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Becoming an entrepreneur takes grit.
Deciding to do it solo takes courage.
This is 1,000 Routes, the podcast where we explore the stories of solopreneurs who have made the bet on themselves to build a business that serves their life. Every episode you'll hear about the lessons they've learned and the uncommon routes they've taken to stand out in a world that is purposefully trying to commoditize them.
Melanie Deziel [00:00:00]:
I struggled a lot more in those early years than I needed to because as I talked about the money Mindset thing, it felt weird to charge what would have been, you know, I don't know, a month or two months salary for a single project. It just felt uncomfortable. And I think I undervalued myself a lot early on. And, uh, if I could go back and like shake the shoulders of, you know, 2015, 16, Melanie, who was starting out, I would have been like, you up your prices right away.
Nick Bennett [00:00:25]:
Hey, it's Nick, and welcome to 1000 Routes, the podcast where I explore the stories of solopreneurs who have made the bet on themselves to build a business that serves their life. Every episode, you'll hear all about the lessons they've learned and the uncommon routes they've taken to stand out in a world that is purposefully trying to commoditize them.
Melanie Deziel [00:00:36]:
I'm Melanie Deziel. I'm a speaker, author, and forever student.
Nick Bennett [00:00:39]:
I love to start these things off with how I first became familiar with you and your work, and when I was the director of marketing at an agency, our content director, this was a few years ago now. And she was like, hey, someone I went to school with wrote this really cool book called the content fuel framework. It's just a moment that happened in passing. And then, like, fast forward a few years later, I was, like, getting more familiar with Jay's work. And the kitchen came out, and I started looking into that, and then I realized, like, you were part of that. And all of a sudden, like, all of these light bulbs started turning. I was like, wait a minute, this is the same person. Like, this book.
Nick Bennett [00:01:15]:
Oh, my gosh, all this happened. Shout out to Ramona Sukraj, who was the director of content at the time. She knew before anyone knew that this was legendary work. And then when Provik came out once again, she was like, you gotta read this thing. So definitely very few degrees of separation, but even beyond the legendary books you've written, I first got to really start to know you in the kitchen and through the office hours. And the more I learned about what you have been doing before you partnered up with Jaydeh has been super interesting to me. So I want to take some time and kind of unpack what you have done. Cause you've been out of, like, what, nine years now?
Melanie Deziel [00:01:58]:
Yeah. Coming up on ten.
Nick Bennett [00:01:59]:
I know you were a journalist beforehand. What was your turning point? What motivated you to leave w two, work and go solo almost ten years ago now?
Melanie Deziel [00:02:12]:
It is not something I ever probably would have thought of on my own. Going to school for journalism, like, it's freelancing and solopreneur. Like, it's a big thing now. That was never on the radar as a discussion when I was in j school, it was like, you go work for a newspaper, hopefully you move to a bigger newspaper, maybe you make it in tv. Like, that was the trajectory. I mean, I never would have thought that. Honestly, I just didn't see the model. But I was working at the New York Times, and then I moved over to Time Inc.
Melanie Deziel [00:02:39]:
And I had a pretty sweet gig. I was the director of creative strategy for all 35 us magazines. So all the sponsored content programs, I was, you know, conceiving of those, pitching, overseeing all that stuff. But in late 2014, my dad got really sick unexpectedly. I'll preface this by saying, he's fine, so you don't have to hold your breath for the next minute. But had a number of brain surgeries that kind of. I was out of work for about two months, and I had this realization that I was such a cog in a machine. After a few days of getting coverage for various things, like, it didn't matter that I was gone.
Melanie Deziel [00:03:13]:
And in one way, that was great. It was like, cool. I've equipped my team. I built this team. They're off and running. But on the other hand, I thought, you have those moments of your own. Mortality of life is so short. Do I want to live the rest of my life like that? Do I want to be in a quiet corner office where I am not really needed and I'm just comfortable? And the answer was no.
Melanie Deziel [00:03:36]:
I didn't necessarily know what came next. But my now husband, we were dating at the time, and he's an entrepreneur or, like, through and through. And so he kept kind of encouraging, like, you could do this yourself. Like, you could teach people this stuff. You could do the strategy work on your own. And it took him reminding me pretty frequently to, like, really wrap my head around the idea of myself as a business. So it was a number of different things, like, facing my mortality of, like, you know, watching my dad get sick and then coming around to my now husband, just really pushing. Like, this can be done.
Melanie Deziel [00:04:12]:
You can be on your own and have a bigger impact and control your fate a little more for me to really start to think about making that leap. But it was scary. It was not something I had personally had a model for.
Nick Bennett [00:04:23]:
Social media wasn't really at the scale and maturity that it is today to even see other people really doing it. So what were some of the things that were scary about it?
Melanie Deziel [00:04:33]:
I mean, I think the scariest thing for me is I have very much had to adjust to the blessing that has been my life growing up, studying journalism. Like, you don't go into it for the money. It's not lucrative, you don't make good money, or you certainly didn't in, like, the print era. So I was never super motivated by that. It was a hard mental adjustment for me to think about. Well, if it's not a salary, like having to quantify what my work is worth, having to be okay with putting out a proposal that has numbers that look absolutely ridiculous to me because that's what the market dictates, you know. So that was like a mental adjustment. I really had to switch out my money mindset to be comfortable having those conversations.
Melanie Deziel [00:05:15]:
My anxieties about it allowed me to prepare. So I knew I was going to leave and start my own thing about six months before I did. And I very quietly started to get all my ducks in a row. Do my website get a newsletter going, which is crazy to think about now because newsletters were not as everyday of a thing as they are now at that point. Like building a list, lining up speaking gigs. So I had a lot of time to prepare so that when the time came, I felt comfortable because it wasn't like from all to nothing. It was like I had already laid a lot of the groundwork to make it a smooth landing. So thankfully, any of the stress around that drove me to prepare.
Nick Bennett [00:05:55]:
Right now, everyone seems to believe that if you post on LinkedIn enough, you can build a business. And it is kind of true. A lot of people have been able to pull that off, but this wasn't really the thing 910 years ago. So what did you do? How did you do it?
Melanie Deziel [00:06:11]:
Having worked with the New York Times and to some degree, Time Inc. I had had a lot of contact with brands, with agencies, you know, with other media companies. And so I was really blessed to have been in a position to build a network. So when the time came, I could reach out to people who could hire me directly and say, hey, love this project we worked on together. I'm on my own now. What kind of projects do you have coming up? So in that regard, it kind of set itself up. I didn't necessarily have a model to follow. I wasn't.
Melanie Deziel [00:06:41]:
I've never prospected on social the way that a lot of people have. If anyone's listening to this and then you go try to find me on LinkedIn or wherever or Instagram, like I haven't posted in a while. That's just not how I've used social. I've used it as a tool for connection, but not in like a relationship building to build my business way, but like a genuinely, I know these people and enjoy talking to them real life person way. It's always been about networking for me and showing what I know and letting that speak for itself. That is not a sound business strategy. I'll just clarify. This is not like a build it and they will come sort of thing.
Melanie Deziel [00:07:16]:
Like, that's not what I'm saying. Just like, be good and business will happen. But because I did a lot of speaking and I was guesting on a lot of podcasts, it was sort of inbound and networking. Just the people that I have gotten to know through all of this. I mean, that's how Jay and I met. Jay and I methadore at a speaker dinner for an event we were both speaking at. And so kind of putting myself in those positions as best I can to network with folks and just do a good job in front of as many people as possible. And so far, that's kept the lights on.
Nick Bennett [00:07:46]:
You highlight a really important thing here that is very non obvious to me. When I first went out on my own was like, everyone's so focused now on build an audience, and an audience and a network are very different things.
Melanie Deziel [00:08:00]:
I mean, even like Ramona, like you were saying earlier, Ramona wasn't like this girl that I follow on Twitter wrote a book. It was like, no, we went to school together. We knew each other. So, like, when we're keeping up with each other on social, it's more genuinely congratulating you on the new job and, like, knowing that you got a new dog or whatever. Like, you know, it was a real connection that we happened to stay in touch. It's important, you know, to kind of keep those relationships as best you can. If you know you are going to go solo, like, if you're listening to this before then, then that's something to think about in advance. Like, I have taken projects and worked with clients not because of the value that that project gave me, but because of the people it would put me in touch with, the people I could work closer to who then can become part of that network if it makes sense.
Nick Bennett [00:08:47]:
There's probably plenty of people who worked at the New York Times and didn't think consciously about building their network. So you had an opportunity and you took it, right? There's plenty of people who have the opportunity and don't recognize it. So, like, part of the process is to be smart enough to take it or to understand what's in front of you. So there's that. The other part of it is I have found a lot of people will go solo and then they try to, like, leverage their network, but the problem they face is they don't have access to the type of people that they need to. And I think you drew a through line between the network you had, the things you could do, and the people you wanted to sell to. And so access is huge. I mean, I've said this to literally every person on the show at this point because it's a theme that is so important I can't unsee it, which is ask for what you want.
Nick Bennett [00:09:31]:
The first thing you said was, I went to them and I asked, do you have any projects coming up? Talk to me about the things that you were. What were you doing ten years ago? I know that evolves into so much more stuff, so talk me through that. And then the evolution of what you were doing.
Melanie Deziel [00:09:47]:
Yeah. So in the early days, what I was mostly known for, and I did have a really good reputation because of the brands I was working with. And the media companies I was at, was specifically what we called then native advertising. Now content is everywhere. Like, branded content is a thing. But at that point, most brands didn't have the talent in house to be making cool videos, doing articles. They didn't have content teams, and so they would go to publishers like the New York Times, like the magazines of Time Inc. And ask our specialized teams to create it.
Melanie Deziel [00:10:18]:
So that was really my niche. Not content in general, but really like working with media companies to co create content. It was a very buzzy thing at the time, particularly in like 2012 to 2016 or 17. It was like every media company was starting one of these in house agencies. It was a really big deal. So that's mostly what I focused on because that's what the market wanted at the time. I was doing mostly native ad consulting. I didn't do a lot of actual project creation, which I was doing at the media companies, but things like ARp, for example, was a client that I worked with for a while where they're saying, hey, we need to get more visibility.
Melanie Deziel [00:10:53]:
We're looking at what kind of publications have the right audience, you know, an older audience for us to reach and what kind of content we should create. So I helped them come up with that hit list. The Hartford insurance was another one. They were one of my clients for like five years, a contact I had from J School, same class as Ramona, you know, that I reached out to like, hey, I see you're, you're doing marketing at the Hartford. Like, do you guys do any content, any projects that you're working on? And ended up working with them for almost five years doing same thing, figuring out who should we partner with. They know, for example, that travelers sponsors a lot of golf tournaments. So they were like, well, what can we do with Golf magazine to try to reach that audience? Because they're also getting a lot of insurance messaging. So it was really just taking the same strategy work I was doing for those publications, but sort of turning around to the other side of the desk and saying, well, I'll help the brands go work with those people.
Melanie Deziel [00:11:42]:
I'll help them find out who to work with, rather than being the person they work with on the other side. I did a lot of speaking because I had started to speak on behalf of my team at the New York Times and at Time Inc. Like, going to conferences and presenting our case studies. So I kind of just continued that work with a lot of the same folks where it's like, you've seen me speak before. Will you have me back? And now I don't have a full time gig, so can you cover my travel? Can you give me a small stipend, like, building that stuff up? And I'll be totally honest with you, I did a whole lot of work I would never do again because I was starting out and figuring out what I wanted to do. Like, I dabbled in ghost writing. I helped a men's shoe brand run their instagram for a while. Like, I just did all kinds of random stuff, just kind of feeling out what was lucrative, what was worth my time, what was enjoyable, what the market wanted, and then just kind of tried to listen to that and tune in closer and closer over time.
Nick Bennett [00:12:35]:
You went and did a bunch of stuff, and you decided, is this going to work for me or not? And some things did and some things didn't, and I. That's kind of the point. The only way to know if you do or don't want to run social for a men's shoe company is to go run social for a men's shoe company.
Melanie Deziel [00:12:54]:
I did continue to do some of that stuff up until probably, like, 2020 or 2021, but it was really because I would choose the brands that I would enjoy it. The men's shoe brand wasn't really a fit for me. I didn't know enough about men's fashion. I couldn't relate to Wall street bros who are our target audience. But I did end up running social for a fantasy football app for almost four years. And I'm sure to this day that the tens of thousands of dude bros that I was dude broing it up with had no idea that it was me behind that. That was trash talking them and, you know, criticizing their draft picks and stuff because it was just a lot of fun. Like, it was actually fun for me to do, you know, how did all.
Nick Bennett [00:13:33]:
Of this become the content fuel framework and eventually prove it? Like, how did you go from this work to authorization the native stuff?
Melanie Deziel [00:13:43]:
I did that for a while. That was really a lot of what I was doing and then, like I said, dabbling in some of the other stuff. But the phrase native advertising kind of went out of fashion as more content marketing became the term we were using for content as a whole. And so I had a very deliberate strategy. I didn't want to be cornered as like, she's the native ad girl and like, we're done with native ads. So I started very consciously using broader terms, talking about content that was in other places, not just on media company properties. I was speaking at content marketing world at the time. So the following year, I pitched something that had nothing to do with native, but was adjacent enough that I had authority to talk about it.
Melanie Deziel [00:14:21]:
So it was an intentional process of, like, I saw the writing on the wall that native ads were, you know, as a shiny object, were falling out of favor and pivoting, because the stuff I do works whether you're on your personal blog or whether you're a company blog or whether you're doing native ads. So intentionally pivoting to be more broad and talking about branded content, content marketing, and that's really where the stuff for content fuel framework came from. It was not so much a conscious decision, like, I'm going to write a book. And I came up with content fuel framework. It was more, I was giving presentations and running workshops with the content of that book as part of what I was teaching. And people were like, why is this not in a book? Like, do you have a leave behind? Do you have an ebook? And I was like, that's actually a really good point. Like, I should probably do that because I already have all the ip. I just didn't assemble it, like in that format.
Melanie Deziel [00:15:09]:
You know, it came out of the fact that I was already teaching that stuff and I wanted it to be available to a broader audience at a more accessible price point because, you know, the average small business or student is not going to be able to afford like a full day workshop the way a big brand would. So I was trying to democratize the information a little bit.
Nick Bennett [00:15:29]:
How has writing a book changed things for you and your business, or has it?
Melanie Deziel [00:15:36]:
The book itself did not create change as a single entity. The book did not make me rich, the book did not make me famous. But as a business tool, it worked really well, so understanding the role that you want that book to play before you write it is really important. Like I said, I already knew that the content field framework was not going to be a bestseller list. It was not going to be on the shelves of Barnes and noble. Content was not quite what it was. Now, I thought it would be more of a niche thing that would just kind of serve a specific audience of content marketers. And so I wrote it with the intention of it being a resource that was going to be used and with the plan to sell it on the back of my workshop.
Melanie Deziel [00:16:18]:
So the idea being, if the company's bringing me in to train 500 people, hopefully they'll buy 500 copies so that each of their employees leaves with one or, you know, conference. Same thing. Maybe they buy 100 for their vip's or, you know, something like that. So I always saw it as like an instrumental revenue option. Maybe I'll get a couple extra hundred dollars on top of it by selling some books. But it also is an authority thing. Like, honestly being able to say that you're an author, that you've written a book, whether anyone ever reads the book or even knows what it's called, it does bring some credibility with it. People assume that there's at least enough barrier to entry to writing a book, even if you self publish that you've gotten some recognition for that.
Melanie Deziel [00:16:59]:
So with contentfeel framework in particular, it was really well received. It has a lot of great reviews, got endorsements from some great folks, well respected in the industry. So it worked well for credibility, which, while it's hard to quantify on, like, I got this deal or this client because of the book, I'm sure it contributed to sort of the overall trajectory.
Nick Bennett [00:17:18]:
And growth when you apply for speaking gigs, or when they're considering people for gigs, especially, I think when you're speaking, it's like, well, the person with the book probably has a leg up, I would imagine. But I think there's this idea of getting a book deal that especially a lot of solos want these days compared to like. And I think content fuel framework was self published, but prove it was a hybridization.
Melanie Deziel [00:17:45]:
I think I worked with the same hybrid publisher for both. Yeah, for anyone not familiar, hybrid publishing is basically you're hiring professional book people to make your books. So it's all the benefits of self publishing in that you get to own all your ip, which was really important to me. I didn't want someone telling me that the content fill framework should only have seven formats in it. Like, this is my ip I want it how it is, but it does cost up front. You're paying this team to do the producing to get it on Amazon to do all this stuff. So, yeah, it's not a book deal in the traditional sense. People think of, like, getting a big advance or something like that.
Nick Bennett [00:18:22]:
Yeah. And I think to some extent that is more impactful. Like, you get to keep your ip and it gets to be what you intended it to be.
Melanie Deziel [00:18:33]:
It's also, like I said, an acknowledgement of what the book is like. A traditional publisher is only going to get behind a book if they believe it can sell, like, an extraordinary amount of copies, which, you know, you can still do self published, you can still sell a lot, you know, if you're doing good marketing. But I knew that no publisher was going to look at the swaths of all the books being published on, like, you know, all these bestseller lists and think content fuel framework's going to compete with those. It wouldn't, and I knew that. So it was never going to be a good fit for that model, but for what I was doing, that's great. When I sell books for a speaking gig, it's not the publisher making money, it's me. I'm selling my own books. That model worked well for what that book was going to be.
Nick Bennett [00:19:15]:
Youre solo for like, seven ish years, and then you decide to partner with Jay to create the creator kitchen. What was the decision to partner with somebody on a long term project like that?
Melanie Deziel [00:19:30]:
Like I mentioned before, we met at a speaking dinner and just, like, bonded over the fact that we were former journalists working in marketing, share a lot of values about what we think content should and shouldn't be. And so we just got along really well. And truth be told, early pandemic, we were on the upward trajectory. We were ready to become, like the next generation of content marketing speakers, you know, on the heels of the greats, you know, Anne Hanley and Jay Baer and all the amazing speakers that we all, like, love and look up to. And then the pandemic hit and the entire speaking industry got turned upside down. And so for both of us, we felt stunted, like we were on the way. It was like, about to be our time. You know, we both had just come out with books.
Melanie Deziel [00:20:11]:
It was like, yes, like, we're about to make it big. And then everything came crumbling down. Honestly, it was like talking about the state of speaking, the state of being a creator, what our struggles were. It just became really clear that we were both looking for a way to serve on a more one to one level. Like, we want to work directly with creators and find other folks who care like we do about quality over just quantity. Just like flooding the market with stuff which, you know, was pre AI boom, but is extra prescient now. It really is about quality in our mind and not quantity. So that's a long winded way to say of, it's almost like the idea just sort of organically came to be.
Melanie Deziel [00:20:53]:
It was less of like a let's do a formal proposal. You know, it was just really clear we were super aligned. Jay was a little further along in trying to set up sort of a group coaching membership type site. I kind of hopped on with his head start on that, and we just kind of kept things moving forward. And the most important thing, I think, is we did due diligence on one another before partnering as if we had never met, because we were like, we are friends, and you can be blinded by that and think like, oh, it'd be so cool to work together and not think it through. Like, we interviewed people that we each other had worked for, like, talked to our former colleagues, looked for references, interviewed each other like, it was a really in depth process, probably over the course of, like, three months, to decide if it made sense for us to work together in that way and not ruin the fact that we actually liked each other.
Nick Bennett [00:21:47]:
I've heard partnerships fall apart for all the reasons, for all the things that you worked hard to prevent. A, like, I'd never heard of people going through and doing these types of interviews and talking to former colleagues and figuring out, like, we both see the world through a similar lens and we both, like, have similar aspirations, but to go through the steps, to actively try to figure out if it's a good fit is something that I haven't heard of people doing. So on the inside of the kitchen. It feels like you complement each other really well in terms of, like, you have overlapping skill sets, but you also have very different skill sets. I think it's just like a lesson because a lot of people ask me about, should I partner with somebody to build something? Maybe a partnership could be good, but it just kind of all depends. And. And I think the. The way that the overlapping and complementary skill sets works really well for the space that you're in, that was a.
Melanie Deziel [00:22:43]:
Huge part of it, honestly. Like, part of that diligence process was we had really in depth conversations about, like, how do you communicate? We know each other as friends. I know what kind of memes you let you think are funny, but, like, if we're going to have a serious discussion, like, what does that look like for you? What do you like to use email for? Are you a Google calendar person or are you, like, ride with the wind? Like, go with the flow? What kind of activities and tasks and processes and projects light you up and what, suck the life out of you and make you miserable? We were really lucky that the more we talked about those things, the more it became clear that, like, the exact things that Jay loves to do are the things that I don't love as much and vice versa. The things that drain him of energy are the things that I enjoy doing. And then again, we have this overlap in, like, we love to speak, we love to teach, we love to facilitate conversations, so our weaknesses are accounted for by the other person's superpowers. And we share values and, like, communication style. I think that, honestly is probably the most important part, is, like, understanding communication, because this is a person you're going to be talking to about everything for everything, all hours of the day, like, on vacation, you know, it's really important to understand how to handle that without it getting out of hand. You have to be able to be open and honest and be vulnerable and have those conversations for a partnership to actually work.
Nick Bennett [00:24:06]:
I like that you talk about each other's superpowers. When I first got in the kitchen, you had just recently written or, like, just posted something about your own superpower. And I remember reading your newsletter, I wrote you a note. I was like, I can't relate to your story directly, but, like, I relate to a lot of what you're talking about here. And I think you wrote a line. It was like, I'm unwittingly rebranding textbook hyper fixation as a career choice. And I was like, this is me, and this is totally me, but can hyper fix it on, like, literally everything? And I think rebranding it as from, like, a handicap to a superpower was, like, one of the things that you and I first talked and, like, kind of created a friendship over. And so, like, talk a little bit about how you kind of discovered what I consider is your superpower and how all that came into focus for you.
Melanie Deziel [00:25:00]:
The superpower we're talking about is I was diagnosed as autistic about four years ago. I'm in my thirties. Like, that's not the kind of thing you expect to learn at that particular age, but it explained a lot of things for me, and it put a lot of things into focus, and it allowed me to better understand my mind in the way it works. So both my books are incredibly structured. For example, they have a visual framework associated with them, and I now understand that that's because I think in pictures in a way that other people don't. I hear information. I'm visually putting it in relation to other information. That's one of the things that has always been a strength for me, and it's something that I can harness it a little more intentionally.
Melanie Deziel [00:25:40]:
And same is true for the hyper fixation. I call myself in the introduction, like a forever student, and that's really core to who I am. I am always learning in a way that I know is very uncool to say, but my hobbies are reading and watching documentaries. I'm always just learning more because I feel like it gives me more context for things. So, yeah, you could see that as you're single minded, you hyper fixate, you have limited interests, right? Or in my case, I'm trying to see it as a strength. It's something that allows me to have the context and information I need to help my clients, to help other creators. So it is definitely a mindset shift of consciously trying to understand those powers, those skills, and also recognizing that, like, it's not the same for everybody, but fully understanding that there are other people who have been diagnosed as autistic who are not experiencing it the same way, who are finding it to interfere with their daily life or, you know, to prevent them from being able to do the things that they want to do. So it's been a really interesting exploration of not only trying to understand my experience as an autistic woman, but understanding what other autistics experience, their lives, their perspectives, and seeing how those things connect and how I can use the platform that I have to be helpful for that experience in any way.
Melanie Deziel [00:26:59]:
It's so cool for me that we're having this conversation right now and, like, can talk about this openly, and so, like, me from two years ago would be super hella proud right now of just the fact that I have embraced this part of who I am and, like, just been open about it.
Nick Bennett [00:27:15]:
You know, it's good perspective because what we call is a superpower is cannot show up the same way for some people. But I think being able to talk about it and figure it out is also part of the process. Like, so I alluded to this idea that it's changed your business. So in some of the things that you choose to work on, especially as it relates to your books, like, talk about, you've really dug into this, you've hyper fixated on it. Like, you've dug into this with purpose and intentionality. It's like you've been able to dig into this in a way that has amplified your business and given you not like, a competing direction, but something that feels even more impactful and meaningful than helping marketers market.
Melanie Deziel [00:28:00]:
It's something that I have struggled with. Right. It's like, at the end of the day, I always think of, like, if the Internet shut down tomorrow, do I have any skills to survive on this earth? And marketing can, at least for me, feel very existential at times. It's all made up. It's all theoretical. I do find myself craving sometimes more of a tangible impact, whether that's, like, through hobbies where I work with my hands, like quilting or things like that, or through this new work, which is the more I looked into autism and understanding honestly, my core question was, like, why the hell did I get to the age that I was without anyone knowing, understanding, or supporting me? There are so many things I can look back on and know that my life could have been different in amazing ways had I had the support I needed by knowing that I was autistic. And I'm blessed. I'm in a wonderful place in life, and I.
Melanie Deziel [00:28:52]:
And I own that. But just little things. Like, I struggled with math throughout my life, and it was always one of those things, you know, if you only applied yourself, if you only tried harder, you know, you're not doing the work, and you're like, you have no idea how hard I'm trying. I'm crying. Like, I'm trying so hard. Like, maybe I'm not dumb. Maybe my mind works in a different way. And it's having trouble grasping abstract information, which is what was happening.
Melanie Deziel [00:29:15]:
It's made me realize that if I can help other women discover this about themselves sooner in some way, that I can meaningfully improve people's lives. And we did the math in one of our office hours, you and I were chatting about this, right? We were talking about. Based on the current estimates, that 80% of women are not diagnosed with autism by the time they're 18, meaning women who actually have autism, people like me, if they're done with school, they're done with counselors, they're done with testing, they're not going to encounter that experience. And some math shows us that there are at least 8 million undiagnosed autistic women in just the United States. Which means in my mind, there's 8 million women out there who maybe are trying to start their own business or have a family or make it through school or whatever else, and they're being told that they're stupid or lazy or not applying themselves or anxious or dramatic or whatever other thing they're being called. And if only they and everyone around them understood that they were autistic, they could probably be much more happy and successful in the way that they define as successful, instead of measuring against, you know, a yardstick that doesn't belong to.
Nick Bennett [00:30:29]:
Them, the yardstick that doesn't belong to them. Like, there's a lot of ways to define success, and it doesn't have to look, like, be good at math, right?
Melanie Deziel [00:30:41]:
Well, and even for me, like, we talked about this, like, I struggle with social media. Like, just blips of information is really difficult for me. I crave context. I crave depth. And so I have a hard time seeing little bits of things in passing because I want to hyper fixate. I want to know everything about that thing, not just one little bit. Right. And I also struggle to share information that way.
Melanie Deziel [00:31:04]:
So that's why, for me, having my newsletter, the late diagnosed diaries, where I get to go in depth on a topic related to this, on a subtopic related to autism in women, and really dive in and hyper fixate for a while, I've learned to accept that I am not a person who creates volume frequently. I am a person who creates depth infrequently. And I'm okay with that. There was a time where I would beat myself up for not posting to LinkedIn every day. I should be posting to threads. I should be doing all these things. And I'm like, that's not where my strength lies. I'm not serving myself and my strengths, my way to communicate is to go deep, and that requires time.
Melanie Deziel [00:31:41]:
And so learning to love and accept that about yourself, like, speaking of the yardstick, that's transformative.
Nick Bennett [00:31:48]:
I feel like the level of impact that this had on you. I hope that this book, and I'm confident that this book is going to be able to reach, even if it reaches one person, right, is going to be meaningful. So aside from the kitchen and writing this book, where are you at right now? How are you building this business? What's next? What's right now?
Melanie Deziel [00:32:09]:
So I think sort of in keeping with the same philosophy I talked about early on, of looking what is the market looking for? And trying to follow that. I'm trying to do the same thing now. I feel very much like I've sort of reinvented my business post pandemic, that it doesn't look like what it did before the pandemic at all, but in the best possible way. Like, running the kitchen with Jay has been so fulfilling. Like, the work that we get to do with the creators is so life giving and, like, energy producing. I'm focused more on the projects that make me feel that way, which is, again, a privilege that I'm in a place where I can say no to certain projects, to leave room and space for the things that do give me life. Among those I love educating. A lot of what I do is driven by education, and I've been working with LinkedIn learning.
Melanie Deziel [00:32:55]:
I'm now one of their contracted professors for LinkedIn learning, so, or the instructors, they call it, but they have contracted me to create courses, and that involves learning a lot about a subject, going in depth, writing the video scripts, and then every couple months, I fly out there, hop in front of a set of with the teleprompter, and perform the course to be recorded. No one's going to see anything for months that I've been working on these things, right? And then they're out in its depth, infrequently. But I found it so fulfilling. I have a course out already on the basics of using storytelling in your marketing. The next course to come out will be chat GPT for content marketers. So, like, specific use cases and applications for folks who write content. And then there will be another one on content repurposing coming out either late this year or early next year. So that's been a lot of fun.
Melanie Deziel [00:33:44]:
So, in addition to the kitchen and working on a book proposal for this topic of why women aren't diagnosed with autism until late in life and what that means for us, this courses have been kind of a real rhythm to the last year or so.
Nick Bennett [00:34:00]:
This is probably the most unconventional revenue diversity that I've heard of. Like, a lot of people build the more traditional, like, build a course yourself. Like, write a book, build a course, offer services, more traditional things. And I like that you have found different ways to monetize your expertise and follow your different in all these different ways. And a lot of people wouldn't allow themselves to write that book.
Melanie Deziel [00:34:29]:
Part of that, truthfully, is, like, the hyper fixation and, like, strong sense of justice are like, some of the hallmark characteristics of autism, particularly in women. And so that book's getting written, whether a publisher does it or not, or whether I have to, like, lock myself in a room for a week and do it. It is so important to me, and it feels so necessary that I am going to make it happen. So whether it's good for the business or not, whether it's, you know, serving my business model, I don't know. I couldn't tell you. But I have followed my instinct about what I care about and what lights me up. So far, it has not failed me.
Nick Bennett [00:35:06]:
I don't think it could. Like, I think we tell ourselves this story that if it doesn't all just line up so perfectly that it's not worth doing. And I think that's just you can give yourself permission to do other things that fill your cup.
Melanie Deziel [00:35:26]:
Oh, 100%. And I think a big part of the being okay with that. We've had conversations about this in the kitchen, you and I, even specifically, like, I don't know how it's going to impact my business. I will have to watch and see. I will have to see if, who knows? Three years from now, maybe I'm only speaking about autism. Like, I have no idea where my business will take me. Actually, the founder of the content Marketing Institute, Joe Pulitszi, who is obviously, like, the content marketing guy, wrote a murder mystery novel. That to me was like, I love that you did that.
Melanie Deziel [00:35:57]:
And then wrote another marketing book. And it's like, yeah, I did that. I wrote a murder mystery book. That to me, was like, a great market signal. Now, I'm not him, obviously, but it was like that inspiration of, you know what, it doesn't all have to be part of the business model. Like, if you have the resources to do it and you have the drive and the passion that, you know, this is something you want to do. Like, that can be so creatively fulfilling, that gives you energy to put back into the other stuff.
Nick Bennett [00:36:23]:
Totally. I didn't really think about how that can produce energy to fuel the other programs.
Melanie Deziel [00:36:30]:
I'm so hyped talking about this stuff, I'm probably going to be way more productive afterward. And that's true. When you get to talk about your passions, you get to do the things you love, it does light you up, and that carries over even just being happier and more fulfilled.
Nick Bennett [00:36:44]:
You mentioned, if the Internet goes down, do I have anything of importance? Can I do anything? I've had a lot of people come on this show and say things like, yeah, I was just selling sales technology to other salespeople, or, I'm just marketing to other marketers. Everyone feels very stuck in this Ooda loop, and they're like, I'm not sure what to make of all of it. And sometimes it just can feel very meaningless. Sometimes that work needs to be done, and there's nothing wrong with doing that work. But it's like you said, to find that thing and use that to light you up is totally valid, and more people should give themselves permission to do it.
Melanie Deziel [00:37:21]:
You've heard me say it several times. Like, I recognize what a blessed position I'm in. Like, I am safe. I have all kinds of privileges. I am in a place where I can take these kinds of risks. But I also know that a lot of autistic women in particular, they don't have the resources or the ability to speak in front of a crowd. That might not be something they're comfortable with. They may not have the platform.
Melanie Deziel [00:37:43]:
And so early on, when I was trying to decide if I was going to pursue this direction, like, part of it was I felt almost a level of responsibility. I am in a place where I've written books before. I'm comfortable doing that. I speak in front of crowds. I'm comfortable doing that. I have a reputation that can sustain, hopefully. So it feels like to not do it would not be in service of the people that I now know are my community. I feel like it's an opportunity that I would be irresponsible to ignore, that I have a chance to help by using the skills and the privileges that I have.
Nick Bennett [00:38:16]:
You know, I find it totally acceptable to recognize the fact that, like, hey, you have started this journey ten years ago, and you've been working at it and going after it for a really long time. It's okay to recognize that a lot of work went in to get into this point where all of these things converged at really the right time. Like, you figured this thing out. You also happen to be a speaker and an author, and you're like, I have the means, the ability to shine a light on this thing. Now you feel this sense of responsibility to do it, and because you can, and, like, that's okay, you have permission to do it. Looking back on all the stuff that you've done over these last ten years, what's something you would have done differently?
Melanie Deziel [00:39:01]:
I probably wouldn't have launched my first book in late February of 2020 had I known what was coming in March of 2020. You know, that I would have to cancel all my speaking engagement, the whole book tour stuff, but I think I would have charged more sooner. I think I struggled a lot more in those early years than I needed to because as I talked about the money mindset thing, it felt weird to charge what would have been a month or two months salary for a single project it just felt uncomfortable. And I think I undervalued myself a lot early on, and if I could go back and, like, shake the shoulders of, you know, 20 1516 Melanie was starting out, I would have been like, up your prices right away.
Nick Bennett [00:39:46]:
We're all in that same boat. And to some respect, I think pricing is this, like, weird thing that everyone feels like they don't charge enough, but they don't know how to charge more. It also sets you up to feel confident in what you can do. What do you want to build now? Or what do you want to build that you haven't built yet?
Melanie Deziel [00:40:05]:
I love what we're doing with the kitchen. I love the community we're creating that's, like, focused on creativity and craft and, like, the quality of the work that we do. I would really love to be able to build it bigger and be able to serve more people, because I think there are a lot of creators who would benefit, especially solopreneurs, like, having a community of people who get it, who can give you advice, who can just listen to the struggles that we all share. I'm excited to see how we can scale it without losing the sort of special sauce that makes it what it is.
Nick Bennett [00:40:37]:
Is there something that has prevented you from scaling it, or are you saying that's the goal? How are you thinking about growing the kitchen?
Melanie Deziel [00:40:46]:
That is the goal. So Jay and I have been working sort of in the background for the last couple of months on what we are calling the kitchen 2.0, sort of the new. Breaking out new membership tiers to give different levels of access to things, revamping the way we deliver content. You know, we recently launched a members only podcast, which is something we were wanting to do for a while. So we don't have a team, we don't have employees. It's just the two of us. And so that's probably the biggest limiter, is, like, how much can we do on our own? Just as two humans who also are responsible for keeping other humans alive. We're looking at different avenues for how we could do that.
Melanie Deziel [00:41:20]:
And we're hoping that by later this year and early next year that we'll be able to serve a lot more creators more easily based on the different things that we're implementing.
Nick Bennett [00:41:30]:
That's cool. I think there's, like 60 of us in there now. What is your vision? Whether or not you've told Jay this number, what do you think? 1000 people? 10,000 people?
Melanie Deziel [00:41:40]:
What do you think as the vision is right now? 10,000 sounds insane. A thousand seems doable. I think a thousand could work. I think that's really what we're trying to figure out, is what we don't want to do is just sell a bunch and fill it up with people and not be able to serve them well. So, at least for me, as a person who's very tangible in my thinking, it's hard for me to pick a goal without seeing the pathway there. But part of what we're doing in breaking out different membership tiers is, can we make something at a more entry level that is more scalable, that the quality doesn't diminish as more people come in and then have these additional layers that might have smaller membership, of higher tiers, that have more direct access, that we do the things that don't scale well. So that's what we're trying to figure out. And I think it does involve restructuring our more, like, entry level standard membership to make it something that scales without quality loss.
Melanie Deziel [00:42:36]:
That's what we're working on now.
Nick Bennett [00:42:38]:
I have faith. You guys have been really open about sharing and sharing what the first year of the kitchen really looked like and, and where, where we're at now and what you're, the direction you're trying to take it. It's really exciting to watch you go through that process. It's exciting to be in there and do the work. I mean, this show is a product of the kitchen I'm very excited about, and it's made an impact on my life and my business, and it's been a ton of fun to do so and be a part of there. And I've met a ton of people. Like, I met Renee, who I interviewed on here, on this show in the kitchen. So there's a lot of good that comes, that is like the digital sawdust of the existence of the kitchen.
Nick Bennett [00:43:19]:
Not even just the work, the direct work that you're doing, but all the stuff that surrounds it, which has been really cool to be a part of.
Melanie Deziel [00:43:27]:
That's the coolest part to me. I mean, yeah, you know, it's a business. We gotta, like, make it make sense for. For the finances. But for me, that is really the coolest part. We call all of our members chefs, but, like, when I see chefs interacting in the wild, like Renee being on your show, I'm like, we played a part in that, Orlando. I help somebody with a framework that is the basis for their book, and I'm like, oh, my God. I helped them form those ideas, and now those ideas, they're going to get to put those out in the world and share their message.
Melanie Deziel [00:43:52]:
Getting to see the fallout of that, the ripple effect is so cool. And I think that's also why we are thinking, well, how do we make more of that? How do we make that magic scale so that it's not just 60 of us doing awesome things, but maybe 600 of us could do awesome things.
Nick Bennett [00:44:08]:
You know, the focus on maintaining impact is key because I think the two of you could certainly fill it up with a thousand people pretty easily. It's not a reach problem, right? It's like, how do you do the thing and still maintain that level of impact where people can come in there and work out a framework that is the thesis of their next book, or work out the premise of. Of a show that they really love to create and all those things. So it's exciting to watch the evolution of it. I'm glad to be there.
Melanie Deziel [00:44:41]:
So we're trying to practice what we preach. You know, we always talk about how it's about quality over quantity. So let. Yeah, we could just get a thousand members and pat our bank accounts, but that's not what we're here for. Like, we're trying to focus on quality and the benefit, the impact. And to do that, sometimes you got to do it a little bit slower. That's what we're doing. We're really focused on making sure that the relationships and the impacts stay there as we move through our scale process.
Melanie Deziel [00:45:08]:
Hopefully.
Nick Bennett [00:45:09]:
Mel, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your story. And I know more people feel seen because of it. This has been a blast.
Melanie Deziel [00:45:17]:
Thanks for letting me share my story and thanks for being part of the kitchen.
Nick Bennett [00:45:26]:
Hey Nick again, and thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, you can sign up for the 1000 Routes newsletter where I process the insights and stories you hear on this show into frameworks and lessons to help you build a new and different future for your own business. You can sign up at 1000routes.com, which I have the link in the show notes. Here's the hardest hitting question you're gonna be asked all day, probably all month. What would be your last meal on earth?
Melanie Deziel [00:45:59]:
Last meal on earth would probably be Panera Mac and cheese and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Not the healthiest, but I'm going out. I'm going down in style.
Nick Bennett [00:46:10]:
You know, no one is answered with like a salad. I don't think any. Every time I've asked that question, no one has, has opted for health conscious. So I love it. Would you go bread bowl or no?
Melanie Deziel [00:46:26]:
Probably not bread bowl. Cause I want to save room for the ice cream, you know, and the bread bowl kind of filling, so probably save space.
Nick Bennett [00:46:34]:
Well, you get a side of bread no matter what. I suppose that's true.