We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melanie Espeland a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Melanie, appreciate you joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

My unique background with a mix of corporate and creative experiences across industries allows me a distincitive and informed perspective that’s differentiated from other coaches. Additionally, I have my own proprietary philosophies and frameworks under the Espeland Method that I’ve developed through my life experience, research, and observations from working with a multitude of high caliber professionals.

Coaching is a service growing by the double digits, but only a select few bring both an informed and differentiated view to the table.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I smile when I think that I fell into my passion for coaching based upon a friend’s spur of the moment comment during a coffee + walk hangout in Manhattan’s lower east side. My “why” stems from always feeling in my business or corporate positions that I was missing something. Was I actually creating value? Was this worth my time? Would I be remembered for any of this work? What actually matters?

In a red pill versus blue pill moment during the early aughts of the pandemic, I moved 100% of my focus into my coaching practice and completely split from my cushy corporate path. I found that I was doing something that I enjoyed; something that I was skilled at; and something that really mattered.

Today, I work with professionals typically in the mid to senior levels of organizations on a variety of topics including executive presence, voice & public speaking, online presence, and executive life coaching. I use proprietary frameworks to deliver actionable direction and profound change.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn being an expert. When I started my coaching firm as a budding entrepreneur, I encountered many topics and tasks that I was unfamiliar with. And sometimes, I didn’t have enough customer data to know what was the “right” answer.

So, I learned that the best thing you can do is ANYTHING – this is superior to doing nothing and just continuing to marinate over your choices. If you do something, then you will move forward because you will learn and gain actual data/evidence based upon the outcome. Even if the outcome is terrible, you’ve now learned some valuable information that can be used to pivot or improve.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

In my line of work, which is services based, it is critical to build real, meaningful relationships with others based upon genuine curiosity, generosity, and empathy. This is certainly the best way to not only meet new clients, but also to keep and grow existing clientele.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://espelandenterprises.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melanieespeland/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanie-espeland/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@melanieespeland

Image Credits
Personal photo: Josiah Bania 2 black and white photos: Tori Moca