Episode #110 $30k in 30 Days After Being Laid Off - Melissa Gaglione

What happens when you get laid off and decide to bet on yourself? Melissa Gaglione, sales leader turned solo CEO, shares her unfiltered journey of going all-in on LinkedIn—documenting her mission to make $30K in 30 days.

In this candid conversation, we dive into:
 • How she turned a layoff into opportunity.
 • The strategy behind monetizing LinkedIn authentically.
 • The role of resilience, risk, and transparency in building a brand.
 • Lessons learned from events, content creation, and handling setbacks.
 • Why she believes failure isn’t final—it’s fuel.

If you’ve ever thought about going all-in on yourself, this episode is for you.

Connect with Melissa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissagaglione/

PS - huge shout out to Sendoso for sponsoring our show.

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Transcript

This is Bridge the Gap powered by Revenue Reimagined, the podcast where we dive into all things revenue. Each episode, we bring you the top founders and go-to-market leaders to challenge how you think about growth and help you bridge your biggest go-to-market gaps. I'm Adam Jay. And I'm Dale Zwizinski. 

As always, thanks for hanging with us. There's a million ways you can be spending your time and we're grateful for you choosing to spend it with us. Be sure to check out our newsletter if you want the show notes and tactical advice on how to bridge your GTM Gaps. Let's get to it. 

Welcome back to another episode of the Bridge the Gap. See, I met myself off first time ever. Bridge the Gap podcast powered by Revenue Reimagined. Now, we'll never let me live that down. So I'm going to keep going. We have an awesome guest with us today, Melissa Gaglione, who is a sales leader turned solo CEO teaching people how to monetize LinkedIn through brand and content. Here's what I love. She's loud. She's authentic. She's tactical. She's a big fan of people and she just went full time with her business. Her brand is built on showing the receipts, not talking about them. 

And she's documenting her journey to make 30K in 30 days with transparency, humor, and urgency. Not trying to be a thought leader, just trying to eat. Just trying to put food on the table. Melissa, welcome back to the show. 

Thank you. Very exciting to be back on the show, but in this context, so it's cool. 

And now we have to reconsider Adam's pay, considering he screwed up the intro. First time ever. So, Melissa, we appreciate you being back. You've kind of been in and out of doing your side hustle stuff, doing full time. So what finally led you to go full time? And then I have a really interesting follow up question to that, but, you know, because you've been dabbling in it for a while, we've known each other for a while. And like, you're like, I'm going full time. I'm going to jump in and build my business. 

Correct. I think, I mean, you guys know that this has been the end goal. And I have been very loud about it. I have shared that with every company that I've ever joined. 

But the way that I always positioned my side hustle is that this is the future. I don't know when that's going to be. It could be in five years from now. It could be in 10 years from now. 

It could be in two years from now. I had no idea. But what I did know is that it was very passionate about selling and leading people. And I needed more skills. So I wasn't ready yet. It was still more about, I want to be in corporate. I want to master what I'm mastering. I want to be in this space. It's a space that I love. And when I'm ready, I'll go ahead and make that jump. Surprisingly, like many, the jumps, you get four. 

Yeah. And I think that that was the best thing for me because I don't know if I would have done it until maybe another year, maybe two. I'm not sure when I would have actually taken the leap of faith, but I was most certainly prepared for that moment where I got a little pushed off the cliff to make it. 

Adam, how hard did you have to get pushed off the cliff? 

Yeah. So it's funny. Like I was actually thinking that as you were talking, Melissa, like Dale had to literally arguably stand behind me and fucking push me. I was petrified of going, I'd always thought about it, but I was always like, like I got a family to support, right? Like I have a kid, I have a wife who, you know, knock on wood, makes good money, but at the end of the day, like I have a family to support and to go out on my own and not have that guaranteed paycheck every week scared the crap out of me. And if it wasn't for Dale pushing me multiple times and multiple conversations, I never would have done it. So kudos to you for like knowing that this is what you were going to do and like gently teetering off the edge. And then finally just saying, hey, I'm going to dive right in. Yeah. 

And I mean, there's a balance when you are building a side hustle and when you're loud about it, there's going to be extra like of a microscope on you just to make sure that you're achieving what you're achieving in your day to day job. So anything that I did do, I was very cautious about when I was meeting with clients after 5pm. 

Very cautious about meeting them in the morning. Like async became async, which is my company because it was consistent asynchronous chat that needed to happen. It was sending documents. It was sending over learning materials. It was sending over legit workbooks that I would create on the weekends to guide people through it. So it had to be strategic, but at the same time, I was trying to grow revenue so I could do cool things like the yacht party, like fun merch, the things that I could be more risky with because I had a nine to five that I can kind of play with my side hustle money so I could see what it is that I really want to do and what are the things that I like and what are the things that I will literally never put money towards ever again. And I had to learn that during that experimental time. 

Adam, what is something you'll never put money towards ever again? 

I'm just kidding. 

I kind of don't want to say anything that doesn't fuel me in my business. I'll say that. Like I need to focus on my business. I think that's the things you just know that like you're not going to make money on merch. You don't make money on like it's not intended to be a profit. It's intended for advertisement. 

As Dale wants me to put a swag order in later today. 

It's advertisement. It's not, you're not going to make money on it. 

I love me some swag. It's okay. 

Yeah, of course it. And like when you put swag on, especially when it's yours, it is a whole another, I mean you guys know you guys have your shirts like it's a whole another feeling when you're wearing your own. 

Yeah. Yeah. What when you set the 30 K goal, was that to stay focused or was it to stay sane? Which one was it? Or both. 

It was so funny. So a little bit of background here is unfortunately I was part of a reduction in workforce that only impacted the department at my previous company. And within 24 hours of getting that notice, I decided to commit to making $30,000 from my side hustle, which I've never. 

Within 24 hours. So you get, I'll be polite. You get riffs on Monday and by Tuesday morning you're like, I'm making 30 K and 30 days. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Crazy. 

Yeah. Little crazy. I really wish that it was like, okay, like let me sit down with my books and let me, you would never get there though. 

You would never get there. Yeah. And let me predict and like what's the number I feel comfortable with and maybe increase it by 10% like no, I was like, can I make $1,000 day because I would be sick and that's way beyond what I could ever imagine doing. 

And that would be, I mean that would give me some potential runway, you know, that could give me a little bit of time that could really also prove that the business is viable and it's such a goal that I could never, I couldn't even imagine me hitting. But as a seller, sometimes you need to have those crazy goals to chase because if you're like me, somehow it happens. Somehow you hit it. And if you don't set it and you don't put it out there and you don't say you're going to go for it, then you're never going to get it. 

So why not put it out there and see if I could hit and make $1,000 a day in my first month going from side hustle to see you. I love that. I love that. 

So day one, you've decided you're going to go 30 for 30. Reminds me of brand 30 back in the day. I don't know if you're an anime born fan. But 30K, 30 day, like what was day one like? So you've worked for X company for a while. 

You were doing great things. You get rift. You wake up. You've set that goal. You're sitting down in your beautiful office and you are now thinking what is going through your head. 

If you had an IG, you would have known she went to the gym. She did all the normal stuff. She normally did no good in the list. 

I'm sure I did a skippy beat. It was a Thursday morning. Woke up at my normal time, went to the gym, came back, made my breakfast. But here's the difference. If you look behind me in that green chair, which is the content corner in my office, I very much curated my office with a lot of intent. But that's my meditation chair as well. And when I tell you the amount, and you'll see a bunch of journals right there, because I journal for the list now. And the amount of nights that I have journals where I have said one day I'm going to walk in this office and it's going to be like mine. And I kid you not that morning when I walked in here, like I was in tears just so, and like shaking and like I was just so excited to sit down and I was like, I'm pumped. Like I'm amped. Like this is what I've been working towards. And I couldn't tell when this time would happen. But today is the day. I mean, the greatest feeling in the world. 

I love that. I definitely my first day solo was not that feeling by any stretch of the imagination. I definitely I woke up. I did all the same thing. And then I sat down at my desk and I think I was like, okay, what the fuck am I supposed to do now? Where do I start? 

Who do I call? And I remember Dale telling me like, dude, just breathe. It's going to be okay. You're going to be fine. This is all good. I didn't have that perpetual optimism that I think you have. 

In fact, being slightly vulnerable. 

As I said, being slightly vulnerable, Dale will definitely say that I am the more pessimistic of the group. I call it pragmatic. He calls it pessimistic. We could say it was a little bit. But one of the things that I have always admired about you and I followed you for a long time is this optimism. 

Right? And I don't know if that's the broadcaster in you or if that's just your personality that you carry throughout all of your life. But I don't think I've ever seen a time where you're not like, like, shit, I'm going to crush it. Like whether it was at deal, whether it was at warmly, whether it's a say, whether it's the yacht, like no matter what it is, you exude. 

Like I'm going to set this goal and I'm going to do it. How do you do that? Because that's hard, right? It's hard to always be on without forcing yourself to always be on. 

I mean, I haven't failed yet. 

I love that. I love that. Shit. 

Like it hasn't, the world, I think I'm crumbling down on me and I've done some hard shit. Like I think you have to do hard things in order to, and I have changed my life so many times, but you have to do hard things and very scary things. So that way, even if it's sleepless nights, even if you're scared shitless, like even if you're worried, like what happens, it happens and you're like, okay, I did it. 

And it just fuels you for the next thing. Like I can take on a different challenge. I can, you know, scare myself this way. The truth is, is that I like to scare myself. I like to do hard things. 

I like to challenge myself. That does come from my childhood. So like just like Zachary, we, me and him, we both have the titanium rods in our spine. 

And having that whole experience, why I'm very curious about him, which is why like growing up, I was raised. I had scoliosis. I had to wear a Boston brace for 16 hours a day. 

I had a radio because I had auditory hearing issues and my attorney to speak into a microphone in order for me to hear her. And like, I just had to overcome these challenges as such a young kid that it was like, okay, well, if I fail, then I fail. Like who cares? Like at least I tried. It's about the effort. It's not always about the outcome, but eventually start getting good at these things. You keep challenging yourself and you're not failing as much anymore. 

You're, you keep getting up. Like you might get hurt a little bit. You're trying something new and you start to build this resilience. 

And so that resilience really came from my childhood 100%. It's really scary to go into a classroom with a brace on and a radio. It's also really scary to go get a life changing surgery and try to be yourself again afterwards. So that resilience has really built me up to who I am today, but I enjoy scaring the shit out of me. And it's very funny because in the beginning, my family was terrified. Now they're so used to it. So I'm like, fail like you do. You achieve everything. I'm like, I know. 

And if you don't, you can do it very quickly as well. You know, it's funny. I, as I was watching some of the videos that you were putting together, the goal that you set for yourself is almost so audacious because of like, you know, as a, as a broadcaster in the past and doing the work, you're like, I made $24,000 in a year and now I'm go, golling myself to make $30,000 in a month, which is more than I made an entire year broadcasting. So I think one of the things people don't realize is you limit yourself by the thoughts that you put in your head. And this is what I kind of tell Adam, like, yes, we are like, we're doing an event out in Utah. And it's like, when you do the event, like it's our very first event that we ever put together. And it's as you're building the event, you almost have to let go of certain anxiety pieces because you like, and you know, you ran the event, you don't know where that purchase ticket's coming from. You don't know who's going to end up coming. 

Like you put it out there and if you try to push it or guide it too much, you don't actually get the result you really want because you limit yourself to whatever you're thinking of. 

Events are a great learning experience because there's a lot of effort, especially upfront in anticipation and you're trying to get people. And like, it's also a great excuse in a way just to talk to as many people as possible because everyone wants to be invited somewhere. So one, it's amazing for a lead generation just in general and just to build up your network because someone who you maybe haven't spoken to ever, you give them an event to go to. Now they're like, oh, we're getting to know each other. We're friends. So events are fantastic. The second piece of it is that there's always, something's always going to go wrong with an event, no matter what. 

Adam, something will always go wrong with an event. 

Every single event, five things are probably going to go wrong with this event. And so every time something goes wrong, just be like, okay, that's one. Okay, that's two. Okay, that's three. Like it's going to happen. 

It's all about how you respond. I mean, a great story. It's funny as this is and I've never shared this on a podcast. If you remember my very first Yacht event, I also did a B2B content 

where nobody saw me stay at the house. I had everyone staying in their own hotel rooms. I purchased hotel rooms for every single person that came in. And I had sponsors as well that sponsored the attendees. And the purpose was for us to create sponsored content for the brands that we worked with. 

But it also gave the creators an opportunity to create their own stuff with them. And the challenge with that was the Airbnb, even though I got preapproval that I would be having a nine to five work event, decided that I could not be there. And so the day before when they saw me bringing balloons and like kind of prepared, there's no alcohol on site, none of that. They threatened that the cops were going to come. 

And I that night before, instead of panicking about it, I just thought to myself, I got no sleep. I just said, I'm going to defeat them. I am going to have this event. I have CEOs in this house. 

I have people that flew from California and around the world to be in this house. I am not going to let them win. And that morning they're texting me saying the cops are going to come leave the premises, all this stuff. And I'm going to send everyone to the house, have a seat, do this, do that, texting back, don't you dare call the cops. Everyone come here. 

I'm like, there is no alcohol here. Come here. Sit down, all that stuff. I'm thinking at one point I'm going to get taken out, content house over. I'm going to have to hand out and handcuff. Like that's what I was expecting. Luckily, they just needed $2,000 to not call the cops. It was a total scam. 

But why did they want more money? And I don't want to sidetrack this. So like, so we got to make an appearance that said content house. So I remember it well. And like there was a way better than you did, but I like I've been to some Airbnb things where I'm like, yeah, I don't see how this got approved. Like you weren't doing anything like from a layperson's point of view. That would make me be like, Oh, like this is like, was it literally just a play to get more money of like, Oh, if you're going to do this, you have to pay more. 

Yeah, I was. I was exactly that. However, I had budgeted an extra $2,000 for emergencies. So the other thing with events is shit's going to go wrong. Maybe someone's going to try to call the cops on you. 

I don't know. Maybe maybe you might have to pay them to leave you alone for a little bit. But you have to be unbelievable. Yeah, but I had a great time. Yeah, good. And when you guys were cooking, did you feel that I was on? 

No, no, no, no, not in the slightest. 

Couldn't believe I was a play to. 

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Let's get a little tactical. How are you actually doing this? Is this offers? Is this a super defined sales process from your days and sales? 

Is this like all in on building pipeline? Like, where? How are you getting to 30 K? Because we all know it's not like, oh, I'm going to hit 30 K in 30 days. Like, there's got to be very specific things you're doing. I'd imagine. 

Yeah. First off, a lot of work for sure. Not an easy number to hit. Although it's very fun to make money come from thin air. I must say it's exciting. However, the original strategy was that I was going to slowly phase out each one of my revenue stream or, you know, bring out each one of my revenue streams. So I had all intentions of August being my first month for my cohort. 

However, I've also been doing the other revenue streams of working with B2B companies that are typically in other regions. So I could work with them at night. I only targeted like people in specific time. 

And so really, I wish the strategy was a lot stronger, but it's first just tell everyone what you're doing, like as much as you can. And there needs to be a campaign about it. Why do people care? People care because they want to see, can this girl who just was part of a rift make $30,000 in 30 days? 

Can she do it? People are hype about it because it gives them the, like, they're almost like part of this as well. So first, you got to tell everyone what you're doing and you got to get them locked in on what it is and be part of your mission. So I needed to get people who want to be a part of this. Like you guys, you asked me to join this podcast, right? You're part of this mission. 

You're invested. You want to see if I hit it. Like, I just need to let everyone know what I'm doing and see who's going to hype me up. 

Who's going to be part of it? Because I don't have a sales team. I don't have a bunch of SDRs. I don't have a bunch of automation and sequences. 

I don't have any of that. I just have right now my network and my podcast. So first tell everyone. Then I went right into after telling everyone and defining all eight of my revenue streams, which right now, yeah, throwing spaghetti at the wall, because I need to know what's going to stick. 

I need to know what people are going to be interested in. Are they interested in the B2B, aka when I work with companies and I teach them employee advocacy programs. So how to get employees to post on LinkedIn. Are they interested in more of the social zone outbounding aspect of being on LinkedIn. Do we want people to join the cohort? 

Are they interested in more one to one coaching? Like what is it that people are going to like gravitate towards? And so that way I can get an understanding of where my major revenue drivers are from there just throwing it out there. 

I need to backwards track to say, all right, what's my highest ticket item? What's going to be the longest sale cycle? Let me start there because it's going to be a lot easier for me at the end of the month to get 1, 2, 3 people to join my cohort. It's going to take a lot longer for me to sell to an actual company that has, you know, internals that they need to talk about that I need to get meetings on the calendar. 

I got to pitch that. That's a longer sale cycle. So immediately when running at those to start booking those meetings, knowing that it's just make content around the other avenues or revenue streams, that will naturally come. But at the end of the month is when I'm going to push forward with those quicker items. 

I love that. Yeah. 

Yeah. Hey, Dr. I'm just going to go at it. 

I'm always curious when I when we look at these things, how much time do you spend on content versus how much time do you spend on like doing the sales work? 

Oh, my gosh, I mean, I. Contents really important. I've gotten really fast at it because I'm doing it during I've been building a brand for 2 years. I haven't had time and hours making content every day. Like I had to move very quickly. 

I've got 15 minutes or I'm just going to randomly record throughout my day and I'm going to post that tomorrow. Like, unfortunately, in the past, I've had to be very reactive. I couldn't be like, okay, here's my proactive content calendar. I'm going to spend the whole day recording. But because I've gotten so fast at it, I can bust out content in like 20, 30 minutes. 

And that's highly edited, at least not highly edited, but decent videos. And then the rest, I mean, we have to be selling. You know, we have to be, you know, pushing people to the content. What's great is the content gets the profile visit and gets the attention. And now I'm just taking actions on the attention that the content has curated. So we've got to move quick. 

You do all your own video editing, right? 

I do. Except for the highly, which you'll see, I've done a few of these highly edited, edited videos where I do like a spotlight service, but I also the course that I'm dropping in September is in high production, high editing, all that. But the day to day that you're seeing, that's me on Canva. Canva. Canva. 

I'm sorry, Canva and CapGut. Because I was in Canva and every time I would create a story or a package, I literally would be like, okay, it's on at 4.30. If I don't finish editing this at one, and I've never missed a deadline when I was their news reporter. But sometimes I've had to edit in 10 minutes. Like you just got to get it out there quick. Yeah. Some of them are fast at editing. Yeah. I love that. 

What surprised you the most about monetizing an audience? What surprises me the most? 

Yeah. You know. I see people are not. I mean. 

But I mean, it's a tough time. For sure. I think that, and maybe this is more internal, I always felt more comfortable going to a business and being like, hey, you make $10 million a year. Give me $10,000 of that. Like way easier because I've been asking businesses for money for years. Going to an individual after having a quick discovery call with them and being like, okay, now sign up for my coaching. I think that that's hard. And that was kind of surprised me because I thought, oh, like someone giving me a thousand bucks. 

Easy. But now it's, it's, I'm like, they're like telling me how much they're making. I'm like, oh my God, am I charging you too much? 

I'm like, geez, like you need, like it's, it can. So I would say that's most surprising is the feelings I have, but I need to be better at knowing that I do make their lives better. 

It's all about you. It's all about you. Do we deliver enough value? I think people that deliver a lot of value always believe they can always deliver more value. And we struggle with it a lot as well. Not only the amount of value you deliver, but how fast you're delivering the value because like as you're delivering, like it compounds itself. Now, all of a sudden, like, okay, what you did the first three weeks, what are you going to do the next three days, just like compounds on itself. Yeah. So it becomes a little bit of a mind meld that you have to try to manage through. 

Yeah. And being aware of, okay, if I really want to deliver this much value, what's the balance with the amount of clients that I can take on at one time. And then balancing the actual amount that you're charging as well. Because I need to make sure that I'm making impact, no matter what. 

So let's move into a little bit of the pressure. So you're publicly doing it and you're putting it out there. Like, what happens if you don't hit the 30K? I mean, I'm sorry. Good answer. Good answer. Crazy answer. 

You know that's what she was going to say. 

Yeah. It's just, and I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. We are on day and I'm doing my, I do my writing up. 

Day 18. 

Day 18 and I'm at 23,000. 

I mean, that trend, we all know how to trend is above where you should be. 

It is above, and I, in reverse quota, I either need to sell out my cohort or close one to two B2B brands. That's it. 

That's all I got to do. I can, just to 18, I can do that. 

Doesn't mean I take my foot off the gas pedal. Can I go above 30K? No. Ooh, that's exciting. Can I actually hit 40K? Did I under us doing myself a little bit? 

I thought you hit 30 and you take the rest of the month off. 

No. That's how Dale does it. 

Dale's like, we can't revenue, we're off for the breeze. I'll see you in 18 days. 

That's not called October. No, no, no, no. I can't. I got to see what, I got to just see what it is, you know. I love it. 

When you look at that, so you're going to hit the number. Yeah. What's been the hardest part that either no one warned you about or that you just like, were not prepared for? 

So it's interesting because I was part of a risk. It is, it is there are some days where I am, you know, healing and I'm coping. And like, that's, that's a big thing to happen. It's something that I, it's really hard for me to still like comprehend, to be honest. Because it's like, did I fail here? Did I not do as great as I could have? And you really have to, I know that I put, I know that I put my heart and soul into what I did every day. 

Like, I know that. And I see the messages that I get from my team and like, I forever love them and I miss them and there's that. And then there's the days where I'm 

like, oh my God, I'm doing, it's me. Like, I'm making the choices. 

This is, this is what I have dreamed of and like, I'm doing it. So nobody kind of want, and maybe not many people do this, what I'm doing, but it's this weird, you know, some days I'm going to be, I'm going to have to spend the time to heal. And that's okay. And then other days I get to actually be aligned with my true purpose. And that's when I feel the most, you know, happy. So it, that wasn't really, you know, I, and I wasn't really expecting to have to heal to be honest. 

So, yeah, good. Good. 

I think that's something a lot of people don't realize, right? Is whether you're fired, whether you're laid off, whether you're part of a risk, like no matter what it is, like there's absolutely healing that comes into play. 

And I love that you acknowledge that because most people don't. It's like, all right, well, it happened move on. Like, listen, you have to move on. You can't sit in sorrow. Like you can't sit a week, but like, there's absolutely healing that comes into play. 

I try to heal every day that I work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Careful, someone's going to send me a message that how mean I am today along the podcast. True story. 

Yeah, he likes to bring it up once in a while to give some sympathy. He's fine. 

Where was it? 

They send an email that they can't believe that we are 150 something episodes in and I'm so disparaging to Dale and this can't be how we really are. And they feel so bad for him and how like we joke like I never, nothing I ever say is meant seriously. Dale, you okay? Yeah, Dale, I pay for Dale therapy, David. 

I need to heal, Melissa. I need to heal. 

No, I'm asking because I don't know if you guys... 

You have a cohort that can help. 

Yes, I can help. But there's part of putting yourself out here is, you know, those random messages like that, or, you know, people are like, we'll kind of like take it down a little bit. Like sometimes people don't really like seeing these things. 

They don't. A lot of people, I don't think it's some people. I think a lot of people, I think as you go through your evolution, Melissa, and you get into, like, as many people that are excited for you or as many people as want to tear you down. And I think that's the sad part is like, they'll say, oh, you're not really being real. Like, they'll probably say a lot of things and you're like, well, you know who you are. You have to be good with yourself. And I think that's important as you go through this. 

And I was watching one of your videos. I think it was the 17th day or something, but you were talking about how, like, you can skip out at 3 o'clock for a little bit of work or like to make dinner or to do something and then go back to work. And I think that's where people don't realize things happen. Like, when you work for yourself, you can kind of like, add and flow in your business. It becomes more difficult once you get a lot of clients that are demanding with like meetings and stuff. They're like, okay, I have 85 meetings on Monday because I have like all executive meetings, but having that event flow is really important as you go about this. Yeah. 

And that's the hard thing is that I could, I mean, I could just go like, I really have to stop myself. Even on the week, I mean, I still bring my laptop to the pool. I really, I'm trying to clock it, not too much. But the other side of me is like, isn't this part of being a solopener is being able to, you know, so I can't, I can't not do that. You know, like tomorrow I'm playing bingo with my grandmother, which I'm excited about. I love that. 

Yeah. Let's, I want to talk about one little thing and then we'll go into some rapid fire. So I'm curious, where do most LinkedIn creators screw up today? 

Oh, so there's two different types in my opinion. There's the fourth LinkedIn creator, aka your company's forcing you to be a LinkedIn creator. So you're just sitting out advertisements. And drives me more crazy. And I think that nothing is more easily ignored, as well as damaging to your brand because the second a prospect looks at your profile, they go, Oh God, this person is just going to spam me with advertisements and they have two sales. 

So there's that one. I do not teach that when I work with other companies, I teach their employees how to actually create a strong brand that is about them that also brings in revenue because they do share a little bit about their company. You know, like, they know Melissa because Melissa's part of eight or they know of a thing because Melissa is part of a thing. You know, it's like that, like real estate people, you know, about remax, but you're not going to remix your money to the man. 

You know, Amanda. So there's that and then there's the one that which very easy to fall into very early on when you get started, you think you have to be this. See, like, you know what I mean, you think you have to be the highest of the high, you think that you could only share or speak because you needed to accomplish 20 years in this industry, which to me, a lot of people care about the journey. 

And what's going on on the ground. So if you're an SDR, like you don't need to pretend like you are the CEO, but share your own journey, your own experience, your cold calls. There's an SDR over at common room right now who is killing it. He's 18 years old. I love reading his post. He's sharing his journey. 

It's amazing, like beautifully done. So I think that being authentically you not not pretending to be someone else but being aware of what it is that you do know and just sharing your journey and your learning along the way. Adam back to you. 

I have so much to say on that one, but we don't have time for me to dig deep into that. 

That doesn't have to be another. We have to have a rapid fire because Adam could be right. 

I just think a lot of people like nothing aggravates me more than when I see someone where every post of the company's post and it's like every man like okay, go DM someone and hi, Melissa, I am Adam from revenue reimagined and you must struggle like you got to stop with that. 

What happens to those people 

is if they ever do lose their job or if they do move, it's like they lose their identity. Identity. It is so, so crushing and I've seen it because they're like, I don't work there anymore. Like who am I? My whole brand was that. And it's like, well, you know, like you can't be the CEO of your company. You have to be you. 

Under percent. All right, let's go rapid fire. 10 words or less. What's one piece of advice about LinkedIn that's just flat out wrong? 

We're going to stick with exactly that. Stop advertising for your company in every post. Minimize it to 20%, please. 

What's the favorite DM you've ever gotten from a prospect? 

Blue Nile. That was an exciting one. 

The ring company, the jewelry company. Nice. 

Yeah, I mean, great, great prospecting. Yeah, because I sent him over a video and I was trying to break into the account and literally he was like, this is the greatest thing. He was like, I'm not even looking, but I'm going to talk to you. And he refused. 

I was in SDR at the time. He refused to work with me. He only wanted to work with me and was literally working to deal with me. I had to get special approval to work. 

That's amazing. That's amazing. You have three days to make 5K. You have no list. Where do you start? 

LinkedIn. 

Make a post and then 

follow up on the engagement and the profile views. Like literally, I'm going to host a webinar tomorrow or in three days from now. You know, then you start following up with that. 

Worst question ever. But okay. What's the last thing you posted that totally flopped? 

Ooh, that totally honestly, I feel like my post this weekend kind of flopped, which I was a little surprised about, but I'm going to share it. Anyone familiar with the LinkedIn lunatic reddit? 

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Did you make an appearance on it? 

Well, I've been on it many times, like many times. And I decided to launch some merch that is a hack that says verified lunatic on it. I thought this was going to pop off, but you know, maybe it was the weekends, maybe it was the graphic. It didn't pop off the way that I thought it would, but we're going to try it again this week. So I think the launch on the weekend might have impacted me a little bit. So I'd say that that was a little bit of a flop. 

What's something that you'll never, ever do again for growth, even if it worked? Like over, over do it. 

I think that there's been times where I've worked, especially with like founders, and I was like, I just wanted to build up my customer, you know, face. Yeah, we can do that. 

Yeah, we can do that. And would I ever do that in software sales? No, but for me, I'm like, I'll be on every call that you have. 

Yes, I'll see you here. Like, you know what I mean? Like sometimes you over do it, that the amount of money that they're paying you actually doesn't make any sense. We know that one all too well. Yeah, setting those boundaries and not having to discount yourself or add in more because then you just end up not feeling it, you know. 

I think this will be the first one we can compare back. What's your vacation destination that you want to travel to? 

Oh, I'm sure I said Greece last time. I still want to go to Greece. I still haven't been and you know, last time we just lived a year ago. 

Yeah, yeah, it's funny. My daughter may be doing a, a, a, an internship or like study abroad in Greece. Actually, you can go to Adam, he's going in October. He said he'll bring you. 

I am, I am going in October, 18 days. Dale will not let me forget it. That's so exciting. 

And if I remember, Dale, your daughter, I mean crushes whatever it is that she does. I know that she was doing like the Academy for a bit. 

She's in USF right now as an RA. So she's lowering up and DNRA and doing all sorts of fun stuff. But if she goes out to, if she goes out and studies abroad, maybe I'll go for 30 days. See if I can, see if I can go over Adam's 18 days. 

I love it. Do it, do it. Melissa, where can people find out more about ASA? And how could they help you get to 30 and 30? 

Please check out my LinkedIn. If you want to help me get to 30 and 30 little things like merch, you can get sweatshirts, hats, things like that are easy ways. 

Even just liking a post or commenting or sharing it with someone. But I am also giving away $500 for anyone who intros me to their boss and their boss buys. So you can get that money. Very easy way for you to generate a little bit of income. 

Melissa, go check out. I don't do that. I don't buy anything. No. 

I'm speechless. I have nothing. We're just going to wrap it there before this turns in a way we don't want to turn. Melissa, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. 

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