264: The Secret to Unwavering Business Growth

Interviewer:

in, like, I think January of: 2023

Melissa Henault:

Uh-huh.

Interviewer:

I saw some of those first videos where you're on screen with, like, 6 people.

Melissa Henault:

Mhmm.

Interviewer:

How did you grow from there

Melissa Henault:

Yeah.

Interviewer:

To where you are here in such a short period of time?

Melissa Henault:

And that was when?: 2023

Interviewer:

23 when I saw the videos. Yeah.

Melissa Henault:

And there were 6 people on the line?

Interviewer:

They're like your first videos.

Melissa Henault:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question. I think the number one thing is consistency. I think that what lacks in the online business industry is consistency and persistence in that personal brand, that brand building. What I see is a lot of folks will pivot before they're truly getting results. They pivot what their offer is.

Melissa Henault:

They pivot what they're calling it. They're judging their offer before they've had enough time to really get their footing with the brand. So that's number 1 is I think those of you who are listening to the podcast, who've been listening for a while know, and you know, I've been selling the same shit for 5 years. It's the same shit. Like, we update the videos, but the only reason we've even changed the name of the program was because LinkedIn didn't like that we had the word LinkedIn in our program. So we got a cease and desist from them, so we changed it lead gen. That's the only thing we've changed. And so I do think there is a sense of tenacity and persistence that can be lacking in the industry.

Melissa Henault:

And then I think the second thing is and I don't know if you can speak to this from your own experience in the program, but it's also having a great offer that creates transformation so that as clients are going through it, they're going to tell everybody about it. And so if you've got a great offer that's creating transformation and you're not just seeking to obtain clients, I think that's another thing I see in the industry a lot is we're so focused on obtaining new clients that there isn't the focus of the internal customer journey for transformation. We're just chasing the sales. And we forget that the transformation internally is probably one of the biggest billboards for our programs is the the current customer and the customer transformation to tell others. And so where we've gone from being a small group coaching program to 100 is by continually fine tuning. You guys were just listening to us a minute ago. As we grow, we have to optimize how we're interacting with our clients, what the customer journey looks like. And so it's making sure that your internal customer is getting the desired transformation and you're wowing them because that's going to pay itself twofold.

Melissa Henault:

So persistence and quit changing your shit all the time. And customer journey is really, really important.

Interviewer:

Well, and I would say one of the things I was always so amazed was was the customer journey and the the customer service. Like, I literally hit send, and I'm getting an answer in my inbox. Like, it was and it was on the weekend. It was amazing and stuff. So just a follow-up to that question then. When you have then offered new offerings, have you seen your main one decrease, or is that continue to grow as you've offered some of these other new programs?

Melissa Henault:

that you should hit at least a: 100000

Melissa Henault:

Let's go to market, not with the lead gen academy, but for the first time in five plus years. I mean, we're doing multiple millions in revenue per year, so it's time. Let's go to the public with this new thing, and we failed miserably. We put together our ads, marketed cold, and what I want you to think about is this goes back to niche. We were talking about earlier, like, being niche as fuck. Being niche as fuck, I now realize how important that is. So here's what happened. We went to market with a similar master class style that we do at the lead gen academy, except it was for build, grow, scale, which is our internal we have an Ascension model.

Melissa Henault:

So let me back up. We have our flagship as the lead gen academy. All of our other sales are internal ascension. Their internal ascension, once the clients are in the container, they can then ascend into our middle ticket offer and then into our higher ticket mastermind. This was our first attempt at a brand shift to not being just the lead LinkedIn expert because I'm not. You guys know working with us, it's so much more than that. So we took an attempt at let's go to market as a business strategist because we know that we know our shit, and we know that our clients are getting great results in the internal Ascension model. It's great.

Melissa Henault:

It's phenomenal. It's a no brainer. So we go to market with it, pour a ton of money into ads to it, pay top dollar for a copywriter. I mean, we spent so much money on this initiative. And the conversion rate for cold was like maybe 0.2% or less. And everyone who bought was an organic internal customer. And so the reason I'm sharing this with you is even being a multimillion dollar brand, even the people who bought who came into our masterclass when we open up for q and a, were asking questions about LinkedIn because we had done such a good job at being niche as fuck, being a LinkedIn lead gen strategist. What I learned from that also is being niche as fuck separates you from everyone else.

Melissa Henault:

So when we went to market, think about the competition. When we went to market to be an online business coach, how many of those are there? How many LinkedIn strategist are there who came from corporate who are now running a multimillion dollar a year business? So it was a really expensive lesson to me that, you know what? The thing that's bringing in the large majority of our revenue is the lead gen academy. And if we're actually really strategic, which you'll see in the coming months, we can create phenomenal infrastructure from the hundreds of clients who come in month over month into lead gen and actually have a stronger internal Ascension model into build gross scale where it's organic. We're not investing in ads, and they convert at a much more natural rate. That launch, I did not see it impact our sales to our other programs. As a matter of fact, right after that launch, we had an incredible I mean, we did, like, 700 k in the following, like, 6 weeks in our lead gen academy launch after failing miserably, costing me money for the build, grow, scale launch. But you don't it's entrepreneurship. You don't know till you try.

Melissa Henault:

And then the 3rd offer, that's our high ticket mastermind. Again, it's always been mostly an internal sale where we create enough knowledge and engagement and excitement and cast a vision for our internal customers that it's a place to ascend, that it typically sells itself out before we ever go public. Every year we have a plan to go public, and it's sold out before we leave the live event. So when you're asking me, not a marketing expert, I don't have degrees in it. We've got other people that are good at that, but from my own experience, I have learned that being niche as fuck works. And I thought going to market being like, oh, but I wanna evolve my brand. I wanna be known as this modern entrepreneur that brings everything to the table. And it's like, well, then you're gonna dilute your brand and be amongst a kajillion other people and be competing with them in the market.

Melissa Henault:

Or you can still be niche as fuck teaching people lead generation with LinkedIn, which is your jam, and you know it works, and you know your clients can get results and you know it can grow their business, that's still gonna bring in 100 of clients per quarter that are gonna convert beautifully to the higher ticket programs and not confuse my market based, like, cold. Does that make sense?

Interviewer:

It does. Makes total sense.

Melissa Henault:

So there's there's that.