265: How Melissa Grew an Empire

Cheyenne:

Awesome. Melissa, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm so excited to get to chat with you.

Melissa Henault:

Yes. Thank you for flying all the way to Charlotte Oh my gosh. To do this live.

Cheyenne:

Yeah. It's so fun. Well, today, I wanna ask you a couple questions that, are not just gonna get insight into the programs themselves, but also you and behind the scenes of how you kind of built these programs, how you got to where you are, and why you structured them in such a way that I imagine would have been really helpful for you had you had programs like this when you were first starting out.

Melissa Henault:

Absolutely.

Cheyenne:

Yeah.

Melissa Henault:

Yeah.

Melissa Henault:

Let let's do it.

Cheyenne:

Let's do it. Okay. Well, we'll start with LinkedIn. Oh my gosh. I have to cut that.

Melissa Henault:

Yep. Yep. We've had multiple people say that. Used to be the LinkedIn Method Academy. Now is the Lead Gen Academy. So, yeah, you can start over.

Cheyenne:

I'll start over. Yeah. Okay. Well, we will start with what you are probably most known for, which is the lead gen academy. Tell me a bit about the inception of it. How did you get started in that area? How did you become such an expert on LinkedIn?

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. It actually started back in my corporate days. So I was climbing the corporate ladder and had realized I had climbed to the top of Mount Everest and realized I'd climbed the wrong mountain. And I was in burnout, and I had 2 little kids in diapers. And I was $200,000 in college loan debt with a high power and high paying career, but also given an ultimatum with the company downsizing that in order to keep my job, I was gonna have to go from covering 2 states with travel to half the country. Wow.

Melissa Henault:

They downsized from 12 directors to 2, and

Melissa Henault:

it was the one time in my life that I felt like I truly had my back against the wall and I had no control, that I had what many would call financial security, but no time freedom and no control. And it's interesting. In that moment, it was like the ugly curl ugly girl cry on the bathroom floor moment of just feeling like I had no control. I'd hit rock bottom. Like, someone else was gonna be raising my kids. And but in moments of rock bottom is when we're willing to think radically different, and sometimes we have to be brought to that place Yeah. To think radically differently. Right? And I know now when I will reflect on it, it was just a death of who I was, and it was a moment of rebirth of who I was becoming.

Melissa Henault:

And so it should have felt like death. It physically felt like death. Right? But those were the early years of my entrepreneurial journey of realizing I have to be able to figure out how to do something different. There has to be a way to match this income. There has to be a way to pay this debt off and live life differently. And I can go down into a major rabbit hole about that, but where I'll where I'll land with this is I landed in still working full time, but starting to grow a business in the direct sales network marketing space around my 9 to 5. Mhmm. For me, it was my vehicle because I love the nutrition.

Melissa Henault:

I didn't have time to eat in my high powered career, so I drank their shakes

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Melissa Henault:

Because there was no time to chew. I know we've talked about this, and I'm like, if I love it and I have I have a known community for I already had a personal brand around health and wellness because I was passionate about it. Why not share it with my community and get paid to do it? Right? And so that's where my journey started. But what happened was, and I realized early on, that there was a saturation point with Instagram and Facebook, and it was also a product driven place.

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Melissa Henault:

And I hit a plateau in my business of 6 figures, and I was making multiple 6 figures in corporate America. Mhmm. And I needed to hit that multiple 6 figure mark. And there was a light bulb moment for me where I was like, you know, I'm over here on Instagram and Facebook. I feel like a hamster on a wheel. Like, it feels so inauthentic. I'm spending way too much I was actually at a point where I was like, if this is the way I have to generate income for myself, I'm just gonna stay in corporate America because this feels so inc it's no better. Yeah.

Melissa Henault:

Right? But then I had this light bulb moment, and I was like, you know, I've got a doctorate in pharmacy, a master's in clinical research. I'm, you know, a leader in corporate America. There have to be other women just like me that actually want this vehicle. Mhmm. And maybe I should go to a business platform, LinkedIn, where I know it was my home base in corporate and actually network over there. Mhmm. And actually talk about the opportunity to create a diversified income stream, a way to build a plan b. Initially, for me, it was like how to pay off college loan debt.

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm. Because in the first, like, 18 months or less than 2 years, I actually paid off that all of that debt with an additional income stream. So I'm not the person who, like, just left corporate with no plan. I had a very strategic financial plan to get that debt paid off before leaving, but where I wanted to land here is that I quickly learned that the access to professionals, the visibility over there, the motivation, and the mindset of people over there was very different than Instagram and Facebook, and my business started to flourish. Mhmm. I started to realize that people are over there to network and to take radical change and to invest in themselves, and they're looking for thought leadership. And I found a lot of people who wanted to get into business with me, and my business doubled, and then it tripled. And I that was the point when I fired my boss in corporate America because I, for the first time in my life, had true financial freedom and choice.

Melissa Henault:

And it was in those early days that I hired a business mentor. It wasn't even my idea. Yeah. I hired a business mentor who saw the opportunity in me. She said, this thing you're doing with LinkedIn that scaled your business is could work for so many people. You're onto something, and you should monetize it. You should teach it, and you should sell it. And I was like, I I don't know.

Melissa Henault:

I've never built a course. Like, I've never I've not been a course creator. I've never been in the realm of online coaching.

Cheyenne:

I

Melissa Henault:

knew the ecommerce space, and I knew that my method and process worked for lead generation for business to business to find people who wanted to collaborate and grow businesses with me. But I'll say early on, I had to lean into the belief of my business coach who'd been there before me, and she saw this niche opportunity that I didn't. And I had to lean into her advice and lean into her faith, in launching teaching other business owners how they could leverage LinkedIn. I quickly formalized. I reflected on, okay. What's the process? Right? And I know we were talking about this earlier. It's, you know, build on the platform, drive the platform, and then automate the platform for duplication and scale. Super simple.

Melissa Henault:

And when I really sat down and put pen to paper, I was like, yeah. Actually, I think I can teach people how to do this. Yeah. And, it really took off from there. It I I realized very quickly, as people started to come in, 10, 20. You know, we had 20 people come in, and then we had 70 people come in, and then we'd have 100 of people. And I started to realize, gosh, this method works for mortgage loan officers. It works for online coaches.

Melissa Henault:

It works for bricks and mortar. Like, we've got chiropractors who are driving traffic to their front doors. And so that was the inception of the lead gen academy was, This works for me.

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Melissa Henault:

Let me formalize it, put it on paper, and teach other people how to do it. And then when it took off and other people were getting radical results, a business was born. Yeah.

Cheyenne:

Yeah. Yeah. I I just I think it's really powerful, your story of going from being in a corporate position Mhmm. To entrepreneurship. So many people think they're vastly different things and that if you've built this corporate career, that your skills could never transfer to entrepreneurship. I'd love to hear you talk a bit about that kind of what your coach saw in you that said, hey, you have all this experience. You can totally do this. Right.

Cheyenne:

What would you say to someone that's in that position now who's kind of going, like, I've built this career, and I don't know if I can do something wildly different?

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. It's such a great question. Because on the outside, you would think this is so wildly different. Yeah. But on the inside, I think it was one of the key contributors to my success was the industry I was in in corporate. I had always worked remotely from home from day 1. And in corporate, the team I led was what we call geo dispersed. So I never led a team that walked into an office with me.

Melissa Henault:

Right? And, also, in my time in a Fortune 500, I had the luxury of being in a Fortune 500 that groomed me for what they call second line leadership, which basically means you lead a team of leaders. Right? And so going through corporate, I had some of the best leadership training, and experience in working with teams that are dispersed across the country, and learn how to have the self discipline of working in an office at home

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Melissa Henault:

And then being internally motivated to to continue to move. Right? And so, that's that's 1 or 2 translatable skills into the entrepreneurial place. And then, again, for those of us who are in business units that had a, like, a, like, budget that we had to manage. Right. Right? Like, I had a budget that I had to manage within my team. And so that was like, that was like entrepreneurship on training wheels, right, until you actually have to manage your own P and L as a true business owner. But I think that those are just some of the skills that I was able to translate from corporate to entrepreneurship. And on the leadership piece, what I see as a business mentor now to a lot of entrepreneurs who come in with no corporate leadership experience is it's the one huge missing gap.

Cheyenne:

Right.

Melissa Henault:

I see a lot of businesses fail not because it's not a great offer, not because, they don't have a great top of funnel strategy. What I actually see is internally the collapse of their company because they've come they've their business was founded on an idea and a product and service with absolutely no experience leading a team, and they start by hiring, you know, one part time person here, one part time person there. They're kind of a a self, you know, what we call, like, what's the word I wanna use? Solopreneur.

Cheyenne:

Solopreneur. Yeah.

Melissa Henault:

That all

Melissa Henault:

of a sudden, they look around and they're like, oh my gosh. I've got, like, 8 part time contractors reporting to me, and I have no structure, no system, no organization, to check-in with my team and and no culture. And I find that that I've just seen a lot of churn in the industry because entrepreneurs that don't have that lens from corporate don't value the education and the work and the training around leadership. They don't make it a priority like they do the next big widget and then the trending thing on social media and the, you know, the next top of funnel thing that needs to be done. They totally overlook that piece. And in order to scale a business, whether it's a bricks and mortar, whether it's in corporate, or it's online, you have to have some leadership and organization in place, to truly run a company that's gonna

Melissa Henault:

withstand the test of time.

Cheyenne:

Yeah. I see you do that a lot too, and you can tell me if you feel like this isn't a corporate trait. But Yeah. I I always wonder from you. I see you slow us down at the right moments and speed us up at the right moments. It's like you kind of know when, hey, we're moving too fast. We need to slow down and think you think about corporate as, like, it takes forever to get a post out, and you're slowing down at the right places. Right.

Cheyenne:

And there's this entrepreneurial edge of, no. We can do this. Let's, like, knock out the launch. Let's do the thing. Let's move at warp speed when we need to. And I think, yeah, that blend is, like, so powerful in this space.

Melissa Henault:

Oh, absolutely. And I think that that also is a continued learned skill, especially in the online space with a team that's so, like, spread across literally, like, we're in multiple countries and time zones. So I personally have biweekly check ins with everyone on my full time team because I otherwise don't know what's truly in their workload, what's truly taking what's the cog in their wheel? What's holding them back? Very quickly in the online space, work can just be stacked and stacked and stacked on someone. And especially if everyone who's asking for work from them is from a different line of of, vision of what they need delivered, they actually don't have the global perspective I do of all the other things they have their hands in. Right? And so it's taking that step back and being like, well, wait a minute. Do we truly have the capacity to do all of this right now, or are we gonna burn out the team and half get it half done?

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Melissa Henault:

You know? And it's so it's like that constant, like, push and pull Mhmm. And timing on that, for sure.

Cheyenne:

Yeah. For sure. For sure. Okay. So let's say that you are someone in corporate Mhmm. Or you're someone who's maybe you're not actually in corporate, but you're just in a role, in a job, and are feeling it's unfulfilling. You feel like you want to step out and try your own thing. Mhmm.

Cheyenne:

LinkedIn might feel really intimidating if you're going, wait a second. My boss sees me here. Right. My coworkers see me here. Right. My friends from college see me here. It feels like an intimidating platform to show up on, especially if you're trying to kind of do similar to what you did, which was build something that's going to support you so you're not having to take a flying leap on entrepreneurship. You have that net.

Cheyenne:

You have that safety. Right. What would you say in that situation? How can you show up on LinkedIn effectively if you're feeling afraid of what are people gonna think with a really valid reason of my boss could see this and think, are you leaving? Like Right. You have one foot out the door. That's not okay.

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. It's a great question I get asked a lot because I actually was not public about my business on LinkedIn public until the public post I made about leaving.

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Melissa Henault:

But I'd leveraged LinkedIn for a year and a half scaling my business. So it can absolutely be done. A lot of people don't understand the power of LinkedIn as a search function and as a networking tool behind the scenes, BTS in the DMs. Right? And so when I in my early days, when I was looking for collaborations and partnerships with people joining to grow and scale my nutrition business, it was literally it was the search function. I knew my ideal avatar. It was it was pharmacist. I started with people with a doctorate in pharmacy and people in the pharmaceutical industry because I knew their pain. I knew their barriers.

Melissa Henault:

I knew because I'd lived in it. And I knew I had a vehicle because of their skill set that could help drive and grow a business around their 9 to 5. So

Cheyenne:

When you say you started with them, what does that mean tactically?

Melissa Henault:

Were you They were my they were my initial, like, avatar. They were my initial buyer persona. And so I was very strategic in getting into the DMs with folks who fit that niche and getting into conversations with them about, had they ever considered leveraging their network to, grow and scale a business around their 9 to 5 that could really diversify their portfolio. It could help create a plan b. And especially with the pharmacist, I talked a lot about, like, my college loans and getting those college loans paid off, and that resonated with the right avatar. And but it was a 2 pronged approach. So back to your original question of, like, well, how can you show up

Cheyenne:

Right.

Melissa Henault:

And create curiosity without, like, pissing off your employers? And I think that it's a fine line, and only the individual listening knows, like, how strict the rules and policies are with their corporate companies. But I think it all boils down to regardless is personal branding. And your company can't fault you for having a personal brand and bringing value to the platform. And I wanna say that again, bringing value and thought leadership to the platform, not selling. So the your corporations can't fire you or hold you accountable for bringing value and thought leadership to the platform. That's exactly what the platform is for. Right? So when I really got started with building my business around my 9 to 5, the way I leveraged LinkedIn without getting in trouble was speaking to authentic leadership, like speaking to, personal development, speaking to part of my journey beyond creating the income itself was evolving to become a better human. And what was I working on personally that was gonna resonate with my audience? Because I truly believe people buy you.

Melissa Henault:

They don't buy your product. So if you're in the feed selling product all day long, you're not gonna be really successful anyway. And so for those of you who are in a corporate career, what I would encourage you to think about is, okay. What is that behind the scenes offer, product, or service that you really wanna offer? For a number of the people listening, you probably are looking at, how can I consult doing what I'm already doing in my 9 to 5, but do it on my own? Well, then how can your employer hold you accountable for coming in as a thought leader, talking about the thing you're already doing, but doing it really well and bringing value on the platform? You know what I'm saying? And then it can create really cool conversations Where the sales happen is the people who are commenting and engaging, and you take it offline and over into the DMs, and you start talking about ways that you can collaborate and how you can serve more. What I started to find was people would say they'd get into the DMs with me and just be like, I really love your energy. That thing you said was so valuable about x y z, and that's where the savviness of sales in the DM starts to happen. Right? So it's about being intriguing in the feed just enough to create curiosity to then find the need in the DMs where your employer is not seeing that piece of the sale. Right.

Melissa Henault:

Does that make sense? Totally.

Cheyenne:

And I think that's a big unlock for a lot of people listening who feel like of all the platforms, LinkedIn is probably the one that's most intimidating because maybe your friends and family are following you on Instagram, on Pinterest, on TikTok. LinkedIn might feel really intimidating, but it's actually not. It's actually one of maybe the safest places for you to show up and get the greatest impact, and I'd love to hear a bit about that. Yeah. The impact on LinkedIn compared to other platforms is dramatically different. Talk a little bit about that and walk people through there. So impact, first

Melissa Henault:

of all, before we talk about visibility, the first thing I wanna say is if you're intimidated to own your business in front of your previous peers and the industries you've come from on the number one business to business platform, how are you gonna succeed anywhere else? Right? Like, the thing I wanna say here is, like, for the for the newer entrepreneurs, those of you for those of you who've recently left corporate and you're starting this thing, you just have a you just have a blankie telling yourself, well, if things don't go right, I better just not be honest on LinkedIn. I better not fully stand in my power as a business owner in case it doesn't waste. Basically, what you're saying is in case it doesn't work out. And when you're saying to yourself in case it doesn't work out, you're already energetically putting it out there that you don't have the confidence that this is gonna succeed. You're gonna go play with the the the people on the tricycles on Instagram and Facebook and try to play the game of selling over there versus stepping into your power as a business owner that is the number one business to business platform where people go for thought leadership in the industry. So the people who are like, like, I just can't quite own it on LinkedIn, I want you to check your confidence in your offer. Check your confidence and dedication to the success of your business because people sense your lack of confidence, and people aren't gonna buy from someone who doesn't fully believe and own in the the transformation that they provide. So that's number 1.

Melissa Henault:

So that's

Cheyenne:

And I would add to that that this comes back to the first thing we talked about is you're probably trying to sell something, for the most part, in the area you've already built potentially a career in. Yes. You've built this career. Like, what is a transferable skill? Yes. It's not the fact that you've built a career. You know this. You do this all day long. Yes.

Cheyenne:

If you're adding this thought leadership to the platform Mhmm. On a subject area that you are an expert at Yep. Then you can have confidence in it. Your proof is in the pudding. You always say that.

Melissa Henault:

Totally. And so that brings me to the second piece is, first of all, you have to have the confidence to do it. Secondly, when you do, that's when your previous like, if these are your relevant, buyer personas, when they see you step into your power, there's no better lead generation platform because these are warm, organic leads of people who know your past history and they purchase faster. So why would you go cold market on the other platforms when you can leverage a warm market that knows you? Right? So that's number 1. And that's how my first business took off. They're like, if you are a high performing executive who's got all of these degrees and you're owning this industry and it's paying off your college debt, I'm gonna listen to you. Right? That was that was, like, the secret sauce right there. And then as a a course creator with LinkedIn, right, the large majority of people who come in are like, if she was in corporate and now she runs a multi 7 figure a year company, they go look at my profile.

Melissa Henault:

They're like, shit. She used to work at Glaxo. She used to work at these Fortune 5 100, and now she's doing this. So there's so much credibility just in that, like, career history and validation

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Melissa Henault:

Versus the abyss of who's got the most followers Right. On Instagram or Facebook. And, like, what the fuck does that even mean? Right? So then when we get to impact, like, in visibility, and I talk about this a lot inside of our program, the organic reach on LinkedIn because the amount of users is very niche. It is a demographic of people who are slightly older. When I say slightly older, I mean, the average age on Instagram and Facebook is, like, 23, and the average age on LinkedIn is 35. Well, that's perfect for a lot of us running businesses. We want people with that have purchasing power of a certain age. Right? And they have a higher discretionary they have higher discretionary funds to spend.

Melissa Henault:

to a: 100000

Melissa Henault:

The same content I was putting on Instagram and Facebook was not being seen by a fraction of the people who are active on LinkedIn. It's just that most service based entrepreneurs are not thinking about the traffic and visibility on the LinkedIn platform as a direct to consumer opportunity. They see it as, oh, it's that that, like, corporate work thing. And it's like, well, how many people are in corporate and work that are your consumer? Totally. Right? And, like, how easily can you get in front of them over there versus the other platforms with all the noise? Totally.

Cheyenne:

And talk a little bit about when someone opens Instagram. You always tell the story during our free training that we have about LinkedIn. Yeah. Talk a little bit little bit about when someone opens Instagram, what's their behavior versus when someone's opening LinkedIn? What are they doing differently?

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. So think about it. I mean, you and I, like, I don't know what your digital habits are, but I know mine are just as unhealthy as everybody else. So, like, my phone is my alarm in the mornings. Right? And for that, in the first couple of minutes of waking up, I'm, like, wiping the sleep out of my eyes and I'm waiting for my tea to brew. I'm scrolling the gram. Like, I'm just killing time. I am not there to make any investments.

Melissa Henault:

I'm not there to make any radical changes in my life. I'm just waiting for my tea to get warm so I can wake up. Right? So when we think about Instagram and Facebook versus LinkedIn, it's very important to think about the psychology. The psychology of the user on Facebook and Instagram can be the same person, by the way. The same person is mindlessly scrolling on Instagram and Facebook. They are looking to check out. They are we've got breaks between calls. We're grabbing lunch.

Melissa Henault:

We're getting ready to go to bed, and we're just, like, mindlessly scrolling. This is, like, just proven fact. Those of you listening can probably attest to this. Right? And the time frame in which people use Instagram and Facebook is actually more frequent, and it's dispersed throughout, like, early morning till late at night. With LinkedIn, and also the average the device is the phone. Right? And so on LinkedIn, what they find is the number one device is the desktop, which means that I've already had my coffee or tea. I've worked out. I've had breakfast.

Melissa Henault:

My kids are off to the bus. I'm not multitasking. I've showered. Now I'm sitting down in front of my computer because I'm ready to get shit done. And I can be the same person who was mindlessly scrolling and barely able to even see through my eyes at 5 AM. But now I'm ready to I'm I am purposefully and consciously going to a platform where I'm going to connect and network and grow professionally. When you get into my feed and you're looking for me to take action, I'm much more same human. I'm much more likely to interact, engage, and, by the way, the visibility is greater, like, even see it during the day on LinkedIn than I am on the other platforms where there's so much noise, and the psychology is different.

Melissa Henault:

I'm not purchasing. I'm not ready to take any action, book any calls, learn about anything when I'm mindlessly scrolling and going for maybe a dopamine hit. Like, oh, how many likes did I get today? Like, how many people saw that reel? Right? I'm not there to network and buy anything for anybody. It's, like, self centered. It's like, how did that post do today? Right? We're not there to take action. So I guess I don't know if that answers your question.

Cheyenne:

Totally. No. I think it it totally does. And it's such a big unlock to realize not only is LinkedIn the best place to share your expertise based on whatever you're a thought leader in, actually a place where no one is gonna get mad at you because you're contributing, adding value to the platform. Right. And it's the right buyer persona. And they're actually leaning in. They're paying attention.

Cheyenne:

They're showing up on the platform in a way where they want to get value out of it. They want to make a purchasing decision. They're not mindlessly scrolling as they wait in line for their coffee.

Melissa Henault:

That's right.

Cheyenne:

It's such a huge unlock. I wanna hear you talk about, on LinkedIn, our 3 step system, build, drive, automate.

Melissa Henault:

Talk a

Cheyenne:

little bit about that. How does that work?

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. So it's so simple. And I kinda put this together because I know people like systems. I like systems that are repeatable. Right? And so it's a 3 step approach to LinkedIn where you have to start with building the foundation of the platform. You have to build your personal brand. You know, I often talk about when you imagine your LinkedIn profile was a bricks and mortar, and how do people walk into your virtual store and experience you? Like, how do you want them to feel? What emotion do you want to elicit? So when we talk about build before the drive and the automate, when we talk about build, we've gotta build the profile out. For the listeners, you know, go Google yourself and see what shows up.

Melissa Henault:

Most of you, LinkedIn is gonna be one of the top in your, Google feed. And how do you feel about your virtual storefront when people click on it to check you out? Right? So what what you have to build the personal brand in a way that is compelling, that tells the story of the transformation of the products and services. Not what your products and services are, but the desired transformation and allowing the potential client to know that you know their problems and challenges better than anyone else. So that's a big piece of build. Also, build your content strategy. Right? Like and I know you know this really well. It's like, do you have a method and a madness to the content you're putting out? Have you gotten clear on mapping out, the cadence and the sequence of the type of thought leadership, that you're gonna fold throughout to create the know, love, trust factor? Right? So that's a lot of what we teach and build. And then drive is, like, once we've got the brand built, we drive the platform.

Melissa Henault:

So are you strategically growing your network with the right audience? LinkedIn is not Instagram and Facebook. LinkedIn doesn't favor you for having tens of thousands of followers. You want a niche group of people who are your ideal audience so everybody can, like, have a sigh of relief that it's not a game of tens of 1,000. It's actually a game of the right connections, and that's all you need. Like, I wanna remind people, I made a $1,000,000 with less than 2,000 followers on LinkedIn and 600 on Instagram. I'll say this, like, forever because I wanna inspire people that it's the right network. So are you driving the right network? Are you driving the right conversations into the DMs? Are you driving the right content through real time feedback of how people are engaging? So that's a lot of the drive. The holy grail for all of our clients as they're graduating is the final step, which is automate.

Melissa Henault:

So once we've built the platform, what once we're driving conversations and content that's really compelling into conversations for selling, how do we automate in a way that allows us to prequalify these leads for only the most qualified to end up on calls with and consults to sell? How do we automate the content that goes out? How do we get back to now that we've really created a revenue generating engine, How do we get back to, expanding and leading our business as CEOs and delegating off this engine you created in a automated way? So that's really the build, drive, automate strategy. That's our, you know, our ultimate, goal for all of our clients upon graduation is that they're in that automation stage.

Cheyenne:

Perfect. So I'll ask you as my last LinkedIn question. Sure. Coach me as if you were coaching someone who's just getting started, wants to grow on LinkedIn. Yep. What would you tell me my first steps should be?

Melissa Henault:

Like, number 1 or a couple steps? Like, the first step?

Cheyenne:

The first couple. Yeah. The first couple steps.

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. I think it's a it's a 2 to 3 prong approach where you're gonna get the best results is, number 1, being clear on who it is that you want to attract because you have to drive the right traffic. Right? So we have to know who we're and it's it's important to know who we're trying to attract because, a, it's gonna impact how you're growing your network, but, b, it's gonna it's gonna impact the content that you create. So if we can grow a network and in the same in the same time frame, grow the network and create content in the feed that attracts the network, the sales start to happen. Right? And so it's just as much about growing the network as it is creating compelling content that attracts the the client. And that is the number one mistake I see with so many people who've aborted LinkedIn. Because they've said, oh, I've tried it. And what they mean by I've tried it is, I've taken the content I made on Instagram and Facebook, and I've dumped it over there, and nothing has happened.

Cheyenne:

Totally.

Melissa Henault:

And it's because the platform doesn't behave that way. Like, you have to actually grow a network. But the beauty is you can grow a niche tight network that has a massive ROI and is really efficient in scaling a business and saves you so much time, or you can go over to Instagram and throw a bunch of spaghetti against the wall and see how many tens of thousands of followers you have to cross your fingers and hope that there's a percentage of them that are even qualified to be buyers for the offer that you have. Right? Totally.

Cheyenne:

Yeah. Totally. Okay. If I wanted to learn more from you about LinkedIn, where would I go?

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. You can just well, there's a couple of things. I think the biggest thing is just to go to our burnout to all out dotco website, because that website has our biggest umbrella of, you know, where you can go to win our next master classes for LinkedIn or, you know, for our our program, the Lead Gen Academy, if you wanna get started.

Melissa Henault:

That's gonna be the best place to go.

Cheyenne:

Awesome. Alright. Okay. So let's say do you wanna do a second episode for Bold Growth Scale?

Melissa Henault:

Sure. Okay. Yep. Cool. Alright. Let me have a sip of water. How are you guys doing over there? Good? Alright?

Cheyenne:

Yay. Awesome. Thank you. I didn't even think about doing that. Okay. Alright. Do our angles look okay from I feel like I'm hunching. Okay.

Cheyenne:

I'm trying to sit up straight. Okay. Awesome. Do you wanna intro this one too, or do you want me to just dive in?

Melissa Henault:

Oh, just dive in. Okay.

Cheyenne:

Melissa, I'm so excited to chat. I want to hear we've talked a little bit about, in a previous episode, and we can direct people to it in the show notes, about growing on LinkedIn. So let's say you've taken the time, you've grown on LinkedIn, you have this audience, and now you're really ready to pour fuel on the fire of your business, you want to grow even more. I wanna talk about your next option to work with people, which is build, grow, scale.

Melissa Henault:

Yes.

Cheyenne:

So I think the best place to get started is talk me through those three phases. What is build? What is grow? What is scale? And why does it make sense for me to go there after I've built this audience on LinkedIn?

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. So, you know, I am I subscribe to systems because systems are repeatable and they drive results. And, you know, we get a lot of questions on how have you been able to bring so many products to market in such a short period of time with repeatable results, and it's because we found this system and process that works. And we just repeat it with each offer that we bring to the market. Right? And so what Jackie and I, my CIO and I did is we just took a step back earlier this year and said, what is it systematically that's allowed us to scale the multiple businesses and coaching programs that we have? Like, what is the formulate process that we have followed that we rinse and repeat? And so pen to paper, we started mapping it out just like we did with the lead gen academy. And where we landed in the system that we teach that just works beautifully is build, grow, scale. And it's it's a simple three step process that you can rinse and repeat with each offer that you bring to the market. And so I'll highlight and then maybe we can, like, double click into each one where build we refer to build as I want you to envision it's kind of like a pyramid, and the build is at the bottom.

Melissa Henault:

We have to build a foundation of a funnel. So I know funnels typically are at the top. So however visually you wanna look at this, But I wanna talk about build from the bottom because if your foundation is not strong, you're building on sand. And I see a lot of entrepreneurs duct taping their business and it collapsing. And so the build phase is really important because it's about building, a top of funnel strategy. So I'll come back to that in just a minute. But build is a top of funnel strategy. The second layer is grow.

Melissa Henault:

And grow is really what does the customer journey look like? This is how you grow your business. How what does the conversion strategy look like? For those who are like, what's a conversion strategy? How are you selling into your programs? And then once they're in, what does that experience look like for the customer? Right? So that's the grow. And then the scale is really ascension. Right? So just like we're talking about here, from the lead gen academy, there's an ascension model into build, grow, scale. There's also an ascension model into, the mastermind. So top level, that's what build, grow, and scale are about. Now when we get into, a little bit more detail of what those methods entail, and why it's a rinse and repeat is because top of funnel, what I see is entrepreneurs try to when I say top of funnel, it means where are your leads coming from? They can come from podcasts. They can come from email.

Melissa Henault:

They can come from LinkedIn. They can come from Instagram. They can come from Pinterest. But what they can't come from is all of them at one time. That's like guaranteed failure. Right? And so what we really coach inside of build, grow, scale is the principle that I stand by and that we've demonstrated works, which is pick one swim lane. We call it the a lane and pick a b lane, and that's it when you first get started. And the a lane needs to be your priority channel to generate know, love, trust, and traffic.

Melissa Henault:

Because at the end of the day, if you don't have traffic, you have no one to sell to. So we constantly say build community before you build your bank account. You have to build community before you build your bank account. You have to build traffic. You have to commit to a channel. You need to know where your ideal audience is hanging out, and you need to grow a brand and grow value and grow a community in that channel. And don't try to do it across all of them at one time, because you'll never get to grow and you'll never get to scale. Right? So that's a little bit about build.

Melissa Henault:

It's like choose a swim lane, create traffic. And what we really coach inside the academy is once you have a really solid swim lane, that's your a lane, and you can be playing with your b lane, but you really need to commit to your a lane. Once you have a product or service that's converting, that is generating sales, then you can perhaps take some of that revenue and commit to creating a second channel in full flesh, like fleshing it out. But I am here to tell you as a solopreneur when you're first getting started, you're not gonna be able to run all of these platforms and whatever your products or services you're running and be all the things, which is why we want our clients to be really good at, 1, generate revenue, and then delegate out to expand to another one. Right? So for us, we started with LinkedIn, and then we started with the podcast. And then and by the way, we didn't go to the podcast till we had revenue generating income, and then we created the podcast. And when we had revenue generating income that was double or triple that, it was like, okay. Now we have money to invest in someone to help us with Instagram, but we're not doing it all ourselves.

Melissa Henault:

And you see how we stacked with the funnel by choosing 1 first. Right? So choose a swim lane, build, commit to it, then we grow. Right? And this is the second piece to the to the equation, and that is choose how you're going to convert to sales. Like, we we generate the traffic, but then how are you herding the cats? How are you herding the cattle? At what point is the sale? There are so many different ways you can do that, whether it's through email marketing, whether it's through a one day webinar, whether it's through evergreen sales, whether it's through the massive 9 day launches that we like to do, but we don't coach everybody to do the 9 day launches. There's a 1,000,000 ways to convert a sale, but do you have this mapped out? And then the offer itself. Like, is it viable? Like, do people want it? Is it converting? That's another thing we see in the grow aspect of build, grow, scale, and this is where a lot of entrepreneurs get it wrong. They start their business by creating an offer in a vacuum with no real time feedback that people actually even want it or that they would buy it, which is why we coach systematically to start with build, grow an audience, create traffic, and then work on your offer to see if people will buy it. Because if you do it in the reverse, what I see is people create an offer in a vacuum.

Melissa Henault:

They or they get certified or licensed in something, and they're not working on creating traffic at the same time. Then they go to market with this thing they blood, sweat, and tears to create, and no one buys it because either, a, they have no traffic and no audience, or, b, because they do have traffic and an audience, but no one wants it, and they didn't do the market research for the audience before they baked it. So that's really, really important in the grow aspect of what we teach inside of build gross scale, and then the journey once they're in. People within the first 24 hours of a purchase are looking for affirmation of their purchase, and people have buyer's remorse. I can't believe I just bought that. You know, like, for instance, I just invested in Amy Porterfield's mastermind. Right? Big investment and, you know, wire transfer. And I'm like, oh, like, I hope this was the right decision.

Melissa Henault:

And then, like, I get, like, a bouquet of flowers at my front doorstep, and she's giving me this inspirational note of how glad she is that I joined and the contribution to the community. So it's, like, how are you surprising and delighting your purchasing clients? Like, within 24 hours, what do you have automated that's coming into their inbox that's, like, surprising them, delighting them? So that's a little bit about the journey. The client journey is so important. And then the last piece with scale is I see a lot of people, once they do have an offer converting and it's generating revenue, they actually go back to the market, and try to find new customers for a new offer or or just constantly finding new customers for the thing that they have built. And I'm here to tell you because we do that. It it is, it requires more time and more money, and they convert at a much lower rate than nurturing the hell out of your current clients, creating massive transformation and community for them, and then inviting them into the next level of whatever it is you have to offer. And if you're at a loss of what that is, ask your audience. Ask your paying clients.

Melissa Henault:

The way we birthed build gross scale was our clients saying, how are you doing this? I have leads now. I have my businesses running, but, like, I wanna take a look under your hood, and I wanna see how you're doing this. And we're like, Okay. I think that's our Ascension model. We're gonna teach them how we're doing this. So, like, go to your network. Go to your paying clients, ask them what they want more of if you're at a loss. And I actually encourage that instead of building it in a vacuum, and creating that ascension because our conversion rate with ascension is, about 30% versus about 2% to a cold market.

Melissa Henault:

So, you're you're giving away you're also giving away clients you worked really hard for that see, like, an end in their timetable, and then they're moving on to someone else versus being able to retain them. Right? So, ascension and retention strategies are massive in what we teach inside of build, grow, scale.

Cheyenne:

Yeah. I think that's so powerful, and I I just wanna take a minute to let that sink in because it's easy to hear a phrase like build, grow, scale, and write it off and assume it's, oh, this is just another business tip. This is just another tactic. This is just another acronym that I'm hearing. Right. But in reality, what I want to sink in for listeners is there's such a greater implication, and not in not in a fearful way, but just as a business owner, you have to be smart about this. There's a greater implication if you get these wrong. Right.

Cheyenne:

What I heard you say was, for build, if you stop building, if you can't nail how you're bringing in new leads Mhmm. The well dries up. Right. For grow, if you're not able to nail this, there's implications to this. There's a massive ripple effect if you have clients who you've poured your heart and soul into an offer, and you are gonna die on this hill if it doesn't work. Right. Now your business dries up there too. Right.

Cheyenne:

And if for scale, you're not able to ascend them, you're not able to keep them in, now you're just constantly running on a hamster wheel to go back to build again.

Melissa Henault:

Right. You're just in sales Yeah. All the time.

Cheyenne:

All the time. And I just I think that's really important for people to understand that nailing this is so important. Can you talk a bit about those greater implications and how you see it? If you get this wrong, what does that mean?

Melissa Henault:

Right. Well and that's why we talk about duct tape. Right? Like, building a business on duct tape, and when you get it wrong. And, again, it goes back to creating a business model where, for instance, where you could get it wrong is people purchase your offer and you have no customer journey of nurturing them once they've come in. And maybe it's clunky. Like, they sign up, but then, like, they don't get an email from you. Like, their experience is awkward. They can't access what they've purchased from you.

Melissa Henault:

They're not the your your organization and customer support is not well tuned, and they're feeling totally unsupported. They're feeling lost with the resources, and they're energetically within 24 hours. They're regretting their investment. Right? And by the time you get on a call with them, depending on, like, let's say you're in group coaching. Like, there's nothing worse than getting on a group coaching call with, like, pissed off clients who don't know where anything is, and that energy can bring down the whole room.

Cheyenne:

Yeah.

Melissa Henault:

That could be reconciled by for instance, in our community, we have someone paid on staff who's single, like, major job is to do live onboarding, which a lot of people don't wanna invest in. Right? But we're not just throwing something digitally across email and saying good luck. We're saying, no. It's mandatory to be successful in this program that you attend one of these live onboardings. We're gonna welcome you, call your name out, orient you to everything, and make sure every question is answered. A, they're gonna feel so held and so supported. Right? But, b, you're gonna get less customer service inquiries because you did that. You're actually gonna create efficiencies in your business because people aren't lost.

Melissa Henault:

Right? And so that's just, like, one example of many. And the other thing I wanted to circle back to because I talked about how you can rinse and repeat this process. Right? So let's say you build a phenomenal swim lane and you create a single offer. So you build, and then you grow like we did. You create a single offer, and, wow, it's converting. People are buying. We didn't we didn't create another offer after that. We didn't go straight.

Melissa Henault:

It it took us 5 years to create build, grow, scale. Right? What we did, and this is where we talk about the rinse and repeat once you learn the method and you've got the tools and the templates, we created another top of funnel channel. It's like we have a proof of concept. People are buying it. We started with LinkedIn. Now let's go to the podcast. Let's expand the top of funnel. Okay.

Melissa Henault:

Awesome. This is generating a lot of leads. Now let's work on email marketing. Let's expand our list. What can we do to grow that? Okay. Wow. Now I've hit $1,000,000 in revenue. Maybe I should pay someone else to help me grow Instagram because it's not my thing.

Melissa Henault:

So what I want my listeners to hear is we went back to the top of funnel and stacked 1 channel on top of another channel on top of another channel. It's easy for someone to maybe look at our business now and be like, oh, of course, Melissa's successful. She's, like, all over the place, but we didn't start that way. And it was very systematic, and what we didn't do is start to get traction and be like, oh, well, let me sell another thing, and let me sell another thing. No. We were like, let's go back to the top of funnel, and let's broaden the funnel. And we're doing that continuously today with you guys. Right? It's like, how do we continue to open up the funnel for the things that we know drive results and create transformation and just stack one funnel on top of another funnel on top of another funnel because there's billions of people on this planet.

Cheyenne:

Totally. And I think that's something so unique about your build, grow, scale method is that so many programs are very linear. They're very you're gonna go from point a to point b, and that's it. We're done. We're done teaching you. Right. But for build, grow, scale, it's this process you can layer on over and over again as your business grows, as you uncover new obstacles. Mhmm.

Cheyenne:

Say a little bit about that.

Melissa Henault:

Why

Cheyenne:

is it so helpful to go back through this? Even as a 7 figure business owner, you'd think, oh, well, we're done with build, grow, and scale. Right. But you're still going back to it. Why is it so powerful?

Melissa Henault:

We go back to it with every offer, and so that's what we see with a lot of our clients. They renew and stay in our program because they need the reminders of the structure, and the market continues to change, and we update our templates with what we're doing. But as and I and this kinda takes me back to the beginning of the interview is I am a true believer in systems and rinsing and repeating and optimizing what works. What I see in entrepreneurship is the shiny object syndrome of, like, well, let's let's try this new widget. Let's try this new thing versus, like, no. Wait a minute. This system actually really works. So how can we just go back to the well and expand systematically what we know has worked? Right? And so even as a 7 figure business, we're now we're continuing to look at, okay, now we wanna even get more robust with our Ascension model.

Melissa Henault:

Like, let's get really organized. We wanna put it together, like, a dedicated sales team to support this. So we're always looking at how can we optimize the system instead of blowing the system up and starting from scratch when it was working really well to begin with? I find a lot of times I see in the in this industry is, like, things will be working, and then people get the shiny object syndrome of, like, well, I wanna go try this. And then they're wondering why there's not this successful in their business. And so I'm a huge advocate, you know, years into what we're doing that we follow this method with everything we bring to market, and it's just a stack. And what happens is with top of funnel is the more you grow that top of funnel, the more momentum you get with everything you bring to the market. Right? Totally. And you condition your audience.

Melissa Henault:

That's the way you operate too as they come through your funnel.

Cheyenne:

Totally. So I wanna ask you one question for each, build, grow, and scale. Let's say I'm a business owner and I'm looking at my business, hearing you talk, and I'm realizing, oh my gosh. I have an issue in one of these phases of the funnel. Right. I wanna kind of ask you some questions about each of the phases and see, in real time, what would you say to that business owner? So let's say with Build, I am realizing that my leads have dried up. Yep. Things aren't converting the way they used to.

Cheyenne:

Maybe I had a lead generator that used to work and it doesn't anymore, or I have a platform that I had a bunch of traction on and I am no longer viral. What would you say to remedy the build phase for that entrepreneur?

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. So, typically, it's one of a couple of things. If things if we if we historically had a lot of traction and now things are starting to slow down and dry up, it's typically one of 2 things. 1 could be that the content's no longer really compelling. So you have to look at has there been a shift in strategy with content, or if it's still relevantly similar to the cadence in the content you were putting out, then the thing I go to is network strategy. So a lot of times people's well starts to dry up because they actually start generating business and get profitable, and they've got a business that they're running, and they forget that you have to continue to grow the network because the current network you have gets tired of the same shit you're putting out. And so that can be a piece of why they're not engaging with your content. They're like, oh, that's so cute.

Melissa Henault:

But I've known for the last 5 years, Melissa is a LinkedIn expert. Love her. Have worked with her. I'm a huge advocate of her, but I'm like, I'm I'm done with that experience. Right? They might be a referral for you, but if you're not strategically trying to grow on a daily basis, your network for look alike audiences that are already purchasing and in your your program, the well is going to dry up. So that goes back to even though we can get in the thick of grow, creating a new offer, we can be really excited about this new cohort. Like, we've had scenarios where we've brought in, like, over a 150 new clients into the academy, and it can get really overwhelming of, like, we gotta serve the hell out of these people. And it's like but at the same time, we have to be we have we can be grateful for what we have, but we still have to be on a daily basis growing an audience that doesn't know about us.

Melissa Henault:

Because otherwise, we're gonna lift our head up at the tail end of this graduate group and be like, where's our funnel? Well, we ignored it. And now we have a bunch of avid fans who are maybe even engaging with our content, but they're not buying because they already have or they're the they're they're just a life like, what do I call them? Like a like a groupie or a 4 life kind of follower. Yep. You know what I'm saying? Totally.

Cheyenne:

Yeah. Totally. Yeah. And so let's say that I'm I'm solving that problem, and now I'm going into the grow phase. And I had this offer. I was so passionate about it, true entrepreneur, visionary form. I ran full steam ahead, and it's not working. It's crickets.

Melissa Henault:

Yeah.

Cheyenne:

What do you do in that scenario?

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. Okay. So this is another kind of root cause analysis. Right? Like, the first place I go, when I have an entrepreneur who's got their first offer, their instinct is the offer's bad. Nobody's buying. Right? For me, my instinct first for a quality check is were there enough eyeballs on the offer?

Cheyenne:

Oh my gosh. People think they talk about it, and you are not talking about your offer enough. Even if you think you are talking about it all day long, you are not.

Melissa Henault:

Right. So if there's not enough traffic, we can't judge the offer. Right? So it's like, what is the quality of the traffic? Like and we do root cause analysis in our own business all the time. Right? Like, in our most recent launch, there was, like, we had some really great results, and then we had this big gap. And kind of going back and looking at the data, it's like, I'm at a place where, well, the quality of what we delivered is very similar to what we've always delivered. But there's this one variable over here with, for instance, the conversion of our ads. And it's like, maybe it was the quality of the audience. It wasn't the actual content itself.

Melissa Henault:

So this is where you have to begin. You have to take a step back, and you have to look at what are the variables and what could be the root cause analysis. And I especially with an entry level entrepreneur who's just beginning to build their brand, I always go to the network first. I'm not judging your offer. We're not gonna dissect your offer first. We're gonna say, is your audience large enough and engaged enough to make a true, like, scientific, like, decision that there's been enough eyes that this offer just isn't viable? So that's number 1. And then number 2 is like, well, what was your conversion strategy with that offer? Was it a compelling enough call to action? Like and the offer may be great, but the way it was presented was not good. Right? That it wasn't compelling enough for people to want to purchase because they didn't actually draw a through line to the transformation, and it wasn't worth the risk for the investment perceived.

Melissa Henault:

But the offer itself and the product they created could be phenomenal. So it could be all in the delivery or the conversion strategy. Right? So I'm just walking you through some of the root cause analysis that we do. Conversion strategy. Well, let's say your target audience are dentist and you run a webinar at noon on a Tuesday. Well, know your audience. They have their hands in patients' mouths. That was a horrible time to run a webinar that was live.

Melissa Henault:

Do it on a Sunday afternoon. Right? And so it's, like, it's those kind of root cause analysis before we can just, like, burn the offer. Right? And then when it gets to the actual offer itself is doing some market research. So if we have a viable network that we know is engaged, maybe we do some market research, and this is something we have inside of build gross scale that Jackie created, which is like a market research survey to ask your current audience about the offer that you're building. Get some real time feedback to realize if maybe you're selling something people don't want. And maybe ask your audience what they do want and go back to the drawing board. But to me, the last step is blowing up the offer. The first step is top like, assess the top of funnel.

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. Assess your conversion strategy. Assess how you're selling it, before you blow it up and start over again.

Cheyenne:

I think you can get in a really dangerous spot too if every time you just blow up the offer. Like, you are going to pivot in so many different directions that you're gonna make a square and end up right back where you started.

Melissa Henault:

And confuse the hell out of your audience.

Cheyenne:

And confuse your audience if you keep pivoting. So I think that's important. And then for scale, let's say that I have customers. This might look like my leads are coming in. They're buying the thing, and then I never hear from them again. Yeah. Maybe they're not engaging with the offer. Maybe they're not ascending into the next thing.

Cheyenne:

Maybe they're not renewing. What do you do in that scenario?

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. I think it's part of it is, an engagement strategy. Right? Like, if they're if they're coming in, but they're not ascending, you wanna look at your messaging. So one of the things that we're doing literally in, like, our free master class is we're showing the vision of Ascension. We're showing them how we're a forever home before they even purchase. So instead of chasing them after they're in to give them the vision, and I love it because I'll get on consult calls. We're here in Charlotte recording this podcast with our mastermind members. And a number of them have said, I know Louise is over here.

Melissa Henault:

I'm watching her right now. It's like, you know, she came in through the lead gen academy, but she she was aware of the mastermind. Right. And she was like, I am going to be one of your students that's gonna be on stage next year. And the reason she had the vision was because we gave her the vision of the opportunity of the longevity of the relationship and how we can work together. So number 1 is, are you creating like we literally have a visual map, like an actual slide in the middle of a masterclass for our flagship beginner offer. We're showing them the visual of how they can ascend to be with us for life. Right? So that's number 1.

Melissa Henault:

And then number 2 is, what is your nurture strategy while they're in your program? Like, we have a series of emails that check-in, like, on a timed cadence of nurture of, like, where they are in the program and casting a vision of options as they're nearing the end of their program. Right? And so one of the things we're looking to to actually enhance is bringing in our sales team to actually internally really what we call concierge into the academy. These concierge may stay concierge for the entirety of their ecosystem inside of the program of checking in with them and strategizing within their next steps, whether it's the modern entrepreneur, whether it's build, grow, scale, or it's time to jump into the mastermind. Right? So it's like, do you have an infrastructure and an SOP to, engage with and cast vision to where your clients can go next and planting that seed early so that it's not the day that they get the email that this is your last day and they are off to the next thing and had no idea they could stay with you.

Cheyenne:

Yeah. Right? Yeah. Well, it's so interesting as you're talking about it, and tell me if I'm wrong with this connection I'm making, but it sounds like at each stage, you're almost looking to the previous stage to see if you set yourself up well. So if I have a product that's not scaling

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Cheyenne:

I actually, to an extent, need to look back at the product I created. And am I delivering it well? Am I taking care of them? Am I nurturing them?

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Cheyenne:

And then if you're having a problem with growing, it's looking back and saying, did I attract the right people in the first place and build? Like, you're kind of always looking back Yep. Which is why, again, I think it's so powerful that this is a cycle. It's not linear. It's something you're always referring back to Right. To get your business in the spot that you feel really great about.

Melissa Henault:

Totally. Yeah. Totally. And I will be the first to admit, I feel like to this day, our Ascension model to our mastermind, we have nailed. This past year, closed it out in 40 minutes. Like, we've done a great job of planting seed of these highly desirable, spots. And to your point, when we do a retro, it's like, But we have raving clients inside of build gross scale, but not to the percentage of client base that we would like to see us send. So what and what and what feedback we get is people fall through the cracks even with the emails.

Melissa Henault:

Right. Even with the slides in launch. Even with me talking about it, in some of our our group coaching, it I still get messages from people who are, like, graduating or already graduated, and they're like, hey. Do you know a place I can go, like, learn about more my business is blowing up from LinkedIn. Do you know anybody that can mentor me now in, like, scaling my business? And I'm like, shit. I have failed. They're, like, gone, and they have no idea that that could have been us. So it's like, we're constantly going back to your point of, like, systematically, okay.

Melissa Henault:

We've done this. We've done this. We've done this. But clearly, there's different channels that people are are looking and are visible to. And, like, one of the most creative things I just saw that's engaged me, because it's digital overload as a CEO in the online space. Believe it or not, the most of my listeners, I am not on social media. Like most of my day, I am coaching and I am running a business, and I'm just not there. And I also have an admin who clears out my inbox so that I'm only, like, managing really important email.

Melissa Henault:

So to sell me anything as a CEO is pretty difficult in in social media. And I came home from a trip towards, to Maine, and there was a postcard on my in my kitchen. And it was from a previous mentor of mine that was like, we miss you. And it was like this whole pitch around leading and mentoring multimillion dollar companies. And I was like, wow. I'm curious. And it had a little QR code, and I clicked on it. And I, like, got sucked into the rabbit hole.

Melissa Henault:

And I'm like, that was innovative Because the multi seven figure business owner is you're not it's gonna be very hard to capture their attention in the online space. So it's like going back to that customer journey and thinking about your target audience and how are you gonna catch their attention.

Cheyenne:

Yep. Right? So powerful. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think that's amazing. Yeah. Cool. Great. Okay.

Cheyenne:

Yay.

Melissa Henault:

Awesome. Awesome.

Cheyenne:

I had a couple other questions that we could go through if we wanted. I don't know where you're feeling energetically. I had mentor versus coach, and then I really, what I think would be most powerful instead of doing one of these is talking about kind of your unlock today. Sure.

Melissa Henault:

And then we got it we've got it in the middle. Yeah.

Cheyenne:

So I think we can kind of just riff on this one, but I'd love to kind of talk about this. Okay. Melissa, we were driving over here to the podcast studio today, and you started to tell me a really cool story about meditation and your morning routine. And I would love to hear you share it

Melissa Henault:

with listeners because it was really powerful for me. Yeah. Just like my practice and how

Melissa Henault:

I, like okay. Yeah. So I think that everybody has, like I've had many iterations, and this is what's working for me right now. And, and it ebbs and flows. I know some people, it's like, you know, spend your first hour of the day fully filling up your own cup, meditate, journal, like, exercise, and then you move into work. And I and, actually, there was a season in my life where I had to do that because I didn't have the discipline. If I started with work, like, it just I just worked all day long. Like, it just like, there was no stop.

Melissa Henault:

Right? But what where I am today and what works really well for me because someone asked, do you meditate first thing in the morning? I actually don't. I find that I have a lot of mental chatter first thing in the morning, and it's hard for me to get still and get quiet, to receive what I'm asking for when I'm thinking about the most important things I need to do for my day. And I've also learned that I I love being in the gym and I love being in the gym at optimal, like, peak state, which is not right when I woke up. It's actually after some tea and some downtime in the morning to, like, wake up and some nutrition in my body. And then I can get a really good workout in. And for for decades, I would, like, get up at 4:30, go straight to the gym to the 5 AM class, and, like, be like a zombie, but get my workout in because it was, like, all I knew. So now what I do the day before in my calendar, before my day is up at about 4 o'clock, I look at what's most important tomorrow. What's the number one thing if nothing else gets done, needs to be accomplished in my business? And I actually air market for 5 to 5:30 in the morning.

Melissa Henault:

and then I get to the gym by: 5:35:45

Melissa Henault:

I've already done the most important thing in my business, and now I'm gonna crush a workout. And during that workout, I tend to have really great ideas and, like, you know, like, I I'm I'm moving the needle in my business even while I'm moving my body. And then I come home after I've worked out, eaten the frog, and I have a lot more men I I I'm able to settle my mind because my mind is like, okay. I've done the most important thing in business. Now I'm gonna sit with intention and call in what I need to know right now in my business, in a in a meditation. And I'm actually fortunate that I've got these, beautiful woods and 2 acres, and I go out barefoot, especially when it's warm to get my feet in the ground. And I sit in the grass in front of the trees. And I'm a huge fan of hapae, which is like plant based medicine from and it's it's flowers.

Melissa Henault:

It's plant medicine from the Amazon, that really decalcifies the pineal gland rapidly, which is something I learned to do through breath and meditation over the past 2 years. And what I found is that the plant medicine is just rocket fuel for me. It's like a 7 minute meditation with a decalcification of the pineal gland instead of a 1 hour and extensive breath work session to get into that same meditative state. And I sit in meditation with purpose. So for me and my divine connection, I am you know, depending on what I'm sitting in, the other day, it was full dedication to recognition of my son's 7th birthday and his, like, circle around the earth. So, like, every day is different, and it was profound emotional meditation for me. And I'm not even gonna get into that. You guys can go find it on Instagram, but just like the breakthroughs that I had and the ahas that I had with that.

Melissa Henault:

So certain days, it's me celebrating other people. Certain days, I'm looking for clarity. Right? So I have an upcoming, you know, I'm I'm building my business plan for next year, and I'm strategizing around the modern entrepreneur, which is this incredible program I started last year with the vision that bodies build businesses. I believe that a lot of entrepreneurs are not stuck in business because of the wrong business strategy. Every business strategy, for the most part, works. They're blocked because of what internally is blocking them, and they don't have the skills to unblock and create and remove what needs to be removed in order for them to have the capacity to hold what they're trying to call in. I think that is the number one, challenge with entrepreneurs. And let's be honest.

Melissa Henault:

I think a lot of us in entrepreneurs, like, we're horizon chasers, and that we're horizon chasers for a reason, And a lot of us have some internal work to do to to to to work through that because the horizon never ends. Right? So sitting in meditation did you want me to talk about sitting in meditation this morning? So sitting in meditation this morning, I was really looking for clarity with modern entrepreneur because I'm like, how do I evolve this in the new year? What does it look like? And, I'm always challenged as a business strategist, but also feeling strongly compelled in that the the mindfulness space and how much I've changed and how much my business has grown has truly began been because of the inner work that's allowed me the capacity to hold. It's allowed the creativity to create. You know, we just talked about build, grow, scale, and all the systems and process, but the way I came up with it was through doing the inner work to create the capacity to be creative. And to come up with those ideas and strategies came from creating a healthy space in my body. Right? And so in meditation this morning, I was very directed. And I said, you know, I I call it in, and I give universal permission. You know, divine intelligence, God, universe, whoever you wanna call in, I give you universal permission.

Melissa Henault:

Give me guidance. Give me clarity in the direction I need to go with the modern entrepreneur this coming year.

Cheyenne:

Why is that important to ask for permission at that stage? Wouldn't you think, like, oh, it's just gonna be given to me no matter what. Why do you have to ask for it?

Melissa Henault:

Well, because I truly believe we have we're surrounded by spirit guides, and I truly believe that we are, we have to call in what we want guidance for. Otherwise, we would be overwhelmed with guidance all the time if that's if that's the way it ran. Right? You know what I'm saying? And so and I've heard people say, I've sat in meditation and stillness, and it's not come to me. And I'm like, have you asked for it?

Cheyenne:

Right.

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. Have you asked for it, and have you given permission for the communication? Right? And so for me, I sat with it and hear what I have found, and and you and I were talking about this the other day. I've really struggled with, gosh, how do I evolve this modern entrepreneur, but also evolve the the lead gen academy? And, initially, I'm thinking, how do I, like, hand this modern this is modern entrepreneur is so important, but how do I hand it off? Because I've really gotta focus on the thing that generates the large majority of the income for the company. And in my meditation, what came to me was, number 1, you're thinking about this all wrong. How do you get more involved in modern entrepreneur? Because it's profound impact that you're creating. How do you delegate more in the lead gen academy so that you have the capacity to develop this? And what came through to me was my spiritual mentor, Sam. And just direct message of, like, collaborate with her. You don't have to know exactly what it looks like.

Melissa Henault:

You just have to know about the transformation you want your clients to have. The through line I have found in all of our podcast over the past 2 days with all of our mastermind members and the number one question I've asked them about their evolution this year, every single one of them has said it's been the mindfulness and the stillness that you've taught me that's allowed the breakthrough in my business. And that came through in my meditation of, you can't ignore the power of this, and you can't ignore your power in being able to expose people to this. And what you need to do is collab collaborate with Sam. You don't have to know what it looks like today. You just have to know what the transformation is going to be. Dedicate time to sit down with her, map it out what this is gonna look like next year. And so I just came out of it so excited that in an instant, I had clarity of the direction I need to go next year and exactly who I need to do it with.

Melissa Henault:

And I sent her a message. And what's wild is she took a screenshot of a message. Because when she opened my message, she realized she had started a message to me last week

Cheyenne:

Oh my gosh.

Melissa Henault:

That said, how can we go deeper working together?

Cheyenne:

That's like instant chills.

Melissa Henault:

Yes. That's what she said. And she was, like, somehow, I've the I forgot to hit the send button.

Cheyenne:

Wow. I wonder if it's because you hadn't asked yet to receive that. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Like, maybe she couldn't even send the message Yeah. Because it hadn't yeah. Oh my gosh.

Melissa Henault:

Wild. Wild. And if you really wanna go down in a rabbit hole, I also have some cards, the Oracle cards that I love. And I sat with the cards afterwards and said, what do I need to know about my next step? And the card I pulled was a message in a bottle. And the descriptor in it was, you are receiving direct message direct messages from your spirit guides, in in your collaboration and in your work and trust trust the direct line of communication you're getting today as the next steps that you need to take. It was just, like, timely, like, just all of it. So timely.

Melissa Henault:

Yeah.

Melissa Henault:

So I'm just I'm feeling super aligned. And, again, every day, it's a it's a different purpose in my meditation. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed. I'm totally stressed out. And my meditation is very grounding. I have plant medicine that's, grounding, and very centering when I'm feeling overwhelmed or removal of negative energy. Right? So I'm going you know, as a CEO, you go through processes of hires and fires and that energy can be really toxic. And, you know, I'm going through a challenge right now.

Melissa Henault:

It's just part of life. Like, my executive assistant is leaving the company and that energy can be really heavy. And instead of it being really heavy, my meditation a couple of days ago was a cord cutting. And I listened to this incredible music. I'll have to put it in the show notes, but it's a love song about gratitude to the person that you're parting ways with that the soul contract is expiring and how much I love you and how much I thank you and even how much I'm sorry for anything that I did wrong. Right? And and sitting in those 7 minutes, when I came out of it, I had 3 pages of gratitude about my executive assistant. Yeah. What I appreciated from her, and it was the most beautiful, magical cord cutting in way to kind of tie a bow in the end of this soul contract.

Melissa Henault:

So, like, to me, meditation can serve so many different modalities of celebrating someone's life to working through negative energy, to gaining clarity with my next step. But the first step is creating space to receive and ask for it. So if someone wants to do this,

Cheyenne:

how do you even go about knowing what question to ask? You're kind of talking a little bit about that. One day, it might look like Yeah. You know, this question with your assistant. Another day, it might look like your business. Another day, it might just be, I'm, you know, frustrated intention. And Right. How are you going about asking almost I I hesitate to say the right questions because I think

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Cheyenne:

The questions are gonna be helpful no matter what. But how do you go about asking that?

Melissa Henault:

Oh, that's a good question. I'm like, shameless plug. Come join Modern Entrepreneur,

Melissa Henault:

and we'll help you with that.

Melissa Henault:

But to me, it's been a work in this in, like, conscious work in in my spiritual journey to learn that practice. So I've made a concerted effort to really invest in working with my spiritual mentor for 2 years now, and she's just taught me layer upon layer of, like, new practices that have gotten me to a place of learning how to intuitively know what I wanna sit with, and I didn't start that way. And that brings me back to the modern entrepreneur and why I feel so compelled to make it more available for people than, you know, I I pay a really high premium to work with a spiritual mentor at this level. And, you know, my vision has been how can I bring that mainstream to my entire audience in a way that's impactful to them if they don't have may they don't have the $30,000 to work with someone personally like that? How can we bring it in to our community and make it really affordable, and instill the practices that many entrepreneurs need, and stack and learn some of these modalities that I've been able to learn?

Cheyenne:

Yeah. I don't know how to phrase this next question, so I'll I'll ramble for a second, but I'll land the plane. I feel like we hear so much about mindset in the entrepreneur space. Everyone from Tony Robbins to insert any thought leader here is talking about mindset, the power of mindset, believing in your self confidence, and at some point, it just feels like white noise. Like, you are hearing it all the time.

Melissa Henault:

It's a overused word. Right?

Cheyenne:

All the time. But then when I hear you speak about this, it feels like mindset doesn't even do it justice. Like Yeah. You're talking about breath work. You're talking about plant medicine. You're talking about spirituality Right. Like, which you never hear about in the entrepreneurial space. I don't know what my question is, but I would just love to hear you kind of riff on that topic.

Cheyenne:

Like, why is this more than mindset? Why does it matter Yeah. Outside of just believing in yourself Yeah. And a sticky note you're gonna put on your mirror in

Melissa Henault:

the morning?

Melissa Henault:

Oh my gosh. So it's been an evolution. Right? It's such a great question because and, the my mastermind members have probably witnessed this for me is my first major transformation in mindset was around manifestation. Learning how to call in and learning how to reprogram, learning the science behind your thoughts physiologically become your body. Like, you I we could go down the rabbit hole about that. And this is a lot of the Tony Robbins stuff. And, like, I get it. I'm on board with it, and it was massively transformational for me.

Melissa Henault:

But that still to me is the little I. That's self preservation. It's what I'm calling in. It's what I want. And you get to a level, at least I have in business, where you get to the bigger I, which is impact. And it's like, I you have to have divine connection in order to have that full purpose, and there has to be a practice to slow down and get connected. And when I say big I, I mean impact to all. Like, what is my divine purpose? How, universe, God, spirit, how can I take the God given gifts that you've given me? How can I take this wild journey you're taking me on, And how are you sculpting me to be a mentor for others? How are these god given gifts that you're giving to me turning into something that I can impact others in a way that positively creates a positive positive upward spiral for the collective whole.

Melissa Henault:

And that's different than manifesting a $1,000,000. Right. It's a totally different level. You know, when I sit right now with planning with my live event, I'm asking God, Spirit, what is it that you want to work through me while I'm on stage? Why are you bringing hundreds of people to this one location for 3 days? How can I be a vehicle for you to create transformation for these people? Which is a completely different practice than feeling and embodying and seeing the $1,000,000 you wanna make. It's a different it's a different level of

Melissa Henault:

internal

Melissa Henault:

connection, intuition, and purpose, if you ask me. And they're all important.

Cheyenne:

Right? Yeah. Well and you were saying earlier about how we often, as entrepreneurs, can be blocking ourselves.

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Cheyenne:

But when you think about it with that lens of you're not just blocking yourself, you're blocking your impact. You're blocking the ripple effect that you can have. You've been gifted with this audience. You've been gifted with 300 people showing up in a room. Yep. That's so powerful. Okay. I have another question for you, and you can tell me if I'm going too far down a spirit rabbit

Melissa Henault:

Yep. Trail. Spirit rabbit trail?

Cheyenne:

But I'm really curious about this because I've noticed this in you. You talk about your oracle cards, and then you use the word God, and then you talk about your kids going to church camp and then plant medicine Yep. And manifestation. Yeah. How does it all fit together for you? How does all the spirituality stuff fit together and inform your business?

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. Yeah. So I think that for me, a couple of things. Since I was a child, I was fascinated with the cosmos. Like, at the age of 12, I had, like, every Carl Sagan book and, like, thought I was gonna be, like, an astrophysicist. So, like, since a young age, I've been wildly curious about, like, our connection to

Melissa Henault:

the

Melissa Henault:

greater universe and how it all comes together. Right? So there's that as your backgrounder. But I also grew up in a very, like, Christian spiritual when I say spiritual, like, Christian spiritual, upbringing, and I actually lost my faith for a while. A lot of crap has happened to me, in my pa in, you know, in my past and even my life today with, you know, an alcoholic father and a sister suffering from, mental disorder and, you know, living, like, right at the poverty line. And there was a lot of there was trauma that happened to me. And so, I also was in a space where, for a while, religion, I felt like was an excuse with my mom. Like, if I had a problem, she'd be like, pray about it. Like, there was no, like, solution for me.

Melissa Henault:

Or, mom, can you come visit me in college? No. I have this church thing I have to go to. I got into this place of, like, like, irritation and, like, loss of faith of, like, why is my sister so sick? Like, why is she in the streets? Like, why is my dad in the ICU 5 times a year nearly at death if god exists? Right? So I definitely had this, like, loss of faith until, actually, the mentor I hired to help me with my business, who helped me see the vision for LinkedIn also actually helped me find my faith again. She had me read this book. Man, I can't think of it right now, but it's about this. It really is like the foundation of manifestation. It's about this this guy who in in the biblical days, like, lived in this community that hadn't seen rain in, like, 100 of years. And the whole premise of the story is that he, you know, put his staff down and walked around in circles for, you know, hundreds of times and called in as if it was already here.

Melissa Henault:

You know, thanked God in advance for what was coming. It was like this very, like, progressive, but Christian book about god sized goals. Because when you have god sized goals, then god can show off when you meet your god sized goals because clearly you couldn't have done it yourself. Right? And that actually was the tipping point of, like, sucking me back in a bit. And then I read this book, about Mary Magdalene, who is, like, the disciple that's never discussed, that was, like, one of Jesus' confidantes other than her being, like, a prostitute in the book. Right? I won't go into a rabbit hole in it. You guys can go read the book. But the bottom line of that book is it brought this, like, more feminine lens of Christianity to me.

Melissa Henault:

Having grown up in a in a church where God is a he, Jesus is a him, disciples are all he. Everyone in the every person who wrote a chapter in the book was a man. And so as a female and what I'd been through, I just didn't feel as connected. And when I read about Mary Magdalene and her her her, written word around how god is within us and how we have this power to communicate with god, and I started to begin being exposed to breath and exposed to other religions and other ways to connect, my lens started to open. And what what happened is this was my profound moment. I've been teaching for years around money mindset that we we adopt our mindset around money from our parents. But I never thought about the fact that we adopt our our our mindset around religion from our parents too. So we adopt what we've been exposed to, but it doesn't necessarily make it right or wrong.

Melissa Henault:

And that was an expander for me to then get curious about other religions, about different modalities of spirituality. It took me to Bali for 10 days where I witnessed, multiple religions and witnessed the daily practice of gratitude with some of the happiest people on the planet who have nothing, like, nothing. They can't even afford to get off the island. And it broadened my view of connection to God, and it broadened my view of all of us across the planet, 99% of us, have some acknowledgment that there's a God, but we all call it something different. We have different practices to connect, different practices to have conversations. Depending on where we grew up and what we were exposed to, the practices are different, but we all believe, a lot of us, in this higher power. And so that was the tipping point for me was, like, it doesn't have to be Christianity. It doesn't have to be Buddha.

Melissa Henault:

It doesn't have to be, my practices within me. Yeah. And I've never felt so held and so connected by not feeling like I have to go to a church to be connected. And I don't judge any religions. All of you is welcome. All of the religions is welcome. Right? We're all loved and supported. I just feel like I've been able to tap in at a much higher level with what I'm doing now.

Melissa Henault:

I don't that was a long winded way to answer your question.

Cheyenne:

No. I think it's great, and I I I just think it's really important for people to hear, like, your view can be so big, and this isn't something that's adjacent to your business. It sounds like it's something that's opened your business up for so much more when you know to ask the right questions, when you can have a big view of what God or universe or whatever that looks like when it goes beyond manifestation and mindset. And is this more all encompassing way that you're showing up every day Mhmm. And opening yourself up to the

Melissa Henault:

possibility in your business and having that impact?

Cheyenne:

Right. I just I think it's business and having that impact. Right. I just I think

Melissa Henault:

it's really, really powerful for

Cheyenne:

people to kind of hear.

Melissa Henault:

And if they're curious about that, know that there's

Cheyenne:

opportunities for them to expand their business through expanding in this place that you might not automatically connect

Melissa Henault:

to business. Right. But when you can Yeah. That's where the magic happens. Right. Because there's a through line between purpose and impact and your god given gifts.

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Melissa Henault:

Right? And I feel like a lot of people are in business for profit, and they're in business for lifestyle. And I'll be the 1st to admit when I first launched my business, it was to get out of my w two. It was self preservation. But I think where true happiness and energetic alignment and fulfillment really begin to take off is when you can find the through line of a greater impact to the greater good. And I believe you get rewarded for it, and you get feedback from it. When you have a higher purpose, there's just so much more satisfaction in what you do when you see the impact of being able to relay your gifts in a way that impacts everyone else.

Cheyenne:

Right. Okay. Last question to end this episode. You asked one question to all your members here Yeah. At the E 360 Mastermind. Yeah. Talk a bit about that question you asked them and what their common response was.

Melissa Henault:

Oh my gosh. So this was wild. And, again, I think this is divine, like, timing because, we're here with a lot of our mastermind members who flew in for, live podcast episoding. And my big question to them at the end was around, you know, our our our main theme with Elevate 360 is we're elevating them in a 360 degree approach to business and life because bodies build businesses. And I asked them all what was the number one transformation they had experienced from from the 360 degree approach they've learned this year. And hands down, every single person, without fail, mentioned slowing down and the mindfulness to create clarity for direction in their business. And by slowing down and creating a practice, some of them said breath, some of them said meditation, some of them literally just talked about slowing down and, like, laying on the floor in the afternoon. But what an impact and trajectory it has made in their business by actually slowing down.

Melissa Henault:

Right? So, that to me is so reaffirming to my impact and continued direction and how I mentor. It was interviewing them was just as much a gift for them as it was a gift for me and divine, I think, feedback of the impact that I'm making that I need to continue to to focus in on.

Cheyenne:

Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that, and I really think you are making that impact. Aw. Thank you. Yeah.

Melissa Henault:

Yay. Awesome. Yay. Cool.

Cheyenne:

I hope I didn't take us too far. No. Left turn, but I was like No. I think that'll be good. No.

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. Listen. Last year, Sadie recorded me in hair and makeup, and I can't even remember what I was the whole religion thing talking about, all the he's and no she's.

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Melissa Henault:

And it was on Instagram.

Melissa Henault:

And then it did really well.

Melissa Henault:

It did. It did.

Melissa Henault:

Great job, Cheyenne. You're really very well,

Cheyenne:

you

Melissa Henault:

came first as an interviewer. Yeah. It was

Cheyenne:

my first interview, so I appreciate it. I

Melissa Henault:

know. I

Cheyenne:

thought you

Melissa Henault:

did a great job, just sending it even for to, you know, speak her mind and to talk about what she's an expert about and your questions are really great too. And also getting that extra content is good because now you can use it if you need to and if you don't need to.

Cheyenne:

Yeah. That's

Melissa Henault:

what the kind

Melissa Henault:

of room

Melissa Henault:

is for.

Cheyenne:

For sure. Yeah.

Melissa Henault:

Great job.

Melissa Henault:

Yay. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I'll have to

Cheyenne:

have you airdrop me the pictures. Yeah.

Melissa Henault:

Do we have a couple of minutes to interview her? Are we done? You gotta go.

Melissa Henault:

You've got as much time as you need.

Melissa Henault:

Are you sure?

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. Absolutely. As long as we're not here till midnight.

Cheyenne:

Yeah. Yeah. We can be quick.

Melissa Henault:

But, yeah, as long as, as much time as you need. I'm gonna go ahead and stop this recording.

Melissa Henault:

Yep. I'm gonna go run to the bathroom really quick, and you can tell me what questions you want me to ask you.