280: Rising As A CEO Through Personal and Professional Growth

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Episode 280 • 31st December 2024 • Burnout To All Out Podcast • Melissa Henault

Melissa Henault:

Hello. Hello, friends. I am going live this afternoon. Coming in hot after a Christmas party celebration with my second grader, my son, Wyatt. So much fun. Coming to you today with a end of year podcast episode. I'm just gonna go ahead and apologize in advance. For those of you listening, to this episode later, my fancy microphone is not working, and I am so non tech savvy that I can't fix it.

Melissa Henault:

r recap. It's a reflection of: 2024

Melissa Henault:

Growth for you as the CEO is not always about revenue in business. This journey for me this year was a major, major growth year. And when you look at our revenue growth where we grew like 380% last year which was unheard of, this year revenue wise we grew 30%, which you know, for an outsider looking in, could be like, wow, like 30% is great. Right? But from the inside looking out, it was like, man, that was like barely moving the needle compared to last year. Right? But the growth and wisdom that I gleaned in this growth year, the growth and the wisdom that my team gleaned this year was priceless. And so as you're listening to this episode, if this was a year for you that wasn't an astronomical revenue growth year, but there were a lot of challenges and opportunities that you were up against, I encourage you to think about where you grew through the challenge, where you grew through the journey. Right? And that's really what today's episode is about. That growth isn't always measured by revenue as a CEO, and it shouldn't be.

Melissa Henault:

Right? As a matter of fact, like I said, we grew 32% this year, but my margins were down. My profit margins, we haven't closed the books yet this year, but they're less than last year. Right? So we actually the company made more money, but the margins were less. And so what that means is it cost me more to run my business this year. Right? So there were some lessons in running my business this year at a cost, pun intended, like revenue cost and a cost of learning. Right? But I grew and the team grew significantly. And really this year, and I talked about this in a previous episode, this year was what I call a base camp year. It was a recover from hypergrowth year.

Melissa Henault:

Right? Recover from at this, this acceleration from the year before to reload, recalibrate, get our wits about us before we take off for the next climb. Right? So what I wanna say in at the top of this is that many times CEOs, we have to evolve and grow for our businesses to follow us. We have to evolve and grow for the businesses to follow us. We may have a growth idea in our business, and we may call it out, but if you don't have the toolset as the CEO, and you don't have the capacity to hold it yet, you don't have the capacity to lead the company to that end goal, you my friend are going to have to grow first before the business follows, ensues. Right? So, you know, I wanna say that at the beginning of the year in January, I'm very big on deep meditation and visioning and intuition, and I got some major downloads from the very beginning of the year, when I was hitting some major headwinds, and I'll talk about it, where I had these visions of these beautiful trees losing all of their leaves, being shaken in the wind, yet the tree itself was fully grounded, fully ground. But in order for the tree to evolve and expand and have even more access to sun in the next year, it need needed to shed all of its leaves for the regrowth, for the rebirth. Right? And so these visions and words kept coming to me at the beginning of the year that I was in for a year of shedding. I was in for a year of those that the tree being tested, the tree being jostled.

Melissa Henault:

Right? So that the dead leaves could go by the wayside, create expansion. Right? To create opportunity for new growth. Right? To allow the tree, the business, to expand even further. Right? Many of you who are in gardening know that you actually have to prune the dead leaves, the dead flowers in order for plants to grow. Right? So that's gonna be kind of some foreshadowing for my year this year. Right? And so what I wanna underscore is what I've learned in this past year in the past 2 years really, but it came to a point this year, is that running a $1,000,000 a year company is not the same as running a multimillion dollar a year company. Right? It's not the same as running a $5,000,000 a year company. And many of you probably heard this, but I experienced this at every level.

Melissa Henault:

Whatever you've done to get you where you are today is not what's gonna take you to where you wanna go. More of the same is, for the most part, not gonna take you to the next level in your business. Right? And, the scale is real. When you're scaling a business to the multimillions, the complexities of scaling are real, and you only know when you're in the thick of it, and then you know. Right? And I was in the thick of it this year. And so what I wanna talk about very first, I'm gonna talk about a couple of different, like, categories of things this year. The first thing I wanna talk about is, where I lost my power. Right? So where I lost my power.

Melissa Henault:

We were on this mass trajectory last year. We grew 380%. The company, had really nice fat profit margins, and we were going into the new year, and it was like, let's do more of the same. All I what my vision was, I wanna bring in a top level marketer who can just drop more leads into the top of the funnel that's working. We just let's bring a marketer in who knows what we don't know. Okay? Keep this in mind. I'm like, let me bring someone in who knows what I don't know because I've got the money in the business, and I wanna bring in the expert, and I wanna delegate out their expertise. Right? And I thought I could just hire someone to grow the business for us.

Melissa Henault:

Right? And, I gave away my power too soon. Right? I'm gonna say this one more time. I gave away my power too soon, right when the company was really taking off. And one of the largest the largest, most expansive growth we'd ever experienced. Think about this. The following year I'm like, hey, I'm gonna hand the keys to you, and you give us direction on what to do. Right? Think about that. When I, as the CEO, right, had led the business to where it was today, I gave up my power too soon.

Melissa Henault:

Okay? I overhired, and I brought in too much headcount. Right? And by the way, this is very common and some of you listening know because you've run businesses, you've experienced this. This is very typical, in business growth. There's growth years, you over hire, then you prune. Right? And then you acclimate. You get to base camp. You you kind of reorient, and then you go into another growth year. Right? And so I over hired and really spent this year recalibrating because when you call in that much, when you grow 380%, you have to serve what you've called in.

Melissa Henault:

You have to manage what you've called in. You have to lead what you've called in. It's capacity. Right? And I've never been there before. I didn't know what I didn't know. I was unconsciously incompetent. If you follow me, you know I love these words. Right? I was unconsciously incompetent at the beginning of this year.

Melissa Henault:

I didn't know what I needed to know to go to the next level. So I gave up my power and said, here, you maybe you know. Right? Maybe you know. Here, CMO. Right? Take this. And so I gave away my power, and when things didn't go as planned in January, My first launch of the year, I was like, we're gonna do a 1,000,000 in revenue. We're that was my big goal this year. We're gonna crush a 1,000,000 in revenue.

Melissa Henault:

1st launch went sideways for a number of different reasons, and we did about half that. We did about 550, maybe 600, maybe 550,000 in revenue. And I started to second guess my knowledge. I started to second guess if I knew what I was actually doing. Have you ever been in those shoes? Have you ever, like, made decisions in your business, and then the results were not what you expected, and then you start to second guess yourself? Instead of stepping back and appreciating that this is part of the journey of business, things don't always go right, and it doesn't mean the world's coming to an end. Right? And so I started to have a slight panic. Right? And this is where I, again, not only gave up my power to someone else who really knew nothing about my business, but had a background in marketing. Right? I also wanna fold in the next the next piece of what I'm gonna talk about is the fear.

Melissa Henault:

The fear of the lack of safety. Right? When things weren't going my way at the beginning of the year, my initial thought was panic. And it wasn't a reality, but it was my childhood insecurities from my childhood traumas that immediately literally triggered my root chakra of, like, we're not safe, the guards are up, we're not safe. Right? Even though this wasn't true, my body was physically telling me, right, we're not safe, You might not be able to feed the kids tomorrow. The house might burn down. Right? You're you're but I'm I'm fed. There's electricity. Everything's fine.

Melissa Henault:

I made a half a $1,000,000 in 9 days, but I'm panicked. Right? And the beauty of this is it took me down this journey that I needed to go on this year in two directions. The inner continual inner work that needs to be done, because if you know, you know. I've been going on this journey of inner work for the past couple of years. It never stops. It's like you pull the string and the sweater, and it just continues. Right? There's 2 journeys I've been on this year. 1 was an inward journey of where does this fear based mentality come from, and how can I unravel it and unroot it? Right? And number 2, why am I losing my confidence as the CEO? Right? Why am I why am I giving away my power? And it took me on this beautiful journey.

Melissa Henault:

Right? Beautiful journey. And when you're in the thick of it, you're like, why me? Right? The great thing is, I've been here before. And when you've been through this before and you've come out of it, it's familiar. And that was the one kind of blankie I could tell you I had was, like, I knew and I even told Sam, my spiritual mentor, when things didn't go my way at the beginning of January, I knew in my soul I had the intuition and full body vibes that there were great lessons for me this year. That I was going to have significant headwinds that were necessary to mold me, to shape me, to grow me for bigger impact. And although I was I would lie not to tell you at the moment I was nervous and terrified, I also was embracing it. Because I knew if this is happening to me right now, and I'm like, if you're watching me, you know I'm like literally holding my body right now. What I knew, what I was about to endure was necessary to mold me, to gain the skills I needed to become the CEO my company needed me to become.

Melissa Henault:

Right? So I just I wanna say that out front. And so literally in January, I maybe it was February, it became very evident to me 2 things. Number 1, you're operating from a place of fear that is unnecessary right now, and it stems from your childhood, and you need to do the work of the the childhood trauma that you've never addressed and get it out of your body. Because otherwise, every time things don't go quite right in your business, your your nervous system is going to overreact as if you were not safe. And by the way friends, this is really unhealthy for your business. Your business needs a calm and collected CEO who feels safe. Because what happens when you don't feel safe is you make decisions from a place of fear, and decisions from a place of fear will destroy a company. Right? And so this is why I really wanna underscore that I went on 2 parallel journeys this year of the inner work and the trauma that needed to be worked through and the CEO development and strategy, and I'll talk about that in a minute.

Melissa Henault:

Right? So I will tell you right now, the work I had to do this year working with a trauma informed therapist was way more work than anything I had to do getting under the hood of my business, and really owning the structure of my company and the KPIs and the details around the revenue, and I'll get into that. Right? But know that I doubled down over a period of months, and I committed in a group mastermind that I'm in, where every year we we commit. What are we committed to that year, before we check-in as a as a peer group? And in past years, I've always committed to I'm gonna it was, like, numbers related. I'm gonna invest 10%, to invest in a business. I'm gonna grow my business by x y z by implementing a b c 123. Like, it was always very, like, tactical and that was 3 years into the mastermind. And this year, I stood up in front of all of my peers and said, I am gonna do the work that needs to be done to unravel the trauma in my nervous system so that I can respond and behave as a cool, calm leader that is not only self preserving for the company, but growth creates growth for the company because I operate from a place of safety, feel feeling safe. And that was hard for me to say.

Melissa Henault:

Being an Enneagram aid, he's very competitive and numbers oriented. Right? And I leaned in and I did the work. And I can tell you to this day, I dreaded the calls. I dreaded I dreaded the emotion that was gonna come up and was gonna come out. But what happened over those months was beautiful. There were so many revelations and neutralizations energetically, and the one thing I can tell you for those of you in the woo realm is that coming into January, my left hip, I could not sit Indian style because there was so much tension, and this came from that root chakra, childhood trauma, the energy that I was just holding in my hips. And I'm here to tell you today that I can sit Indian style. I can sit for hours.

Melissa Henault:

Right? That hip is totally open, the the trauma, the energy has been rooted out like a like a tooth extraction. Okay? Alright. So that's number 1. Right? And I had to go through that spiritually and energetically to prepare me for where the company is going next. That was critical. Right? So that's number 1. I had to work through the childhood the childhood insecurities, and I also had to do the work to gain my power back, my confidence, and my intuition back. Right? Because when things weren't going as planned, I began to second guess everything I was saying that we needed to do as company and everything I was agreeing to.

Melissa Henault:

Right? And I needed to work on what I realized, and I'll talk about this in a minute, but I realized I was at my lid. I was consciously incompetent. I had grown this company to the multimillion dollar mark, and I was at my lid. I didn't know where to go next, and I needed the mentorship to get me there. Right? But I was prepared. So this is the second piece of my podcast here is that I was prepared for such a time as this. Right? What I wanna say is, even though I was experiencing nervous system dysregulation, I was experiencing the fear, the rooted fear in my body of lack of safety. What I wanna underscore here is I'm not a novice in this space.

Melissa Henault:

If this is the first time you're hearing me, you're watching LinkedIn, it's 1st podcast you're hearing from me. I'm not a novice in the space of being in tune with my nervous system. As a matter of fact, if this year had happened to me a couple of years ago, it would have destroyed me. Right? But I was made and prepared for such a time as this. I believe the universe was ready to hand me this year, because the universe knew I had the tools in my tool belt to number 1, be aware that the work needed to be done, and enough tools to begin to self regulate during a challenging year. Right? So as the headwinds hit me this year, and every launch I was saying we're gonna do this and we'd miss our goal. At every launch, I was going for a $1,000,000. Every launch.

Melissa Henault:

Guess what? The whole year went by. We didn't hit a single $1,000,000 launch. We didn't no. We did have 1 month where we did over 900,000 in committed revenue, but we never did the $1,000,000 launch. Right? And I hit significant headwinds and challenges that I could do multiple podcasts on. Maybe I will in the new year. But the challenges were necessary to challenge me, to evolve me, and change me as a leader in order to evolve to my next self, to where the company is headed. The company and my team and my clients needed me to become this new person to lead them, and it was only gonna happen through the resistance.

Melissa Henault:

Through the resistance. The resistance can either fold you or mold you. I'm gonna say that one more time. The resistance can either fold you or it can mold you. Right? So leveraging nervous system regulation and in 2 intuition practices this year, it guided me back home, and gave me the skills, and gave me the capacity to hold the challenge and be molded. See, I've been in scenarios like this before, maybe the stakes weren't as high, maybe I hadn't grown as big of a business. But now, from the last 2 years of doing so much work on nervous system regulation, I was able to calm myself to work through this, and to find experts like Sam to help me navigate. Right? Like I said, 3 years ago, a year like this would have broken me, but this year I had my breath work.

Melissa Henault:

I had my tapping, and I would wake up in the middle of the night at 3 AM. I can't tell you how many times this year. When you're running a multimillion dollar a year business, I'm here to tell you the more money you make, the more responsibility you have. The more the more mouths you have to feed, right? The more clients you have to serve, the more is on the line. So if you think when it when I if I make more, then life will be easier, then life will be the lighter. I'm here to tell you bullshit, The responsibilities are bigger, the stress is higher, and what's even more important is that despite that, you have the skill set to work through it. To work through it. Right? So the tapping, the meditation, every day this year, from 9 to 10 o'clock, morning practice of silence.

Melissa Henault:

Right? Getting grounded, getting clear, mindset reprogramming, recognizing when I was in a slightly panic mode where I could get into overdrive and overwork, or if you're watching me, I've got a couch behind me, or in the midst of it, lay on the couch, put a eye mask on, and do hypnobreath work for 21 minutes to calm my nervous system. Then I could think clearly and take radical action in the right direction. Right? And get quickly reregulated. So I'll say that's one of the things I'm most proud of this year is how quickly I could bounce back. How quickly I could bounce back with some really challenging scenarios. Like one of the things that happened in our in our business this year is that we had a moment where, our processor was, like was just dropping our billing completely. Imagine running 100 of 1,000 of dollars through your business every month that you run your business with, you pay your team with, and all of a sudden you find out there's a huge leaky hole. And you can't figure out what's going on from a tech perspective, and why you're losing this revenue.

Melissa Henault:

Right? Pang it moments, enough to bring you to your knees. Right? Most proud moment is like in the midst of that, keeping my calm. Now I will say, I had a massive moment of balling during that. My husband walked in on a Saturday, and I totally lost it. Right? But I will say that I learned through this year that it was, like, I was willing and okay to be vulnerable to him. That, like, I can't handle this right now. I can't handle this right now. But within literally 24 hours, bouncing back.

Melissa Henault:

Because I came up with a game plan when I was feeling overwhelmed. Instead of letting the the overwhelmedness, the resistance fold me, I embraced it and I let it mold me. I said, okay. What needs to happen here? How do I need to show up as the CEO? What do I need to look into? Who do I need to delegate responsibility on this? How do I take the reins on this and own this like a fucking 8 figure CEO? Right? And that grew me. That grew me, and the only way I was able to step up and own that and create direction and accountability with the team, and move forward, and problem solve, was to get regulated, and move through it, and know that it won't be the first, it won't be the last, this is gonna happen over and over and over again. I wake up every day, and I embrace another gut punch instead of going to work for somebody else. Right? And the only way you can come in and take those gut punches day over day is if you have the skill set to move through it, and also know that it'll come again and it's temporary. What was so interesting about that whole scenario I just shared with you guys is in the moment, it felt like the world was coming to an end.

Melissa Henault:

Right? I I remember Jackie and I being on the line and just, like, really feeling like this was just awful. Right? And in 48 hours, we had it completely turned around. Completely turned around. Right? And so it's those those moments of, like, reminding yourself, I've been here before. I remember feeling like it was the end of the world. Give yourself 24 to 40 hours. And that is what I said to my husband when I just totally lost it on him on that Saturday. I said I just need like 48 hours to get through this.

Melissa Henault:

I know I know everything's gonna be okay, but I will I just gotta release all of this right now. My body is overwhelmed. Okay? Okay. Enough about that. So nervous system regulation 2.0 is what I went through this year, and I was so grateful to have done the groundwork and been a student of it the year before. The next thing I did is I took my power back. I took my power back. Over the year, you know, I realized that that my power, my power was in me.

Melissa Henault:

I I grew this business to where it was. I was the CEO. I was the face of the company. I was the founder, and I too quickly assumed someone else knew better than me to take us to the next level. And I actually delegated a a CMO role to someone who had no experience with my type of business and launching. They had experience with, low ticket offers, selling to the masses, major email marketing over on Instagram, you know, their their resume looked really shiny, but the reality is they didn't know shit about my business. Right? And I realized somewhere in the middle of the year, wait a damn minute. Right? Wait a minute.

Melissa Henault:

Why am I letting someone who has no experience continue to make decisions in my business that are becoming really costly and really catastrophic? Right? Our margins one of the reasons our margins were so bad this year is because I took their advice on spending like crazy. You need 20,000 on that this email mark this thing here. You need a kajillion dollars spent on this over here. We guys spend money on that website over there. And I I had let go of my power and said, well, she must know, and I'm just making I'm just paying the bills. Right? But at some point in the middle of the year, it was like, I'm not seeing the return on this. All I'm seeing is significant overhead with little profitability, and, I'm not sure that this person knows more than I know about running my business. Light bulb moment.

Melissa Henault:

Of course, she doesn't. She's never run my business. She never run a business like mine before. Right? And so my my caution to all of you here is that we do need astronauts, lots of smart astronauts on our team to take us to the stratosphere to get to the next galaxy, all the things. You do need to bring in key talent, in many spaces as the CEO with people who know things that you don't to, elevate your business. I wanna underscore that. However, you also need to be wildly aware, and I'm speaking to myself, when you're giving away your power too soon, and be wildly aware, and this is where I failed this year, holding people radically responsible for KPIs, key performing indicators, when you're investing a lot in them. This is this is the difference between a 7 figure CEO and an 8 figure CEO.

Melissa Henault:

The numbers are really important when you're investing and the stakes are high, that you're holding people accountable to their role. Right? The biggest mistake I made was I brought this person in and held I did not hold them accountable to a single bottom line item of ROI in the company. Till 6 months in, I'm like, you know, my margins have really shrunk significantly, like a quarter of what they were last year, and the profitability is not any better. And I encourage you all to not go 6 months, 8 months before you pull the plug. Right? You ask the questions. My lesson on that is if I ever bring another CMO in, I will have very stringent KPIs that are directly tied to the bottom line of the company in the 1st 30 days, the 1st 60 days, the 1st 90 days. I let my I I gave away my power because I didn't know what I didn't know. And it was an important expensive lesson that I needed to learn this year.

Melissa Henault:

Right? And so, I realized I needed to get silent, and I needed the I needed to get rid of the noise and just get better as the CEO. I realized I didn't need a marketer. I didn't need I didn't need someone to tell me, how to create a new widget and sell a new thing or launch something differently. China shop and started to try to change everything around how we were doing it and it did impact our results. And they've never been in our shoes before. Right? And so what I realized was, I was letting a marketer, keep in mind, a marketer who'd never run a multi 7 figure a year business, tell me how to run my business. This was like the light bulb moment for me. I'm like, gosh.

Melissa Henault:

Not only are they only a marketer, but they've never run a multi 7 figure a year business, much less even a couple $100,000 a year business. And here I was taking their advice on my budget on my budget. Right? And so what I realized was that what I needed this year, moving into the new year and Jackie, my c I CIO and I have been talking about this throughout the year. What I really needed was mentorship from someone who was running an 8 figure plus a year coaching program. Somewhat there's not like, when you get into the higher you climb, the less people that you can seek expertise from. This is just reality. The bigger your business begin becomes, the more niche you are, the less experts are above you to mentor you. Right? And so what I needed was I needed someone who had been in my shoes that that could say, gosh, you know, Melissa, I run coaching programs.

Melissa Henault:

I launch like you do, and I'm making 10 to to $30,000,000 a year, and it's it is a massive operation. There's a lot of headcount. There's a lot of detail. There's a lot of opportunity for waste if you're not careful, redundancy, and loss if you're not really, really meticulous with your business. Right? And so that was the moment in about September or October of this year, I finally, came to my senses that it was time to double down and invest in mentors who were living and breathing where I wanna be again. Right? Living and breathing where I wanna be, again with my growth. Right? And so, in October, I guess it was actually September, I doubled down and invested in 2 different mentorships with over a $100,000, right, of mentorships because I knew it's what I needed. And I'm gonna say this for those of you who've known me for a while, you know, because I needed to take my ceiling and make it my new floor.

Melissa Henault:

Right? I needed to take my ceiling. I had gone from million to multiple million, now, working towards eclipsing over half, you know, 5,000,000 a year is our goal now. Right? And and I needed to find mentors who'd been there before. Right? I needed to take my ceiling because I was making decisions, and some of you are doing this right now, I was making decisions in my business based off experience of the past. How many of you are doing that right now? I was making decisions in my business based off experience of the past, which obviously, when we do what we've always done, we're gonna continue to operate in the past and get the results we got in the past. The other thing I was doing was I had delegated it a lot of it out to someone who had no idea, like, really, how to generate leads for what we do as a business, right, from a marketing perspective. And listen, this the person I brought in has had wild success with people who sell low ticket stuff over on Instagram, and really sophisticated funnels and all the super fancy stuff, but it just doesn't work with what we do. Right? And we we I learned that the hard way.

Melissa Henault:

We are a high quality, higher ticket, more sophisticated client base who really operates off of LinkedIn. Right? And, to hire in someone from the outside who doesn't understand that can what I learned, can create disaster and toxicity in your business, and it did. It created a toxic work culture for a little while. You guys know I'm like, I I I hide nothing. Right? So invested in the mentors whose shoes that that that have been in my shoes. Right? And I learned that I didn't need to delegate out my power yet. I just needed to rise myself up and run and lead and operate my business in a new way. I'm gonna say that one more time.

Melissa Henault:

I recognize this year I didn't need to delegate my power out. I didn't need to give away my power. I didn't need to hire in any new executives to help me run my business. I needed to do the work to grow as the CEO to run my business. I needed to grow. And what I was trying to do this past year was give it away. Like here you run it. I don't wanna do the work, you do it.

Melissa Henault:

Right? Because the work is a lot. Like to grow your IQ as the CEO, it's a lot of work. Right? To do the work on your nervous system, so that you have the capacity to hold all this shit you're calling in, it's a lot of work. Listen. Listen. There is a reason. Only 4% of businesses are successful, and they're what is it? Like no. There's only 4% of businesses in the world that that crossover the $1,000,000 mark.

Melissa Henault:

And ladies, if you're a woman, like, we're in like the half percent top. There's a reason for it. You have to do the work. You have to continue to evolve with your business. You have to do the work to change, to raise your IQ, to hold what you're calling in, to lead your team with where you're headed. You can't just put the goal out there and then not have the technical expertise of the CEO to lead the team in that direction. Right? So I got to work. Right? I got to work.

Melissa Henault:

that we have put together for: 2025

Melissa Henault:

Right? And sized right. It was a year of recalibration. Right? Recalibration. We have to reorient. We We have to reorient after all that growth. Right? We have to reorient. So I took my power back, and we I got to work. Over the last quarter, built my rebuilt my 10 year vision, 10 year business plan, which is a 100,000,000 in 10 years, yes, 3 year business plan and our 1 year goals with the company.

Melissa Henault:

And in the last quarter, have gotten super clear on not just the revenue and the profit goals for the company next year and not just the sales strategy. Many of you guys have listened to my business planning retreat workshop, but I I double clicked down into that significantly. And what I mean by that is it starts big picture with the team. Hey guys, here's where we're headed next year revenue wise. Here's where we need to be to have a healthy profit margin. But now now everyone on the team has roles and goals that are aligned and tracked to meet up to those top level goals in the company. See when people can understand when your team can understand how their individual role and their day to day work wraps up and directly ties to the company goal, they're like bet. Right? Game on, and then throw a comp plan on top of that, that incentivizes them to hit those numbers.

Melissa Henault:

And like I said, you have teammates who are like, game on, let's do it, and you have some they're like, looks like a lot of work and accountability. I don't know. I think I'm gonna go find somewhere where I can hide behind my computer and not be held accountable. Get them the fuck out. You don't want them on your team. Right? You don't want them in your company. Let them go. Let them go.

Melissa Henault:

Okay? Alright. So as the CEO, this is another thing I wanna say. I heard Donald Miller say this the other day, and it's so true. Right? As the CEO, it's all about money and it's not about the money. It's this dual out duality. Right? It's the duality. Because as the CEO, you have to watch the margins. You have to watch the revenue in the company.

Melissa Henault:

If I want you to envision your company as a jet, that's got rocket fuel in it, right? Or airplane fuel, whatever. A jet. That's the the gas is the money, and that plane stays up in the air as long as there's cash flow and healthy margins in the company. And your employees or your team get paid every month, and so they're like, why is it always about the money? Why is it always about the profit margin? Because they get their paycheck every month. But the CEO has to keep their eye on the money, because if bottom line is it's about the client, and it's about their experience, and it's about their satisfaction, and it's about their transformation. Because if they don't get the transformation, they're not satisfied, that impacts your bottom line and it impacts the income and it impacts the profitability which impacts everyone's job that you love and care about. So one of the most important things I have learned this year is to get your leadership team on board with your revenue goals, and help them understand why the revenue goals are directly tied to the client service and client impact, and how it impacts the margins in the company, and it impacts their paycheck, and it impacts the health of the company. Because otherwise your team is blind to just getting a paycheck, and they're gonna be like, why is she always talking about the money? Well, because if there is no money, there is no business.

Melissa Henault:

So for instance, our goal in: 2025

Melissa Henault:

We are literally repeating what we did last year, but being better stewards of the company's budget. Right? Because here's the thing, and this is what I learned this year, right? Your team is not much different than when you take your kids to Target. Right? When you go to Target, what happens? Mom, can I have this toy? Mom, this toy looks amazing. Mom, can I have this? Right? And I listen, I love my team and they're here for the betterment of the company and they're always looking for great ideas and resources that can support the company, but that's what happens. Hey, like, let's use this awesome copywriter. Hey, can we can we pull in this fancy technology? Hey, this app would be really great for the live event. Hey, and, like, they have all these great ideas that are not much different than going through Target with your grocery cart. And when you're at Target with your grocery cart, you got a budget.

Melissa Henault:

You you know what you're going to spend while you're there, and you've got boundaries for what the kids can buy. Right? And so inside your business, when you can create intrepreneurs, people on your team who are also keeping their eye on the budget and what they're spending, right, you're gonna create a more profitable, well run company, right, That's way more efficient. So this year, we don't we are I'm not I'm not aiming for the moon to grow our revenue any more than about 5,000,000 in total, committed sales. Right? But where all of our our our profit margins are gonna come from is reducing waste and improving efficiency inside the company. Right? So the way I would articulate this and what I've learned from the great mentors I'm working with right now is that everyone on my team has what we call 3 profitable pursuits. I learned this from Kelly. Right? That impact the top line of the company. So I'll give you an example.

Melissa Henault:

If our goal is to improve top profit margin and put us at 25% profit margin, reduce waste, increase efficiency, then for customer service. Right? Their 3 their 3, profitable pursuits are client satisfaction scores. Right? So if clients are highly satisfied, this is going to improve their renewal rate, their ascension rate, our retention rate with the client. Right? So this draws a direct line from my customer service lead to how her work and service impacts the company goal. Right? Renewal rates is another one of her kpi's. How frequently are clients renewing? How frequently are clients ascending? Ascension rates. These 3 kpi's are measured for her on a monthly basis. Right? Now these activities and her focus on them as customer service directly impact the efficiency in the company.

Melissa Henault:

Right? The reduction in waste, meaning we're not losing clients because they're not satisfied, we're nurturing them and ascending them up, and in the process, improving the profit margins of the company. We didn't have to go sell another damn thing to create more revenue in the company by being good stewards of the money, and being focused on our key performing indicators as individuals within the company. I hope this is making sense for you guys, right? Same thing with finance, so I'll give you another example. Some of her, her, profitable pursuits are recovery rates. When people's credit card numbers, like they move, their addresses change, their last names change, their cards expire, how quickly are we getting these back in the system? How quickly we're reaching out the client? How quickly are we getting them in the system? What we learned this year is we are going 6 to 8 months with clients with lapsed bills. Is that wasteful? Yes. Can we improve profit margins without selling another thing by being focused on somebody being held accountable to this every month? Yes. Did I have to grow as the CEO? Did I have to double down and look at the numbers, do the hard thing, create the plan, create the scorecard, and have the conversations with my team? Yes.

Melissa Henault:

Because that's what a CEO does that's moving to the 8 figure mark. Right? I had to I had to struggle I had to struggle through this year to come to this conclusion myself. It's like in January, God just said, hey. Hold my beer Will I go teach Melissa a couple of lessons? Right? That's what happened this year, and I was like, okay. I'm here for it. What are the lessons? Like embraced, embracing, and like, let's go. Right? I'll give you another example with my marketing team. Right? Some profitable pursuits are around organic list growth, organic launch registration, organic, yeah, organic launch registration.

Melissa Henault:

So that impacts sales. It impacts a reduction in the spend of ads. That impacts revenue. It impacts waste. It impacts all the things. Right? So now my, marketing project manager can see how she individually contributes to the company goal. Right? You guys, I wasn't doing this last year. I didn't take months with business plans.

Melissa Henault:

I have been working on the business plan since, like freaking October. Right? And I'm just rolling it out, like, some of it now. Some of it we've we've been rolling it out as we've gone. Right? Now here's the thing I wanna wrap up with because I've been rambling for, like, an hour. You guys have to let me know if you like these solo podcasts. I haven't been doing them lately, and we've gotten feedback that you guys want more of these. So let me know in the DMs, like, if you're if you want more solos of the of these types. Here's the thing in my recap of this past year, because I've been telling you a lot about business and nervous system regulation.

Melissa Henault:

What I wanna say though is in spite of the challenges I was up against that I needed to learn this year, the lessons and the blessings. Right? The lessons and the blessings. I stayed healthy, and I had fun despite all the challenges. Right? I'm gonna say that one more time. I stayed healthy and I had fun despite all the challenges. Right? That might have been the biggest part of my growth this year is I can live in a a world of duality. I can be up against challenge, resistance, hard, doing the work, and I can show up with love and joy and take care of myself. I went to I still went to Ireland for a week with my husband.

Melissa Henault:

I still went to Maine for 2 weeks with my kids. My executive assistant put her submission in for, leaving to the the the week I went on vacation to Maine for 2 weeks. Right? I could have let that take me down into a rabbit hole, but it didn't. Because I've learned that this is the journey of entrepreneurship. That there will always be ebbs and flows. There will always be challenges, and how you move through it and you don't resist it will make or break you. It will hold you, or it will mold you. Right? And I also took tons of trips to the mountains with the kids and my husband.

Melissa Henault:

We're building this beautiful, luxury retreat mountain home. The laughter didn't stop. Life didn't stop. Taking care of my health never stopped. I actually did squats today over £300, PR, personal record. Right? And, you know, so much immense gratitude for my husband. I feel like my husband and I live in a a world of yin and yang where, like, he'll have a really tough year, and I am highly sourced, and I can support him. And then I'll have a really tough year, and he is highly sourced, and he supports me.

Melissa Henault:

? And they're so fired up for: 2025

Melissa Henault:

And, you know, challenges are here to change you not destroy you. Right? I'm gonna say that one more time. Challenges are here to change you not destroy you. If you can keep that mindset, when you're up against challenge know that it's it's a growth time. When things are easy, you're not growing. When things are easy, you're not growing. So I really look at it in a resistance year, I'm like, okay God, you're really preparing me for something big. And I can't wait to redrop this podcast at the end of next year and be like, I told you so.

Melissa Henault:

Right? Because this year has molded my company for something huge. Huge. Epic shifts. Epic growth for me. Epic growth for my team. Right? And I encourage you, can you get curious about the challenge? Can you get curious about the change? Can you get curious about the resistance and take more time to to be curious and ask questions about the resistance you're getting? Right? Look for the learnings in it, right? And so what does the future look like? Well, I can tell you right now that we closed our books for November and had our highest profit margin of the year, 37.7%, which tells me the plan we've been putting in place, the action we've been taking, the efficiencies we've put into the system are working. They're working. Right? And we've streamlined process.

Melissa Henault:

There's so many things that we've done to imp impact how we operate. We've reduced so many redundancies and waste in the company, which took us time to me, time to pause and audit. And audit and ask a lot of questions. Why are we doing it this way? Why is this person doing this when we have someone else who's paid to do this? Right? It was it was a grueling process. I will tell you. 2 things, sitting down and doing the work for the trauma within me, and sitting down and doing the work to map out a new business strategy, a new way to lead my company, a new way to hold my team accountable, it was a lot of fucking work, and some of you aren't up for it. Right? And some of you are. I am here to tell you that it's worth it.

Melissa Henault:

That is worth it. I can't tell you the cloud 9 I've been on finalizing all the conversations that I'm having with my team and the smiles on their face from ear to ear, because they are super clear on where we're headed next year. They're super clear on how they're held accountable and how they can get paid an unlimited amount of income based off their efforts towards the goal. And they're super clear on how their role directly ties to the company goals. That is worth it's priceless. I sleep well at night right now. I look at my plan, my team looks at the plan, and they're like, we get it. It is doable, and I'm excited to be held accountable for it, and it's already working.

Melissa Henault:

in totality and impact over a: 100000

Melissa Henault:

o out and fucking kick ass in: 2025

Melissa Henault:

The moral of the story is resiliency above all. Resiliency above all. Do you have the tools to be resilient when things get hard? Because when things get hard, you're about to change. And when you're about to change, you're about to evolve. And when you're about to evolve, you're about to create even larger impact. So with that, I will sign off, my friends. I hope you have a wonderful holiday break.

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