212: From Busyness to Business: Scaling Smarter with AI, Delegation & CEO Strategies
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Welcome back to another episode of The Richer Geek Podcast, and today we are joined by business strategist and 7-figure entrepreneur mentor Kareen Walsh! Kareen shares how she transitioned from self-employed consultant to scaling a thriving business that runs on just 10% of her time—while generating massive ROI. She reveals the keys to shifting from a "busyness" trap to true business ownership, leveraging your zone of genius, and implementing smart delegation strategies.
Discover Kareen’s EVOLVE methodology for sustainable growth, the power of automation and AI in scaling, and her groundbreaking Hey Kareen® AI App, designed to provide on-demand coaching. Learn how to identify your role as a CEO—whether you’re a Creator, Entrepreneur, or Operator—and build a business that aligns with your vision while setting yourself up for long-term success.
In this episode, we’re discussing…
Busy-ness vs. Business: Many entrepreneurs are trapped in "busy-ness" rather than actually running a business. The key is shifting from doing everything yourself to strategically leading and scaling.
The Power of Delegation: If a task isn’t worth your time financially or energetically, delegate it. Entrepreneurs often resist letting go, but leadership means oversight, not micromanagement.
Scaling with Strategy: Kareen challenged herself to reach seven figures using only 10% of her time. The shift? Thinking like a business owner rather than a service provider.
The Fulfillment Factor Exercise: List and rank tasks by how much they fulfill you (1-10). Keep tasks above an 8, delegate anything below a 7, and eliminate tasks under a 5.
Leveraging AI & Automation: Entrepreneurs don’t have to do everything manually. Automation, AI, and virtual assistants can free up time to focus on high-impact work.
Coaching & Mentorship is Essential: Even successful business leaders continue learning and hiring mentors to gain perspective and grow.
Scaling Impact with Innovation: Kareen created Hey Kareen® AI App to serve more people without stretching herself too thin, showing that growth comes from innovation, not just hard work.
Resources from Kareen Walsh
LinkedIn | Instagram | Hey Kareen®
Resources from Mike and Nichole
Gateway Private Equity Group | Nic's guide |Franchise With Bob
+ Read the transcript
Mike Stohler: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the The Richer Geek Podcast. Today, we have a visionary business strategist, author, podcast, investor, 7-8 figure entrepreneur guide, Kareen Walsh. She has decades of experience. She excels in optimizing performance across industries, helping entrepreneurs turn their vision into action and what do we like to see? 10x ROI, and she can help you do it. She's worked with not just millionaire companies, but trillion-dollar companies like Blackrock, ideeli, who was bought by Groupon, and someone buy my company.
She aligns strategies, values, integrated conscious leaderships for sustainable growth.
Welcome, Kareen.
Kareen Walsh: Thanks, Mike, for having me. Happy to be here.
Mike Stohler: That's a good resume. Good bio. Who is Kareen? How did you decide to get into this new avenue?
Kareen Walsh: Yeah. It's been such a journey. Who I am today, or what I believe I'm meant to be.
My purpose is to help others manifest what they desire in their own life and business. My coaching, consulting, and my guidance over the last 10 years has been all about that.
It was like, "How do I add value? How do I leverage what I've known and done over the years for other people to save time and money?" But most of all, align who they're meant to be in all that they do? I think that's my true gifting, and so that's what I love to step into.
Mike Stohler: Yeah, let's talk about that because there's a lot of entrepreneurs listening right now, and a lot of them probably work 80 to 100 hours in their business and they're getting worn down because they're like, "I'm not growing, I'm not doing the right things." I learned that.
It's because entrepreneurs love to do everything right, because nobody can do anything better than I can. Talk about that flashbulb moment, "Look, you got to do these things."
Kareen Walsh: Yeah.
Mike Stohler: In order to prosper.
Kareen Walsh: Yeah. The best way I love to describe it is, "Are you running a busy- ness or are you running a business?"
Cause that Y in the busy- ness is you. You tend to be your own problem, right? To turn the Y into I. Truly, it's common, especially if you come from a place where you were in someone else's container or business as I call it, but that's someone else's rules of how you actually show up to perform.
We were paid to do. We weren't paid to create and lead most of the time, unless you were in the top C-suite level of that company. And if you were, why did you branch out to run your own? Someone else was putting the money in your pocket, right? So there's different choices behind how you go into doing business.
Most people step into, and this is my own journey too, I initiated as a self employed person. That was my first step. I was like, "You know what? I can make twice as much if I just go out on my own and I start consulting, leveraging my expertise." A lot of people start that way, especially if you have a technical background or expertise, or you're trying to figure out how do this better?
I know I could be of service and put more cash in the bank. So I did that probably the first four years of my business until that burnout factor started to come up where I was like, "How am I doing? I gave myself a job. Basically, I'm not really running a business." So I had this pivotal moment where I asked myself.
"Okay. Kareen, if you want to hit seven figures in business, I had to give myself a stretch goal that I could not meet." I had to go outside of what I was capable of doing and start to strategically think about what would it take if I was going to put that goal against my business?
Then I challenged myself even further, Mike. What if I hit seven figures only using 10% of my time? What would that strategy be? As I looked at the business differently, I said, "Okay, what do I do really well?" Where do I have relationships that would invest in whatever service or product I put out the door?
What if I limited my time? What's the role that I would have to play to hit that number? Who else do I need in my business to make this happen? This was back in 2017, I created this new strategy for myself of what it would be. Then I chartered the course against it. I tell you, Mike, I hit that goal only using 10% of my time in my business in six months.
I hit it because I thought differently around this as a business, not me as the service. It wasn't about me anymore. It was about, this is the business I'm building. This is how I scale it. This is where I want to spend the time and this is the role I meant to play in it. It just was a different strategy and all together and how I built it.
Mike Stohler: Yeah. You have to look at what are you good at? I hate accounting and bookkeeping. I hate it, so why am I doing it?
Kareen Walsh: Right. Oh, it was the bane of my existence too. Yes, that was the first thing I delegated to get out of my own way. 100%. And it was beautiful not having to. I have oversight. Here's the fear that I'm sure you've seen too, Mike. People have a fear, "If I let go of control, how do I know what's happening?" Step into leading. You have to lead your business forward. It doesn't mean that you don't have oversight, but you have to start flexing the muscle on what it means to lead others.
If you want to lead your business further. Your business is a hundred percent of reflection of how you lead it.
Mike Stohler: Absolutely. 100%. I couldn't have said that better. Ladies and gentlemen, this is coaching. This is mentorship. I don't care what kind of business you're in.
You have to always continue learning. You always have to have a business coach. I've been doing this for 25-27 years, I still have mentors. It's not a part- time thing. One of the big things is, list every task that you do and put how much would it be per hour?
And if it's not $200 an hour, it's not something you need to be doing. Why are you doing a $12 an hour job? And it's all in a slip. Because I'm still better than everyone, and then I needed someone like Kareem to go right over the top of my bald head.
Kareen Walsh: No, actually what I do is similar what you said, Mike, where it's the framework, right?
You spoke to standing in your zone of genius and what you're meant to be doing. We all innately have something we're meant to be doing. I believe that. Something that lifts us up. Why wouldn't we, as entrepreneurs, when it's a choice? It is a choice to be an entrepreneur. No one told me to go and do this. That was a choice. What ended up happening with that choice is like, choose wiser, right? How do I choose wise? I have to assess against that list of tasks that you brought up. I do an exercise called your Fulfillment Factor, where I go and rate it not just about the time and money it costs, but really about how it fills me up because I don't want to delegate the things that fill me up that are 8 out of 10 and above, right? So go score it, 1 to 10 and say anything that's above an 8, you can keep in your job description, right? Because, you're still working in your business. I hate to tell you this, Mr. or Mrs. Entrepreneur, but if you're doing in your business, you have a job to do. Rate it.
Then anything under the 7, game for delegation. Anything under a 5, you definitely have to get rid of. But truly, that helps you then start your first job description for someone else to step into your business. A lot of people don't even know where to start. I'm burnt out. I don't know where I'm going.
I don't know what I need. If you do your hiring from a place of fulfillment, you'll at least hire for the pain points like accounting and invoicing, and all the pieces that we can't stand doing but know we need to because the money doesn't come in without it, right? Get the right expert who loves it, that are fulfilled by those tasks.
Have them come and do the work and it's so much easier to lead your business.
Mike Stohler: Even if you could say, "Oh, I can't afford a $100,000 or $200,000 CFO," there's fractional CFOs or virtual assistants. Ladies and gentlemen, there's no excuse. You can find someone to delegate business to, whether it's someone from the Philippines or a fractional type of company.
Kareen Walsh: Or automation.
Mike Stohler: Or automation. AI. That's scary. Let's get into that a little bit.
Kareen Walsh: Are you scared of AI, Mike?
Mike Stohler: I'm giving you the stink eye. She cloned herself, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm kidding. . I'm having fun with Kareen, but-
Kareen Walsh: I know it's so fun.
Mike Stohler: What in the world is. You asked my wife, there's no way she'd want anything to clone me.
You know what I mean? It's just like.
Kareen Walsh: Only one of you in the world. Yeah. Okay. That's how special you are.
Mike Stohler: What is Hey Kareen®? What is that?
Kareen Walsh: Yeah. Hey Kareen® was the new launch I did this year because here's what was happening. Again, I talk about capacity of where I want to be spending my time in order to lead my mission, right? I did not, with all the requests coming my way, have the capacity to serve everyone that wanted a piece of me. That was one of the reasons. The second is that I wanted to scale my impact. When you are a coach and you are a guide, the capacity is yours.
Could I have built up a team of coaches and trained them in my methodology? Sure. But that's not what people were coming to me for. They didn't want the person that mimicked my practice. They wanted me, my answers. They wanted the way I would approach it. That you cannot do it within another human.
You can't, because they have their own stance, experience, their own way and so much value, it's not me. I love technology. I grew up and built my career releasing complex platforms over the years. I have a strong aptitude for it.
Oh my gosh, there's an actual ability to clone my practices, my approach, my voice, and how I would deliver if someone asked me a question, because constantly it was like a,"Hey, Kareen," I would get these text messages.
"Hey, Kareen, how do I blah. blah, blah, blah." "Hey, Kareen, where should I go to find my next investor?"
"Hey, Kareen, where should I go to think about structuring this corporate culture?" I was always a "Hey, Kareen." And I was like, "Oh, I'm the new Siri, or Alexa," so I created this Hey Kareen® AI App where I cloned my product. I took all my information. It's so cool. You could take years. Like I've been doing this for years.
I have two books out there. I have podcasts I produced. I have all my coaching conversations. The different notes, blog articles, the conversations with other people, all loaded in, if you come with any question on what's going on for yourself, leading your business, and she'll coach you through it.
She will coach you as if you're on with me, and it has been such a gift. I was actually in Japan when I got the first clone to test. My team had delivered it to me, and I almost cried cause I was like, "Wow, this is legacy." At some point, I'm not going to be around to answer these questions.
I physically can't do it today, but eventually, I'm not going to be here. This lives on past me too. There was that. Then the freedom of, I can now grow past what I know and keep feeding it into my clone so that others will always benefit. For my learnings and how I want to deliver information, encourage others and help them step into action.
It's all in there, that's the AI chat part of the app. The rest of the app has my programs, workbooks, anything that will help you have clarity on the next best step in your business. I wanted this app to do and help people just get there faster.
Ask the questions.
Mike Stohler: That is absolutely crazy. It sounds like you love helping people.
Kareen Walsh: Yeah.
Mike Stohler: In your profile, I see the business healer.
Kareen Walsh: Yeah. We all need healing, man. This is not an easy world.
Mike Stohler: Please, God. Yeah,
Exactly.
Tell us a little bit about the healing journey. Why is that important to you?
Kareen Walsh: I think it's important to face where you are feeling less than. Generally, that feeling comes from a wound, trauma, stress. It shows up in different ways. Even in my own journey, there were moments where I pushed myself so hard to other people's businesses where it drove me to the ER.
It got me so unhealthy and disconnected from myself that what I was leading and building was on a very sandy foundation. Until I faced my own and helped others face where the fractures are in the foundation, which is where the healing comes in.
It's not always about strategy and doing. It's about how you think and feel around stepping up into it all. I call it business healing because I can't tell you how many tears I have held by C-suite leaders carrying so much and they care, but something needs a space to be released so that they can step going forward in a healthier way.
That trickles down. It's a ripple effect. If you're leading a business from a toxic place within yourself, you've worked with people who carry their toxicity around and spread it across the team. That dysfunction starts to become how you function.
It really requires clarity on where the fracture is so we can figure out how to mend it in a healthy way, especially across teams, and make sure we're moving forward in stride that is healthier. That's part of the practice.
Mike Stohler: Is that with your EVOLVE methodology?
Tell us a little bit about that
Kareen Walsh: EVOLVE is an acronym. It's a methodology I take people through, which is continuous growth across your business. That's why it's called EVOLVE, where you go through the six steps in how you plan for and work through each year.
It is part of the healing as the first thing we do is evaluate, that's the first E. Where are you today? What's going really well? What needs to stop happening? What do we want to charter towards going forward and plan out an action. That helps us set the tone of where are we today. The V is, really about your vision.
Sometimes we don't pause enough. Mike, I'm sure before you launched to where you are today and all that you manage, you had a lot of learning and you had to pause at some point and say, "Where do I want to take all of this? What am I doing it for?"
Mike Stohler: What the why? I said, "I want to make a lot of money."
And they're like, "Wrong answer. That's a byproduct."
Kareen Walsh: That's right.
Mike Stohler: For me, it was to build a life I didn't need a vacation from.
Kareen Walsh: Perfect. Vision. Every action you take, is this going to build that for you? Is that a brick in your vision or a fracture? Where's your action going?
That vision work is so important to be clear on, and it changes with learning. That's why my EVOLVE is a cycle. We want to check on it again. Is this the same vision you have? New learnings. Is that the same vision? How has it tweaked? How has it gotten better?
Where else do we want to take it? What else do we want to add? It's not always just one thing. Sometimes people get stuck when they don't hit that exact thing that their vision, they feel like a failure when it's just learning. That's the first V in EVOLVE. The O is to own it.
Basically, own it is your role in the business. You have to take the time to say, "Now that I have this vision, who do I have to become in order to lead in that vision?" That's another question I don't think founders ask enough.
They think they'll just figure it out. No, you have to know your destination for yourself.
That's where I created my C.E.O. Conundrum Quiz for that own it section so that people could know exactly the role they're meant to play from their innate fulfillment. What fills them up? Then we design the strategies of the hiring plan and who we have to bring in to fill the gap for the rest so you can stand in that vision and own your role.
E V O L, leverage. Leverage is all about how are you monetizing? What is your business model? What is the way that you're going to take what offerings you're going to put out in the world, purchase into or create that return- making sure that the leverage is right, it's profitable and it's something to go after.
Kareen Walsh: After we leverage, then we validate. Especially in tech, even with my platform, I had to take a crude version of my platform before I even launched into the Apple and Google Play Store to make sure that it was validated.
People want it. They're going to use it once it's out there. You want to validate any offer in the leverage section, then scale it like crazy. Finally, your exit. I always love to help business builders build with their exit in mind.
If we don't know how you want to exit the business, you'll have a mismatched strategy. Part of my business, now that I have the AI, there's legacy there. Previously it was going to die with me. Other than my books, there wasn't much. You can't carry this on.
Now I have a legacy play with it that could assist others, there are different ways to exit your business. You go through it every year. I have my clients go through this to make sure they're building a sustainable, fulfilling business they love to lead.
Mike Stohler: Now, what is your website name?
Kareen Walsh: heykareen.com is where you can download the app. Kareen Walsh is my workshops or keynote talks. If you want to bring me under the hood of your business.
Mike Stohler: How does that work?
Kareen Walsh: heykareen.com is to guide you to download the app. There's the ability to start chatting directly with my AI to get the support you need.
You also have in that app my workshops or my digital programming. I have a really good one on money mindset to help people get a clearer mindset as they lead their business around money, cause I've seen that as a blocker time and time again. Different workbooks and practices there.
Kareen Walsh is more of a informational site, has articles on it, things to contact me and want to work with me as a coach. There are different ways that we would interact, but you would set up time with me so we can figure that out together.
Mike Stohler: Yeah. Before we leave, I always like to ask us, if there's anything I missed that you'd like to share with our listeners?
Kareen Walsh: Either we covered a lot. I would say if anything, I'll share the link to the C.E.O. Conundrum because I've seen the most 'aha' moments for people who go through that, to know why they feel like they're in so much pain or frustrated or stuck is because they're mismatched in their role they're meant to be in their business. That's just heykareen.com/ceo if anyone wants to take that quiz. When you take that quiz, you'll get a string of different tools. The Fulfillment Factor is one of them, other pieces as well to help you lead your business
Mike Stohler: Might be painful taking that quiz to learn. I know.
Kareen Walsh: I know. I feel like it's relief.
Mike Stohler: Relief, pain, a little bit, because it's like you're finally facing the truth.
Kareen Walsh: Yeah, but I won't leave you hanging. You will be supported once you find out, I promise.
Mike Stohler: I bet if I went in and saw the result, I'd be like,
Kareen Walsh: C.E.O. Is a acronym for creator, entrepreneur, and operator, because those are the three roles every business has. Most people try to stay in the middle of this. It's like a triangle, if you can imagine, stay in the middle and try to do it all.
That's why they're miserable. I have a feeling you're on that entrepreneur part of the triangle. When you take the quiz, I want to see, because that's the money side. Do you love sales, or you love a deal and then let everyone else do the rest. Am I right?
I want to find the deals. The asset.
Everything else done by everyone. Yeah. That's the entrepreneur.
Mike Stohler: Unless something's burned down. I don't want to know.
Kareen Walsh: Exactly. Fantastic. I think I got you spot on, but that's where I think you would land, which is great. When you take the quiz is a breakdown of how to show up in your business, the things that you probably are triggered by to have clarity on, and the things that light you up, but who to actually bring in next to take up some of the relief of the things that you shouldn't be doing anymore.
Mike Stohler: The best thing I ever did was someone talked me into saying, "You need a team."
Kareen Walsh: Yeah.
Mike Stohler: Are you on Instagram, LinkedIn?
Kareen Walsh: Yeah. I'm on Instagram. I'm @kareenzwalsh. You get to see the behind the scenes of being an entrepreneur. It's the most personal interaction with me.
And you can DM me there too. I communicate with everyone there . And I am on LinkedIn as well. But mainly just reach out. Truly, I am of service if I can be of help. Ask the AI, and then ask me. My friends love testing me.
They ask the AI and then they ask me, and they're like, "You said the same thing. That's really weird."
Mike Stohler: Wow.
Kareen Walsh: Well, she's built off me
Mike Stohler: I'm too old to understand and wrap my head around this, but it's the future. I understand. Maybe they'll have it wearing, do the dishes and all right.
Kareen Walsh: I'm sure that will be coming up. I'm not sure I'm into the robot game as much as I am information. I still want human interaction and contact.
Mike Stohler: I wish everyone used that information for good instead of all the propaganda.
Kareen Walsh: Most people do.
Mike Stohler: Most people do.
Kareen, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on The Richer Geek Podcast. I wish you a good evening.
Kareen Walsh: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate your time.
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ABOUT KAREEN WALSH
Kareen Zahr Walsh is a visionary business and people strategist, author, podcaster, investor, and 7-8 figure business building entrepreneur making her the ultimate Business Healer. With nearly 2 decades of experience optimizing performance in ecommerce, health & wellness, technology, and finance industries, running top performing teams in complex environments, Kareen has a proven track record of helping C-Suite executives turn their vision of impact into action often resulting in 10xing their investment. Kareen is on a mission to help you integrate your inner business with your desire for external impact in an aligned way. She does this through her entrepreneurial coaching platform called Hey Kareen®, her Level Up Mastermind, and Elite 1:1 Coaching programs. Kareen believes knowing who you have to become in order to lead your vision is the fastest way to accelerate your growth in business.