Jay: Hi, everyone. Welcome to The First Customer Podcast. My name's Jay Aigner. Today, I'm lucky enough to be joined by Chris Roche, CEO of Catalyst Consulting. They partner with B2B SaaS companies and try to switch them from lead gen to demand gen, which I would like to get into at some point. Chris, how are you, buddy?
Chris: Damn, I'm good. Thanks for having me on.
Jay: You got it, brother. You're currently in an RV. We were talking a little bit about that. I want to get into why you're in an RV in a little bit, but let's take it back to where you started. Where did you grow up and did that have any kind of impact on your entrepreneurial journey?
Chris: Yeah, so I grew [00:01:00] up in Manchester, England. I came over to the States when I was 18 on a college soccer scholarship. Um, and then kind of have been here ever since I met my wife in college. We got married five years ago and from then kind of decided that we wanted to set up a life here in America rather than moving back to England.
Throughout my entrepreneurial journey, I've always been privy to entrepreneurship. My mom ran her own college soccer club. My dad now runs his own consulting company. Um, my granddad ran a jewel shop. You know, a lot of my family have taken that leap into starting their own business, but it's been more brick and mortar stores.
So
Jay: Mm hmm.
Chris: making the jump was never really something that intimidated me. It was going into a completely different field than everybody else had ever been. It kind of been in, but I had a background in marketing. I launched my own SaaS company out of college that was acquired. Then I ended up working with the software development agency.
I was then bought out there. And then I started Catalyst Consulting as a, uh, full service demand generation marketing solution for B2B SaaS companies.
Jay: Wow. Um, what would [00:02:00] you say is kind of the biggest lesson you, you did take from your, your family when you started your own business? Like what were those entrepreneurial pieces that, that you think you picked up along the way that helped you start your own business?
Chris: Yeah, I think for me, it was, I didn't have this fear of failing. I had a very strong support network with that. There was never this kind of, Oh, what happens if I fail? It was, you might fail, but you're going to learn from it and just continue to take that lesson onto the next one. And I say this now, I advise a lot of entrepreneurs and like, so this is my fourth, fifth business that I'm on right now.
And every business gets a little bit easier and usually we make a little bit more money. And it just, every business just continues to kind of grow in size with that. So it's a lot of, of learning and you know, there's going to be failures. There's going to be things that don't work out the way that you think that they were going to work out and they don't go to plan.
And there are things that don't go to plan in a good way. So that's. Confidence of knowing, listen, if it doesn't, if it doesn't work out, you always have, you know, kind of that network to fall back on that for something for me with my, with my family was always really important. And then having [00:03:00] come to America and had that kind of solid foundation of friends and also this enormous chip on my shoulder, having come here with, Just a suitcase and wanting to build this life from scratch.
You know, that quote unquote, the American dream, like that's kind of, for me, that was a big part of it as well. Of this. And I got to prove some people wrong here because I came to America at 18 and there's a lot of people and friends that looked at that and said, you are crazy. So for me, it's that, that pressure off, Hey, you've got to go and make a life out of being here.
Uh, that's helped me definitely keep going at times where I'm not as motivated.
Jay: I love it. Um, what, what do you tell the people you advise or what do you tell kind of people in general to get over that fear of failure? Cause I know so many same boat. Like when I talked to, you know, budding entrepreneurs, that's the biggest. Thing I tell everybody is like, just do it, just start doing things.
And then you'll, you will fail and you'll find things that work and you kind of go from there. But what do you tell people to kind of get over that fear of failure?
Chris: That's a huge part of it is do it. Stop talking about it. Stop, you know, pontificating around it. Stop discussing it. Just [00:04:00] go and do it. You know, you need to take those steps. You'll be amazed at what you can accomplish when you actually start to do it. And part of the process is failing. It's expected. Like it shouldn't be this enormous Kind of set back if you do fail at something.
That's great. That's my first failure now I can move on to something else learn from it figure out you know whether that's a failure that you need to pivot the business or if you need to Stop the business if you even have a business. Um, a lot of the companies a lot of the Uh, the entrepreneurs that I consult with are digital marketers that want to start their own marketing agency So as we've seen across the entire tech landscape in the last two years every marketer is getting laid off.
It's an absolute bloodbath. And you're in this situation where you go from making 150 grand a year one day to nothing the next. And it's a really scary position to be in. So my argument is start freelancing on the side, start consulting on the side, build up this second income stream so that if you do get laid off, you've got something to fall back on.
And then you can decide if you want to do that full time, you can build up that side of. Uh, kind of your, your life. If you [00:05:00] choose to pursue becoming more of a full time consultant, that to me is where I've really kind of been helping people not put all their eggs in one basket, because that's what I ended up doing.
I ended up leaving a company and then had to start from scratch. And it's one of those where you're like. Suddenly you've got to figure out what you want to do with that. Um, and it's quite intimidating. And if I hadn't had the success that I had in previous companies, I could have just gone and, you know, got a job or kind of felt sorry for myself, but because I had that experience, it allowed me to continue to go.
So once you've learned that skill, it's a really, really dangerous skill, uh, but it allows you to do. What we're doing now when I'm sat in an RV in the middle of the woods working from here because I want to, um, rather than be in an office somewhere where I hate my job. So, you know, it gives you that freedom.
Once you learn how to do that.
Jay: I love it. Uh, I often call myself a consulting evangelist. Uh, I think everybody should consult. I think everybody should freelance. You should all, you know, that second, I mean, you said it all the second stream of income, uh, unlocks kind of the whole business model, right? They can do, you can do that over and over again.
Like you said, and you've done that. So talk me a little [00:06:00] bit through the, uh, I'm curious about the college SaaS company you started and was acquired. Like what was the background there and how'd you get that started?
Chris: Yeah. So I came over to play college soccer, um, found through my process of coming over myself that, you know, you get paired with an agent, you get connected with these universities, they charge a couple thousand dollars to basically pay you and connect you with them because of their connections. Came here and realized there's not a lot that goes into this.
This was purely a case of I had the grades to fit. I was good enough to play and I could have done this by myself. Um, so realize, listen, all these middlemen are taking a healthy cut from a lot of international kids coming over every year and decided I was going to create a platform that was going to streamline that.
The more research I did, and I went to school in a I went to school in a small school in Wisconsin, and we pulled a lot of players from the Chicagoland area because they were good athletes. Um, and they just, there was good talent there. So we'd pull a lot of those players and I found when, you know, they'd come and I was talking with them that they were also Paying middlemen and recruiters to connect them to a school.
It's 23 hours away. I'm thinking this is crazy. Like all you've got to do is find a university that [00:07:00] fits your academic profile that you have the grades to get into. You like the style play, you connect with the coach and you just have a conversation. And then if you're good enough, you'll get recruited.
Um, so it seemed like a no brainer to me. So I created this platform that allowed High school athletes, high school age soccer players to connect with college coaches. It was almost like a LinkedIn, but for college soccer recruiting, um, had a lot of success with getting kids on boarded, getting colleges on boarded, having that kind of academic piece.
Um, we worked with clubs across the country. Um, I was up and down to, uh, Minnesota to Florida, to California, you know, we just had this, you know, very fast growing, uh, user base with that, but ultimately the problem was. Monetizing it. So we had like premium services. So we grew very, very fast, but we weren't necessarily getting these, uh, that much revenue from it.
And it got to the point where I was like, I've got to either. Go and raise all the capital, or I need to figure out what I want to do here, how we're going to monetize it. And that point, I actually got an acquisition offer, um, to be able to kind of have someone else run it. And I would then join, uh, join them as more advisor for the company and then be a large part of that company, [00:08:00] which is what I ended up taking, uh, and it ended up working out really well.
Um, so that was kind of how I. My first taste of kind of tech entrepreneurship, it had the element of B2B and B2C because it was a marketplace. Uh, that was really where I cut my teeth on digital marketing for the first time and really guerrilla tactics because we didn't have a lot of money. So we had to be scrappy, you know, we were driving to conferences 15 hours away, uh, you know, driving to showcases, you know, we would be really, really scrappy, you know, just out of college.
I was bartending in the evenings, you know, working at the office during the day. And that was kind of where I was able to kind of grind it out. And that taught me a lot of, uh, kind of the work ethic it takes to, to be an entrepreneur. But now I'm at a point where, you know, we streamlined a lot of that. I don't have the same kind of, I don't know.
It's not that I don't have the same work ethic. I don't have the same desire to work, you know, 18 hours a day and kind of go after that, that I was when I was 21 years old. Um, but it taught me a lot about being an entrepreneur, which was, which was very, uh, very valuable as someone that plans on being one for the rest of my life.
Jay: Yeah, I don't think any of us have the energy we [00:09:00] had when we were 21, but, uh,
Chris: It was the, it's the late, late nights working in the bar and then going to balance and then being in the office by 8 a. m. and doing that six days a week. Um, I couldn't do that anymore.
Jay: Yeah, yeah, no, no, thank you. I feel like that's the one You know reward I will take from from working so hard back Then is not having to do it now and not it's not even it's a different kind of work now So talk me through the next company you had Your soccer platform and then and you said a development company went to there.
Is that right after the the soccer company?
Chris: Yep. Software development company actually acquired the technology, um, and then had me basically as an aqua hire. I joined, um, as the chief revenue officer and handle all that sales and marketing. We scaled from at a time when I joined is about half a million dollars a year. On to doing about three and a half to 4 million a year.
And I worked with them for two years. Uh, we scaled very, very aggressively. That was where I really figured out B2B marketing and how to drive serious revenue from paid social campaigns. Um, we built out the entire sales and marketing kind [00:10:00] of processes for that company, cause they didn't have a lot kind of coming into that.
And then we got to the point where just, it no longer became a good fit for me. Um, software development really wasn't. My passion, it was more like digital marketing side. I was really enjoying doing that. And all of our clients would be to be SaaS companies that we were building the technology for, and we'd already closed them because of my marketing.
They'd come in, they'd come to the sales process. I was getting a lot of questions on how I was doing it for. That company, um, from our clients. And at that point I decided to spin off and actually start a B2B SaaS marketing firm. Uh, we had a couple of clients that actually came with us straight away. Uh, we handled that.
It was already kind of consulting with a few of them as part of our services with that agency. Uh, and then we've just. Kind of exploded since then, uh, in terms of the B2B SaaS marketing. We've had a very clear niche that we go after. We work with clients in a very specific way. Um, and we have a very unique approach to the way that we do digital marketing, which is, um, not that, uh, it seems to be not like common in specifically marketing agencies and in the B2B SaaS world.
Jay: So [00:11:00] take me through your first customer for each of those Those platforms like not, and they don't have to be named obviously, but how did you acquire your first customer for the, the soccer, uh, you know, platform and then for your web development firm and then for your market. And I, the last one makes a lot of sense, right?
Like you, I always call it the friends and family plan. Like it's the people you knew before you kind of carried some over to that business, but how would talk to me a little bit about the very first, you know, kind of customers that you got for that soccer platform.
Chris: Yeah. First, first customers for the Sokka platform were all Friends and family. Um, well, not I mean, not family, but, um, connections. I was a college soccer player. I just graduated. I knew all the clubs I'd coached. I ref high school. I had the connections with them and I was going to acquire soccer clubs as customers and it was a small monthly fee.
Uh, and you had access to the platform and then athletes could then join as part of that club and then they could upgrade basically to a premium version. Um, so that was how we got our first Customers with that. It was all local customers. We then went to a conference out in Philadelphia where we closed five customers on the [00:12:00] first day.
And that was kind of the aha moment where I was like, Hey, we've got to go and grow this. You know, there's an appetite for this. We've got to go and grow that. So that was kind of how I first started with that. It was never digital marketing. Um, it was all through hard. Outbound cold calling, emailing, prospecting, being at events, you know, showing up in person was how I acquired all of those customers and kind of worked with those partners.
When I moved to the software development industry, um, I realized. There wasn't a specific target that I was going after. There wasn't, you know, Hey, these soccer clubs where I could just find their number online, it was businesses across the country and it was across different industries. You know, we worked with clients, you know, on the, uh, in the aviation industry to med tech, to health tech, to, you know, small mom and pop shops that wanted website built.
So we found that we had this enormous audience we were going after. And what I found was. Digital marketing was the way to reach those with different messaging. Um, so all of our customers came from digital marketing. It was all through Facebook, LinkedIn. Uh, we played around a little bit with Google ads towards the [00:13:00] end.
Um, but that was how we acquired all of our customers. They'd come in, we had all the workflow set up and it was about creating the right messaging, being able to get, you know, leads that come in and then we would just close them once they'd come in and take them kind of through our sales process. And we, at that point had a very good.
sales process. We had a very good team. Uh, we closed a lot, a high percentage of those that came through. So it was, it was just a rinse and repeat that we were, we were doing with that. And this is at a time where Facebook. You could target businesses very, very easily. You could narrow down demographic data.
It was, you know, shooting fish in a barrel once we figured it out and we were just doing it over and over again. And that was where we ran into the issue of, I want it to grow a lot faster than we could, because we could do that. But obviously with software development, you got to fill the project. It's not quite as simple as, um, just closing as much like you could with a SaaS, which is where I ran into the frustration of not being able to grow as fast, which is why I then pivoted into working with SaaS companies that it's repeatable.
You can sell over and over again. Um, and you don't have as much limitation and constraints on the growth of the company.
Jay: Got it. [00:14:00] What were some of the things that held you back initially from, you know, from starting To get into the point where you were ready to start Catalyst Consulting, like, what, what were the, you know, was it the experience you needed in those different, you know, veins that you went through before you eventually said, like, this is something I can go do?
Like, what, what kind of held you back from, from starting? Why was that the first thing you started, right? Like, what were the lessons you learned to kind of get you there?
Chris: There was a lot of fear in going out by myself again. Um, bear in mind, I'd worked with this company. I had six partners. Um, I had people to rely on and it wasn't just me and I wasn't a hundred percent accountable. So going out on my own, there was definitely a fear of that. Um, there was a, you know, Hey, everybody.
Wants to consult with me at the moment, but are they actually going to pay what I want them to do that? Am I going to be able to actually make enough money to support myself and my family and my wife? And, you know, is that going to be, is it going to be sustainable? Can I do it? And then I'm going to lose all my clients one month and then be back to ground, you know, kind of the ground floor with that, you know, those are the big concerns.
There's a lot of fear that went into that. Um, And there was a lot of, am I a good enough marketer to have someone pay me [00:15:00] to do this? Cause I'm not, I'm not coming from these SaaS companies where I, you know, I'm not coming from Google. I'm not coming from, uh, you know, Facebook or HubSpot where I have this, you know, pedigree of, you know, working with these companies and being full time.
And then I want to go and consult. And that's where, again, some of the, I mean, some of the marketers I'm consulting with now, the companies that they're coming from, and they're nervous to go and consult. If I'd had that when I was starting. I'd have grown 10 times as fast as I did now. Like I'm coming from this tiny, you know, in the grand scheme of things, tiny companies, nobody's ever heard of me.
I went to school in a tiny town in Wisconsin and everybody I've met has been since I was 18. It's not like I have like these deep connections and family connections, um, that a lot of people have. I, you know, I'm really at a time, you know, I'm five or six years into my career. I'm just starting off and half my LinkedIn profile is fricking soccer coaches.
So I'm looking at it thinking, you know, how can I actually start this? Um, uh, so there was definitely a fear of getting into it. And then once I made the leap, I mean, it was like the first 30 days we closed three clients and I'll put it on. I was like, Oh, I should have done this a year ago. It was [00:16:00] just kind of like that.
It was that frustration of, yeah, this was the right move. And then the hard part for us to get over is. You have your, your network and you close the clients in there. And I always said, everyone, you've got 10 grand a month in retaining clients in your network right now. Guarantee it. You just got to find them.
And we found that in the first month. But then what do we do afterwards? Do we invest in our own ads and start doing that you've got to pay to play with that So like are we gonna basically not pay ourselves to invest in growth? What avenues can we use to go and find clients and we found that? Uh our reputation just slowly started to build and now I mean we're approaching two years now Now we are one of the top digital marketing agencies for B2B SaaS companies now we don't have to do our own marketing and pay for advertising because Everything is referral.
We have inbounds coming. We have enormous demand for our services now, which is what we've been trying to get to because B2B SaaS isn't this enormous industry. If you do a good job, everybody hears about it. And that's kind of our goal is to be able to do that. But we knew it was going to be a slower growth.
So for the first six months, this was me. I [00:17:00] was a designer. I was a marketer. I was a project manager. I was a CFO. I was the CTO. You know, I was doing everything. So now we've actually built a team. Uh, we've been able to kind of. Augment, you know, really what we're doing, um, and kind of distribute the workload as well as made a huge difference.
We built a team now of eight, um, which, you know, in the first two years is very fast growth and faster than I ever anticipated we would be at. Um, but that's kind of always been the goal is to slowly, slowly build organically. And now we're at a point where we're ready to. double down on growth. You know, we've doubled every year.
Um, but if you're going to continue to do that, the leaps get bigger. And that's kind of our goal is to continue to double in size every year. Um, in terms of our client base, in terms of our revenues, in terms of our team. And that's where, uh, now we're at a point where we're, we're growing very, very fast, but we have the capacity to handle it.
Whereas before, if I tried to do that, you know, we'd have struggled.
Jay: Right. How, I mean, that brings up an interesting point. How did you learn... How to delegate, right? I mean, I, again, I say I'm a consulting evangelist and a delegation evangelist. And like, how did you learn [00:18:00] how to delegate the stuff that, like you said, you had to do everything yourself. Like, how did you start to peel those things off and hand those off to subject matter experts that could do even a better job than you're doing, you know, yourself.
Chris: A lot of it was, um, what's my time worth? And that was why, you know, when we started, if you work with three clients as a consultant, you can work 20 to 25 hours a week and make 10 grand a month. And you can live a very good life with that. Um, and for some people that's, that's all you have to do to be happy.
Um, I get bored is a problem. I like to grow. I like to sell. I want to continue to improve and make improvements. So for me, it was a case of, you know, Putting a value on the tasks that we do, like what's the hourly value that we do? What's my hourly rate that I would charge to consult as a one off, you know, our, and Can I outsource it for 20 to 30% of that?
Because if I can do it, even though I'm going to make less money, that allows me to kind of free up my time. And that was when I first started, that's when I brought on, you know, the first couple of performance marketers. I also brought on part time performance marketers where I, where I was able to grow and learn as a marketer without having significant overhead [00:19:00] is I hired full time marketers who wanted to consult on the side to work underneath me.
And that to me was it's the the best advice I give you want to grow Don't go and hire someone full time because you might not have 40 hours a week worth of work for them But I paid everybody based on clients managed. I also charge based on each obviously with clients. So there was no risk to me of The cost with that I had straight margin.
So I was able to grow that very, very quickly, and I also hired the best market as I could. And I paid way more than the standard rate for that because I wanted that market. I wanted that market as expertise. I want to learn from them. I knew I didn't know everything about digital marketing. Um, and with that, we then documented the process and we created these training guides.
And that was part of the deal with working with me is you got to document everything you do, because I want to learn myself how, why you're doing it that way. Like, you know, something that I don't. And then now we have this entire library where we can hire marketers who are not senior level marketers and train them very, very quickly because we have this entire training program for them to go through where you [00:20:00] can learn, you know, live with our client accounts under the oversight of, you know, senior markets.
Now our marketers are full time. Um, but when we were first starting, it was about how can I get help, get an understanding and delegate those tasks without having considerable overhead, because when you're a consultant. You don't have, you know, a hundred and a year salary to pay someone. It's hard to do that.
Um, you've got to really grow or raise money, which I didn't want to do. So that was kind of how I got over that hurdle. Cause that's where, to me, that's the hardest hurdle to get over is when you're at capacity and you work in, you know, 40, 50 hours a week, you make it 15 grand a month, 20 grand a month. It sounds great.
But you want to start buying back your time and that's been my main focus Honestly for the last six months has been buying back my time. We've hired head of operations. We've hired designers We've hired project managers. We've hired performance marketers. We've had data analysts, you know I've slowly started to build this team where I can start to buy back my time and now i'm at a point where Everybody around me does the job better than I do it, which is great.
I'm the worst marketer on the team. I'm the worst designer on the team. I'm the [00:21:00] worst operations on the team. That's how it should be. That's what I've been trying to get to, uh, to the point where now I oversee it. I manage it. I meet with the clients. I actually still do a lot of the client facing cause I enjoy it, but I don't have to do too many tasks now that I don't enjoy and I'm not.
Working 70, 80 hours a week, killing myself. Like I was, you know, looking back into last, you know, Thanksgiving, even toward last Christmas, even, I mean, January, February, I was, it was, it was a really hard time. Because I, I onboarded a lot of clients, um, cause I knew we needed the business and I had to work through that to be able to then get the cash, you know, cashflow to support a larger team.
Um, so it was, uh, kind of a baptism of fire for me to do that. But now we're at a point where we've started to kind of delegate those tasks. And once you find that someone can do something as good, if not better than you can. Delegate it. And the other rule, I mean, it doesn't even have to be as good. I found, you know, with it, I always say to, uh, well, one of my, uh, one of my, my, my head of operations when I'm talking with, with them and said, listen, if we can delegate this and they can do it 80% as well as I can do it, do that.
And then we'll finish the [00:22:00] rest 20% because then only takes 20% of the time. Like, let's start delegating these tasks. Uh, and that's been a great, I guess, almost mantra we've had with that. And that's made it a lot easier for us to grow very, very quickly.
Jay: I love it. Uh, de risking by using, uh, contractors I think is a huge, Cheat code for building a business. Like you said, I mean, you don't want to bring on somebody full time that you're not ready for. A lot of people aren't ready to do full time when they're, they're making that leap. So I think it's a really de risk, right?
It de risks you by a lot to have the flexibility. To scale them up when you need them, scale them back when you don't or you don't have the, you know, the client flow, whatever it is, but that's, I love that point. So, uh, what would you do if, uh, what would be your first step if you were going to start, uh, Catalyst over tomorrow?
What would be step one?
Chris: If I was starting a marketing agency from scratch.
Jay: If you started, yes, your marketing agency or any marketing agency tomorrow, uh, what would be step one?
Chris: I'd write a list of probably 20 [00:23:00] contacts that I've got that I think would be a good fit and I'd call all of them and I'd just pitch them and see what happens and I'd see what feedback I got on each of the calls. But that'd be the first thing I do is call and say, I'm starting a marketing agency. We're going to be doing this.
You know me. Listen, we've worked together in the past. You know the level of work that I do. I want to give you an opportunity right now to be my first, you know, I'm taking on three clients this month. I'm going to be calling 50 people. I want to give you an opportunity to be one of those. Is it something that you think you'd be interested in?
If not, who would be interested in this? Because I know, you know, someone that would be, and I would do that for the first seven days and just call everybody. So exactly what I did. Um, and I got three clients in the first 14 days. And suddenly it was like, it takes that pressure. There is an enormous pressure when you, uh, when you start an agency or you start your own business, especially if you're not choosing to start it by choice.
A lot of marketers have just got laid off. And you go from this to zero and suddenly it's like, shit, I can still get a mortgage payment. The bank doesn't care if you've been laid off, you still got a mortgage payment. So how do you, how do you cover your expenses? Um, that's the biggest priority that I would have if I was [00:24:00] starting my agency from scratch, um, as a full time marketer, it's how do I cover my expenses?
How do I get that pressure off my shoulders? Because I don't have to work with my ideal clients. As my first three clients, I just need someone that's going to pay the bills. Then you can start to be picky. Then you can increase your retainers. Then you can choose what you want to do with your sales process.
You can build a website. You can do all these things that everybody wants to start with. Number one thing you can do is get your expenses covered because now I've got unlimited runway. When you look at SaaS companies, one of the big things that you were seeing right now is, is burn. Um, a lot of company valuations are going down because they're spending more than they're making as a SaaS company.
When you raise 50 million. It sucks when you have burn, but you've got 50 million in the bank as someone that starting what you've got a nest egg of 20 to 30, 000, maybe you're looking to kind of like freely start with maybe less, you know, I at the time had about 5000. I was thinking I've got one month. I've very low expenses, um, before I'm going to have to start looking at Joe. I gave myself one month basically to figure this out. And the 30 days worked. Um, and we got to that point, but it's very [00:25:00] difficult to get buy in from family, from buy in from spouses, buy in from friends when you're not making any money because it's a hobby and the best advice for anyone wants to start is prove them wrong, go and get customers, then start to figure out becoming a business now, two years in we're rebranding our website.
Our website has closed very little deals for us. Now we're starting to get into that. I don't have the fanciest website. We've not needed it. Everybody comes from referrals. It's all conversations that you have. It's all our ability to explain the way that we do things and have a unique offering that we have with marketing.
Um, not necessarily fielding out all these assets, which is where everybody wants to start. It doesn't really matter. to,
Jay: Right, that's the fun, that's the fun stuff. Um,
Chris: you have to earn that
Jay: Yeah, I love it. Yeah, you do have to earn that. I think you're, I think you're dead on. It's the easy, it's the easy thing to start with because it's fun.
What are, let's switch gears a little bit. What, uh, as an entrepreneur, obviously you've been through the stress, you've been through the, you know, kind of crazy times. Now that you're kind of able to reflect a little bit, what are, What are three healthy things [00:26:00] that you're kind of trying to do on a daily basis to keep yourself tuned up?
You know as a leader of a company and as a family guy and all this other stuff Like what are three kind of things that you lean on for your health,
Chris: Yeah, I would. Um, essentially, this is a very timely question. Um, personally, I have been stressed recently, like just really honestly, kind of struggling, um, mentally with clarity with, uh, becoming, you know, being. Or be unhappy and motivating and as your job as a CEO, when you work with the team is to lift everyone up, like that's your job, you know, you can't come into this and have days where, you know, you're, you're underperforming and you're dragging people down because it has an effect on the rest of the team.
So one of the things that I've been doing, uh, the last couple of weeks, um, is first of all, I started running again, I was a soccer player, I lifted a lot of weights, um, I got, I got quite big with lifting weights. But it was I liked doing it. So I got nothing out of it. And it's again, it was the fun thing for me.
It was a reward, um, which to me, I just didn't get as much out of. I hate running. So when I go and run now, if I run in the mornings, I ran this morning on three miles this morning, [00:27:00] my day is such a better day because I've got it out of the way. And the feeling of accomplishment for me is where I can start my day with that.
Um, so I journal in the mornings. I've been it. I'm actually experimenting at the moment with running in the morning and then journaling, um, and, and not running and then journaling, um, and then not running that day and seeing how my mood. is affected. Uh, if I don't, if I don't run, I go freaking nuts. So that's the other thing I started to realize is I've got to start doing this.
You know, I'm in an RV. I'm in a very small space. Um, there's this beautiful scenery around me going in the morning to go out and take advantage of that. Um, so for me, getting out outside is a crucial part of that. Running again is, is a, is a huge part of that. Um, building a team around me, which is not what everybody can do right now, but building a team around me that calls me out on my shit is, is really important.
Um, yesterday, I, was not a good day for me. Um, just transparently, I just, you know, I didn't sleep well. Um, I had a lot of meetings and a lot of client facing meetings and it's draining when you're in client facing meetings all day because you can't be off your game on a client call. So later that day I'm talking with, um, you know, one of my, one of my teammates and, uh, and she just calls me out and she's like, just, you know, [00:28:00] you got to snap out of it.
Like this is, you can't, like, that's not how it works. Um, and for me it was like that, like, you know, you're absolutely right. Like I'm, I'm, I'm being a bad leader right now. Okay. Uh, my energy is rubbing off on the team and, uh, you know, I, I've got a, I've got a snap out of it and that's, you know, to get today, that's why, you know, went for a run, came in today, felt much better, uh, but having that team to be able to recognize that because as a, as a CEO, not every day is going to be perfect.
And this is the thing, like I'm learning this now as being a CEO of a larger team, um, and also a team of people at the top of the game, you know, the guys and girls who have working for us. These are a list people. You know, these are these are top of their field, um, professionals. So when you've got this team of a players.
My, my job now is basically as coach is to lift them up, but I can't do that every day. And on the days, the occasional days, um, where you slip up, it's making sure that your team picks you back up. And that for me was yesterday. I was actually reflecting on this, um, this morning during my run. I was, I was thinking about, I'm thinking it was so refreshing to have a team that could pick me up on that day where I just wasn't.
It's just something I don't know where it was. I [00:29:00] just wasn't in the mood. Um, I just was not in that and it happens from time to time. Um, but it's naive to think it's not going to happen and and building that team that can support you with it is a huge part of that. And then the network outside of your team, you know, friends, family, having professionals to bounce ideas off.
That's a huge part of it as well. Um, and those are the ways that I personally, you know, try and maintain, you know, physical health, you know, Mental health. Um, and kind of just peace of mind of doing it because it's stressful like it's every every week. It's stressful. There's always things that are gonna happen with it.
There's never this like it's never a week where like everything goes perfect. So just being able to have those those mechanisms for resetting for taking a break, whether that is just as simple as going outside. Um, and again, for me, I'm very fortunate because we're in an RV when I go outside. I'm in the woods.
There's no distractions. I don't have phone service. It's great. I can just turn off my wifi. Like if I don't want to get called, I just turn off my wifi. We have Starlink. We just turn it off. Nobody can get hold of me. Um, things like that can be very, very effective. And just again, just having some time to yourself sometimes is all you [00:30:00] need.
Jay: I love it. I love all three of those. Um, all right. So, uh, mystery question. Final question. Uh, non business related answer. Uh, and you know, obviously you're in an RV just traveling around doing all sorts of crazy, you know, adventures and stuff. So this may be an interesting question for you. Uh, what is something you would do if you knew you couldn't fail?
Chris: Um, I would hire more and more and more people and I would grow. I would take the shackles off yeah.
Jay: Okay. So,
Chris: right now. Um, sorry, did you say it was non business related? Did I
Jay: said non business related. I was gonna let it slide because you're like already in an RV Which a lot of people wouldn't do so I was gonna let it slide But I would if it was non business related a personal thing that that you know Maybe a bucket list item whatever it is. What is something you would do if you knew you couldn't fail?
Chris: non business related? Um, I'd like to get into running marathons and [00:31:00] triathlons is what I'm, I would like to get into. Um,
Jay: I like that Yeah, it's
Chris: running has been a big part of it. Um, I'm obviously increasing miles as we're going with it and building up to it. I'd like to run I'd like to the point where I'm running marathons every year and it's like easy.
Um, that to me would be pretty cool. Um, cause I've done the whole, I've done the weights thing and it's great. Like you get to a point, it's like, all right, like I'm doing really well with it now. Um, but you hit a plateau and it just, you know, if you go any heavier, it just begins to get a bit stupid. Like the risk reward just isn't there.
Um, whereas with running it's that to me is like, it's almost like therapy. So I'd like to get to the point where I'm running a lot more. Um, I'd like to get into triathlons. I'd like to have that. Competitiveness back in my life with having something because the best part is it's you against yourself. So it's just beating, it's beating your times.
It's beating your scores. I think I would get a lot out of that. Uh, so that's something I'd like to do. I don't want to sign up for a marathon because, um, I don't know if I'm ready yet, to be honest. Um, so if I couldn't fail and I knew I could run the whole time,
Jay: There you go. Oh, I love it. I love it. That's perfect. It's perfect answer Uh, and I think you should sign up because then that'll make you uh, get ready for it. So, you [00:32:00] know, that's that's one way
Chris: I've been increasing the, uh, it's hard to sign up cause you don't really know where we're going to be. Um, so it's always like a
Jay: fair.
Chris: minute thing. Um, but we've been, yeah, which I signed my wife and I up for, uh, just for a 5k on, uh, 4th of July in the morning. There's one just in the town. So, um, so that'd be just kind of like a fun, a fun little one to do.
Um, but I'd like to start, yeah, I'd like to start getting into more of, of those types of events, um, to challenge myself a bit more mentally and physically than what I'm doing at the moment.
Jay: Yeah, it's certainly a challenge. Uh, and you know, God bless you for that because I'm not a, I'm a biker. I'm a peloton freak. That's my thing in the morning. That's my exercise to get it in. Or, or, or weights or, you know, strength training stuff. Um, but, uh, yeah, God bless you with the running. I, I, I ran cross country, I think, one year in high school and I did not like it.
So, uh, I'm not a, I'm not a huge running fan. I'm not a huge fan of running, but
Chris: No, I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan either. I, I hate, I hate doing it, but that's unfortunately why I get so much out of it. Uh, but yeah, bike biking is, is, yeah, I'm actually in the market for a road bike right now. Cause I'd like to, I'd like to start doing that as well. Um, while we are in these [00:33:00] beautiful places, I'd like to be able to go and explore more on the bike as well.
Jay: Yeah, I went to, I was in Toronto last week and they have an amazing... bike, like, friendly setup, and I rode for probably 45 miles. It was just incredible, just up and down the waterfront and all around the city. I mean, it was, it was fantastic, so yeah, huge, huge fan of biking. Um, alright dude, well that was fantastic.
Let's end it there. Uh, how do people find Chris Roche? How do they find Catalyst Consulting? Like, how do, how do people find you?
Chris: Yeah. LinkedIn is going to be the top one. Um, you can just search Chris Roche or Catalyst Consulting on LinkedIn. Um, and then our website is catalystconsulting. services. Um, so if you're interested in, in, um, Working with us or want to learn more. I want to connect, you know, those are the two best ways to kind of get ahold of me.
Jay: Alright, dude. Well, uh, love the story, love the RV, uh, traveling around. Um, keep up the awesome work and, you know, we all have bad days, but I'm glad to hear you're, you've got your ways to get through them. So, keep up the good work and we'll, uh, you know, we'll, we'll talk again soon, alright? Thanks, Chris.
Chris: Appreciate it.
Jay: See you, man.
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