We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Malissa Young. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Malissa below.

Malissa, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I think being successful requires a can do attitude, a strong initiative, and sometimes just putting one foot in front of the other without overthinking what ten steps down the path will bring-though a little foresight is helpful! It also sometimes requires trying again and again. And real resilience when challenges strike … you can’t quit at the first bump in the road. It probably also requires some joy in the process, so that you continue to find motivation to grow.

Malissa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I first started BICOASTAL MGMT when I was pregnant with my middle child, who is now 12. I was always entrepreneurial -having graduated with a double major in Politics and Government and Philosophy, I didn’t end up finding a job in government or nonprofits as quickly as I expected and instead joined a women’s networking guide in NYC, got a waitressing job, and a modeling agent that propelled me into the world of fit modeling. The guide was not successful financially, but fit modeling was. Then I did sales as a partner of a children’s shoe company start up. Three years later, it was not financially successful enough, but Fit modeling still was. At this point in my mid-twenties I was working for great brands, and traveling as far as the mainland of China for fittings with clients that ranged from Tommy Hilfiger to Ralph Lauren. It seemed my career found me.

After a first child, I realized going back to fitting was a great job for a mom given the flexible schedule and pay for the time so I found all new clients and worked about 20 hours a week for brands that ranged from Vera Wang to Marc Jacobs. There was more great travel, this time to Poland, India, and more, and still time for me to do many yoga teacher trainings and be a mom who could be home more hours than most. With my second pregnancy in my mid-thirties, I knew I needed a next step that would provide a solid income and maybe not be put on pause again if I wanted a third baby (which I did and now have-of course she is 11 now)! I considered three paths-going for my doctorate to become a professor (all those expenses though), becoming a full time yoga teacher/opening a studio (felt risky and potentially expensive) and starting an agency for fit-because my clients literally kept saying “why don’t you…?” My girl friend who went on to start @theforem.co was currently doing very well at Google and said, “Mali, you are in your thirties, of course you do that-you build on what you know and the contacts you made.” It was my aha moment and I just placed an ad in Craigslist to measure potential models with the target specs I needed, measured all of my not exclusively signed fit model friends, and started street scouting and using Linked in to find more people in the business to connect to.

This is how Bicoastal Fitting Models was born. And then we had showroom and print models, so we changed it to Bicoastal Models, and then we had commercial actors and voice over actors, and we changed one last time to BICOASTAL MGMT. THEN, I had actors who wanted us to help them book film and TV work, so after many months of research, a whole new business spun off that is just for acting management, Malissa Young Management. Every step of my career has really been somewhat of a combination of listening to the universe and my instincts, as well as just putting one foot in front of the other. My second venture-the children’s shoes-was built off of a business plan and never quite reflected the plan. I felt like I learned a lesson there to just start working, work hard, and wait for things to pay off. I also learned not to spend money I wasn’t earning. This is not always easy for new businesses, but it worked for me… and while I might not suggest using your personal cell phone out of the gate for a new business and your kitchen table as your meeting room if you have money to invest, I did it this way and it worked out fine!

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

This question really pops out for me because I think the people are SO important to your business. Have we all called a business to make an appointment and heard the voice on the other end not seeming to care at all-such a turn off! I think to start with, the old quote of hire slowly and fire quickly is a good place to start. Try to hire people after you really get a sense of their energy and ethics. I didn’t do this all of the times, but the team I have now are 2 former interns and the others did at least 2 interviews and then a day in person to get hands into the system so we could see if they are on time, not easily distracted, kind people just as a few items we look for.

1. Take your time hiring and look for core values that will be good for your company.
2. Don’t forget to see each person as a whole human with an important outside life, and don’t be afraid to be a friend, too. Maybe you are not drinking buddies weekly-actually probably you are not and that is not the best idea. But you can and probably should be someone who shows up with the same compassion and understanding as a friend if you want them to be compassionate and understanding to you and your business. This is also about respect, which I think is important to friendship. You can give the small favors if they don’t hurt your business like a later start or earlier leave one day, or a work from home day, etc. Good will creates good will.
3. Laugh and have fun together. No one will care about your business as much as you, and it can’t be all work work work for good morale. We like to take little 5-10 minute team stretch breaks, even meditating sometimes, and we always do cocktail hour for someone’s birthday or sometimes just because it was a really stressful day. A holiday party or activity is great, and once a year is probably not often enough to do something that feels special.
4. If something upset you have a sidebar. It is always best to get things out on the table for all parties to evaluate and hopefully those conversations keep all of the stuff from item 2.
5. Back to my intro, fire quickly. If it is not working and you KNOW it just pull the trigger. By the time you know, it is probably down hill from there.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

When I started my business there was not a full 8 hour day of work, and so my intern and I would do what we could to search for models or reach out to clients or build social media engagement or sometimes just take a walk! No matter what, she would show up and we would be “productive” which was helpful for me and since she was a young college student with interest in the industry-fun for her (she did get a job with me as soon as we could hire her)! One of these days we happened to follow up with a potential client and since the 3 times prior we had no response or just a “not looking” we were so surprised to hear, YES, great timing, I am searching for XYZ. We had a good option for her, and landed this account. Which then turned into accounts for about 3 of our models. Had I not kept a schedule and also not kept trying (isn’t there a rule of 7 times in sales-before someone remembers your name even) we would have not had that pivotal moment which turned my business into a real money making business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bicoastalmgmt.com and www.Malissayoungmgmt.com
• Instagram: @bicoastalmgmt and @malissayoungmgmt
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BICOASTALMGMT/
• Linkedin: Malissa Young