Reddit or Twitter or Instagram or wherever else.
So it's, the equivalent of. Whatever would've been your local village or your local like college campus or whatever. But now it's just online and I think that in the age of ai, people are going to crave that even more. Because when I go to scroll, social media and everything is, I can tell AI created and feels, like soulless or not, not a person.
Have you heard the dead internet theory? Nothing on the internet is even real anymore. It's just. AI and robots reposting the other things. like eventually, that's the point we'll get to where there'll be no original thought and everything will [00:24:00] just be regurgitated by AI to each other, and the AI will start talking to each other and it'll just, Yeah,
Dustin: it does feel like there's, you know, , shades of that already. And then I always like to think like, Hey, in that. Reality. Reality. What am I really gonna wanna do? I'm gonna want to go like literally stand around a campfire with other humans and tell stories and you know, share a favorite beverage or whatever.
It's like, how we did before we had the internet. You know? It's like that is a primal thing that we want. We like tribe, we're tribal and we wanna like be around people and,
we haven't really talked yet about what you do outside of SPI. 'cause one of the cool things about SPI, , you know, Matt has his own projects. Pat has his own projects.
Caleb has his own projects and businesses and things like that. And I know, being there a year, this is. It's been a, a fertile time for you to kind of like, try out some new things and have some new constraints on your time, but also some new opportunities and access and freedoms. So I'll let, you put in your own words between what you and what your wife are up to, like we know, the intrapreneur Caleb, of your role [00:25:00] as a CEO at SPI, but like what's the entrepreneur Caleb still doing today outside of those, times.
Caleb: A lot of who I've serviced, as a video production company over the past 10 years are people at a certain level in their business, and I targeted people that could afford, you know, a five figure video project for me to fly out, film with
them for a few days to record something that they then would sell and make even more money off of. So essentially what I'm doing now is on the side of SPI, is working with people at that level in the like mid to six figure, low seven figure range that are looking to either scale beyond themselves. Maybe they have like a handful of contractors or they've started to hire some teams with there's, you know, systems or missing pieces essentially in their business.
And I essentially come in like a mechanic to determine what parts of their businesses are weak or could be fixed. And figuring out what those systems are that we can make better. So typically someone's either really good at [00:26:00] content creation or marketing, and that's why they're able to grow an audience or grow a business.
But they might not be so good on, building a team or operations or their finances might be a mess or whatever it is. There might be leaky parts of their funnel that they're not really seeing. And those are the things that I can come in and kind of assess. And then kinda like an architect. put a blueprint together for like, okay, this is what this part of your business should look like.
it's helping creators that kind of reach a plateau or a scale issue where they either wanna scale beyond themselves a bit more or scale their revenue, , higher than they've been able to.
Dustin: That's awesome. And I know there's definitely people listening to this that are, experience it now, , or will experience it 'cause you know, you become a victim of your own success in a positive way. I've experienced it in some ways. I'm experiencing it now, and so I. First of all, I love that, emphasis.
'cause again, with like you have a very unique perspective, like you've been in all these different business types. You've got one of, I think the huge advantages you have as the CEO of SPI is not only the paycheck that comes [00:27:00] with it, but like the access you have to see all the other creators, right?
Like you, the creators, serving creators and therefore you see the spectrum of people, , who are experiencing scale. Opportunities and pains in different ways. So if someone's sitting here, I know we're gonna talk about how they can like, have your personal brain on their business to do this, but just in a more general sense, are there like a list of levers?
I'm kind of picturing an analogy, you know, like a car, you, you mentioned that, or an airplane or something. Are there, These are the five key things. One of
these is screwed up and you need to fix, like are there like key categories that everyone has to address when they're scaling a business?
Let's say six figure to seven figure.
Caleb: I think that in general. People know the thing that isn't working in their business. there's a mixture of like, I feel like I'm really good at something and then I feel like I'm really bad at something, so I'm gonna outsource the bad things like accounting or legal or, you know, finances or handling my email or whatever.
You know, like the things that people really don't like doing, they're quick to hand off. [00:28:00] It's the things that they're mediocre at that they're afraid to hand off that are the things that are the opportunities to, grow and to scale. And so I. What I end up finding is when I talk to someone at a certain stage, they are smart, they are successful enough.
They gotten a certain point where they're full-time on their business. They're been able to scale it to a certain level. They bring in help on things they don't want to do, but there are still these mental barriers. Or bottlenecks in their business that they're kind of afraid to take the next step on.
So it's kinda different for each person. It could be maybe platforms they don't want to spend the time to be on, but they know they should be on. Like maybe they should really be on Instagram and put together a short form video strategy and use many chat and do things to scale their business there. But they, they really don't want to, or they're afraid to.
Or it could be they really need to hand off a part of their business that. They used to do, but maybe they shouldn't be doing anymore. So like for me, for example, that would be like, I probably shouldn't be editing my own videos
anymore, but I know how to do it. I did it for 10 years. Like why would I want to hand this [00:29:00] off?
You know? So it's like the things that people are used to doing, but they probably shouldn't be doing. Those are the typical levers you try to come in and
help
'em with.
Dustin: That's good. .
It's probably the thing you're pretty good at, but not like world class at. Right. So like Caleb's great at video editing, but like there's some probably better video editors who would be less effective hourly rates than what he should be demanding of his own time. I'm gonna lead generation, but does that mean I should be writing all of my own content and being the person that follows up on it and be the one that actually creates landing pages for the funnels?
No. Like I could be the strategic architect over that, but like someone else needs to be doing that work and so that's gonna be personal for everyone listening. Like it's kinda like kill your darlings, right? It's like probably the thing that you're pretty good at that you kind of like is probably the thing holding you back.
Do you think that's like a fair way to summarize that?
Caleb: Yeah, typically it's something that. Seems scary to hand off, ends up being the thing that, , people really need to let go of. , It also tends to be things that [00:30:00] actually don't make them money, but they tend to hang on to those things for whatever reason. So, you do exercises of determining, you know, their personal hourly rate and if they could hire someone for less than that, they should probably hand it off.
But that's still kind of a mental barrier for people too. To unlock of whether they think like, let's say my rate is $500 an hour, can I really go make that in an hour? , Or not like I should, I'll just do it, you know, I'll just take care of it. And, you can take it too far where you just have everyone doing everything for you and you just essentially sit around.
But, , Dan Martel has booked Buyback Your Time. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but, you know, he's talking about that problem specifically, so it's like. Are there things that you shouldn't be doing that are taking away from what you should be doing? And, I think you could take it too far, but I'd almost rather you take it too far than have to, you know, bring it back a little bit of getting help on things that are taking time and energy away from really valuable to you?
Dustin: So just give us a little insight. Baseball, Caleb. So someone's like, Hey, I made 500,000 last year. I really wanna make 1.5 million in a couple [00:31:00] years. I got an executive assistant, like, we're doing pretty good. , I don't know what, I don't know. Help me? Like is there a standard process you're gonna follow them through?
Are you gonna do like a two hour deep dive call? Are you gonna fly out to their house and watch their every move? Like, how do you actually do this whenever it's, in some ways very psychological, it sounds like.
Caleb: Yeah, I'll do a bunch of research leading up to actually talking to them to like get a lay of the land essentially of what, they have and what they offer. But it does come down to essentially an audit, for lack of a better term, , of seeing a. All the different parts of their business. You know, what is your team, what are your systems?
What, you know, what are the apps you're using to, do certain things? And then through that, , you just kind of find red flags, honestly. You just find like, , something that's held together by duct tape when it probably shouldn't be. 'cause it's a essential part of your car that you're trying to drive.
. there's some part of your business that is probably a. Lacked attention that's what I like, kind of dive in and figure out.
And then the next step of it was like, okay, now let's [00:32:00] fix it. What should it look like? What system should we be using? let's build it out together. Let's train whoever on your team is gonna do it or find the person that's gonna do it and kind of put the pieces together. Because I feel like most businesses. Is kind of freehand. You know, they're freehand drawing. They're freehand building. It's like there's this massive box of Legos from all these sets, and people just grab the pieces they want and build whatever they want. But you get to a certain point. You might want someone to give you the instructions for how to build like part of something.
You know, you know, you're probably not gonna build the Millennium Falcon Allego without any instructions. , You might get close to parts of it, but like, what about the inside? And I think it's helpful to have someone that's been around doing that long enough that they can seek some of the red flags and some of the things to avoid too.
'cause I think that that's where a lot of the. implosions happen is when you go down a rabbit hole that you don't realize could be wrong. So you want to have an in-person event, but you don't realize the kind of expense it is and how they don't make money for a few years.
And it's really easy [00:33:00] to have your company go belly up if you, you know, mismanage doing an in-person event. So there are things like that, that
I've just had experience and seen enough. Being around the block for 10, 15 years in the creator economy that, , I can help people avoid.
Dustin: Yeah, I love that. And, and, the other thing I think, Caleb, that maybe you undervalue and observing what you just shared is, the connection part of this too, right?
Like, I think with you it's like, yes. You have enough experience and discernment to be like, I can see the bigger picture and I can talk to you and know are the right questions to find the right next lever. Right? It's kind of the opening question of this podcast is like, what's the right next system or right next point of emphasis, and I have to imagine, I'm gonna let you answer this, which what will eventually become a question.
You're not the expert at everything and the person who's looking at this. System of levers is not the expert at everything, right? Like that's the funny thing about creator businesses. We start one of these things because we're good at something. Often creation, right? Like content creation. We have some kind of weird [00:34:00] hobby, some knack for something.
We don't know finances unless finances happens to be our knack, or we don't know sales unless we happen to be a sales background. And that's why we created a business. So inevitably, you're gonna find a lever. You're not gonna know, like who's the person to pull the lever the right way. And maybe Caleb, you are the person in many cases 'cause you have a breadth of experience.
But what if you're not, you know, like that's where I think maybe there's some value here. I want to kind of reflect back to you of like, you know, so many people and you have the SBI community and you have, your own, , video production background and your wife's own, you know, business pursuits.
So is that a thing, I guess to make this into a question where you can maybe diagnose the problem, but you're not the right mechanic for the issue, then what?
Caleb: I mean, then I try to refer, you know, whenever possible, you know, I either I. Go ask in the places where I have connections with people to recommend the right service provider or someone to hire, , full-time even, or I know the resources. [00:35:00] I, I know the website or the course or the book or the, person to go talk to or what have you.
And that's just a big part of, I never really understood networking when I was in college and like in corporate, like. You go to a job fair, you go to, you know, I would go to events at Boeing and like I was like, why do I network with these people? Like unless I want their job or something. Like, it seemed weird, , but I felt like attending enough conferences in the entrepreneurial and creator space, I just naturally grew my network.
And honestly, that was where I got most of my clients, was just word of mouth or reaching out to people or staying in touch or being in person with them. And. , Having a meal or having a drink and getting to know each other, and then they
get to know and trust you. And yes, you need to have the skillset or a portfolio or the proof behind the scenes so that when they wanna hire, you can actually do it.
But it's the connection and your network that's super valuable. So that's the other piece, , that I feel like I can, I can bring to the table for people as well.
Dustin: You know, so many people, you're so well connected, you have so many skills that you can not only bring to bear of your own, but you [00:36:00] know the right people as an advisor to bring in when someone needs that help. , So if someone's like. Caleb's really smart. I know he sits in a position that he could speak some wisdom into my business.
Like how do people make that happen? What's the right next step for people that wanna go deeper with scaling their business and get your brain on?
Caleb: the website is scale beyond you.com. That'll take you right to the appropriate page to kind of reach out to me and see if working with me , makes the most sense. , There's different levels of working together, whether it's. one on-one more of like a coaching advisorship type thing or more of the, you know, hands-on approach, , that we talked about where it's, you know, we take a half day and we find a problem and fix it kind of thing.
, All the way up to the kind of stuff I do with SBI of like actually being a fractional CEO of a creator business. So. This is a new chapter for me. You know, I essentially feel like I'm retiring and like switching sports. , I wouldn't equate myself to Michael Jordan, but this feels like switching from basketball to baseball.
maybe I'll come back wearing the four or five like he did, , and do video again in the [00:37:00] future. But, , this feels like a, a shift for me of, being a behind the scenes operator and helping people with businesses, , in this way as opposed to. A very specific service that I used to provide in the past.
Dustin: Caleb, you're awesome, man. I really appreciate it. . This went way longer, of course, because we had so much to talk about. But, , Caleb Logic , is the man, I really appreciate you coming on spending time with me. Looking forward to hanging out in Boise. Again, go to scale beyond UYOU, scale beyond you.com and that will let you get ahold of Caleb, see what he's, up to, what, goodness he can offer you in your business.
So Caleb, thanks again man, for being here. I appreciate you. Caleb: Yeah, thanks for having me, and I'll see you in a couple weeks.