Nicky Billou: Business Partnerships, Conflict Resolution, and Turning a Business Divorce Into Long-Term Growth

Hi, I'm Debbie Longo, a transformational coach,

and welcome to the Behavioral Profit Show. This

show is about one thing, why businesses don't

perform the way they should. Most leaders think

they have a strategy problem, but they don't.

It's behavioral. And it's how decisions are made,

how pressure is handled, and how people operate

inside the business day to day. On this show,

we break down what's really driving missing targets,

stalled growth, and poor execution. What shifts

when behavior changes. Because when behavior

changes, performance improves, and that's where

profit comes. from. We have a very special guest

today, Nikki Beloo, and we're going to take a

closer look at what's really going on inside

their business, what's working, what's not, and

where behavior may be impacting performance.

Let's get into it. Good afternoon, Nikki. Welcome

to the show. Thanks for having me, Debbie. It's

a pleasure to be here. And thanks for being here.

I'm going to ask you today to point out a situation

or scenario that you experienced from a business

standpoint where there was an issue and then

what was your process, how you got through that.

and the end result should always be positive.

So basically, we're just going from a negative

to a positive. Now, I'm going to ask to focus

on the process. This is a podcast, obviously.

So you could do whatever as specific as you want,

it's fine. Because the listener is going to focus

on what... the specific issue is. And I'm going

to ask the listener to try to really listen to

what the process is that we went through, how

to get to the other side, okay? How to get through

it, right? And then come out on a positive way.

There are a lot of people. in the world today

that are stuck in their business in negative

situations for tons of reasons. And what we're

trying to do is we're trying to explain and show

that they don't have to be stuck in certain situations

where they're losing business, they're losing

sales, profits, they might be going bankrupt,

they're not making enough money to support their

employees. There's a million examples of this

and explanations of this, but it doesn't have

to be that way. And there's really no such thing

as a negative situation or scenario because anything

can be turned into a positive and businesses

that are really successful do this. They don't

sit in their problems and their negativity. They

find a way to get out of it. So if you could

do that for me, I would appreciate it. Let me

start by explaining the, uh, the situation, give

you a bit of a context and backstory. I'm originally

an immigrant from the Middle East. I'm a Christian

from Iran. My family escaped from Iran after

the Islamic Revolution because the moderate and

progressive and really forward -thinking government

of His Late Majesty Muhammad Azza Pallavi was

overthrown by this repressive, theocratic, Nazi

-like government of the mullahs. And they started

arresting people, shooting them, killing them,

and repressing people. The laws were changed.

Under the Shah, women had acquired some rights.

In fact, women in Iran had the right to vote

before they did in Switzerland. I don't know

if you knew that or not, but soon as the mullahs

came over, they stopped with all of that and

they started arresting undesirables including

gay people and they started hanging them from

cranes and it just became a nasty nasty nasty

place to be so my mom and dad decided we got

to get out of here we can't we can't raise our

little kids in this crazy environment and one

day something absolutely nutty happened that

accelerated that process so we're home and our

living room had this big picture window and something

sailed through it, crash. There were glass shards

going everywhere. And this thing landed next

to my feet. I'm 11 at the time. And I don't know

what the heck it is. Looked like a bottle full

of liquid. And there was this cloth rag in it

that was burning. It was a Maratov cocktail.

And my dad knew what it was, and he just grabbed

it, pulled out the burning wicks so the thing

didn't explode, because it was getting close

to burning all the way down and exploding. That's

the only reason I'm still here. And at that point,

mom and dad said, we got to get out of here.

So they left the country. They took us. It took

them a couple of years, first to Europe, to Athens,

Greece, and then from Athens, Greece to Toronto,

Canada, where I now live. Now imagine being a

kid. You've lived in one culture, a Middle Eastern

culture all your life, which I had. And then

you move to the West, which is a completely different

culture. Greece was completely different from

Tehran, but it was closer to Tehran than Canada.

By the time we get to Canada, I'm like, I want

to go back. This is crazy. I want to be with

my home. I want to be around my friends. But

obviously that wasn't going to happen. Then time

goes on and mom and dad, they would tell us at

first we're going to go back, but it became clear

that wasn't going to happen. And as time goes

on, Debbie, I started to see what an unbelievable

sacrifice they made. Imagine these folks were

in their late thirties at the time and they left

behind everything and everyone they knew. and

loved for a chance at a better life. Just think

about if you had to leave everything you knew

and loved in your home right now to go to an

alien culture where you barely speak the language

and things are really different and you don't

understand any of them and you got kids that

are mad at you that you took them away from all

that. But if you hadn't taken them away, they

might be dead. That's how crazy it was. And I

started to see this. I started to see the sacrifice.

I started to understand the sacrifice. And I

started to see what a beautiful free life we

had. And I started to really understand and value

freedom. I started to read books written by all

the ancient scholars and then the American founding

fathers and folks like Rousseau and Iron Man

and whatnot. And I'm like, okay, this freedom

thing, this is great. I'm all into freedom. And

who are the people that are the real kind of

Practitioners of freedom? Well, it's businesses

and business owners and entrepreneurs. These

are the freedom people. I want to help these

people. So I got into a business of serving entrepreneurs

and especially entrepreneurs that were recent

entrepreneurs, didn't have a business background.

So a lot of creators, a lot of coaches, consultants,

those types of people. And I teamed up with a

fellow and we both had a bit of a business background

because my dad was a business. and I studied

business in school, and we started this company

called E -Circle. It stands for entrepreneur

circle. And we started to do these executive

round tables. And then we thought to ourselves,

you know what, let's narrow the niche from just

executive round tables to with coaches and consultants.

And that really took off. And for about two,

three years, it went really well. But there was

an issue in the business. He had another business

that he was doing. So he could only spend a certain

amount of time on our business. And I spent all

my time on our business. This caused resentment.

You're familiar with resentment? Behavioral thing?

Resentment on my part. And he resented me for

resenting him. It was just one of those things.

And when he was there, it was great. But when

he wasn't, I finally went to him one day and

I said, look, I'm putting a lot more time into

this. I'm bringing in almost all our paying customers.

I think I should get paid more. Yeah, I didn't

go over well at all. And so this just went back

and forth and we had this fellow help us this

business mediator. But after about a year of

working with this business mediator, one day

he just called me and he said, I don't want to

discuss this, but I'm leaving the circle and

I just want you to know, and we can talk about

this in a few days. And then he got together

with me and he says, well, I'm assuming you're

going to want to let this go. I says, well, let

me think about it. And I went and I told him,

I said, no, I don't want to let this go. I built

a company and built all these clients. It's not

fair to them. It's frankly not fair to me. I

want to keep it. But if you want to go, you can

go. And he said, that's fine. And then he got

mad at me, really mad and said, well, you need

to buy me out. I don't really want anything at

first. He said, then he wanted something and

then he wanted a lot of money. a lot more money

than it was worth. And if that was the case,

I was just going to say, you know what, I'm just

going to tell our customers that the company

name is changing and whoever wants to come with

me can come with me. And so that was not good.

And he yelled, he screamed, and I said, I think

we need to call back our business mediator about

winding this down. And he brought this guy forward.

And basically what this guy did was he left both

of us vent for a while. And then he said, neither

of you are going to get what you really fully

want. you want this amount of money, he's not

gonna give you that money and you know it. And

you had told him that you were gonna take no

money and he was gonna move forward with that,

but you thought that was selfish and whatnot,

but you offered it to him. So somewhere between

no money and this amount of money that you want

is the real number. Let's talk and figure it

out. And I made him an offer that was a little

more than half of what he'd asked for, which

I thought was extremely generous given that Honestly,

I could have just walked away and given him nothing

and took those people, but I wanted to keep the

name and the goodwill. And he agreed. And one

of the things that he'd said to me was that I

want us to leave the partnership so we can become

friends, stay friends, because our friendship

matters to me. Once I finished paying him, he

stopped talking to me entirely. And I reached

out to him a few times and he didn't talk to

me. He told me, I need time, I need time. But

the truth of the matter was he decided he was

going to end everything, the friendship, end

the business. And he'd hired my girlfriend to

work with us. So she stayed with me, which was

great. And we managed to turn it around. The

year... While I was buying them out, I helped

grow the company. But for two, three years after

the company just kind of dipped. But just over

time, I started to see that it was better that

I was in charge and I didn't have to argue with

anybody about what we were doing. And we started

to grow the company a little bit more and it

became bigger than it was when the two of us

worked it. And right now we have a wonderful

business with some incredible clients and my

girlfriend and I still run it. And we run it

in a way that works for her, works for me, and

works for our clients. And we've just done a

really good job of keeping, for the most part,

keeping negative energy, negative behaviors out

of the company. I mean, there've been a few instances

where we haven't managed to do that, but for

the most part we have. So we're making more money.

The negativity between him and I is gone. He's

gone off on his track. I'm in a place where I

get to serve really good people, get them good

results, help them grow their business. And I

work with someone I'm in a long -term committed

relationship with. So that's the negative to

the positive. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, it sounds

very good. So just a few questions and points

here that I was thinking of when you were talking

about this example that you gave. When you found

out that you were doing everything and he wasn't

doing anything, And then I like that. He's OK.

Well, a little right. A little right. Yeah. Less

than you were. And 70. Yeah. He wanted to bail

out. And then he wanted all this money. So what

was that? However, it went exactly. What was

that process? between the time you saw that,

did you think that the business was gonna tank

because of all these issues that were going on?

And not just to leave the money part aside, which

you pretty much said that you were comfortable,

then you were uncomfortable with giving him the

money. But what was your process, your mental

process while you were going through all this?

How did you feel? And did you get like advice

from somebody? Did you get professional advice?

Did you get like, did you have a mentor or something

like that? How did you get through this whole

thing? This is what we're trying to get to. I

had a business coach that was actually our business

coach, and he told me he didn't want us to keep

working with him. And I said, no, I want to keep

him. And I brought this to my business coach.

I was angry. I was angry he was leaving at first.

Then I was angry that he said he didn't want

any money and then wanted money. My first instincts

were to punch and push and fight. But my girlfriend

said, look, if you do that, this is going to

blow up. It'll be bad for the clients and you're

going to get hurt. So don't do that. My coach

said the same thing. My coach advised me to negotiate

a lot harder than I did. And she was there as...

support from a relationship point of view. She

was very, very great in that respect. And she

also gave me advice because he'd hired her and

they liked each other and respected each other.

And my coach helped me stay on an even keel because

my emotions were near boiling point. I was ready

to scream at him and call them names and all

that stuff. But what held me back was that I

had people advising me and telling me that that

is not gonna be helpful to you. So every time

my emotions came to a boiling point, I'd either

call her or call him. And then when we got the

mediator involved, I called the mediator. I said,

look, I wanna tear this guy's head off. I'm calling

you so that this doesn't show up in our meetings,

but that's how I feel. So instead of acting on

your behavior, your instinct, your initial thought,

You took a step back and evaluated the situation

and talked to all of these people that were mentioning.

And then what happened? Did you go back to what

your initial thing was that you were going to

do? Did you yell at him and scream, scream at

him? No, I didn't. Exactly. Well, he yelled and

screamed at me, but I didn't yell and scream

at him. I told him, stop doing that. If we get

into a yelling match, I'll overpower you. You

don't want that. And I told him that. I said,

you need to calm down. We need to talk this out.

That's why we have this mediator here. So calm

down. And he did. To his credit, he did. He didn't

like it, but he did. And I also told him that

he's the one who asked for this, not me. And

he offered to walk away with nothing. And now

he's asking for all this money. So from my point

of view, Nothing was the right thing to give

you because that's what you asked for now. You've

changed your mind and I'm like, okay to be fair

We'll do something for you, but it's not gonna

be what you're asking for That's if you want

that money tell you what you pay me that money

and I'll walk away You know the shotgun clause.

That's what I told him you pay me that money

and I'll walk away I bet you half of these clients

will walk away with me because I won't sign an

NDA with you if you do that I mean and so he

calmed down and with the help of the mediator

we came up with some numbers that we thought

were fair And it wasn't one big payout. I paid

them out over the course of a year. I paid them

once a quarter and it wasn't nothing. The money,

what I paid them today would be worth about six

figures. So I'd be giving them, if it was today,

I'd be giving them roughly 27 ,000 to 30 ,000

a quarter for four quarters. What felt good to

me is I felt that I was being honorable and I

felt that I was doing the right thing. Even though

He's the one who initiated all this. In some

respects, he'd acted like an angry, petulant

child. And I was probably paying him way more

than he deserved. But then again, he felt he

was getting a lot less than he deserved. So neither

one of us was entirely happy with the financial

end of things, which tells me that it was a good

deal. Because if one person felt they got everything

they wanted, the other person will feel completely

taken advantage of. Yeah, that makes sense. But

you got past the boiling point. And that's the

most important thing. You did. That's fine. We

all need help. You know what I mean? We don't

do anything by ourselves. I just want to convey

to you and your listener, if you're in a situation

like this and you think you're going to handle

it on your own, you're a fool because you won't.

Your emotions will get the better of you and

you're going to do some things that you're going

to later regret and it's going to cost you. When

you're in a situation that really matters, get

professional advice, get professional help, and

have the people in your life that love you stand

with you because that's important. Worst thing

you can do is try to do things like this alone.

Don't do anything alone. Inside my business,

when I look to market and talk to potential clients,

I say, hashtag don't do it alone. Don't do 2026

alone. So if you do 2026 alone, you're likely

going to get what you're getting. But if you

do 2026 with my help, we can 2X, 5X, 10X, 100X

your success. And the same is true really in

any arena, especially if you're in an arena similar

to the one that I'm describing where You're going

through a business divorce. And that's a great

message to send because this is the type of stuff

that we need in order to be successful in business.

Something happens. Of course, we need somebody.

But if I really think about it, things happen

all the time in business. They happen every single

day. Negative stuff always happens. And this

is almost like an extreme situation. But the

point is that the more help I get, And the more

I'm willing to go out of my comfort zone and

the more that things happen that are negative

that I know can be turned into a positive, that's

how I'm going to see real results. Because if

I don't do that, OK, I'm going to just wind up

sitting in. My employees are controlling me.

Everybody's walking out. People are quitting

all the time. I don't know why I'm losing sales

and profits in my company. I could go on and

on. And this all has to do with the business

owner and the executive's behavior. This is all

stuff that I teach and I explain and everything.

And this is not a promotion podcast. You know,

I'm not trying to sell myself. This is not the

point to this. What it is is it's just... offering

some different ways to help the business owner

to be a little bit more successful in their business

than what they are now. And that's basically

so this story that you're talking about. And

this example, like I said, is very, very good

because not only is this going to help a business

owner, it can help anybody right in any situation,

because I always need help if I have an issue

with anything. not only business, but we talk

about business here because it's behavioral profit,

which is fine. But this will always improve anything

that happens in my business. And that's really

the bottom line. So now I have to think, do I

want things to help my business? Do I want to

increase sales and profits, which is the ultimate

goal, or do I not? Do I want to put? constraints

on my business and be just the way that it is

now and run day to day and do the minimal work.

And that's something that the individual really

needs to evaluate for themselves. And also the

business owner or the executive needs to be a

little bit open and willing to say if my business

is literally falling apart, to say maybe something's

happening here. Maybe there are things that I

need to look at. And that just means that they

just are a little willing to have some type of

open mind to ask somebody, a professional or

somebody, what's going on and just have somebody

help them. Even if they evaluate them, it really

could be anybody. I would say a professional,

obviously, but it really could be anybody. And

sometimes that helps them to realize that maybe

there's things that I need to do to change in

order for my business to be a lot more successful

than what it is now. And these are all different

situations that business owners run into. And

there's all different things that ways that we

could change and everything right now, your story

worked out. because now you have a great business,

you have it with your girlfriend and a few other

people, and it all worked out. Why did it work

out? To me, my interpretation is it worked out

because you wound up doing the right thing. You

didn't want to do the right thing from the beginning,

right, at the beginning, but that doesn't matter

because you didn't do that. You just had a thought,

but you didn't act on it. So you wound up in

the end doing the right thing. And what goes

around comes around. So if I do the right thing

and I make an agreement with somebody and agreement

means that both sides agree. That's what it means.

If one side doesn't agree and they want something

else and you want something, you know, that's

not an agreement to me. That's not doing the

right thing. That's just fighting, fighting,

fighting. But you didn't do that. In the end,

what you thought before and what you wanted to

do is different because I'm talking about only

what you did. So I want to pay attention to,

I want to pay attention to what the person is

saying, but I don't want those thoughts to turn

into actions if they're negative. So wound up

what you did was an agreement and a positive

thing and you got positive results in your business.

because you did that. That is my interpretation

based on my experience and everything I teach

and blah, blah, blah. And this is just, maybe

it's different, you have a different thinking,

but the point is that if I always do something

good, right, a good thing is gonna happen in

return. And if I fight, then it becomes this.

And I'm battling with myself, the other person,

all the energies, and then the result of that

will never ever be good. And these are all issues

that we do every single day, but the business

owner just doesn't get it. A lot of times they

don't put two and two together and they just

go with, oh, you know, I have a lot of sales

and profit and now I'm trying to control all

my employees because I want to increase sales

and profits and now they're all quitting and

I don't know why. There's like tons of examples

I could think about for this. But you did, again,

you did the right thing and that gave you a positive

result. And that's the most important thing.

And there's tons of examples of this, but we're

focusing on this one, obviously. So the last

question is that how do you feel now, right now,

a second, based on everything we said in this

podcast and based on everything that's happened

to you and how do you feel right now? I feel

great. I feel terrific. I want to tell you a

story, and I may tell you two stories, but I'm

going to tell you this one story because it's

very fresh. A little over a dozen years ago,

I was introduced to this fellow. I live in Toronto,

Canada, and there's this fellow who also lives

in Toronto who built himself quite the following.

At the time he was early on in his career, some

mutual friends connected us. He lives not too

far from where I live and I booked a meeting

with him at a very unique coffee shop called

Balzac's after the French writer in his neighborhood,

which is a bit of an avant -garde type neighborhood

here in the city. And I drove to him because

it was near his place. I got there. He didn't

show up. I waited 20 minutes and I pulled out

my phone. No call from him, no email, no text.

And then finally I checked my email. There was

an email from him. 10 minutes before I was due

to arrive saying that he wasn't gonna be able

to make it. I drove 20 minutes to see him, waited

20 minutes, so wasted an hour of my time. I was

a little ticked off. Reached out to him, he said,

gave me some mealy -mouth excuse and said, I'm

sorry, you can rebook. I said, okay, things happen,

whatever. Rebooked, same meeting, same location,

me driving, show up, didn't show up. Checked

my phone, showed up, there was another one of

those emails, 10 minutes before I was due to

get there, Debbie saying he wasn't gonna make

it. Well, two times the trend, and it just left

a bad taste in my mouth. I said, this guy's an

a -hole, and I'm done. I'm not, I'm not, I just

said second time, really, and left. Anyways,

this guy grew, his business grew, his brand grew,

and a lot of people I knew and liked started

doing his programs. I'm like, oh my God, oh,

not this guy. Anyways. Three days ago one of

the people that I know who loves this guy that

worked with him put an email on a post on Facebook

saying that this guy there was an event that

was supposed to take place and a particular individual

without naming him decided to cancel the event

says closing his business's doors forever and

it was obvious it was this guy and My instincts

about him were proven correct and I felt bad

for my friend because you spent money on the

event on a flight blah blah blah Wasn't any of

it back Apparently this guy had, right up until

the moment he sent out the email closing doors,

been soliciting money from sponsors. A couple

people paid him 20 grand the day before he made

the announcement. That was a really crappy thing

that he did. Really, really like first class

crappy thing. But what I saw was, my instincts,

I'm a good human being, I'm a good man, and I

seek to do well by people, and I'll seek to screw

people. And when my instincts tell me something's

off with somebody, my instincts are usually wrong.

I'm glad I paid attention to my instincts and

not what all these people were telling me. Yeah,

and that's another great example. Because again,

I want to make sure that what I'm doing is correct.

And what I'm doing is I'm doing, quote unquote,

the right thing. And I'm putting out positive

energy and that's what I'm receiving back. And

that was, we don't have any more time left. So

that was a very good way to close. So before

we wrap up, I want to leave you with this. That's

what behavioral profit is all about. Understanding

what's really driving performance inside a business.

If something isn't working, it's easy to assume

it's strategy, the market, or external factors.

But more often than not, it's how the business

is operating day to day. Once that shifts, everything

else follows. If your business isn't performing

the way it should, there's a reason. And it's

not random. If you want to identify what's driving

your results and fix it, connect with me directly.

Thank you for listening, and thank you. for being

on the show. I really appreciate it. Thanks for

having me, Debbie.