🚀 "From NYC to St. Pete: Melissa Hoffman’s Journey to Dauntless Success 🌊✨"

📢I talk🎙️with Melissa Hoffman Co-Founder and CEO of Dauntless Performance Consulting! 👏🍷 🎇 🎉 ✨ 👏 🥂  😁

"Explore Melissa Hoffman's inspiring journey from NYC to St. Pete, launching Dauntless Performance Consulting 💼🌟. Insights on leadership, mindfulness, & business growth. 

Watch now! 🚀✨ @ThirstyThursdaysat3PMEST"

💡 Key Takeaways:

• How Melissa transitioned from NYC to entrepreneurship in St. Pete 🌊
• The power of mindfulness & emotional intelligence in leadership 🧘‍♀️💼
• Lessons on resilience, adaptability, and embracing change 🚀✨
• Building high-performing teams and optimizing business strategies 📈💡
• Balancing wellness with a thriving career 🌞

🔥 Don’t miss Melissa’s insights on grit, personal growth, and building an impactful career.

✨ Dive into Melissa Hoffman’s incredible story on this week’s Thirsty Thursdays @3PM EST! From growing up in NYC 🗽 to launching her own consultancy, Dauntless Performance Consulting, in St. Pete 🌊, Melissa shares her journey of grit, growth, and transformation.

🚀 Learn about her career pivots from the wine industry 🍷 to leadership in SaaS and how she now empowers teams through mindfulness and emotional intelligence.

💡 Melissa breaks down:

• Building high-performing teams 📈
• Leveraging mindfulness in leadership 🧘‍♀️
• Insights into the beverage industry & tech solutions 🍹💻
• The importance of resilience and adaptability 🔥

🎙 Whether you're an entrepreneur, leader, or industry professional, this episode is packed with actionable insights and inspiring stories. Watch now and subscribe!

👉 Don’t forget to check out @ThirstyThursdaysat3PMEST for more amazing guests. 🌟

NOW ON YOUTUBE!!! Thank you for Listening! Join us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter!

Host Jessie Ott's Profile on LinkedIn

Chapters

• 7:16 Education and Early Career Choices
• 14:34 Transition to the Wine Industry
• 22:00 Moving to St. Petersburg and New Opportunities
• 33:45 The Role of Seven Fifty and Market Solutions
• 37:41 Journey to Positive Psychology
• 39:37 Leadership and Coaching Evolution
• 42:37 Sales Strategies and Client Engagement
• 48:37 Consultancy and Coaching Insights
• 51:45 Industry Challenges and Innovations
• 1:04:55 Entrepreneurship and Personal Growth
• 1:12:18 Final Thoughts and Resources
• 1:14:01 Produced by Fedora J Productions

Transcript

Jessie Ott (00:00.813)
Hello everybody and welcome to my headset podcast recording today. It's very exciting. It's so sexy with the short hair. I love it. But anyway, more importantly, I'm very, very, very excited to have Melissa Hoffman here, owner and managing director of Dauntless Performance Consulting. Hello, Melissa. They're very fitting for what we're doing.

Melissa Hoffman (00:22.664)
Hi, Jeffy. I think the headphones are very on the nose.

Jessie Ott (00:30.753)
But, not my favorite, but well, it's not going to take away from, from this awesome podcast that we're about to record. So where are you calling from?

Melissa Hoffman (00:38.867)
I am based in St. Petersburg, Florida, out at the beaches.

Jessie Ott (00:42.697)
Okay, nice. Yeah, St. Pete, we went a couple years ago, maybe in the summer. And our friends, they bought a few years ago, sold it already and living in St. Louis, Missouri.

Melissa Hoffman (00:56.748)
like contrast in temperatures. Yeah, I moved here. I moved here from New York about 10, almost 10 years ago, like next week, which is crazy. The time went by very, very quickly.

Jessie Ott (00:58.647)
Yeah, yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:07.095)
Wow. Congratulations on 10 years. That's a jaunt. What brought you there in the first place?

Melissa Hoffman (01:14.99)
Essentially I threw a dart at the map, is really how it happens. Just kind of followed the intuition, but I've always wanted to live by the beach. I grew up in New York City and so spent time out on Long Island and the Jersey Shore and even City Island. I grew up in the Bronx and it was always a part of our summers and there was something so I wouldn't know, know, soothing and healing about.

Jessie Ott (01:18.968)
Hahaha!

Jessie Ott (01:31.351)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (01:41.866)
about the beach, didn't know that as a kid, but the older I got, it just stayed on my radar. So moved to the desert first, moved to Las Vegas, and then eventually was back in New York and just couldn't stop thinking about living at the beach and started looking at the map and honed in on the Tampa Bay area. And this looks good. There's an airport, there's a beach. Let's check it out. So checked it out and the rest is history. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (02:09.089)
That's awesome. You know, when I, when I think about what I wanted when I was a kid, riding my bike in my little small town of less than a thousand people, I remember seeing this woman driving this cabriolet convertible and I was like the Volkswagen cabriolet, they don't make them anymore. But I was like, I'm going to have one of those. I'm going to be on the Gulf coast. Like I thought I'd be somewhere over there and you know, white concrete.

condo or house, two story house with my golden retriever. Yeah, it didn't make it. Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (02:41.166)
That's a dream. I love that. I love that. Yeah, fun fact, I've only ever driven convertibles. So that's something that we share. I didn't have one when I was living in New York City before I moved here. But yeah, all four of my cars in my life have been convertibles. I think there's something very freeing about driving a convertible. And so I naturally needed to make my way down here to the beach.

Jessie Ott (02:53.57)
that's funny.

Jessie Ott (03:09.633)
Yeah, no, that's perfect. Yeah. It finally got warm down here. As you know, it's been in the thirties and cold, but the other day the sun came out and it was, you know, high sixties and we had, we saw a convertible and I'm like, yeah, today's a good day for that. Celebrate the win.

Melissa Hoffman (03:24.564)
I enjoyed my weekend getting our first sun in like two or three weeks down here.

Jessie Ott (03:30.519)
Yeah. Yeah, it's been kind of, it's, it is what it is, but it's winter time, you know? I'm sure it used to be like this all the time, just like growing up in Iowa, we had three feet of snow on the ground at all times for three months. Now it's not, doesn't always snow. It's weird.

Melissa Hoffman (03:48.172)
Yeah, everything's good.

Jessie Ott (03:50.291)
I know, that's true. So you're originally from Manhattan, born and raised in Manhattan?

Melissa Hoffman (03:52.686)
I grew up in the Bronx and then I moved here from Brooklyn. So I moved to Brooklyn from Las Vegas later in

Jessie Ott (04:02.659)
Okay, gotcha. There was just a documentary kind of, well, do you ever watch CBS Sunday Morning? Okay, that makes me, I'm sure I'm just very old, but my mom used to love to watch it and so she kind of got me on watching it and they just have really amazing segments and they had one this Sunday on the Bronx. Yeah, there's like a guy that's a writer, historian and he has this whole.

Melissa Hoffman (04:22.07)
Hmm.

Jessie Ott (04:29.527)
book about the Bronx. And I thought it was pretty cool because obviously, what is it? Fat Joe and, you know, JLo and some other people are from the Bronx. And so they were on there too. It was kind of cool.

Melissa Hoffman (04:39.182)
I will have to hit you up for more information so I can Google that and see if I can find a clip online and find out who this author is and the book. I love that.

Jessie Ott (04:48.577)
Yeah. Yeah. I bet it's really good. Yeah. He's an older gentleman now and he's, he's like from Ohio or something, but he, just loves, loves the Bronx and he walks. He's the guy that walks. Have you heard of this guy? The guy that walks the Bronx. Okay. Well, anyway, I'll find it and I'll send it to.

Melissa Hoffman (05:00.951)
We gotta go.

Melissa Hoffman (05:06.04)
Start there with a Google, the guy who walks the room.

Jessie Ott (05:08.931)
Yeah. I guess he's well known. mean, you've been gone 10 years, so maybe it started after you left, you know? Very cool. So you started in the Bronx. Did you go to school there?

Melissa Hoffman (05:10.67)
up.

Melissa Hoffman (05:22.062)
Well, not college. went, I grew up there. went to parochial school, so Catholic elementary and high school. And I did finish high school a little bit north of the city. We moved when I was 16. And then I went to, yeah, it was. I went from an all-girl Catholic high school in the Bronx to a co-ed public high school, like an

Jessie Ott (05:39.535)
that's tough.

Jessie Ott (05:46.551)
Well that was kind of fun.

Melissa Hoffman (05:47.502)
like an hour north of the city. I mean, it was a massive shock to the system. I was an athlete tomboy that wore uniforms to school and I was like, oh, I have to assimilate into society? There are boys here? What is going on? Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I think though it was really something that...

Jessie Ott (05:53.036)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (06:03.541)
Yeah. Yeah. Completely different.

Melissa Hoffman (06:12.396)
me at a fairly young age, mean, teens are incredibly formative, but that I could adjust and adapt to anything. And I went to three different colleges. And so in that, was like, okay, I'm here and this isn't really the vibe. so, you know, I learned really early that you can change your life if something's not working. so yes, I've got 10 years here, but I've lived in...

a few places across the country and spent some time in Italy during my career and then back in New York and here. And this is the longest I've lived anywhere since growing up in the Bronx here in St. Pete. But it absolutely ignited my love of travel and experiencing new things. So although, know, 16 year old me, I'm sure was having a time.

But I do think it set me up for the understanding that you can break down and rebuild at any point in time. So I love that about what that taught me.

Jessie Ott (07:07.606)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (07:20.023)
Yeah, that's really cool. And it's not surprising coming from someone who spent a lot of time taking psychology and the insight into the human brain, I guess, and emotions, which I can't wait to get into. you said three different colleges. What did you go to different colleges for?

Melissa Hoffman (07:39.596)
I originally, so growing up an athlete, I started out with an athletic training physical therapy intention. And so I went to Western Michigan University and started the programming there. And I, it was a combination of paying out of state tuition and realizing that this was gonna cost a lot of money that I would have to repay someday.

And so I ended up at a small school that also has a focus in athletic training in rural Pennsylvania. I was there for a semester. That did not work out well at all. And that was not the vibe. And ended up at university at Albany back in New York. And that was for a mix of reasons. There were a lot of people from my graduating high school class that was there. The guy I dating at the time.

Jessie Ott (08:24.834)
Yeah

Melissa Hoffman (08:36.558)
from high school was at a private college in the in the capital district area and interestingly enough, I don't know that I would have gotten into Albany out of high school and so it's interesting that three semesters in school got me into a university that I you know wouldn't not wouldn't have necessarily been able to get into But I ended up with a real a real crisis in what I wanted to do. I

Jessie Ott (08:38.307)
Thank

Melissa Hoffman (09:04.674)
moving away from the athletic training and physical therapy. had a knee injury my senior year of high school that I thought could continue to propel me in that direction from the healing perspective. But it turned out to be, I guess, just a little too hard psychologically to continue in that space. And I took a seriously wrong turn into a business degree, which was not really my aptitude. And I ended up

Jessie Ott (09:30.445)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (09:33.772)
doing terribly for a couple of semesters. I was also working to put myself through school. So that was a really, that was a really interesting time. And long way around, I ended up going back to some of the original things that I was really interested in when I was a bit younger. And in high school, two of the electives I take in my senior year of high school were forensics and psychology. And lo and behold, SUNY Albany has a great psychology program and one of the top criminal justice programs also.

And so I found what I had begun with in some capacity and continued to get my bachelor's in psychology with a focus on abnormal and then.

Jessie Ott (10:02.711)
That's cool.

Jessie Ott (10:19.095)
What's abnormal?

Melissa Hoffman (10:22.286)
I... Well, well, so technically speaking, there is a text that defines diagnoses outside of normal, but effectively I wanted to be a criminologist. Yeah, so.

Jessie Ott (10:22.563)
Everyone?

Jessie Ott (10:37.644)
Okay.

So you like watching all those FBI crime shows too.

Melissa Hoffman (10:43.118)
I love those shows, books. My newest offshoot of that is military espionage, clandestine organizations. So that's a television and movie kink, I guess. I couldn't think of a better word that I tend toward. And reading, love. Love those types of books, yes.

Jessie Ott (11:05.741)
Yeah. Yeah. So you've seen Lioness then.

Melissa Hoffman (11:10.286)
I've seen Lioness in a very, very short window of time. I just plowed through. Both seasons were out when, I think it was my brother recommended that I watch it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. One of my most recent also, so Lioness and Seal Team.

Jessie Ott (11:12.333)
So good.

Jessie Ott (11:16.802)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (11:22.477)
Yeah, very good.

Jessie Ott (11:29.419)
Okay, I haven't seen SEAL Team. Is it the new one or the TV show?

Melissa Hoffman (11:33.674)
It is a TV show. It's on Paramount.

Jessie Ott (11:35.177)
Okay. I've seen some of those seasons.

Melissa Hoffman (11:38.734)
David Boreanis is in it and he's a huge Filly fan. it's like we were talking about the Eagles and stuff such earlier. yeah, that is a great, that's another great show. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (11:44.395)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (11:48.929)
Yeah. Yeah. I like that too. Night agent was kind of fun and interesting. Didn't see that one. It's in its second season.

Melissa Hoffman (11:54.766)
agent. But it all circles back into where we'll end up as our conversation moves forward. But when I get into these clandestine and military, especially the branches of the military that are so glamorized, like the Navy SEALs, there are so many SEALs that end up being

keynote speakers and they write books, like you think about Jaco and Rich DeViney who wrote the attributes. There's something there to be studied about the culture of organizations and teams like that that is absolutely transferable and related to business. So there's more than just the darkness that lives in my brain that powers my interest in a lot of these books and programs.

Jessie Ott (12:42.264)
Mm-hmm.

Jessie Ott (12:54.571)
You know, I was just thinking about this this morning. And when you look at the different business owners around, like I have a part of my special segment, I started interviewing veterans that are have their own businesses in the civilian world. And I don't know this to be a fact. I don't know this to be true. I just feel like SEALs are definitely just because they're so driven.

the one they quit, they have to do something with all that drive, right? But I also feel like when I, I don't know about all the branches and how many, you know, there's a different percentage of people that actually are in these different branches, but I feel like Marines, there's a lot of Marines that have their own businesses. And I don't know why. I don't know if it's just cause I've run into podcasts, I've run into this, that, and the other, but I feel like to your point, that structure,

And that discipline is what you need to have to stay focused and, you know, build a business.

Melissa Hoffman (13:58.805)
Yeah, absolutely. That makes total sense. And when I think about building teams from a leadership perspective,

Military is a great avenue and also I love hiring athletes or former athletes. There's a thread of that discipline, rigor, grit, resilience, mental toughness, coachability, right? That it all translates back into, especially, you know, my functional area is primarily sales.

Jessie Ott (14:34.861)
Yeah, that's true.

Melissa Hoffman (14:42.062)
And so all of those things, mental toughness, rejection, resilience, those are all things we gotta look for when building sales teams and sales leadership perspective.

Jessie Ott (14:49.525)
Yep.

Jessie Ott (14:55.767)
Yeah, you got to hear no a lot, right? I haven't heard what you've heard it enough.

Melissa Hoffman (15:00.798)
and not good enough. No, said no and not good enough.

Jessie Ott (15:07.231)
Not good enough. wow. Okay. Interesting. So did you feel like you were going to get into the CSI or work for like a police organization and be, I mean, I guess you have to sort of start with police to be, well, to be a detective, but maybe not to be CSI. Maybe forensics is more science, right?

Melissa Hoffman (15:31.95)
I love that CSI. So forensics wasn't necessarily, that was kind of a blip on the radar. I definitely was not interested in getting a medical degree to end up in a forensics lab. But I did, when I graduated college, I did move out to Las Vegas with the intent of, at the time the city was exploding.

Jessie Ott (15:45.835)
Okay.

Melissa Hoffman (16:01.806)
And so all of the law enforcement agencies were hiring. And when I was still in school, actually, I think it was my junior, it took me five years to graduate school, because I moved around a lot. But my junior year, so guess effectively my fourth year, I was recruited by the state police of New York. And so that was an avenue that I thought about taking. And so it programs me to think, okay, if I join a law enforcement agency and then...

Jessie Ott (16:12.151)
Yes, me too.

Melissa Hoffman (16:30.072)
can get some of my master's degree paid for, that could set me up to then move into a different direction where perhaps I would end up in a higher ranking in a different capacity in a state agency or maybe be able to move into the federal side of the law enforcement operations. And...

In the wine business. Yes, yes. So I guess, I guess it was, you know, speaking of lessons that younger self makes, was, I think I was 24. I was managing a restaurant in Las Vegas and I came up through school bartending and such and started to get involved in the beverage program. And I was still

Jessie Ott (16:55.265)
You ended up what? In the wine business. Yes. If all fails, join the wine business.

Melissa Hoffman (17:23.554)
doing my thing, my intended career path. And I had a rep from one of the distributors that would come in and taste me on wine. And it was done in such a way that I really felt like I was being educated around something every time he came in and started to observe an aptitude for it. That was really interesting to me. And at the time, some family friends who,

were both homicide detectives in the NYPD were having a very, very, very challenging time in their life. And I had this thought process about how difficult it must be at that time. We know a lot more about mental health and PTSD and all of that, but this is in the early, late 90s, early 2000s. And I...

Jessie Ott (18:13.379)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Hoffman (18:20.726)
I had this moment where I was really taking the lessons and what I was learning about what was going on with them and deciding what I wanted for my life. the... Affection might be an overstatement, but yeah, the affection, the interest, the obsession with that level of darkness and dysfunction. And then on the other side, I have this, wine, food,

culture, travel, and I give that version of me a lot of credit for the choice that she made. And I decided to pursue the wine side of the hospitality industry.

Jessie Ott (18:57.763)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (19:04.277)
Yeah, that's a big choice. And it's interesting the universe showed you those struggles. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So, then what happens? How long do you stay in Vegas?

Melissa Hoffman (19:21.166)
So again, true to form, I do nothing half-assed, two speeds, stop and go. So I just, can't find the middle. And so I, a couple of educational learning roles from there, I ended up as a wine director at a local wine bar that had the first enomatic machines in the state, I think. And even then they weren't, they weren't popular. I that's like 2006. They still weren't.

Jessie Ott (19:26.497)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (19:42.925)
Nice.

Melissa Hoffman (19:49.28)
quite popular yet here in the US. And then I joined a restaurant group that was moving out from New York to open their first restaurants on the West Coast. So the Bastianich hospitality group. And I was floated by someone in trade development, one of the major distributors in the area as one of the professionals in Las Vegas that was focused on Italian wine. I had decided

pretty early on in my career after getting the two. At the time there were four pins, so like an intro and a certified before the advanced and the master. And so I'd gotten the first two pins and then just realized I didn't care as much about the rest of the world as I did about Italy. And so the wine bar was also Italian focused. So I ended up working for that group for some time. I opened four restaurants between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and then went to work for Michael Mina. So I worked for two celebrity chefs in Las Vegas.

And then I decided that it was time for the desert to kick rocks. And I wanted to move on to the commercial side of the industry. I was starting to not necessarily lose my passion for tasting and for that nerd life, but I became far more interested in why people made the buying decisions that they did and the financial side of the industry. And so I...

I packed everything up and went to Italy for a few months and worked in a restaurant off the coast of Venice and worked at a winery that has two locations, one in Tuscany and one in Piedmont, and then traveled around and just visited most of the regions in Italy in a full immersion. And so that was a really wonderful time in my career, of course. I learned enough on my way to going there to be somewhat functional.

Jessie Ott (21:30.797)
Wow. Did you speak Italian?

Melissa Hoffman (21:40.829)
Learned a bit more, although there were obstacles to that while I was on the ground, including people who at the restaurant, people who had spoke, were Italian, but they had worked at restaurants in London. And so they spoke English. then even I was living with them and in the restaurant, when you're getting your ass kicked, it was easier for them to speak to me in English than for us to have to to to to to to to to to have have have have have have have to have have have have have have to have to have

Jessie Ott (22:01.859)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (22:10.35)
She said, but I wanted to learn English. I'm like, then you come to the States, but I'm here. And then at the winery, some of the, some of the same, same things, was easier to be spoken to in English than Italian. So I did not learn as much Italian as I would have liked to learn. Plus I didn't grow up speaking another language. So that was, that's really, it's challenging to learn as an adult. You know, as a kid, you just absorb everything. So I can get by every now and then I'll run into a situation where I can, where I can bust out.

Jessie Ott (22:39.811)
Buona Sala!

Melissa Hoffman (22:42.382)
The thing about the thing that got me in trouble is because I studied Italian food and wine for so long, my accent was really good. So if I opened my mouth, I would just get assaulted with full force like, and I can, you know, if I'm Spanish, if I'm Italian, I can cast for a lot of different origins. And so that was very risky. So I got really good at saying, whoa, I'm American, please slow down. Can you say that again? Yeah.

I was in Brazil for a month a couple of summers ago and same thing there. I just got assaulted with Brazilian pork cheese and like, no, not quite. Not quite. Yeah, not today. That's not good. Maybe tomorrow. So then that, yeah, that's funny. me. Yeah, so that was that transition phase of my career from the sommelier floor to the commercial side of business.

Jessie Ott (23:18.889)
No, not today. Disculpe. That's my only word. Excuse me.

Jessie Ott (23:38.691)
So what happens after Italy? you, is that when you went to St. Pete? you went back to New York. Okay.

Melissa Hoffman (23:42.669)
back to New York.

Melissa Hoffman (23:46.342)
Back in New York, got my first distributor job, cut my teeth on the mean streets, and then the winery that I worked for in Italy hired me to represent their wines in the U.S. And so I made my way over to the import side of the business from there.

Jessie Ott (24:00.959)
Okay, that's a massive undertaking.

Melissa Hoffman (24:03.246)
Yeah, yeah, I, while I wouldn't, I mean, at the time I would, but I would not replace that year I spent as a distributor rep in New York, not having lived in New York City in a very long time. So it's not like I walked in and had all these relationships, you know, it was, it was a build, it was a build for the grant from the ground up based on skillset and then also reputation. And, but I, I've always had a more zoomed out.

Jessie Ott (24:19.991)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (24:32.938)
approach to almost anything, you know, and I can navigate, you know, go down to the, fundamentals and then meet somewhere in the middle. tend to think in the two, in the two extremes, stop and go small and big vision, and then kind of fill in the gaps from there. And I had, I had suspected that I would be a better fit for an importer or brand representative role working at a higher level.

managing a bigger scope of business than the nuanced route of the day to day. Whereas there are some personalities and ways of thinking where you can go in really deep into these accounts. And I just had a feeling that I would be better working with distributor partners and managing relationships from that perspective. So I spent a few years working at two different importers.

Jessie Ott (25:27.575)
Okay, that's fun. A lot of good experience and meeting a lot of people all over the country. That's exciting. A lot of travel, I'm sure. Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (25:34.35)
And I love to travel, yeah. And I love to travel, even the gritty parts of it, like you gotta take the good with the bad. Like you can't want something and not want all of it. And so, the long drives, a lot of plane travel, all of the things. But ending up in stranger, effectively stranger's cars for an entire day, you've gotta have some ability to love the absurdity of it all.

Jessie Ott (25:44.801)
Yeah

Jessie Ott (26:02.541)
Yeah. Fair, fair point. Yes. All those ride widths. Yeah. Those endless, those endless blitzes.

Melissa Hoffman (26:07.822)
I hate that word so much.

Jessie Ott (26:14.337)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (26:17.044)
You're trying to learn how to to it.

Jessie Ott (26:19.562)
Do people even do them anymore?

Melissa Hoffman (26:22.082)
I'm sure.

Jessie Ott (26:23.907)
Yeah, probably. I don't know.

Melissa Hoffman (26:26.03)
don't hate the concept, I hate the word.

Jessie Ott (26:28.227)
Yeah, it's kind of an odd word. Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (26:32.078)
the head with something, you know, for so long it just becomes, you get a tick from it.

Jessie Ott (26:37.119)
It sounds like a pastry to me.

Melissa Hoffman (26:39.31)
Isn't there a pastry called a blintz? Maybe that's why. Maybe. Someone can tell us in a message.

Jessie Ott (26:42.307)
Maybe, maybe that's my, I don't know. Yeah, there we go. Blintz's. Awesome. Okay. So you're back in New York. You've worked for a couple of importers. Then what happens next?

Melissa Hoffman (26:57.774)
The beach was calling and yeah, the beach was calling. There were two blizzards back to back in March of a very specific year that I'll never forget. And I was not having it. so after a few months, got the map out, got the head around it, came to visit in December of that year. And...

Jessie Ott (27:00.863)
Okay, that's when the beach started.

Jessie Ott (27:08.136)
Yeah

Melissa Hoffman (27:22.702)
Within a few weeks, I was locked and loaded with a new role. That was the second importer that I worked for. And then within three weeks after that, I was here when I was 10 years ago. And around the same time-ish that the beach was calling, Seven Fifty called.

Jessie Ott (27:40.629)
Okay. And did you know?

Melissa Hoffman (27:42.358)
Not only did I leave New York and move to a state where I didn't know anyone, I moved into a completely different segment of the industry.

Jessie Ott (27:53.429)
And what was that? What did you do for them?

Melissa Hoffman (27:55.278)
I originally, my first role was as the regional director for distributor sales. And as the years went by, I moved into a national role and focused on enterprise and opening new markets.

Jessie Ott (28:13.963)
Okay. And what it was, what were the, biggest challenges with that? And cause you know, our industry is very slow to evolve and technology isn't, isn't our, you know, you know, our, our signature, what do you call it? I don't know. Signature. People don't know this industry for being, you know, high tech.

Melissa Hoffman (28:43.342)
Yes, yes, yes. No, it's okay. Not at all. It was an interesting experience. while, it was challenging to get the masses along to our line of thinking, they were out there. And I make multiple references.

Jessie Ott (28:44.331)
Yes, thank you. I don't know why I can't find the words. That's embarrassing.

Melissa Hoffman (29:12.716)
to the crime scene board that is my, not my life, but like my career and putting all the pieces together and hanging the photos on the wall and how do I get this dot to connect to this dot to solve the problem? And that's truly what it turned into. And it was finding the leverage points, finding the referrals, finding the people who.

were advocates, it could be as simple as, you know, the one person that in a small town in some state that moved from a bigger market where Seven Fifty was already established. And then they get vocal and then they get you one introduction and then they get their tasting group on your side. then, and so talk about a practical like crime scene board of how to win friends and influence people.

Jessie Ott (30:07.171)
Yep.

Melissa Hoffman (30:08.726)
which is...

Jessie Ott (30:12.515)
Well, I mean, your interest in psychology certainly propels that, for sure.

Melissa Hoffman (30:19.278)
people have always been the thing that I'm most interested in. I would say, I don't know that I've ever said this before. I think that everything else that I'm interested in serves that modality or that serves everything else that I'm interested in. yeah, and when I think about the, when I think about the,

Jessie Ott (30:40.515)
I see that. Yeah, for sure.

Melissa Hoffman (30:46.858)
affection and formal education around how the mind works, how humans interact. even the criminal justice, criminology side of it all, it's the difference between having nefarious intent and having productive and beneficial intent, right? How what I'm about to say next can be contextualized is I...

I made a career out of how can I get people to do the thing that I want them to do? So I was either going to be a cult leader or have some success as a salesperson, as a sales leader, And part of the wisdom on to the next generation after I fucked around and found out for long enough. But it's true.

Jessie Ott (31:29.047)
That's scary, Melissa.

You

Jessie Ott (31:42.668)
I like the second decision.

Melissa Hoffman (31:44.534)
Yeah, my intent was always good. It's like, no, you need this. Let me tell you what's good for you. No, obviously, obviously I'm joking about it and I'm making it contextually entertaining because that's also how I like to live my life. yeah, it was all for the greater good of in some cases dragging the industry along to

Jessie Ott (31:51.063)
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (32:10.765)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (32:12.586)
a more effective and efficient way of doing business. And that's also one of my kinks. It's just we get anything we can do, we can optimize. And, and that that is, that's, that's really how I went to the to the market. But yeah, persuasion, man, influence all of it.

Jessie Ott (32:19.651)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (32:31.107)
Yeah, that's, yeah. Well, it's also showing them a better life, right? What you were offering them is solving so many problems. So, you know, as an analyst versus a psychologist, and I got connected with my mentor, whom I'm super pumped about. He's a manager at KPMG out in Silicon Valley, but he's done the tech stuff and now he's a manager. So he's had to learn how to switch from being an analyst and solving problems to selling.

Melissa Hoffman (33:00.302)
Okay.

Jessie Ott (33:01.493)
And he's like, it's a major shift, right? And so we kind of talked about this before. It's not my favorite, right? Selling. love connecting with people and I love meeting new people and I love telling them all the ways I'm going to help them. But the salesy part I don't like. And, you know, it's just, I like the connecting part. I do like that. I really like meeting new people because like you, people do fascinate me. But,

But we kind of end on the same plane, but we come from different backgrounds and areas for that, which is kind of cool.

Melissa Hoffman (33:39.297)
Yeah, and last we spoke, we dug into this a little bit and I asked you to do a little mental work around what it is about sales.

that you don't like because interestingly enough, I didn't share this when we spoke. I had a hard time when I was in my distributor sales role because I didn't want to come off salesy and gross. there's this, there was this mindset shift that I hit. And I think it's in order to be, you know, being a connector, being personable, varying levels of

of charisma and ability to connect. But I think you just have to be interested. Be interesting and interested. And that is one of the fundamentals. Like that's the foundation of building relationships. And you know, we're not talking telesales here. We're talking about the kind of sales where

you are working toward enhancing someone's workflow, their P &L, whatever the case may be, with something that you offer. And thinking of it in more of an energy exchange, then I'm trying to sell you something. Is a good shift in that direction. you know, there's not...

It takes reps to close, meaning not representatives, like reps, like 15 biceps curls in a gym. It takes reps to really finesse your mechanics on closing a deal. But the process that leads up to that is about knowing the value that you bring in what you're bringing.

Jessie Ott (35:22.849)
Right.

Jessie Ott (35:31.884)
Yes.

Melissa Hoffman (35:41.154)
having done the work on the audience that you're trying to target, the broad total addressable market, and then down to the individual, and just be interested in trying to solve that problem and exchange something for it.

Jessie Ott (35:54.477)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. know, big data is the big word, It's been around a long time, but people still don't really understand it or know what it means in the context of how can it help me? You know? And obviously big data is just an overall arching theme of it all. And you know,

getting into the business analytics and getting more in the micro mindset of that is the solve, right? And so, can you talk a little bit about what Seven Fifty was solving for distributors?

Melissa Hoffman (36:38.589)
Yeah, it was, it was a two-sided approach. It was about solving challenges for buyers and solving challenges for distributors. And the ultimate goal at its inception was the aggregation of the market. So when I was a buyer, I was looking at Excel spreadsheets, PDFs,

someone yapping about a portfolio that they didn't have the depth of knowledge. Again, I'm not saying I was knowledgeable across every country and wine region of the world, but at a time where Italian wine and spirits and beer for that matter were not yet cool like they are now, like they still were working on a repudiation rebuild. I was the...

the person that was the authority in the rep and buyer relationship on the product. And I wanted to be educated about what was in the portfolio. And there wasn't an easy way to really do that work or on the other side of it, have that information readily accessible to the representative who's coming in to show me lines.

And so the concept of the two-sided marketplace where distributors could be in an aggregated space where buyers can shop portfolios through data that was standardized and normalized and enriched. That solved a lot of those problems because it was also giving the distributor teams that same level of visibility, not just in their own portfolio.

but the entirety of the market of the wholesalers that were subscribing. So the visibility of products and offerings was really blown open in a way that was unprecedented for the awareness, the searchability, and the ease of learning more about the entire scope of what was offered in your area.

Jessie Ott (38:51.809)
Yeah, I met a gentleman in India and he had been doing that in ERP kind of solutions in India with you know, with pharmaceutical companies and this, that, and the other. And I was just too young and too immature to figure out how, how am I as a kid going to even try to build a company at, know, and, do that. So, you know, it was inevitable. It was, it was going to happen. And obviously there was a need for it.

Melissa Hoffman (39:20.705)
Yeah, the founders really capitalized on necessity and frustration. It's like necessity is the mother of invention, I enhance, I say it differently, necessity and frustration is the mother of invention. You just get so capped out on the way something is and sure, lightning has to strike in order to build something as successful as Seven Fifty was.

Jessie Ott (39:34.253)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (39:47.969)
Yeah. So what happened after Seven Fifty?

Melissa Hoffman (39:52.952)
I have been at two, well, there's two tracks. There's the linear one and then there's the concurrent one, right? So two Bevelq startups later, I am continuing on the concurrent track of having my own business. During the Seven Fifty days, I really flipped a script on how I was approaching

almost everything, right? But specifically my role and the mechanics of what I was doing on a daily basis for my actual role in the organization was, was really locked and loaded. And I, I bore easily. Maybe that's not the best way to say it, but I'm, I'm consistently reaching for something, right? And as soon, as soon as there's a baseline and I'm like, okay, cool. Everything's in place.

Jessie Ott (40:38.584)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (40:44.163)
You're a learner. Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (40:51.298)
what's next, right? Consistently raising the bar. And I had some pretty significant health issues backtracking a few years that I was in the process of addressing. And through that, I started to get into the polar opposite of abnormal psychology and the criminal enterprises. And

shifted my focus into positive psychology and mental health. And that and understanding and learning more about my, people hate when I say this when I'm saying it anyway, my meat suit, right? So understanding how our everything works, how our neurobiology, our neurochemistry, and I needed to take control over something that was betraying me.

is effectively where I'm coming from with that. Yeah, me too. And I hope anyone who's listening to this isn't cringing at that. But I had a doctor tell me that I needed to start meditating. I've tried meditating, I can't do it, I'm broken, it's broken. And it was like, no, that's not acceptable at all.

Jessie Ott (41:48.483)
Me too. That's awesome. I think it's awesome.

Melissa Hoffman (42:10.784)
And so started on this deep dive and started practicing the techniques that can lead to a state of meditation. And I got into yoga and I got into the philosophy of yoga and ended up getting certified as a coach because I saw a vision for where the organization I.

at at this time where the organization was going and how big we have the potential to grow. And I always, you you're not, you're on a quest for, you know, people mastery in quotes, without having experience, being able to leverage them to an advantage. And again, not in a nefarious way, but for the benefit of the collective was my outlook on that.

And so I saw there being some potential for leadership roles. And I had led without authority for so long, right? You're managing distributor relationships, you're influencing their sales teams, you're influencing buyers, all of that. So how do we flip the script, right? So I got certified as a coach and then found myself after that certification, feeling like I didn't learn enough. And so set out on my own curriculum of courses and you know,

books about leadership, about culture, about high performance and building habits. I mean, I was a machine for a few years. But after I had pulled myself out of this, you know, really brutal health state, I had just this new family. Holy shit, has the sky always been that color blue? Like, let's go. We got this. And yeah, it was really, it was really a wonderful time to have that.

Jessie Ott (43:54.947)
That's awesome.

Melissa Hoffman (44:03.662)
of mental capacity and freedom after so long, feeling like such garbage and just dragging myself through my life. And so I was very fortunate to have had and built a lot of trust with the founders of Seven Fifty. So I was able to begin coaching internally. And we had a...

Jessie Ott (44:11.811)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (44:29.322)
employee resource groups and company advocacy groups. And so I founded the wellness company advocacy group. So I led meditations with one of my colleagues who would DJ while I was doing the meditations. And I had a Slack channel where I would post articles, I would host round tables with managers. And so that inevitably moved into me having a lot of influence within the organization. so then I moved into a formal leadership role where I built a team and led the supply.

So the importers and producers vertical for the business. And that's where it got good because I just, I got handed a laboratory. I I adored my team. I hired most of them myself. 80 % of them went through a hiring process as I built it with me. did, there were a couple of reps that were already on the team. And so I had this space where anything that I had learned through the coursework, the books,

I got a chance to experiment with it. And it really like to put, it really was like I was, I was the executor of the lab that was all of my work as an individual contributor. But now I got the chance on one-on-ones, on group calls to really run experiments, yields the results. So I took that leadership role, not only very seriously, but from the lens of almost a psychological researcher.

Right? And that was a lot of fun and I had a great team. We're all very widely dispersed in new roles since then, but it was a banger of a time. We had a lot of fun. We hit a lot of great goals and it was absolutely one of the best times of my career.

Jessie Ott (45:57.559)
Yeah, it sounds like it.

Jessie Ott (46:19.255)
That's exciting.

Melissa Hoffman (46:20.782)
It was great. It was really great. I, you know, you get to the point and leadership isn't for everyone. Managing sure certainly isn't for everyone. Um, and I have joked like, man, this mental and not to make light of mental illness at all with everything that I've said, like, what is this mental illness that I love leading people? Because it can be, it can be really challenging and you've got to be able to really hard conversations and maintain your composure and your emotional regulation.

Jessie Ott (46:43.808)
It's very challenging.

Yep.

Melissa Hoffman (46:50.018)
to be at the top of its game in order to be a strong leader. But I lost my train of thought as to where I was going with that. So it can be a thought all on it.

Jessie Ott (47:01.411)
Well, I mean, it is a challenge. It's a lot of stress in the sense you have goals, you have sales goals, and then your team has their list of accounts. And then it comes down to learning how to close. Right? I don't know if that's a trainable thing or not.

Melissa Hoffman (47:20.568)
Learning how to post? Totally. Absolutely.

Jessie Ott (47:20.875)
I'm sure there's, yeah, totally. Okay. I'm sure, I'm sure some have the net, just the natural ability to do it and others probably need to be coached.

Melissa Hoffman (47:33.971)
Work a little harder at it. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, sales is a science and it's an art. And in any given moment, it can be further swung into one direction than the other. But yeah, we could, I don't know if I want to avoid the landmine of talking about personality types and tendencies as it relates to the sales functional area of things.

Jessie Ott (47:37.185)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (47:56.519)
you

Melissa Hoffman (48:01.848)
But I think that anyone that's client facing, whether it's in a support role, post-sale role, or the sales role, or even the business development side, all facets of that can, they require a specific set of skills. And I believe that some of the best that have done it have a natural.

maybe not natural, can be built and enhanced, a natural ease and confidence. Because one of the critical skills of a salesperson, of course, is to disarm their pride. sometimes, sometimes it's a little bunny hunt and sometimes you're hunting big game and understanding the mechanics of the difference of those two, not encouraging anybody head out to Africa and try to kill an elephant like that's not cool. But you understand the reference that I'm making, you know.

Jessie Ott (48:46.989)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (48:59.543)
Yeah. Well, let me ask you something. When you were calling on distributors versus suppliers, was there a different approach that you had to take or was that, did you talk to like the CIOs of distributors and CEOs of suppliers or like, was the, what was your strategy? Were they different?

Melissa Hoffman (49:20.45)
Based on the, yes, and fundamentally because the tools and offering were geared toward the cog in the wheel that that particular addressable market had. So the tools that were sold to distributors were very different than the offering that was sold to suppliers. And as a result of that, the ideal client profile was period just distributors on that end.

how I made my way through organizations in order to get to the budget holder just depended market by market and whatever the crime scene, whoever's photo on the crime scene board was up.

Jessie Ott (50:03.543)
I love this strategy, this crime scene strategy. Makes it so much more fun.

Melissa Hoffman (50:04.46)
Yeah, so, yeah. Yeah, think, I think enter, I, a lot of what I do and say is to entertain myself and to keep myself engaged. And I know my audience, right? If it's not being well received, I'll pull back a little bit, but if it is, then why not? So.

Jessie Ott (50:17.133)
Hehehehe

Melissa Hoffman (50:26.858)
I would sometimes I would get into the org because there was a sales rep who was really dogged about I moved from this market. I miss these tools. I'm going to tell my manager, I'm going to make sure they tell this person and this person and this person. I'm like, yeah, you do that. Let me know if you need it. Let me know if you need anything. Exactly right. And then sometimes it would be a cold email to the COO and you just hit the right notes in an email. And the next thing you know, you're on a call.

Jessie Ott (50:41.667)
Empower them.

Melissa Hoffman (50:56.674)
And so there was no one strategy. There was no one size fits all for that approach. Whereas the supplier side of the business, the tools were really built to enhance the product in the way it was viewed by distributors and by buyers. So the ICP there is marketing, right? Or brand facing work. And then the model shifted into

Jessie Ott (50:59.011)
Strategy

Melissa Hoffman (51:26.68)
B2B advertising on the marketplace. And so that still sat pretty squarely with marketing. So whether or not that team was made aware of the offering by a regional salesperson that I had a relationship with or a buyer who knew the supplier and who said, hey, your products could look at, know, it was a similar leveraging of net.

And then typically the marketing person, if they weren't the budget holder, they would take it from there. That may require another call, right? But otherwise, typically a person that you, once you have an advocate, it tends to be a bit easier to bring other people along for the ride. But different outcomes, so a completely different strategy in how you spoke about the tools and brought them away around to your line of thinking and the objective for the business.

Jessie Ott (52:20.771)
So what else does your consultancy provide for customers?

Melissa Hoffman (52:28.024)
So at this stage, because prior to two years ago, I was primarily focusing on coaching. So I have had distributor clients where I was coaching their sales team around mindfulness tools to increase efficacy. And I always joked around that, you know, the tactics and the information at its surface can seem really soft.

But I promise you there's nothing soft about emotional regulation, thought and behavioral change, learning how the practices of mindfulness can lead to a state of meditation, leveraging gratitude in the work environment, right? It seems a little touchy feely. Anyone that knows me pretty well knows that I'm like a teddy bear that has a.

shank behind them, but it's only because, know, while you're in sales, you gotta be a little bit of a killer, you know, and I'm an athlete and you gotta be, you know, your head's gotta be in it, but your head's gotta be in it. And if your head is all over the place, I can't tell you how many things I've helped untangle for people that were not related to their professional skillset. It relates to what's going on here and here. And...

Jessie Ott (53:47.927)
Interesting.

Melissa Hoffman (53:48.403)
That's a game that I really leveraged as a leader with my expertise and what I had done for myself.

Melissa Hoffman (54:02.798)
So now, yes, I still do that. Yes, I still do that. But I currently have two of my main clients. One is a digital performance marketing firm and the other is a data company that was founded by two of my former colleagues from Seven Fifty. So I am still in the game of courting distributors to solve data issues.

Jessie Ott (54:05.164)
Okay.

Melissa Hoffman (54:28.014)
The outcomes are different. Seven Fifty was a technology platform and a SaaS in and of itself, a marketplace, CRM, sample sheet creation. But what TipleTech does is it works directly with the distributor data themselves to standardize, normalize, create a single source of the same product, to optimize multi-source data files to be able to get the most out of.

Jessie Ott (54:28.088)
Nice.

Melissa Hoffman (54:54.998)
what your product data has to offer through whatever platforms you're leveraging. Whether it's your ERP, your ERP's e-commerce, your business intelligence tools, you know, there's a reason garbage in garbage out is a phrase in the data world. So, TripleTech and Mushroom Media are two primary clients of mine that I work business development and work in an advisory capacity. I'm also an advisor for a friends import company and we are working on expanding into new markets. That company is called Intuitive Wines.

And I do have a couple of brand clients that I am ramping up into getting back to my roots, it would seem, which is really entertaining for me at this point in my career. I've been so removed from the liquid side of the business for so long that it's fun to have a couple of brands that I'm really excited about.

Jessie Ott (55:34.53)
Alright.

Jessie Ott (55:39.309)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (55:43.395)
Well, yeah, and you can leverage that through your relationships with the distributors.

Melissa Hoffman (55:47.648)
Exactly right. you know, the coaching, my ethos as a human being will always be there. The difference between coaching and consulting, there is a contrast for what it is. So I'll always have a passion for coaching, but man, we are capitalists in a capitalist society and hunters got to hunt.

Jessie Ott (56:11.373)
Hunters gotta hunt.

Melissa Hoffman (56:13.422)
free drive and so yeah it's a lot of

Jessie Ott (56:15.043)
Ha

Jessie Ott (56:20.503)
Yeah. My nephew dog, Billy, he's 51 % Catehula and then like 25 % Hound. And he's a Hound, man. He's a prey hunter. He looks for lizards, he's killed snakes, he chased squirrels, birds. He just has his nose to the ground and he's just...

Melissa Hoffman (56:32.59)
Okay.

Melissa Hoffman (56:44.206)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (56:47.053)
When we go on walks, I mean, he's just a hunter. Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (56:51.191)
I love it. I love it. think if I were a dog, I would be a mix of a German Shepherd and a Belgian Mal.

Jessie Ott (56:58.56)
wow. Yeah. Those are two amazing, by themselves, dogs.

Melissa Hoffman (56:59.319)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (57:04.014)
Yeah, there's a hybrid there. And you know, maybe one of the two parents was a little dopey and like got kicked out of military school. Cause I do have a clown, a class clown side to me. But man, when that prey drive kicks in, is something. Yeah, it's a different time.

Jessie Ott (57:16.749)
Ha ha ha.

Jessie Ott (57:20.663)
Go time. So go ahead.

Melissa Hoffman (57:25.88)
was gonna say one of the things that I am enjoying the most about this phase of my career is building out a team for my consulting company and bringing people along for the ride in their functional areas. So having someone that works in marketing operations and another business development hire and BI and analytics and all people that I've either worked with before or have fostered relationships with in the industry and being able to

hunt for business that's not necessarily in my functional area specialization. But, you one of the analogies I used to use at Seven Fifty was get out there and go bring something back to the cave is how I would, you know, give a, it was one of my motivation angles. And, and so it feels nice to be able to offer the skill sets of some of the most talented people that I've worked with in my career.

Jessie Ott (58:10.637)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (58:21.366)
and then also offer them an outlet for whether it's side hustle or if they're working full time on their own operations, enhancing their business as well, which is lot.

Jessie Ott (58:32.781)
Yeah, that's really cool. Do you have any mentors that helped you along your career that you want to mention?

Melissa Hoffman (58:42.734)
You know, when I saw this question, I had a really interesting time running through that thought exercise because there have been people along the way on both sides of that coin where I have learned so much about how I don't want to be from people.

And that is an interesting mentor opportunity in and of itself. And I found myself, I think from a really young age, queued in, really dialed into observing what I didn't want as much as dreaming about what I did want.

Jessie Ott (59:37.378)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (59:39.214)
As far as... I had a great boss at one of my first roles in the wine business at the wine bar that I mentioned. Same, right? You're observing people for who they are at all times. And there were things that I loved and there were things that I was like, you know what? I would have done that differently or I would do that differently. And then how do you take that forward?

one of the people that does stand out, he was our chief revenue officer at in the end, at, seven 50 and he came on board the same year I did as our director of marketing. And he grew to a level of being such a pivotal leader in the organization. And I watched his voracious aptitude for everything that he did. And we worked.

fairly closely together considering that we were in completely different departments, even though sales and marketing really is, you know, one ecosystem as it relates to awareness and strategy in the business, expanding the business. But he's who floated me for my leadership role in the organization. And that really meant a lot to me knowing that someone was at the table and advocating for me when I wasn't at the table, right?

Jessie Ott (01:01:02.114)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (01:01:04.982)
I put in all the work to be the ideal candidate for sure, but it doesn't always go in the direction that you want it to just simply because of that. And so he was a big advocate for me. He absolutely was the person that I got the most out of in our one-to-one conversations. ways I learned so much from him. His name is Adam Van Fossen.

Jessie Ott (01:01:27.894)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Hoffman (01:01:35.095)
He works for a company called Health Sherpa now as the VP of Growth. And he continues to be one of the most impressive people I've ever worked with in my career. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:01:47.235)
That says a lot. That's very cool.

Melissa Hoffman (01:01:49.614)
love the way his brain works, brainstorming with him. One of the most important things for me as a leader was always to help someone learn how to think about something versus solving a problem for them. And you could just do that with Adam in the way that he presented himself. You could learn about how his brain was working in how he was communicating to you. And that was a big takeaway that reinforced one of my key

skills that I brought to growing others.

Jessie Ott (01:02:24.055)
That's interesting. It's pretty common for women of our age not really to have a mentor. Men a lot of times do, especially the older generation, but it's not very common.

Melissa Hoffman (01:02:40.876)
Yeah, I ended up, know, we all have these moments of existential observation in our lives. And I've thought a lot about this. Like I have had phases in my mental health where it's not completely optimized. And I'm like, man, if I just had a more engaged upbringing in this capacity, I could have done this.

Jessie Ott (01:02:51.499)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (01:03:07.308)
And it took a lot of work to stop begrudging that at different phases of my life, whether it was growing up, whether it was a high school coach, whether it was this in college, whatever the case may be, and to really understand that you wouldn't be who you are now. And that's what we get to focus on and that's what we get to control. And I do think that

how strongly I show up in my work and in my personal and social life for people is almost a response to not getting what I wish I had.

I mean, I found this thing out and it works. Gotta tell everybody. Right? And so, you know, I worked really hard to show up as a person that I wish I had when I was growing up. That's a better way to say it.

Jessie Ott (01:04:06.679)
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, I wish I knew about emotional intelligence like 20 years ago. You know, I wish that was a thing you, it was, that was part of your high school education. mean, think of how more mature.

Melissa Hoffman (01:04:22.265)
Imagine if they taught breathwork in school, right? How to regulate your nervous system. The information is more widely available than ever, but it is not yet fully democratized. And that is something that, yeah, I spend a lot of time in my non-working life at yoga classes, at a mantra meditation, taking care of my physical and my mental health and emotional health.

Jessie Ott (01:04:30.914)
Right.

Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:04:49.377)
Yeah, that's great. I think it's becoming more widely known or used. Hopefully, manifestation has been a word that's really been popular.

Melissa Hoffman (01:04:58.67)
and the science is starting to support some of the things that people think are just out there and woo woo and new age. Okay.

Jessie Ott (01:05:04.738)
Yep.

Jessie Ott (01:05:08.161)
Yeah, yeah, really is. Like EFT and the neurological associations with some pressure points and how it's been scientifically proven to actually put energy towards whatever it is you're trying to feel, whether you have a stomach ache or a headache or whatever. It's kind of an interesting path, but probably not for today.

Melissa Hoffman (01:05:28.511)
Exactly.

Jessie Ott (01:05:36.745)
What about any resources that you've used either professionally or I know that you've taken a lot of classes in psychology and obviously you're a big industry advocate. So is there anything that you recommend for people to check out?

Melissa Hoffman (01:05:54.67)
It's, you know, for me, the information is out there and you've just got to find whatever spackle for the hole that you want to fill out. online education as it is, there's just really, there's just not a lot of excuses as to as to why you wouldn't be able to progress. And, know, I promise you that they're not all, they don't all require a monetary investment.

You know, look at platforms like Coursera, you can do a free version of a course and you may not matriculate and get a certification as a result of it because they want you to pay for that, but you can still ingest all of the information and then take it out and practically apply it. Sure, those courses are great for resume building, but at the same time, so is the reputation that comes from being able to execute, right? So you don't always necessarily have to pay for something.

Um, libraries, libraries still exists. Like I recognize and respect that I have afforded myself resources and being able to stock a personal library that this is only half of, you know, and that, so I can't say it enough. Like libraries exist, book exchanges, used bookstores, right? Where you can buy a book for a buck. I mean, those are the best. I love shopping at used bookstores. Um,

Jessie Ott (01:07:09.633)
Right.

Melissa Hoffman (01:07:13.088)
But for me, you know, I've taken certifications in the psychology of leadership from Cornell School of Management, building high performing teams, managing as a coach, influence, high performance collaboration. Those are just a few of the titles or the headers, the names of the courses that I've taken. But the extended learning is also in a lot of what's back here. I love, there's an author whose name is Daniel Coyle.

The Talent Code and the Culture Code are two books. One book is about the individual, the other book is about groups and teams and the collective. You can take a lot of lessons from there. The Four Agreements is a completely different like left turn. The Four Agreements is one of my favorites as well. I recommend that to...

Jessie Ott (01:07:56.771)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Hoffman (01:08:10.903)
people who are maybe struggling with some of the dynamics in their lives. It's a good way to teach and learn specific ways of techniques, four techniques moving through the world to optimize the way we're receiving and outputting. read books that lean into the metaphysical, right? Meditation, manifestation, yoga philosophies.

Jessie Ott (01:08:16.215)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Hoffman (01:08:39.372)
and then also business books. And so I'm happy to provide a reading list or if anybody wants to reach out to learn some of my favorites. I'm all over the map when it comes to organizational optimization.

Melissa Hoffman (01:08:57.952)
I is really key things that stand out. But coming back to that mentor thing, podcasts, the mentors are out there. Find one you resonate with and listen to everything that they have to say. I did that with Carla Harris.

Jessie Ott (01:09:11.799)
Yeah, that's what I do.

Melissa Hoffman (01:09:14.318)
She was in the finance world and she's got a couple of a couple of great books Let me remind myself of one of the time expect to win was one of her great books I think that's what got me into her. So I just started to listen to everything that she did Jim Lohr is the author of the only way to win and it's essentially about like how being a good person will help you in business and I don't know that's something that can necessarily be taught I know someone can be reformed into that but you know, have to kind of want it for yourself, but I like his information

And I can't emphasize enough like learning how your physical and emotional state impact everything that you do. So I was a very, very early a doctor of Dr. Angie Huberman, who is now famous beyond measure in the world. He's got a podcast called Huberman Lab before he even started that he was making the podcast circuit. He teaches a lot about the the optimization of self and human performance. And then

Let's see, Stephen Kotler, who is the founder, he's the managing director of the Flow Research Collective. So I learned a lot about optimizing neurochemistry for flow state, not just in the individual, but in the group. So that is helpful to leverage in meetings and when you're collaborating and working on projects, collaboration makes dopamine, which is the molecule of motivation and seeking and prey drive, right? All of that.

Jessie Ott (01:10:30.563)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Hoffman (01:10:37.058)
So those are some fun resources that can get people kicked off if they're interested.

Jessie Ott (01:10:42.657)
Yeah. Wow. That's a lot. Thank you. What do you see from your perspective are the biggest pain points in the industry?

Melissa Hoffman (01:10:51.576)
Thank

Jessie Ott (01:10:53.699)
It's easy, right? It's kind of an easy one.

Melissa Hoffman (01:10:56.674)
I mean, it's easy and it's also like, where do I begin? Right?

Jessie Ott (01:11:00.809)
Right. Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (01:11:06.722)
while having the pleasure and privilege of being pretty early to market on the tech side of the bed-alike industry, I think we're more fragmented than ever. Innovation has come so far that not that there needs to be only one, two or three tools for the industry, but there are so many now that

I wonder if it's causing more of a disconnect and making more problems than there needs to be. Versus the optimisation. You and I, I believe, you know, sometimes you have so many conversations, you're not sure who you had it with, but I think this was us speaking about this. How many, how many, how much innovation the beverage alcohol industry has had over the last 10 years.

Jessie Ott (01:11:42.071)
Yeah. Okay.

Melissa Hoffman (01:12:03.552)
and how crowded the market is as a result of it. And now we're, right. And so now we're looking at these oversaturated, I shouldn't say oversaturated. Yeah, maybe they are oversaturated. Don't get mad at me. Oversaturated, know, seltzers, RTDs. Now we've got the cannabis game, which I'm a huge advocate for. But it's, it's, it's a lot. It's a lot. There's a lot of competition. How are, so.

Jessie Ott (01:12:08.341)
Very.

Jessie Ott (01:12:29.025)
Yeah, it's a lot. Our industry can't handle it.

Melissa Hoffman (01:12:33.198)
You know, think that's something. And then when you get into the, you know, the capitalism of it all, we've got consolidation abound. And so what does that mean? And when I think about how many, just even in the last six to eight months, how many of our colleagues in the industry around the country have now been displaced by some version or another of that.

And one of the things I started thinking about a couple of weeks ago is wondering if we're going to see the creation of these fractional sales roles, where you've got people who have such an intense amount of experience in the industry. And it's like, all right, you you put together working for this brand in this territory, this brand, and this brand, this brand, and then you've got yourself a little bit of a portfolio, right?

Jessie Ott (01:13:17.495)
Yeah, it's happening.

Melissa Hoffman (01:13:32.012)
And so I think that that could be very interesting. I companies like DoorDash and GoPuff are really changing the way people are getting their alcohol. I have been in-house at a DTC provider as their head of sales. And so I think about what DTC for Spirits and beer looks like as that segment of the industry looks to dismantle.

some of the regulation that the domestic wine world has been able to circumvent, you know, the states like Kentucky and New York allowing DTC to various states directly from the distillery. So it's just, this is a time and there's a lot of fluctuation in the industry right now. And so I have no prediction only analysis. I have some prediction, but no real hot takes.

Jessie Ott (01:14:23.405)
Hehehe.

Well, what are those? What's your outlook?

Melissa Hoffman (01:14:30.19)
think generally positive as a human being, although quite pragmatic. So I don't know. mean, I'm aligning myself with digital marketing and data. So, right? And brands, right? Sure. But if those two primary contracts that I'm working on are an indication of where I'm hedging, then I'm good.

Jessie Ott (01:14:38.051)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:14:57.933)
So you've been an entrepreneur now. What's a example of, or can you summarize what it takes in one word or a sentence and what it takes to be an entrepreneur?

Melissa Hoffman (01:15:18.284)
One word is not gonna happen. There's just no way.

Jessie Ott (01:15:20.451)
Okay.

Melissa Hoffman (01:15:26.282)
and an incredible amount of grit and rejection resilience.

to a borderline delusional.

Jessie Ott (01:15:38.635)
Yep. I agree with all that.

Yeah, grit is immediately, because, you know.

When you're starting a company, you work all the time. Every day is Groundhog Day. Every day is a Monday. There's just a lot of work to do.

Melissa Hoffman (01:15:56.462)
And he's getting back.

Melissa Hoffman (01:16:03.118)
There's always a lot of is always there.

Jessie Ott (01:16:05.707)
Yeah, but it's fun.

Melissa Hoffman (01:16:08.022)
long as it's fun. When it starts getting not fun, that's when it needs to be examined for what for what's going on.

Jessie Ott (01:16:09.665)
Yeah, I saw s-

Jessie Ott (01:16:15.125)
Do you know who Seth Benheim is with Badwater Brands and Broken Barrel? Well, he has a bourbon that he created with Staves. He was kind of one of the first brands to do that. He's also got a vodka, flavored vodka that he's done very well with, but he's this amazing creator of brands. He just loves creating brands. And so there's this picture of him sitting on the ground in front of the barrel. And he's like, I'm exhausted, but I couldn't be happier.

Because he's just, he's doing what he loves, right? And it's a lot of work, but it's work that he really enjoys. And I think that's, that's, that's an entrepreneur, right? Yeah. What about passions outside of work?

Melissa Hoffman (01:16:44.578)
on

Melissa Hoffman (01:16:58.156)
Agreed.

Jessie Ott (01:17:04.289)
You like the beach.

Melissa Hoffman (01:17:06.383)
You know, I haven't been down to the beach since the hurricanes hit in September, October. They are recovered. I don't know what that hangover is there that I haven't gotten down. I mean, the last couple of weeks it's been properly, well not properly freezing, that's an overstatement, but it has been properly cold here in Florida. But yeah, there's, just, I mean, the back half of last year was so crazy.

Jessie Ott (01:17:20.771)
It's been cold, yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (01:17:28.846)
travel, kicking off new contracts. I was all over the place, plus the hurricanes, which hit this area brutally, brutally hard. So it's kind of a blur. So I'm not surprised I haven't been down there. That's like the equivalent of asking me what I've thought about this before. What do you do for fun? Reading's fun. I go to yoga. Like I said, I take meditation classes, like working out.

Jessie Ott (01:17:37.805)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:17:49.962)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (01:17:58.542)
sauna, cryotherapy, just optimizing the meat suit. That's fun, know? I mean, I love to laugh. I'm, my friends and I, actually this is a good answer. My group of girlfriends and I, we run pranks on each other. And so whenever there's a prank about, that is always a good time. So that is something that I do. Yeah, I've been wrestling with this for a couple of days now. Someone asked me this a couple days ago. I'm also like, man, let's get by now.

Cause I make lots of things fun, you know? I love listening to music, concerts, proper fun. Yeah, I went on a tear last year of concerts. have a couple coming up in the next few months, but I was like, I went to like multiple in a week, a couple of different times in the fall, a few different times in the fall. Travel, yeah. But yeah, the pranks, the pranks are great. That's a lot of fun. Yeah, we do some funny shit.

Jessie Ott (01:18:31.544)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:18:36.141)
Yeah. Yeah, that's good.

Jessie Ott (01:18:45.1)
Nice.

Jessie Ott (01:18:53.773)
That's hilarious. I love that.

That's a good time. Good times. That's great. Well, is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you want to mention or maybe your website?

Melissa Hoffman (01:18:59.672)
Yeah.

Melissa Hoffman (01:19:09.162)
Yeah, the company's Dauntless Performance Coaching. it's Dauntlesspcu.com. You can see the subcontractors. I've got a blog on there and my face is somewhere on that website. Yeah, don't know. We covered a lot. We covered a lot. Yeah, I know. I don't think so. Yeah. I think in closing, Jesse, I can't wait to hear how you...

Jessie Ott (01:19:25.901)
Yeah, we, yeah, a lot of cool stuff.

Melissa Hoffman (01:19:34.04)
how you come around to the functional area that is sales in all of your endeavors. And I forward to hearing how maybe anything that I said about like, just be interested, just be interested in solve problems and then, you know, gotta ask for the sale.

Jessie Ott (01:19:50.497)
Yep. Yeah. I don't like asking people for things. That's, I think that's the underlying. I am giving them something. That's true. That's true. I'm solving problems with the platform for all stakeholders.

Melissa Hoffman (01:20:04.844)
Exactly, exactly, exactly right. That's squaring out a little bit lighter in your seat in the end with what you said, so.

Jessie Ott (01:20:08.513)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:20:12.631)
Hahaha!

Melissa Hoffman (01:20:14.754)
Do you leading your own sales focus podcast here in the next few months? Once at all, once all the gears grind together and click.

Jessie Ott (01:20:19.479)
it.

Yeah, I can't wait either. I've been dreaming about this moment for a very long time. Putting it out there, manifesting it, stepping up into the role. I'm ready.

Melissa Hoffman (01:20:30.702)
Let me know how I can support that journey. I'm happy to.

Jessie Ott (01:20:36.619)
I appreciate that. Thank you. I could always use help one way or another. Okay. Awesome. Well, let's do something. I'd love it.

Melissa Hoffman (01:20:40.878)
It would be my pleasure.

Melissa Hoffman (01:20:48.162)
Jesse, thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed this conversation very much.

Jessie Ott (01:20:48.672)
Alright.

Yeah, me too. This is great. Thank you so much. And with that, I will, say goodbye and let you get back to your day. Okay. Bye. where are you? You're at 99.

Melissa Hoffman (01:20:58.818)
Take care everybody.