Life Conversations with a Twist
Join me once a week for a new interview with a local, badass woman who has an amazing story to tell. Join me in conversation so you too can gain inspiration and empowerment from these stories! If you love hearing about leadership, relationships, families, motherhood and navigating hard times, then tune into my podcast and share with others. If you love what you hear, share and tag me on Instagram at @heathernelson.life. You can also visit my website at heathernelson.life.
Life Conversations with a Twist
The COO's Guide to Business Domination: Strategies for Scaling Smart with Melissa Franks
“Every day, you get to make a choice about what you are opting into. You can always make a different choice tomorrow. You can always make a different choice today.” —Melissa Franks
Ever feel like your business is a puzzle with missing pieces? What if you had a secret weapon who could help you connect those dots and turn your entrepreneurial vision into a thriving reality?
The magic happens when strategic insight meets practical execution—and that's where a game-changing operational expert becomes your business's best friend.
Melissa Franks is a seasoned Chief Operating Officer with over 25 years of corporate experience, specializing in scaling businesses and empowering female entrepreneurs. As the founder of On Call COO and host of the "Opt In" podcast, she brings a wealth of strategic insights and operational expertise to growing businesses.
Tune in as Heather and Melissa reveal insider strategies for business growth, overcoming professional obstacles, mastering networking, pricing your expertise, building a consulting business, and leveraging the transformative power of fractional executive support to supercharge your business potential.
Connect with Heather:
Episode Highlights:
01:29 Meet Melissa: Balancing Multiple Roles
03:32 Hitting a Career Ceiling and Starting a New Business
10:08 The Value of Curiosity and Continuous Learning
13:03 Building a Clientele and Solid Business Model
20:48 Challenges and Strategies in Business Consulting
26:24 Networking and Building Connections
29:27 “Opt In”: Creating Content for Busy Professionals
Connect with Melissa:
Melissa Franks is a seasoned Chief Operating Officer (COO) and business strategist with over 25 years of corporate experience. As the founder of On Call CEO, she provides fractional executive support to growing businesses, specializing in helping female entrepreneurs scale and optimize their operations.
With a background in technology and financial services, Melissa has guided businesses from $50 million to $350 million in revenue. Her expertise lies in strategic planning, team development, and creating scalable business structures.
A single mother based in Northern California, Melissa is also the host of the "Opt In" podcast, where she shares actionable business insights and strategies for entrepreneurs. Her mission is to empower business leaders by providing expert guidance, operational excellence, and strategic support tailored to each organization's unique needs.
Heather Nelson: Welcome everyone to this week's Life Conversations With a Twist. I have Melissa Franks on the show today. We just met. The one thing I love about the podcasting world is that we get connected to all these amazing women all over the world. You reached out and I'm like, yes, I'm here for all the conversations. So welcome to the podcast.
Melissa Franks: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here, and I'm looking forward to where the conversation takes us.
Heather Nelson: Tell our listeners a little bit about who you are? What's your day to day life? You're a mom, which we can relate to on many things. Where do you live? And then we'll just dive into a little about the work you're doing, and your podcast.
Melissa Franks: Fantastic. So I feel like I need to operate in the land of full transparency. So I am a 46 year old single mom. I feel like age is important for women. So 46 years old, I am a single mom. And when I say single mom, because I just want to be real clear. We live under a restraining order, so that means I am the only adult that they have any interaction with that does anything. So that's a whole extra set of full time jobs and etcetera. I live in California, in Northern California, north of San Francisco. So in a beautiful wine country. For anybody that needs a landmark geographic reference--
Heather Nelson: For some reason, I thought you were out of state. I didn't realize you were here in Sonoma County as well.
Melissa Franks: I'm in Petaluma. For anybody that wants to like inside baseball where we are, I grew up here. So my family is from here. I went to college here. I moved to the big old city when I was in my 20s, and then came back, and I have been here ever since. And I had a really amazing corporate career for 25 years, and went to a startup for a while, and then started my own business out of necessity. Really, my life had changed pretty significantly, and I couldn't travel all the time like I used to. So I'm here. I've got two teenagers and an almost teenager, and I live the life of running a business and chauffeur, and short order cook, and overall problem solver.
Heather Nelson: It's so funny. Everyone's like, I don't know how you do it. I'm like, you just do it. I just feel like it just comes second nature. You work through the things, and you find the things that work and the support you need, and you make it work. And absolutely, that's what we do. I did not realize you were a single mom, so hats off to you, because that's a lot of work.
Melissa Franks: Thank you. I appreciate that. I was pretty much a single mom before. So in some ways, it's a little bit easier because I don't have to navigate the other situation anymore. We just do our thing.
Heather Nelson: I love that. Can you talk a little bit about the background of your career when you started, and what led you to where you are today?
Melissa Franks: Everything that has been professionally achieved by myself has been an accident. And I use accidently intentionally. I don't want to say kismet or coincidence. Literally, an accident. There was no plan. I went to college and thought I was going to be a high school teacher, and abandoned the mission when I realized I looked like a high school student. Nobody was going to take me seriously. And as luck would have it, I was offered a corporate job with about a year left in my college career. And so I was commuting to San Francisco three days a week, which was an hour and a half bus ride one way when I did my homework. Because back then, the internet was a new thing so I could do my homework. There was no Wi-Fi. And that corporate job, which was an administrative assistant role, turned into a job offer before I had officially graduated from college, and I worked for the Gap. So I was inside of a massive multinational corporation at 21 and didn't really know what I was doing, but I just kept saying yes. Asking a ton of questions, and kept saying yes, and that led me into the technology area. Shortly thereafter, we were in the middle of the .com boom. Like Tech was everywhere. We literally go to people's garages and figure stuff out, and my love of problem solving and analyzing things really came into play there. And so I was able to develop a really robust career in technology before things like stem really existed. It was just, if you had enough gumption to learn things and ask questions and fail, they kept you around.
And when a very large multi billion dollar project that we're working on came to an end, I kind of had two options. I could stay there and then go do really boring things that were incredibly repetitive and on antiquated technology, or I could leave and go to a financial services company that was in my backyard and I didn't have to commute anymore. But I knew nothing about financial services, so I went and worked for the financial services company. I was the youngest person there by about 30 years. Generally speaking, everybody that I worked with was counting down days until retirement. They all had grandchildren. They had all worked there since high school. They were like high school interns. I had gone from this incredibly young female, high fashion situation too slow and grandparents, and nobody could handle my level of energy. But what served me really well there was continuing to stay curious. And so over 15 years, it was a business that was actually a global business based in Europe. And over 15 years, I was able to go from this entry level analyst position to the Chief Operating Officer of one of their technology companies. I got to participate in multi billion dollar merger and acquisition transactions. I got to participate in multi billion dollar technology initiatives. I was able to speak to the board of directors that was based in Munich. It's the largest financial services company in the world. I flew around the world. I had all of these amazing opportunities, and then I hit a ceiling. And I hit a ceiling because the story was the same as it was at the beginning.
I was in a room full of old white men, and they told me directly that this is as far as you're going to go. And I was 42, and I had 35 years left to work, and that wasn't going to cut it so I left. I went to a startup that failed after 10 months, and that was failing. I was in the midst of the beginning stages of a domestic violence family, core divorce, full time job, because that's really what that is, except it does the opposite to pay you. It just cost you a bunch of money, and I needed to make money. I needed to have ultimate flexibility to be in court all the time, and to take care of my kids. And so I called a friend and I said, hey, remember when you said you needed help a few weeks ago with your new business? Do you still need help? And she said, yes. And that was the beginning of the business. It was rough for nine months or so, but I finally got my groove. And here we are, thriving business.
Heather Nelson: You're probably like me, you never thought you would own your own business. I literally was thinking about this this week. I'm like, I never in a million years thought I would own a business. I would never go back to working for an employer, and so it's so interesting to hear other stories. And it's like, yeah, that was not my path, but this is the path that led me here.
Melissa Franks: I had dabbled. I had tried a few other times to start things on the side. Because in full transparency, the corporate job was not paying me what I was worth. I was making about half of the salary I should have been making, and they refused to make any adjustments, and that was a really big sticking point for me. And so I had tried things and had failed. I had written myself off as not an entrepreneur. It is your job to run businesses for other people, which I'm amazingly gifted at. What I didn't have that fourth thought to see, and which is what I'm doing now is that, in fact, I can do both things. I can have my own business, because my business is the business of running your businesses. And I get to do the thing that I'm amazing at, and that I absolutely love all day long. It just happens to be that I do it on my own terms, instead of somebody else's.
Heather Nelson: So good. So what do you do now? I want to hear more about your business. I have so many questions, just in general with the consulting world too, so we'll dive into those too.
Melissa Franks: By trade, I'm a Chief Operating Officer. That is where I am credentialed. That is where I'm experienced. If you go look on LinkedIn or ask for my resume, you're going to see call references, that's the answer you're going to get. This is what she does. I knew that that was something I always wanted to do. And the reason for that is because the Chief operating Officer is everything that the CEO, owner or Founder does not want to be. So there are no two COO roles that are the same, because every owner, Founder and CEO is gifted and enjoys doing different things. And so that means you get to be a little bit of a chameleon, and you get to learn all sorts of things that you never ever thought you would be interested in. When I started this business, it was because I had a friend that then started a startup and she didn't know what she was supposed to be doing. She's like, I know what I want the technology to do, but I need to hire people, I need to establish this business, and we want to IPO in the future. And so I came in to set all the structures in place, and to make sure she was compliant with her investors, like super sexy things. And so my business from the outset was to be able to provide the resources to female owners or leaders inside of small businesses that didn't have access to the resource. Quite frankly, that man had.
I had a lot of women friends and colleagues that left corporate during COVID, and they started their own businesses. And every single one of them, there isn't one failed. And when I asked them what happened, there was one bad piece of advice from one person they trusted that they followed to the end of the earth and the end of their business. And so this business is founded on the mission that we are here to be the business experts. We're here to be the guides when needed. We're here to be the boss, or the strong voice of reason, balance and curiosity because we have the business acumen. Because we've done it. I've built a business from 50 million to 350 million, which also by the way was half a billion dollars in the hole when I inherited it. So we know because we've done it. My goal is to make more female entrepreneurs successful. And the best way that I can do that is by giving them business advice, and helping them find the right way to run their business.
Heather Nelson: My god, that's so good. How many businesses have you helped over the years? What is your sweet spot? How many clients do you take on at a time? Because I would imagine the COO like you are saying, there's so many different jobs. But you're in the nut and the bolts of the business, which can be very time consuming.
Melissa Franks: It absolutely can. And that's one of the reasons that my business, which is On Call COO, started with me as a team of one. And the premise is that while my expertise can't be duplicated, you can't take what's in the head, want to know and how I look at things. There are other amazingly brilliant minds that can complement what I know and do. And so there are now a handful of literally hand selected women with complimentary skills, so nobody duplicates an experience, expertise, like zone of genius, etcetera, that are available. And we operate as a brain trust. So this isn't a staffing agency where you say, I need help, then we do a sales call and then just blindly throw a consultant at you and wish you the best, and then have them continue to upsell and keep the retainer and all those things. Instead, the way that this works is that prospective clients come in and we determine if it's the right fit. Generally speaking, if your business doesn't make $3 million, we can definitely do some consultancy work for you. And there's a variety of ways that we do that on a limited basis. But if you need a fractional COO, three millions is about the minimum revenue to get somebody in. And then we look at what you need. Where are the areas where you're struggling? Where do you want help? Where do you want to be able to focus? And then we find the right combination. And the best part is that you get all of the COOs. You don't just get one. And so while you and I may primarily work together, I might be in your meetings, and the one talking to all of the time behind the scenes. We're constantly having conversations. This is what has come up. This is what I'm thinking. Does somebody have a better way to handle this? What should we do?
And if we need to tap somebody in and we're like, hey, I don't really understand contracts very well, but this person really, really does. Then we just bring them in to help out. It's a very different feminine approach to how to work together, because the entire mission is to enable these businesses to grow, and for these owners or leaders to be able to live the life that they want because the business is supposed to enable that. So we operate a little bit differently to answer your question directly. I think I'm working with 9 or 10 clients right now, but it really depends. A handful of those are what I refer to as phone friend clients. So one hour a week. We get into a Zoom, and they just get to ask whatever they want, or some of them are able to voice message me back and forth. So as things come up, they're like, hey, I don't know how to handle this situation. Or this came up, or I got this letter, and I don't know what this is. So the relationships are slightly different. And the other thing is that business principles are consistent and the same. Every business at the end is identical to how the business operates? Who owns it? What's important? What do they sell? That's where the unique comes in, and so we balance those things together.
Heather Nelson: Do you only work with women? Or do you find that primarily, that's the clients that you have? Or is it a little of everything?
Melissa Franks: It's interesting, because my primary lead source is paid advertising, and so it's probably 70/30. 70% that come in as women, and 30% are men. I've had female clients, and also I have one client right now that I'm working with. It's owned by a gentleman, and it's run by a female CEO, and his entire team is female. So the importance is helping women thrive and succeed. And in this case, the CEO is the one that hired me. I work directly with the owner, but the CEO is the one that hired me. So we're here to make sure that she's successful, which means he's successful as an intern. But no exclusion. It just is kind of the way the cookie crumbles.
Heather Nelson: And are you seeing that there's more of a demand in certain industries, or is it kind of all across the board?
Melissa Franks: It's everywhere, and it's usually driven by a couple of things. One of them is that the owner is exhausted so they have been doing the grind and doing the thing for a really, really, really long time and just can't, and hate their business and are up against a brick wall. I get some very exhausted individuals in front of me. They're like, I just can't even take another step, let alone run another mile in this business. Sometimes, it's owners that do not want to manage the team that they have to have. They don't want it. They want to be creative. They want to be innovative. They want to not work as much, but they really do not want to deal with the people. They just want the people to get things done. That is incredibly common. And then the third is that some things happen in the business and they don't know what to do. So the business has hit a plateau, or profit margin is shrinking, or actually top line revenue is decreasing year over year and they really don't know what to do. Those are the three primary drivers. I have one client right now, occasionally, I'll get a business where they're like, this thing's growing so fast. It's like a runway train. I don't know what to do. This wasn't supposed to happen this way. I had a plan, and it was going to be steady and methodical. And in 2028, I was going to be here.
Heather Nelson: A problem to have, right?
Melissa Franks: It is. It's what I refer to as when the wheels fall off. Every business has these moments where the wheels fall off, and so there's occasionally that too. It's just not as common. Generally speaking, it takes a really long time to figure out how to get to a million dollars. A really long time. So all you're doing is testing and trying, and it's exhausting to get to a million, and then you feel really, really, really good between one and three because you have a couple of people working for you. You know what you're doing, you can relax a little bit. You're not working as much. And then there's something that happens right around 3 million, and either businesses stall completely and slide backwards. Or they know exactly what they need to do, and there's just no energy left to get there. It is a really fascinating tipping point for all, for every business that I have seen. And so that's why I selected the spot because it's usually when the most help is needed, and you don't really need to shock people. In my opinion, you don't really need a full time COO, which can run you anywhere from 500,000 to a million dollars depending on who you hire, until you're like a 25 million plus. If you have the right person that actually knows what they're doing, you don't need them full time. Your business just isn't complex enough. It's not big enough. You don't have enough people there. That's been a really interesting aha moment for a lot of business owners that have even had full time coos, and then they realized that they didn't actually have a COO. They had somebody other than that lower level.
Heather Nelson: I'm seeing that so much, especially since I've gone out on my own doing the consulting work as well. There's so many businesses, especially around COOs or GM, I do a lot more business development, right? Like you were saying, they don't need someone full time. They just need somebody to help move the needle. And I think I'm sure you've seen that there's so much of that happening now. People are bringing in consultants rather than hiring an employee, and then you're not having to pay all the employee costs and all the things around it. That's been your experience as well.
Melissa Franks: The type of business you will start, you start to see it with the really savvy business owners. For example, one business that I will be working with beginning next month, they have had fractional CMO, fractional CEO, fractional CFO, they really lean into that model. And what they also found, which is true, is that depending on who you bring in, you may only need them for a season. You may need that role forever and ever amen. And in this case, I'm just coming in and following in the footsteps with somebody else because they need something different than what they currently have. And that's okay. That's the whole point of consultants. When businesses get into trouble, and this is true across the board, and women do this more than men, which I will also say is that you need to hire somebody. So you hire your best friend, or you hire your sister, or you hire somebody in your community that you've been around a lot, that you trust, and then you give them an over inflated title because you want them to feel equal. Because in your personal life, they're equal so you're trying to keep homeostasis. When we're at Easter dinner, we're equal so that means that we're not in the business, we're equal. And that is not true. Otherwise, they would be your partner, so that's not true.
And so then what starts to happen is you start to over inflate titles of other people that you're bringing in because you don't want misalignment. And if you that, that family friend or whoever that is, if you name them chief of snowflakes, and then you want to bring in somebody that's chief of unicorns, but you can only pay them $30,000 a year, they're definitely not a chief of unicorns. They're just somebody you're calling that because you don't want to hurt their feelings, and you want everybody in the team to be equal. And then all of a sudden, you have a $5 million business and you actually need a chief of unicorns, or a chief of snowflakes, you can't go get it because they're already there, but they're not really there. And so women often make everybody feel good and to keep homeostasis will over title and under compensate, and then we end up in a situation where we have to really shake the snow globe and resettle things. And it damages relationships. I have every business that I think that I have looked at. There has been family, friends or somebody involved, and I always recommend to either, A, not to begin with it. Or B, create as much separation as possible when the business can handle it. So we're reporting that structures are really clean. Because inevitably, it's going to blow up. It's not a matter of IF. It's a matter of WHEN.
Heather Nelson: Going back to the consulting world, I'm seeing so many people who are experts in what they do. They've experienced, they've worked the 9:00 to 5:00 grind. They're really good at what they do, and they're like, okay, we're going to move into this consulting world. What tools or things that as you were growing your business did you find helpful? I'm kind of also speaking to myself. I know what I'm really good at. But being really clear about what it is that I do, and then selling it, and then selling your value and selling your worth, what were some tools or things that you've learned along your journey to where you are?
Melissa Franks: Such a good question. I was just talking to a friend about this an hour ago, so it was great. It's fresh. Very timely for me specifically. I'm always very aware of where I have knowledge and skill gaps. Very aware. And because of my age and when I went to school and all those things, the internet, social media, that whole world, while I understand it and I operate within it from a business perspective, it just didn't exist. And by the time it did, I didn't really need to dabble in it because I was off somewhere else where it didn't really matter. And so when I started this business, initially, I was like, well, I need to know how to sell online, and I need to know how to leverage social media. With my spare time and very little cash that I had, I dove into that world. And what ended up happening was I got really distracted because I was getting all of this advice, coaching and learning techniques. My brain was happy because I was learning all this stuff. I was getting only things, and I was not generating results at all. I have a podcast out this week, actually, about this specifically. It did not generate any results, and that's because I had skipped a step. And what I advised everybody to do, monetizing their expertise is get really clear on what you're not. And that is an easier list often to say what you are. So what are you not? What are you not? Who are you not? Serving? Where would you overextend yourself? If you got a client that did X, Y, Z today, could you actually help them right. When I was able to quiet that down about a year ago and say very expressly, which businesses am I actually going to help the most? Who is going to want to keep me forever because they're dazzled by the things that I'm doing?
When I got really clear on who very specifically, then I was able to align that to what I do. And even more loudly, what I do not do? Where I don't play? Where I'm not excellent at? Where should you go to find somebody else? And that's what I recommend to everybody that's monetizing their expertise. You need to start clarity around the pocket that you're best at, whatever that is. And it doesn't matter if you are a CPA, or a bookkeeper, or a business consultant. There's consultants out there that help you sell your business, and they sell some businesses really well, but not other businesses. So just know your lane, because there's plenty of opportunity there. Not limiting yourself, but knowing your lane. And then once I had that, then I was able to use all of the tools at play. I was able to learn how to run paid ads. I ran paid ads, and I was able to understand that social media is a second set of verification. It's my business portfolio. It's not my lead generation engine, so treat it that way. I treat social media like a photographer that's going to get hired for a shoot where you can actually pull the binder out and you're like, here's all of the evidence that I'm good at what I do from a photography perspective. Well, you go to my Instagram account and you can sit there for the next three days determining whether or not I know what I'm talking about. And so getting that clarity about what I was not, so that I could get very clear on who I can serve, and what I can do for them with unlocked growth exponentially. As soon as I figured that out, I was really on fire by the end of September of last year. And it's just like a constant growth engine at this point, and that was all that it was. That was really different.
Heather Nelson: So good. Still trying to figure out my world. And it is so funny because I have a coach now, and so it's interesting that I'm a coach that has a coach. I'm just embracing that because I'm like, they're bringing in a different perspective than I have. Because again, I'm so focused on one task that I can't see clearly. We just went through that whole exercise, and now I'm mind blown. I'm like, okay, when can we start? And I'm like, okay, so doing the exercises around that. But there was so much confusion and so many, many noises out there and then you're like, okay, well, I'm going to take a class in building out newsletters and getting referrals here, and I got to do this and it becomes overwhelming that you just get overwhelmed and you want to stop. So I love being simple and getting back to the basics of like, here's the foundation that you need to build first.
Melissa Franks: Yeah. It's a game changer because it brings you peace of mind too. It helps you articulate on a daily basis and qualify and do all of those things.
Heather Nelson: Okay. Here's another question for you, and you probably have very good advice and experience around this. Because now, you're dealing with a company and you're like, here's my knowledge. Here's my experience. Here's my network. Here's all the things. Here's all the reasons why they hired me. And then you give them your price, and they're like, oh, that's really expensive. How do you get confident in selling your experience and your worth, and what you bring to the table? I feel like that's another thing that a lot of people struggle with. How do you even price yourself? How do you sell yourself on that value?
Melissa Franks: That's a great question. So as far as pricing goes, it was a combination of a few things. I can speak to that a little bit. I understood what the market looked like. I actually went out and I was pricing where I could. If I went to get a corporate job, what would that look like? So just very pragmatically, what do I need? How does all of this make sense? What do I need to exist? I do not have an hourly bill rate. I do not record time. We do not charge by the hour. I just do not agree with it. And so we operate from a retainer model, and it's really around the level of support that you get full stop. And so you can choose, and there's three different levels. Okay, really creative, like 99% of the time. So I say that, and then I'm like, actually, there's 17. But for the purposes of this, there's really two fractional COO options, and then there's some other support options. If you need support and you're not ready for a fractional COO, it's just a price. Of course, it's backed by all the things that I just mentioned, but this is just the price for this level of support. We always come in with a recommendation most of the time. I have one client that's at the highest tier right now. Almost everybody else in that lower tier is what makes sense for them, just based on what's happening in their business. But we give them all the options, make a recommendation. How do you sell yourself? How do you be confident? How do you get the clothes? This is going to seem potentially advice from an arrogant person or a little bit egotistical, and I'm going to tell you that this is how I walked into every sales conversation even when I was not making any money.
So in March of 2024, my one client that I had had, she'd given me notice the prior month. I had no money coming in. I had no leads, I had no referrals. There was no money. I walked into a conversation strongly with the perspective of, I'm here to help. I can help you, and I don't need your business. And by being able to remove myself emotionally from the outcome and just be rooting for that person. So whether you need me or you need somebody else, I'm going to lay out for you the support that you need. And at the end of the day, it's up for you to decide. And I got that client. So that conversation resulted in a nine month contract. And ultimately, they hired somebody full time that was physically where they were, which is really what they needed. They needed to be able to touch, and have somebody there in their office every day. They also didn't need my strategy brain, so they overbought me so it was a good move all around that mindset of, I'm here to listen, be curious and learn about you. And in the end, if I can help you, I'm gonna let you know the ways I can help you. And if it's not the right time or you need to do a little bit more work in your business so you can figure out how to afford it or whatever it might be, I really, really wish you well, and I'll be here when you get there. It's amazing how much easier those conversations are, because you're able to sit confidently all the way through the conversation. You're able to not get distracted by a beating heart, sweaty palms, a red face. None of those things happen because you're really sitting from a place of no harm, no foul. No matter what happens, I'm going to be whole and intact. And tomorrow, there will be somebody else that's ready, willing and able. We don't have discussions about discounts, price change, like any of those things. If somebody wants a different level of support, we'll definitely price that for them. But the price, is the price, is the price, is the price.
Heather Nelson: Such a good reminder too. Thank you for that. Because sometimes, it's like owning your worth. And I love that perspective. You have a podcast? Talk about your podcast.
Melissa Franks: My podcast is a funny little show. So I started the podcast in December 2022. Right after I left corporate, I went to the startup world. And at the time, my goal was to tell all of the secrets of, if you want to be successful in business, I'm gonna tell you how to do it. I'm gonna tell you the stuff nobody's telling you. I'm gonna tell you the stuff people are hoarding. And if you go back and listen to those first year and a half worth of episodes, you'll get it all. You will get all the tea spilled like it is all there, like I held nothing back. Because I just feel like if I had known, I would have risen faster and less frustrated and all things. And then when I started my own business, I realized that a lot of the conversations I was having were valuable conversations for anybody whether they own a business, or they want to own a business one day, or they're just working inside of a small business and are trying to figure out what to do. And so my podcast is called Opt In. I have this strong point of view that every day, you get to make a choice about what you are opting into everyday, and you can choose differently whenever you want. We could probably have a whole other conversation about Sheryl Sandberg in Lean In and my perspective on that which I won't go into. So it's a little bit tongue in cheek on that, because I feel like you can always make a different choice tomorrow. You can always make a different choice today. And so really, it's a focus around what are you, or are you not going to opt into? And I'm going to give you all of the information that I possibly can so that you can make an informed decision about whatever you decide to do. So most of the podcast now is focused on business tactics, tips and tricks. It's something I'm working on with my clients. I just recorded an episode yesterday about accountability. So sometimes, things will happen out in the greater world that have nothing to do with business, and it will get me fired up. And so then, I'll talk about the consequences of people not taking accountability for 45 minutes, which is what I did yesterday.
Heather Nelson: Do you do solo episodes?
Melissa Franks: Most of the time. Occasionally, I'll have an interview depending on what the topic is. I want to add value every time. I want to make sure that the people that I'm targeting have such a limited time. And often, they're listening to me in the car or at twice the speed while they're taking a walk or whatever. I want them to be able to get really good nuggets of actionable advice every single episode. I know that they're gonna deliver that punch.
Heather Nelson: I will have to follow because before, I was commuting a lot, I enjoyed a long podcast. But now I'm like, I'm going from home to the gym. I have 15 minutes, give me something so I can learn, and I can move on. I love that. Is there anything else that we didn't talk about, or anything else in your business world that you learned along the way, that you wish others would know about?
Melissa Franks: I think that the other thing that I'll say, and again, this conversation I had this morning was full of nuggets.
Heather Nelson: Those conversations, I'm like, dang it. I wish I had it.
Melissa Franks: You actually need to talk to humans that you don't see every day. I did a horrific job of networking. I was inside of the same business for 15 years. I was a big fish in a small pond. Probably there were 200,000 people, but I was a big fish in that 200,000 person pool. And when I had to leave, I needed help. I needed access to business owners. I needed referrals, and there was nobody there. And the one thing that I would recommend to everybody, I don't care what you're doing, what business you're in, who you work for today, right now. Go invite somebody to coffee today, right now. Go find a lot of local networking events today right now. Go find a conference to go to, even if you have to go by yourself, and then go talk to people when you're there. Do not hide in the lobby and back in your room and all the things. I'm an introvert by nature. And the biggest wish I would give back to my 22 year old self when she started her career was to force myself to find opportunities to build connections, build relationships, connect, and then foster and keep them because you're going to be a wealth of resources for other people. So when they need a favor, when they need a recommendation, when they need a referral, when they need an introduction, if you're highly connected, they're going to seek you out. And B, if you're highly connected, when you need help, you have a ton of opportunity in front of you. So I would say, the one piece of advice I would give everybody is go find new ponds to jump into, and actively participate while you're there.
Heather Nelson: So good. I talk about that to the cows when they come home, because I truly believe in that. I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't do that at 20. I did that. There's a lot of things I did not do, but that was one of the things, and I'm so thankful for that. So thank you for that little nugget. I'm so excited that we met. I'll put all of your information in this show notes. But for people listening.,I know you rattled off the names of your company and your podcast, but just say it one more time, and I hope that we stay connected.
Melissa Franks: Yeah, I hope so too. So my podcast is Opt In. You can find it wherever you look for podcasts. My name is Melissa Franks. My website is melissafranks.com. The business though is On Call COO. So those are the ways to find me, or come follow me on Instagram. I'm over there too.
Heather Nelson: Awesome. Thank you so much for being here, and I can't wait to see where your business goes. And hopefully, we can do some collaborations in the future too.