50 Shades of Paid™: The Structural Shift Every Expert Needs to Make featuring Kadena Tate | EP173

What if the biggest thing limiting your income isn’t your clients, but your business structure? If you’re ready to scale without burning out, this conversation is for you. 

In this episode, revenue strategist and author, Kadena Tate, breaks down the structural mistakes that keep high-achieving experts financially capped. She introduces the core of her 50 Shades of Paid™ framework, reveals the overlooked revenue layer that can transform your business model, and shares the first shift every expert must make to stop being the system in their business. 

Press play to learn how to build a business that truly scales.

And be sure to connect/follow Kadena ... 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kadena/

Website: https://www.kadenatate.com/

Let's Stay in Touch!

• LinkedIn (be sure to mention you heard the podcast ;-))
• Website - B.O.O.S.T.® Your Brilliance 

Transcript

Kadena Tate 0:00

I'm literally looking at the infrastructure of your business and saying, what are the revenue streams that you're sitting on that you may not be aware of, and then mapping out a five, 10, 15 year plan. Most people want to build everything overnight. If you're going to be in business long term and you have a clear idea of this is where I'm going, I think you'll be a lot better off and a lot happier.

Kelly Leonard 0:21

That was Kadena Tate. Kadena is a revenue strategist and author of Stop Being the System. She helps experts design scalable revenue architecture through her 50 shades of paid framework. In today's episode, she breaks down how to secure your thought leadership space and tap into new markets. I'm Kelly Leonard, and this is the Boost Podcast.

Announcer 0:49

Welcome to the Boost Podcast, the podcast created to ignite your business and career potential. In each episode, host Kelly Leonard and her guests dive into one aspect of Kelly's signature boost framework, ensuring you get practical, actionable insights, tips, and takeaways to build your brand, optimize relationships, obtain more leads, secure thought leadership space, and tap into new markets. And now, here's Kelly Leonard.

Kelly Leonard 1:20

Hey Gudena, welcome to the Boost Podcast. Oh, thank you for having me. Yes, yes. So for folks who are hearing your name for the first time, tell us a bit more about yourself.

Kadena Tate 1:31

So I'm a revenue strategist and a business model designer. This is the work that I've been doing for the last 25 years because I couldn't figure out why I was the bottleneck in my own brand and why I wasn't, you know, making the revenue that I needed to since I was spinning in and out of overgiving, overdoing, and doing all the things I had no business doing.

Kelly Leonard 1:50

Wow. Wow. And that is the story of so many of our listeners. And so I'm going to ask folks to lean in, to listen up, to pull out a notepad because they are definitely one going to want to take copious notes based on this conversation. And so, you know, I just want to leap into questions because I know we only have a short amount of time together, but I know you've got an upcoming book, uh Stop Being the System. And you say that most experts aren't stuck because they need more clients, that the real constraint is actually structural. And so, what's the hidden mistake that keeps high achievers financially capped?

Kadena Tate 2:32

For me, what I've discovered is that people focus on the symptoms. They keep trying to solve the symptom. And so, for example, a symptom might be, I don't have enough revenue. I need more revenue so I can hire more people, buy more products, buy a building, whatever the thing is. But the real problem is that every single revenue stream that they build gets routed back through them because they never touch the business model so that they could see what can scale, what they have capacity for, and what lives inside of their own judgment. So to me, what they do is they build, the mistake is they build before fixing the business model.

Kelly Leonard 3:09

Okay. And so fixing the business model, so the thing that comes up for me, and I think that I heard in your you even as you described yourself is that the founder, the business owner is oftentimes that bottleneck. So is that what you find to commonly be the problem?

Kadena Tate 3:23

Oh, 100%. Because think about it like this, right? The intellectual property of your brand lives in you, in your Google Drive, in your notes, in your SOPs, in the bodies of your employees. It's not structured information so that you can see what you actually have. You might be, say, for example, delivering your service one-on-one, but you have a system, a framework, a methodology, a process that you could license to other businesses, but you don't know it. So you're literally sitting on acres of diamonds, sitting on cash, sitting on revenue that you don't even know. You don't even remember.

Kelly Leonard 4:00

Wow, wow. And so I know you also have your 50 shades of paid, which I love that this framework. Um, and you mentioned that that's sort of like the backbone of the work that you do. So for listeners who are new to that concept, how do you describe the framework at a very high level?

Kadena Tate 4:18

So, what like I said a few moments ago, most experts are sitting on a gold mine, but what's happening is they're building one shovel at a time. And so one of the things that I realize within my own brand, and I'm gonna use like a super quick example, right? If you write a book, from your book, you can have audio products, video products, multimedia experiences, you can license your IP and have consulting frameworks, all sorts of things, but you don't know it. You don't build out multiple revenue architecture because most times we just jump into the business and start doing the work. We don't lay the structure down of what are the various streams of revenue that we can pull from this one action.

Kelly Leonard 5:00

So, do you find generally speaking, I and I know, and I don't want to make any assumptions, but so when you say 50 shades or yeah, 50 shades of pain, I was gonna say 50 shades of gray, 50 shades of paid. So are you are you alluding to the fact that there could be as many as 50, or what's the what's the the relevance of 50 in that framework name?

Kadena Tate 5:22

Well, for me personally, over the last 25 years, it's literally like over a hundred different revenue streams. And so when I started taking people's businesses apart and showing them where their money was, a friend laughed and said, These people, since you mentioned 50 shades of gray, because I changed my brand, I had a different name that didn't make a bit of sense, right? My brand used to be called Awakening Authenticity. That's what it was called. And then a friend of mine said, These people are over here worried about 50 shades of gray when they need to get on the 50 shades of paid framework that you talk about. And I was like, What? And that's how my brand name changed because I realized that's what I was talking about. Like I was talking about monetizing what you already do in multiple formats. But some people think, oh, you're talking about a hustle. No, I'm talking about revenue architecture. You sitting down and looking at, I mean, I have a big list of them and deciding what is it that you really want to build so that you're not always in this, you know, uh thirst trap for money. I guess that's the best way to say it.

Kelly Leonard 6:24

Yeah, and you know what? Like, as I even reflect on the story that you just um shared around just sort of the what inspired even the naming of this framework, was just a reminder to just listen, like to listen, to be intentional about listening and listening to the people who perhaps have experienced your product, your service, because oftentimes there's you know, there's gold even in those conversations when your buyer, your customer, your ID like they're the ones telling you, okay, this is what I need. And it's like, what?

Kadena Tate 6:57

Voila, they're exactly 100%. Yes, yes, yes. This is why I say to people, you can't be reactive to everything. You got to be responsive because literally she said this to me at one o'clock in the morning, and I said, Pause, say that again and break that down to me so that I could understand. Because I didn't want people to think I was talking about, you know, hustling for every dollar because that's not what I do. I'm a business model designer. So I'm literally looking at the infrastructure of your business and saying, what are the revenue streams that you're sitting on that you may not be aware of? And then mapping out a five, 10, 15 year plan. Because you can't, most people want to build everything overnight. If you're gonna be in business long term and you have a clear idea of this is where I'm going, I think you'll be a lot better off and a lot happier.

Kelly Leonard 7:48

That's powerful. And so inside of the framework, what's one revenue layer that most professionals overlook? But but once they see it, it's like I can't unsee this thing.

Kadena Tate 7:59

Licensing. Licensing, right? So for example, um, I have a client, I don't want to say her name right now because she's pulling the whole thing together. But what she realized was that the way that she had her business structured, she said to me, It never even occurred to me that I could be a franchise or she was basically thinking, I have this special way that I do this, and this is how I make my money. And I said to her, Stop for a moment and let's break some things out. First of all, the operational mindset that you have is an entire set of IP, just the way that you have structured your business. When I saw the back end of her business, I almost fell out. I was like, this needs to be licensed so that other people know how to think about their business and operations because the woman that you hired to be your COO is phenomenal. So that's IP number one. IP number two is the actual infrastructure. She's setting up a franchise right now. So she started with multiple locations, right? She has a location, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin. So licensing that piece out. Then the next piece was, hey, I don't want to go outside of Texas. And so I said to her, then why don't you train people right on how to do what you do under their own name? And now they're just licensing the IP of it. And so I feel like most people are trading time for dollars instead of sitting down and thinking about how can I collect a royalty on my own intellectual property. And so when people hear me say stuff like authenticity has no competition or nobody can do what you do in the way that you do it, they think I'm on BS until we break their business down. And then they're like, Oh, I didn't think about it like that. You know, so I think the first thing is just licensing where you've already done the thinking because somebody else is gonna pay to use the system that you built. It might be natural and normal to you, you know.

Kelly Leonard 9:57

That is so powerful. And in the back of my mind, I'd imagine that some of the objections that folks may feel, or some of the um anxiety, let's say, that some folks might feel around licensing is like, oh, well, people are gonna steal my information. Yes. How am I gonna try? So, how do you disrupt those patterns of thinking?

Kadena Tate 10:19

So we talk about the scarcity mindset, right? Because here's here's the thing. I'm pro-military. And so for me, and I was raised in a military household, so what I believe is my name is the only thing that really has value. So if I'm putting something out into the world, most of us complain our children aren't gonna take over our business. And then we also complain we don't want anybody to know what we're doing. So it's like make a decision. Right. Do you do you want to have a legacy where you've imparted your knowledge, your wisdom, your experiences into somebody else who's gonna carry that forward, like a track meet? Like, what are we actually doing here? And then they pause and say, Well, because if you have everything in you, then it dies with you. I mean, just plain and simple. I don't worry about people copying my stuff. I don't, I don't care about that. Because at the end of the day, you can't do what I do. You know what I mean? And I actually am on the path towards mastery. So by the time you think, Oh, I know what she knows, girl, I'm like 20 miles ahead, 50 miles ahead. Right. Right? Because I'm constantly, constantly sharpening my saw. And I think that we all need to not sit back and rest on our laurels and think that what I said 20 years ago, somehow, some, you know what I mean, that if somebody took that little sentence or paragraph, there's nothing new under the sun.

Kelly Leonard 11:37

Yeah, yeah. And was it, I'm trying to remember, was it J. Paul Getty who I think said, I'd rather have like 1% of like then 100% of zero any day of the week. And so again, to your point, it is breaking free of that scarcity mindset. And yeah, and and I mean, and I also think that there is a world in which people are gonna copy yourself, like if it they're gonna get, they're gonna, they're going to tr attempt to try to mimic elements of what you do anyway. So to me, what you're saying is why not legitimize and provide the framework so that they can then license it in a way where it uh maintains the authenticity, maintains the integrity of the model.

Kadena Tate 12:23

100%. Like very quickly. When I first started, I had so much experience and so much insight and so much wisdom, but I didn't have a container for it, right? Thank God that this lady named CJ Hayden, you know, um, took her body of work, which was called Get Clients Now, created a licensed facilitator program around that. And that's what I did for the first four years that I was in business. And that is what gave me the confidence, right, to then boldly start weaving in my conversation. Do you know what I'm saying? But I am forever indebted to her because she gave me an infrastructure and an understanding of how to package what I know so that I wasn't um, what do they call it, like water hosing people. You're just, you know, scattering your knowledge everywhere and overwhelming people because that's what I would have done. And I think sometimes we forget about that, you know?

Kelly Leonard 13:16

Yeah, yeah, that's powerful. So let's bring this all home, Kadena. So, you know, for that expert who's listening and they're respected in their field, but they still feel like their income is tied directly to their time. What's the like the first structural shift they should make to stop being the system in their business?

Kadena Tate 13:37

So, what I did, I stopped asking how to make more money. And instead, I started looking at my capacity and I started looking at asking the questions around why every dollar still required me personally. Because that question then changed how I set my business up. Because if it requires me and I go into caregiving or illness, you know, whatever situation, then my business falls flat and I've been there. So that's another conversation.

Kelly Leonard 14:07

Wow. Thank you for that. Kadena, this has been powerful. Look, 15 minutes is not enough. Hopefully, this will be the first of many conversations that we will have. And certainly if folks are listening and want to tap into your genius, what's the best way for our listeners to reach out to you?

Kadena Tate 14:24

Oh, just follow me on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/kadena/. You know, send us say hey boo hey. No, you know, or and my website is under construction, but it's kadenatate.com.

Kelly Leonard 14:34

Thank you so much for just for enlightening us today. Appreciate you, my friend.

Announcer 14:41

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