Scaling Offers Sustainably with Melissa Lin | 77
Are you thinking about taking your business to the next level but aren’t sure how to scale? Or maybe you’ve tried to scale but it left you feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and burnt out?
In this week’s episode of Market, Scale, Grow business coach Melissa Lin and I talk all about scaling your offers in a sustainable way to increase your income without burning yourself out along the way.
Join us as we chat about…
how to know you’re ready to scale and what you need to have in place
the mindset shifts you may need to make as you begin to scale
the behind-the-scenes of how she has scaled her own coaching business
some practical examples of how you could take your business from 1:1 to 1:many
Meet Melissa
Melissa Lin is a previously successful chemical engineer turned multiple six-figure business coach and business owner. Over the course of 2.5 years, she was trying to DIY her online business and it went nowhere. She was barely making $1k most months until she decided to push past her fears and take real action. After figuring out powerful strategies and shifting her mindset, she went from barely making it to fully thriving in it. Now she helps other women do the same with their businesses!
Connect with Melissa:
Check Out Melissa’s Free Workshop 4 Steps to Starting a Successful Coaching Business
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REVIEW the podcast!
Thanks for listening to this week’s Inspiring Story! If you would like to share your story on the podcast head to www.marketscalegrow.com/journey to apply today. We would love for you to join us and can’t wait to hear about your journey as a teacher business owner.
If you’re looking for support running your ads, I would love to help you. Whether you’re looking for a 1:1 strategy session, to build your email list or full ads management it is my mission to empower ambitious teacherpreneurs just like you! Let’s unleash your limitless potential, turn your dreams into reality and have an even bigger impact on the world!
Episode Transcript:
Jenzaia: Hey there, I'm Jenzaia and this is market scale growth.
A podcast created for ambitious teacherpreneurs looking to have a bigger impact on the world.
Achieve freedom, flexibility, and ultimately make more. With weekly strategy sessions and inspiring stories from fellow teachers, just like you. My goal here is to help you create a customized marketing strategy so you can grow your teacher business beyond your wildest dreams.
Okay. So before we hop into the episode, I just want to remind you to download my free guide to Facebook targeting audiences. It has been created specifically for teacher business owners, and I go through the warm lookalike and cold interest based audiences that you need to have set up to be running Facebook and Instagram ads.
There are checklists and brainstorming pages so that, you know, you have everything, but as an exciting special, I'm opening up some audience audit calls where you can hop onto a 15 minute zoom call with me and you'll get my eyes on your audiences so that you can make sure not only you have all the audiences, but they truly are.
Perfect for your business. So head to marketscalegrow.com/audienceaudit to book your free audience audit call today. Okay. Now into the episode,
Welcome to market scale growth. I'm your host Jenzaia, and this is an exciting episode. I am chatting with Melissa Lin, who is an amazing business coach and inspiration.
She previously was a successful chemical engineer, turned multiple six-figure business coach and business owner over the course of two and a half years while she was trying to DIY her online business. She was barely making $1,000 most months until she decided that she needed to push past her fears and take some real action after figuring out powerful strategies and shifting her mindset, she went from barely making it to fully thriving in it.
Now she helps other women do the same with their businesses and yes, totally. Today, we chat all about taking your business from a one-to-one model, whether it's with courses or with services and how to scale and have some big, big impact. She gives some really great information, not only on the practical side, but also on the mindset side of growing your business.
So without further ado, let's jump into the interview.
Hi, Melissa. Welcome to market scale growth. How are you doing today?
Melissa Lin: Hi, I am so great. I'm so excited to be chatting here with you first. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. We're going to be getting into some juicy stuff today. I am super excited about this chat.
Jenzaia: Can you start off by giving my audience just a bit of a picture of who you are? A little bit of your story?
Melissa: Yes, for sure. So if you have not been introduced to me before. My name is Melissa Lin. I am a business coach and I have kind of an interesting story, not the norm. So I actually was a chemical engineer a while ago.
So I'm going to go back to the time when I was first born, go into that phase, my life and how he got to be a seven figure business coach. So I started. I'm half Chinese. And so I grew up with a very traditional path kind of handed to me. Um, and this is something that I shared with everybody and it's just so crazy and so well, but so true, like growing up.
So my grandparents they're from Hong Kong and they spoke no English when they were over here, even until they passed, like barely anything. However, two of the words that you didn't know. Doctor and husband. And like, that was my path for me to be successful. And so they pushed me, they pushed me, they pushed me and same with my parents.
Like they just wanted the best for me. And that in their head was what success looks like. They had never been introduced to entrepreneurship. So of course it was, that's what they pushed me to. And I think most of us. Related to that, go to college, get a degree, get a nice job. You'll be happy. You'll be successful.
And I think a lot of us entrepreneurs know it's not necessarily the case. So anyways, I went to high school, tried to go down the doctor path, but junior year in high school, something happened. We had to like to pick ourselves up, take blood and pick items. It was a hot mess. I ended up passing out. With the sight of blood, I figured.
Okay. I don't think I should be a doctor. I don't think it's going to be a good route for me. So my parents settled for chemical engineering. Right. Love them so much. But, um, I was just always great in math and science has had such a strong background in both, um, huge math nerd. I actually started going to community college for math when I was 11.
This toured in college tutoring, college kids at 12, like super, super big nerd over here. Um, but I'd love to have had so much fun with it. Password went to college, got a degree, got a fancy job. And what ended up happening was I was working like all week long, 12 hour days working weekends on call 24 7.
I was one of the only engineers at the factory that I worked at. Um, so I was relying heavily on one week of vacation and I. I rarely ever used it. And I think every year I cash my vacation out because I was too afraid to use it, because that was kind of the norm that I think a lot of us here, at least in the states feel like don't use your vacation kind of frowned upon.
So I had never traveled, never done anything. And I just kind of thought to myself, looking at my boss, being there when I left and my boss's boss being there and the CEO still being there. Like, okay. Well, I don't think this is going to get any better for me. Like, I can kind of see where I'm going and it's not where I want to be.
So I knew something had to change. And so this was back in like 2012, 2014, and I was really into health and fitness at the time I was doing bikini competitions, bodybuilding, and people started to reach out to me on Instagram because I was of course showing this other side of my life, engineering aside knew nothing about, it was like a secret life for me.
They knew nothing about it. And people were reaching out to me, asking if I could help them. So like ding, ding, ding, I have a solution for a problem. I can help others with something. So that's how I started my first business as a health and fitness coach back in 2014.
The scale that, and then fast forward, of course, people started asking me, how did I scale that business? And then I started to get into business coaching and then moved over full time to business coach and have been doing that for quite a few, four or five years now. And I just absolutely love it. So that's how I transitioned from chemical engineering to business coach.
Jenzaia: And that's the entrepreneurial brain right there of being able to see there's a problem. I have a solution and to move into it. And it also is a Testament to the pivot and how pivots have actually been extremely important in your journey and to like take your life in the direction where I assume now you're in a very much, a better position than you were before.
Much happier with more content.
Melissa: Much happier. It's so crazy because it's like love. I don't know if you saw her, um, come across though, but like, I just love that I can stay home and work from home and hang out with my cat all day long. Like that to me is freedom. Like, I love it so much. I also love that I'm going to pop down and see, my mom stayed away tonight.
So like the fact that I can do all of this without taking any vacation days, right. While still creating income is just absolutely beautiful. And the fact that it's available for anybody, right. You don't need a degree. You don't need to. Any like thing to check off, like you could just get started today.
Jenzaia: And that kind of leads us nicely into what we're talking about today and that's scaling offers in your business. And so taking your business from like a baby side hustle to something bigger.
Melissa: um, I think what I'll do is I'll share kind of my business journey and how that evolved over the years, just to kind of give your audience insight on how that scaling can really look and how it can happen, because I'm always thinking of the next level.
I'm always thinking ahead. I was actually helping one of my clients this week about this. She has a group program and I think she can only support like six or seven people eating around right now because it's very hands-on. It's really more of like a one-on-one slash group. It's a hybrid, I'll call it, but I asked her, okay, well, how can we support 30 in this group?
How can we support 50 in this group? How can we support 100, 200 with the great client experience and also that high transformation as well, because that's the goal to help more people create a bigger impact. You've got to be able to scale. And so I'll share how I started the scale. So my very first offer, um, we'll just chat about me as a business coach.
I started off as many do with one-on-one coaching. I think that's what most of us do. Or if you're a virtual assistant and you'll start with one-off clients or spur teens or clients. And I filled up with too many one-on-one clients, I think I have. Like 12 or 14 one-on-one clients at one time, which for me was overboard.
Like now I'll only support two or three private clients per year and everyone else's inside of mastermind or programs and things like that. Um, but it was very, very hands-on. And when you're only working with one-on-one clients, It makes it very, very difficult to scale. You kind of have an income cap unless you raise your prices continuously.
Um, but you're also on coaching calls all day long. And for some that's what they want to do. Like amazing. Good for you. That's not what I want to do. I want to be able to serve more people without spending 50 hours a week on coaching. Um, so started with that. And then I kind of had that bending at a momentary level.
Okay. How do I help more people? And so that's when I started my first group program and then also started a course. Now I have many courses and many, many courses and many bundles and tons of passive offers. Um, but then moving into group programs. And I think I was kind of stuck in that same experience that I shared about my client.
When I first launched my academy, like five years, four or five years ago, I could only support like eight women per round because it was so hands-on. I was in there all day long, supporting them. There were no support coaches. It was just me. And so that's my sort of ask myself that same question. Okay.
Like what is holding me back besides some mindset, of course, but like, what is holding me back from supporting 15 women in this container? 30 women, 50 women, like now we always have 50 plus women in that container because it's evergreen. People are always coming in weekly. Like how can I, and that's when we need to look into, okay, what needs to happen in order to really scale and that's making adjustments to how the program runs bringing help into it, supporting coaches, um, automating almost all of it.
So that it's very, hands-off for you as a business for you as the business owner. Um, and then of course, Growing with more group per group programs. I have a lot of thoughts about running right now. Um, so just adding more, but as you scale, you'd want to be really intentional about the customer journey.
So I have a very clear customer journey when somebody comes to work with me. Um, if you're starting as a business owner, Coach service-based business. They typically will go into my lower group program, which is very hands-off for me, it's highly supported through my support coaches. And then once they graduate, that will go into my six figure mastermind.
And then once they graduate, they'll move into a fierce scale. And then we of course have a fierce circle. And so we have this amazing customer journey. There's always something next for them. And that's how you can also scale because you're not just looking. For new clients month after month, you're also retaining your original clients who have been going up the ladder with you and learning how to continue and grow their business while staying with you for years, instead of going from coach to coach, to coach.
Um, okay. That was me just blabbing on and I could talk hours about this.
Jenzaia: No, there was so much good information there. I think one thing I just want to go back to is you started with one offer. And I think that sometimes we see these people who have these amazing businesses like you, and they have 3, 4, 5 public offers and then potentially three or four more behind the scenes that we don't even see.
And we're like, I want that. And so we tried to start all of these offers simultaneously, but what you said, you started with one and then you added another one and then you added another one that complimented each other, but it wasn't an overnight thing. It was a process that you went through. And so I think that that's really important to just remind people, is that. It is not overnight. It's time to do this.
Melissa: Yeah. And it, to be honest, I would say like each of my, especially my bigger group programs and masterminds, I would typically only start a new one every year. And so they're all evergreen now. So I have women help all throughout the year. But I typically only like to launch a new, create a new offer, I would say not necessarily launch, but create one per year.
So I had my academy running for a few years before I actually created the six-figure mastermind. I think that was like 20, 20. When I started the first round and then 2021, I started furiously scales. Like each year I will, that's when a new offer was added to the product suite. So yeah. It's as you said, like it takes time.
None of us, it was for nights, please. I'm trying to do that.
Jenzaia: It's so overwhelming. And like, people like you and like Amy Porterfield, we see these gigantic businesses and it's their face. Is your face on everything here? Like how Melissa does. But we forget, like I have a team that helps me. You have a team that helps you, right?
Like, so there's also that piece to factor in of like you have the team, you're building your team, you're building this, this process of like 1% better every day, a step in the right direction every
day. So.
Melissa: Yeah, it's, you're so much further ahead today than you were tomorrow. And that's something, I was just reminding some of my academy clients today, because especially in the beginning stages, just as you said, like you were comparing yourself to so many other people who've been doing this for years and years and years, and it's not expected to happen overnight and you don't want it to help an overnight.
You will burn out. You will burn out and you'll want to burn your business if you try to do that.
Jenzaia: Okay. So how can you really tell when it's time to scale? Like when you're hit in the cabin, what you're doing, you need that next step. When, how can you tell what are some indicators?
Melissa: Yeah, I would say like now is always the time to think about the next version of your program. So for example, for my client who can support like five women right now, amazingly supports the clients, takes them through their attorney, but starts thinking now for the next level. So start to think now about that. And it's always okay. Ask yourself. Well, Can I support more if the answer is no, now is the time to start making tweaks and thinking about it.
And so I actually have a whole scalability plan for all of my programs. Okay. Once it hits, you know, 30 people or 60 people, these are the changes that are going to be that are going to happen in the program. Once it hits this, these are the changes that happen so that we can continue to serve more and more.
Well, still creating a great client experience. So it's never too early, but I would say once you feel like your program is full, that's the time to start to think about, okay, how do I double this? Because there's always a way to double, triple, quadruple the amount of people you're serving in that container. Always.
Jenzaia: I love the idea of a scalability plan so that it's not. Like you've hit a point and you're freaking out, like, what do I do next? You have a plan in place and that you can just follow those steps.
Melissa: Yeah, I think it was in, um, Mike Michalowicz. Um, but clockwork, the author of profit first, he also had. An amazing book, clockwork, which I highly highly recommend. And in that book, he says that 1% of your workweek and your business should always be about future planning. And so this is part of that future planning. And so 1% of you, whether it's your day or your week, I usually do this on Fridays, sometimes Monday, somebody CEO days, but always thinking ahead.
To that next plan, that next month, we're always months ahead in terms of our launch plans and things like that. But again, I have a huge team helping me behind the scenes for that stuff. It's not just me. Um, but always thinking ahead,
Jenzaia: When you determine that it's time to scale, what do you need? What are some of the things you need in place, or that can help you with that scaling process?
Melissa: Okay. Automation, 100%, some type of automation. So when somebody, for example, comes into any of my programs, they purchase everything as a handoff for us. So they receive their welcome email. They get added into the course automatically and they get access to our slack channel. Or if it's one of our higher level programs to our group box or channel, but all of its hands off, they get sent that link to book their first call with a support coach or with me.
So everything is hands-off so automate as much as you can, and even like throughout the program. So we have everything in a course hub. We're not manually sending emails out. With the videos every single week. I mean, I did that though when I first started, like when it was just me, that is what I did. But as you start to scale, you want to start to have things as hands-off as possible, like even payment systems, right?
If you are sending invoices out every single month, that all can be automated. That is something you should not need to touch your client purchases and it should automatically pull out for the six-month program or whatever payment plan you have set in place. So, so much of your business can be automated.
And then I would say, start to think about team members. Usually a VA will be your first team member. Not always, but start to think about that. And then also starting to put some systems in place. Right. Everything that you do in your business right now has some kind of system, some type of process, record it with a loom video, start to create some procedures that way, when you do hire somebody, you can very easily train them to take on and start to support that.
I would say those are some of the biggest things. And then. In terms of training. If you're a coach or service provider, um, some type of help in the business, that could be a support coach. And so we're always, again, we hire support coaches typically three to four months before we know we really need them because we want to spend the time to train them, get them ready, have them come to coaching calls, listen, train some more.
Um, so those are some of the first things I would say. There's always more. There's always more,
Jenzaia: I love automation that saves so much like sanity and me. Like, for example, my podcast with the get, when a guest books, it's all automated, they get the link. There's a form filled out for the headshot and the bio and all of the other pieces that I need.
And it's, it's so small, but it saves me. So much worry of like, oh, did I, oh, did I send that? Did I ask them, am I going to have everything? So there's even reminders set in there for me. So, yes, I highly also recommend automating as much as you can to save your own sanity.
Melissa: For sure. Everything so much can be automated. It will blow your mind so much.
Jenzaia: The other piece of advice that I really liked was hiring before you need those coaches and giving them that time to adjust and to learn and to find your process and to find their. Within your business is really nice. And it would take some of the pressure off of you.
Like if it isn't a good fit, you still have time to hire somebody different. Or, um, if they need extra training, you're not at the point where you're like, ah, we needed somebody right now. You have that time to give them the extra training.
Yeah. And that's why you always just want to be prepping ahead and start to think now, how can I double this?
How can I triple this? Because if you're thinking about it, when you need it, then that is going to cause so much chaos for you and your business. You want to be working on it when you don't quite need it yet, which is why I love our scalability plan. So we know what to do when we need to do it.
How
do you often look at that scalability plan and like to reevaluate your offers?
Melissa: We probably look at it monthly, usually with the team meeting, um, just as women are coming into the programs, if, okay, how close are we to this? Do we need to bring this deadline up a little bit? Do we want to do it next month instead of when it hits 60?
Because we're kind of feeling some pressure now. So we usually have team meetings. All across team members, then also with my support coaches, where we kind of chat about that, but typically monthly, I like to look at that, but I just, I'm such a nerd when it comes to like backend analytics that I just love having a pulse on everything in my business.
Of course, as a CEO, you should have a pulse. And so I like to look at it probably more, more than monthly, probably every other, every two weeks or so, just that I have a good pulse on it. That's a good thing
Jenzaia: to put into your CEO days of just quickly looking at it, getting that feeling, but then the more removed I become from my business, the less of a pulse I necessarily feel like I have.
And so I like that. You're also incorporating. Coaches in because they probably are more into the day to day and the actual coaching in some cases, and can feel that pressure before you might feel it.
Melissa: Exactly. We just had one of ours, we meet biweekly. This approach is a nine, so we just had a call yesterday to get together.
Of course, just to get an update. Cause I love my support crutches so much. I want them to see how personal life was, but also just a pulse on what's going on in the programs. What are the patterns to speak with our clients? What do they need help with? But what's been coming up on coaching calls the most is that I know what to bring to my coaching calls because I'm still hands-on at some capacity in all my programs.
And that's something that I love about my products. We have developed, no matter what program you go into there. Some type of Melissa in there, whether it's one call a month, two calls a month or a call every week. Um, there's still some type of me in there.
Jenzaia: That's so nice. Because a lot of people just completely remove themselves. So I really like that.
Melissa: Yeah. I don't think I could completely remove myself. I cared so much about my clients and um, that was probably one of the hardest things for me. At the very beginning, when I started to scale my first group program, right. I was so resistant and a lot of it was so resistant to open more than eight spaces because marijuana, like I knew I couldn't handle more than eight.
The capacity of the one-on-one, the hands-on that I support, I was giving them. Um, so I just have such a, so much love for all my clients that I don't think I could ever, ever slip away from. Could you
Jenzaia: Give us some examples of how either you have, or that you recommend for your clients to scale their product suite, especially if they're feeling like you did at the beginning of, I can't step away there.
My, these are my babies. I love them. I don't want to, but knowing that you need to, to take your business to the next one.
Melissa: I would say start taking baby steps. Um, I'm such a control freak sometimes, especially when it comes to my business. It's my baby. And start to take baby steps. So whether it's bring a support coach and have them just take notes on a coaching call with you, right.
You don't necessarily need to hand the reins over completely, but just start taking some baby steps forward and also just write out all the stories that you're telling yourself. So for example, some of the stories I was telling myself. Um, some limiting beliefs around really growing and scaling my business was I was worried that I was going to lose connection with my clients and that they were going to feel like I wasn't as great of a coach because I wasn't there.
And the truth is with me, reframe me. That is, well, it's not necessarily about how much time I'm in the program. The program is still amazing. There's so many resources. It's not about that. Sometimes less is actually more. And it's actually serving me by not being in there so much. I don't want them to be dependent on me.
And so it's just reframing the stories that you have about it, because there's some type of story. If you're not able to fill all 10 spots, it could be a mindset you could be self-sabotaging right there. So start to dig into some of the stories and some of the fears that come up for you. Um, and then in terms of your product suite, always thinking about what's next for your clients, and it doesn't necessarily need to be.
Like okay. Academy mastermind, fiercely scale. Like I do where it's very clear. Once you're at 5k 10 K 20 K months. That's where you go. Um, however, like to start to think about what else they would need and do tons of market research even with your clients. Okay. Well, what do you feel is next for you?
What type of support are you looking for? Market research is so, so, so important for all of that, but always thinking about what's next and creating something next for them, because it's so much easier as a business owner to retain a client that you already have than it is to go and find a new one. So you want to have something next, whether.
Whether it's a next level or even just some type of alumni container where they just still get access to you or some type of support with the course hub or whatever that looks like, but something for them so that they don't just go off and do whatever and go work with whoever else is next. Like they may want to stay with you if there was something available.
Jenzaia: That's a really interesting point that I've been playing with a lot in my own business life in coaching specifically, like finding a mentor and then staying with them almost. I think I was reading something about it being like a relationship of like, kind of like your boyfriend or your girlfriend, and like you sticking it there and like staying with your coach and them growing with you and they know you inside and out.
And so when someone likes. you have the next step. It makes it really easy. Okay. I'm going to continue the relationship. I'm going to continue that relationship. Right. So I do that.
Melissa: Yeah. I've been with my mentor for three years now. Three three and a half years now. Um, and it's gonna keep going because I don't want to have to go to somebody new for something.
I mean, it can take up to six months if longer for somebody to really learn the ins and outs of your business. And so if you're just coach hopping from coach to coach, like you're starting that process all over. Um, but again, each coach is different, so maybe you're going there for a certain course or something like that.
And if it's going to serve you amazing, but what serves me as really having that close relationship with my mentor and. The ins and outs, like she knows what triggers me. So I highly recommend it.
Jenzaia: And then I had another question that's a little bit away from coaching, but I'm a service provider. So do you have any tips like shifting as a service provider from the, into the one to many kind of models scaling that way? I know a lot of people talk about agency, so like that's one route.
I know, but what are your suggestions for that?
Yeah, agency could definitely be one on top of that. anything else I mean, you could always create even group programs as well. And so those are also other options for you to teach others how to do it.
Um, I've seen a lot of service providers create courses and offers, like, for example, my OBM, she has a, like an OBM course and OBM program. I know she sells to business owners that she will also allow their OBMs to go through and to train their own OBMs. And so some type, of course, some type of group program in that sense, digital products ranked that's all scalable as well.
So anything that's hands-off for you, but again, one to many, because the bigger impact that you make, the more success that will come your way. So you always want to be thinking one to many, one to many. What does that look like? Awesome. Well,
Thank you so much for sharing all your expertise about this. It was great chatting with you.
If people want to learn more about you and what you offer, where can they find you?
Melissa: So I am all over on Instagram. However, I do have a new account, so you can find me. That is @_melissalin and then my website, then melissalin.com. Um, and then I'm all over it. You can find my podcast there, all of those things, but come say, hi, don't bite.
Jenzaia: What is your podcast? Cause I'll link it in the show notes.
Melissa: It's called the fierce business paid podcast.
Jenzaia: Awesome. And then you have a free workshop that people can go through if they want to learn more.
Melissa: Yes. If you are looking to start your coaching or service-based business, I have an amazing jam packed value packed.
Everyone tells me it's too long, 60 minute class, but you know what? It's filled with value. So I don't care. Um, go listen, go watch it. You're going to love it. Also have a 17 page workbook that comes with it. Um, but I'm sure you'll link it for them. And that's all over my Insta as well in my website. If you want to go and find tons of free resources.
Jenzaia: Yes. And I've listened to your podcast. I love it. So I highly recommend you guys go listen as well. Um, so thank you so much again for coming on.
Melissa: Thank you so much for having me. I had so much fun.
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