Having a business that gives you time freedom means you can say yes to more of the things that are important to you. But it can be easy to get caught in the trap of not knowing how to make that happen. In this episode, we’ll explore how to build an automation ecosystem with Melanie Brandt.
Melanie is an entrepreneur, digital marketer, and social media expert. She teaches business to set up their automation ecosystem.
Early on in her business, Melanie realised that if she really wanted to scale her business it would require putting the right systems and structures in place so she could spend her time in the more important areas of business.
If you’re a business owner wanting to scale and have more income, you need to evaluate the systems you have set up. This episode shares golden nuggets on how you can identify what ecosystem works for your business, so let’s dive in.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- The symptoms that Melanie was experiencing early in her business growth (01:37)
- The moment she decided she wanted to scale (05:23)
- Melanie’s definition of “scaling” (07:45)
- What you need to create an automation ecosystem (09:25)
- The best way to choose systems for your business (17:33)
- Finding the right tools that can support business growth (21:59)
QUOTES:
- “Scaling is the systems, structures, and foundations of your next level and there are so many facets to consider.” -Melanie Brandt
WHERE TO FIND MELANIE BRANDT
- Website: https://www.lifestyleind.com/
- Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/lifestyleindmarketing
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifestyleindmarketing/
BOOK YOUR FREE BUSINESS ACCELERATOR CALL
If you’re an expert doing over $10k per month, and want to be known as the Unapologetic Leader in your industry, you may be just a few small tweaks away from doubling your income and visibility.
On this quick 15 minute call, we’ll:
- Conduct a quick audit of your marketing to see what is and isn’t working.
- Review your niche, positioning and pricing of your current offers.
- Uncover the top 3 bottlenecks from holding you and your business back from scaling
- Develop a 3-step implementation plan to get the growth results you are looking for.
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ABOUT MELANIE BRANDT
Melanie has been in the online space for 7 years! After building her first successful business online using Hustle she realised she had in fact created success but not time freedom. Mel became obsessed with automation and now leads a world class program teaching complete eco system automation for business owners.
TRANSCRIPTION
Melanie Brandt Snippet (00:00):
Is it time for a business shake-up? And if it is, what does that look like? Is it a rebrand? Is it new systems? Is it more automation? But you know, the question is the company that you have now? Is it creating the life you want them?
Samantha Riley Intro (00:17):
My name is Samantha Riley, and this is the podcast for experts who want to be the unapologetic leader in their industry. We’re going to share the latest business growth, marketing, and leadership strategies, as well as discussing how you can use your human design to create success in business and life. Inside and out. It’s time to take your influence, income, and impact to the level you know you’re capable of. Are you ready to make a bigger difference and scale up? This is the Influence By Design podcast.
Welcome to today’s episode of influence by design, I’m your host, Samantha Riley. And today we’re going to be talking about automation, not just about the tools that you can use, but really how to build an ecosystem automation. And we’re going to dive into that a little bit deeper. My guest today is Melanie Brandt, who has been in the online space for seven years after building her first successful business online using hustle. And I know that a lot of us know what that means. She realized she had in fact created success, but not time freedom. And now she’s obsessed with automation and leads a world-class program teaching the complete ecosystem automation for business owners. Welcome to the show, Melanie,
Melanie (01:28):
Thanks for having me excited to be here and share some golden nuggets.
Samantha (01:32):
There right up. That’s exactly what we’re here to do. Now, you talked about ecosystem automation, what I’d love you to do is share a little bit how you got to this point because I think with anything where we’re talking automation systems, there’s always, that story that leads up to that. And I think that that’s what people resonate with,
Melanie (01:50):
Yes, 100%. So for me, you know, seven years ago, entering into the online space, I was a mum, new mum of baby number two, and I had to return back to work which, much to my disgust, it was just what I had to do, in order to, you know, I wanted to be able to contribute to the household, you know, I wanted to be able to kind of hold my own, that was really important for me.
So, you know, I dived into the online space, I fell into network marketing, which look at that, again, I didn’t think I was going to be one of those people. But when I kind of got the red light, sorry, the green light to do it my own way, you know, that’s where things kind of started to take shape.
You know, that was my apprenticeship into the online space. And what I found along the way, we’d grown very, very quickly, you know, there was already systems in place, there was already automation in place from the company. But what I found was, unless there was something that was going to directly support me and my brand and how I was building, I’d actually given myself a glorified, you know, 6 am in the morning till 10pm At night job.
And, you know, I entered into it for time freedom. And, you know, having two young kids, I actually found that it was the complete opposite, if you wanted to go back, you know, you can definitely have side hustles that, you know, allow that little bit of extra cash a little bit of time freedom.
But for me, you know, this was something that I wanted to make big. So, you know, that was a pain point for me. And when I had built that business and still, you know, ranking at the top position, and still being like, no, what’s your iPad? No, I can’t be at your school thing. No, you know, I was still saying no to all the things that were so incredibly important to me. So, you know, I fell into that space of looking for another way for there to be systems that held the growth and supported what it was that I was chasing.
Samantha (03:47):
I know that heaps of people will be resonating with that right up front because we all do go into business for the time freedom. Yeah. Also to be able to make sure that we earn an income that’s not related to that. trading time for money. And then all of a sudden, I’m sure many of us have been caught in that trap of, okay, we did this to have the freedom and hang on a minute all of a sudden, where is that now?
Every single waking hour we’re working? And, you know, it’s I’m sure that you have days where that still happens 100% I certainly have days that that still happens but it’s the it’s not the norm it’s the exception, not the norm.
Melanie (04:29):
Yeah, and I think Sam but now it’s by choice, you know, I get to work on my business, I don’t have to necessarily work in it, you know, which means that we can be in creative mode and we can be launching new things and adding value in so many more ways.
So you know, it was a massive learning curve, but one that I’m so incredibly grateful for because we you know, we uncovered a way to do it. That has reduced a 60-hour work week into like six Yeah, which is a game changer. Yeah. You know, just driving my daughter to school. And she’s like, Well, Mom, you, you really like, Do you have any calls to be on? And I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, we’re good. You know, because they’ve, they saw me hustle, you know, while they were growing up, and it was always I’m busy. I’m busy. I’m busy. And now I’m loving the fact that I’m available.
Samantha (05:22):
Yeah. Awesome. What was the moment? Like? Was it a specific moment where it all fell into place for you? Or was it this, you know, trial and error? Like what? I guess the first part of the question is, at what point did you think something’s got to change? Was there a specific thing that happened? And then what was that first step for you to make that change?
Melanie (05:45):
Yeah, I love that question. So for me, the specific moment was when I wanted to scale, and I sat there thinking, How is this even possible, it’s not, you know, there’s no way that I’m going to be able to create more income, with less time in the structure that I was in. So it was a I’m not sure it was an exact day. But it was probably a series of moments that I kept head-butting the same thing.
And I really, I understood a standing out in the market. And I understood that I needed to find a way to be able to serve people with something that was going to add value, you know, for them in the current market, but also something that wasn’t going to go out of fashion, something that wasn’t going to be a trend, you know, I wanted something that was going to be long term.
And honestly, I kind of fell into, you know, the software that we speak about, I fell into it, because I had rebranded. And a friend of mine said, hey, you need to check this out. And I did. And I started building my website, my own personal website out of this ecosystem that we talked about. And all of a sudden, you know, these, these little universities kept delivering these little messages to me, and it was like, This is it, oh, my gosh, imagine if people could see this, you know, on a large scale, imagine what that could do for people’s businesses.
And it just kept evolving from there. And anything that I put my mind to, I kind of get obsessed with. So, you know, that was almost four years ago, now, you know, that we stumbled across that and every single day, you know, I have worked on learning something new about this, and how it can help and how it can evolve. And, you know, being able to work with people and watch what it’s done for them is incredible. But it’s it’s just one of those things that not a lot of people are talking about.
Samantha (07:42):
So for people that are listening, and they’re like, yeah, absolutely. I need to scale. And by that, what’s your personal definition of scale? Because I think a lot of people get growth and scale. A little bit confused. They’re two very different times of our business. Yeah.
Melanie (07:59):
So for me, you know, the scaling part of it, I think, you know, I very much did, I used to think that scaling was okay, it’s just more money. Yeah, like scale, just gonna go get more money.
But what I’ve come to realize is that the scaling is the systems and the structures and the, the foundations of that next level, and there are so many facets to that, you know, it’s how is it going to run? What’s it going to look like when it goes wrong? How are we going to you know, troubleshoot those things, and having those systems and structures in place first, then allowing, you know, more leads you no more conversations, however, it is that you’re building your business, and allowing that structure to then be able to hold that, you know, test and measure, optimizing what’s going to work what’s not, and literally constantly having, you know, several pairs of eyes on what you’re building, so you can work out what’s working, what’s not, how can we tweak things.
So for me, you know, scaling was very much about getting in the trenches. And you know, I work really fast. So sometimes it’s not the fun bit, right? I want to be out there, you know, doing the doing the fun stuff. But I really understood that I needed to create the foundations first and the structure and the strategy first, then we needed to hit go from there.
Samantha (09:24):
Love it. So what is the first step that you would for people that are listening to this thing? I’m at that point, everything that you’ve just talked about has resonated with me? What is the first step to this? Because, you know, you talk about ecosystem and I’ve got a funny feeling that that’s kind of, you know, understanding what that is, rather than thinking about the tools and thinking about how the separate take us through that.
Melanie (09:51):
Yeah, so look, understanding the ecosystem is not a cookie-cutter. There is no one size fits all but it’s about really diving into where you’re at and what it is that you want to create, and I don’t really look at things from a new perspective, because we’re in the now it’s already happening, your businesses is rolling out the things that it is already, but looking at it from a five to 10 year, you know, vision where it’s like, what do you need to create, in order for your business to grow scale successfully? What are those things that need to happen?
So really, you know, you’re sitting down and working out? What is it that needs to happen next? But also, who do you want to become? You know, that’s a massive part of it, who do you want to become because we’re not worried about what it looks like, now, we’re working with the big girl pants, you know, or the big guy pants that we’re working with the scary stuff, you know, of, you know, creating all of these tools, like you said, and resources for your network to be able to tap into, and I think, really understanding personally, what it is that you’re going to create, that people are going to be willing to trade money for. I mean, that’s what the business is right? What are you going to create, that people are going to be willing to trade?
So you know, how is that big picture gonna fit in? And then obviously, working out those tools from there, you know, the tools are such, like you said that they are a small part, you know, they end up being the big picture, but they are such a small part of the whole entire process. So I think the big question is, how big do you want to go? And who do you want to be? You know, and then reverse engineering it from there, I always work backwards, you know, go to the end results, and wait for yourself to catch up. You know, that is a massive lesson that I learned along the way. It’s not necessarily how you’re doing it. You know, it’s more so how you’re going to get there?
Samantha (11:58):
Totally. And I see so much on social media, people saying, Hey, guys, you know, in Facebook groups, what CRM are you using? Yeah, and I’m just like, Oh, my goodness, it is the wrong question. Evil is the wrong question. And you know, when I go in, and I will offer support and say, hey, look, this is the wrong question.
This is, you know, where you meant to be, I’ll often get ignored. So yeah, you know, I do it less, because you can only help people so much. But let’s talk about the person that you want to be. What data do we need to be drilling into to be able to reverse engineer this? Because we’re not just talking about our, you know, I want to have a $2 million business and be lying at the beach like, I actually need to be extracting way more data than that.
Melanie (12:42):
Yeah. 100%. And I think, such a complex question. Because, you know, a lot of people, like you, said, doubling back to the CRM, it’s just a word that we’ve we’ve had thrown around, you know, it’s a it’s a marketing word. There’s certain companies that just have amazing marketing, and people think that they need to use them. And it’s the same with creating that end result, we often just see the end result that people have created, we see the lying on the beach in the Bahamas, but we didn’t see what it took to get there. We didn’t see what they were doing behind the scenes when people weren’t looking.
So reverse engineering, I think it’s not so much about where you’re going to lie, and what cocktail you’re going to be drinking. It’s more about what’s the hours that you want to work? How are you going to be delivering to your client? What systems are going to be holding some of your clients for you, you know, how can you be coaching people to be able to stepping into your programs and delivering for you? You know, things like that? It’s, it’s really, do you have a business that is actually scalable, you know, some people that have, you know, a hands on company, where, you know, they really want to be the face of the business, there’s only so far you’re going to be able to go before, you know, you’re going to max yourself out. So really allowing yourself to think about how much do you want to let go off?
Yeah, is more so you know, how much do you want to let go of, and I know for you as well, you know, we don’t necessarily want to retire from our businesses know, retiring into them, but meaning that the business still gives you so much flexibility and movement, so you can still live your ideal life and you can show up, and it’s going to align with your values as well.
So, you know, really, again, forgetting the money is a representation of who you’ve held to how many lives you’ve impacted, and what it is that you have, that allows people to have transformation. You know, that’s when the money appears. The money doesn’t just appear, you don’t just create a course and everybody jumps on it. I really do. Oh, from the Bahamas? Absolutely. But I think it’s positioning. Yeah. Like, do you agree it’s positioning? How are you going to position yourself in this market? Have you looked at what if this happens? What if? What if we have another COVID? Shutdown? What if, you know, like, what if? What if? What if? What if have you completely bulletproof your business, so that it doesn’t matter what happens, you can continue to grow, and you can continue to execute on that end lifestyle that you want to create?
And are you I thought it was going to be one to miss a few 99 100, because that’s a company I built, I was done, you know, in, but the difference was, I was building inside a structure that was still not mine, it’s still not mine, I still didn’t have complete control. So what that meant was now in this company, having complete control some of the things that that first business had put into place for me, I now had to build myself.
So you know, there were a lot of lessons in how quick can things be done, you know, there was, you know, massive lessons in huge months, and huge drops right after that. So really, I guess, looking also at where you’re at, minus the emotion, because when we make decisions with emotion, we make silly decisions. So being able to be completely one with my business, but being completely separate from it as well.
So I can look at it with the eyes that it needs, not from a point of suffering, you know, not from a point of, you know, having to really make sure this works. And you know, what, if it doesn’t, and, and having that panic about it, it’s more, you know, analyzing things and, and like you said, Knowing your data, knowing your figures, knowing, you know, how your team are responding, and all of those sorts of things are absolutely paramount. You know, I call myself the blanket in the business, because I kind of, I need to lay over all the things and show that they all stay warm.
Yeah, we don’t want any cold bits. We don’t want anything that’s not getting that warm, we want to be able to make sure that everything’s running well, without obviously micromanaging as well. Totally. So there are quite lines, you know, there’s so many fine lines, and every business will look different.
Samantha (17:31):
Totally. So let’s talk about specifically a coaching business. What are some of the systems that we need to start? Or in your idea? What are some of the systems that people need to start thinking about? Yeah, as that person that they want to be? What are some of the systems that they need to start thinking about? So that we can begin to reverse engineer what automation? And what tools need to be implemented? or brought into the business?
Melanie (17:59):
Yeah, good question. And I, I’ve seen this recently, and I’ll share this story. I know these people won’t mind. But there are some people in the coaching space, and they came to me and they were like, You know what, you know, we’re and they’re crushing it already crushing it, but they had a full-time job. Overwhelm was absolutely, you know, 110% happening. And they kind of didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel when with them, I just got them to think about, okay, what can be automated is the first step, let’s just get the low hanging fruit.
Yeah, what can be automated, but really, it’s looking about what are the things are left on the table that can be deriving other income as well. So they came to me with that business, they left with a complete affiliate program, and a subscription as well. So they were already influencing people.
But they were trying to do it in a way where it’s like, okay, I’ll send you an invoice. Yep. Cool. Okay, now you can work with this, like, it was so manual. So it’s really, you know, thinking outside the box on, okay, if I want to be able to coach people if it’s in a group setting, or you know, I want to be able to coach 100 people at a time, is it a subscription that I need to create?
You know, is it a, do I want people to be able to share my program for me, you know, okay, this is an affiliate now where I’m gonna pay people percentages. So again, looking at that big picture, and then going, Okay, what’s going to be the best structure that’s going to be able to allow me to bring in the numbers as they are now, but let’s times that by 100, or 1000, can that system still hold that? Yes. Okay. Go, you know, because I think, again, you know, the more hands-on and the more manual it is, the less scalable is
Samantha (19:49):
So from what I’m hearing, you’re talking about, how do you want to deliver what is that, you know, monthly recurring revenue or, you know, the program is evergreen So yeah, so from a delivery perspective, you’re also talking about from a lead attraction perspective, how do you want to be accruing your leads? Is it by affiliates? Is it by? Yeah, you know, paid to advertise? Yeah. So that you can start to decide what needs to be what those tools are?
Melanie (20:19):
Yeah, pulling it to pieces before you try and build it. You know, it’s like the Lego house that your brother steps on, as soon as you’ve finished it. It’s like, pull it to pieces first. And let’s have a look inside and see why everything’s ticking the way it is. And can we make it tick faster?
You know, Can we reverse a few things? Can we speed up a few things up. And if you don’t have that data, you don’t have that information? Quite often, you’re gonna go and build what you think you need. Yeah. And then when you when it’s time to scale, which is this is what I did the first time I built what I thought I need because I only knew what I knew. And then when I was trying to scale, it was impossible. It was absolutely impossible.
So the only way that I could have done it was to go in, pull it all apart, and rebuild it. So it’s really pulling it all apart. First, working out, like you said, your leads, where are they coming from? How are you showing up? What strategies are you using for social media? How are you collecting people’s money? Is it monthly? Is it weekly? Is it lump sum? You know, what are you delivering, but also then thinking, you know, in a coaching program, how can you then build a portal, that your, you know, clients can log into to access the data that they need inside your program, you’re not necessarily throwing them into a portal and going, Hey, go work at itself, you’re just giving them a place where they can download documents and you know, have extra training and things like that, again, you’re adding so much more value to what it is that you deliver, but you’re not having to use more time?
Samantha (21:57):
Totally. So once we’ve sort of pulled that Lego house apart, and decided these are the things we need, how then do you do your research to know what tools to tap into? Because there are 1000s? Like, I think people are quite surprised. There’s, there’s over 1000, CRMs there’s so many LMS, you know, learning management software, there’s so many, you know, project management software, how do you know what to do?
And I think, how do people get it so that they can use the least amount of products possible? Because I think this is where so much breaks? Yeah, people focus on a tool for each single piece. And then all of a sudden, they’ve got this huge amount of tools that don’t integrate. Yeah. And it just it turns into a way bigger mess.
Melanie (22:47):
And it’s clunky. Yeah, really clunky. It’s clunky. And I remember having this I remember sitting in front of my computer and thinking, surely this is not how people do it. Surely not. Because I was overwhelmed. I needed a degree in every single software, I also needed to probably sell a left kidney as well, to be able to pay, you know, the month descriptions. Yeah, and so this is this is kind of where I fell into was that ecosystem automation.
And for me, you know, I found the exact software that I was going to back and still to this day back that has everything in that one place. So you know, the website, the landing pages, booking systems, you name it, it is in the one place, the CRM, you know, and that, for me was important to find because I needed simplicity, I needed to be able to grow my business. And my time was better spent speaking to people and getting them inside my program and, and serving them than it was trying to work out how to send a buddy email campaign with, you know, some crazy software, you know, so that was a big thing was, you know, was working out what my 10-year goal was, what was that vision and for anyone that knows me, who knows right minds, it’s usually this but then it gets bigger and bigger and vaguer as we go.
So I needed something that I could trust was going to support me for the next five or 10 years or more in the growth and the ideas and the creativeness and all the things that I wanted to chew up and spit out and not have to go backward and build it again. I just wanted to be able to continue to create and continue to serve and put things out there.
So I think the key is to find once you know what it is that you need, finding something that’s going to support that growth and staying with it, sticking with it, and finding out how it works. How does it take over and you know, I’ve become a pro at this, you know, ecosystem software it because it made so much sense to have it in one place. It makes so much sense.
Samantha (25:05):
How did you find this? I think that’s where I’m trying to get to.
Melanie (25:09):
Okay, so this was what I found, yep. This is what my girlfriend brought me. And she was like, I could build your website. And I was like, Okay, should I use this software and I was like, Okay. And then she started telling me all these things that it did, and I was so green, back then, I was like, Okay. And honestly, like, I feel like that was the universe’s gift for diving in and trusting myself to build this company was, hey, let me give you do this.
And you know, you’re either going to run with it, or you’re going to follow the masses. And I’ve never really been one to follow the masses. Rebellious is my middle name. And it’s worked out really well for me this time around because I didn’t feel like I needed to follow the leader, I didn’t feel like because there’s some really great marketing out there for certain software’s, you know, I didn’t feel the need to go and follow.
And I’m so incredibly grateful that I didn’t now because a lot of those people are now coming to me and going, Oh, my God, how do we undo this? You know, so standing, standing in your power, with what you know, you need, and trusting yourself on that was a was a really massive thing. And I’m grateful to the person that brought it to me and went, Hey, you should check this out. You know, it literally was an accident that I stumbled across it.
Samantha (26:30):
So it’s about getting really clear on the outcomes that you want so that you can say to people, this is what I’m looking for. This is the outcome that I want to achieve. Yeah. So that then other people can bring the solutions to you and say, Well, I think that this solution would be the best for you.
Melanie (26:48):
Yeah, yeah. And I think in some cases, you know, what, what I do doesn’t work for everybody, you know, their big vision is, you know, having full warehouses and you know, they’ve got a system that, you know, tracks barcoding, and they need specialized created systems, things like Shopify might support them now.
But as they grow, they’re probably going to have to have their own software’s built that suits the exact distribution and creation that they’re going through. So you know, I think sometimes people just don’t have, I guess it’s the education and understanding that if you want to create the million dollar business, the $10 million business, the 100 million dollar business, you’re gonna have to have a system that’s going to work for you, you’re not usually going to be able to ride the wave on a cookie cutter, and everybody else. And you know, I just understood that right from the start.
Samantha (27:44):
Yeah, love it. So Melanie, for people that want to dive more into your world, where can they find you?
Melanie (27:53):
www.lifestyleind.com. Everything on there about automation on Facebook, Melanie Brandt on Instagram lifestyle, I N D marketing,
Samantha (28:04):
Love it for people that have listened, and they’re like, yep, this sounds good. What is that one sort of golden nugget that you’d like to leave them with that, you know, that will have them noodling over something for the rest of the day, and then taking action on it?
Melanie (28:18):
Yeah, I think the one thing that I would leave him with is, is it time to give your system a shake-up, you know, is it time and this could look like whatever you need it to, it doesn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with what I’m doing. But, you know, we go through an evolution in our business, and I think we get stuck, sometimes just doing what’s working. Yep.
And when you step back, you’re playing small, because you’re you’re only doing what you know, so, you know, the best gift that I had was that complete business shake up where I stopped one, you know, I went gung ho and the other now I’m not saying stop a business and start one, but I took the dive, I trusted myself, I decided and I committed to the end result that I wanted to create.
So I think really, you know, is it time for a business shake-up? And if it is, what does that look like? Is it a rebrand? Is it new systems? Is it more automation but you know, the question is the company that you have now? Is it creating the life you want then?
Samantha (29:27):
That last bit value bomb mic drop moment, Melanie. Thanks so much for joining me. It’s been an absolute pleasure.
Melanie (29:34):
You’re welcome.
Samantha Outro (29:36):
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Influence By Design podcast. If you want more head over to influencebydesignpodcast.com for the show notes and links to today’s gifts and sponsors. And if you’re looking to connect with other experts who are growing and scaling their business to join us in the coaches, thought leaders, and changemakers community on Facebook, the links are waiting for you over at influencebydesignpodcast.com
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