Episode 3: Mel Yu – From 6-figure salary to a 6-figure loss – a story of resilience, perseverance and growth
Mel Yu is the founder of MCO Events Group and Ego Expo – Australia’s largest streetwear and lifestyle expo. She’s also known for her work as a personal branding expert, coaching entrepreneurs to business success. Mel’s purpose is to leave people in a better place than when she found them. We spoke about all things branding, the realities of of being a business owner and how to bounce back and pivot from the mistakes you make along the way.
Welcome to The Leap: A Business Journeys Podcast. Hosted by Nathan Soti, our goal is a simple one – to help more businesses succeed!
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Nathan: Our guest today is Mel Yu. Mel is the founder of MCO Events Group and EGO Expo, Australia’s largest streetwear and lifestyle expo. More recently, she’s known for her work as a personal branding expert, coaching entrepreneurs to business success.
Mel’s purpose is to leave people in a better place than when she found them. She spoke about all things branding, the realities of being a business owner, and how to bounce back and pivot from the mistakes you make along the way. Hope you enjoy.
Welcome to The Leap, a business journeys podcast where we dive deep into the journey of business owners to learn from their successes and failures. Our goal? It’s a simple one, to help more businesses succeed.
Mel, welcome to the show.
Mel: Thanks for having me. I’m really excited for this one.
Nathan: I’m pumped. Thanks for squeezing us into your busy schedule.
Mel: I got you.
Nathan: So, I’m going to jump straight into it. Take us through your journey. Where did it all start? How did you get into business in 2017?
Mel: This is so forward.
I love it. This is The Leap.
It’s called The Leap, so we’ll go straight to The Leap. Long story short, I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. I don’t think I was ever like, I want to work for myself.
Growing up, my dad owned a series of Chinese restaurants as immigrants. We came over here. And so, yes, there were always the working-for-yourself mentality.
I saw my dad do it, but I never saw my dad as entrepreneurial. Like, I felt like he was a business owner, but he wasn’t an entrepreneur. And for me, in 2017, I started my events company.
It’s called MCO Events. And I actually started at first with an idea of an event in mind. I had just finished four years project managing the Australian Tattoo Conventions.
They’re a national tattoo expo that goes around every major city. We bring about 10,000 people through the doors over every weekend. And for me, I felt like I had hit a glass ceiling at that company.
And I wanted to find where my skill set would best serve in a new audience. So, yeah, long story short, I started my own trade show. It was called Ego Expo.
It’s Australia’s largest streetwear expo where we bring online businesses to meet their customers face to face. And so, yeah, in hindsight, I look back and I’m like, I think I really felt like I had a problem to solve. And there was a gap in the market.
And I felt the need to sort of do that.
Nathan: Yeah, interesting. It’s something we often see, right? Most business owners will be in a particular field.
And then they look at it and go, I can do this myself. I think I can do this better. Talk to me about that transition.
What did it look like? You know, obviously you had the concept, but how did you go? Because you’ve got to plan for these things, right?
Like we see a lot of people, I think they expect business that you’re just going to make heaps of bucks, right? I always say that, that people think I’m going to go out on my own because, you know, look how much I’m making for this business.
Mel: 100%.
Nathan: But it’s not always the case, right? It doesn’t pan out like that. I’m not sure what the statistics are, but not many businesses are profitable in their first year, right?
So how did you go about planning for that? And take me through that first year of business when you said, I’m stopping my job, I’m going out on my own.
Mel: I’m part of that statistic, by the way. Yeah, I’m part of that statistic that didn’t make any money my first year. And you’ve dropped a lot of like golden nuggets and truths in what you’ve just explained.
Because 100%, I was earning a six-figure job running these incredible, amazing large-scale events. And I had done it for four years. And I knew everything back to front or so I thought.
And our budgets were exorbitant. We were making millions of dollars. And I was managing sort of that money.
And I did feel like there was a level of my own ego where I was like, I can do this. Like I know this back to front. I know the suppliers.
I know the ops. I know the expenses. I know what the fixed costs are.
I know how to generate a ticketing revenue model for consumers to come to these events. And so I kind of, yeah, on a whim was like, I can do this for the streetwear community. I was really into the fashion side of things at the time.
And I was like, I can do that. But so that was what took me for the leap, first and foremost. There was a huge amount of naivety when I first started.
And there was this sheer just blind faith that I’m like, I got this.
Nathan: Reality check.
Mel: Yeah. And then I, so the registering the ABN and ACN and ASIC, that’s just the easy part. And I actually think like the creating the brand identity and the logo is also the fun part. Because I’m naturally quite a creative.
It was when I needed the sales to come in that when we opened the doors and the website went live and I had this amazing concept for an event, was no one knew me. No one knew the event. No one knew anything about it.
And so I started door knocking, literally, just cold DMs, cold emailing about this concept. And when people were interested, they would write back and say how long, like show us sort of your pitch deck, show us the numbers of foot traffic, all this amazing stuff where I had nothing. We didn’t even have proof of concept.
So all of our visuals and imagery was kind of just like other people’s events and imagery because it was all stock images because we hadn’t actually physically had an event. And so we really relied on I think the first year people just loved my energy, I think, my authenticity, and they trusted me to make those sales. So it was like selling a unicorn at the time.
We had nothing. I was like no floor plan, no numbers, no figures, but like 5,000 people are going to come through these doors. And I really felt that though.
I was really convicted in my vision to bring those first round of clients through.
Nathan: And so talk to me about the event that first year because that was the only event you ran in your first 12 months of business, right?
Mel: Yeah. So essentially the way that I structured the business, MCO Events was our umbrella company. We were always going to run events for clients.
But the very first event that we put on the market was our own event because I think that’s what showcased my skill set, what we could do. We could take an idea from concept to reality. And so that was really my first event running a very, very large scale sort of streetwear expo.
And now one of the biggest things I say when I mentor people in business, I’m like dream big, do the big dream, but start small. Because I dreamt big and I just went really big and I lost really big.
Nathan: So you needed 5,000 people to come through the doors. That was like sort of break even.
Mel: No, I wasn’t even looking at my break even. I was just screaming 5,000 because it sounded good. And that was just the vision.
I was like, yeah, 5,000 people are going to come through this event, this very first time event with zero track history or record of anything. Because we had pulled 10,000 for the tattoo shows. I was like, I’ll just have that and be pretty conservative.
That sounds about right. Like literally just guess. And then the reality hit.
Now the reality was still an incredible event. I think from a consumer level and from an exhibitor level, people still kind of had a great time. But we had 1,883 people through the doors.
Nathan: You remember that number?
Mel: Yeah, significantly because I also remember it was $184,000 loss in my first year of business. So yeah, we really overshot. I had undersold the booths, like the cost of the booths.
So I fixed venue costs. I had gone out and done way more marketing and branding and just like obnoxious expenses. I was paying everyone.
It was my first year of business and I just felt like I was, I just was on a power trip really. To be like, look at all these things we can pay for and we’re running this amazing business. I had saved up quite a significant amount from the past business though, just to be really transparent.
Nathan: And that’s really important, right? Because I think you have to plan when you make that leap to go into business, right? Like I didn’t pay myself for the first year.
Most people that I know that are in business, they don’t draw a salary for years, right? So you absolutely need to…
Mel: Have a runway.
Nathan: Yeah. How important was that?
Mel: Incredibly important. And I still had to borrow money after because I very quickly just, again, like I said, I misjudged. I was so young.
I was so green in business. That first year I look back and I’m laughing now, but I’m like when I was in it, I thought I was really serious and I knew everything. And very quickly I knew I knew nothing.
And I borrowed $40,000 from my mum and $30,000 from my auntie. Thank God I even had this like family investment that believed in me so much. That’s $70,000 that I was like, yeah, I’ll pay you back.
And I still am paying them back. But, you know, it’s interest free, Mum. I am paying you back.
Nathan: Thank God it’s interest free.
Mel: I am paying you back. But, yeah, I think when you first start and you’re bootstrapping, you’re like self-funded. There is no – it’s not as easy to get investment.
And a lot of people even come to me these days and they want to run their first event. And they always come to me going, how did you get sponsorship? And with the sort of almost like this belief that sponsorship is like so easy to acquire, it’s actually one of the hardest games.
It’s why people in sponsorships and partnerships get paid significantly on a commission or even as a base salary, as you know, in recruitment. Because it’s such a – it is a really high demand skill to be able to secure actual funding and sponsorships for these events. But, yeah, it takes time.
Nathan: What were the three biggest things that you learnt? What were the takeaways from the mistakes that you made in that event?
Mel: Cash is king. Like really – and not just like saying do a budget. Because if you do a budget and you never look at your budget again, you do not have a budget.
And so really looking at those finances and making sure that you do have a lot of runway. Because without funding, without money, very hard for you to sort of like start properly and build something. So I think really knowing your numbers.
And if you’re not very good at the numbers side of things, getting someone that knows the numbers if you’re more of a creative. Because that’s where I leaned more into. Yeah, the dream big starts small.
And what I mean by that on a deeper level is like start with the resources that you have. And start with the network and the community that you might have. And so instead of going to – we went to like a massive marketing agency.
And just – we were spending, again, exorbitant amount of cash as if we were a big event company ourselves. But rather I’d look back now and go, well, who are some cool freelancers or independent contractors that could probably even have the time to focus on our campaigns. And not spend those really, really high figures.
So using your network and starting with the resources that you have. And then growing from there. You can have big picture thinking but you don’t have to have the best models or the best designers or anything like that with a tiny budget.
So, yeah, leveraging your own network.
And then –
Nathan: I mean, two were good those days.
Mel: Yeah. But also I think for me like self – like I just had – I look back now and I’m like I was very ego-driven. Now I’ve got a much failure or like, you know, epic sort of losses and challenges really humble you.
I’ll tell you that much. But in that first year I just felt like there was – you need it. You need this balance of that naivety or that almost arrogance like I can do it.
And then I think now you also still have to manage risk. Because some people can’t recover from 180 grand loss.
Nathan: And that’s the thing, right. Most – that would have burnt everybody.
Mel: Yeah.
Nathan: Right. Like making that loss you’d pack up and you’d go home. I tried.
It was a fun event and I’m proud. But it didn’t work. Right.
I spent that money. It’s gone. I lick my wounds.
I go get a job. So year two, you went again.
Mel: Yeah. See I didn’t – like I feel like you can’t judge – I just – I don’t know where the mindset came from. Maybe I learnt it on a podcast or something like that.
But you can’t judge anyone on their first go at anything. Because your first quote unquote failure is your first attempt in learning. Right.
I don’t think – I don’t know many people that just rise to greatness in their first year. So that’s kind of how I really took it. Like the hit hurt but I’m like there was just a fight in me that was like I have to do this again and do it properly now with all the evidence that I learnt from the first year.
And I treated it like all those failures and losses in that first year. Surely the second year now I’m not going to make those same mistakes again. And I didn’t, you know.
There was a huge amount of learnings that I took from it and we built a second show and we changed venues and we went to the Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre.
Nathan: Small venue, yeah. We just found the world’s biggest venue.
Mel: And I was like I’m going to do it there because of location and we’re growing. And, you know, like the convention centre was able to actually get me bigger brands like AS Colour, Superdry. Because then they started going oh well if she’s at the convention centre. So there was an element of like attraction marketing there. Because if we were to do it just in like a Collingwood venue space.
Nathan: No offence.
Mel: You know it. We’re in Collingwood right now, that’s why I’m saying that. But I don’t think these bigger partners like Red Bull and whatnot within our niche would have really took us seriously because when we said convention centre they were like they must be sort of at least serious.
And we did learn a lot. It was a great event. The second year a lot of our community came back and it grew.
We had more traffic numbers coming through and more exhibitors willing to invest because there was proof of concept from the first year. Did we lose money again? Yes.
Nathan: But less.
Mel: Yes. So we lost $53,000 in our second year of business.
Nathan: But there were other things.
Mel: But to me I was like that’s $130,000 win.
Nathan: Killed it.
Mel: Nailed it.
Nathan: But your name was out there right?
Mel: Yes.
Nathan: So you were now getting other opportunities coming up. You were running events for other people.
Mel: Correct.
Yeah. So as a byproduct of that MCO events started getting corporate clients in. We started getting recognised for our shows.
It’s where even now our portfolio we have a tattoo expo. We have a car show. We have a lot of large-scale sort of events.
And so the Mel Yu brand was kind of getting built just from seeing me do Ego, this streetwear expo that we were creating.
Nathan: When did you start to tap into that Mel Yu personal branding piece? When did you recognise that that’s something that you were working on or that you should be working on?
Mel: So I didn’t recognise that personal brand was even a thing. Like showing up on social media and building a reputation or a name for yourself. I didn’t actually have the conscious awareness as I was building it.
Now with hindsight I’ve been building my personal brand for over 10 years. And I say that because I have been featured in articles, write-ups and showing up online consistently for the last 10 years. But now this word personal brand sort of as we enter 2024 has I find really become a buzzword.
And everyone’s talking about personal brand, personal brand, personal brand. But it’s like what is that? And so when we look at company brands we look at a company brand’s identity, a vision, a mission, values.
All of that makes up a company brand. We are actually doing the same now with personal brands. Meaning that individuals like myself and you are also a brand that can be marketed and that can be a money-driving machine.
And for me I think now I look back and go oh my gosh, “I have been building a personal brand to somewhat of a success. I’ve got runs on the board.” And now I feel like as part of that I’m fascinated by teaching other people that as well.
And so that I think comes with I have a honours degree in psychology. So like took a completely different path. But like academically-wise I have like psychology degrees that back the understanding of relationships and human beings and how we interact.
Which I think plays a huge favour into my events company. Because events is all about community. It’s about in real life. It’s about creating moments. And it’s about finding like-minded individuals and congregating together in an event space. And so I think the Mel Yu brand has been building for the last 10 years as I’ve mentioned.
But really consciously and intentionally post-COVID.
Nathan: And I want to touch on it and we’ll go into detail around I mean what people can do and how they can get started in this space. And you know some tips and things that you work on with people that you coach. That branding piece from when we’ve spoken in the past I think accelerated when you had to pivot during COVID.
I think we’re both in the same boat where my business is purely reliant on people needing staff. And when you have lockdowns people weren’t hiring right. So it was a very tough time to be in business.
And I had a lot of friends in the event space. Obviously I run events as well. So we couldn’t run any of our Greek nights during that time as well.
Again it’s probably another period where most people would throw in the towel. But you didn’t. You pivoted.
What did you do during COVID? How did you adapt?
Mel: So COVID happened March 2024, 20th. We had to close up shop as with everyone else. And for me at the time the business was structured around in-person events only.
There was no such thing as Zoom. We weren’t familiar with it. We didn’t know Teams.
We didn’t know Google Meet. We didn’t have virtual events. They were not popular.
And so I was still doing meetings from 2017 to 2020. And so I was still doing meetings from 2017 to 2020. And so I was still doing meetings from 2020 to 2020.
I was having a coffee with them or driving to their office space in a physical thing and shaking their hand. And so when COVID hit we lost 100% of our clientele. It was the scariest thing that had ever happened.
And then during that time I think a lot of people went through revelations. But I then broke up with my partner. I had just turned 30.
And because me and my partner split., I moved back home. And so this was like a really difficult midlife crisis which was how I felt. I felt like I turned 30, moved back home, hadn’t lived at home since I was 18.
Nathan: How good is home cooked food though?
Mel: Well, yeah. And I’m blessed to even have a family home to go back to. And I really acknowledge that as well.
But I really felt like a huge failure. And during that time, for some reason, even though I felt like a huge failure, I feel like I just have this fighter’s mentality where I’m like this can’t be how my story ends or this can’t be how the chapter closes.
Nathan: Did you think it was over though?
Mel: There was a time where it felt just like I don’t know what the next play is.
Nathan: Absolutely. Because you look at it and you’re like I’ve got X amount left in the bank. That gives us six months.
If it doesn’t open up again in six months, we’re screwed.
Mel: And mine was way less.
Nathan: Yeah.
Mel: It was way less. Because everyone cancelled their contracts. And so no one was, if anything, I was about to owe people money because we had spent their money on marketing or something like that.
So it was a really tough time. And it started off with podcasting. So I started a podcast during COVID.
So many podcasts begun during those times.
Nathan: I’m real late to the party, huh?
Mel: Yeah. And so I started just sharing a part of my journey on this podcast. But then with the events side of things, we did start creating virtual events.
And we created what I believe to be just purely events, four-week events that took people from a Monday, every Monday for four weeks we took them on a journey of personal development. And everyone was needing mental health stuff at the time. I’m quite experienced in speaking about mental health and lived experience.
So I took my psychology background and created these personal development events. And after these four weeks online, my clients or people that attended these events were like, how else can we work with you? How else can we continue this relationship?
Which was where I really pivoted the personal branding side because I started coaching and consulting. And I was like, oh, I guess the next natural step is if we want to work one-on-one. Like never saw myself as a life coach.
Don’t really still call myself that. But people just wanted access or proximity because they liked the way that I could problem-solve for them or give them another solution to where they were at. And so I started one-on-one coaching, whatever that may be.
Nathan: So tell me about that first client. Was it like, how do I price this? What does it look like?
Mel: Straight away, 100%.
Nathan: You make stuff up as you go in business, right?
Mel: Absolutely did. So I went and got a coach. I just saw a coach on Instagram, Tim Spears.
Big shout out to him. He’s not even coaching anymore. But I was like, hey, I’m going to start doing what you do.
I need to buy some sessions and learn. So I think tapping into a mentor or someone that’s already doing what you’re doing is a great way to fast track where you need to go. So he initially helped me at least get the templates right.
So a coaching agreement, just what I would – you eventually will pick up your own way of coaching. But I was like, I have no idea what I’m going to do. And so he kind of gave me a loose template or framework that worked for him.
That gave me enough time to feel safe. I asked him, how do I price myself? He’s like, your first few clients, let’s just try and get some runs on the board.
So let’s just charge something that you would be happy with. And I just said $97. I would be happy.
Nathan: Like a month?
Mel: I said, shit. I was like, it was still during COVID, all right? And I was like, $97 an hour. That would be amazing for me.
I’d be so excited at $97 an hour, which, by the way, is probably, you know, more than what a nine-to-five would get. Absolutely. $40 or $30-odd an hour.
And so I was like, I’d be stoked very quickly. So I did charge that and just way too many people bought at that price.
Nathan: That’s how you know.
Mel: And that’s probably how I knew. And then I started speaking to other coaches and I realized I was severely under market, under the market rate. But I think you’ve got to do that first.
I think you’ve got to test it. And if it’s something that you’re okay with at a price point, get the five clients in, get the 10 clients in, and eventually move your way up to what you feel.
Nathan: You get to practice as well, right?
Mel: Yeah, and get the testimonials and also get the confidence. So exactly when I first started, I needed all the help. But then as I started getting more and more clients, you start seeing patterns.
You start seeing – like you understand people more. You know how to troubleshoot. You create your own frameworks.
And then the price goes up as the value of your product goes up. And, yeah, so now I’ve 5X’d that over the last three years. I’m now at $500 an hour.
And that feels good for now.
Nathan: I’m nervous. I’m going to get an invoice for this now.
Mel: Yeah, by the way.
Nathan: Discount me. Yeah, beautiful. And then I’ve – I mean back to the personal branding piece, has a lot of that work now shifted, you know, from coaching into helping people with their personal brands?
Mel: Yeah. So I found a lot of my clients that were coming to coaching was also wanting to elevate their online or digital experience or their customers. They needed more leads in their business.
They wanted to show up more online. They wanted to build their own personal brand. So it’s naturally just moved towards that because I find a lot of people really want help with it.
They don’t know how to show up online. They don’t know how to post consistently. They get – like they struggle with copywriting or even the videos to make, that idea generation phase.
It can be awkward when you first start talking about yourself or showing up online if you have never been on video. And so we really guide and train and coach them to do that. But we’re also like – my personality is I become them.
Like I really am good. My level of empathy is that I really know how to walk in a client’s shoes and start speaking the way they do, adopting their values and then helping them come out that way. So they do feel incredibly supported.
Nathan: What – because obviously we – there’s been, and you’ve spoken about this before, right, there’s been changes over time. Obviously up until the last, call it five years, it’s been those big brands that people buy into. Nike.
Mel: Apple. Amazon.
Nathan: Yeah, absolutely, right. And then obviously there’s been this big shift and I’ve seen it – like I was even – I was thinking about it this morning from a PR standpoint, even with like say Mark Zuckerberg, right?
Like he’s now somehow become this like lovable billionaire and they’ve sort of spun the narrative there and he’s perceived differently now. But there’s a big push like we were saying – I think we were talking about this the other day when if I say acquisition.com, people are like, oh, what’s that? But then if you say Alex Samozy, people are like, oh.
So like talk to me about that shift. Like why has that taken place?
Mel: So this is – if you are observant with history and looking at how we market and do business, right, the first – Tai Lopez says this, so I’m paraphrasing his kind of framework, but the way he says it, it really lands for me. So there’s this thing called the first wave and the first wave was how in the 1800s when it was about government bodies, I’m talking way back when when it’s kings, queens, empires, that’s how wealth was created and it was really much government bodies and then just like the mere people. And then the second wave came along, which was from the 1900s.
I’d say the second wave came all the way through to 2020. So just pre-COVID was the rise of the corporation, rise of the companies. You started seeing a lot of oil, fuel, people doing business with these big entities, your big airlines, your big phone companies.
Everyone started seeing billboards and things being marketed to like that. And then after 2020 – I reckon it came after 2020 and we’re going to see this third wave for the next 100%, at least the next 10 years. I then don’t know because AI and everything is coming in.
But for the time being, the next 10 to 20 years or so is the rise of the individual. It is the rise of the influencer. And I don’t mean the influencer as in on social media with the amount of followers.
I mean a person of influence. We have been shown ads and marketed to so much that now you find that we actually are deterring and repelling from those big billboards, those big ads because we want to look – and the way we’re consuming content is things through the phone. The content that lands the most right now is your behind-the-scenes content because we want to see the journey, the story, the rise of the underdog, how you got to where you got to.
That is now what’s changing. And the people that really build a personal brand in the next 10 years, they will accumulate majority of the wealth. The wealth is 100% heading to that independent.
Just before this when we were offline, we were talking about Adrian Portelli. Adrian Portelli is a great example of a personal brand that has just completely taken over, at least in the Australian market. He’s just become one of the top 25, I think it is, billionaires at the age of 28.
That is you can love him or hate him.
Nathan: I don’t think anybody hates him though.
Mel: Well, yeah, I’m not sure. But you can love him or hate him but you still have to respect and be like, that’s a pretty crazy achievement considering the guy came from nothing. But he built an incredible personal brand that he’s just really let people in on the inside of how he’s built these companies and businesses and his persona has become raffling houses.
He bought the block, things like that. But the thing that he’s actually done really well is he’s not afraid to document it.
Mel: That, putting a McLaren in a penthouse was a PR stunt that did the job. Every single person was talking about it.
Nathan: Good, what, $4 million investment that he paid off.
Mel: Yeah, and he let everyone know about it because that was newsworthy. Even if you look at on a global scale, the Kardashians, they let you in on their businesses and in return, Kylie Cosmetics and Skims and all their brands do incredibly well, but it’s backed off their personal brands.
Nathan: So, I mean, if people are early on in their business journey or just starting out, the behind the scenes info and inspiration, people love, like you said, backing the underdog, right? So, if you’re just starting out in business, walk me through what that looks like. How do you document it?
How do you come up with concepts, ideas? Because I think people freak out with content. They’re like, oh, I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do, and they end up not doing anything, right?
So, if you’re starting out, someone’s listening and they’re like, okay, I’m thinking of running this business, what would you recommend?
Mel: How do they go about it? So, the number one thing I think now if you are starting a business is build your company business or your business brand and your personal brand simultaneously. It shouldn’t require any additional effort if you do it in an authentic way that is going to be sustainable for you.
Okay, so I’m starting a, let’s just say, t-shirt brand because you’re wearing a t-shirt today, and it’s a great business to start, by the way, an e-commerce brand. I feel like a t-shirt business really helps you understand the intricacies of a business. But you build that t-shirt brand and at the same time, you build the naif brand that’s building that, okay?
And so, you can just document it because if you document rather than being an expert, you’re not actually being a fraud. You won’t have imposter syndrome because all you’re showing is like, hey guys, I’m going to take you on this journey. I don’t know what it’s going to look like.
It’s probably going to get pretty messy, but I’m going to bring you on that and let’s just see where it goes. That to me is so much more aligned because I’m not trying to be anything that I’m not. I’m not jumping on camera and doing a direct talking head video about the three things that I recommend you to do on building a t-shirt brand because you haven’t done it yet.
So, don’t tell people online or don’t share things that aren’t from a place of truth. If you talk from a place of lived experience, people get that. People see it.
People feel it and they’re along the ride with you. And whether you succeed or not, you’re taking them on that journey and they’re going to become more and more immersed in sort of you building that. And so, when I say document it, document like the grind, searching up online the Alibaba samples.
Document when the sample comes and just letting people in on that insight. Watch how social media is amazing because it’s a free platform for one, but people become actually invested in it. They talk and share about it.
Someone else might DM and give you another insight or a contact. People are always watching and seeing. And so, you don’t even know where that next contact or network is.
But if you don’t show up and tell people what you’re up to, we can’t even help you because we just weren’t aware.
Nathan: It’s scary, right? But I think once you start, it’s like everything. It’s not as scary once you actually start doing it.
It’s not that scary.
Mel: It’s scary because you’ve never done it before. You’re shit at it because you’ve never done it before. And so, when I first started the podcast, I just in my head was like the first 10 episodes are going to be crap.
Like I had to like be okay with that. And I listened to the first 10 episodes and they’re crap.
Nathan: Well, this is episode three.
Mel: Great. No, well, you’re off to a great start because you’ve got all the bells and whistles, you know. You’ve got an amazing content team behind you.
This is a beautiful studio space.
Nathan: We went with the premium option.
Mel: You really did.
Nathan: Premium package.
Mel: My podcast, I started with a milk crate and a laptop and me sitting on the floor in my bedroom. But both work. I think you just meet people where you’re at.
Nathan: I think you learn lessons along the way, right? Like, you know, obviously at the start you need to be very careful with your money, right? Like from my perspective, you know, I didn’t pay myself a salary.
I was very conservative, did things manually. Then you get to a certain point and you’re like, okay, this is how much I value my time, right? This is what I can make in an hourly rate.
I’m better off outsourcing this than trying to work out how to edit videos. It’ll take me 10 hours and then I’m not actually working on the things that bring me money.
Mel: But you’re also doing your zone of genius now, but you also get to, you’ve done sort of the grind, I’m sure, because we’re here now kind of with a level of self awareness and going, hey, this is what I’m really good at and I’m going to delegate the editing of the podcast to someone that’s really good at that.
Nathan: Absolutely. Take me back, we’ll talk, I just wanted to touch on something. I guess when we met through Cub, obviously connected, added you on Instagram and I think two weeks later, I think that was when Ego Expo, you decided to not run again and close the doors.
Mel: For now.
Nathan: For now, we’re revamping FYI. This is the little hidden, this is the little pre-launch.
Mel: That’s the fighter in me, right?
Nathan: I love it, right? Your content is authentic, it’s you. That piece has stuck with me because you were vulnerable.
For those who haven’t seen it, can you walk us through that moment, that video and how important it is to be truly authentic when you’re building your personal brand?
Mel: Yeah. I’m going back to the, I’m like taking a breath because the emotions of that was actually quite difficult.
Nathan: And it was, yeah, I think it gave me courage as well to do this, you know, seeing people like yourself have those real moments of exposure and recording and putting it out there and be like, hey, like, not that it was a failure, right? But you’re like, it’s just, it’s not working.
Mel: Yeah, because I think social media, people, it’s a highlight reel. We call it that because people, you can show people what you want to show them. So if you want to show them the Lamborghinis and the watches and the private dinners, that’s what people are going to see.
And that’s amazing because it can, whatnot, I don’t know, people say it motivates people, inspires people, great. I also think that there’s a level of like, hey, it’s not all as it seems because I had just backed off and finished a two-day expo and I was sitting in a rented van because we had hired all of them, like, you know, trestle tables and things for events. But I rent a van off Uber car and I was sitting there in an empty van on the Monday and I was just going through, I had already gone through so much turmoil and emotions during the event.
During the event, it’s game time for me. So I, there’s a level of, I do have to have a poker face because I have to lead. I’m open, I’m operational, I have 60 brands that need my attention and customers and staff, everyone depends on me as the show owner.
So I did have to have a brave face. But in that video, I also talk about the Saturday night after day one, I went home and just fetal position cried in my partner’s arms who held me and I said, I can’t go back tomorrow. We’re in the middle of a full-blown expo and I’m so done.
I am exhausted. I’m tired. I already know that this is the last ego as we know it and I just don’t know how else to do it.
Lo and behold, I think we are so capable of hard things. When resilience asks you to show up, you meet it in whatever point in life you do go through. Then on the Monday, I whipped out the camera and it was just a hit record and I just kind of almost documented it as like a dear diary for myself because I felt like all of these emotions that were coming up needed a place to go and emotion is energy in motion.
So no matter how you are feeling, that emotion has to move through you for you to be able to process things. There’s no point bottling up all this anguish and emotion and fear or whatever it is that you have if you actually just speak out loud and just say your truth. There’s a release in that.
Your emotion literally moves through you and then at the end, you’re like, I feel a lot better now. I cried in that video. There was a moment of real tears there because it was really hard and then I kind of uploaded it and shared it and it was one of my-
Nathan: Did you second guess when you’re like, I’m going to post this or?
Mel: Not really because I think for me, I’ve always been someone that’s like, it’s easier for people to know my truth than to be someone I’m not. I’ve done it multiple times. I’m a very wear-my-heart-on-my-sleeve type of girl, which some people it’s not for 100%.
People have an opinion on it their way. But I think when I know my intention, I know my truth and I know that it’s like this is going to hopefully help someone and it did. It helped a huge amount of people that were feeling the same way when they had to lose their business or grieve a loss of a business that didn’t work out.
I think we all go through those emotions, but I’ve been gifted with the ability to articulate how I’m feeling and to also be able to let go of the fear and show up online. I feel like that it would be a shame if I didn’t utilize that gift and share my message because some people write back and go, I don’t have the words but you gave me the words or I didn’t have the courage and I did watch this video and found the courage to show up. That doesn’t have an ROI.
That’s just like, that feels right.
Nathan: And I think you go through, I mean, I’m guessing this was the same with your journey, right? But a lot of the success has come from saying yes to things, right? Like showing up to B&I meetings at six o’clock in the morning, going to events and just connecting with people, right?
But then it gets to a point in your journey where you also need to, I think it becomes more important to actually say no to stuff, right? Was that a big part of that moment for you? Was like, I have to let go of this because, you know, opportunity cost or…
Mel: A hundred percent. And it wasn’t that I didn’t try, right? Like I gave it a good hard swing.
We did Ego Expo for four years, four and a half years, five including COVID. And I think that there’s a part where when you’re first starting out and you’re hungry and you’re green in business and you don’t know much, a hundred percent you should say yes to as many opportunities as you can. You should take the risk and, you know, you never know who you’re going to meet.
And so that was very much me at the start of my business journey. It was like, yes, and I’ll figure out how later. Yes, I can do that for you and I’ll figure it out later.
And that got me my first few sort of clients. And now we’ve got a team of five, including me. And so things have changed because we’re managing a culture of five and still growing.
We’ve got different clients, we’ve got systems and procedures in place now, whereas before it was really just a one woman show. And like you said, yeah. And I was like, there was no SOP.
We kind of just did things and it felt right. But as you mature and as you get a bit more seasoned in the business, you definitely need to consider where your time is best put. And just like what you just said then about the podcasting, I think when you realize what your strengths are, you double down on your strengths and you delegate the things that are just time poor or that don’t convert into sort of the best value for your time.
Because at the end of the day, all we have is time and we don’t get any of it back. It’s the currency that we can always make more money, but we’re all so conscious of never getting the time back. So the most wealthiest people I know, even through mentorship with Club of United Business, we’re all just seeking time freedom.
We’re all seeking how can we best leverage the time that we have left on earth and what can we do with that?
Nathan: Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
One thing that I’m interested to know, right, because the, I had a question the other day and someone’s like, oh, you know, like I want to pick your brain. Like how did you do it? How did you make it?
You know, like, and listen to the leap. Yeah. Yeah.
Inspiration. But like you never, I mean, I don’t know. Do you look back where you are now?
And are you proud? Are you surprised where you are today?
Mel: I’m still on that journey. I think we all are. Right.
Nathan: So did you expect yourself to be here at this point with five staff having run these successful businesses?
Mel: I want to say yes, but I still feel like I’m behind. I don’t know if entrepreneurs ever feel like yes, everything’s just amazing. I do still feel like because I’ve got big visions and big dreams.
So I’m not there yet, but I’m always grateful. So yes, I like always look back and there’s a time in my life where Mel two years ago would be just flabbergasted that I’m here now having this conversation with you. And so I’m always cheering for little inner child me because yeah, she’s super proud.
Nathan: I’ve, I always feel like I feel now the bigger we get the higher our expenses are and our breakeven points. I still shit myself like every single week, every single month. I’m like, Oh my God, that number’s big.
Right now. I know the behaviors. I know what needs to happen to generate the business, what levers to pull, but I still get scared and there’s more responsibility now.
Right. Do you still, do you feel like that? Do you still get scared?
Like, do you still worry?
Mel: Thank you for sharing that because that humanizes you and then makes me feel like, Oh my God, I’m not the, you know, I’m not the only one that’s shitting bricks every day when we have to lead. Because yeah, I think the moment that I had the girls like employees, my responsibility just like everything shifted. Cause I’m like, there are people’s livelihoods that depend on me.
Yeah. I’m like, when did I have so much responsibility? But it also meant that when you go from solopreneur to an actual business, yeah.
Like you, like you mentioned, I don’t have to draw a wage. I can live off, you know, sort of bare minimum or like be okay with not having a director’s wage. My staff can’t, like, and this is their income.
And so a hundred percent. And I think the, as we grow, the more responsibility we have. And so being a number one in business is incredibly hard.
Like it is so hard. Business is one of the hardest things and we are psychopaths for choosing this line of work. It’s like lighting yourself up on fire willingly, willingly every single day.
And so yeah, from business owner to business owner, I’m like respect.
Nathan: Yeah. And you know, it’s, it’s this misconception as well that like if you ask people and you try and you dig a little bit deeper, you’re like, Oh, you know, why, why do you want to be a business owner? They say, you know, Oh, cause I, you know, you can take leave whenever you want.
You know, you get freedom and flexibility. That’s bullshit. Like I haven’t had a sick day in two years.
Yeah.
Mel: Well, what are you going to do? Pay yourself sick leave?
Nathan: Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like I think people go into it with the wrong intention and they don’t understand that, you know, it’s a, it’s a grind at the start. You need to plan, you need to have savings.
You need to be conservative. You need to eat shit. You need to move back home potentially.
Like you need to, to, you really, you need to sacrifice everything. A to start, but then you have to, you know, you have to give up those things. You don’t, you don’t, you don’t get those days off in the holidays.
Mel: But also with the a hundred percent potential risk that it might not even work out. There’s no guarantee at the end of running a business. Yeah.
You really have to have a shit ton of self-awareness and resilience and grit and tenacity because it is hard to make it sustainable and profitable.
Nathan: Yeah, absolutely. Tell me, like, I’m interested talking about, I guess the, the fears and the struggles that we have right now. Give me an example.
Like what’s something that kept you up at night most recently?
Mel: I do stay awake at night for wondering when my next lead is. I think when things are flowing and it’s good, it’s good. And I’m like, yeah, let’s go to Nobu for dinner and all this sort of stuff.
Nathan: Is that Sunday night?
Mel: Yeah, exactly. You know my life too well. This is the thing about personal brand.
I was at Nobu on Sunday night. Woe is me. But then like we inevitably have a season, we have a winter coming physically, but for us, you know,
Nathan: Game of Thrones
Mel: Yeah. Winter is coming, but you know nothing. But yeah, we’ve got winter coming and we don’t have a big client portfolio. I’m gonna be really wrong to be here. We’re shooting this in the end of April.
Our next conference is in August. And then yes, it gets busy because it’s summer, August, September, October, November. But when people, I get a lot of pressure from people always asking, Mel, what’s your next event?
What’s your next big thing? And I cringe at it sometimes because I’m like, I didn’t actually have a client until August. That’s three months.
I know that something will come in this quarter inevitably. We do branding, I do coaching, I have a Sydney event. There are things, but in terms of a big client project, three months is a really long time.
And that’s where we talk about that runway. Can you hold the dips? Can you hold your income dips?
Because when good times come, are you deserving? Can you hold that as well? And so, I’m still playing around with these seasons because I’ve been here before.
I’ve been here where I don’t know where my next lead is, but it never makes it any easier.
Nathan: 100%. I think it’s knowing what levers to pull or what actions to take and it’s the behaviours, right? So, I look at what we do.
Yeah, we have, you know, we’re a permanent recruitment company, which basically means it’s just full-time people. They come to us when they’re a full-time staff member, right? But there’s no recurring revenue, there’s no consistency.
So, again, it’s really, really similar, right? But I know that when it’s quiet, the levers to pull, you touch base with all your existing clients, you see how things are going, you know, and you do those activities, like you network, you get out there, you do all those sorts of things. Is that like, what does it look like for you?
Mel: 100%. And I think I use the time to go, well, what are the things that we’ve desperately needed to catch up on? Because when it’s event season, we’re such operators, we’re just at a convention centre from, you know, 6am to 9pm at night and we’re not doing any of our admin. We then do zero, like, lead gen for our business because things are busy.
So now, using the next sort of three months, it is about getting those systems in order, getting our own marketing out there. There’s always time to sort of, like, go out there and create more opportunities. Yeah.
Nathan: I want to know if you could have your time again, right? And the aim of this game is to get to where you are within, this is hard because we had COVID, right? But to get to where you are within two years, is it possible?
What would you do differently if you had to get there in two years?
Mel: Absolutely, it’s possible. I feel like I haven’t been nearly as aggressive in, like, my own outbound sales, like lead generation and stuff. We’ve been very fortunate in terms of, like, people inquiring or word of mouth.
I think I could go harder on, like, telling people about my services and sharing my services with people so that people know that they can buy from me and what they can buy from me. Building the team-wise, again, I think it’s been a, I’ve felt the need to then hire because the workload was getting too much and then that was my acquisition. If I was to do it again though, I have four, and I love them, they’re the best, amazing.
But from a business owner perspective, I have four operators, I would hire a sales person. And I think when you first start out, you’re like, I’ve got just so much client work, you need someone in operations to deliver the work, client delivery stuff. But in fact, I would now go and look for a BDM or a sales because they’re the lifeblood of your work.
Nathan: That’s why I brought you on today because that’s what we’re going to talk about here, hiring this person for you. But it’s interesting, right? Because I think at the end of the day, you can be incredibly gifted at running events or, you know, incredibly, whatever it is, right?
Incredibly gifted at finance or whatever, but if you can’t, if people don’t buy from you, you don’t have a business, right? So I always say, like, the most important skill is the ability to sell, right? And it’s just, there’s different ways to do it.
It’s whatever comes naturally to you, but I think you’ve got to, you know, obviously put yourself out there, you know, make calls, reach out to people. And I think, yeah, that’s sort of the most important thing, but really, really interesting. So basically, if you had your time again, it would be just, you know, more aggressive with, you know.
Mel: And sales, because we’d probably grow a lot more rapidly, like within the two years.
Nathan: So I’m guessing that’s what you’re going to do.
Nathan: Now, I want to finish off with some rapid fire questions. This is a new section.
Mel: You’ve only done three episodes.
Nathan: Yeah, and we haven’t done it yet. So this is the first time we’re doing this.
Mel: So you’re saying we do this at the end of every show, every episode?
Nathan: Well, we do a section at the end. This is a new…
We’re still testing.
Just run with it. The first 10 episodes don’t count, apparently.
So, early riser or late, or what do you call it?
Mel: Late owl
Nathan: Night owl
Mel: That one. I’m a night owl for sure, but also an early riser. So I’m a bit of both.
But I find the most… am I meant to just answer one word?
Nathan: No, you can elaborate.
Mel: Do I elaborate on my answers?
Nathan: I think you’ve changed recently, right? Have you been pushing to be an early bird?
Mel: Yeah, I have. Well, I was late to this podcast. Night owl though, because I find the hours between nine to five, I’m normally like, life is crazy. I’m in meetings.
My phone doesn’t stop ringing. Everything’s just crazy. It’s that evening where I know no one’s working, or no one’s bothering me, and I can really catch up and get stuff done.
It’s where my mind just happens to have the most clarity. So I deliver the best proposals during those evenings of sort of like silence and the world’s quiet. And I’m just, yeah, executing.
Nathan: What book has had the biggest impact on your life?
Mel: Atomic Habits, James Clear. I love the idea of like habit stacking. It’s what I’ve kind of just like I started doing since I read his book.
I found it really palatable and easy to sort of understand. And then another one would be, what is it?
Nathan: You only get one, I’m sorry. I’m joking, I’m joking. What’s the other one?
Mel: Is it The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari? Robin Sharma. Yeah, that’s another one that again, just like, we don’t need much in life. We’ve got everything that we need. I love that.
Nathan: Favourite podcast?
Mel: This one.
Nathan: After this one, obviously, for great answer.
Mel: Of course.
Nathan: And here’s your $500.
Mel: Plus GST.
Nathan: Oh, Jesus.
Mel: I am loving both the Hermoses. I listened to The Game by Alex, and I listened to Build with Leila.
Nathan: I haven’t heard Leila’s one.
Mel: Yeah, it’s actually incredible. She’s a boss.
Nathan: Be it true or say be it.
Mel: Yeah, she’s just, I love her way and approach of business. So she’s very, very similar to her in the sense that I really care about people and culture. And I think she, again, her values are all about how do we build teams?
How do we talk to people? How do we treat people with respect? And I have found that that you get a lot more, you get away with a lot more with honey.
That’s kind of how I felt. And I’ve had some really aggressive, macho sort of like dominant male figures in my life that have done business quite aggressively. And I’ve just found that for me, it’s worked way better. Just being softer.
Nathan: Yeah, I’ll have to listen to that. Have they done an episode together?
Mel: Yeah, heaps.
Nathan: Have they?
Mel: Yep. I think so. I’ll link you to something.
Nathan: All right, cool.
And last question, if you could trade places with any entrepreneur for a week, who would it be and why?
Mel: Ooh, I’m gonna come up with a different answer.
Nathan: I want that first answer now.
Mel: No, I was gonna say either Alex or Layla, just because they’re just popping off right now, right? They’re so relevant right now. But I’d have to go back to, I reckon Gary Vaynerchuk, purely because I would love to see how he actually maximizes those 24 hours that he has.
Because he seems out of everyone, like an OG entrepreneur, like it’s Gary V. Like he’s just, I don’t even know what he does in terms of his day. But it seems like it’s just like on point.
And I’d love to be a fly on the wall and also hang out with like D Rock, because he’s cool too. Which is his videographer.
Nathan: I love it. But you know what, he was the first one that I ever heard talk about it. It’s like just when you go home, record yourself. Just tell people what you do.
Mel: Yeah. And he’s like, if he looks like crap, if he’s at the airport, he’s just like, flip your phone and then just start videoing. And it really is kind of that simple.
I know it’s like, well, but it’s just so basic.
Nathan: I love it. Any last sort of thoughts or advice that you can, you know, give to people that you’ve learned throughout your journey that you want to sort of share?
Mel: I think be kind. At the most basic of things, like, let’s all just have a little bit more compassion for everyone. If we could understand that everyone’s going through a battle or something that we just don’t know, we can never have full context of someone, no matter how, even your partner or like your kids or someone that you’re most close and intimate with, you still do not have full context of how they experience life.
And so if we led with just a little bit more compassion and kindness, I think this world would be a really, really amazing place.
Nathan: That’s really passionate. That’s yeah. That’s, I love that.
Thanks so much. Well, thanks for coming on.
Mel: Thank you.
Nathan: Appreciate it.
And yeah, look forward to seeing each other next week. Come again.
Mel: Awesome. Thanks for having me.
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