166. The Leadership Skill Every Woman Entrepreneur Needs

Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach Melissa Kellogg Lewicki, and this is the Doing Business Like a Woman podcast, where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom, one business at a time. Good morning. How are you? How's Everything. Hope you're having a great week. Today we're going to talk about filling the room. So what I mean by that is filling the room, whether you're filling an event, whether it's online or in person, filling your offers. And what I continue to learn, because it's definitely a continuing to learn process. And I'm going to share with you a big challenge that I have given myself this this year. And I'm going to bring you along with me on that challenge throughout the next couple of months. So in case we don't know each other, my name is Melissa My Marketing Coach and I'm the owner and the founder, CEO of the Avanti Business Academy for Women. And my vision is to help thousands and thousands of women entrepreneurs achieve and experience all kinds of wealth through entrepreneurship. And the way I am serving right now is I have a lot of experience in marketing, so I serve as a private marketing and business coach. I also have a 90-day marketing accelerator group program and really helping women to connect with their clients and fill their offers and spread their impact and really enjoy it, enjoy marketing too. Yeah, that's what we're all about. I have been in business 20 years. I have created over $1 million in all-time revenue and I have learned a lot throughout that journey. So the story I want to tell today is about how I have learned to fill the room.. And I'm going to share with you how I do that in a marketing sense, as well as leadership sense and community sense, because it is a lot about growing a community as well. So 3 years ago, I took over as a managing director of the Northern Colorado chapter of eWomen Network. And if you're not familiar with eWomen Network, I definitely encourage you to check us out. But eWomen Network is a global community of women entrepreneurs. It's a global community of over 500,000 women connected through many chapters throughout mainly North America, but also globally. And I joined this organization back in 2021, I believe, as a member. And I joined because my good friend, She took over the chapter and I wanted to support her and be there for her. And so I joined. And what I really found was these were my people. You know how you do a lot of networking if you use networking as one of your ways to meet people, you do a lot of networking and you meet a lot of people and go into a lot of rooms. And some rooms you feel like this is my place and some rooms you feel like this is not my place. And so when I walked into this room, learned more about this organization, I was all in. I joined, I went to the conference, I was all in and I knew it was my place. And then a couple of years later, so back in 2023, the current, my friend, the managing director decided she was going to step down and she asked me if I would be willing to take over the chapter. And at first I was like, hell no, because I knew how much work it was for her. And how much blood, sweat, and tears she had put into building this chapter. And my first response was no way. Right. And then I took some time to think about it. And I knew that this was going to be an opportunity for me, for some real growth for me. And my ideal, my best fit clients, my ideal place to be is wherever the women entrepreneurs are. And this room was full of them. And so there was definitely the alignment there. And my mission aligned with helping women grow their businesses. The mission of eWomen Network is to help 1 million women entrepreneurs each achieve a million dollars in revenue. So I could be aligned with that. And then I thought about what I could learn from this opportunity. And so I set my intention behind what I wanted to learn from this opportunity because at that point in my business, I was struggling in my coaching business to fill my own room, right? To fill my events, to fill my offers. And so one of the things I admired and marveled the most about my friend that was currently leading this chapter was that she was so great at filling the room. And I had that thought about her and I was struggling. And I thought to myself, what if I could be good at filling rooms too? And so the opportunity seemed like a match made in heaven, even though I said hell no at first, I reconsidered. I had some parameters, some boxes that needed to be checked in my mind. And so I explored the opportunity, went through the process, all the boxes got checked. And so I said, okay, then if all the boxes get checked, I'll say yes. And all the boxes got checked and I couldn't say no any longer. I said yes. And so at that point in April of 2023, so we're going on 3 years now, I had no idea how much I was going to learn. About filling the room, about leadership, and about creating a community. And so those are some of the things I want to share with you today about what I have learned through this process. So I'm 3 years in, and what I want to say to you all and what I really felt, what I really felt when I took over this role 3 years ago, is that we all start with an empty room. All of us, me, you, my mentor Sandra Yancy is the CEO and founder of eWomen Network. So I have been learning from her, studying under her throughout this last 3 years, but she started with an empty room too, right? We all start with an empty room. We all start with this idea in our head, this vision in our mind, in our heart, and it is our responsibility to bring it to life as entrepreneurs, right? As an entrepreneur, the idea, the vision, the dream that you have, the calling that you have, that is your business. It is your responsibility to bring it to life. Not anyone else's. It's not your mentors or your— anyone else but you, your team. It's your responsibility to bring it to life. And it's your responsibility to fill the room. It's your responsibility to create the energy and the environment that you envision. And all of that starts inside of us, right? In our mind, in our heart, we have this vision and we have to bring it to life. And so I had a vision of this ecosystem, and even before E Women Network, I had this vision of an ecosystem of support support surrounding every woman entrepreneur that walked through my door, to surround her, embrace her with everything that she needs to be successful and to build the business and create the wealth and all of its forms that she wants to create, that it's her vision to create, and the impact that she wants to create. So my vision for myself and my business is to be that enveloping, that embracing force that just lifts her up and helps her, gets her everything that she needs in order to build this, the business that she envisions. So this opportunity to lead in Women Network really fit well into that. My vision is also to serve thousands and thousands of women entrepreneurs through my online challenges that I do and online events, my in-person events. So I'm now currently hosting 2 in-person events every month that I need to fill. Uh, my group program, I have a 90-day marketing accelerator that I'm launching this year every single quarter. And I want to fill that too, right? And then also I have a private marketing and business coaching practice that I want to fill. And that's my vision, to fill those in order to serve thousands and thousands of women and really help them be successful. So what I have learned in the process of learning how to fill, fill the room, our eWomen Network chapter, having 2 events a month, I get a lot of reps. So I've been doing this for almost 3 years. So that's 36 months, right? And then filling 2 events per month. So that's what, 2 events I have had the responsibility to fill consistently. And so I have learned a lot throughout that process. And there's nothing like having those deadlines, having that consistent, it's coming, 2 weeks, 2 weeks. We have an event every 2 weeks that I have to fill, that we and my leadership team and our members, we are committed to filling. And so what I've learned from that is that first of all, I have to be more sold and more bold than anyone else to bring them along. And I think I struggled with that in the beginning of this journey, that the people that I want to enroll in my vision will not believe in me or what I'm doing more than I do. So We each have the responsibility to sell ourselves first, and that can be really hard because especially if we're waiting for the validation or the opinions or the permission of other people, the longer we're waiting for those things, the longer we're delaying our progress, the longer we're delaying our success. We have to be the leader, the one that decides to believe in what we are offering, in the event that we're putting on, right? In the vision of that. And so one of my mentors talks about leadership. She says, I go first, I go often, and I go on purpose. And so that's how you have to fill a room or fill an offer. Also, you have to go first, you have to believe first, you have to sell first, you have to first be sold yourself. You have to go often. And for me, so that's what's been great about learning how to fill the room is I'm practicing. I have a plan, I execute the plan, and I see the results every 2 weeks. It's like bang. And that's not even taking into account my, my coaching offers and my coaching events. Right. And then the other thing I've learned that it's not just about getting butts in seats. And just selling seats and filling the room. It's about, as leaders, we have to set the vision. We are curating the ecosystem. I'm curating the ecosystem. I know the best fit people, best fit women entrepreneurs to be in the room. And then it's my responsibility to bring them in, to go out into the world and connect with them, meet them and invite them in. And it's a lot easier probably to fill the room with anyone and everyone than it is to curate a room and then fill the room with the right fit people. It's not just about putting butts in seats and selling tickets. It's about making sure the right people are in the room. And so that's been something I've had to really learn and continue to learn. And you could continue to kind of tweak that and learn from that. And and experiment and discover where are the places and the rooms that I need to be in to find our best fit people, right? And then one of the big— biggest lessons I've learned, and I think has been so the most helpful also, is that I have to ask for help. We all have to ask for help. We need support. We can't do it alone. And we don't want to do it alone, right? Maybe we could, but we're going to go further together, right? What's the old proverb? We can go, we can go fast, or we can go far. We can go fast alone, or we can go further together. And so really just deciding that asking for help curating and enrolling fellow leaders in this vision that can help you build it is so valuable. And it's one of the biggest lessons that I've learned. And it's so funny because in the beginning I was like, who would want to help me in this? This is my idea, my vision, my thing. No one's going to want to help me build this. But what I learned is that people want to be a part of something bigger. They want to be a part of something big. They want to be a part of a vision, a mission, a something that's growing and moving. And so when we invite them in, they may not want to have that leadership role like I have, but they have so much to offer. And so when I can open up to that possibility and invite people in, invite people to be part of it, it is so much more fun and meaningful and purposeful. And they get to grow and learn also, as I'm growing and learning, and as we are serving this community in a bigger and better way. And so that for me has been one of my biggest places of growth in this journey. And it's just been beautiful to watch. And I'm so thankful for my leadership team. They're the most amazing women and to get to watch them each operate in their zone of genius. And we all come together with our different parts and pieces. And create this beautiful community. It's amazing and stunning. And I'm just so thankful. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about the marketing from the marketing perspective. How do you fill your events, fill your offers, fill your rooms? So what I've learned is that relentless communication is key. And that's exactly what I wrote in my notes. We all have so many different inputs coming at us at all times, right? Emails and texts and social media and phone calls and people and all these things coming at us. What are the things that we filter and allow through? I have to know, first of all, what are they looking for? What is going to serve them the most? And how can I communicate what we have to offer in a way that is going to really connect to them? And so, as we know, marketing is all about connection. And so relentlessly connecting and communicating is key. And for example, we do that through email marketing. We have a lot of emails that go out about our events, social media. We talk about it on social media. And then I do have to say personal reach-outs are one of the best ways that we are filling our rooms and people love that personal connection, that reach out, that personal invitation, it just helps you to really stand out in a crowded marketplace because we all are sick of being in a funnel. We are all sick of being email blasted at. So when someone reaches out in a personal and connective way, it really stands out, right? It really helps you to break through. And be real. With AI and so much questioning, is it real? Is it real? When you hear that voice on the other end of the phone, or you receive that personal text or audio text, it really gives a sense of belonging. It gives a sense of you're special. I have taken this time to reach out to you personally, and there's nothing like it. So I'll get off that soapbox. I just want to say, if you don't have events and hosting opportunities for your people to be in your presence, you need to. This is the next big trend. I think as AI grows in scope and continues to grow in usage and becomes more and more a part of our lives, people are wondering more and more what is real, right? And so those opportunities for them to be in your presence, face to face, to see you, even if it's online like we are now, or if it's in real life, are going to continue to be more and more precious. And we have seen that recently. Mark Cuban made a major investment. It was in the media as the anti-AI investment. He invested substantial amount in a live event company. And so he was talking to Inc Magazine about that. And quote, he says, within the next 3 years, there will be so much AI, in particular AI video, AI people, we won't know if what we see or hear is real, which will lead— so that pendulum is going to swing the other way, right? Which will lead to an explosion of face-to-face engagement. Events and jobs. So if you're looking for opportunity, if you're looking to be on that cutting leading edge, you need to be creating events where people can be with you live face-to-face. And so that is really where marketing is headed, where sales is headed. Think about that for you and your business. And so personal reachouts is a huge thing in terms of our marketing and filling the events and filling the offers too. Another, from a marketing perspective, is just making signup and enrollment in your event super easy. For our members, I have signup slips and when I have them in the room at my event, they can sign up for a variety of the upcoming events. All they have to do is check a box and write their name on the slip and I sign them up. I make it really super simple for them. And so anytime you can reduce that friction in your workflow of helping or allowing people to sign up and enroll, that is definitely a great use of your resources. Back on this, personal reachouts have become key because people love to be invited. And I was thinking about each year we host a Women's Success Summit, which is our biggest event of the year. So it's super exciting and also super scary because it is a big event. And so I remember the first time I hosted my summit 2 years ago, my enrollments were not where they needed to be. I had been doing the emails and the social and all those things, but I hadn't been doing many personal reach-outs. And so a fellow managing director in another part of the country in passing told me, yeah, I spent 2 hours every day on the phone calling people and that's how I filled my event. And so I thought, okay, it's not really what I want to be doing. Cold calling or even warm calling at all is not my favorite thing to do. Actually, that's not true. I love talking to people, but it's like the act of getting in the momentum of it is the hardest part. I don't know if you can relate to that at all, but Once I get going, I love it, but I became desensitized to it that year because I dropped everything. I blocked off 2 hours on my calendar every single day and I made phone calls and that's how I brought the people in. And people love to be invited. We all love to be invited. We love it when someone calls us up and says, this is what's happening. I really would love for you to be here. Do you want to come? And it just is so much more effective than all the other means of communication right now. And that really has become key. And that's something that I've learned, especially this year. We have seen such a huge response from personal reach-outs and much less response from other ways of communication. I think all the other ways are still important because it gives reinforcement, it reinforces. And reminds people, but those personal reach-outs really are the chef's kiss. And then from a marketing perspective, you have to be committed to your result, your goal, and just decide, I'm going to make it happen. You have to decide to make it happen and then make it happen, right? It is so easy to get discouraged. But you have to keep going. And what I learned early on is this timing of registrations. And this is what I teach my clients, that when you launch something, when that first burst of energy towards that offer or that event comes out, you're gonna have a lot of activity and a lot of signups right at the beginning. And then there's the middle part, which is really quiet. You might not see anything happen, right? And then you'll have that big rush at the end. All the last minute people, the deadline people. That's me. I'm always in that camp. So I totally get you. I get you. But that's the group that really drives the event planners crazy, right? But it's just part of it, right? There's a lot of people that will wait till the last minute to sign up for things. And I'm one of them. And I'm so sorry to all you event planners out there. But that's kind of how it works. You have that rush at the beginning, it's quiet in the middle, and you have the rush at the end. So for you as the leader, as the planner, as the person putting this event on, you have to be consistent in your efforts, in your energy, and in your belief all along the whole way. You have to be that leader going first, going often, and going on purpose, and you have to show show that leadership all the way through. If you dip, if your belief, your energy, your efforts dip, then it's gonna be much harder to bring that, that last, that final burst of registrations in. But if you can maintain your effort and your belief and your energy all the way through, you're gonna be able to survive the ups and downs. And so that's really where having a coach can help you, right? And I would love to help you with that and really help you smooth out. And so you can still remain committed to the goal all the way through, all the way to the finish line and even past the finish line, no matter what's happening, you have to keep going. And I was thinking about all of this and sharing all of this with you because this year I am hosting the largest in-person event I ever have. We've massively challenged ourselves and our capabilities to fill the largest room we've ever filled. I declared in front of a room full of people in January that my goal is to have 111 women entrepreneurs in the room. We never had that kind of attendance before. And so it is a big challenge, but I decided I'm up for it. I was journaling about this recently and The Olympics just came up and I was thinking about the skiers and thinking about Lindsey Vonn and Breezy Johnson. And we know they're both downhill skiers and Lindsey Vonn had her downhill run. She had a massive crash, destroyed her leg, broke it in a million pieces and did not obviously finish the race or get the result of getting gold medal that she wanted. Breezy Johnson, on the other hand, won gold. And I'm so proud and so excited for Breezy Johnson. And also I really admire Lindsey Vonn, but I was thinking about how they both stood in the starting gate just like one another. And when they— makes me emotional— when they pushed off to take off down that mountain, that on that downhill run going, going 80 miles an hour, right? Neither of them knew when they pushed out of that starting gate how that race was going to end. They both knew they had prepared for it. They had done everything they could for that moment and that they were going to give that run everything they had, no matter how it ended. And so I've been thinking about this in terms of this summit, I was in the starting gate back in January, but that I don't know if I'm going to get 111 people in the room or not, but I'm going to give it 100% of my effort. I am all in and I'm going to invite and meet and talk to and bring in as many women entrepreneurs as I can. And it's a huge challenge and I'm up for it. And that's anytime when I encourage all of you and challenge all of you, to take your thoughts and your dreams about your events to the next level and push yourself, challenge yourself to impact more, to increase your reach greater. And that's what I'm doing with this event. And so I wanted to share that with you. I am in this work. I am in this work and I'm still filling 2 in-person events each month. I want to let you know, I'm challenging myself massively. And just invite you to come along with me on this journey. And so I made this declaration to have 111 women in the room. And what I know is that there are over 47,000 small businesses and entrepreneurs here in Northern Colorado. And all I want is to bring in 111 of them. And I totally believe that's 100% possible. I know there's so much demand for community, for coming together and connection. And the environment of support and encouragement and lifting each other up that we've created in this Northern Colorado eWomen Network community is just amazing. And it really is a dream come true because it is the community, it is the place that I wanted to be a part of 4 years ago, and that I now have created and have continued on. And so I'm so excited to grow that even more. So I'm sharing my journey throughout this whole process, what I'm learning about how to fill rooms. I also want to challenge you to think bigger and to go bigger, to spread your impact and your message through hosting events. And like we heard from Mark Cuban, if you're considering that, or if you're actually doing that in your business, you're on the leading edge. And I want to just encourage you to keep going with it, right? To spread your message and your impact farther and farther. And so just take what you've learned today, take all these lessons that I've learned to help you in your event journey. And if you'd like my help in marketing your, your event and filling your rooms, I would love to help you. Please reach out to me. Let's have a conversation. I can help you strategize and offer you a roadmap and all the clarity that you need to fill your events and your offers. And just go full out and have those successful events. Cause it really is super fun. And it really is fun to be in a room with folks that need what you have to offer and want to be around one another. And community is such a beautiful thing. So that's what I wanted to share with you today. And I thank you so much for being with me and I will see you again, same place, same time next week. I hope you have a fabulous rest of your week, and I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you real soon. Take care. Bye. Hey, if you like this podcast, I want to invite you to become part of my community. Each Friday, I'm going to deliver to your inbox my weekly celebration as well as my thoughts on the latest in business and marketing. I want to keep you in the know about my upcoming events, free trainings, book clubs, all the fun things, even some free gifts. And of course, I'm gonna let you know about these new podcast episodes. I'll see you there.