Web Design Business: How to Leverage Your Natural Strengths to Grow with Melissa Froehlich

Shannon Mattern (00:02.501)

Hey everyone and welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast. And today I am joined by business coach Melissa Froehlich who helps women entrepreneurs who are aiming to elevate their businesses by using the principles of Colby and human design to really create holistic strategies that are effective and sustainable and personalized to her clients. And if you listen to this podcast, you know that we are all about creating.

profitable, sustainable businesses that like work for our lives instead of completely giving our lives over to our clients. So Melissa, I am so thrilled to have you here. Can you share a little bit more with our listeners about you and what you do?

Melissa (00:46.67)

Shannon, thank you so much. I have been looking forward to this. As you said, my name is Melissa. I am a mom to a six and a half year old girl and a wife to my husband who is active duty Air Force. So that means as a military spouse, we travel a lot, which is why I am extra passionate about sustainability in business because I never know what is going to get thrown our way. And I really want to be able to enjoy my life and have a business that's

you know, fun as well. So my background is like many of you, I had the traditional corporate job and I gave that up when I met my now husband and fell in love with a guy on eHarmony. And I started over in the online space in 2016 and really from the ground up.

I mean, I entered into the world as a virtual assistant because that was the easiest way to leverage all of my corporate experience. And I just started getting exposed to things and, you know, looking back, I can say that I really was following a strengths led approach, but I didn't really know that that's actually what I was doing at the time and naturally evolved into coaching and consulting. And I worked primarily with service providers and consultants and then a lot of people who want to

leave their traditional roles and come into the online space as well. But I do that from a place of let's learn about the person first and then build a business and build strategies and offers and all the things once we get that figured out because that's not how I did it and I did it the hard way. So I'm really passionate about helping people do it a lot easier than I did.

Shannon Mattern (02:34.581)

I did it the hard way as well. I call this employee mindset for those of us who come out of corporate where we are like, this is how we created success in corporate, which was just to, I mean, for me personally, how I created success was to just be the hardest worker, be the most innovative, say yes to everything, climb that corporate ladder, just be the go -to person.

Melissa (02:43.276)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (03:02.723)

And it worked out really well for me, in corporate, like I was able to play that game really well until one day I was just sitting in my office and I had like a panic attack and I was like, is this what this is for the rest of my, is this why I worked so hard? Like, what is this? What am I doing? And just was thinking like there has, like, I don't think that I could do this until retirement, which is kind of like the.

Melissa (03:17.771)

you

Melissa (03:31.106)

Mm.

Shannon Mattern (03:32.463)

thing that is sold to us as like success. And so when I started side hustling, I brought that mentality. Like when I started as a web designer doing jobs on the side, I didn't realize that like what made me great at corporate was just going to like completely make my business unprofitable, unsustainable and completely miserable. And so

I started like really in like 2014, 2015 and like 2016 that era. you know, had I known then what I know now. Yeah, for sure. So how did you like, you did it the hard way. Tell me more about that.

Melissa (04:10.574)

Yes, hindsight is truly 2020.

Melissa (04:21.708)

Yeah, so I just like you described, I mean so much employee mindset and I remember actually learning that there was a term called employee mindset, then learning what that was and it was like, my gosh, that's what I am fostering instead of this entrepreneurial mindset or CEO mindset and.

I spent all of my time and energy making sure that I was doing the most incredible job for everyone else and I put my business last and I certainly put you know my family last in a lot of ways because they were supportive. My husband is incredibly supportive and like do whatever you need but I wasn't doing whatever I needed I was doing whatever you

somebody else needed from me. And I remember literally sitting at my desk, we were living in Las Vegas at the time and thinking like, this is not it, right? This is not what I worked so hard to build and create. I basically made a mini corporate.

situation and nobody else knows that. All my clients are happy and everybody thinks I'm crushing it and I am but I'm also crushing my own soul and there was like this pivotal moment of like I have got to figure out how to change what this is going to look like moving forward because I'm going to burn out.

and have no one else to blame except myself. And so that's really when I started pouring into mindset work and understanding the power of having, fostering that growth mindset instead of really, really being driven on adrenaline and the what if the the apple cart tips over.

Melissa (05:55.31)

and understanding how I was wired to operate and then realizing I could do things, little teeny tiny things. I love James Clear, Atomic Habits was a game changer for me because that's another part of doing it harder. I set these really big goals and I would put all this pressure on achieving the goal and if I didn't achieve the goal then I had failed and then reading that book and realizing that...

I could reposition my approach to goal setting and progress. Like those small shifts, those small -hahs is what started to like crack it wide open for me. And I started realizing how I certainly wasn't alone in this journey and so many other women were.

doing what I was doing. were doing what we were taught, what we were conditioned to do, but there was another way. And so that's where it's sort of like this whole other world started to open up for me in terms of how could I lead others better by going first and doing the work and figuring out other ways. And fast forward some years, it was realizing it has to start with the individual because hello, we're not all wired the same, right? But such a simple, simple.

statement like that is really where the work begins and I think that we skipped the easy.

not the easy things, we skip the foundational things because those are for other people. Those are for people who are more successful or have been at it longer. mean, stuff like core values, right? I would help all of my clients to find their core values. And I hadn't done that for myself because I wasn't making as much money as them yet. I hadn't been in business as long yet. And I was like, I'm doing this all wrong. And so was all of those things that I took a pause and started looking around and said, how would I like to do this?

Melissa (07:43.13)

differently and how can I start making small shifts to get there and that's kind of where like I did a lot of things and I don't like use a term wrong I did them in a way that was harder than it needed to be right and the beauty was I stopped and paused and said I'm going to start

changing the trajectory. And I don't have it perfectly figured out today, but I sure have a different lens that I look through and that's what I like to pass along to, you know, other women in my circle to say that it doesn't have to be as hard as it might feel in this moment.

Shannon Mattern (08:20.273)

that is so good. And I'm so curious because it sounds like, I'm curious to know this, it sounds like you didn't just like make a quick stop, a quick pivot, turn all of, like make all of these changes and then just like hit the ground running again. It sounds like you made a very intentional, you know, incremental journey. And I'm curious to know like,

What did some of those changes look like? Because you mentioned, you it started, you realized that it started with you and you, and a whole different world opened up. Like, what was that experience like? What are some examples of some of those things that you had realizations and changes about?

Melissa (08:59.608)

Hmm.

Melissa (09:04.91)

So I think one that comes to mind, and I'm hoping will be really relatable to the women listening, I was really type A driven competitive with myself, but I was not really clear on what I was being competitive about. And so an example would be booking discovery calls. I booked a lot of discovery calls. And I.

realized really quickly that I was really good on sales calls without any formal training. I just knew how to have conversations with people and I had a really high conversion rate. And so the problem was the dopamine hits from those sales calls was causing me to measure my success by how many signed transactions did I have, right? And so in that moment of pause, one of the things I realized

was I was measuring success in a way that wasn't true to myself because yes, I was getting all of these clients, but they weren't all dream clients. And so what was happening is I had this roster that was overflowing with a wait list, but I literally had anxiety every day when I would wake up to look at my Slack channels or my inbox or the whatever. so looking at how do I approach this differently? The data says I'm really good at converting people on sales calls.

So what if I focus on getting the right people on the sales calls? And then that's where the mindset work had to come in because it didn't happen on the same timeline, right, to make that shift because the...

the amount of time between transactions or signed contracts was longer. And so I had to really, really lean into the concept of having abundance or growth mindset. And I kept hearing that term getting thrown around all over the place. Well, you have to really leverage an abundance mindset. And I got.

Melissa (10:59.928)

really honest with myself and I stopped making myself wrong for not knowing things and I just got curious. Leveraging curiosity was such a powerful tool and I said, I don't even know what it means to have an abundance mindset so I'm gonna focus on that one thing. And for one entire year, that was my word of the year and I read things about abundance mindset. I leaned into affirmations about it. I read books, I listened to podcasts and I was just like, I'm gonna learn to have more of an abundance mindset because, by the way, I'm an Enneagram type six.

I am always planning for all of the things to go wrong instead of like, what if it goes right? So back to that initial example, what if I get more dream clients? What if I actually make more money with less effort? Those types of things and really allowing myself to start to not believe it first, but just dabble in the possibility and to be able to get there over time.

That was one thing that was a big change for me is realizing that, I was chasing after the wrong metric. Instead of going after the right people, I was chasing the number of people that I could get on my roster because, hello, also open ego and human design. That was another thing I learned later and reflected. I'm like, no wonder, right? But there's so much conditioning because I had heard things all my life since a little kid like,

How do you juggle so many things and do them so well? my gosh, you move so quickly. wow, you're so successful at whatever you put your mind to. And so if I wasn't having transactions, and in this case, booking discovery calls, getting new clients on my roster, then I must not be successful. Those were the false stories that I was telling myself. So I looked at the narrative and said,

do I truly believe this to be true? And the answer was no. What do want to believe instead and how do I get there? So that part was the long part, right? But that is a really, really tangible example that I think a lot of people relate to in terms of like, yeah, that's why I'm measuring my success. How many of something am I doing instead of the quality? And that's where the true like change and transformation happens when we take ownership over those parts that are kind of scary to look at.

Shannon Mattern (13:20.463)

I resonate so much with everything you just said. Like chest is like buzzing as you're talking, because I'm like, I have been through all of that. And especially the part where you realize something is not aligned. You do the work using whatever tools you have to identify like what changes you want to make.

And then the discomfort of the space between making the change and seeing the results of the change and managing your mind through the place where like the thing that you thought was working that wasn't actually working and you're gonna make a shift to test something that you don't even know if it's gonna work, but you just know that this way is not working anymore, but we don't know what's going to work. have to.

Melissa (14:11.97)

Mm.

Shannon Mattern (14:17.925)

be curious, like you said, and test things and try things and not want it to be like the sure thing. Like if I do this, it will 100 % work and it will work on this timeline, which is my tendency. And then to be able to sit in the discomfort of the waiting for the results to come to even be able to analyze and interpret those and decide if that was the thing.

Melissa (14:32.597)

Exactly.

Shannon Mattern (14:47.333)

I think my human is generator a human design thing. I think I've had a reading. think generator was a thing. And you can tell me if this is off base or whatever, but like I couldn't even slow down enough to like let the results come. had to like do something else and do something else and do something else and do something else. And really what I had to do was like stop.

Melissa (14:52.813)

Yeah.

Melissa (15:04.877)

He

Melissa (15:09.634)

Yeah.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Shannon Mattern (15:14.413)

and let things happen. And it's been so uncomfortable. I'm in the stopping currently and things are happening. It's crazy, but like it's so uncomfortable.

Melissa (15:16.758)

Yeah, I...

Melissa (15:21.41)

Yeah.

Melissa (15:26.272)

It's so uncomfortable. I mean, we only just met, I would guess you were a generator just also noticing how you're responding to the way we're talking and you're like, I can feel it. Because as generators and manifesting generators, we're here to respond. But what's interesting is we're very, very conditioned before we have that awareness to make stuff happen, right? To be leaders. And in order to be leaders and to be successful in corporate, we have to be making things happen. We can make things happen.

in response to external stimuli, right? So the definition of making things happen has to be reworked and rewired for manifesting generators and generators because we're not pure manifestors, which they're here to decide and inform and like bring the ideas out of the ethers, right? But.

My point is, is like that little awareness, that little piece right there can greatly shift the unnecessary pressure that we're putting on ourselves to perform in a way that is so wildly out of alignment with how we're designed. And so that's another like big piece of this as I'm going through my own transformation and leaning in and doing the mindset work and then realizing that like there's all this data and all this information out there that's fun.

And as a generator, you want to read it and you want to go on to the next thing, but what do we actually do with it? How do we take that and create change and transformation? And so that's really what I love to bring into the work that I do. What are you loving? What don't you love? Let's get to why and let's build a new path forward that actually makes sense for you.

And that's everything from your offers to your business model to the team to what you're doing in between your sales calls to what type of exercise you're doing. It's the total holistic approach. And as somebody who's a generator like you and like go, go, go all the time, one of the biggest flexes that I've made in terms of business growth is learning to slow the heck down and to do a whole heck of a lot less in my business and do more for my own enjoyment. That has had a direct correlation.

Melissa (17:32.864)

with growth and success and all types of, you know, KPI measures that are so outside of the traditional way of thinking about business growth. But we have to look at ourselves as leaders and how we're designed in order to have a fighting chance at getting it right in the long run.

Shannon Mattern (17:56.247)

I want to dig into how you work with clients because you started to touch on, you have tools that you use to look at who you are and what you need and how you're built and how you operate now and, you know, all of those things. So when someone comes to work with you in a coaching capacity, what does that journey look like for them? How do you lead them through this process?

Melissa (18:26.188)

Yeah, so when I work with clients, mean, the initial phase is really like this discovery phase. And it's twofold. It's like helping the client discover things about themselves. But I'm asking a lot of questions. And I'm digging in. And a lot of times, the things that I'm asking and the things that we're exploring, it's like not anything to do with your offer suite or your marketing strategy, right? I want to know the thing.

behind the thing.

peeling back the layers of the onion. And we use diagnostic tools as part of that process. And sometimes it's Colby, which is a cognitive assessment. Sometimes it is human design. Sometimes I'll use something called the mindset dimensions report, which is a way to look at like, are your preferences in terms of your response mechanisms and your learning styles? And sometimes it's all the things. And sometimes we don't even get there.

quite yet, right? But it's never you come to me with what your challenge is and we're gonna solve the thing because I don't have enough data and I don't have enough information. I really love to understand all the parts and pieces of what we have to work with because nine times out of ten when a client comes to me and they're like this is the thing that I want to focus on it's never the thing, right?

That's also because I tend to attract really coachable and self -aware and highly emotionally intelligent individuals like you listening to this podcast right now. But part of the challenge is we feel like we have to know what we need help with before we can go and get support. So that's also part of the challenge. the clients that I tend to do the quickest work with are like,

Melissa (20:24.332)

I don't actually know. I just know that I need something. Something feels off. Help me figure out what that might be. So that, it's a combination of a little bit of archeology and using some diagnostic tools. And I don't love the term personality tests. And I want to, I just want to touch on that because that gets thrown around a lot. Yes, there are personality tests out there, but that's not what I like to use in my work. I like to use awareness tools or diagnostic tools. And the reason that

I use that term is because we're not like Colby, for instance, is a cognitive assessment. has nothing to do with your personality, right? There are three parts of the mind, not your brain, your mind. There's the affective, which is our feeling part. There's the cognitive part, which is our...

skills and our intrinsic abilities and we can continue to expand that and then we have the cognitive part of the mind. Colby measures the cognitive part of the mind. It's the only diagnostic, it's the only assessment tool where we can actually measure that and those are our striving strengths and we're born with those and so that's gonna tell us a lot about how are we going to do so especially for your audience Shannon and the women listening like that tool alone is super valuable.

because it's going to tell you, when free to be yourself, how are you going to tackle the project? How are you going to approach the thing? And it's going to help you have a lot of insight as well on your unique process. And so maybe to be able to articulate that to.

clients of why would you hire me as a designer over somebody else who does something similar because this is how I work and people are going to really appreciate that and be able to resonate with that versus human design that I've talked about. Like that's a little bit of a mix of all the things because we kind of are able to have a 360 view of those three parts of the mind or some people.

Melissa (22:15.422)

love strengths finders, right? And that's a lot more cognitive and some affective pieces or enneagram, which tends to be affective. We're looking at how we feel about things and our motivations from that piece of the mind. So we'll take parts and pieces of all of that because that gives us just a more 3D picture of the individual that we're working with.

And here's where it gets kind of gray. I never know until I start digging in which of those things is going to be the light bulbs or the aha, the thing that's pulsing. we're like, that's why. That is why you don't love that and you're wanting to do this thing. It makes sense when we're able to start looking under the surface. So that is then where we start to create the strategy.

starts with discovery and then we build strategy and then we're looking at what's next. So what's the next phase, whether it's scaling or whether it's growth or whether sometimes it's more rest and relaxation and what is it, what are the motivators there? So I know that was a long answer to your question, but it's, it's a lot of.

very, very bespoke, unique approach, but always going back to how do we understand you and how you're designed to operate better? What are your motivators? Because then when we build on that, we're going to have a greater degree of success.

Shannon Mattern (23:45.445)

was taking notes, I found that fascinating and I've never heard of cognitive before. so talking about how you work and striving strengths, can you share more about that? I've never, like when you were saying cognitive, was like, am I hearing cognitive or cognitive? I'd love to hear more about that because that's fascinating.

Melissa (23:53.58)

Mm -hmm.

Melissa (24:04.098)

Yeah. Right? Yeah. Well, I love that you find that fascinating because I feel like we're nerdy, you know, twins in that sense. So the reason you've never heard of it is because it is not talked about much. It was really well known in like ancient philosopher days, Aristotle and Socrates and Plato. Like if you look back, there is a lot of reference to conation.

Shannon Mattern (24:14.181)

Yeah, for sure.

Melissa (24:33.582)

which quite literally means to create. So this is especially important for, again, your audience, but this doesn't necessarily mean create in terms of like, I'm going to go paint, although it could, but the actual bringing to life of anything. So striving strengths are when we're exerting mental energy to do, to create, to work on something. So not the energy that we're exerting on the weekend when we're doing something for fun, but again, it...

The cognitive piece is when Colby measures, when free to be ourselves, how are we going to create something and bring something to life? So for instance, my MO, which is my modus operandi, it's my four numbers in Colby, which gives an indication of where I fall in the four different action modes. I am an 8353. So that eight number corresponds with my fact finder. So information and data, I'm highly.

driven by that. I need a lot of information and a lot of data versus somebody who's in the spectrum of the three on that same fact finder mode. They want the Cliff Notes version. And so that's really important to understand. If I'm the designer and you're my client and you're a three, I need to make sure I'm giving you a high level check in of what's going on. Because if I'm giving you what I need, which is what we inherently assume, right?

I'm overwhelming you and I'm frustrating you and I'm quite frankly, I'm annoying you. And so it's such a powerful diagnostic for ourselves, but also understanding how to communicate, what questions to ask in an onboarding process so that we're giving people the information so that we're working in a way that also takes their striving strengths into consideration.

Each so I just talked about the fact finder. The next number corresponds with something called follow through, which is your how you organize systems, processes, sequential steps, right? Where do you fall on a spectrum of somebody who is going to create a very complex process? Or are you on the shorter end of the scale down in the three, which is where I am where I'm

Melissa (26:51.264)

most likely never going to do the same thing the same way twice. I'm really adaptable. I'm really great to bring in to make sure that whatever you've created isn't too complex. I'm going to look for the bureaucracy, but we also need the person who has the seven, eight, or nine in their number on a team perspective, right? Because they need to be the ones who are going to be the quality controllers. And then the third number has to do with your quick start, which is how you deal with

innovation and change. So a higher number there is going to be somebody who's going to be really great with adaptability when it comes to risk and uncertainty and sales. And let's try something new. Let's experiment versus if you're a two or a three or a one on that spectrum, you're looking at how do we maintain the status quo? How do we keep things the same? And then the last number has to do, it's called your implementer number. And this is one that we get.

wrong a lot in the service provider space because we hear implement and we think about bringing something to life, making something happen, but this is an OR, it's spelled implementer with an OR on the end. So your use of tools and actual tangibles. a lot of people in the trades professions are going to have a much longer number or dentists or...

maybe auto mechanics because they're going to reach for a tool to fix something versus if you're a one, two or three, you're gonna be much more visual, right? You don't need to build a 3D model of something. So when we understand all of this, this tells us how are we going to bring something to life? And then also, where do I need support when I'm building my team? And when I say that,

This applies to a very fractional VA that you're going to bring on this year, or a very fractional marketing support person, or a junior designer. We want to make sure that we understand how they operate so that when there is conflict, which is where we have a deviation of greater than four in numbers, that we have a plan to be able to communicate about what our approach is going to be there. So that's the cognitive part of the mind. It is.

Melissa (29:01.376)

you don't hear a lot about it because it hasn't been talked about. It kind of got buried under all of the sexier things like the cognitive, which is our IQ and our skills, and all of that, and the affective, which is our feelings. And like I mentioned, Colby is the only assessment that can measure that. And so it's just not widely known, but it is this ultra potent, powerful tool to give you instant validation of how you're meant to operate.

Again, when free to be yourself, I keep saying that because we have so much conditioning like we talked about earlier. And the awareness light bulb just like comes on of like, if this is my design, I'm curious about this person's design and my husband and this and like we're no wonder that the way that somebody else does it is frustrating. But now how do I build a better communication around that so that we can improve the process?

Shannon Mattern (29:54.115)

I want to go take it right now this very moment because it sounds so incredibly interesting to me. When you were talking about team, I've talked about this on the podcast before, but in my last podcast episode, I talked about how I have tried unsuccessfully for, I'm going to say, six years now.

Melissa (29:59.434)

It's so good.

Shannon Mattern (30:21.091)

to fill a role on my team. And it's never been the person's fault. I don't like, I know it's not, because they've all been amazing people. And I'm the common denominator. So I see that. My question when you were, the light bulbs that were coming in on for me when you were talking about this was like, did I even design a role?

that was even the right role in the first place based on like what my numbers would have been. Was I trying to fill a role that shouldn't even exist on my team? So do you see that with clients?

Melissa (30:59.96)

Mm

Melissa (31:03.664)

my gosh, yes, I'm like, my generator self is like jumping out of my chair. I'm like, yes, this is exactly why I love this because we will get it wrong if we don't have this other lens. So let me give you a really, really practical example that just happened with one of my private clients. She was hiring an ops coordinator. Had she done it on her own, she would have gone and created a job.

description for an ops coordinator and put it out there and done all the things like we would do, done the interviews and hired the person that gave her the best vibe really and had the best skills. Well, the part that she would have missed is looking at how do we make sure to write this job description so that we're pulling in somebody who is going to support not only the way that you are going to run your business, but where your gaps are.

Right? So she is a very long quick start. So she's always looking at how do we innovate? How do we go and bring this thing to market? She is not somebody who's going to build a really strong system. So in her brain, she's just, what she told me is I want to find somebody that's a quick mover. Well, actually you don't want that. You want somebody who's going to balance it out, but also has the emotional intelligence to be able to have the conversations and not slow you down too much. But you want to make sure that somebody can come in and build the infrastructure to support your

that you're gonna go out and take to market, right? So when we, so that's one part of it. So we crafted the job description to take those things into consideration. Then when we got to the final interviews, we had four people that it was a painstaking decision because they were all a values match. So the affective piece checked off. They all had incredible skills. And so the cognitive piece, is it's there. They can do the work.

So now it comes down to considering the Kolbe. And so we wanna look at the Kolbe, but also take the job into consideration because when we do that, we are going to put the right person in the right role where they are going to thrive because they're going to be working with their strengths instead of against them because Kolbe does not tell us what we can do. It tells us what we will do when free to be ourselves. We all wake up every single day.

Melissa (33:26.542)

with the same amount of mental energy units called ERGs. We get 100 of them, but the distribution of those is going to be different depending on our cognitive strengths, right? So what our Colby is. And so I need to be spending the greatest degree of my efforts each day doing things with data and information and research. And so if I'm not in a role that's doing that and I'm gonna have to go and assemble IKEA furniture all day,

I'm gonna burn out because I am not meant to be like using tools and can I do it if I needed to put, you know, food on the table and keep the lights on? Yes, but that's not what we're looking for. We're looking for how can I work with my strengths instead of against them because the number one like catalyst for burnout is working against our strengths. And so again, Colby is just measuring the cognitive parts of our strengths, but yes, to your question, like there is probably something very much there of we also do something

it just subconsciously, we do like cognitive cloning where we think we need a mini me to come into any role. And a lot of times it's like, I need something, somebody who is actually very different from how I operate in order, because we want to create this very holistic, cohesive business to move forward. So again, this is one of those things where a lot of people come to me and they're like, I want to double my revenue. But what we end up doing is looking at how to create spaciousness.

in terms of their energy outputs by building a right fit team so then they can get to that place because they can spend more time in their zone of genius. But their solution in their mind was I need to create some digital products or I need to have another funnel or whatever the thing was. But that's where I got really clear on this needed to be the path because I was coming in as a strategist in some of these businesses listening to what the leader was saying and solving the problem.

Shannon Mattern (35:11.375)

you

Melissa (35:23.49)

But then as soon as the solution was there, they still weren't happy and they were wanting something else because that wasn't really what they were looking for. So yeah. Yes, yes, we need to get you taking the Colby is what it comes down to. And not to like make it more complex, but I just want to mention, so I'm talking right now about the Colby A, which is our own individual assessment. We can also do something called the Colby B and we can do something called the Colby C. The Colby B is what you would

have somebody do on their own job. So let's say that you had a junior designer and you would have them take the assessment and they could say like based on what this role is requiring from me, here is what the strengths are. Then we can look at what's the person's actual call be A, what are they exerting based on their B, where is the disconnect, how can we either shift the...

the requirements of the role or potentially get somebody else in that position. And then the C would be you Shannon doing an actual Colby for the job description that you're putting together. So the leader looking at what do I think this role is going to require. So that way we have, let's say we have an 8353, we're just gonna use my Colby for a role that you're hiring for. That way when we're bringing.

in applicants, we know what their Colby is and we can look at that against the role. And it's a very, very, you know, there's no bias here. We're looking at how do we match energetic, striving strengths with what we know we are going to need. So we're giving the person the best opportunity to be successful.

Shannon Mattern (37:07.659)

so many light bulb moments as you were sharing all of that. I'm like, I probably tried to put too much into one role. The Cognitive cloning is really, really fascinating because in the other role that I have on my team that I so easily filled and I think it's just by accident that it has worked out so brilliantly and I'd be fascinated to see

Melissa (37:15.522)

Hmm, that's common, yeah.

Shannon Mattern (37:36.067)

you know, what this process has told me is that this person is so very different from me and thinks differently and operates differently. And it is like a beautiful, beautiful thing because she can help me slow down and balance out some things and ask specific questions and things like that where I would, where I can't just, I don't know if steamrolls the right word, but just steamroll someone with all of my ideas and all of those things.

Melissa (37:47.182)

Mm -hmm.

Melissa (38:01.378)

Hahaha

Shannon Mattern (38:06.443)

So yes, so many light bulb moments and all of that to think.

Melissa (38:06.945)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (38:14.105)

I don't know, I'm just thinking like, I could potentially give this another go in the future in a different way instead of saying that's never, that hasn't worked every time I've tried it, so let's just stop trying.

Melissa (38:17.176)

There's a different way of doing it, right? Yes.

Melissa (38:28.066)

Yes, absolutely. you are not alone on any level whatsoever, because it also gives you, there's a lot of empowerment to filling the role that way, because you're not doing it from just a place of, I really like this person. It's like, I really like this person, and the data says that they have the best shot at being successful in this role. And it's not that I would, and I don't require,

you know, people to have taken the Colby in order to apply because the Colby is an investment. But I do encourage the leaders who are hiring, when you get down to your final, you know, five people that you're interviewing, make that investment because it is going to just increase your chances of not having turnover in that position. So it makes, it makes a lot of sense.

Shannon Mattern (39:24.805)

Well, yeah, and why wouldn't you want your person to come in and be successful? When you're in a leadership role and you're creating opportunities for people to come in and do something that they love doing and contributing to a company that they're aligned with, I think it's in their best interest for us to, as the hiring company, to

Melissa (39:45.89)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (39:55.339)

ensure that we are doing everything we can to make the best decision for someone's success. It's not like, come and prove it to me that you're going to be successful in this role. I have a responsibility to you to help do my due diligence before I even make you an offer, I feel like, to ensure that you will be a right fit.

Melissa (40:03.309)

Yes.

Melissa (40:18.231)

Mm -hmm.

Shannon Mattern (40:24.293)

What is it like the higher slow fire fast advice that people give? just, man, it just doesn't, that whole fire fasting doesn't resonate with me. It's like hire really slow and try to make the best decision you can make. Hire slower, don't hire is kind of how I feel. I don't know, maybe that's a little bit. So that's all.

Melissa (40:37.592)

Mm -hmm.

Yes!

Melissa (40:47.67)

No, it's so true.

Shannon Mattern (40:53.323)

So, so fascinating. And I could ask you a million more questions about what you do in coaching, but I want to circle back to just your business journey. when you were doing VA work and you were bringing on all of these clients and you have this realization that you're just going for volume to get that dopamine hit and be like, yes, I'm awesome at sales. I'm awesome at conversions.

At what point did you decide that you were going to...

Shannon Mattern (41:29.517)

slow, like what did your slowdown look like and what did the transition to what you're doing now look like?

Melissa (41:37.631)

Hmm. So the way that I am gonna answer this now is probably different than I would have four years ago, but because I understand it more now, I think because I had the intentional slowdown, I wasn't forcing. I was in this more receiving energy that, because I would have said four years ago, I don't know, it was totally organic. Like people just started coming to me and asking if I could coach them and blah, blah. That's because I...

Shannon Mattern (41:44.951)

Sure.

Melissa (42:03.442)

my like energetic capacity opened up, right? And the right to opportunity started coming to my way to respond to. So it's like, you have to slow down to be able to expand. It's a natural, you know, the idea of expansion and contraction in all cycles of life. But I was kind of a twofold situation where my peer group

started coming to me and saying, you've grown really fast. How did you do it? Can you coach and help me? What they were really asking for is, can you help me figure out how to be more confident in myself and treat my business like an actual business and not pour all of my energy into everyone else's business, right? So that's what they were saying. And then what also happened in duality is I started

realizing that I had to figure out a way that I could serve more clients because even when I slowed down, I continued to get really great opportunities, but I was like maxed out. So how could I help more people? And what I was realizing is that people weren't really using me in like a business manager capacity. They were using.

access to my brain. I started looking at the data in terms of what are people actually telling me that they find value in. And it was like, I love being able to talk strategy with you. I love having access to your brain. But the problem was there was a disconnect in terms of calibration of my self -belief and confidence. Even though I had all these people who were paying me good money saying that I love talking strategy with you, I was telling myself a narrative that

I wasn't a strategist, I didn't have enough experience yet in the online space. Who was I to call myself a consultant? Like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all these things. Well, it was a commitment to boundaries with a really poorly behaved client that I had who continued to push my boundaries. And one day I was like, listen,

Melissa (43:56.334)

I would love to continue to support you, but I no longer offer those services, because she wanted to keep doing business management services, but I just didn't want to support her in that way. And I was like, that was the day that I was going to test it out. I got backed into a corner and very nicely said, I'm only working with clients in a consulting capacity from here on out. And she said, great. What does that look like? Send me over.

a proposal. And so it's like, I was ready for a long, long time, but I finally just honored my boundaries and was like, I'm not going to continue to say yes to all the things that was so conditioned to be a yes person and people please and all of the things. that

kind of opened up the consulting arm of my business because I had started to realize that people valued that because that's what they were telling me and I couldn't continue to ignore that. And lo and behold, my Colby, also around the same time I had a client who was a certified Colby consultant and he introduced me to Colby back in 2016. And he told me one day, because he kind of became like a mentor of mine, he was like, you are a strategist. It says right here. And I couldn't.

Unsee that the data says that my 8353 says that I am a strategist and that was kind of the thing where it was like external to me there was evidence and data that said this is how I was designed to operate and so it was sort of like

I couldn't unsee that. And so I let that be my permission slip to start calling myself a strategist. And so that's one of the things that I find that is so powerful for so many women or men when they do the Colby, it's validating and they can immediately.

Melissa (45:43.712)

It's immediately actionable, but one of the ways it's immediately actionable is to weave it into your marketing. Weave it into the way that you're showing up and leading discovery calls, how you're talking on social media. This is how I operate as a designer. I'm somebody that's very data driven. I'm very process driven. I'm very hands on and collaborative. I'm very innovative. The data says, right? And so it's like, you're not just making that up to sound good. Like you have some firm ground to stand on. So

I hope I answered your question and I kind of added some more in there, but it made me think back to like that whole process. And it's, I wish I had had somebody put all this in my face sooner because I think I would have moved a lot faster. Like it's obvious why I am doing the work that I'm doing now, right? Which is really a blend of coaching and consulting. Sometimes I am coaching people and sometimes I'm telling them, this, not that. And sometimes it's a mix of both.

Shannon Mattern (46:41.763)

I love that you shared all of that because a few things came up for me while you were talking about that. One was so many times our web designers think that they're selling a design or a website or their services or their time. And I'm like, you're actually selling your intellectual property. You're just packaging it up in whatever way it is expressed through how you like to do that. And so

for some people to ever think that someone could just pay them for their ideas is so foreign to them because they don't think that that's the valuable part of what they're doing. They think that the output of that, the physical or digital expression of that is what the valuable part is. And so my mission on this podcast and in my program and all of these things when we talk about value is to help people understand that

Melissa (47:22.964)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (47:39.275)

It's their ideas and the way that they think and how that melds with the client's goals and all of those things. The alchemy that comes from that, that's the value. And however you package that up is however you package it up. And if you think you have to package it up a certain way to have a profitable, sustainable business, but that way does not like...

Melissa (47:52.456)

Mm. Yes.

Shannon Mattern (48:07.129)

feed your soul or light you up or make you happy, you get to look at this a completely different way. And so what your experience in allowing yourself to follow that thread and noticing what was happening and having that experience where someone was showing you like, this is you in like,

Melissa (48:33.313)

You

Shannon Mattern (48:34.927)

Here's your sign, take this. Yeah, it's so beautiful. And so I think that that is a huge takeaway for all of our designers listening. It gets to look however you want it to look, you get to decide. as you're saying, Colby is like, when allowed to operate in our natural state or whatever, it's like.

Melissa (48:36.488)

Yeah, literally.

Shannon Mattern (49:01.409)

you get to run your business in your natural state. And if you don't feel like you are, and you need to like figure out how to come back to who that is, it sounds like the work that you do with clients can really kind of bring people home to themselves, like help them learn about themselves, understand who they are, how they want to operate, and give themselves permission to like, go for it.

Melissa (49:05.848)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (49:31.107)

And I think it's just so beautiful in what you shared with me, not only in how you help your clients, but in your own journey too.

Melissa (49:39.106)

Yeah, I'm so glad that you mentioned that because I mean, that was also a big part of the journey is like, kept investing in programs or buying these courses or whatever. And I'm like, I'm following it to a T and it is not working for me. And it was like, it doesn't mean, and then I got to a point where I was resentful and frustrated and I went to blame the program or blame the whatever, but it was because I was trying to plug and play and plug and play does not work, right? Instead of.

what piece of this resonates. I learned to cherry pick and then create my own, right? It's like you look at a recipe for inspiration instead of follow it to the T is really what,

business has become for me. And a lot of that was permission, that, I get to do this my way. Like, I have to look at my business like a business and not like a hobby. I have to put on my CEO pants, right? And there was a big...

challenge in terms of that transition because of coming from corporate. And I know that you can relate to that. Anybody that has been in corporate, those terms are not for us. They're for the people that sit in the big office. And it's like, that actually has nothing to do with it. It's a mindset. It's a confidence. It's how we carry ourselves. And

I find that the biggest things holding women back in having profitable, enjoyable businesses has nothing to do with the structure as much as it does with the confidence and the mindset because once they have that working for them, they can tweak the structure in two seconds. But what's happened is they've made themselves small and tried to plug into somebody else's way of doing it, which may be a beautiful way of doing it for that other person. Instead of saying,

Melissa (51:28.542)

I trust myself to decide what is going to work for me and what parts and pieces of this I want to put together. And you're nodding your head because you're like, yeah, because you see that too. And that is, that's the work that I am on a mission to do. But my word, it's hard to.

It's hard to put that on a sales page, right? Because it's like, but that's not going, like, I need the tangible thing that I can, like, plug and play because we all want that. We want the quick fix. But it has to also be working on ourselves.

Shannon Mattern (52:10.661)

my gosh, yeah, I could talk to you for another hour about this. I just published a podcast episode last week talking about how, and I think as like myself, as a coach in a group program, I also get to understand that the results and everything that I put on my sales page and the way I formatted my program and all of the tools and templates and processes and things that I've built,

are not one size fits all. I have different people coming in with different strengths, cognitive abilities, all of these things. And if I'm doing what I'm here to do, I am also helping them figure out how to trust themselves and find their own way within the frameworks that I've built and not forcing them to be a little clone and checking all of the boxes and then saying, well, it's your fault if

Melissa (52:40.993)

Hmm.

Melissa (53:01.228)

Yes.

Melissa (53:05.399)

Hmm.

Shannon Mattern (53:08.929)

It didn't work for you. It's like, how can we be collaborative partners and help you create something that does work for you? And so that is, that is something that like, we're super committed to in our programs is that it's not just come and take this course. And if it doesn't work for you, well, I guess you didn't try hard enough or whatever, whatever that is. And I had just gone through like my own journey of like, kind of auditing the coaching programs that I have been in and what

Melissa (53:28.791)

Hmm

Shannon Mattern (53:38.809)

Did I go into that program hoping to get out of that program? Did I get the, you know, express results that was on the sales page? If not, what did I learn? What did I take from that? What do I wanna keep from that? Because there's always something massively valuable to learn in every single experience. And if you're willing to, think the key,

Melissa (53:59.106)

Yes.

Shannon Mattern (54:07.191)

is what you do is like helping people know who they are and what they need to take from that experience and not making themselves bad or wrong if they didn't take everything that was available for them to take.

Melissa (54:13.048)

Mm

Melissa (54:18.346)

Right, and that's exactly it because there's so much conditioning in terms of how we are supposed to do it or what success means, right? So it just starts with, I mean, one tiny, tangible takeaway that everybody can do for free is like, how are you defining success right now in your business? Is that truly?

like your own definition or how much of that is conditioned, how much of that is influenced by the shoulds or what your last coach told you or whatever. how, what, and that, gets to change and it gets to evolve, right? One of my clients today on a coaching call, she, in Hot Seat Coaching, she said, you know, hey, I'm, I'm working on almost finishing this digital product. Should I do...

it live one more time. And you notice she said, should I do it live one more time before it goes fully into an evergreen digital product? And I said, the three year ago version of me would have said, well, I think there's a really good opportunity. I would have gone straight to the strategy. instead, mean, all this work has changed me as a coach, and it's made me so much better. said,

Do you want to? She's a generator, and I know this. I'm like, when you think about doing this live, is that fun for you? Are you asking because it kind of feels fun? Or are you asking because you feel like maybe you should do this one more time? And she was like, ooh, I feel like I should. And I was like, then we're not doing that. And so then we explored some other options. But instead of just always looking at, well, this is an opportunity to make more money, right? That's going to fall flat for so many reasons. But yes, it's the plug and play into like,

I have a thing, I should sell it, I should take advantage, right? But we have to come back to what do I have the capacity for in this season of life? And we get to be motivated to make informed decisions from simply how we feel as well, which is not what we've been taught all of our life, right? We don't make decisions with our heart and our body and our emotions, it's with our head. it's like, actually, based on human design alone, like,

Melissa (56:23.598)

98 % of the population is not supposed to make decisions with their head. So what does that look and feel like? So yeah, I'm with you. I feel like we could talk forever.

Shannon Mattern (56:31.071)

my gosh. We could talk forever about this. I feel like we are just getting started with our conversations. Can you share with our listeners where they can go to learn more about you and everything that you do?

Melissa (56:37.707)

Yes.

Melissa (56:46.998)

Absolutely.

Instagram is where I hang out the most, MelissaFerlic underscore biz, which I'm sure will be in the show notes because I did not get an easy last name. I was like, could I have just married a Smith? if you send me a message on Instagram, it's really me responding. I also check email. You can go to my website, www .melissaferlic .com. You can read a little bit more about human design. You can read about Colby. If you want to

Shannon Mattern (56:54.883)

Yes, it will.

Melissa (57:17.708)

like the full support, We do all the things. But if you're like, I just want to dabble in Colby, like I have some options for that. If you just want to dabble in human design, you can go and get your free chart right now. And that's a great way to just start exploring what that means. And honestly, like the world is your oyster in terms of access to information. Google and Instagram, if you know your type, you can start exploring just with all the information that's made available to you out there. So there.

There's all types of opportunities depending on where you're at or what you're looking for and I'm always happy to have a chat and help you figure out what that might be if you're the person who's like, don't know, I just know I need something.

Shannon Mattern (58:00.833)

Amazing. So you all can go to melissafrolick .com. That's F -R -O -E -H -L -I -C -H. We'll also link that up in the show notes. Melissa, it's a pleasure getting to know you. Thank you so much for being here.

Melissa (58:15.502)

Shannon, thank you. This has been so fun and I can't wait to continue our conversation because I feel like it is not done.

Shannon Mattern (58:24.234)

for sure. So thanks everyone so much for listening and we'll see you back here next week.