Scale Like a CEO

Scaling Success with Empathy: Building Businesses and Connections with Babar

• Performance Accelerated Learning • Season 1 • Episode 4

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In this episode of 'Scale Like a CEO,' we delve into the importance of true connections, both personal and professional, with our guest Babar. A dynamic entrepreneur, Babar has built multiple successful ventures and now focuses on mentoring and investing in aspiring entrepreneurs. Discover his journey from immigrant to business leader, how he balances his tech services company and a tech product aimed at revolutionizing the digital landscape for wholesalers, and the strategies he employs to maintain a sustainable and efficient workflow. Babar shares insights on empathy in leadership, the importance of cognitive diversity in teams, and his vision for the future. Tune in for a compelling conversation about entrepreneurship, building effective teams, and achieving your business dreams.

Babar Arshad:

The biggest problem I see is how people don't have the right connection in their life. A lot of builders, a lot of entrepreneurs, even job people who have jobs and do have 95s they're lacking true connection. That might be personal, professional. After a certain point a lot of our personal, professional life becomes intertwined, especially, you know, in a country like the US where everybody's trying to be ambitious and do something with their lives. So I feel people are lacking connection, people are lacking true support and that's where they really struggle in moving ahead in life.

Announcer:

Welcome to Scale Like a CEO, the podcast where successful entrepreneurs share their journey and insights to help you take your business to the next level. We're excited for today's guest, Babar, a dynamic entrepreneur who's built multiple successful ventures and now dedicates his time to helping others achieve their business dreams. Get ready for an inspiring conversation about entrepreneurship, building effective teams and what it takes to become a visionary business leader.

Justin Reinert:

Babar, thank you so much for joining me on Scale Like a CEO. Just to get us started, could you give us a 90-second intro of yourself and your business?

Babar Arshad:

A 90-second tough time, but I'm a 10-year-old immigrant of the States. I don't come from a technical background. I'm from a business background. I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs who are very self-made. That made me realize the importance of business. As soon as I shifted to the US, I understood the importance of technology and how people are impacting lives of others by their daily decision-making. That's when I stepped into technology. I had a couple of failed ventures after my master's from Florida. After that, you know, god blessed me with a few successful ones.

Babar Arshad:

Right now, I have two main things I'm working on. One is a tech services company. We work on custom software development, and then the other one is a tech product which is based on revolutionizing the digital landscape around wholesalers in North America. And between these two companies it takes up 30-35 hours of my week, and then I spend the rest 15-20 hours in a small group that I have called Titan Hub, where I mentor, advise, invest in younger entrepreneurs, people who are starting off. At the time where I did not have support, I want to give them support in their journey and that's what really drives me. I go by the motto of a builder. My tagline is build with Babar, and I say that I love to build products and teams, brands and dreams. I'm working on my own and I want to help others do the same.

Justin Reinert:

That's so great and you've got some great branding in there. Build with Babar. I love that. I'm curious. You work across a few industries and solving a few different problems. You know, maybe thinking about the favorite thing that you're doing. You know what's the biggest problem you see and how you're solving it.

Babar Arshad:

The biggest problem, I see, is how people don't have the right connection in their life. A lot of builders, a lot of entrepreneurs, even job people who have jobs and who have 95s. They're lacking true connection. That might be personal, professional. After a certain point a lot of our personal, professional life becomes intertwined, especially, you know, in a country like the US where everybody's trying to be ambitious and do something with their lives. So I feel people are lacking connection, people are lacking true support and that's where they really struggle in moving ahead in life. And that can be put into so many buckets and umbrellas, but that's the overall thing. I've realized in the past three, four years that I've worked with a lot of people.

Justin Reinert:

Yeah, I agree. I think connection is something that's missing in a lot of areas, and we even see it in research that people are less connected to different communities and things like that. So I love that. That's the thing that you've decided to just try to solve or fix.

Announcer:

Yeah.

Justin Reinert:

I'd love to hear what makes you unique in the way that you help others.

Babar Arshad:

I think I've learned this. It's a growing thing that I'm trying to learn as we go, but I've learned this in the past five years. Mostly is being an empathetic leader, somebody who can really think about the other person and what they're going through emotionally, physically, spiritually, practically and in your life, your family, your friends, or can be a lot of your work connections, your colleagues, your vendors, your customers, your investors, other stakeholders If you really can be empathetic, a lot of things can become simpler and you don't have to beat around the bush a lot when you communicate or try to have a connection with people.

Justin Reinert:

That's great, yes, empathy, a great way to help us with that connection. So when it kind of struck me when you said that between your two businesses outside of the Titan Hub you only spend maybe 30 to 40 hours a week across the two, which I think many founders that are listening may be jealous, and so I'm just curious, that has to have taken quite a bit of a transition to go from being a founder to building a team, and a team that you trust that you can step away from the business enough that you know you're only spending that much time. So I want to talk about that journey. Let's kind of rewind back to the beginning, you know, beginning of foundership, and as you started to grow, what were some of the challenges you faced?

Babar Arshad:

big family, a lot of cousins around me, a lot of family around me, and I was always the laziest. I would have other people do stuff for me. Hey, get me a glass of water, get me, fix this for me, do that for me. And in our culture, in my community, elders can sometimes command they're they're youngers. So that's what I took advantage of. I was always lazy. I figured out the best person for each task. I had a relationship with them. I had to maintain that relationship. So I was always maintaining relationships with my youngers and getting stuff done from them. That translated into me stepping into the business world.

Babar Arshad:

I remember when I started my first company, I was really hustling and doing whatever I could to make money. I was driving uber a lot. I was really hustling and doing whatever I could to make money. I was driving Uber a lot. I was making $12.30 an hour from Uber and at that time I also had an assistant overseas that I paid $3, $4 an hour to do the work while I was making $12.30 an hour. So it was just always inbuilt in me one to be lazy, two, to get the right people for the right job.

Babar Arshad:

And then I've always been a believer of a flexible work style. Here's a task. I need to be informed, especially if I'm passionate about something. I love to be informed. I tell this to my team. I love micro information, but not micromanagement, so I love to be informed. Inform me, and do it in your style. I'm willing to let go of 20% efficiencies that might come in if I do it myself.

Babar Arshad:

So I think these are a few things that have been inbuilt and that I've learned to not chase perfection if I want somebody else to do it and trust them with their style of work, and this has been a great blessing. I've gone from having my calendar super packed double, triple bookings to having nothing I would say nothing, but not a lot to do in the day. I can choose what I want to do, and that's been a lot of stepping away, a lot of sacrifice, a lot of honestly learning the hard way in terms of losing business, losing clients, losing efficiencies, but in the end, it matters. The style that I want to pursue is what keeps me happy, and that's a choice that founders have to make. I spend thousands of dollars just to have this lifestyle and this schedule right. People don't want to let go of money or control or their style of work or efficiencies. So if, as a founder, you can't let go of these things, then it's tough to be flexible and spend lesser time.

Justin Reinert:

So delegation as a skill came very early on for you, yeah, so, as you started to grow your team then and finding those right people that you need to delegate to, what were some of the key qualities in the people you were hiring?

Babar Arshad:

Yeah, I think, first and foremost, they should be different than what I am. What I bring to the table, yes, is good to have, but you need to bring in something else, things that I don't have, things that I lack, one of which is discipline, one of which is very streamlined communication, one of which is formalization of processes. So I would look for people who are different than me. Number one. Number two, of course, skilled in their own field. If I'm bringing somebody technical, they have to be skilled in their own field. And number three, and very, very underrated, is the hunger.

Babar Arshad:

But I want people who are hungry, if not as hungry as me, then at least closer to me in terms of just doing good stuff. I tell this to my people give me two good years and I'm good. I don't want to keep you for life. If you want to be a good fit, why not? But give me two good years and move on if you want to. And ideally, I would love for people to move on to their own ventures, not to other companies. You know, if somebody starts their own thing after me, I'm happy. If they shift to another job, I'm sometimes sad, depending on the type of opportunity they have. But yeah, I think these are the main factors.

Justin Reinert:

I really appreciate the first thing you said around finding people that are different from you. I think we underappreciate that so much. I think too often people try to hire people like them and then you get just a bunch of mini-me's and you're having. There's no one to look out for your blind spots. To look out for your blind spots. There's a story I often tell you know, when it comes to cognitive diversity in teams.

Justin Reinert:

Early on in my career and it was actually one of my first training roles we were building a brand new training program and none of us had training experience like formal training experience.

Justin Reinert:

But we were skilled in the job that we were going to be training and over the first six months, as we came together as a team and we were working together, we started to realize how different we all were. Like we just could not be more different. And so we sat down with our boss, who had hired the whole team, one day, kind of six months in and we said you know, normally you would think that you would be hiring the same kind of profile of person, but we're so different. What were you looking for when you hired us? And she said that's exactly what I did when I hired you was find different people, because I knew that I wasn't going to have enough time just to spend with you and develop you one-on-one, and so I needed to hire a group of people that you could all lean on each other, and so that was something that I learned really early on was the importance of cognitive diversity, all types of diversity, when we think about bringing a team together.

Babar Arshad:

Yeah, and that's, it's very natural, people, animals, overall, they tend to go to similar animals, you know they always tend to be in groups and herds, and this translates to business.

Babar Arshad:

I would always be attracted to people who think like me, who approach life like me, naturally. But I think this is one thing that I also learned early on in my career that if it's different sort of people coming together, then it makes a team. You cannot have all hard hitters in the team. You need to be have players who play differently. I have I've been big in sports in my life, so a lot of these learnings naturally, without even saying, have been inbuilt because of sports and how a team operates.

Justin Reinert:

I don't know why I'm just randomly thinking about this. There has to be a really great analogy to some sort of Disney animated movie where there's like all these different animals that come together right Like what's Disney movie, where there's all these different animals and they all bring something else, like they fend off other other people or other animals, I don't know. There's got to be something.

Babar Arshad:

Yeah, I've watched Lion King a lot, which is a little similar, but there's not a lot of animals in that. But I'm sure there's something out there yeah.

Justin Reinert:

Well, I'm curious if you could tell me about a time when you were maybe overwhelmed with decision making, and how did you approach it?

Babar Arshad:

Yeah, I. Generally I'm a quick decision maker. I don't ponder a lot on decisions and I don't keep them lingering, so I don't have a lot on my plate in terms of decisions. I'm a high spectrum ADHD, so that becomes a blessing sometimes in a place where you have to make a lot of decisions.

Babar Arshad:

But I remember when I moved to Dallas about three and a half years ago, there was a time when I was doing a lot of personal stuff in terms of moving and shifting my life from Florida to Dallas and so many things right, buying a house, buying cars and this and that, setting up my business, consulting with a few people, going to networking events. I remember I was overwhelmed with decisions and that I used to feel like, oh, I'm not getting stuff done. One of the most important scenes at that time because I was moving and all over the place was what to wear clothes in the morning, and I hate ironing clothes myself, so I would just throw them in the dryer, spin them and wear them. And this process became tough when I was moving. So I came to the conclusion that, hey, I just want black and white. So now most of my wardrobe over time has developed into black and white, where I don't have to think a lot.

Babar Arshad:

I pick up a shirt, I pick up a pair of jeans or shorts and I get going. So I think decision fatigue is very, very common, especially in founders who are solo founders, solopreneurs who manage personal professional alongside, and it can get tough sometimes. So, whatever you can avoid even small things like this. I remember waking up I was like the first thing was what am I going to wear? I'll have to iron it, I'll have to throw it in the dryer, I'll have to juice something. So this one small tweak 10 shirts from Target black color. They just made my life at that point much easier. Yeah, there's been multiple instances, but this is one I could think of real quick.

Justin Reinert:

Yeah, well, that's a really great. It's classic Steve Jobs, right. He wore the same thing every day and it was that he didn't want to start the day needing to make decisions about things before he even got to work. I think it's really great to think about that. How do we? It seems small, right, but all of those decisions can pile on to create decision fatigue. So, thinking about how do we streamline our day so that we can spend that decision and willpower on the things that really matter the most.

Babar Arshad:

Yeah, I think founders go through so much indiscipline in their daily life just because of the type of work they do. There's so many problems personal, professional, this and that, whatever part which you can structure. Add some method to the madness, it will help. You know, for example, I bought a Tesla just because I know there's no going to be any repairs, any oil changes and this and that popping in. You know I just go in, plug the car, sleep, go up, take the car out, go drive, come back home and I had to pay a premium for that. But that's one less decision. You know one less thing to do which can abruptly pop up. I mean, still, I can have tire problems and stuff, but you know, things where you can make a method to the madness will decrease your madness as a founder, I feel.

Justin Reinert:

Yeah, so you know, it seems like you've really got yourself streamlined to be able to make decisions, but you know to be able to be hands off in your business as much as possible. How do you develop that skill in others, the people that you're hiring?

Babar Arshad:

Yeah, I think being a leader is one thing and developing good leaders is another. A lot of good leaders are unable to develop other good leaders, which comes from the same thing I mentioned earlier is control phenomena. I want to have control over everything. I figured out a way where I never loved control. I loved information. But I've also figured out a way where I want to be less informed, even because a big problem I was facing was people did things their way, but in just informing me there used to be a lot of time being spent. So I've learned not even to be informed a lot, and that's against my personality even.

Babar Arshad:

But I've created these leaders who are responsible for their own segments. For example, in iTitans, our tech company, I've given all power to project managers. I've made a very good layer of PMs, which is basically the connection between the client and our technical team is this layer. A lot of tech agencies lack this layer and that's why they're not good in communication and a lot of this business stuff. So all my PMs are people with good business experience, with a good business head on their mind, and now they have taken over the role of what I would be doing with clients, which is the client communication part, and then they're responsible for their team down Everything team budgets, team salaries, hiring, firing, managing, maintaining, revamping all that is their responsibility.

Babar Arshad:

I look at them, I talk to them once a week. They have their little daily update message they have to send me. That's pretty much it. I don't need to be, of course, that they bring me in for any firefighting that's always going to be the case in business but that's reduced down. I've given them a plan on how they can be a part of my plans and my company long-term, as equity partners, as revenue partners. So it's not just a job for them anymore. It seems like a mini business that they are running and going up towards.

Justin Reinert:

So, as you look forward, what's your vision for the evolution in both of your businesses and what is going to be critical to achieving that vision?

Babar Arshad:

Yeah, I'm a builder right, I love building stuff. Products is the long-term game. I love products always. Product is where you can retire and not do anything. Services are always going to be some input, some firefighting. There's no retirement plan in services. They go on till you go on and then they finish, mostly when you finish some firefighting. There's no retirement plan in services. They go on till you go on and then they finish, mostly when you finish, when you stop. So my heart lies in products.

Babar Arshad:

I want to keep building my services company, to keep sustaining my product this one and some others that I want to work on With my product. I want to have a good exit in the next two to five years. One big exit will allow me to do multiple other things that I want to do in terms of my product journey. So, yeah, with iTitans, my services company, I want to keep growing it. I want to have good partnerships. I'm always looking for good partnerships. Interestingly, some of my clients become my partners because they think I do good work, so they can bring me more business. So I already have two or three JVs with some of my clients as separate companies on the services space. So grow the services, bring money and bring funds into my product, grow this to a point where I can exit at a good number and then use that money, that chunk, to do multiple other products. That's my game plan for the next three to five years, if God allows.

Justin Reinert:

That's great If there's any of them that you can share. What products are you thinking about building next, so?

Babar Arshad:

I said I'm a lazy person right, I think building a product yourself is a 80 hour a week job. So I need to find the right people, and in my group, titan Hub, I already have young entrepreneurs working on good things which I mentor, advise, invest some little money in. I want to be more involved in people, with people like that, so, even through your platform, anybody who has an idea and can't start it for whatever reason, but they're really passionate about it, they think it can change the world, they can change their life. I would love to talk to them. So this is my pipeline of next products that I want to do. I'm still doing it as a small equity partner, advisor, mentor, investor but I want to do this, streamline this and do this more properly when I have the right amount of money available to help these people.

Justin Reinert:

Thank you, Babar, so much for joining me. For anyone who wants to reach out, how can they get in contact with you?

Babar Arshad:

I've been big on social the last couple of years. Our line of business has us being on social media a lot, so I mean Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn all these are my work platforms, my website, buildwithbhavarcom, ititenscom. I have access to all these places, but social media is the quickest way to get me directly. Okay, great.

Justin Reinert:

Well, thank you so much and I'll make sure that we add a link to to your LinkedIn profile in the show notes. Thank you.