As the founder of The Women's Code, Beate Chelette built an empire helping fellow female entrepreneurs turn their passion into profits. 

But long before that, Beate was a first-generation immigrant working as a single mom. She was $135k in debt, facing the aftermath of natural disasters and 9/11. And she just needed to provide for her family. 

So, she took her passion for photography and decided to start her own business. But like many new entrepreneurs, Beate found that running a successful photography business required more than being good with a camera. 

Overwhelmed and desperate to get her head above water, Beate made a bold move. She wrote a letter to the President of the United States, asking for help. 

To her shock, she got a letter back from the White House a few months later. It put her in touch with the Small Business Administration. There, she got resources she lacked, a consultation on her business plan, and a loan that would free up her personal line of credit. 

Three months later, her business broke even. She continued to bootstrap her passion, building her venture into a highly-successful global business. One that she eventually sold to Bill Gates in a multi-million dollar deal.  

Today, fellow entrepreneurs pay Beate thousands to learn her 5-Star Success Blueprint (her proven methodology she used to build her business). But in an exclusive interview with Trainual CEO Chris Ronzio, she broke down the 5 key principles of her blueprint. Here's what you need to know. 

👉 Want to hear the principles directly from Beatte? Listen to her full conversation with Chris Ronzio on the Process Makes Perfect podcast. Stream now - wherever you listen to podcasts.

1. Identify your passion

When it comes to business planning, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Business growth has a well-studied timeline, and embracing this knowledge can help you avoid panic at later stages. But all that starts with embracing your natural talents. 

A lot of entrepreneurs miss this step when they start a business. In most cases, Beate says it's because they've already talked themselves out of monetizing what they love doing. Instead, they opt for what they think will make them the most money. 

But doing this more often than not leads to burnout. Suddenly, running a business isn't fun, and the inevitable challenges that come with it aren't worth it. 

So, shake off the myth that you can't make money on your passions, and focus on what's the one thing you're good at that you'd love to do every day. 

If nothing comes to mind, there are a few ways to go about this: 

1. Find your "why"

Finding your own personal "why" is a great way to identify what you can offer to the world. And that all starts by asking what:

• Problem can you solve for others 
• Gets you out of bed in the morning
• Are you really, really good at 
• Comes easy to you

According to Beate, everyone offers something uniquely valuable to the world. But most people don't even know what their thing is. These questions start to build connections that place your passion and your skills top-of-mind. And your "why" is where those questions intersect. 

2. Eliminate what you hate

If you're still struggling to pinpoint what you're passionate about, don't sweat it. Instead, try eliminating a few of the options you’ve come up with by asking some follow-up questions:

• What do you absolutely hate doing?
• What industries don't interest you at all?
• Which activities drain your energy more than others? 

Anything you just said is not an option you should pursue - no matter how feasible it sounds. So, cross those options out. You should, at this point, be left with a smaller list of possible passions. And that tends to make it easier to figure out which one to pursue. 

3. Ask your peers

When something comes effortlessly to you, it's easy to assume that everyone can do it. But that's simply not true. And this underlying assumption can keep your natural talents. 

So, pulse-check what you do better than others by asking the people around you. These people can be your manager, your coworkers, your friends, your family, and so on. 

When you know who you're going to ask, reach out and set expectations on what you're doing: pinpointing your passion. That way, they're positioned to give you an honest and accurate answer.

Then, ask what they think your greatest strengths and skills are. Their answers will point you in the right direction towards what you're passionate about (especially if you're overlooking those things).

2. Find how to monetize that passion

Once you've identified the thing (or things) you're passionate about, you need to find a way to monetize it. Beate did this by identifying the pain points in her local community. AKA what problems do people typically have in the niche?

To do this yourself, take note of what people typically ask you to help them with, especially as it relates to your passion. For example, if your passion is investing, and people ask you for tips on what stocks they should buy, the pain point is not knowing where to invest.

Once you've found that pain point, come up with a way that you can help alleviate it. Let's stick with the investing example. Perhaps you offer a financial service that educates and advises new investors. 

Just keep in mind that however you decide to monetize your profit, you actually have to charge people for it. According to Beate, entrepreneurs tend to avoid monetizing their passion because it feels like taking advantage of people or like selling out. 

And if you feel like this, know you're not alone. Most new entrepreneurs feel this way. But you need to shift your mindset. Instead of seeing it as selling a product, see it as providing a valuable solution to a problem. And they're paying for the value of that solution (which they should). 

Think about it this way - if your sink breaks, you need to solve that problem. To solve it, you hire a plumber. And most of the time, you don't think twice about paying him for the solution if he does a good job. People view your skills the same way!

3. Meet your customers where they are

After you've crafted your solution, the next step is coming up with a marketing strategy. AKA telling the world about your new business.  

The key here is to make sure you're getting exposure to the people who have the problem you can solve. Those people are your ideal customers. And the best place to do this is to meet them where they're at. Meaning, make your presence known in the places where your ideal customers think about their problems. 

Not sure where to go? Beate suggests identifying where your ideal customers are asking for help. That could be the social media influencers they follow, the conferences they attend, or the Facebook groups they're a part of. 

And to find those places, you can:

• Google search the problem you solve. Then, take note of all the key people, places, and conferences that show up in the top results. That's where your target audience is going for this solution.
• Explore hashtags on social media. For example, if you want to break into the investing field, search #investing on social media. Then, start interacting with the top influencers in the space and see what they do that you can mimic.
• Just ask! You can use a site like Quora to ask a question like, "where is the best place to find information on [this specific problem]?” More times than not, people will answer with the right place to go.

Once you know where to start marketing, it's time to develop a strategy that'll resonate in those spaces. That could mean running paid social media ads that target your key influencers' audiences. Or booking a speaking opportunity at a conference that has your ideal customers in the audience.

Whatever the strategy, be sure to find your ideal customers where they're at. If you think they'll stumble upon your business by chance, they won't - and you'll risk going out of business. 

4. Hire a team to help you

After placing your business in front of your ideal customers, you'll start to see some paying customers. But if you keep growing, you'll likely find yourself wearing all the hats in your business just to keep up with the demand. AKA you're doing literally everything in your business.

When that happens, business leaders tend to move away from what they're passionate about and the things they're truly great at. And as a result, they end up burnt out and resenting their business. (Michael E. Gerber’s The E-Myth talks about this phenomenon in more detail.)

So, to avoid this trap, Beate suggests shifting your role from a business owner to a business leader. Meaning, hire a team of people to help you run the business and oversee their efforts. 

That way, you don't end up managing all of the day-to-day tasks. Instead, you're more of a figurehead for your business. And you can prioritize the things that you want to work on and hire for the rest.

So, when deciding who to hire first, Beate says you should "invest in your strengths, not your weaknesses." Meaning, hire people who can do the areas you hate, aren't familiar with, or aren't great at. Just make sure that you hire someone who specializes in that area. That way, you can make sure the job is done the best way possible without being the person who does it.

I know - hiring a team is scary. But it's a necessary milestone for any sustainable business. That's because the reality is: it's tough to manage all your business' growth on your own (this is when most brands hit a growth ceiling or stop growing). 

So when you have a team of specialists who can do the tasks you don't want to do, your business runs better. Plus, in Beate’s experience, it makes owning the business more rewarding.

5. Streamline your process and systems

The final step is to keep what you've built running smoothly, so your business can easily scale when you're ready. That's where streamlining your processes and standardizing your systems comes into play. And when you do this, your business delivers the same output every time.

To do this, start by documenting the processes, policies, and best practices your business relies on. Meaning, write down all the specific steps of how to do the things that you do. That way, as you hire people to scale your processes, anyone can take over the responsibility. And they'll do it the same way that you did up until that point! 

The results? Your business will have the capacity to help more people, your bottom line grows, and you can focus on the things you love to do every single day. After all, that's why you started your passion-driven business in the first place, right?

If you're still on the fence about going all-in on your passion, I'll leave you with these wise words from Beate: "If you don't try, you can't succeed." Meaning, letting go of fear and making bold moves pays off. So, rather than focusing on what could go wrong, put your passion to work - and write your own "letter to the President."