S5E9: Taking Business off Manual-mode with Mel Wiggins
It was great to bring Mel Wiggins back onto the show to discuss the evolution of Mel's business, starting from gathering creative women in 2016 to establishing a partnership called Embodied Leadership.
We chat about our arework together and the significance of using systems like Asana and Acuity to streamline operations, allowing Mel to focus on higher-level tasks and grow her business effectively.
Transcript below!
You can connect with Mel Wiggins here:
Sign up for the Embodied Leadership mailing list: https://www.embodiedleadership.org.uk/
Website: https://www.melwiggins.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melwiggins/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mel-wiggins-mbe-96b011126/
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Hey, welcome back. Today I have Mel Wiggins. She is a long term mentor and past client. She excels in helping brilliant women to build the courage to lead well.
Her work has evolved over the past decade. And these days it includes helping women to build courage and their lives works and leadership roles. Through coaching programs, women's circles and working with businesses and organizations that want to invest in the personal development of their teams.
She also works in her local community as a restorative justice practitioner and she really loves that.
Mel believes in the power of women and girls all over the world to shape the now and change the future. And that we need to challenge the narratives and boundaries that hold us back both within our culture and ourselves. I'm really excited to have her back.
She's on my podcast in season two, talking about self-trust and boundaries. Mel is a wealth of knowledge. So let's get started.
Mel, it's really, really good to have you here. For those of you who don't know. Mel and I's work goes way back, way, way back.
Mel Wiggins: Way back now. We've got a long history now.
Ellie McBride: know like what? 2000, probably 18, 19, somewhere in there.
Mel Wiggins: 18 I would say.
Ellie McBride: Yeah.
that's so wild. So your business goes obviously a few years back, even earlier than that.
Can you tell me a bit about where your business first started it and what inspired all of that?
Mel Wiggins: Oh yeah. So I'm I'm a coach and I guess my business started a little bit accidentally to be fair. I, I was working in the community sector for a long time and had Felt a real urge to kind of have something of my own outside of that, that I could yeah, I could kind of sink my teeth into. And during my maternity leave with my daughter, I had kind of started to put together some ideas for.
Gathering women together who were creative and who were kind of doing the self employment thing or who were You know blogging was still a really big thing and I've met lots of people through my blog and through Instagram and stuff like that locally here in Northern Ireland and so I started sending out some invitations and tentative kind of little Yeah, just asking if they would be, if some of these women that I've been chatting to online would be up for meeting together to like have a lovely meal and maybe do some kind of creative workshops together.
And they were all really up for it. And so we had our first kind of gathering of this little group of, of women that I had asked to be part of this back in October, 2016. And from there. I think, you know, we had a photographer come and take lovely pictures and it was outside in an orchard. It was all very beautifully styled by A stylist and we had someone come and cater and I think once the photos kind of got out onto social media, everyone was like, what is this?
And what, this is beautiful. What like, can I come? What's when's the next thing? And I realized that there was a growing appetite for spaces for women who felt like they were on a lonely creative path to gather together. So it kind of snowballed and rolled from having these lovely dinner. workshop gatherings to then, I started to notice that a lot of the conversations around the table were women talking about their self doubt, women talking about how they were lonely and they were struggling in their businesses and in their creative endeavors.
So I was actually retraining at that time and coaching and doing some personal development stuff myself. So It felt like the right next step me to start offering some support around those things. So the kind of gatherings continued, but then I started waving in more kind of coaching workshops and opportunities for people to gather in that way.
And then that turned into a membership of community and then it turned into group coaching programs and one to one and all kinds of iterations of what most people, you know, most people know how things go with an online business in terms of the kind of development and business development and self development stuff.
It looked very much like that for, I guess, since 2016, right up until 2022, I suppose is when. Everything kind of piqued in the pandemic, everybody wanted coaching and they had time and maybe a little bit of extra income to invest in support and really kind of get things in order and really do that kind of work.
So that was amazing for me. It was a very busy time. But then after, after the kind of, I guess the peak of the pandemic. Happened and life started to go back to normal. It started to shift things in the online space a little bit. And being someone that I guess rejects a lot of the girlboss culture, or, yeah, I I knew that what was going to be required of me to maintain the momentum of what I had been building was not something I was willing to do.
And so I kind of have spent the last couple of years taking stock, step, stepping back, really kind of focusing in on what I, the kind of elements of my business that I really love the most and shifting things around a bit, so. That's really where we're at today, where it looks a little bit different to that.
I still work with women exclusively. I have a couple of different businesses and I do some work on the side with a charity organization as well. So the variety, the spice of life is variety for me and also just really enjoying not feeling so alone in. In carrying the weight and the risk of everything in the, in my business by myself.
So do a lot of work to collaborate with other people all around the same thing, themes of, you know, working with women, helping women to create more sustainable ways of working ways of, of doing business, ways of leading well. And working with women in real holistic, embodied ways. So, that's kind of where we're
Ellie McBride: yeah. And I mean, for those of you who don't know, Mel hired me in her business. We're going to talk about that in a minute, but I also worked with Mel. So I remember when you first reached out to me, I was still a virtual assistant doing kind of techie things. I'm still very much what I love to do, but in another way that's similar, I
Mel Wiggins: You were, but you were also employed with
Ellie McBride: I was doing it on the side and I still had a full time job at the time in a law firm. And I love that law firm. They were, let me wear so many hats. It was so fun. But anyway, but like when I found you, I remember, or you found me and then I went to look, you'd booked a consultation call and I went to look you up and she's like, this woman.
is amazing because was all of those. It was the membership you were hosting at the time. It was those beautiful gatherings, which I've had the pleasure of going to a few of, and even the work you're doing now with your circles and things, you have this knack for something, creating something that is nourishing, like on a spiritual soul.
Business level but also just really, really beautiful. And then of course, like delicious. Right. And those are those three things you community around those and it's incredible.
Mel Wiggins: I mean, that is, you know, I think as you age, you get, you become more, I guess, well, for me anyway, I only speak for myself. I feel like you become more willing or able to see what your, your real gifts and skills are and, and aren't, aren't kind of like fobbing that off with, no, no, I mean, that was, you know, or just kind of.
Like I can really own that now, you know? I can really own that that is one of my gifts. Community building is one of my gifts, I know that, and creating nourishing spaces definitely is. It's just because I love to do it and I know I guess I've had enough experience now in building those spaces to know what it takes to really make that feel natural and warm.
So yeah,
Ellie McBride: So back in 2018, when we first started, when you first out to me What brought you to reach out to me? What were you facing or what was kind of going on that you were like, I, I need someone with your skillset.
Mel Wiggins: Hmm. Well, I was working part time as well in the charity sector and it was like this side of my work, this self employed side where I was starting to do coaching and a membership. It was all, it all kind of like with the best intentions was kind of going. taken on a life of its own. And that's wonderful.
That's ideal. It's great. But at the same time, I was like, this is, I mean, I, I know I need help, but I don't even know what I need. And I think that was, that was what put me off for such a long time looking for somebody to help me. Alongside the idea and the kind of messaging that women receive, which is that you should be able to do all those things.
But the idea that I didn't even know what I needed, I just knew there had, there had to be an easier way and that there was no way that I was going to be able to continue to work my part time job and to run this business if I didn't If I didn't smarten things up a little bit and, and tighten up my systems or find somebody that knew more than I do about how to do all of that stuff, like, and I'm not, I'm not like a complete tech, like Luddite, like
Ellie McBride: No, no. You'd been running your blog for years and you'd been running this business and doing all of those things. Like you, yeah, you had a handle.
Mel Wiggins: yeah, I did, I did know what I was doing. I could manage. Basic Squarespace. I could manage a payment system. I could, you know, I, but I didn't know what was the best thing to use, how to make all of my things speak to each other. So for instance, having a membership, like I, when somebody signed up, I would be like manually entering them into a spreadsheet.
And then like manually sending them an email to welcome them and give them like logins and stuff like that. And I was like, this is, there's gotta be a better because you know, and especially and even in reverse of that, if someone canceled their membership, I was, you know, frantically going in and like, you know, automatically removing them from the spreadsheet and from the platform all the rest of it and email lists and all the rest of those things.
It was just. Messy and clunky and time consuming for me. And I just knew somebody out there knows, and I, I truly don't even know how I came across you. It probably was a Google search. It probably was just like virtual assistant, Northern Ireland, go. So your search, your search engine is doing the work, Ellie, which is good.
And I, yeah, I remember getting on that phone call and I was like, I don't know what I need. I don't know. And you're like, okay, well let me like, tell me what you're doing and let me have a look at what you're doing and I can, you know, I can make some suggestions. And I was nervous, like I was nervous about letting go of control, especially to someone that I didn't know, because, you know, like you're, you're, you're welcoming somebody into the really intimate back of your, of your work. And you know, for me as a Enneagram one, a fellow Enneagram one, the risk of feeling judged by that in any way felt so high. I was like, at every point, I was like, don't judge me, but.
Ellie McBride: Yeah.
Mel Wiggins: But I think it didn't take me long to realize that, Oh my God, this girl, this girl knows what she's doing. And I don't, it really didn't take you long in the first instance to be like, this, this is not going to take much like you, you know, we, there's a few tweaks we need to make. This thing needs to talk to this thing and we can do this and this is going to be so much easier for you.
It was very reassuring. And I think we started off very like. You know, five hours a month or something, where you were like tidying things up for me or you were on hand to create documents or create systems and stuff like that. And it gradually kind of grew, didn't it?
Ellie McBride: Yeah, so I think back in the day, I think I started with helping you create some zaps and things to automate those, like removing people from the list, adding people to the list, all of those things. But over and I did help you create documents and graphics and things in Canva for your membership. Scheduling out emails and things, getting those all scheduled, creating those kinds of templates so that all of that easier.
But over so much more over time. I you to streamline your membership using member space. We had, oh my gosh, I can't even like, we redid your website at one stage, which you've since redone again. We got you onto a sauna we really.
Mel Wiggins: I mean, let's talk about that because I think that's actually a really important one to, that's a really important one to talk about because that for me felt like the game changer at the right time. But what I will say is that, I don't know if you remember this, but I had some resistance
Ellie McBride: yeah, you, it took me ages. Essentially I managed to get Mel onto two systems that she was resisting. One was Asana and one was like having a really robust Google drive set up and. Cause I think it was that she kind of already had her own file system, but when you have a team,
Mel Wiggins: But was shit. My file system was crap and nobody could access it. I was like,
Ellie McBride: right.
Mel Wiggins: yeah, but you,
Ellie McBride: Yeah. So there came a point where I was moving on. no longer going to work on team because I wasn't doing VA work anymore. And that was really the, like, we had to get some systems in place so that the transition would go over really well.
Mel Wiggins: Yes. Yeah. So someone else could step in and I tell you, I mean, you can speak to Helena who, who does what you did for me now, who you helped me recruit. Like she, like, I know that that was so, so helpful for her to have my Asana. Now, my asana currently, like you would be ashamed of me, like it is, I've let things slide a little bit because there's been so much change I need to go in and tidy it up.
But I, I am not afraid of doing that like that is because I've seen how good, how well it works for me. And actually even in working with my own clients now, I'm like, I show them, I kind of pull behind the curtain and show them my asana, especially when it comes to you know, so I have a podcast that's on hiatus at the minute, but when the podcast is in full flow, like I, you know, you helped me create a template that assigns every last aspect of what is needed, you know, in order to get that podcast out and repurpose it in all different ways.
So for me, it's. It's so, so simple and I've been able to share that with, with my clients and be like, not necessarily the same thing, like you don't need to be doing a podcast, but if you have a long form piece of content, look at how much easier it is to have this populated in your Asana or whatever system you're using so that you, you know, and then there's something about it that actually.
It really legitimizes your in, in lots of ways, having a system. And for me, I'm, I'm always telling people Asana, I'm Asana's little bitch. Like I, I Asana is the boss of me and it tells me what to
Ellie McBride: Me too. Like me too.
Mel Wiggins: Yeah. Asana and it's like, today you need to write. A script for this and you need to post to Instagram and I'm like, well, if Asana told me to do it, then I better do it.
But if it was left up to me, I'd be like, I don't need to, but there's something about it that be like some school girl conditioning in me.
Ellie McBride: Oh, me too. But I also think the thing is, is I just have gotten done rebuilding an Asana system for another business. And my number one thing that I see people who try out a sauna, like the mistake quote unquote that I see is that people use it as a task management tool and I don't mean like, yes. You and I use it to, to manage our tasks, but we've built the entire system behind it.
It is managing the projects and then the tasks are contributing to those projects. So our Asana's see the big picture. And then because we've done all that work, we can just log in and see, Oh, I get to do this today. Or, and for me, no, I tend to assign my tasks. Like a few days before they actually need to happen.
So that I can reschedule them if I'm like not in the mood or whatever.
Mel Wiggins: because it gives you, it gives you a bit of like pushback time and margin and stuff like that, because as much as Asana is the boss of us, we also are the boss of ourselves. So, and, and shit happens and we have to, you know, make sure that we're allowing ourselves to have the flexibility, which is the reason that we got into this work,
Ellie McBride: totally. And I think the nice thing is, is not only are we the boss of ourselves, we're also sort of quote unquote, the boss of our team. And so by having these systems in place for, you know, if, if say I got sick this week or I was last week actually, I need my team to pick up a little more slack.
I've got all these tutorials inside my Slack. I've got the links to the things in the Google drive. That, you know, if it's a, or, or into Canva all in Asana so I can really just like be like, Hey, can you handle this this week? I can't do it.
Mel Wiggins: Someone get Yeah.
Ellie McBride: So I think that's really, really useful too.
Mel Wiggins: Totally.
Ellie McBride: Is there a moment aside from Asana that really stands out to you as a breakthrough or a game changer from our time working together?
Mel Wiggins: I would say that's, that is the one, like that, for me, that's the one that I would probably call back to. Just because it, like, yeah, like it's, it's been so, so helpful. And I think to have a home for all of your, you know, your processes, your documents. It doesn't, it kind of takes the fear out of anyone else stepping into your business.
For me for sure, it's Asana. Yeah, and that's the thing. I think, I think also for me working with you, it's having somebody who is the expert on those things. That you can kind of. You know, put your hand up and ask questions to and not feel stupid because I think the expectation as a business owner that you're going to know every updated way of doing things and every new way of being organized and streamlined is so unrealistic.
It's so unfair to imagine that that amongst all of the other hats and roles that you have that you're also going to be able to keep up with all the tech side of things and All the rest of it. And, you know, I think we need to really let ourselves off the hook. So for me, having, you know, being able to kind of go, Ellie, this is, this system is not working for me.
Like, and, and have somebody like you go, well, what, what is it that you're not enjoying? And then you can kind of measure that against, okay, well, if you don't enjoy that, then this thing is probably going to be better for you. Like that to me is, has been so valuable to have you be. The kind of point person for that, for those kinds of
Ellie McBride: Yeah. I think the other big system we set up for you that we haven't talked about is acuity. So getting you set up with that scheduler at the time, and that automated a lot things. You were able to take payments for coaching sessions or coaching packages or group programs, and you were able then to automate the scheduling of those one on ones and.
Even some of the group calls and all of those things that all automated into your zoom and into your calendar and all of those things all the forms were sorted. So like any intake stuff you needed to do. And I think that's another piece like those, I think because we've done that, when I talk about this type of stuff with people, I usually say there's like five main time sucks.
One of them is scheduling. Another is usually project management. There's a, there's a handful of them, but those are two really big ones, right? Community management and marketing. It's another one. But so it's been really cool to see that how many of those pieces we could really just streamline and simplify for your business.
Mel Wiggins: Oh yeah. For sure. Like Acuity has been so good. It really has. It definitely has given us a, given me like a hands off approach. You know, like, to making sure that things run smoothly and are all connected, so yeah, for sure.
Ellie McBride: So tell us a little bit about like,
if you were to compare and contrast your business now, your business, then how does it feel, how does it look like systems wise? .
Mel Wiggins: Oh, I mean, it's night and day, you know, it's absolutely, I am not in the weeds of all of that, you know, I'm so lucky to have Helena, you know, on call to be able to sort all of that stuff because it was set up by you in such a succinct, streamlined way with like, you know, using the most relevant tools for me and how my business, what my business needed, you know, I am not looking at spreadsheets and all of that.
Like that is not. Where my that's not where my skill set is and it's not where my time needs to be spent But I also know that I can Look at those things If I need to so it's you've it's definitely taken me off, you know manual mode in every way
To be able to kind of be happy enough that things are working in the background and And, you know, my payments are being taken well and they're being, you know, looked at and, you know, I can see everything that's happening really, really easily.
Ellie McBride: So you feel like you're getting to be like at this higher level as opposed to down into all the nitty gritty pieces of business. Yeah,
Mel Wiggins: Yes, completely. Exactly.
Ellie McBride: that's what we want. Right. And it means that you, that as you, you are not having to do, as you said, all those little manual pieces and business and get to focus on what you really are good at and enjoy.
And we've created so many templates and processes and you're, Okay. In Asana, in your Google Drive, in Canva, so that realistically, like Helena, as amazing as she is, she's not really having to do as much heavy lifting either. So you're saving time, even in what you're outsourcing.
Mel Wiggins: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's made so easy.
Ellie McBride: it's good to hear like I just, it's been, you know, I think I've probably out of all the clients that are going to be in this series, I've worked with you the longest.
And so it's just really cool to, to see even a couple of years after we have stopped working together, you know, your business still growing based the systems we've set up together.
Mel Wiggins: Oh yeah, absolutely. And it's set up in a way that's really adaptable. So now, you know, like in my Asana, there are programs. You know, boards in there for programs that don't exist anymore. But that's fine because, you know, there are new things that have come along and it's so easy for me to just duplicate those things and adapt them to the new, the new things that are happening, you know?
Yeah.
Ellie McBride: Cause that's the thing all of our is that, you know, eventually. It pivots or trans or translates into something else, or you bundle things up or whatever, but you're still always creating programs or services based on like who you are and what you do, even if it evolves into some different way.
So it's good to hear that those templates and systems are still functioning for you that, and in the newer work that you're doing,
Mel Wiggins: absolutely,
Ellie McBride: speaking of which,
Mel Wiggins: they really
Ellie McBride: let's talk about that. Let's talk about what you're doing now and where people can link in with you.
Mel Wiggins: So a couple of kind of more eminent things that are happening. One is that I have a, a new business that I have, I'm doing in partnership with one of my best friends, Michelle Leder, who is a psychotherapist, wellbeing practitioner. Michelle and I have set up a brand new business called Embodied Leadership.
And you can find that at embodiedleadership. org. uk and essentially the work that we're doing very closely tied to both of our work, both mine as a coach and Michelle's as a psychotherapist, but it's all about equipping leaders who want to have an impact to tune back into the wisdom of their bodies.
In order to help them lead because so often, particularly women find that they're leading their businesses, they're leading organizations and companies and teams in a way that has kind of been handed to them through a male lens of leadership which is very. Pragmatic and very head based, very kind of, we think our way into leading and actually what we have realized and what research has shown us is that actually our body is speaking to us all the time about decision making, about boundaries, about communication and how best to do that, about how to lead and if we can harness that.
power, that wise power in our bodies we can create a whole other model of leadership that is actually more sustainable than just a thinking about it model. So Michelle and I are working with women and then we're also working with organizations who want to implement this model into their organization, into their company, into their business.
As well. So we've been working as consultants for different organizations and they're bringing us in to do work. And then we're also running our own program, embodied leadership for female leaders. And that kind of kicks off mid April, which you're welcome to check out through our website embodiedleadership. org. uk. So there's that, which is very exciting. I'm really, yeah, I really, what we feel is like a really, really important missing piece in the leadership space. And then I also am running women's circles at my home locally here in County Armagh. So these women's circles are really powerful opportunities for women and not just women in business, but of course, welcome.
But just women in general to come and. Do circle together circle is a, you know, I'm sure lots of people have heard about women's circles, but this is a particular method of circle that I have been trained in. Which is very healing, very community focused and, and really beautiful. So really excited to be doing that work as
Ellie McBride: Yeah, I think I can. I am like, it's on my list to make it to one of those before I leave because they look amazing. Just a really unique way of holding space in a really, like, I know most circles are nonjudgmental, but in It just sounds like a really freeing thing. Yeah. And in a way, because you're not, you're holding space for people, but you're not having to put any input, which is very different.
Mel Wiggins: yeah, and that's what I've, that's what I have kind of needed is to create that space where I, yeah, I keep the circle and the circle keeper and I'm trained to do that, but I'm also part of the circle. And so that's been really, a really lovely element for me to bring in because that one stage of my life, it was like responsibility everywhere.
Although circle keeping is a responsibility. It's also very, a real leveler to be in circle with other women where I'm not, I'm not there to teach. I'm not there to fix. I'm not there to support actually in any way or validate. I'm there to just witness their stories as we all are. And you know, the studies show that that is probably the most healing thing that we can do for each other is to witness each other's stories as we share.
So, I really love facilitating that and,
Ellie McBride: That's so
Mel Wiggins: Hosting
Ellie McBride: Yeah. Like, and I think for those of us who've come from like the church background, like I, there's not, I haven't had a lot of opportunity for that since I've left. Right. You don't get the opportunity to. And back then it was always like, share your testimony, share your testimony, right?
Mel Wiggins: yeah. That word brings up stuff for me. but, and obviously this is different to that, but it just like, sometimes it's nice to be able to share what's on your heart.
Another big thing that we always said at the church without
Huh.
Ellie McBride: then somebody having to like
Mel Wiggins: Speak into
Ellie McBride: it, or if you tell your husband, he immediately tries to. Fix it,
Mel Wiggins: Right. Yeah. None of that. No, it's, it's such a pure you know, like the two main components of circle are that you share to be known. So you're always sharing to, for other people to know you. So you share from lived experience, you're not sharing to like say about what someone else has shared about or respond to anybody else you're really sharing from.
for yourself. And then the other part, so share to be known and listen to know. Listen to know means just to witness. It doesn't mean, you know, listen so that when it's your turn to speak, you can help solve someone else's problem that spoke to. Two spaces before you. It's truly, simply just listening to know and you can walk away from Circle without carrying anybody else's story other than your own, which is to me quite, quite rare for women and quite powerful.
Ellie McBride: sounds I, I can't wait to experience it. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I will have links in on the website in the show notes too, embodied Leadership and to Mel's website. And she creates, like, this is one of the many areas she shines and she creates just such beautiful content across her various brands.
So definitely get plugged in and see what she's all about.
Mel Wiggins: Thank you so much for having me.
