June 10, 2025 • 23 mins
I’m nursing my baby on my lap as I record and yes, it’s noisy—but it’s real life. This episode? It’s short, but it’s pivotal.
I’m walking through why you are the bottleneck in your business—even if it’s not because of your team or your systems. It’s because your energy is stretched thin. I used to do custom work, launch like crazy, and it all stopped when real life kicked in. My business needed me, and that’s the crux of the problem.
Spoiler: The fix isn’t hiring more people. It’s about pulling the plug on the belief that you must be “on” all the time.
What You’ll Learn:
- The difference between being the bottleneck personally vs. systemically
- How to build a business model that runs—even when you can't be “on”
- Daily and weekly rhythms that power growth without burnout
- How to design offers that don’t collapse when you step away
- Evergreen funnels, automation, and layering offers for passive flow
Why this is a gamechanger:
You don’t need to burn it all down—you need to remodel. If you’re tired of feeling like you're spinning your wheels and ready to build something that sustains both your business and family life—this episode is your wake-up call.
Resources Mentioned:
- Episode 41. 4 Things I Do Every Day in My Business to Grow Consistently
- CEO Mom Business Blueprint – my system for daily revenue routines and weekly rhythms -- yaelbendahan.com/blueprint
- Lazy Money Masterclass – deep dive into my lazy funnel (happening next week!) -- https://yaelbendahan.com/LMMPod
- CEO Mom Mastermind – Summer cohort open (includes a bonus month in July/August plus 3 bonus 1:1 calls in honor of my birthday!) -- https://yaelbendahan.com/mastermind
LINKS
📈The CEO MOMS Growth Matrix - feeling stuck or plateaued at your current revenue? Snag your custom roadmap for sustainable growth from $0 to multi-6-figures in this FREE training! >>> yaelbendahan.com/matrix
🔥Join my FREE 3-Day Program, LEVERAGE - the process that’s creating multi 6 figure years working nap times and being a full time mama of 6. Claim your spot here >>> https://yaelbendahan.com/leveragepod
💰Offers in Your Pocket - 11 Offers You Can Pull Out of Your Pocket and Sell This Week! Only $9 - yaelbendahan.com/pocketoffers
💃 Apply for the CEO Mom Mastermind if you're ready to scale sustainably to $15-20K+ months. Read more about the mastermind here OR go straight to the application here.
Want to chat about the mastermind before you join? DM me on Instagram - instagram.com/theyaelbendahan
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm trying to move into what I'mcalling the One Call business
(00:02):
model.
I don't want more than one calla week two at most.
At most.
And that might mean not having alot of spaces for VIP days or
VIP intensive.
Or having it very limited.
Because with the way my life isright now, the way my business
is right now, the way my familyis right now I can only do
really do calls in the evenings,and I need to be, I need to be
present with them in theevenings.
(00:23):
It's not, it's no longernegotiable.
I need to be there to make sureeveryone gets to bed, make sure
everyone feels seen, to makesure everyone's doing their
chores to make sure everything'shappening.
Welcome to the Raising YourBusiness Podcast.
I'm your host, Al Behan, founderof CEO Mom Academy, mom of Six
and Lifelong Reading addict.
This podcast is here to empowermoms to run their businesses and
(00:43):
lives like the powerhouse CEO.
They are.
I want you to believe that youcan have the business success
you desire.
And be present with your familyand to give you my best tips and
strategies for how to make thathappen.
I'll be sharing the honestreality of balancing business
and motherhood biz models thatwork for you.
Marketing simplicity, and themindset of A CEO, mom.
Now let's dive in.
(01:12):
Hello.
Hello.
Welcome back to the podcast.
And if this is the first timeyou're listening to this, I am,
yeah.
Al Behan, mama of Six, and I'mcurrently nursing my baby as I
record this podcast.
I don't, I generally try to notrecord podcast episodes while
he's around because at his agehe's turning one.
Oh my God.
(01:32):
He's turning one in about 10days on the same day that I
turned 35, which is crazy.
And he is at this age where likehe's just all over the place.
He's so he's so mischievous andand I find that I have to keep
interrupting myself.
And I lost my little mic that Iattached to my, like my lapel
(01:52):
mic.
And so once I find it, I mightbe able to do more easily
recording while I'm runningaround after him.
But currently I'm attached to mycomputer.
And so I refuse to let thisattachment to my laptop to
record be a bottleneck in myproduction.
And so here we are.
I'm nursing him.
He's looking at me like I'mcrazy.
He's like, why are you holdingthis mic?
(02:13):
We never do this.
And we'll see how long thislasts.
So wish me luck that I actuallymanaged to get through this.
It's not gonna be a very longepisode, but it's an important
one.
And.
Serendipitously, we are talkingabout being the bottleneck.
And spoiler alert is not yourteam.
It's not even necessarily yourstrategy.
The real bottleneck is somethingelse.
(02:34):
And it's not the way you think.
Okay?
So if this episode really justhits you in the gut and you are
really ready to build somethingthat's more sustainable for you
in your business, my CEO mymastermind is currently open.
I'm gonna be taking a littlepause this summer for onboarding
new clients, but it is open andyou get a bonus month when you
join throughout the summer.
So if you join in July orAugust, you get a bonus month
(02:57):
because I know that things areso crazy in the summer and you
might feel like, oh, I wanna beable to use all the time that I
have in the Mastermind, so youget an additional month as a
gift from me to you, becauseSummer is crazy as a mama.
Yes.
Yes.
No mommy.
Mommy not dadda.
Yeah.
Oh gosh, he's so cute.
But he does not say my name yet.
(03:18):
He only says daddy.
And which I'm a very big fan of.
I love when kids want theirdaddies.
It just gives me a breakconsidering that he's still
nursing multiple times a day.
Dad, yeah.
Okay, he's off my, he's off mylap and currently trying to wipe
my nose with the tissue andmaybe eating the tissue, so I
(03:39):
don't know.
I think I'm gonna let him figureout for himself that tissues
aren't that great.
Okay, so I remember this oneweek.
Okay, there I had a launch goingon.
I I think a couple of my kidswere homesick'cause it was in
the winter.
I was barely sleeping andsuddenly like everything, a
launch basically ground to ahalt.
And not because I didn't havesupport and not because I didn't
(04:00):
have team.
At the time I did have a team,but because the design of the
business still relied on mebeing at capacity all the time,
like a hundred percent all thetime.
And if we wanna be real here,whether you have a team or not,
you probably don't have a teamproblem.
You have a you problem, but notbecause you're necessarily doing
it wrong, but it's because theway your business is structured
(04:22):
or requires your full on energyto function.
And as an overachieving, likevery high energy person, people
are like how do you do that?
How do you put so much content?
How do you launch all theseoffers?
How do you do all this stuff?
And.
The problem is that you builtyour business to rely on you
being like on a lot of the time.
And then it feels like yourbusiness breaks when life
happens.
And that is not your fault.
(04:43):
That is the model.
Okay.
And it took me time to go frombeing on on, especially as a
service provider, we had to beconstantly prospecting for
clients and I was doing customeverything.
So obviously that was a lot morework.
I was not at the product.
I pointed my business.
It was a gradual shift for me togo from that to then
productizing and systemizing alot more to then really being
(05:05):
able to build a business modelthat did not require me to be on
the entire time in order tostill be able to make money.
Okay.
And it was very fun.
Like this summer, I was on a, onboth of my maternity leaves, I
was able to make money, bring inleads even when I was off
because I had rebuilt andremodeled my business to a
place.
(05:25):
Where I could do this.
And next week I'll be going evento even more depth about some
things that I've noticed aboutmyself and my business and how
my energy is now, but the factis.
Hiring a VA is not necessarilygoing to fix it.
Posting more is not going to fixit.
What will fix it is designing abackend or designing a system
that does not necessarily fallapart when you need to step
(05:47):
away.
So what does that mean for you?
Okay.
Okay, so the first thing I wannathink about is just having a
system to make sure that you getyour most important things done
first.
And, um, I actually share mysystem for making sure, like the
revenue generating activitiesactually happen in my CEO Mom
business blueprint.
I will link it in the shownotes.
(06:09):
And it is really just four basicthings that you do every day.
Um, to make sure that those,that those parts of your
business are taken care of.
and I'm not gonna go into thefour things.
Um, I actually talk about thisin the four things.
I actually have an an episodeall about this, right?
The four things you need to doevery single day in your
business.
And the truth is though, you canactually set some of these four
(06:29):
things up to happen withoutdoing them every single day,
right?
So if let's say one of the fourthings is putting out content,
then you can batch your contentat the beginning of the week.
You can create a long form pieceof content and repurpose it into
smaller pieces of content,right?
It doesn't necessarily have tohappen.
Every single day, but Irecommend that you set aside the
first hour of your day to thosefour things, and when you're
(06:51):
done with that hour, you willknow that you have really
covered all your bases.
You have.
I've gotten to the place wherewhere you know, like everything
that is important in yourbusiness that needs to be like
nurtured and cared for, isnurtured and cared for.
And so that was just the firstthing I wanna point out is that
if you have a a, a process and asystem and a plan for making
sure the right things get done,then you are not gonna have to
(07:13):
waste time in decision fatigue.
You're not gonna have to wastetime.
Um, trying to figure out, okay,what do I do now?
Right?
Because you're gonna have yourdaily rhythm.
You're gonna have your weeklyrhythm.
And I literally share thisinside of the CEO Mom's business
Blueprint Exactly.
And how to structure your daythe way that you need to in
order to.
Have consistent business growthand two different types of
(07:35):
weekly rhythms that you canbuild your week around.
And I literally will use AI forthis.
I have my weekly rhythm pluggedinto a project in Chatt PT and
I'll be like, here's what I needto get done this week.
Can you please help me plugthings in?
You know, day by day in thisweek based on my weekly rhythm,
and it literally does it for me.
Okay, so.
There's no excuse really becauseChacha BT can literally do the
thinking for you when you haveyour list of stuff you need to
(07:56):
do besides for your dailyrevenue routines.
Um, you need to make sure thatyou are running your business in
a rhythmic sort of way thatallows you to make sure that the
most important things get done.
And I know that sounds very,very mysterious.
But I literally did an entirepodcast episode about this, so
I'm going to link that in theshow notes as well so you can
(08:17):
actually listen to it more indepth.
And if this sounds amazing toyou, then get the CEO Mom
Business Blueprint.
It is literally the steps, exactsteps I took to hit my first six
figure and my first multi sixfigure year.
Okay?
So that's the first thing.
Now, what else when it comes toyour offers.
That means offers that don'tnecessarily require live
delivery every single time yousell them.
(08:38):
That means systems that candeliver nurture and value
without you having to be loggedon all the time.
That means automated touchpoints that still feel warm and
personal with that, that leavespace for you to be able to
actually be personal andpersonalized from, a place of
kind of like spaciousness andnot feeling oh my God, I have to
be checking in with everyone 247 all the time.
(08:59):
And when people say you, you'rethe bottleneck, they often mean
hire more people.
And I'm wondering if maybe thisa real solution is designing a
business that needs less of younecessarily.
Okay.
And this really brings me backto when I was part of a program
a while ago and they were sayingabout, team building and they're
like, you wanna build a team forthe$5 million business that you
(09:23):
want to be?
And people were literally hiringfor the business they wanted to
be at, but they weren't thereyet and it broke their business.
They could not sustain thatfinancially.
Holding that team.
And they had to, a lot of peoplehad these like big hirings and
it was like, yes, I'm buildingfor the multimillion dollar
business.
And then they had to mass fire alot of people because they could
(09:44):
not sustain it.
Their business wasn't at thatplace.
They couldn't sustain it.
What are you doing?
Oh, he's so cute playing on thefloor.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna ignorehim because I wanna teach him
how to play a little moreindependently.
We're really working on thatnow.
What is he touching?
Okay.
It's fine.
It's fine.
It's just a toy.
Okay.
And what made me realize thatwas, sorry.
(10:06):
Okay.
Total a DH, adhd, like squirrelmoment.
What made me realize this waslike, this is actually really
terrible advice.
Okay.
And I remember even back anotherprogram I was part of, a
membership I was part of.
I remember like her, her likewhole thing was like, create a
webinar, invite everyone youknow, to this webinar, sell your
(10:26):
offer.
Whether or not all those peoplethat you know are or are not the
target audience for this offer,sell your offer.
You'll make some money.
And then the first thing you dois hire a full-time employee and
they will do all the work foryou so that you can be more
hands off and you can reallyfocus on being in your zone of
genius.
And I was like.
That is the worst advice I'veever heard in my entire life
(10:47):
because first of all, afull-time employee is not going
to be, unless you can find aunicorn, which is not common,
they're not gonna be a unicorn.
They cannot do everything right.
I would rather hire people,contractors for part-time work
in their own zones of genius sothat I can actually make sure
that everything in my businesshas done to.
(11:08):
The best quality as possible,right?
And and so very often people arelike, oh, you're the bottleneck
hire team.
You're the bottleneck hire team.
But really what that means isrestructuring your business so
that you can actually take thetime off.
And I remember speaking to myfriend Adrian Dorson about this.
When it comes to doing theclockwork business model,
running your business likeclockwork.
(11:28):
And yes, it does require hiringteam, it does require hiring
team, but the very first part ofit is restructuring the business
model.
That it actually can bedelivered and run by the team.
Just hiring people.
Can I please have that tissue?
Can I have that tissue please?
No.
Okay.
Just hiring people, like beinglike, okay, I'm, the bottleneck
(11:49):
I need to hire is not going tobe the key.
The key is building in thosebackend systems beforehand.
So what does that mean?
What does the backend leveragemean?
Okay.
It means things like evergreen,nurture.
These could be emails, thesecould be mini courses, these
could be automations.
These could be, nurturing kindof touchpoints or check-ins that
happen on automation?
It can be even just setting upyour VA and again, your va I
(12:10):
definitely recommend having ava.
And it's so funny as I'm at thetime of recording this, I I'm, I
think, I don't dunno if Imentioned in last week's
episode, I can't remember, but Ijust parted ways my, with my
current va because she's justlooking for more project based
work and I had more like ongoingbased work and.
My first VA that I ever hadreached out to me and like she
(12:34):
has been like my standard.
She has been the standard for mybusiness.
I've literally measured everyother VA up against her.
She really, by the time she leftmy business, she was more of
like an OBM than a VA at, to behonest.
And she's very much like anexecutive assistant slash
project manager.
She's the best.
I see.
I keep saying she was, she is.
She still exists.
She's amazing.
And she reached out to me andwas like, Hey, I'm just letting
(12:55):
you know that I'm actually likelooking for some work again.
And I know you have everythingsorted, but if you do need help
in the future, let me know.
And I was like, I actually don'thave everything sorted.
They just lost my IVA and nowwe're talking about working
together again.
And I have, I'm so excited aboutthis because I do think having a
good assistant and a good teammember ideally like someone
(13:18):
who's almost like a partner inyour business really makes such
a difference to, to yourcapacity and what you can
accomplish and the mental loadof your business, and.
I'm so excited about this.
So you're getting like my, likeliterally like 24 hours later
reaction of oh my God, I missyou so much.
I missed her so much.
If you're listening to this,grace, I miss you.
And I'm really excited becausewe just worked really well
(13:40):
together and I think I reallyhave not found someone since
then that has been able to likemesh with me and the way my
brain works in the same way.
Like I have not.
And so I'm very excited aboutthis.
So I'm, this is not for me tosay, do not hire people or do
not hire team members, becauseyou of course should hire team
members.
If you have the financialcapacity, if you have the the
workload that, requiresoffloading, a hundred percent
(14:01):
hire people.
But very often.
The bottleneck is not thepeople.
It's actually your energy.
Your energy is the bottleneck,and because your energy is the
bottleneck, you are now in aplace of not being able to scale
past your energy capacity, andthat is a problem.
So how can we build a businessthat does not require your
energy?
Like I said, the evergreennurture sequences on the
(14:23):
backend, the evergreen emails,maybe courses, funnels, things
like that offers that flownaturally into each other.
So stacking, and I'm talk aboutthis more in the Lazy Money
Masterclass, right?
Stacking can I please have thatmagazine?
Thank you.
You're getting.
You are getting full on me.
This is my life.
So stacking offers so that youhave all these different backend
(14:43):
ways that people can find yourother offers, right?
So upselling, downselling,cross-selling putting
invitations into your otheroffers into your existing ones.
Having automated up upgradeopportunities, behind the scenes
of your lower ticket offers andthings like that.
And thinking about yourcalendar, right?
Does your calendar have built-inbreathing room for you to just
think right?
(15:03):
And just reflect and wonder ifmaybe this is like the way
you're running things is the wayyou wanna run things and I know,
oh my gosh, trust me, I knowthat as am I a mom of six, I
feel like I have no breathingroom for anything.
'cause even if I have breathingroom for my business.
I'm still a full-time full-timemother.
My husband works full-time, so Iam the, I'm the primary parent,
(15:24):
primary caregiver and primary,house manager.
And it's not really a thing herein Israel to have to hire like.
Nannies or, full-time help ingeneral.
It's very it's not, it's veryunusual, let's put it that way.
It's a very unusual thing to do.
It's not easy to find that kindof person.
And I don't even know if I wantthat kind of help to be honest.
But and I do get help Every oncein a while.
(15:46):
I do get help some cleaning helphere and there when I can find
it again.
Cleaning up is very in demandhere because most women work
outta the house, right?
So it's not easy to find.
But my baby will be going todaycare for half a day, starting
in September, which I think isgonna be really great for him.
He'll actually be going with hiscousin, with my nephew, my
sister's baby.
They're 10 days apart.
And and I'm really excitedbecause they'll just get to know
(16:08):
each other a little better andget to spend every day together.
And I'm really excited for them.
Giving yourself whatever thatlooks like, trying to find
yourself breathing room.
And if you find that yourbusiness is taking up so much of
your time, that you're justrunning back and forth between
work and family and work andkids and work and laundry and
you literally do not have amoment to think, I would
challenge you to think is therea way you can rejig your
(16:28):
schedule and maybe like remodelyour business a little bit to
make space, right?
And I'm actually doing thisright now.
I've actually been brainstormingthis in my journals and with my
friends and.
In my little mini peermastermind and I think about how
can I simplify things immensely.
So I can only really take offone night a week from that.
(16:51):
Duty, so to speak.
And and because my husband doesnot have a reliable schedule,
he's not, I don't know when heis gonna be home.
We're not gonna be home.
It needs to be me.
I really had to think about, amI building a business model
based on the one that worked forme in the past, or maybe my life
was different, my kids wereyounger, things were different.
Or am I building a businessmodel for the person that I am
now?
(17:11):
For the energy that I have now,for the per, for the I've
changed and I've evolved as ahuman being in the past two
years, right?
So much so much.
And I'm gonna be talk again.
I'll be going into that a lotmore in my next episode'cause
that's my birthday week episodeand I'm talking about my
reflections as I turn 35.
But I wanted to consider thatmaybe you.
(17:32):
I don't wanna say you're theproblem.
You're not the problem, but youare the linchpin.
Your energy, your clarity, yourpresence is powering this entire
thing.
So let's figure out how we canbottle that energy and repackage
that energy to run even when youcan't.
So an example is my client,Catherine, who just.
Wrapped up her launch for herrelaunch for her new signature
(17:53):
program, the brand shoot stylingblueprint.
She helps brand photographerslearn how to style their own
sets so that they can have theseamazing on-brand sets without
having to hire a professionalstylist like her.
So if you think about it, theamount of people she's had to
say no to the amount of peoplewho had say no to her because
they couldn't afford to bringher on as an onset stylist.
She's now able to serve allthose people in an extremely
(18:13):
hands-off sort of way.
Where she's created thecurriculum, she's show, she's
showing them the behind thescenes, she's giving them all
the tools that they need, andshe herself was like, I would
love to show up, maybe once amonth and do a behind the set,
training or maybe like answerquestions that is coming from
her, that is coming from her.
Her desire and not from a placeof feeling constricted and
(18:33):
constrained.
And she's able now to scale herrevenue beyond, the amount of
trips she can take per month andtake time away from her family.
She has five kids.
She can't be traveling all overthe place all the time.
She can't.
So in order to limit her travelto what feels comfortable for
her and her family.
But still be able to make moneyin between.
This is now her additionalrevenue stream that can
(18:54):
literally run without her doinga single thing.
She can bring people into herworld.
She can bring people into hercourse.
She can sell it and the deliveryhappens in a completely
hands-off way or in a way thatshe's already delivering anyway.
She's showing up to, for a livecall once a month for those
client, for those studentsanyway, if she, that's what she
chooses to do, right?
So it's, it does not require herpersonal touches at all.
(19:16):
And if she wants to, she cansend a little gift, which she
can definitely do, but it'sminimal as compared to taking on
a full on, new client, which sheloves doing.
But again, her time.
On that is limited.
So I want you to make sure thatyour energy is not going to be
the bottleneck for your businessgrowth.
Okay?
And if this episode made, youwant to be like, oh my gosh, I
(19:37):
gotta burn everything down andrebuild everything smarter.
You probably don't need to burneverything down.
You may need to remodel, you mayneed to change things.
So I want to invite you to applyto the CEO Mom Mastermind.
This is literally where we.
Take what works, tweak what isworking and maybe not working as
well.
Get rid of what doesn't, andreally create a business model,
(19:59):
a marketing model, a salesmodel, an offer model that
really works for where you areright now that creates that
leverage for you.
If you are looking to scalebeyond one-to-one client work,
and you really wanna do it in away that supports you without a
cookie cutter, oh, all you needis a group program.
All you need is a course.
All you need is a membership.
And really just finding that.
(20:19):
Path that works for you based onyour business and your model and
your capacity and yourpersonality.
That's what we do in the CEO.
I'm on Mastermind.
This is not a scalable space.
This is a highly custom placewhere we really like, it's
really just one-to-one, a lot ofone-to-one in a mastermind
environment where you can alsoget that support from the other.
(20:41):
Incredible moms in theMastermind as well.
And if you are like, I justwanna try this out, and I wonder
what this is I wonder if I canlearn from you.
I wanna see exactly how yourstrategy works.
The Lazy Money Masterclass ishappening next week on Monday.
And you can probably still buyit.
If you click the link in thedescrip, it'll be prerecorded.
Or it'll be recorded.
So you'll be able to get thereplay and I'll be showing you
(21:03):
the exact lazy funnel that I'vebuilt and that I'm now
rebuilding to really attract theperfect clients for where I
currently am at the lazy funnelthat allows.
Your energy to not be thebottleneck anymore because
you'll be constantly bringingnew people in the door with this
funnel that, and that enablesyou to.
Create a literally hands offlead generation, hands off
(21:26):
delivery strategy so that youcan just fill your higher
ticket, your premium spaceswithout having to do a lot of
heavy lifting and and leavingroom for you to add those
personal touches, like those DMconversations, like those loom
videos, right?
But making sure that you areable to do this in a way that
honors your capacity and yourlife.
That is what I'm gonna beteaching.
The lazy funnel.
(21:47):
We talk about a lot of things,right?
The lazy funnel structure, theleverage layer, the lever I call
the leverage, like layer asundae where like the ice cream
sundae, where you like layerdifferent things on top of the
other to add the most incredibleselling systems into your
business.
And it is just gonna be so good.
I cannot wait to share thisstuff and I cannot wait for you
to join me.
So either you can join the LazyMoney Masterclass.
(22:08):
Check it out.
It's just$35 until it goes live.
And then the price is gonna begoing up'cause it is in honor of
my 35th birthday.
And if you are looking for morehands on support, then check out
the CMA Mastermind.
The link is gonna be in thedescription as well.
Alright, have a wonderful restof your week.
I cannot wait to see you in theLazy Money Masterclass and I'll
(22:30):
see you next week.
I can't thank you enough forlistening to raising your
business.
I hope this episode has inspiredyou to take another step towards
building a business and lifethat you love, and growing your
income in a way that works foryou and your family.
If you enjoy this episode,please take a second to rate and
review and let's connect that onInstagram screenshot and share
(22:50):
it on Instagram Stories so wecan get the word out to more mom
business owners like you.
Tag me at the El Behan and shareyour biggest breakthrough from
today.
See you next week.
I'm trying to move into what I'mcalling the One Call business
(00:02):
model.
I don't want more than one calla week two at most.
At most.
And that might mean not having alot of spaces for VIP days or
VIP intensive.
Or having it very limited.
Because with the way my life isright now, the way my business
is right now, the way my familyis right now I can only do
really do calls in the evenings,and I need to be, I need to be
present with them in theevenings.
(00:23):
It's not, it's no longernegotiable.
I need to be there to make sureeveryone gets to bed, make sure
everyone feels seen, to makesure everyone's doing their
chores to make sure everything'shappening.
Welcome to the Raising YourBusiness Podcast.
I'm your host, Al Behan, founderof CEO Mom Academy, mom of Six
and Lifelong Reading addict.
This podcast is here to empowermoms to run their businesses and
(00:43):
lives like the powerhouse CEO.
They are.
I want you to believe that youcan have the business success
you desire.
And be present with your familyand to give you my best tips and
strategies for how to make thathappen.
I'll be sharing the honestreality of balancing business
and motherhood biz models thatwork for you.
Marketing simplicity, and themindset of A CEO, mom.
Now let's dive in.
(01:12):
Hello.
Hello.
Welcome back to the podcast.
And if this is the first timeyou're listening to this, I am,
yeah.
Al Behan, mama of Six, and I'mcurrently nursing my baby as I
record this podcast.
I don't, I generally try to notrecord podcast episodes while
he's around because at his agehe's turning one.
Oh my God.
(01:32):
He's turning one in about 10days on the same day that I
turned 35, which is crazy.
And he is at this age where likehe's just all over the place.
He's so he's so mischievous andand I find that I have to keep
interrupting myself.
And I lost my little mic that Iattached to my, like my lapel
(01:52):
mic.
And so once I find it, I mightbe able to do more easily
recording while I'm runningaround after him.
But currently I'm attached to mycomputer.
And so I refuse to let thisattachment to my laptop to
record be a bottleneck in myproduction.
And so here we are.
I'm nursing him.
He's looking at me like I'mcrazy.
He's like, why are you holdingthis mic?
(02:13):
We never do this.
And we'll see how long thislasts.
So wish me luck that I actuallymanaged to get through this.
It's not gonna be a very longepisode, but it's an important
one.
And.
Serendipitously, we are talkingabout being the bottleneck.
And spoiler alert is not yourteam.
It's not even necessarily yourstrategy.
The real bottleneck is somethingelse.
(02:34):
And it's not the way you think.
Okay?
So if this episode really justhits you in the gut and you are
really ready to build somethingthat's more sustainable for you
in your business, my CEO mymastermind is currently open.
I'm gonna be taking a littlepause this summer for onboarding
new clients, but it is open andyou get a bonus month when you
join throughout the summer.
So if you join in July orAugust, you get a bonus month
(02:57):
because I know that things areso crazy in the summer and you
might feel like, oh, I wanna beable to use all the time that I
have in the Mastermind, so youget an additional month as a
gift from me to you, becauseSummer is crazy as a mama.
Yes.
Yes.
No mommy.
Mommy not dadda.
Yeah.
Oh gosh, he's so cute.
But he does not say my name yet.
(03:18):
He only says daddy.
And which I'm a very big fan of.
I love when kids want theirdaddies.
It just gives me a breakconsidering that he's still
nursing multiple times a day.
Dad, yeah.
Okay, he's off my, he's off mylap and currently trying to wipe
my nose with the tissue andmaybe eating the tissue, so I
(03:39):
don't know.
I think I'm gonna let him figureout for himself that tissues
aren't that great.
Okay, so I remember this oneweek.
Okay, there I had a launch goingon.
I I think a couple of my kidswere homesick'cause it was in
the winter.
I was barely sleeping andsuddenly like everything, a
launch basically ground to ahalt.
And not because I didn't havesupport and not because I didn't
(04:00):
have team.
At the time I did have a team,but because the design of the
business still relied on mebeing at capacity all the time,
like a hundred percent all thetime.
And if we wanna be real here,whether you have a team or not,
you probably don't have a teamproblem.
You have a you problem, but notbecause you're necessarily doing
it wrong, but it's because theway your business is structured
(04:22):
or requires your full on energyto function.
And as an overachieving, likevery high energy person, people
are like how do you do that?
How do you put so much content?
How do you launch all theseoffers?
How do you do all this stuff?
And.
The problem is that you builtyour business to rely on you
being like on a lot of the time.
And then it feels like yourbusiness breaks when life
happens.
And that is not your fault.
(04:43):
That is the model.
Okay.
And it took me time to go frombeing on on, especially as a
service provider, we had to beconstantly prospecting for
clients and I was doing customeverything.
So obviously that was a lot morework.
I was not at the product.
I pointed my business.
It was a gradual shift for me togo from that to then
productizing and systemizing alot more to then really being
(05:05):
able to build a business modelthat did not require me to be on
the entire time in order tostill be able to make money.
Okay.
And it was very fun.
Like this summer, I was on a, onboth of my maternity leaves, I
was able to make money, bring inleads even when I was off
because I had rebuilt andremodeled my business to a
place.
(05:25):
Where I could do this.
And next week I'll be going evento even more depth about some
things that I've noticed aboutmyself and my business and how
my energy is now, but the factis.
Hiring a VA is not necessarilygoing to fix it.
Posting more is not going to fixit.
What will fix it is designing abackend or designing a system
that does not necessarily fallapart when you need to step
(05:47):
away.
So what does that mean for you?
Okay.
Okay, so the first thing I wannathink about is just having a
system to make sure that you getyour most important things done
first.
And, um, I actually share mysystem for making sure, like the
revenue generating activitiesactually happen in my CEO Mom
business blueprint.
I will link it in the shownotes.
(06:09):
And it is really just four basicthings that you do every day.
Um, to make sure that those,that those parts of your
business are taken care of.
and I'm not gonna go into thefour things.
Um, I actually talk about thisin the four things.
I actually have an an episodeall about this, right?
The four things you need to doevery single day in your
business.
And the truth is though, you canactually set some of these four
(06:29):
things up to happen withoutdoing them every single day,
right?
So if let's say one of the fourthings is putting out content,
then you can batch your contentat the beginning of the week.
You can create a long form pieceof content and repurpose it into
smaller pieces of content,right?
It doesn't necessarily have tohappen.
Every single day, but Irecommend that you set aside the
first hour of your day to thosefour things, and when you're
(06:51):
done with that hour, you willknow that you have really
covered all your bases.
You have.
I've gotten to the place wherewhere you know, like everything
that is important in yourbusiness that needs to be like
nurtured and cared for, isnurtured and cared for.
And so that was just the firstthing I wanna point out is that
if you have a a, a process and asystem and a plan for making
sure the right things get done,then you are not gonna have to
(07:13):
waste time in decision fatigue.
You're not gonna have to wastetime.
Um, trying to figure out, okay,what do I do now?
Right?
Because you're gonna have yourdaily rhythm.
You're gonna have your weeklyrhythm.
And I literally share thisinside of the CEO Mom's business
Blueprint Exactly.
And how to structure your daythe way that you need to in
order to.
Have consistent business growthand two different types of
(07:35):
weekly rhythms that you canbuild your week around.
And I literally will use AI forthis.
I have my weekly rhythm pluggedinto a project in Chatt PT and
I'll be like, here's what I needto get done this week.
Can you please help me plugthings in?
You know, day by day in thisweek based on my weekly rhythm,
and it literally does it for me.
Okay, so.
There's no excuse really becauseChacha BT can literally do the
thinking for you when you haveyour list of stuff you need to
(07:56):
do besides for your dailyrevenue routines.
Um, you need to make sure thatyou are running your business in
a rhythmic sort of way thatallows you to make sure that the
most important things get done.
And I know that sounds very,very mysterious.
But I literally did an entirepodcast episode about this, so
I'm going to link that in theshow notes as well so you can
(08:17):
actually listen to it more indepth.
And if this sounds amazing toyou, then get the CEO Mom
Business Blueprint.
It is literally the steps, exactsteps I took to hit my first six
figure and my first multi sixfigure year.
Okay?
So that's the first thing.
Now, what else when it comes toyour offers.
That means offers that don'tnecessarily require live
delivery every single time yousell them.
(08:38):
That means systems that candeliver nurture and value
without you having to be loggedon all the time.
That means automated touchpoints that still feel warm and
personal with that, that leavespace for you to be able to
actually be personal andpersonalized from, a place of
kind of like spaciousness andnot feeling oh my God, I have to
be checking in with everyone 247 all the time.
(08:59):
And when people say you, you'rethe bottleneck, they often mean
hire more people.
And I'm wondering if maybe thisa real solution is designing a
business that needs less of younecessarily.
Okay.
And this really brings me backto when I was part of a program
a while ago and they were sayingabout, team building and they're
like, you wanna build a team forthe$5 million business that you
(09:23):
want to be?
And people were literally hiringfor the business they wanted to
be at, but they weren't thereyet and it broke their business.
They could not sustain thatfinancially.
Holding that team.
And they had to, a lot of peoplehad these like big hirings and
it was like, yes, I'm buildingfor the multimillion dollar
business.
And then they had to mass fire alot of people because they could
(09:44):
not sustain it.
Their business wasn't at thatplace.
They couldn't sustain it.
What are you doing?
Oh, he's so cute playing on thefloor.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna ignorehim because I wanna teach him
how to play a little moreindependently.
We're really working on thatnow.
What is he touching?
Okay.
It's fine.
It's fine.
It's just a toy.
Okay.
And what made me realize thatwas, sorry.
(10:06):
Okay.
Total a DH, adhd, like squirrelmoment.
What made me realize this waslike, this is actually really
terrible advice.
Okay.
And I remember even back anotherprogram I was part of, a
membership I was part of.
I remember like her, her likewhole thing was like, create a
webinar, invite everyone youknow, to this webinar, sell your
(10:26):
offer.
Whether or not all those peoplethat you know are or are not the
target audience for this offer,sell your offer.
You'll make some money.
And then the first thing you dois hire a full-time employee and
they will do all the work foryou so that you can be more
hands off and you can reallyfocus on being in your zone of
genius.
And I was like.
That is the worst advice I'veever heard in my entire life
(10:47):
because first of all, afull-time employee is not going
to be, unless you can find aunicorn, which is not common,
they're not gonna be a unicorn.
They cannot do everything right.
I would rather hire people,contractors for part-time work
in their own zones of genius sothat I can actually make sure
that everything in my businesshas done to.
(11:08):
The best quality as possible,right?
And and so very often people arelike, oh, you're the bottleneck
hire team.
You're the bottleneck hire team.
But really what that means isrestructuring your business so
that you can actually take thetime off.
And I remember speaking to myfriend Adrian Dorson about this.
When it comes to doing theclockwork business model,
running your business likeclockwork.
(11:28):
And yes, it does require hiringteam, it does require hiring
team, but the very first part ofit is restructuring the business
model.
That it actually can bedelivered and run by the team.
Just hiring people.
Can I please have that tissue?
Can I have that tissue please?
No.
Okay.
Just hiring people, like beinglike, okay, I'm, the bottleneck
(11:49):
I need to hire is not going tobe the key.
The key is building in thosebackend systems beforehand.
So what does that mean?
What does the backend leveragemean?
Okay.
It means things like evergreen,nurture.
These could be emails, thesecould be mini courses, these
could be automations.
These could be, nurturing kindof touchpoints or check-ins that
happen on automation?
It can be even just setting upyour VA and again, your va I
(12:10):
definitely recommend having ava.
And it's so funny as I'm at thetime of recording this, I I'm, I
think, I don't dunno if Imentioned in last week's
episode, I can't remember, but Ijust parted ways my, with my
current va because she's justlooking for more project based
work and I had more like ongoingbased work and.
My first VA that I ever hadreached out to me and like she
(12:34):
has been like my standard.
She has been the standard for mybusiness.
I've literally measured everyother VA up against her.
She really, by the time she leftmy business, she was more of
like an OBM than a VA at, to behonest.
And she's very much like anexecutive assistant slash
project manager.
She's the best.
I see.
I keep saying she was, she is.
She still exists.
She's amazing.
And she reached out to me andwas like, Hey, I'm just letting
(12:55):
you know that I'm actually likelooking for some work again.
And I know you have everythingsorted, but if you do need help
in the future, let me know.
And I was like, I actually don'thave everything sorted.
They just lost my IVA and nowwe're talking about working
together again.
And I have, I'm so excited aboutthis because I do think having a
good assistant and a good teammember ideally like someone
(13:18):
who's almost like a partner inyour business really makes such
a difference to, to yourcapacity and what you can
accomplish and the mental loadof your business, and.
I'm so excited about this.
So you're getting like my, likeliterally like 24 hours later
reaction of oh my God, I missyou so much.
I missed her so much.
If you're listening to this,grace, I miss you.
And I'm really excited becausewe just worked really well
(13:40):
together and I think I reallyhave not found someone since
then that has been able to likemesh with me and the way my
brain works in the same way.
Like I have not.
And so I'm very excited aboutthis.
So I'm, this is not for me tosay, do not hire people or do
not hire team members, becauseyou of course should hire team
members.
If you have the financialcapacity, if you have the the
workload that, requiresoffloading, a hundred percent
(14:01):
hire people.
But very often.
The bottleneck is not thepeople.
It's actually your energy.
Your energy is the bottleneck,and because your energy is the
bottleneck, you are now in aplace of not being able to scale
past your energy capacity, andthat is a problem.
So how can we build a businessthat does not require your
energy?
Like I said, the evergreennurture sequences on the
(14:23):
backend, the evergreen emails,maybe courses, funnels, things
like that offers that flownaturally into each other.
So stacking, and I'm talk aboutthis more in the Lazy Money
Masterclass, right?
Stacking can I please have thatmagazine?
Thank you.
You're getting.
You are getting full on me.
This is my life.
So stacking offers so that youhave all these different backend
(14:43):
ways that people can find yourother offers, right?
So upselling, downselling,cross-selling putting
invitations into your otheroffers into your existing ones.
Having automated up upgradeopportunities, behind the scenes
of your lower ticket offers andthings like that.
And thinking about yourcalendar, right?
Does your calendar have built-inbreathing room for you to just
think right?
(15:03):
And just reflect and wonder ifmaybe this is like the way
you're running things is the wayyou wanna run things and I know,
oh my gosh, trust me, I knowthat as am I a mom of six, I
feel like I have no breathingroom for anything.
'cause even if I have breathingroom for my business.
I'm still a full-time full-timemother.
My husband works full-time, so Iam the, I'm the primary parent,
(15:24):
primary caregiver and primary,house manager.
And it's not really a thing herein Israel to have to hire like.
Nannies or, full-time help ingeneral.
It's very it's not, it's veryunusual, let's put it that way.
It's a very unusual thing to do.
It's not easy to find that kindof person.
And I don't even know if I wantthat kind of help to be honest.
But and I do get help Every oncein a while.
(15:46):
I do get help some cleaning helphere and there when I can find
it again.
Cleaning up is very in demandhere because most women work
outta the house, right?
So it's not easy to find.
But my baby will be going todaycare for half a day, starting
in September, which I think isgonna be really great for him.
He'll actually be going with hiscousin, with my nephew, my
sister's baby.
They're 10 days apart.
And and I'm really excitedbecause they'll just get to know
(16:08):
each other a little better andget to spend every day together.
And I'm really excited for them.
Giving yourself whatever thatlooks like, trying to find
yourself breathing room.
And if you find that yourbusiness is taking up so much of
your time, that you're justrunning back and forth between
work and family and work andkids and work and laundry and
you literally do not have amoment to think, I would
challenge you to think is therea way you can rejig your
(16:28):
schedule and maybe like remodelyour business a little bit to
make space, right?
And I'm actually doing thisright now.
I've actually been brainstormingthis in my journals and with my
friends and.
In my little mini peermastermind and I think about how
can I simplify things immensely.
So I can only really take offone night a week from that.
(16:51):
Duty, so to speak.
And and because my husband doesnot have a reliable schedule,
he's not, I don't know when heis gonna be home.
We're not gonna be home.
It needs to be me.
I really had to think about, amI building a business model
based on the one that worked forme in the past, or maybe my life
was different, my kids wereyounger, things were different.
Or am I building a businessmodel for the person that I am
now?
(17:11):
For the energy that I have now,for the per, for the I've
changed and I've evolved as ahuman being in the past two
years, right?
So much so much.
And I'm gonna be talk again.
I'll be going into that a lotmore in my next episode'cause
that's my birthday week episodeand I'm talking about my
reflections as I turn 35.
But I wanted to consider thatmaybe you.
(17:32):
I don't wanna say you're theproblem.
You're not the problem, but youare the linchpin.
Your energy, your clarity, yourpresence is powering this entire
thing.
So let's figure out how we canbottle that energy and repackage
that energy to run even when youcan't.
So an example is my client,Catherine, who just.
Wrapped up her launch for herrelaunch for her new signature
(17:53):
program, the brand shoot stylingblueprint.
She helps brand photographerslearn how to style their own
sets so that they can have theseamazing on-brand sets without
having to hire a professionalstylist like her.
So if you think about it, theamount of people she's had to
say no to the amount of peoplewho had say no to her because
they couldn't afford to bringher on as an onset stylist.
She's now able to serve allthose people in an extremely
(18:13):
hands-off sort of way.
Where she's created thecurriculum, she's show, she's
showing them the behind thescenes, she's giving them all
the tools that they need, andshe herself was like, I would
love to show up, maybe once amonth and do a behind the set,
training or maybe like answerquestions that is coming from
her, that is coming from her.
Her desire and not from a placeof feeling constricted and
(18:33):
constrained.
And she's able now to scale herrevenue beyond, the amount of
trips she can take per month andtake time away from her family.
She has five kids.
She can't be traveling all overthe place all the time.
She can't.
So in order to limit her travelto what feels comfortable for
her and her family.
But still be able to make moneyin between.
This is now her additionalrevenue stream that can
(18:54):
literally run without her doinga single thing.
She can bring people into herworld.
She can bring people into hercourse.
She can sell it and the deliveryhappens in a completely
hands-off way or in a way thatshe's already delivering anyway.
She's showing up to, for a livecall once a month for those
client, for those studentsanyway, if she, that's what she
chooses to do, right?
So it's, it does not require herpersonal touches at all.
(19:16):
And if she wants to, she cansend a little gift, which she
can definitely do, but it'sminimal as compared to taking on
a full on, new client, which sheloves doing.
But again, her time.
On that is limited.
So I want you to make sure thatyour energy is not going to be
the bottleneck for your businessgrowth.
Okay?
And if this episode made, youwant to be like, oh my gosh, I
(19:37):
gotta burn everything down andrebuild everything smarter.
You probably don't need to burneverything down.
You may need to remodel, you mayneed to change things.
So I want to invite you to applyto the CEO Mom Mastermind.
This is literally where we.
Take what works, tweak what isworking and maybe not working as
well.
Get rid of what doesn't, andreally create a business model,
(19:59):
a marketing model, a salesmodel, an offer model that
really works for where you areright now that creates that
leverage for you.
If you are looking to scalebeyond one-to-one client work,
and you really wanna do it in away that supports you without a
cookie cutter, oh, all you needis a group program.
All you need is a course.
All you need is a membership.
And really just finding that.
(20:19):
Path that works for you based onyour business and your model and
your capacity and yourpersonality.
That's what we do in the CEO.
I'm on Mastermind.
This is not a scalable space.
This is a highly custom placewhere we really like, it's
really just one-to-one, a lot ofone-to-one in a mastermind
environment where you can alsoget that support from the other.
(20:41):
Incredible moms in theMastermind as well.
And if you are like, I justwanna try this out, and I wonder
what this is I wonder if I canlearn from you.
I wanna see exactly how yourstrategy works.
The Lazy Money Masterclass ishappening next week on Monday.
And you can probably still buyit.
If you click the link in thedescrip, it'll be prerecorded.
Or it'll be recorded.
So you'll be able to get thereplay and I'll be showing you
(21:03):
the exact lazy funnel that I'vebuilt and that I'm now
rebuilding to really attract theperfect clients for where I
currently am at the lazy funnelthat allows.
Your energy to not be thebottleneck anymore because
you'll be constantly bringingnew people in the door with this
funnel that, and that enablesyou to.
Create a literally hands offlead generation, hands off
(21:26):
delivery strategy so that youcan just fill your higher
ticket, your premium spaceswithout having to do a lot of
heavy lifting and and leavingroom for you to add those
personal touches, like those DMconversations, like those loom
videos, right?
But making sure that you areable to do this in a way that
honors your capacity and yourlife.
That is what I'm gonna beteaching.
The lazy funnel.
(21:47):
We talk about a lot of things,right?
The lazy funnel structure, theleverage layer, the lever I call
the leverage, like layer asundae where like the ice cream
sundae, where you like layerdifferent things on top of the
other to add the most incredibleselling systems into your
business.
And it is just gonna be so good.
I cannot wait to share thisstuff and I cannot wait for you
to join me.
So either you can join the LazyMoney Masterclass.
(22:08):
Check it out.
It's just$35 until it goes live.
And then the price is gonna begoing up'cause it is in honor of
my 35th birthday.
And if you are looking for morehands on support, then check out
the CMA Mastermind.
The link is gonna be in thedescription as well.
Alright, have a wonderful restof your week.
I cannot wait to see you in theLazy Money Masterclass and I'll
(22:30):
see you next week.
I can't thank you enough forlistening to raising your
business.
I hope this episode has inspiredyou to take another step towards
building a business and lifethat you love, and growing your
income in a way that works foryou and your family.
If you enjoy this episode,please take a second to rate and
review and let's connect that onInstagram screenshot and share
(22:50):
it on Instagram Stories so wecan get the word out to more mom
business owners like you.
Tag me at the El Behan and shareyour biggest breakthrough from
today.
See you next week.
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