Being in Business

Beyond Online Business: Building an Equity Engine

• Caley Dimmock

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Don't want to be chained to your business? 

In the first episode of Being in Business, Caley shares why she doesn’t want to be doing what she’s doing now in 10 years, why that’s not a failure, but the natural evolution of entrepreneurship, and how entrepreneurs can evolve from personal brands into equity-driven ventures.

This is a conversation for established online business owners who are starting to think beyond personal brands and cash-flow machines, toward building true equity engine businesses that create wealth and freedom without requiring constant presence.

You’ll hear Caley’s unfiltered thoughts on:

  • Why online business success is just the beginning, not the end goal
  • How to leverage holding companies, retained earnings, and structure to build long-term wealth
  • The shift from personal brand reliance to equity-driven, sellable businesses
  • Why entrepreneurs are craving offline ventures and real human connection in the age of AI
  • How to navigate business growth while staying true to your values in a flawed system

Whether you’re scaling past six or seven figures or still dreaming of your first hundred thousand, this episode will expand your vision of what’s possible when you start thinking forward.

Enjoyed this episode? Come tag me and say hi on Instagram to let me know: https://instagram.com/cjdimmock

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the I want to share this with people. So I guess this is it. I guess I'm launching my podcast. I can't really tell you what to expect here in terms of frequency and length. It might be a little bit all over the place. I'm kind of experimenting with it, as is one of my mottos in business, that everything is just one big experiment. What I can promise, though, is that this is going to be a space where I hope to make you feel seen. And I also hope to inspire you As to what can be possible for business and for your life and how to exist inside systems that may not feel like they were made for you. In this first episode, I'm going to dig into where my brain currently is in business and just know that this is a conversation that is going to feel most current and relevant to folks who are already established in the world of online business and who have had some success there. If that's not you and you are more in the beginning stages, this is still going to feel really inspiring, I hope, and open up some possibilities for those later stages after you've had some success in the online business space. And lastly, before we dig in, I'm going to ask you to hit the subscribe button. I don't even care. I know you haven't listened to anything yet. And this is all just brand new, but I'm asking for it. So if you can just take a minute and hit that subscribe button, it would mean everything to me. Now, the audio quality on this one is not great. This was just an ad hoc on the fly voice note that I recorded. But the message is there. And I think it's really important stuff for people to be thinking about. And again, just gives you that little behind the scenes on where I'm currently putting my thoughts in business. enjoy whenever I tell people that I'm not sure if I want to be doing what I'm doing now in 10 years from now I get such a variety of reactions and most of the time what seems to happen is people don't know how to react they don't know what to say and it's not always because they're searching for words I'm sure I think a lot of times that pause or the variety in responses is coming from the place of what do you mean? But they may not always feel comfortable asking me that question. And sometimes I wish people would, because what I do mean by that is in 10 years from now, do I want to still be managing the businesses that I'm currently managing, which require a relatively high level of my personal presence, even if I'm able to run them part-time. And when I say businesses here, I really am looking at two distinct revenue streams within the same business. So done-for-you ads management, as well as my business coaching and mentorship, whether that is more broad in my mastermind and one-to-one or in my ads training program. And the answer is that I don't think that I will be wanting to do that, at least in the same format or capacities I currently am in 10 years from now. Now, I could be wrong on that, but it's going to be highly dependent on energy and capacity. And outside of that, I just feel like I'm going to be too bored, to be honest. If you're listening to this and you've been in business for quite a long time, you probably resonate with that as well. Let me ask you that question. Do you want to be doing the same thing in 10 years from now that you're currently doing? And maybe the answer is Yes. But maybe what you're doing now is a part of the bigger picture when you zoom out. And I know for me, what I'm doing now was my vehicle to a lifestyle business that had incredible cash flow. My business brings in, I think it's probably 80% profit if I'm not counting my salary. So if I count my salary profit, because that does come back to me as the sole shareholder. That's incredible. When we think about businesses and profit margins, that is absolutely an outstanding profit margin. Now, I'm obviously quite disciplined with my spending in my business and I'm very smart about the moves that I make. And experience has led me to that point. I've been in business full time now for eight years. But when I look at now where I'm at in my business and where I want things to go and what I want to do, I want to now have a different kind of freedom. The kind of freedom that allows me to leverage what I've built and maybe put some focus elsewhere. Now, when I'm talking about leverage, I'm not really talking here about the personal brand that I've built. Yes, that's incredibly important for the type of business that I currently have. I could easily pivot into so many different areas within the business that I am already in, within the industries I'm already in. And that's the beauty of that. That's And would I be able to leverage my personal brand and future for other ventures? Absolutely. But where I really want to take things is in leveraging what I've already built. And when I say that again, that's not just brand and business knowledge. I'm talking about cash. I'm talking about money that I have retained from my business. I don't spend everything that I make in my business. I retain quite a bit. I have a structure that allows me to move money around. I don't just have my operating company. I have a holding company. I also now have a family And at some point... when you get to this point in business where you have had enough success and discipline to have retained earnings, you don't just want this excess sitting. When you have excess sitting, you're losing money to inflation constantly. And while I do have corporate investment accounts in Canada where I am, there are also drawbacks to having corporate investment accounts. Once you earn over a certain amount of, I can't remember if it's in I believe it's interest. I'll have to check with my advisors on that. And so then you have to start thinking about if I have access to funds inside a holding company, what do I want to do now? And this is where my brain starts to turn. This is where I start dreaming of what is that longer term vision? And not only that, I'm not talking here about just investing in something that would be fun, even though there's no problem with that at all. I think that is a very wise use of the money if that's what you want to do. For me, I'm really starting to look further into what are these businesses that I can either start or get involved in that don't require my present state today that are true equity builders. And when I say a true equity builder, I'm talking about businesses that are sellable. I'm talking about businesses that are not reliant upon one person's personal brand image or woman power, man power, them power, whatever. The next level of this is looking at businesses that build equity, not just in the business itself being sellable, but real estate as well. So businesses where you can build equity in real estate at the same time. So the business lives on owned real estate. And the reason why this becomes really interesting to me is because if you own real estate, if you are privileged enough that once you have equity built into that real estate, whether by paying down the mortgage or by appreciation, you're able to borrow against that asset. And when you can borrow against that asset at present and through the last 10 years or so, the interest rates that you can borrow against it are generally pretty reasonable, which means that you can then leverage that equity to make you more money. And I think this is why in a lot of these spaces where you talk to people who have been in business for a long time, who are disciplined and who are quite knowledgeable in financials, will always tell you things like the first hundred thousand dollars. is the hardest. And I do believe that of business. When it comes to wealth building, I had somebody say something to me. Ironically, this was in a client discovery call that I had in person about six years ago. And this person owned a series of franchises. But they told me during this meeting, Kaylee, this is just what I do for fun. I make my money elsewhere. Oh, tell me more. And he told me what he did. And he said to me, and I will always remember these words. You make your first million. And then come talk to me. Because after you make your first million, it becomes so much easier. And I didn't really understand at the time what he was talking about. I think I had too many knowledge gaps or too many experience gaps. But I do get it now. Because it's all about leverage. And it's interesting for me to talk about this, too. Because as a system... I believe that this system is messed up. I don't fully believe in capitalism. Between you and I, I would love to live in a society where it is really community care based. And at the same time, the unfortunate reality is that we do live in this system. And I know that for me, as a neurodivergent person who needs to try to make this system work for me without ideally developing further chronic stress from operating within it, And as somebody whose genetics are not on her side for disease, I need to try to leverage this system and then do what I can with the power that I earn from it to help affect change. And that is the motto that I live with internally. I don't only post about or share where I'm donating money, but just this year alone, I've been able to donate to families in Gaza. I've sponsored pride festivals, and it's so incredible to be able to do those things. There's also So micro-forges you can make within your business that help counteract the system and give back as well and to build mindful businesses. So I just want to put a highlight on that, that we're not talking here about just making money for the sake of money. Money is a tool at the end of the day. And I do really believe that more money in the hands of people who want to help paint systems, impact community. do good with it is really important. I don't think we'd be more billionaires in this world, but I do think that if we had a shift in wealth distribution, it would be beneficial for everyone. So going back to these equity building businesses, this is where my mind currently is. And I think we are going to see a lot of people shifting their mind there who have built enough leverage into the current businesses and have excess cash sitting. who also are maybe feeling a little tired of the online space. To be honest, I know I am. I really am. I love it on one hand, and I really dislike it on another. I really don't think that the amount of screen time most of us are having on a daily basis is good for any of us. I know that my body is starting to really feel the effects of this. I'd say that most people probably have a messed up circadian rhythm, which is not just about how easy it is to fall asleep. It's a trickle-down effect, and we have to start to become more mindful of these things. So I think that, like me, there are a lot of people who have been almost chronically online for a very long time who are starting to feel more awareness around how they feel when they have more time offline. And so I think that we are going to be starting to see these pivots. I would also say that with the rise of AI, which as As much as some people would like to stop it altogether, it is not going to stop. And again, I think this comes down to systemic issues with where the power is. And there are a lot of really beneficial applications for AI. I will not argue that. There are a lot that are disturbing, to be honest, as well. With the rise of AI online, people will be craving more offline experiences. I think they will be craving more actual human-to-human connection. Okay? Even though in my business, I run a lot of programs online and I also run some offline things as well. And I have noticed in the past year, especially the immense uptick in how much people are really craving in-person connection. I've been really surprised that when I do release in-person opportunities, just how quickly the spots sell and people really come out of it feeling this deeper sense of connection. That even though connection is possible through a screen, it just really is not the same. I don't think that you can compare the two as much as people may try. And I think it's going to be really interesting to watch this space over the next year. I think we're going to see some people working hard. I think we're going to see some people going offline abruptly. And I think overall, for those who have been quite successful in the realm of our personal brand-based businesses, we are going to start to see more conversation around it and more planning. We're going to start to see people really starting to think about these setups, for example. Oh, I have an operating company that has excess cash, or maybe I don't have excess cash. How can I be more disciplined in order to create that? And then how can I set up a holding company to protect that and then leverage that elsewhere into other opportunities? I think we're going to be starting to see just so much more of this. And so that's where my thoughts are on all of this. I hope that you have found this helpful. And if you are somebody who's been thinking about all of this, I would love to hear where your thoughts currently are on it. Or if you are already getting into other business ventures as well, I would love to hear more. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you hit the subscribe button and please share this podcast episode with anybody who you think might find this interesting. All the love to you. I hope you have the best day.