Join me and Melanie Benson in our conversation on the podcast, Guts, Grit & Great Business, where we talk about getting how to create an aligned but leveraged business model, the power of integration and magnetic messaging, what is required to create a success mindset, the gift of obstacles and more!

Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• How business does not have to be either all about strategy or all about doing what feels good, but how it can be an integration of both.
• The importance of finding or creating an authority platform that is something you can take a deep dive into because you enjoy it, and that will create a stream of clients.
• The importance of not taking failure personally, and the power of cultivating the right mindset..
• How to create simplicity to leverage your results.

Check out these highlights

9:12 It’s not either/or it’s and. 

12:10 “Sometimes we have to do the strategic until we can do the aligned.”  

18:59 “You have to really learn how to change the conversation so you are not chasing clients.”  You need a way to lean in to an authority platform. 

22:00 The idea is not to do what everybody else is doing. It’s to figure out where your superpower shines. 

22:41 And really what you are looking for is – “What is the authority platform that is actually something you can deep dive into and use it as a primary client magnet?” 

25:00 Marketing machine: How we make sure that we have at least 5 to 10 points of visibility for anything we are putting out, otherwise it disappears into an online invisibility cloak! [This is super important!]

27:36 90% of our efforts will go without engagement, but could be impacting that person that will become your client. Sometimes we have to NOT take the numbers so personally. 

28:55 Being in a hard place: it actually is what often leads to our best decisions and greatest changes in our live. On the flip side, finding what feels easy, what flows and doesn’t feel like work (can get us out of those hard places).

29:57 Everything is around mindset. Some of us take failure and challenges really personally. 

30:12 Having been in business 20 years, and corporate before that, there will never be a shortage of challenges. [Can I get a hallelujah?!]

30:30 The moments that are the catalysts. 

31:45 If you’re not failing often you’re not actually growing enough. If I’m failing, I’m pushing against my comfort zone and wiling to try new things. 

36:00 “In hindsight, I was grateful that I had unshackled myself from something that would have dried up my soul fire.”

38:40 There is an incubation of your superpower – really becoming crystal clear on who your clients are. Some people think they know and they don’t really know. 

40:15 What is the critical lynchpin that if we fix one or two pieces first, it positively expands everything else you’re doing. [Ding! Ding! Ding!]

41:49 What is the simplest way to get the greatest results? 

43:50 What is one thing you can do? 

45:40 Learn more about Melanie’s Gift!

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

Melanie’s Gift: 17 Common Mistakes People Make in their Talks and Podcast Guesting that Costs them Leads and Clients https://GetMagneticMessaging.com/Report

How to get in touch with Melanie:

Twitter: www.Twitter.com/MelCoach FB Page: www.Facebook.com/CoachMelanieBenson Instagram: www.Instagram.com/CoachMelanieBenson Pinterest: www.Pinterest.com/CoachMelanieBenson LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/success/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MelanieBenson

About Melanie Benson, host of the Amplify Your Success Podcast:

Melanie Benson, Profit Amplifier, guides expert-preneurs, service professionals and online-business owners amplify results and STAND OUT in a crowded market and exponentially increase revenues by leveraging their Unique Profit Amplifier. Focus is on creating an aligned but leveraged business model, magnetic messaging, BOLD visibility and mindset.

She’s host of Amplify Your Success Podcast, is author of Rewired for Wealth, co-author of the best-selling Voices of the 21st Century and Entrepreneur.com’s Start Up Guide to Starting an Information Marketing Business, and has been featured in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Woman’s Day, and Parenting. Melanie serves on the Women Speaker’s Association Executive Team.

She can be found at MelanieBenson.com.

–> Check out all Guts, Grit & Great Business podcast episodes here.

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below. 

Melanie Benson 0:02
And what really we’re looking for is, what’s the authority platform? That’s actually something that you can deep dive into, and use it as a primary client magnet, an opportunity magnet because you’re going to get it out there, you’re going to nurture it, and you’re going to recycle it and repurpose it so many times that it becomes massive payoff if that’s where the profitability comes from.

GGGB Intro 0:29
The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of uts, grit, and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:02
Hello and welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I am an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit, and Great Business. I am so excited to have our guest Melanie Benson with us today. Melanie, I, first of all, I’m excited to connect with you. So by way of background, Melanie, I just joined a mastermind that Melanie is a part of which is how I first became familiar with her work and I don’t know if Melanie knows this. I have been totally listening to her podcast. So I know when you signed up to join mine, I was so excited. So let’s quickly introduce Melanie, she’s got a great background. Melanie is The Profit Amplifier. She guides entrepreneurs on how to stand out in a crowded market and exponentially increase revenues by leveraging their unique profit amplifier. She’s a revenue strategist, a business performing optimizer, is a guide for conscious entrepreneurs ready to accelerate their impact and income by making their business perform 10 times better. With over 12 years of experience in corporate America, Melanie specializes in aligning visionary game-changing entrepreneurs who are emerging as leaders with the most powerful mindset actions and strategies that propel them to a level of success they never knew they could achieve. She combines her extensive traditional education. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business management and a master’s degree in organizational management with multiple advanced certifications in project management results coaching neuro-linguistic programming and even a licensed as a spiritual counselor to get her clients past their obstacles and into impacting the world in a fulfilling and profitable way. She’s also the host as I mentioned of Amplify Your Success Podcast, is author of Rewired For Wealth, co-author of The Best Selling Voices of The 21st Century, and Entrepreneur Calm Startup Guide to Starting an Information Marketing Business. And she has been featured in Bloomberg, Businessweek, Woman’s Day, and Parenting. Like I mentioned, I’ve been listening to Melanie’s podcast. First of all, I want to ask you, Melanie, is there anything you don’t do there any certification? You don’t have?

Melanie Benson 3:23
Is this thing going like, wow, the only thing I don’t do is dental surgery.

Heather Pearce Campbell 3:29
I mean, should we add it to the list?

Melanie Benson 3:30
I know maybe, maybe. Yeah, I don’t know. Like, I am kind of a secret gourmet paleo chef too. So you know, there’s, Little quirky things. No, it’s,

Heather Pearce Campbell 3:40
So fun. And I love it like you have this on your website. Melanie lives in Los Angeles area with her soon-to-be husband. As an avid lifestyle enthusiast, she spends her free time in search of the best spas and beaches in the world. That was fun.

Melanie Benson 3:54
Another one of my hobbies and by the way, we are now married, so I should probably..

Heather Pearce Campbell 4:00
And then the other thing I loved is and I can’t remember where I saw this about you, but I love that you integrate creativity and intuition with honed facts and data approach, which has resulted in comprehensive resulted in some of the most comprehensive business growth resources available to conscious entrepreneurs. I think that piece alone is so critical, like combining you know, skills and both halves of our brain to really create something that’s meaningful. So, talk to us a little bit about that piece that is interesting to me.

Melanie Benson 4:33
Yeah, so that would be the accidental superpower. Right? I grew up very much a creative, went to school and really like was rewarded for that left-brain logic practical, strategic, you know, I was a project manager and an event manager in a Fortune 500 company. And then realize that that part was a part of me that was created was feeling very dormant. And I think as an entrepreneur, if we are only building the muscle in one side of that hemisphere like that muscle only gets developed then you’re missing out on the other part like I know the highly creative people, they struggle because they can’t organize their a plan of action very well. And then, and then the strategic highly logical people kind of miss that creative out of the box thinking and I guess that’s probably what my clients have the most is. I had a friend of mine who I’ve known for years. He’s seen me speak in the past, and we kind of started running into each other everywhere. And I interviewed him on my podcast not too long ago. And he said something to me that really took me back. He said, Melanie goes, You know, I live in the creative and you are so profoundly gifted at blending that creativity with strategic possibility. I was like, thank you, that that is what I am. So I find it to be emergence and evolution of many many years of study. Seeing what works and how to make something perform better with getting stuck in one-dimensional thinking, not just saying this is the only way it can look, we’ve got to stay plugged into both.

Heather Pearce Campbell 6:10
Totally. I love that I was recently talking with somebody about even though you back up to the ways that people start their business, and I feel like a lot of people start in the analytical side, analyzing the marketplace and saying, What’s the problem? What’s the need? How can I go do that and make a business out of it? Right? whereas the other side might be more inclined. Like if you’re in the other side of your brain or a different part of that conversation, might be more inclined to say, What am I really here to create? It’s that creative energy, what what are the ways that I’m able to show up and serve in the world rather than just being you know, in the analytical side of the brain of what are the needs and how do I meet those?

Melanie Benson 6:58
You know, and I think my comfort zone is fine. One thing that works you know I’m very much simplified to multiply person. But I also recognized in my own journey along the way, I’ve been in this business for 20 years now and so my first 10 years were How do I get to a million you know, like really creating something that could financially be witnessed as successful in the eyes of most people on the planet. And then I realized I had followed the logical path to get there I did what I should do. And about 10 years in I started to look at it like, is this what I want to do? Is this lighting me up is this giving me joy and feeding that that fire inside me to get up and keep climbing the mountain every day and you know, I did do some restructuring and, for lack of a better word, pivoting which is so overused right now, but somebody was saying poor wedding, so brace for a wedding, but really like finding a way to integrate all The parts of me and not just do what we should do, but do what is sustainable because it lights my fire every single day.

Heather Pearce Campbell 8:07
Hmm. I love that. I mean, even the word integration because this conversation around, you know, do we make a choice based on market place based on market conditions? Do we make a choice based on, you know, our intuitive sense of who we are as people? So my friend, Mike Cohen, who hosts a show weekly, actually, she has two shows, but she was talking with JP Sears and she had a number of us on in a Zoom Room with him chatting and he was having this conversation around how he approaches his work, really purely from the standpoint of what do I want to create? Right, what and this whole like your language of is it feeding the fire inside of me? I think it’s really easy to get disconnected from that a bit when we get bogged down and doing the work and like handling all the things on the list doing all the shoulds Talk to us a little bit about that. How do you Go towards integration of the parts or integration even of the approach?

Melanie Benson 9:05
Well, I like the word integration, because it really embraces what i before. It’s not either-or. Yes, it’s and yeah, so how does it grow and impact more lives? And how can I get more strategic and really think through how this can, you know, like I have a thing where it’s like I like to, I call it unique profit amplifier where you start with something that you know, will sell well because it’s, it solves such a big problem and it lights you up. And then how do we hook that together with other things that make it easy for people to progress through all the different offerings you have? Well, that’s the integration of all those parts of me the spiritual, the creative, the person who wants to be you know, have that fire lit from the inside out. It’s not an either an or it’s not strategic or creative or spiritual or aligned. It’s all of it. And I think that’s, you know if you’re in This place as you’re listening in where you’re like, I want to get there, but I’m not you know, sometimes we have to do the strategic Intel we can do the aligned right. And, and I wish I had known that better. When I started, I was very slow out of the starting gate, Heather. I was one of those people where I did everything wrong for the first 18 months. And I was trying to do the part that felt good. But I was missing the strategic piece. And so nothing was working. And that’s probably how I got to the, to the realization that a lot of my clients are in this stuck spot where they’re trying to do what feels good, but it doesn’t feel good to not make money and they’re not making money yet. They’re not making enough money. They’re not making enough money to make all this effort makes sense. And so we have to find what’s missing. And it’s this story that we’ve built up around doing certain things to grow our business or they’re doing they’re following the cookie-cutter of someone and just trying to plug in to it, and haven’t really found that, that way to do it in an aligned method that is sustainable for them. I like to think of it like this like maybe you do this to where I like to find the thing that feels like it’s autopilot. So it’s not that there’s no work. It’s just, it’s so much a routine. It’s so much of a natural part of who I am. That it’s easy, like, I just do it automatically. And then my marketing and my visibility and everything feels so much easier. And that’s why I have a podcast. It’s not because I have to. It’s a great authority platform. I do it because I could do it in my sleep. And if I could get paid every day, just a podcast, I probably would. Because I love it. I love the conversation I get to have with the most amazing, unique and powerful beings on this planet. So that to me is the ultimate integration of all of those pieces.

Heather Pearce Campbell 11:55
I love that I’m with you going to either side of that conversation. feels out of balance. Like even when we were having that conversation with JP, I thought, gosh, that’s fascinating to think of showing up and approaching your work each day strictly from the standpoint of what do I want to create? Because there’s a part of me that really believes like, we never get to escape business fundamentals. Yeah, right. It’s part of the picture. And so that’s why I love that you’ve got, you know, chops to blend both strategy and the intuitive side and really getting people to tune in to how to connect those things. So let’s talk let’s shift over to your podcasting work. Talk to me a little bit about how you started in the podcasting world and what that story looked like.

Melanie Benson 12:43
So being in business as long as I have, I have had the background where I was doing like CD clubs back when that was the cool thing to do, right? Like literally like we would record an interview, drop it on a CD and throw it in the mail like I am that At a certain point I started looking at, wow, like this is so much work, there’s got to be a better way. So that’s my optimizing brain-like, and they start, I have some friends that were early adopters like Jody Colbert, who, literally as soon as podcasting was the thing before there was RSS feeds. And you could just sync it all up. She was like hand programming, you know, into these podcasting platforms. And I thought, wow, I think that’s going to be a thing. And so, I mean, the podcast I have now is not the one I started with, I started with a different one. And I just loved it. I loved the reach. I quickly realized how evergreen they were. But beyond having my own podcast, I realized that one of the other things that was possible was this growth in podcasting was actually creating a need for content. I believe it’s about 60% of business podcasts are Interview style, huh? So that means there’s an embedded problem, right? So the growth of one market creates a problem, and that is they need content. And I also am a massive fan of virtual. Because I was on the road speaking a lot for many years, and I was getting burned out of that roadway or lifestyle. And I was looking for a way, how can I continue to experience the magic of connecting with people through speaking, but not be trapped in a road model where I had to be out there and thank God right, like right now in our world, like, we’re all having to adapt to the virtual piece. And so podcasting was a really natural solution because I could get on a podcast, share my message and do what I call build the golden thread. So I could create like intrigue and interest through a title and catchy slogans and, you know, like, build up that momentum and that energy with the listener, and get them to the point where they retreat Not that they were invested in wanting more. And that became kind of my thing. And all of a sudden, you know, when you plug into something that you are fired up about, and you do it well, it gains its own natural buzz and momentum in your industry. And it’s very easy to rise above the noise and get attention. And so I found that every time I kind of leaned into that podcasting, whether it was about teaching people to leverage podcasts to build their authority, or which is what I’m doing most now is teaching people how to create the right message on a podcast. So they’re turning it into a 24 seven client attraction machine. That is magic that is contagious. That is, that is how we continue to stand out and move ourselves out of the noise and up to a place where people can see and hear your message and not be confused. How is this person the same as everyone else?

Heather Pearce Campbell 16:03
The piece around differentiation is huge. And I think especially in the online world, I mean, just in the business world, generally the amount of data that we are faced with every day, right that that is the goal. How do we differentiate? How do we create something that’s going to hook somebody or show them who we are so that they’ll come back? So talk to us? Do you work with both people who are wanting a podcast? Or maybe they don’t know they need it yet? Right? They’re wanting a solution. Are you talking to those folks and the people who are also podcast guests? Who’s your audience?

Melanie Benson 16:41
Yeah. My audience is somebody who considers himself an expert printer or service professional. So an expert printer is somebody who’s building a business around their expertise, coaches, consultants, trainers, educators, people who they have something that they know they can’t keep inside, they need to share it in a bigger right. And so in the In that as an expert, if you want to stand out in the crowd, you have to really learn how to change the conversation. So you’re not chasing clients, but you have people coming to you like, we really like to flip that equation. And that means you need to lean into what we call an authority or influence platform, you need a way to be seen as the go to credible authority, rather than one of a billion people who do something similar. And you know, for me, think about 20 years ago, when I started. Nobody knew what business coaching was, right? Like, they’re like, You’re, you’re a business what like, what is that? Like? Aren’t you too young to do that? Like I wasn’t really but, you know, like, I always looked a little bit on the younger side. And then, and then I found that about five years into it, like everybody in their brother had coach in their title. I started thinking like, wow, like, how does anybody know what Coach means anymore? And so the reinvention for many coaches is Not how do I be another coach and I’m trying to decide which poses coach to hire, but it’s a Blue Ocean Strategy like how do we make the competition irrelevant? Because you are the answer that your unique ideal client is looking for. And I think podcasting, having your own podcast is one strategy. If you are willing to consistently whatever that looks like, like if you’re having a series or you’ve got a daily or weekly, whatever that is, but it’s got to be consistent to your schedule, nurturing of that platform, and if that’s not your thing, then guesting on podcasts is a super-easy way to tap into the magic that’s happening in this virtual environment. And I can geek out a little bit on the stats if you want like I don’t know if you’ve been talking about that lately, but something really profound happened in the industry this year. Let’s just talk about the close of 2019 there is 550,000 roundabout podcasts listed with Apple, which seems to be one of the bigger platforms. When I was sorry, into 2018 550,000, the end of 2019 we had jumped to 950,000. By April, we were at a million podcasts and growing. And that really shows that there’s and by the way, this not just business podcasts like we’ve got everything from true crime. I have a friend that just launched one on the backstory behind Marilyn Monroe like, you know, you it’s like you name the subject there. You know, there’s things on how to have be a better lover. Like, how to be a better parent, how to like start a school like anything you can imagine there’s a podcast for it.

Heather Pearce Campbell 19:48
It’s true. I have a friend who just launched a podcast. She’s like a star trekky right. So it’s all about Star Trek.

Melanie Benson 19:55
Yeah. Which my stepson would love that. But the idea of this is not to not, it’s not to do what everybody else is doing, it’s to really figure out where your superpower shines like and I call your superpowers that thing that you do so naturally and you realize you don’t even realize how valuable it is to others because you’re actually able to help people solve problems they’re chronically stuck with by just doing what you do naturally. And what I find gets people a little mixed up is they’re like, Oh, I should have a podcast. And then they do a year of podcasting. They’re like, God, this is a lot of work. I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m not getting any results from it, and then they digit and then they jump to the next bright, shiny idea. Right? And what really we’re looking for when you find the right authority platform. This is what I support my clients in the amplify strategies is what’s the authority platform. That’s actually something that you can, you know, deep dive into and use it as a primary client magnet. A client an opportunity magnet, because you’re going to get it out there, you’re going to nurture it, and you’re going to recycle it and, and repurpose it so many times that it becomes a massive payoff. That’s where the profitability comes from.

Heather Pearce Campbell 21:16
I love that. So I’ve got some other questions that I want to get to. But talk to us about that piece about that constant. Yes, the repurposing and just having a client attraction magnet out there because I agree. I’ve heard so many people that go down a road of thinking like, Oh, I’m going to create this podcast or do this new thing, but it’s not working the way that they want it to. It ends up being a greater investment of time, and resources and effort to maintain then it’s contributing to their bottom line,

Melanie Benson 21:47
Well, let me explain it by sharing an experience one of my amplify mastermind members is having right now because that’s exactly what was up for her like she started with me in a different program. That’s just Give everybody a taste. It’s like I start with the messaging. Because I think if we can get the messaging, right, then we can amplify the rest. Right? So I have a program called get Magnetic Messaging. And when she joined that program, she said, can you actually can you fix my podcasts? You know, my podcast isn’t getting me, clients. It’s not. It’s like, it’s a lot of money and time going out. And I’m not seeing the results. And I said, Well, first, we actually have to fix the messaging and everything. It all it’s it’s the hub, right? And so when we were in that process, what she started to realize was, is that she didn’t have a core message that was making sense to the listener. And so sure, expertise was holding space for the other experts. And that is exciting. And it’s really primitive, especially for connectors like we could like geek out on that all day long, right. But yeah, me too. At a certain point. We’re missing the monetization because podcasting is a lot of work. Anything is a lot of work but writing a book is a lot of work. Speaking a lot of work if we don’t have That core, what I call that magnetic message at the hub, that everything else works to draw clients in. Mm-hmm. And so what we did was is we pulled back what her actual messaging is, who is her ideal client? And then I went into start to look at how do we fix her for podcasts. And so what I find is, is that if you have a podcast or another similar type of marketing, could be a video show, webinars that you do whatever it is, you’re missing what’s called the marketing machine. So I don’t want to go too far on a tangent, but let me just say that a marketing machine is how we make sure that we’ve got at least five to 10 points of visibility for anything we’re putting out. Otherwise, what happens is, it disappears into an invisibility cloak in the noise of the online market, because that’s where most of us are You’re going to get traction with the podcast, there’s some offline things we can do, but most of it is online. And it’s not one thing. So people are mistaken Oh, I’m publishing it on my Lipson feed and then it’s going to iTunes, shouldn’t that be enough? So they asked me like, what’s your magic? Like? How are you getting all your listeners? How you turning them into clients? Well, those are two different conversations. But you have to have five to 10 points of reoccurring visibility on everything you air. And that’s and it doesn’t have to be a lot of work. You can set a lot of this up on autopilot. But you do have to have a strategic plan to do that.

Heather Pearce Campbell 24:43
Absolutely. It sounds like people, obviously, most of us start from doing something the ground up right we start down here trying to build it trying to do it. And really we need a system to follow that says here’s how it’s done. Really Well, here’s how you minimize your effort and your and your time and get maximum results, the visual of things disappearing into the invisibility cloak. I think everybody knows exactly what you’re talking about when you say that, like, you know, that feeling of oh my gosh, that either felt like wasted effort, or nobody saw this thing that I did, or, you know, just not knowing how to get it out there. So, I love, you know, understanding all the pieces of the framework in the system, backtracking.

Melanie Benson 25:29
Can I say one more thing about that before you go on? I think it’s also really important to remember that 90% of our visibility efforts will go without engagement, but could be impacting that person, that becomes your client. So sometimes we have to not take the number, the hard numbers. So personally, because you never know who’s paying attention. That’s not Doing I kid you not I can’t talk about all of it right now. But there are some opportunities that dropped in my lap because people were watching in the background. And that one thing drops in and they go, Oh, yeah, this is perfect. And they reach out from that. And then you’re like, Oh, I’m so glad I was doing this thinking nobody was paying attention, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell 26:22
Well, that’s true. And it’s always such a surprise, like a pleasant experience when you have that I connected with a woman the other day, and she turns out, she’s in the Seattle area. We had a video call and she’s like, oh, I’ve been following you for years. I love your work. I love this stuff. You and I was like, how have we never connected? How did I not you know, I did not know that she was out there consuming my stuff and appreciating it or whatever. Because, as you mentioned, she wasn’t necessarily interacting with it, but she’d been observing it. So yeah, I think that’s a really important piece to remember. The other thing I want to get your thoughts on is that you know, part of the premise of this show is I want people especially now in the midst of what’s happening, to understand that being in a hard place is okay. It actually is what often leads to our best decisions and our greatest changes in our business or our life so that we actually get to where we need to be going. And the flip side of that I love your visual around how you helping people find what it is that feels easy to them, what and what came to mind when you said that was flow, right? How do we do things in our business where we basically can find a state of flow and it doesn’t necessarily feel like work because we are either naturally good at it or we have an interest in it. Talk to me about the two sides of that coin being in a hard place. And you know, what it takes to shift from that into a state of flow or just how you see the relationship between those two things.

Melanie Benson 27:55
I love this question. You know, I think every Thing is, is around mindset. Right? And I think some of us take failure and challenges really personally is like, Oh, I need this to be easier if I’m going to do this right. You know, having been in business 20 years and been in corporate 10 years before that, what I can say is, there will never be a shortage of challenges, but how we mentally wrap our mind around those challenging moments or those challenging periods will make or break how we move through them. And what I’ve discovered after several very painful epic failures that I wish could disappear from the face of the earth, was that those are the moments that are the catalysts for these great awakenings and these great transformations that bring these great new opportunities that you can’t see when you’re on the kind of the busy train continuing to maintain what already was And I oftentimes find there’s like when there are periods where like, everything is going wrong simultaneously and you’re like, what the heck life like what’s happening right now, what I realized is, is that sometimes we’re stubborn and we try really hard to hold on to things that were attached to you because it’s our baby and we worked really hard to get it out in the world. But if we can loosen that grip and allow things that are not working well to just go, okay, it’s alright, it’s not working, I can let it go. Because that’s going to create space for this next things to merge. That is a mental leadership practice that I’ve had to really practice and to embrace. But as I’ve embraced it, I moved through failure quicker. And recognizing that if you’re not failing, often, you’re not actually growing enough. Like really embracing like, I want to fail because if I’m failing It means I’m pushing against my comfort zone and willing to try new things to expand the impact I can have on this planet. So, a couple of years ago, I put an offer out that I just knew was gonna, like, take off like wildfire. And it was an awful crowd like really? Like, really, you know, it was one of those moments where we had a bunch of initial sales in a trial, and then everybody dropped off and I’m like, Oh, so what I always get to come back to is why what are you really wanting to have come forward right now what I was looking for was a little bit more of a passive revenue or leveraged revenue stream. But what I was doing was is I had taken someone’s advice about a membership program who was really good at membership programs, and I don’t do membership programs that’s not wanting my magic is so my superpower and by letting that go, what emerged I was I do group coaching really, really well. And then we organized this Magnetic Messaging because it’s a common problem that my clients struggle with. And I realized the number one reason people come into my work is they’re in pain, because they don’t feel seen. They don’t feel their work is valued. And they don’t feel like they’re making enough money doing something they know will help people. And the common thread was what we teach and get Magnetic Messaging. And by letting go of that other thing and creating that space, and that opening, I had the bandwidth to move that forward. And you know, that’s those are millions of stories with my clients that the same thing. It’s just you have to be willing to not make failing mean your failure. It means it’s time to move to the thing that’s more aligned and more powerful and more right where you are at this moment.

Heather Pearce Campbell 31:52
Yes. Ah, there’s so much to unpack about what you just said. Well, and it’s that’s a topic I care a lot about. Because I think people often feel like especially and for anybody that’s listening that feels right now like you’re in this place of compression, right? something’s not working, the marketplace maybe has shifted. You need to make some changes and you don’t yet know what that looks like. The thing about compression and actually one of the guests that I just had on we had a brilliant conversation about this same thing about it took her reaching this point in her life where, like, literally her partner was dying, there was all this other stuff going on her business was struggling. She and she called it her language around it was killing the sacred cow. She had to kill the sacred cow, this thing that she had been hanging on to that was really cumbersome in her business. And she said, she literally did not see it until she reached kind of this maximum place of compression. And then just one day she looked at it and she’s like, that’s it. It’s out of here. We are doing something different. And she got rid of it and everything changed.

Melanie Benson 33:03
Yeah, that’s what happened for me in around 2009. I had worked so hard to build up this mega-successful business with. I had other coaches working for me. And all of a sudden I realized, none of it was what I wanted. None of it was what was lighting my fire, it was what I thought was the right thing to do to support the machine that was getting built. And I wasn’t conscious enough or nimble enough at the time to really allow myself to intentionally decide to change direction. So I unconsciously blew it up. And it was the most painful like I don’t I literally don’t know how I recovered because I had a perfect storm where everything that was important to me left within a period of three months, and I was so crushed. But you know what? emerged from that Heather, that was just I feel so great. For like, as painful as that was, I was also on hindsight, not in the moment but in hindsight, grateful that I unshackled myself from something that would have dried up my soul fire. Like I just, I was feeling like I had to do things not that I wanted to do things. And I was taking risks that were not aligned with my own growth path. Because I felt like it was what I’m supposed to do. And so it was a real evolutionary opportunity for me to grow and expand my own, likeability to see these things for my clients, but also to like mature and to really like, wise up quite a bit, you know, like, Oh, this is what it’s like when you lean your growth path along the wrong mountain, you know, so it was painfully exquisitely important.

Heather Pearce Campbell 34:53
Well, absolutely. And the thing I think that is really poignant about that is that piece around. And I think a lot of us when we get in hard places, we think, Oh, this shouldn’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening this way. Right? Not. It’s not the plan for my path. It’s not where I want to go. But the flip perspective of that is, yes, it probably should be happening as a way to get you to where you need to go. I think it’s a really hard thing to keep in mind when we’re in the struggle.

Melanie Benson 35:26
Yeah. And attached. Yes. attachment is where this energy gets activated.

Heather Pearce Campbell 35:35
Yes, absolutely. And I think so much of even building a business, really anything in life, whatever vision you have about where you’re headed. I think knowing where you want to go is important, but releasing the how you get there. It’s the only way

Melanie Benson 35:52
Can I do how do i do my chocolate? Boom, Mic drop moment. Totally.

Heather Pearce Campbell 35:59
Yeah. So, talk to me a little bit more about how you work with clients give us some of your magic around how you get people to recognize their, their brilliance or their place of magic, like where they should be working from, because that probably looks different for everybody. How do you get them there?

Melanie Benson 36:17
Oh, actually, well, for some people, there’s different personalities. You know, I one of the things about the way I work with people is it’s almost always a custom journey. And then there are some what we might say some incubation that can look the same. And it’s why I basically move to having everybody start in what I call the get Magnetic Messaging because there is an incubation of your superpower of who you know, really get becoming crystal clear who your ideal clients are, because some people think they know, they don’t really know. And they’re not clear enough to make a line decisions with their marketing effort. So I use a combination of process. So I have these processes that ask a series of questions to get clarity, so that we can use that clarity to make decisions. So let’s just say someone’s recognizing they need a authority platform. So instead of just saying, Oh, you need a podcast, it’s like, well, let’s really look at what your gifts are. Let’s look at what you naturally do. Let’s start to look at the things that you’re already getting traction with, and how can we improve the reach and the momentum you’re getting with those efforts by fixing the messaging or fine tuning what you’re doing there? And so I go through a set of 10 to 12, what I call amplify factors, where it’s like looking at what are you delivering as your first point of your offer? And how does that set you up to sell more of your services to that same client, so on I do that I look at, you know, cash flow planning, I look at leverage of your time and energy as well as your leverage of your talent. I look at your revenue model. So I’m looking at the all of the pieces and saying, what is the critical linchpin that if we fix these one or two pieces First, it positively expands everything else you’re doing. So then it’s just fine tuning the other things rather than having to go and break everything. And re and like, you know, do it all over again, which is what a lot of people do, they throw the whole thing out and start over and say, like, no, let’s just fine tune a couple things here instead of throwing it out and starting over,

Heather Pearce Campbell 38:45
Right. The couple of things stand out to me about what you just said. One is you are bringing all of your skills to the table in assessing your clients path. And the other thing that I love is it’s not a cookie-cutter like approach, here’s, here’s what you need to do, because everybody else is doing it like more because it’s my expertise, right? There’s always, and you just see that so much in the marketplace, people saying, well, this is the path, you have to do it this way. And so I think that’s really important that you dig into your clients journey. And that that may look a little different based on what they’re already doing based on what might be already working for them based on their inclination to do something a certain way. Maybe they really like showing up on video versus do having an audio platform, right.

Melanie Benson 39:31
And sometimes it’s the simple things we just have to do consistently that get the momentum going that fund and door create bandwidth for other things to unfold. So once somebody finishes Magnetic Messaging, the second part of the journey is the amplify mastermind. And in amplify, what we’re looking at is what’s the simplest way to get the greatest results. And sometimes it’s just simply routinely emailing your list. So Simply routinely making a video, right it’s like it’s not the big heavy lifting, it’s just the simple tiny thing that you never do that’s going to get that burst of, of, you know, sales and momentum and get the conversation flowing. So it’s not always big hard things you have to do sometimes it’s the simple things that you’re not doing enough of.

Heather Pearce Campbell 40:22
I love that the importance of consistency in our businesses is huge. And I think it’s one of the biggest challenges we face is doing that one thing or doing that simple thing on repeat, you know, repetitively consistently showing up and it’s really easy like I know as a mom of two little people right now at home there’s lots of days that I want to be showing up on video and the other day I tried to make one video like three-minute video, I literally got interrupted like beyond like kids screaming I couldn’t continue recording the video and then my I went outside I thought this will Better, I’m outside husband not knowing I was out there turned on the leaf blower, like around the corner, you know? And I just was having one of those moments like, Oh my gosh, no wonder it’s so hard for me to show up consistently the way that I want to right. So I think that that’s huge, but it often is just the simple things. And we tend to overlook that we tend to think like, Oh, it’s gotta be something bigger or harder or more challenging. So before we wrap up, I want to ask you one more thing, what is well, actually to what is one thing that our listeners could do immediately to get the most value from our time together today?

And then the second thing is, I’m going to have you share about your gift.

Melanie Benson 41:40
Oh, sure. Um, you know, I think the simplest thing is to there’s seven things just popped into my head all at once. But I think the simplest thing is to really start with this conversation around consistency because if you look at your results, And you say, Gosh, I was really hoping for more or Wow, I really, I really wanted to see more sales in this area. I want you to look at what are you consistently doing to create that? Okay, and have an honest conversation and say, am I doing the right things consistently? Or am I am I having those days where it’s like, Yeah, I don’t feel like it today. And then you talk yourself out of it. The way the marketing machine works, and this is what I teach my clients is, it’s not the decision to do it or not do it. It’s the habit of doing what gets results. And that’s really what I want you to reflect on and ask yourself, do I have a habit of doing the right things consistently to get those results I’m craving.

Heather Pearce Campbell 42:48
I love that reminds me I picked up Steven pressfield book The other day again, the art of war and I there was one message that stood out to me when I was going through I was looking for Some quotes and it was the one page where he talks about I think a client of his that’s a writer that says, You know, I something about waiting for inspiration to strike, right. And I think sometimes we do this as entrepreneurs, we wait for inspiration to strike and but this guy had put himself in a routine. And he said, luckily it strikes every morning at 9am. Like it or not, he’s showing up. He’s doing his writing every morning at 9am.

Melanie Benson 43:25
Yeah, and I do know, sometimes we have to wait for inspiration. And if that’s where you’re at, then we have to look at the things that you can put on autopilot that will get you results while this other thing is incubating and, and getting clear for you, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I know, you asked about the gift. It ties very well into this. So it’s 17 mistakes you’re making in your interviews, and webinars and talks that are costing you leads and clients. Yes, and the reason why I say it ties in is that again, these are things where they’re not doing consistently that we could be doing better consistently, that brings those better results. But what I really believe is that if we start to understand what we’re doing, that’s not getting the results. And we can just fine-tune a few of those practices, you can flip your visibility, your strategies, your marketing strategies and those conversations that you’re having with your heart and your soul and turn them into client attraction systems that are actually working 24 seven, so that you’re getting leads in the middle of the night while you’re sleeping. And somebody else was listening to that podcast on, you know, that you recorded 10 years ago or two years ago?

Heather Pearce Campbell 44:36
No, I love it. That’s amazing. Like you say that and you laugh but like, that’s literally been me the last handful of weeks. I’ve had these really late nights working and like I had your podcast on in the background, the David Finkel episode I listened to I was like, Oh my God, that’s good. Yes, it’s really good. But it’s true and you never know when people are going to come across it once it’s out there and if you do it right, can do a lot of work for you. while you’re sleeping, I love that. Anyway, any final thoughts, Melanie, anything else you want our listeners to hear?

Melanie Benson 45:07
Well, I think, you know, this, this whole thing is about, you know, guts, right? Like and really like looking at what do I need to have the guts to do right now. And on the flip side of everything we’ve talked about, I do believe that sometimes there’s this need to take a big, bold action, a big bold leap forward to shake up that stagnant energy. So if you are feeling like you’re having a hard time taking action, you are feeling like you can’t get into momentum. And as my dog is reinforcing for us right now, you’re in the background. Like mom, isn’t it time for us to go take

Heather Pearce Campbell 45:49
Your co-worker, that’s right.

Melanie Benson 45:52
My assistance is winding me would really like to leave this in this place of sometimes you got to do big things to get big results.

Heather Pearce Campbell 46:01
Yes, I love that I, as a as somebody who really believes in taking action, I also am the person that sometimes does big leaps. And I take too much action, right? So there can be a balance. But I do agree. making a decision that requires a bit of activation energy, I think is sometimes exactly what we have to do to change our routine to change our patterns to get ourselves into a new place of creative energy. Thank you, Melanie, it’s been so great to connect with you. I need to go get your 17 common mistakes and download it myself but people can find it at the website, legal website warrior comm forward slash podcast where you’ll get a link to today’s episode as well as the show notes. Thank you again, Melanie, really appreciate it. folks can find I’ll put your contact information there as well along with your guest.

Melanie Benson 46:55
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me and I really look forward to connecting with you as you listen And, and you know you want to keep this conversation going you know where to get started.

Heather Pearce Campbell 47:04
Absolutely so grateful. Talk to you soon Melanie

GGGB Intro 47:10
Thank you for joining us today on the Guts Grit and Great Business podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup, and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, visit the shownotes at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us to keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.