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Podcast Show Notes

Stop Being a One Woman Show & Start Scaling Your Business to 10K Months with Melissa Lin

September 21, 2020

is honeybook the right fit for your biz?
how to get your first client
8 free af ways to market your biz
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I'm candice!

I'm Candice, your new tell-it-like-it-is BFF (and purpose cheerleader). Are you ready to grow and scale a profitable business with purpose–and one that gives back to your meaningful life? Thought so!

hello,

What's your brand cocktail for success?

take the quiz

*cues up to the bar* Let's start the tab, shall we? Take the quiz and find your brand cocktail for success.

How do you start scaling your business to 10K+ months? It starts with a team. But hiring a team? That’s scary. Plus, it costs A LOT of money (or does it?). I know what you’re thinking: I can’t afford to hire someone to help me, yet. Listen up! Yes you can– and Melissa Lin is on the podcast today to show you how to do it. Melissa Lin is a successful chemical engineer turned multiple six-figure business coach and business owner.

She’s a business, sales, and content expert in the online space and went from being stuck in her 9-5 to making multiple five-figure months and working for her.  Now, she helps other women do the same with their online businesses! 

So how can you start and scale YOUR online business to six figures and beyond? Melissa believes you need a team to help support you. It’s time for you to start delegating your work and in this episode, Melissa shows us where to start.

On Today’s episode of The Power in Purpose Podcast with Melissa Lin:

  • Learn how you’ll know if you’re ready to hire your first team member (Melissa’s answer is gonna shock you)
  • The beliefs you need to change in order to start scaling your business with a team. 
  • How to hire your first few team members, who to hire, tasks to start delegating, the interview process, and where to find new team members. 

Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of The Power in Purpose Podcast. I want to know– what was your biggest takeaway? Head to my Instagram to join the conversation!

CONNECT WITH MELISSA LIN

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Hi, I'm Melissa Lin, and I help women find freedom through entrepreneurship by scaling their online business to six figures and beyond.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Welcome back to the Power and Purpose podcast is me, your host at Candice. And my guest on today's episode is Melissa Lin.

Candice Coppola (Host)

In today's episode, we're going to focus on how you can stop being a one woman show and start scaling your business to 10K months. Now, before I introduce you to today's guest officially and share more about today's episode, I want to let you know something fun that I've recently launched on my website. So a few months ago, I had an idea to put together a quiz or this quiz would reveal more about who you are as a business owner.

Candice Coppola (Host)

And quite frankly, guys, there is not a quiz in this universe that I have not met or took. I love BuzzFeed quizzes. I'm going to take it all the way back to Cosmo days. I've taken every Cosmo quiz in my teenage years. I'm a huge quiz lover and I really wanted to do something for you guys, my listeners, my audience, my peeps. So I linked up with Zafira Rajan. She's been a guest on this show before.

Candice Coppola (Host)

A link to our episode in the show notes I linked up with Zafira Rajan and we collaborated together. She's a copywriter. We collaborated together on my first ever quiz. And what's really fun about this quiz is that we've married to, for lack of a better word, we've married two of my favorite things, purpose and cocktails. So I would invite you to go take my new quiz. You can go to CandiceCoppola.com/Quiz to reveal what your brand strategy cocktail is.

Candice Coppola (Host)

The results have been carefully curated to reveal more about who you are as a business owner and what your next moves should be. So go to CandiceCoppola.com/Quiz. Go and take it. It's so much fun and do me a favor. Share your results, tag me on social media, share them in your Instagram stories so I can see what cocktail you got.

Candice Coppola (Host)

So my guest on today's episode of the show is Melissa Lin, and I'm sure you've had this question before. How do I start scaling my business so that I can hit ten K months consistently? I know that this thought has run through my mind. When I started Candace Coppola Dotcom, when I sold my business and went full time into this, how can I have consistent ten K months while Melissa believes it all starts with having a solid team but hiring a team, y'all?

Candice Coppola (Host)

For some that is super scary. Plus it costs a lot of money. Or does it? I know what you're thinking. I can't afford to hire someone to help me yet. But here's what. Listen up. Yes, you can. And Melissa Lin is our guest today on the show, who's going to show you exactly how to do it. Melissa is a successful chemical engineer turned multi six figure business coach and business owner. I love these transformation stories.

Candice Coppola (Host)

We've had people go from PE teacher. I'm thinking of Miss Selina Howard, PE teacher to bridal stylist of celebrities. Now we have a chemical engineer turned six figure business coach and business owner. Melissa is a business sales and content expert in the online space, and she went from being stuck in her nine to five is so relatable to making multi five figure months and working for herself. So now she helps other women do the same with their online businesses.

Candice Coppola (Host)

So how can you start and scale your online business to six figures and beyond? Melissa believes that you need a team to help support you, and that is one of the building blocks to getting to those six figure months. It's time for you to start delegating your work. And in this episode, Melissa shows us where to start. I'm so excited for you to listen to today's episode. I love team building episodes. I love learning more about how we can grow and expand our team and really build a business that doesn't rely just on us.

Candice Coppola (Host)

And that's what Melissa is here to teach us about today.

Candice Coppola (Host)

I want to thank our sponsors so much for sponsoring today's episode of the Power and Purpose podcast. Now let's get into my interview with Melissa Lin.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Melissa, welcome to the show.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I'm thrilled to have you today.

Candice Coppola (Host)

I'm so excited to hear about your journey and this crazy online world and how you went from being a chemical engineer to this badass coach who helps women just like me scale our business. So I'm so excited to hear your story and also later pick your brain on how we can start hiring team members and our business. I know my listeners, so many of them are so ready to enter that phase of their business, but they've got some hang ups. So I'm looking forward to your expertise there.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Yeah, I'm so excited. I'm sure if you're listening, I was in your shoes not too long ago where I was the best one woman show ever. And it's time to make that transition.

Candice Coppola (Host)

I fully understand what that feels like. So let's start with your journey of how you came to uncover this purpose of helping women really find freedom through entrepreneurship. It's such an incredible thing to help women find freedom in their lives through their own business and scaling that business. Now, you started out as a chemical engineer.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Yeah. Oh, my goodness. It has been such a wild ride and I'm so excited to share with you. So I started my entrepreneurship journey in twenty fourteen, and I'm sure many of your listeners can relate.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

I grew up in a very traditional family, so I'm half Chinese and growing up there was always a school education. Go be a doctor, go get married like that's what success look like. That was like life's purpose for everybody around me with my grandparents and my parents. And so, of course, I went with that. And so I couldn't do the doctor thing, could not handle blood passed out in class one day. It was not pretty.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

But you know what had happened? We learned and I transitioned to chemical engineering and I was really great at it. I'm great at math, great at science, really did well and went to the nine to five world and it looked like I had made it right, like air quotes. I had made it, yes. But like nobody knew what was happening, like on the inside and how I was feeling good. I didn't feel like I had made it.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Yeah. Look great. On the outside, nearly six figures has a 20 something year old totally doing what she should be doing. But I was just not happy. I did not feel fulfilled in what I was doing. I was working like crazy, like twelve hour days. It was more of a five to five working weekend when we could vacation. I work with my life and I didn't know what to do. And everyone around me told me, you know, Melissa, just keep hustling, keep doing this.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

It gets better. It gets better. Once you're in your 30s, it's going to get easier. You'll be making more money. You'll be working as much. And I looked around to me, everybody around me, like my boss, my boss's boss, they were still in the office when I was going home the day after my 12 hour shift. So I really didn't feel like it was going to get much better. And this was all starting to come to me around twenty fourteen.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

And I had all these big dreams, all these. Big things I wanted to do in life, right? I wanted to travel the world, go live abroad for a month at a time, give back to the community fun charity, start my own journey at some point, and my dream just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But for me to achieve any of those dreams, I needed to do something different about my nine to five. And that's when something kind of hit me in twenty fourteen, like I've got to do something different.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

So back then I was really into health and fitness. I was doing bikini competitions, bodybuilding and social media was starting to take off. And this was back in the day before Instagram stories. But I think the DMs were around and pretty sure they were there in the early stages of testing the DM stuff. And people started reaching out to me on social media because I shared my health and fitness journey with my bikini competitions and they were asking for help.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

And so ding, ding, ding, I could help them solve a problem they had. So this was my first journey into entrepreneurship. And so I got certified, started helping women online. And I just I knew deep down I wanted to create a bigger impact in the world. I just wasn't sure how. And so this was my first step there. And so I scale that business eventually left my nine to five. So twenty eighteen we left the nine to five, continued growing, grew that fitness business.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

And then I just love the business side so much. I almost got my MBA. People were just coming at me asking, how are you doing this, how are you doing this? And so I eventually did transition back in twenty eighteen as well to business coaching. So now I help women start, grow, scale their businesses. We focus on the front end and back end of their business. And I love it so much because I mean, I just love what I do.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

I wake up so happy and so excited, but I'm also creating such a big impact because I'm helping women create these incredible experiences in their businesses, which then create another impact. So it's kind of like the ripple effect, like the domino effect. I'm helping them help people. So I'm kind of touching more and more people every single day, which I love so much. So that's in a quick sense, my journey over the years. And here we are, twenty, twenty

Candice Coppola (Host)

I love your story. Are you a second generation born in the United States, Chinese or a third generation? Because I find that so many folks who have parents or grandparents who are immigrants have the same script that you just said that you just told us about, that you have to be a doctor or a lawyer.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Exactly. I am, yeah. So I was born here in the States, so, yeah, I'm crazy. Crazy. And it's so funny because when I when I eventually left my nine to five, I was so terrified to tell my parents, oh my goodness, I waited two months and after having left my job before I told them and I'm sure

Melissa Lin (Guest)

how was the reaction, I'm curious.

So I had warned them. I warned them a few months prior. I was like, hey, this is happening. This could be coming. Get ready. Warning, warning warning. And they were so, so supportive, especially once I left. However, they come back once. Love you, Mom. Love your dad so much. But they do come back once in a while. Hey, Mel, ever want to get back to your engineering?

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Have they reached out to you? Like, are you going to start an engineering business like that? All of those things, they it comes from a place of love. But I mean, that's that was their mindset, their entire lives. So that's their.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah, it makes sense. I find it so interesting. I've talked to so many women and they had this similar a similar experience that you did where they entered into the workforce after college and looked around and was like, what is this?

Candice Coppola (Host)

And everybody they spoke to just said to them, well, that's just the way it is. I mean, that's just like that is that there's just being an adult. I mean, welcome to the real world after college. And so many entrepreneurs just look around and say, but I don't want to be like this. This isn't I don't want this this hand dealt to me. I want something different. And it sounds like that was what happened to you.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Yeah, definitely. And it's it's crazy because I had no idea, like, about entrepreneurship. I didn't even realize it was something that I could go into. So I'm very, very, very thankful I did find it and that I took the job and then I took the risk because I can't even imagine how I'd be feeling if I was my nine to five right now.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Oh, I know. Especially in this climate. So tell me I have a question for you. Yeah. What about being a chemical engineer or what has taught you the most about business from being a chemical engineer? So how have you maybe parlayed things that were a part of your original work and the work that you do now?

Melissa Lin (Guest)

I love this question, I get this question sometimes, and it's such a great question because there are times there are things that I actually have been able to bring over, and it's more so skill set.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

So my skill set, like my organizational skill sets, my problem solving, all of those types of tools and things or methods that I learned in chemical engineering. I have been able to bring over my Excel skills that definitely are very important and definitely brought that over as well. But also just the hard working, like it's not easy to get a chemical engineering degree and then go into the workforce and really go all out at that. So that work ethic definitely helped a ton.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

I was able to bring that over and it definitely hurt a little bit, too. Right. And I definitely went to the hustle mode my first few years and made a lot of sacrifices and I probably didn't need to make, but I did learn from it. So definitely brought quite a few things over.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah. I always find it interesting the lessons or the things that we originally learned and how they can be parlayed into the businesses in the work that we do now. So many people feel like they need to have such a wealth of experience to do a specific thing, and they don't recognize that they already have so much experience behind them and other things that they've done up until that point that will serve them in whatever new passion or purpose that they've uncovered. So I love I love hearing that.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Well, I want to dive into team building because I know our listener, so many of them are should have hired somebody a long time ago, but they have a lot of hang ups around this. And I'm sure you see this with the women that you work with. So my first question on building and growing a team is how do we know if we're ready to hire our first team member?

Candice Coppola (Host)

What are the signs we should be looking for?

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Yeah, this is such a great question. You know, I I'm someone where I love to put a number to it. And so I usually recommend, if you're at about the three to five month level, you get to get someone right away. And we can definitely dive into what types of tasks are to delegate, who to hire first, how to hire that type of thing. Because I remember when was it? Twenty eighteen. I was still a one woman show.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

I don't even think I hired my first team member until the end of twenty eighteen. I can't believe that. But I was starting to feel like overwhelmed. I was spending most of my day doing tasks over and over the same tasks every single day, over and over and over social media posts on my emails doing this, doing that. And I started to realize, wow, like I'm spending X amount of hours every single week doing this. If I could pay somebody else to do this for me, that gives me so much more time to hop on a sales call and convert a client that gives me so much time to serve my community to do things that only I can do.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah, it's so true. And I find that when we're stuck in the sort of sort of mire of tasks that someone could do for us, we start to really resent those tasks. And then it becomes an absolute chore, whether they're daily or weekly or monthly or quarterly, to actually get them done. So if that's content creation, creating graphics or writing content, we slowly start to like do it, which hurts us even more. Right. So, yeah, I've totally been there.

Candice Coppola (Host)

So we know we're ready to hire our first team member if we're stuck in just a myriad of tasks and if we're between three to five K a month, you believe that we can afford to hire somebody. So my next question is, and this is for all my people out there who just don't believe that they're ready, what beliefs do we have to change in order to start scaling our business? Because I think there's some mindset work that people have to do in order to get to this place.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah, this is a great question. And so if you are feeling this right now, I want you to ask yourself, what's that specific belief? What's the story that you're telling yourself that you're not ready to do that? I know one of the big, big stories I was telling myself before I laugh whenever I hear this, but some of the big stories that I was telling myself before I did start to hire and really scaled was, you know, I can do it better, I can do it faster.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

It's going to take me more time to train someone than for me to just do it myself. So I'm just going to go and do it. So those are some of the stories that we can start to shift. And I shifted them with the new framework of somebody else can help me do this while I am able to do something else in my business so we can start to shift some of these stories. And another big block that I had was.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

A fear of success, because I knew deep down that if I did start to hire and delegate, that my business would continue to grow and continue to scale, but I didn't know that what that was going to look like. I was afraid of what I was going to feel like and look like on the other side. So part of me avoided hiring because of that reason. I mean, subconsciously, deep down, I wasn't like in bright red letters in front of me, but I know that now.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

So that's another thing where you get to tell yourself and remind yourself that you have everything it takes right now to be successful. You have everything you need right now, and you get to hire you get to get help, because for you to serve more people and create a bigger impact, you can't do it alone. So you don't get to do it alone. People get to be with you to create that big impact.

Candice Coppola (Host)

It's true. And when you found whatever it is that you're meant to do, I think you owe it to the customers that you're meant to serve, to build up support around you so that you can continue to create impact rather than get getting burnt out. And it's so easy to burn the candle at both ends even if you love your work. So some of our listeners are just workaholics is a bad term, but like they just really enjoy their jobs.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Right. I can tell you with firsthand experience that even people who really love what they do get burned out without help, without any kind of extra hands and support that take certain things off your plate.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I know. For me, the big thing is I really strive to create balance my life, personal life, business. And if we're working 12 hours a day in our businesses, how what are we why are we doing this? What are we enjoying? Like, life is so short. And this is another big reason why I wanted to leave my nine to five and create my own business was I don't want to wait until I was seventy five years old, retired to go and backpack in Europe.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Like there's no way I could do that. Maybe I could. I probably could if I wanted to at seventy five. But I wanted to do it when I'm young and I wanna be able to go back multiple times and there's so much more to life than just your business. And delegating is going to help you experience more of that life.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah, that's true. That's been a recurring theme on this show, is this idea that people say, well, once I get to this milestone, milestone being retirement, then I'll have the life that I've always wanted. I'll be able to do all the things that I've never been able to do. And it's just it just boggles my mind, because by the time you're sixty seven, are you really capable of doing all the crazy things that you would have done while you were younger?

Candice Coppola (Host)

No, no. I mean, maybe in some instances, but when is she rather enjoy the fullness of your life rather than waiting for the milestone to come along for the permission? Right. So I love that you said that. I love flipping the mindset of, you know, just look at taking a look at your beliefs and asking yourself what's holding me back. I think so many people have a fear of success, even though they're they want to be so successful, but they're afraid of what that looks like, what that means.

Candice Coppola (Host)

And so I love that you've shared that. So let's talk you talked about delegating. So let's talk about hiring our first few team members who we should hire and then the tasks that we should look at to start delegating. Yeah.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

So I first would recommend I've got a little exercise to first determine. We're going to kind of do two at once the tasks and what to who to hire first. And so we want to start to really think about what are the things that you do every single day in your business, like do it for a full week, every single day. What are the things that you do? And I want you to grab a piece of paper if you've got one in front of you, if you're taking notes but separate, draw a line like a cross.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

So four quadrants on your piece of paper, you're going to label them one, two, three and four. Now, in the first quadrant, I want you to write down everything that you love doing. Absolutely love doing that you're absolutely great at. And that only you can do so if you're a coach, you're coaching. That's usually only what you can do unless you've got a group coaching program and then have support coaches. But we're probably not there yet if we're just hiring our first team member.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

So you're coaching and probably sales calls if you're just starting, but start to think about the things that you love that only you can do that you're so great at Quadrant to put in the things that you like to do and that you're good at. And these are going to be the things that you continue to do until you're ready to really scale and grow. So keep doing them until maybe your second or third team member quadrant three things that you dislike but you're good at.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

And then Quadrant four things that. You dislike and are not good for me. I don't like to go into my emails. I don't like to do any of that. I've been stuck in the back and so I delegated that first thing. And so as you start to put these tasks in these different quadrants, I want you to look at quadrant three and four. Now, these are the things that we want to start to deligate first, usually not always, but usually this is going to be some type of virtual assistant role that can help with this stuff.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Not always, though. Sometimes it's a graphic designer, sometimes it's a videographer, depending on your niche and what you're doing. But usually it's some type of a virtual assistant that can take on a lot of those tasks that are in the three and four quadrant

Melissa Lin (Guest)

This is a great exercise. I love this. So we want to pay attention to the things that we hate doing and then we don't do well or the things that we do well. But we don't like doing, right?

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

OK, it's just because you like to do it doesn't mean you should be doing it.

Candice Coppola (Host)

It's very true. And this is all really trying to move us into our genius zone, into being able to just be one hundred percent available to focus on the things in our business that only we can do and the things that really fill up our cup and give us joy. But even some of those things, I imagine we eventually have to let go of the things that we enjoy.

Candice Coppola (Host)

But somebody else can do. Right?

Melissa Lin (Guest)

I know and it's hard, but. Oh, it feels so good. I was talking to one of my team members this week and just thanking her for all the help that she's been helping me with my content marketing and and just some other things that we've delegated. And it's freed up so much more of my time where I can take some I can take a few days off during the week and go and do whatever I want to do with my business still running.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

And there's just so much more I can do now and really focusing on the big things and the next level of things that we get to focus on in the business as I delegate. But yeah, you're right. One of those things for me is my graphics, my Instagram story templates and things like that. It's not the best artist. You know, I draw the stick figures and whatnot. And so this gives me a space to be creative by using Canva and feeling like I can make things look pretty.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah, no, I feel you there. I love doing that stuff too. And so I think you just dispel the belief that, you know, only you could do it quicker or only you can do it better, because at the stage where you are in your business, you're able to take a little time during the week to go do whatever you want and your business still runs, which means that that belief that you had just

Melissa Lin (Guest)

wasn't true wasn't true whatsoever.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

And if you're in this area, if you're getting started and you know you're going to be hiring, which if you're growing your business, you will be hiring at some point, start to create trainings. Now, whatever task you're doing, if you're going to go and send an email out hope on zoom or on Skype screen record and record, you going through the process that you can then send that to your future hire and that's your training for you, and then they can put into an S.O.P document if you want an S.O.P document.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

But so many businesses are now just creating video trainings and video sops

Candice Coppola (Host)

videos are fantastic.

Candice Coppola (Host)

And so I think for folks who hire for the first time, it will feel really overwhelming and you will feel like it's a time suck, like you just don't have the time or it's taking more time for you to teach somebody versus do it yourself. But you have to recognize that there comes this point where everything sort of crests and then the person knows and they do and you gain back all the time, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus by having somebody take care of it for you.

Candice Coppola (Host)

So it'll always require more of you in the beginning. But as you get into a good rhythm, it requires very little from you maybe just checking in or letting them know what you like better or just little things, little tweaks as you go along. But I love the idea of having a video library where you have all your trainings in case it doesn't work out. At least you've got all the trainings for the next new person to come in your business.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Right. So what we've done is we've used these quadrants to identify what tasks we need to start delegating, which are in three and four. And once we can recognize those tasks, now we can understand who it is we need to hire, right?

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Yes, exactly. And like I said, usually it's some type of virtual assistant or maybe a social media manager or social media management content. Those those are some of the big things that people like to push off first, just because a lot of that somebody else can schedule for you and they can take your content bank and go and do everything for you. And you really don't need to be spending your time doing that.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Exactly right, so now we have what we know, kind of what role we need to fill, but where do we go to find this person?

Candice Coppola (Host)

What are your suggestions? How do we get started and filling that role of just seeking out candidates?

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Yeah, there's a lot of great resources online. I've utilized Facebook groups a lot to find new hires. And so I'll go into if I'm looking for a virtual assistant. There are so many virtual assistant Facebook groups with thousands and thousands of these and they're looking to hire, looking to work and so put out some type of job posting. And we can definitely go through like a quick example of what that could look like. But particular job posting of what you're looking for, how many hours you think it's going to be, what type of person you're looking for, have an application, have them go through some type of application or ask and send them your send you their portfolio or something like that.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

I definitely would recommend asking them to email or just doing the application, because if not, people will bombard your DMS. I can tell you from firsthand experience that they will bombard you. So Facebook and other other great resources, online services such as upwork fiber, you can find people pretty quickly there as well. And then I love utilizing my network, so I love going to my friends and asking them for references because it's very hard for me to hire someone that I like to know that somebody else has worked with them that I really trust.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

So that's a big thing for a business, too, because when I hire someone, I'm hiring someone to be with me for a while. It's not like a two month thing, three month thing, because that does start to take more of your time. If you're having to consistently, constantly hire and fire,

Candice Coppola (Host)

you want a low turnover rate.

Candice Coppola (Host)

So it's really important that you find the right person to fulfill the role. And most people are teachable. So I think it's important to seek somebody out who understands who your customer is and what your business does, but just recognize that most people are teachable. And so how you do things in your business, you can easily teach somebody and give them the space to learn how to do and implement that. But you bring up a really good point in this process, which is the interview process.

Candice Coppola (Host)

So what sort of what should we be really asking that maybe we're not thinking of inside the interview process for our first or next team member?

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Yeah, I usually have two rounds. I will have them go through an application process and that'll usually be a huge Google form of them putting in what what software is they're familiar with. They're not familiar with. I ask lots of questions about what their values are because they want to make sure that our values align. So I have tons of questions and they're their past experience, who they've worked with in the past. Ask them to upload certain things. I ask questions of if we are in this situation, how would you respond to that?

Melissa Lin (Guest)

So I have that as my first round and then those that I feel like would be a fit, I then hop onto a video call only if they've made it through that first round and I really go off their vibe. And so I really want to just get to know them as a person if I know for sure that they have certain skills I'm looking for, I want to make sure this is someone that I want to spend time working with that also have the same values that we have in our business where I want to make sure that definitely aligns, because it's not just me and this one person working together.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

It's this person also working with the rest of my team, because you will be continuing to grow your team. It won't just be one person. You will continue to grow. So lots of questions and really just seen how the vibe is. Do you guys get along? How the energy do you feel like this is going to be a fit?

Candice Coppola (Host)

And I think you should trust your gut if your gut tells you something's not right here, you should absolutely trust your gut and continue your search. Right. Because the last thing you want to do is spend 30, 60, 90 days training somebody only to keep coming back to that instinct or that feeling that this is just isn't the right person for your company. We've all been there before and you want to try to avoid that at all costs. So I just don't feel like this is something that you can rush either.

Candice Coppola (Host)

You've been a one woman show for a while now, so taking it just a little time, not as an excuse, but to find the right candidate is important.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Yeah, like spending a week or two trying to find the right candidate. Definitely. But if you're spending a few months, that might be that might be a little too.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah, I think that's where you're trying to make excuses of why you can't hire somebody. And it's time for you to circle back to that original question. What beliefs do you need to change in order to start scaling your business? Well, this has been really helpful. I think so many people just need to believe that they can afford to hire somebody, even if it's just five hours a month.

Candice Coppola (Host)

It doesn't have to be, you know, a full salaried position. You can hire somebody for as much or as little as you need. They need to really believe that they can afford it, that there's somebody out there who can do it better than them. That's who they want.

Candice Coppola (Host)

You want somebody who can do better than you and that, you know. And so I really think that it really starts with belief systems and then going through the process of really trying to find somebody who's going to take the load off of the things that you mentioned, the things that you hate doing that you really suck at, and then the things that you're kind of OK with but that you also hate doing.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Exactly. And if you are listening and if you're like a big numbers person like I am, here's an example. So if you were to hire VA for five hours a week at ten dollars an hour, that gives you 20 hours a month. Holy cow. It's almost a full day, 20 hours a month for two hundred dollars. So, like, imagine what you can do with 20 extra hours back. You could close five new clients at a thousand dollars.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

So you hiring and delegating for two hundred this month could help you generate an additional five K in sales. It sounds pretty worth it, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Candice Coppola (Host)

And so people always approach this with what's it going to cost me? And I think the better question to ask yourself is, what's it going to cost me not to hire somebody? Yes. Yes, you're right. They're right on. I just got goose bumps.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah, but it's true, though, because it's costing you money not to hire someone and it's likely costing you a lot more money than if you went and hired somebody to help you in specific areas of your business. So take that question with you next time you're thinking about hiring somebody, or hopefully that's right. Now, hopefully, Melissa has got you fired up to get some help in your business, because the only way to scale it to the level of business that Melissa helps is to really get some some help for yourself.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Mm. Yeah. One hundred percent. Yeah. Well, Melissa, I have loved her interview. I loved hearing her journey. Thanks for all these amazing tips on hiring our next or first team members. So I want to ask you two questions that we ask of every guest that comes on the show. The first is who inspires you with their purpose? Who's out there living on purpose every single day? And it's inspiring to you.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

I'm going to say my mentor, like I always strive for mentors who are living the life that I truly want to live and not just not just business, but also personal relationships, family relationships, what are they doing when it comes to giving back to the community and putting charities and things like that?

So my mentor, Sabrina Fill-Up, I absolutely love her and I'm going to be with her for quite some time. She's one of my huge inspirations.

Candice Coppola (Host)

I love that. We'll have to look Sabrina up and see what she's all about. My next question is, how has purpose changed your life and your business? So when we go back in time to 2014, when you were a chemical engineer and you were looking around working five to five and thinking, what the fuck is going on here? Is this what it's supposed to be like in your parents are like, yup, sorry, Melissa. So that's just what it's like.

Candice Coppola (Host)

And we fast forward to today. How has life changed for you?

Melissa Lin (Guest)

It has changed my entire life is a 180, and I think the biggest thing, and I know so many people strive for this, but the biggest thing is I actually wake up happy. I wake up excited for the day. And I don't think I ever had one day like that when I was my nine to five, not one. And so I think that's been one of the biggest changes just in my personal life, along with everything else.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Of course, everything's a 180, but that's the big thing that really stands out as I wake up so happy. And I know that there's so much more that I get to achieve and so much more I get to do as I continue to grow this and impact more people and really serve subserve.

Candice Coppola (Host)

Yeah. And you get to do it at your own pace, which is like the biggest part of freedom is having the freedom to go in the direction and at the speed you want. Right. I mean, it just makes all the difference in the world. It's one of the biggest reasons why I love being a business owner is because I get to do it my way. Yeah. And I get to make up the rules. Exactly right. Also, I've loved your interview.

Candice Coppola (Host)

How can our listeners connect with you outside of the show? Where can they find you in all the places?

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Yes, please come hang out with me on Instagram. I'm all over. My handle is at the mall, SLN I'm sure it'll be in the show notes too. And then I feel free and check out my website. I've got everything there, my podcast, anything, any of my offers, the Melissa Lynda.com. Awesome.

Candice Coppola (Host)

And Melissa has two things for our listeners today. First, she has her free Facebook community, the fierce business of babes. I've linked to that in the show notes. You want to give us a little bit of information on your Facebook group?

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Yes. So I created this Facebook group quite some time ago, and I'm a huge believer in giving adding value to your audience. And so inside I go live weekly, I host coaching friends and really just have created a space where people can get together, network, ask questions. And so I love it so much. So if you're wanting to start, build or scale your business to six figures and beyond, this is definitely a great community for you.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Like I said, I go live at least once a week, so you're going to get tons of me inside.

Candice Coppola (Host)

I love it. I absolutely I love being part of groups where the leader goes live and shares all that good knowledge and you can connect and push your business forward day by day, live by love.

Candice Coppola (Host)

I love that. And you also have a download for our listeners. It's your four step framework to start and scale to five at K months. I've linked that in the show notes to talk to us about this incredible download.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Yes. So this is a training for you to go through. If you're wanting to start, you're not sure what you need to start to put together or if you have started and you're maybe just haven't made any sales yet. This is definitely an awesome training. Just to give you good insight of what you should be focusing on in your business, you can go ahead and grab that there.

Candice Coppola (Host)

I love it. And what I want you to do after you go join Melissa's Facebook group and after you go download her framework, I want you to head over to my Instagram and tell us, based on that four quadrant exercise, what you're letting go of and seeking somebody out to do for you. We want to hear who your first or next team member is going to be yours first.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

So excited for you. And I love it here. You are going to.

Candice Coppola (Host)

It's a game changer, y'all. It is a game changer. Melissa, thanks for being such a great guest. I've so enjoyed our conversation.

Melissa Lin (Guest)

Thank you so much for having me. I had so much fun.

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