IAM951- Founder Helps Others Live the Life of Their Dreams

Today’s guest, Amy Rasdal, traded her corporate job for consulting 15 years ago and makes more money than most executives. She works and plays every day. Amy founded Billable at the Beach® to liberate 6-figure earners by helping them build 6-figure consulting businesses. Amy is passionate about helping others find the freedom and flexibility to live the life of their dreams, without sacrificing the career they’ve spent so long building. Welcome to the show, Amy!

• CEO Hack: Never let a day go without doing something to networking, marketing and business development
• CEO Nugget: Business is about relationships
• CEO Defined: Freedom, flexibility and control

Website: https://www.billableatthebeach.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyrasdal/
Free course: https://www.billableatthebeach.com/free-course/

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Transcription

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[00:00:10.40] – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

[00:00:39.89] – Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Amy Rasdall of Billaboo at the Beach. Amy, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:49.20] – Amy Rasdal

Thanks, Gresh. I'm super happy to be here.

[00:00:51.60] – Gresham Harkless

Super excited and super happy to have you on as well too. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Amy so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Amy today's guest, Amy Rasdahl, traded her corporate job for consulting fifteen years ago and makes more money than most executives. She works and plays every day. Amy found it Billable at the Beach to liberate six-figure owner-owner earners by helping them build six-figure consulting businesses. Amy is passionate about helping others find the freedom and flexibility to live the life of their dreams without sacrificing the career they've spent so long building. Welcome to the show, Amy. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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[00:01:26.59] – Amy Rasdal
I'm ready.

[00:01:28.09] – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kinda kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here, more on how you got started. Could you take us through your CEO story so that you get started with your business?

[00:01:37.00] – Amy Rasdal

Yeah. So, I'll, I'll back up a little bit more, but make it quick. I am a Silicon kid. My dad was an early semiconductor guy, so I grew up in Silicon Valley. All there was in Silicon Valley in those days was fruit orchards and technology. So we didn't realize that there were any other business choices between growing plums or being in tech. So I grew up just assuming fruit farming was not going to be my choice. So I grew up just thinking that I would do technology startups. So when I started very early in my career, my plan, from, early on was to be a startup technology CEO.

So I started as a software engineer. I wrote code for a few years. I went to business school. I got out of business school. I started getting all my cross-functional rotations because I was developing myself and others were helping me, thankfully, to be a startup CEO. So I went about that for several years. I got great experience, in all the cross-functional areas, big companies, startups, bootstrap, venture funding, all of this stuff. I eventually decided that being that CEO was overrated and underpaid, and I jumped off and started my own consulting business.

And as Grush said in my intro, one of the myths sometimes around consulting is that you can't make as much money, or that somehow it's a compromise, or that it's a cop-out on your career. Career. You've got all this education experience, and I've just talked about how I did that for years. So I just wanna say, first of all, that it's not. You can have a great career path and make really good compensation if you want to. So, I jumped off and started my own consulting business. At that point, I realized what I'm good at doing is getting things done. So, in my consulting practice, the executives set the programs and strategies. I come in and focus on implementation and execution, otherwise known as getting things done. Anything from the board to the loading dock and all of it in between. I love working with a broad range of people.

I've been I have deep experience in both engineering product development and marketing, so I speak all the languages. I have a highly versatile interpersonal skill, so I have loved doing that. So the work that I do is very similar, but I decide when I work, how I work, where I work, how much money I make, and whether I take on the project. It's not some boss telling me you have to do this. I have a huge amount of choice and control over my work. Then one of the big things you have to do as a consultant is constant outreach to keep bringing in new projects and new clients.

So as I revved up that out outreach early in my consulting career, which was more than fifteen years ago now, I would get a lot of people who would come back and they would say, you know, I don't have a project for you, but I've been thinking about doing consulting. Can we talk? So after a couple of years, I founded Billable at the Beach because I realized there was a market demand for a person and program that could help people start their consulting businesses and get a quick start, avoid all of the mistakes that I made, maybe save some of the blood, sweat, and tears. So a little over ten years ago, I founded Billable at the Beach, and and it's a program that helps people start their consulting businesses.

[00:05:01.10] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. That was a long answer.

[00:05:02.30] – Amy Rasdal

Yeah.

[00:05:04.39] – Gresham Harkless

I appreciate it, though, so much because I think, definitely what I heard, you know, especially plums or technology having those choices. I think so many times we forget that our environment is made up by kinda what we see or what we experience, and sometimes we don't venture further. We don't see farther. So what that stuck with me, but it also stuck with me when you were talking about the consulting business. And so many times, people have certain misconceptions about, oh, you can't make a certain amount or this or that.

And sometimes it's just because of the environment and what, we see and believe is the the truth or the facts. But I love that you're throwing the baby in the bathwater out and saying this is what you can do. You can create the world, the business, the life that you wanna have and still make that same impact that you were hoping to have when you did all the work to get that expertise.

[00:05:48.89] – Amy Rasdal

Hundred percent. The financial impact on your bank account and then the impact on your customers. So when you're a consultant, there's a certain mystique about being a consultant when they, the executive team bring you in, they're paying you good money, and they bring you in as an expert, so they're much more likely to listen to you. I remember telling my dad early in my consulting career, I said, Dad, I have to be careful what I tell them because now they listen and they do it. So I better be careful that I'm telling them good stuff, but that's tremendously satisfying to have people listen to what our contribution is.

[00:06:24.69] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And it's powerful in a lot of responsibility that we have when we, start to be in those rooms and and make those recommendations. And so I know you touched a little bit upon your, program. Could you take us through a little bit more about that and what you feel maybe even sets you or that business apart and makes you, and gives you that secret sauce, so to speak?

[00:06:45.00] – Amy Rasdal

Sure. So I said that I help people start their consulting businesses. However, if the idea of starting a business or starting a company is exciting and energizing and lights you up, then I'm all in. But if you're like many of us and that seems overwhelming, and even though you love the idea and you have that fantasy, it just never actually happens, throw that idea completely out. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to just focus on landing one project and getting a check in the bank. So this whole idea of starting a business, again, it's exciting, but it also can be overwhelming because you're thinking, okay, I need logos and websites and photos, and what should my corporate structure be, and what's a ten ninety-nine con all this stuff. I just want you to land a project, and get a check in the bank.

So I focus on generating revenue immediately. Do you need all of those things? Eventually. But you don't need them right now. So there are two things about generating revenue right away that are important. First of all, until you're generating revenue, it's not a business. I'm sorry to tell you. It's a hobby. And of course, we all know that things like, I work a lot in, life sciences, so I'm sometimes involved in pharmaceutical development and it really can take fifteen years before you get to revenue.

But in consulting, that's not the case. You really can generate revenue quickly. So until you're generating revenue, you don't have a business and once you are generating revenue, there's something magic that happens. When you put that first check in the bank, your confidence is gonna take off and you're gonna be a consultant. And now when you do your outreach and you talk to projects, you're gonna be fully into that, and the confidence that your project is gonna make a huge difference.

[00:08:36.60] – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to, switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:08:46.00] – Amy Rasdal

Okay. So this is not as effective as and efficient. I guess it is. It's a little it's a little less direct, but it's so, so important, I believe, for any CEO and person who has their own business. Never let a day go by without doing something toward networking, marketing, and business development. Your sales engine needs constant gas if you want it to keep going for you. So never let it build up a certain amount of momentum. Never let that momentum die. Never let a day go by without doing something toward networking, marketing, and business development.

[00:09:24.29] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That's a huge thing. And I think so many times, people are looking for more opportunities for more businesses, more more clients to work with. And then once you get those opportunities, you stop networking, you stop doing sales, you stop doing all those things. And then the next month or the next week, you don't have any business, and a lot of that is because you're not filling up every day as you said so well. But if you have that as a constant practice that you're doing, that's when you start to get those consistent, endless revenue streams up and going.

[00:09:50.29] – Amy Rasdal

Absolutely.

[00:09:51.70] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. It's huge. And so now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. You might have mentioned this, but this could be a word of wisdom or piece of advice, something you might tell a client, or if you were to hop into a time machine, tell your younger business self.

[00:10:06.39] – Amy Rasdal

Business is about relationships. It doesn't matter what business you're in or what you do. So constantly building new relationships. And I'm a little bit hesitant to mention the word networking because I think there are so many connotations around networking. But I think it's so important to always be building those relationships. If you're intimidated by the word networking. I know, I started as an engineer, so I have a strong introvert side to my personality. So I'd go to these networking events and every time I go there, I would feel like I was at a junior high dance and I would stand around the side, and I would never meet anybody.

So figure out what networking means to you. Figure out whether it's events or meeting with people. And of course, in-person events are very difficult right now. One-on-one meetings, just having a couple of coffees, virtual, whatever. But just make sure that every single week, not even just once a month, you're doing something to constantly be developing or developing new and deepening existing business relationships because your next job, your next company, your next project, your next person that you need to hire, when you need a patent attorney, all of those things are gonna come through relationships. So constant relationship building and nurturing is the foundation of business, I believe. Business success, I believe.

[00:11:33.89] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Love that. I love how it ties in with the hack as well too because I think those two things are huge. And so many times, as we talked about with networking and sales and all of those aspects, you're looking for business when you need business, but that's usually the worst time to do that.

In the same way, if you're looking for that new hire or that cofounder or whatever it might be, those relationships that you're looking for, you want to build and cultivate those before you need them because that's when you can have the lay of the land, I guess, you can say from the different opportunities that are available to you. You never know how they're gonna come up. But I think if you don't do that, then you're limiting your relationships, your connections, that those possibilities that you have in your your life and your business.

[00:12:13.10] – Amy Rasdal

Absolutely. Serendipity is a very powerful thing. And if you position yourself to take advantage of it, you'll be way ahead of the game.

[00:12:21.10] – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. I think there's a quote. The harder I work, the luckier I get. So that's so easy.

[00:12:26.39] – Amy Rasdal

That's one of my favorite quotes.

[00:12:28.10] – Gresham Harkless

Is it? There we go. Hey, we're speaking the same way.

[00:12:30.89] – Amy Rasdal

I have it. Gresham, I have it on my wall.

[00:12:33.00] – Gresham Harkless

That's awesome. And so, now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping that different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So, Amy, what does being the CEO mean to you?

[00:12:45.79] – Amy Rasdal

Yeah. So I've talked a little bit about that because I talked about how for so long, my goal was to be a startup CEO where I would be the CEO of a a bigger growing organization and have boards and venture funding and perhaps go public and all of those things. Now, what being a CEO is to me is, freedom, flexibility, control, a lot of control over the type of work that I do, who I work with, how much money I can make, kind of when I work, you know, all of those kinds of things.

So I have a huge amount of flexibility. Now the caveat in there is I can't just decide I wanna do all this stuff. There has to be someone willing to hire me to do those things. But I love being able to live the life that I wanna have. That, that life that I deserve.

And I want, all of your listeners to know that both those types of CEOs, and there are lots of other flavors from all of your other guests, they're all valid and important, but they're if you are in some kind of incarnation as a CEO or head in a direction that isn't working, there are many directions that you can pick. And you really, that's up to you. You can control that. You can choose that. You don't have to wait for it to choose you.

[00:14:07.89] – Gresham Harkless

That's very, very powerful. And, you know, as we said in the very beginning and you talked about in your story, so many times we don't realize that there are other flavors, as you said so well, to be a CEO, and we get to make that decision and create the world, make the impact in the way that we see it. So I appreciate you, Amy, for, giving that definition. I appreciate you for walking and embodying that as well too.

And, what I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you, find out about your programs and all the awesome things you're working on.

[00:14:38.50] – Amy Rasdal

Sure. Thank you. So, I would love to be a resource for you. If you are interested, either you know that you wanna start your own consulting business and be your CEO in the way that I do, or if you're just interested in learning more, maybe you're working on a startup where you're the CEO, but you need some other revenue coming in while you build that. If you are working on a pharmaceutical that's gonna take 10:10 years or some type of technology that's just gonna take longer and you need to fund your life while that's happening, consulting can be a good option for that too.

So you will find me Amy Razzdell, billable at the beach. If you search for billable at the beach or just billable on the beach, you'll find me. And I want to throw out there, if you do decide that you're interested or just even want to stick a toe in the water, I have a free email course called Three Action Steps to generate revenue now, which is three simple steps that will get you right along that path and get you landing a project and putting a check in the bank. Jump on in, sign up for it, and reach out to me. However I can help you, I'd love to do that.

[00:15:43.79] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much again, Amy. We will have the links and information in the show notes as well too just to make it even easier. But, you know, I love all the work that you're doing, and I love that final reminder as well. Because I think so many times, if we have an ambitious goal, if it's pharmaceutical or something like, along those lines, we can add some gas to our car that we're taking there by doing some type of consulting or something to supplement that so that we can have enough in the engine and in the tank to get to that dream and the goal.

And I think that's something that we sometimes forget that we can supplement things so that we can get to where we need to be. So appreciate you for doing that. Appreciate you for sharing today, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

[00:16:20.70] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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