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Scaling and Sticky Notes

Hey guys, today we are talking to Christy Melander. She's a certified coach and a perpetual student of life. Following a furlough from the hospitality industry in 2020, she took the opportunity to redesign her own life and follow her true calling. She's always learning something new with the goal of better serving her clients and the world. Christy hold dual Bachelor of Science degrees in finance and economics as well as she has her MBA. She's currently working on her NLP certification. It is this dedication to personal development that she combines with a life's mission of lifting others up to serve her clients and creating sustainable service based businesses that light up their souls. I cannot wait to have Christy on the show. So welcome, Chrissy. Oh, good morning, Christine. How are you? Good. How are you doing? 

Good. Good. 

Welcome to the service based business society podcast. I am so excited to have you here. Right from the time that we initially connected online and I was reading through your information. I was like, I know that Christy has all sorts of information and we need to get her on this.

Thank you. That's so sweet. I really appreciate that.

Okay, so let's first dive in a little bit to who you are, what you do, and kind of your unique offer to the world war.

Sure. That's like the elevator question that never goes away. Tell me more about yourself. That you're never

The hardest question.

Is it not the hardest, and like, I've always tried to have something that's like clear and succinct and like. Okay, so Hi, I'm Christy Melander. I am by title a strategic business coach for female service based entrepreneurs. But in reality, I like to call myself a business activator. So one of my special powers is helping other women in particular, exceed the potential and the possibilities that are out there and get really comfortable being uncomfortable and being like, Hey, I'm gonna do things different. And whether that's I'm like, whether it's however it looks like for you, we're going to rebuild it the way that you want your life to look like. So that's what I do, I help them create businesses that feel really aligned and supportive to their life-goals. We don't work for the sake of working, we work to support the kind of lifestyle that we have, or that we're building up to. Yeah, and I kind of made it here from the pandemic we were talking about before you hit record, because I worked in hospitality before this for six years, and hospitality was decimated. So it was like that Universal Kicking of pay, you weren't really happy. So like, let's go do the thing that you want to do. So that's really kind of how I got here.

Activator, what a powerful word. I liked that. I really like that.

I'm not very good at like, I can help other people think outside the box. But as far as like naming things for myself, I hate it. So I was kicking things around with a friend one day and she's like, well, you know, you're like, this fiery, like you get you inject people with this confidence. And like, You're like an activator. You're like a spark plug. And I was like, Well, I don't like spark plugs. But I like the activator.

Yes, you know, it's when you come across these words that just kind of capture things. It was one of my things where I started my own business, people say what do you do? And it's like this, it's like this odd pause because it's like, of course, of course, you know, what you do? What making it relevant to them and trying to explain something in a way that conveys the value and the benefit to them and their business can be really challenging. 

Especially when you're like, Well, I do all of this. So like how do I give that to you in a way that you're not gonna space out halfway through my sentence?

Or just be like, yes. Wow. Yeah, it's, um, when I started my business, I had done nothing in the sales space. Total introvert, you know, happy I always joke you can just leave me in the basement with a computer. I'm good. And so one of the pieces I really had to jump into was like, I need to learn as much as I can about this and as much as this can be a learned skill I have to just have to jump in. And so I started spending time basically hanging out with as many marketers as I could find relevant, you know, they will say, Okay, well, we start, we start talking about offers, and it's, you know, okay, well, how much money do you make people? I need a number? And I said, Well, that's really tough. Like, it's, you know, and the marketers are, are often willing to just throw a number at it, what's about this, but my black and white brain is like, well, but, but there are so many possibilities and variations there. And, and it could be this, or it could be that or, and so, you know, they can come up with a really sexy terminology, and make things just sound you know, like, why would you? And, as a business activator, I would say it is the first time I've really heard something in terms of like, the coaching that I was like, Yes, see? Yes, girl. 

Thank you, I'm gonna keep that nugget. 

You're like writing that down? Like, 

Hey, Stephanie did a really great job.

Yes, yes, you will. Yeah, it's coffee. So when you are working with businesses, and we're looking at kind of different phases of business, we've got like the, you know, the people who are starting out in that idea phase versus businesses that are in that more maintaining phase growth? How do you take a different approach based on you know, the different different phases of the business

Knowing how to be in business

like this one, okay. So I think more so than the face of the business, it's about the face of the person. So I've worked with several entrepreneurs that are 5, 6, 7 years in business. But it's small, like, they still haven't figured out how to scale because they're still of the mindset of, I have to do it all. So the business might be bringing in quite a bit of money, but there's still that calf of it. So I like to go in at it or okay, where are you personally? Because even if you look, even if you like to take the mindset stuff off for a second and think strictly strategically, there is so that component of like, how much are you willing to delegate? How much are you willing to hire someone to help you? What does your comfort level with scaling look like? And what does scaling even mean to you? So if you're brand new in the business, it's gonna be a lot of the foundational work right? Like, do you need a website? Do you need a registration, get a tax account and things like that, where it's like, you have a checklist, and you can kind of work through it a lot more quickly. Whereas when you get to that point, where you like how clients and you make money, and you start to do things, and then you're like, okay, cool, I know how to be in my business. But I don't know how to work on the business and take it to the step of actually stepping outside of the coach mentality, or the healer, whatever your title is. And look at it of Oh, my gosh, MF CEO. Oh, my gosh, I'm a CEO. And like, how do you do that? It's a whole different ball game. 

The number of business owners and entrepreneurs that don't want to be called the CEO, though, oh, I'm not I'm not there yet. It's like, okay, well, someone is the CEO of your business. So if that's not you, we probably need like, 

There's an issue. 

It's this, you know, no one else is, no one else is coming to help you with that piece. Being the visionary of your business. I mean, you can hire coaches and consultants and whatnot, but the actual, the heart and the deep rooted passion, and the vision that comes from realistically most times the founder, the CEO, the visionary. And so when people really shy away from, you know, oh, I'm not there yet. I really encourage people to lean into that versus shied away from.

Absolutely, and it doesn't have to be that you're leaning into it, and you're making, you know, detailed five year plans. It's just what I do because that's the way my brain works. I have a detailed plan. But it's just the general idea of where do you want to go? Is this something I like to call them legacy building empires? Are you building something that's going to be with you for the next 40 years? Or is that not your goal? Is your goal to get you to like, I don't know, the next house or the next, whatever milestone that looks like until your kids graduate or things like that. You still have to have a plan and a vision of like, what's the end goal here? And it gets to be whatever you want it to be, but it has to be something. 

Yes. And I often refer back to what is the objective? Because just because you can do something doesn't mean you should and I think that with the shifts in technology, and just the availability of information. You can go on YouTube and learn just about anything from just about anyone. And then you know, you get, you get this, like, Hey, I saw this online, can we do this? It's like, yes, we can. But what is the objective? Why are we going to do this? And you know, not every single business needs every single piece. And, you know, I was recently on a webinar, and I was chatting, and we were talking about different social media platforms. And someone said, you know, people keep talking about Twitter. And you know, like, Twitter was something from such a long time ago, and now all of a sudden, I keep hearing about Twitter again, like is Twitter Hey, that Twitter thing now? And I said it, it really depends on your audience. And I said, Okay, so just that curiosity, you know, there were like, 73 people there. And it's like, Okay, how many of you are on Twitter? No one, I said, Okay, so I don't need to be on Twitter. My ideal audience isn't there. And so really deciding, you know, the objective there, if the objective is to continue to grow with your ideal audience? Well, Twitter might not be the spot that I need to do that. Now, if I want to hit a new audience, if my objective is to reach an entirely different audience, well, then maybe we do need to look at Twitter, because those will be different people than those who are, are finding them.

You know, I think that's so true. And I liked the way that you said that it's going back to the objective, like, there were a lot of top Instagram reels, same kind of thing of do I need to be on there? Sure, if you want to, but like, what's the point of it? What is your intention behind doing this? And it's, I think it's that bringing it back to the objective piece that we all struggle with sometimes, because we're like, oh, it's new, and it's shiny, and I want to do that, and it will be a lot more fun than like this stuff that I have to do. I wish that the people listening could see me because I like to do a lot of hand gestures. But it's,

You know, reels and Instagram for me. And, you know, those who are frequent podcast listeners will know that I harp on Instagram a little bit. But depending on your objective, Instagram can either really serve your purpose or can be a total time suck. Because if you are a business that serves people in your community, you need to go to their house, if you're a cleaning company, having followers across the continent, no matter how many followers they are, and how much they love you, they're not going to be purchasing from your business, unless it's doesn't matter. It does not matter. And so you get people, entrepreneurs, you know, I talk to entrepreneurs frequently, who are like, I spend so much time generating social media content. I feel like I'm part influencer, I don't want to be an influencer. I don't want to be like taking all these videos and pictures. And like, you know, it's like, I just, I just want to run my business. And it really comes back to, you know, what is the objective? And do you need to be in these places? What are each of the platforms doing for you? You know, it's, it's each of them do something different? And does that support the bigger goal?

I 100% agree with you. And that applies not just to the platforms that we're in, or the types of content that we're creating. But just the small things that we're doing every day, like, do you need to send out an email three times a week? What is the purpose? There should be an intention behind every single thing that you're putting out in front of your customers, whether it's a cleaning company with a new brochure, or a new flier, if it's an online tarot reader, like, what is that piece of content? What is the purpose behind it, because if you're just throwing stuff to stick out the wall to see if it works, no set, it is not going to work for you like you have to have a reason for it. 

I think the other piece that gets discouraging is that you don't necessarily have that planned and you are kind of just throwing things at the wall. You know when something doesn't stick, you kind of like oh, oh that didn't work. And then you throw something else but again they kind of almost seems like half bait half finishing and instead of going all in, you know to take an idea start to finish, figuring out what's working out and what's not take the energy, develop it, really stick yourself out there. Every time an entrepreneur puts themselves into a product or service, they stick themselves out there and when it's not well received, it's a little bit of a hit to compare. we all want to say it's not. And so, you know if you are not, then you will feel like, oh that didn't work. Next, you know you are not actually finishing the first step and it could have become an amazing success but you didn’t follow, there is no follow through. And so you are constantly in the cycle of depleting your energy and confidence and realistically not making huge strategic success.

The concept of consistency

There's the concept of failing fast. And I think like, this is something I went to business school, this is something that we were shoved down our throats of just working through iteration after iteration. And for some industries that work really well, like iPads, or apps or things like that, it works really well to just run through iterations. But if you're especially for service based businesses, it's really hard to do that in a way that like you said, you're actually giving the concept or the strategy time to blue. Like you have to, you have to put your energy in it. And you have to have a strategy, even if your strategy is just like, well, crud, we're going to see if that works. But then you have to stick with it. Because not only are you just running out of strategies, because they're not limitless, right, like there are only so many strategies to run. But you're draining your energy, you're draining your own, like enthusiasm for what you do. And you're really confusing the people who are already following you or listening to you or customers of you. Like you have to be consistent for at least a couple of weeks to see if an idea actually has value to it.

Yes, I agree. 100%. So question then when someone is in this cycle of, you know, trying things and, you know, skipping to the next idea, how long in your opinion, should someone you know, at what point because the other on the flip side is, you know, at what point do you say this isn't working, and it's time to try something else.

I don't have a part number for you. Because I think it depends on what it is you're trying to do. So we know that there are different timelines. So if you're trying to grow your company, or you're trying to grow like your follower count, let's stick with social media for a second. If you're trying to throw your follower, grow your follower count. And it's not working. And it's been two weeks and the content that you're doing is not landing, there's no engagement, you can probably cut and write and write, you can probably tweak it and let me correct that don't cut and run and go to like reels when you were doing static posts, but tweak it start to make adjustments in the messaging that you have. However, when it gets to converting into dollar sales, that's going to take more time, people are much more flexible with giving you their attention when it's a scroll that they can go through and like technically, so be a follower, but not actually be listening to you. Versus, Oh, you want me to pay you money now. So anything that you're trying to convert into an actual sale, whether it's a new masterclass that you're putting out, or a new event of new, like freebie downloadable guide or training, things like that, I'd say give it a solid month, but not a month of you doing the same exact thing day after day, a solid month of you looking at the analytics, how are people engaging? Are they going to the site, get Google Analytics, it's free? Take the training on how to read it, because it's not super user friendly at first. But really look at the data of where they are stopping on your website? Where are they getting to? Are they clicking but they're not downloading it? Are they reading the first email or not? And then play with it, you know, give it a week, adjust the wording, adjust the intonation of your speaker, or whatever it is make small changes along the way. Like we're so having iterations but give it a solid month if you're asking people for money. Like we're just we're much more apt to give you our time and our money. 

Yes, minor course corrections versus completely restarting. And you know it it's actually incredible when you use the data to say and to see what minor changes can create big impact I think right away we all assume it's like this is not working and it's like okay, well hang on just a minute what parts of this aren't working if you have a multi step process if we're going from person does not know you cold audience completely cold audience and person needs to have you know, whether you're an online service provider and they need to have paid you and be a part of your client list or if you're a local service based business and you need these people now perhaps you know back to the original example of like cleaning your your home if you need these people in your home. There's a number of steps and micro commitments that come along between people who do not know your business potential customer to these people who are now in your home. So many little steps and each of those can have minor adjustments versus, hey, this whole thing isn't working. And let's throw it out and start. 

Breaking the barriers

And I Think that goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning of not wanting to step into the role of being a CEO. And just saying, like, Oh, I'm, I'm just a house cleaner, or I'm just a coach, or I'm just, you know, like a personal trainer. Whether it's you or you run a 100 person business, you still have to look at the analytical side of it. It's not, it's not enough to just like, have the idea and go with it and be like, I'm really good at this part of it. You have to look at the data, you have to break it down into those bytes, where you're like, This is not fun. But I have to do it, because I'm still the owner of this business, right? It's still my name on the registration. And I think that's one of the things that a lot of people miss. Really taking the like, minute steps and be like, oh, let's change the subject or in of the email. More people are engaged with questions than like a happy April 1st. 

Yes. It's interesting. You said the big scary a word. And it's right up there with CEOs and people shying away from it. And that's the analytics. As soon as you say Data and Analytics, you can you can honestly see, people go oh, no, no, that's not I don't do that part. Yeah. No, I don't know what it means I don't look at it. And it's one of these pieces, you know, I shared of social posts a long time ago. And it was, you know, I It's like, when you go to a fancy restaurant, and they call it you know, a potato puree. And you're like, it's mashed potatoes. And you're like, okay, and I shared when recently and it was, you know, like a not something spread with a jelly compote on like, blah, blah, and you're like, it's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You know, it's like this, the people go to analytics, and they're like, oh, I don't know anything about this. I didn't go to business school. And it's like, okay, but let's actually break this down, and say, okay, so you had 50 people click on whatever it is, whether it's your Google My Business Profile, your Facebook, you know, they clicked on your post, your ad, doesn't really matter if you had 50 people. And then when they got to the first page on your website, and two people took the next step. You don't need any kind of statistics, or any kind of fancy analytics, realistically, you just need to know if there is something wrong with that first page on my website. Something is not working, something is not, you know, registering people are seeing that page and going. No, so the first step is working people are like, Yes, this is for me. And then the second step that people get to and they're like, whoa, nevermind leaving. And so it's, it's, it's not as scary, as you know, the word analytics, data, you know, you see the same thing we say, SEO, it's the it's these business terms, that that cause people to shy away from right away saying, Hey, I don't have I don't know how to do this. And it's like, let's just actually get down to basics. Forget the fact that it's called analytics. You know, realistically, if you had 50 People walk into your store, if you had a brick and mortar store, and you had 50 People walk in the door, and only two people purchase, you would know right away that there was something wrong with what was happening in the store. And so trying to strip away some of the complexities and the scary of some of these pieces. Just what is the data telling us? What do these numbers tell? What is the story here? I

like that. And I think, I think there's so much stock that we give to certain words, where like you said, they just kind of like, you can see the eyes start to glaze over. You're like, oh, I don't know what SEO is. But just what's the story? What's the puzzle? What's the disconnection? There's not something I work a lot with, like, the mindset. So certain words like what's the problem or what's wrong? Just reframe it, like, what's the missing piece, or what's, what needs to be adjusted so that the puzzle piece actually fits in fully, because maybe it just needs to be shifted a little bit. And it's, it's D stigmatizing the like, quote, unquote, business words, and making it just like, Okay, we're going to try something we're going to figure out where the disconnect is. And it doesn't mean that there's something quote unquote, wrong because that leads into like a whole nother tirade, I'm not going to go down. But it's just this opportunity for us to be kinder to ourselves and also empower ourselves to say, Hey, I can get this, I can figure this out. I may not know the terminology. I may not know To this day, like I will call myself out, I can't tell you everything that's on the Google Analytic sheet. I went through YouTube and Google video training to understand it step by step. But it's just going at it with the attitude of like, I can figure this out. Or I can help get someone to help me figure this out.

Yes, I think it comes back, you know, for a long time. In terms of success in business, and those who I've seen the most success, it's the ability to be resourceful, and gritty, and not knowing that that things is okay, if you're willing to try and figure it out, make an attempt, or, you know, work with someone who does have the answer, you know, asking questions, not, you know, it comes back to that original thing of you saying, hey, you know, are you willing to delegate? Are you willing to, you know, not have to do it all yourself. And it's tough, because I think, you know, we, especially the women, feel like we have almost a point to prove that we can do it. I know, for myself anyway, and a lot of my clients, it's like, hey, no, I can do this. And at times, we absolutely need to do that. And we need to prove to ourselves more than anyone else that we can do it. But there are times where trying to dive into absolutely everything just makes it so that there's just not enough to go around and even the success of so many things is suffering, because you're a little like halfway in on so many things. And so to those who have that, you know, back to that, that analogy of new things, shiny things, how do you help people stay focused, stay on the course of what they're already working on. 

Always put it out there.

So I'm a big fan of post it note. And I, I'm not going to say I make all my clients, I encourage all my clients quite forcefully that their non negotiables have to fit on a post it note. So the things that absolutely need to get done every week, or every day, that needs to be done by you cannot be more than a post it note. So as the new stuff comes on, like, oh, there's this new project, or oh, there's this new thing, you have to take something off, you can have a get to do list that's a mile long, that's fine. But the things that are non negotiable have to fit on a post it note. And it has to be somewhere like mine, I literally just grabbed mine, because it's on the top of my calendar under my computer, it has to be somewhere that you can't miss it. Whether that's your phone, I've got one woman who puts it in her bathroom, because she's in her bathroom a lot. But it has to be somewhere that it triggers you every day to be like, Okay, I gotta get a post out today, or I gotta do this today. But like, the more that you can kind of put the blinders on to the things that you are the only person who can do this. And yes, I have the time to do this. And I do have the energy to do this. But something has to go then. And that has been something that gets a lot of resistance, myself included some days. But it has to be done because otherwise there's too much and we start to not only get burned out, but we start to get overwhelmed and unexcited about business because then we're squirrels and you don't know where to go and there's too much going on. But if you can put it down into a post it note and you're like poop. Alright, I have three things on mine. These are literally the three things I need to do. Everything else is crazy. That helps a lot.

So sticky note is my trigger word on a sticky No. But I'm like, oh sticky. Now. I don't know if I will follow this. But I remained open minded until and was like Okay, so we're using the size of the sticky note to frame the fact that we're not taking on too many things. I did have a moment that we just talked about the analytics, like Whoa, she said sticky. No, I don't know about this. 

Thank you for saying oh, 

I stayed open minded. I'm sticking it through. I actually just bought a whole bunch of sticky notes, too. For some content I was creating because it is so common. I find it's the sticky notes and I didn't buy them when I was in corporate. We in my department didn't use them. I was like no we are not we are not sticky notes. Put them everywhere. It's like you know which sticky note is more important. Is it the orange sticky note or the pink sticky? No Is it you know, based importance based on like where they are on the screen at the desk or i It's very unclear. And so, so often When I start working with people, they're like, oh, my gosh, look at my desk, and they sent me this picture. And it's like sticky note everywhere. And I, I, I can't focus with that many neon squares everywhere. So, you know, it's funny that you say it, because I literally am just right here, actually, there, you know, I just bought these cute orange ones because they go with our agency branding. And I was like, Yes, I was like, I need to make some reels out of these.

Yeah, it's all about the size. You can, you can use whatever you'd like. Got it. But it's about this size. It's not so much, I like to have a clean workspace.

Yes, yes, totally. When I was in corporate, my controller, she liked to put them. The really important ones had to be right on the screen, like the screen if they crept up off the desk onto the side of the screen. And then as they gained importance, it was like they moved on to the screen. And

I think my brain would explode at that point. Like, I don't even like when I have a touchscreen laptop. I don't even like it but I can see the fingerprints on it. No.

Oh, yeah. Totally, totally. I do, I do understand framing the size of the because you know what we all it's kind of like, you know, when you go to the buffet and your eyes are a little bit bigger than your stomach, it's the same thing with the non negotiables. At the end of the day, there is still only so much time, and so much energy, and you can only pour yourself into so many things at the same time. And, and so many entrepreneurs and you know, people are juggling home responsibilities, health responsibilities, you know, and the commitments to yourself and, and whatnot are always the first to they're the easiest ones to say, Oh, get to that tomorrow.

Accountability

Absolutely. And that's, that's the thing, right? It's about almost being ruthless. And we talk a lot about boundaries, right, we're setting boundaries with our clients, or our co workers or families or friends, your non negotiables or a boundary with yourself. Because once you start to go down that road of like, well, I can do this. And I can do that, it's a lot harder to come back from it. Because it is a slippery slope, like you have to try and put that boundary back in place. So if you can make it really visible, and I highly encourage you if you have like an accountability partner, you know, a spouse or someone who can like really actually hold you accountable, and tell them what your non negotiables are, and ask them to help you check in with you once a day or once a week or you know, depending on what you're thing is because that that's a boundary. And if you start looking at your non-negotiables as another boundary, you're like, oh, okay, it just helps her reframe it in a way that it helps you keep your energy more intact. 

Yes, absolutely. Well, Christy, I want to say thank you so much this, this has been a great chat, super fun, and I think so informative on a number of different pieces and mindset, talking about, you know, building businesses and and this concept of, you know, your non negotiables being your boundary with yourself is is truly profound. And I think that this is part of the struggle, there's so many people that are struggling with boundaries for any real piece. And, you know, when we when we start to look at the boundaries with ourselves that is, is truly part of the mindset shift and shifting into this powerful competency, yo, that is making the decisions using the data, using all of the, you know, the true objective of the business, not vanity metrics, and deciding what success looks like.

Yeah, and I like how you said the vanity metrics, because it's not about the followers. It's not about the number on your email list. It's about for me, and I'm gonna say for all of us listening to service based business, it's about the impact that we're making. So the other stuff is fluff or gravy. It's about how we can make the biggest impact in the world while being really true to ourselves and what we want and to have the life that we want to have and be the version of ourselves that we want to be along the way? 

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for taking the time this morning to chat with me. And if people want to connect with you where can they connect?

They can. My biggest platform is Instagram because I like the energy that's there but I do totally understand that there it works or some people don't but they can find me on Instagram at Chrissymalinger all one word, or they can follow me or my web site @www.christymalinger.com

Awesome. Well thank you so much.

Thank you so much. This was such a fun conversation. I really appreciate chatting with you today.

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