148. How Pink Socks Grew My Standout Business with Melinda Van Fleet
Back in 2009 Melinda Van Fleet & her husband Ryan both found themselves laid off from their jobs in Minnesota.
They both dreamed of living someplace warm & Ryan imagined what it would be like to be a sportfishing captain.
So they moved to the Florida Keys and completely transformed their careers.
Melinda launched her personal-coaching business and helped Ryan launch Good Karma Sportfishing.
And for anyone thinking that hanging out in the Florida Keys was all easy-breezy, just remember that they were starting all over again from scratch.
Stay tuned as Melinda shares how she creatively used pink socks to help Ryan’s Sportfishing business stand out among the myriad of competitors and built up her own coaching business.
Melinda is a Business & Leadership Coach. She’s the author of “Confidence Mastery for Couples” and host of “The Success Codes” & “Wake Up Call” Podcast.
Connect with Melinda Van Fleet
The Pink Sock Video!
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Transcript
Melinda Van Fleet:
So what happened? A couple months ago? My husband started talking about pink socks. He’s actually super funny and really relatable. They loved his goofy sense of humor and it added this little bit into his content, which made his content different than the sea of other sport fishing charters out there. So that’s what’s really important too. It’s like how do you stand out in this crowded sea and we’re in a very crowded sea, especially here in the Florida Keys, this is sport fishing capital of the world Like, how do you stand out? And so many people are, just, you know, very vanilla in their content, even vanilla in their content, even vanilla in their videos, even vanilla in how they show up on camera. And it’s like, okay, really take a look at that and see, are you vanilla or are you really standing out? Are you really keeping people’s attention so they just don’t scroll you by?
Brad Powell:
Welcome to the Standout Business Show, where it’s all about making a bigger difference by doing business differently. I’m Brad Powell, and today we’re talking about the standout business strategies that lead to unconventional success. And my guest today is Melinda Van Fleet, and back in 2009, she and her husband, ryan, both found themselves laid off. Remember 2009? This may be a familiar tale. Anyway, they were living in Minnesota and they’d been dreaming about living someplace much warmer. Ryan had been thinking about being a sport fishing captain, you know. So they loaded up the truck you can sing a little jingle. They loaded up the truck and they moved to the Keys. That’s the Florida Keys. You know, swimming pools, movie stars, beverly Hillbillies reference there. Anyway, before too long, they had completely transformed their lives and their careers. So Melinda launched her personal coaching business and, at the same time, she was helping Ryan launch his Good Karma sport fishing business, which is an awesome name.
Brad Powell:
And for anyone thinking that hanging out in the Florida Keys was all easy breezy, just remember they were both starting over again from scratch. So stay tuned, because Melinda is sharing how she’s helped both her business and Ryan’s business grow amongst the myriad of competitors, using unconventional things like intuition, energetics, and we’re actually going to dive into a story about pink socks. I hope you’re intrigued. Stay tuned, melinda. She’s a business and leadership coach. She is the author of Confidence Mastery for Couples, and she’s the host of not one, but two podcasts the Success Codes and the Wake Up Call. So with all of that, let’s start the show. All right, melinda, welcome to the show, hi.
Melinda Van Fleet:
Brad, thank you so much for having me. That was amazing. That was the best intro I’ve ever had. Thank you.
Brad Powell:
Well, yeah, I do my best. I mean, you’ve got a great, great story, so it was actually easy to come up with a lot of that. And I want to start around this word that I’ve seen you like looking at your stuff and the materials that I’ve seen online. You use this word, intuition, a number of times, and it was really something that a lot of business people don’t talk about very much, like it’s just too out there, and so I want to take us back to that moment in this time of 2009,. You and your husband are we actually was like you got laid off and then you’re thinking, well, we’re both going to get laid off. My gut is telling me this is our situation. So tell us a little bit about that time in terms of what’s going on inside your head.
Melinda Van Fleet:
Yes. So, first of all, everyone has intuition and it’s kind of like the best kept secret If you aren’t someone who’s familiar with it, using it or exploring and understanding what it means and how to trust it. So trust, trusting your intuition, is probably like the biggest thing that you can kind of conquer, let’s say. So a lot of people understand what it means to have like a gut feeling about something that’s a little bit more mainstream as far as word choice and my husband hadn’t been laid off yet, when I was sitting home watching Oprah and Oprah had a couple on and both of them had just gotten laid off at the same time and it was that moment I have the chills right now. That was like that’s gonna be us and I just knew it was going to be us. And it was like a month later. A month later, my husband called me at 6.30 in the morning. He was like I just got laid off.
Melinda Van Fleet:
And I was like well, there you go. My intuition was right, so we were very lucky. We had a couple little like kicks in the butt along the way, which happens. My mom had said why don’t you guys just move to Florida.
Melinda Van Fleet:
And then my best friend, who lives in Texas, was like why don’t you guys just move to Florida? So it was kind of like these little nudges again like from the universe however you want to put it that were like okay, this is just going to be our next right step. And was it scary? Absolutely for sure. I’m not going to sugarcoat it and say it wasn’t scary, but when you really are just at that point where it’s just like, okay, this is it, this is what we’re going to do, you just have to keep trusting it and trusting it and keep taking the next right steps forward. And yeah, in 2012, January was when we launched Good Karma Sportfishing, and it wasn’t even that long later in terms of time. So I think sometimes, when we get caught up in this process, we think you know, time is taking forever, but then, when we look back in hindsight, it really wasn’t that long.
Brad Powell:
But then when we look back in hindsight, it really wasn’t that long, yeah, and so it sounds great. Let’s go to Florida and buy a boat and then we’ll put up a little shingle somewhere and saying come on fishing with us. We’ll go out and catch some big, big ones. But you know, talk about that, because here you are, like neither of you, this hasn’t been your background, and yet you’re like okay, let’s do it. And kudos to both of you for going in there and trying something like completely new and just sort of literally following a dream, which I just think is terrific. So talk about how you like. What were the problems and struggles and things that you did to make this work?
Melinda Van Fleet:
Yes, and you’re so right on when we let’s say we’ll start here when we got set up as a business. So after my husband got his hours, went through his testing, which was insane. If you know anything about being tested with the lifeguard, the Coast Guard sorry, uscg. So he’s a certified uscg captain, it’s it’s not like an easy process. There’s a lot that goes into that. So we’ll just start. In january he gets his first call and he doesn’t know what to say. So so like we were like literally at zero, if not negative, in terms of like starting a business and figuring this out. So, luckily, I had some experience in terms of presentation, because I had to give a lot of presentations in the corporate world. So we sat on the couch and I would script for him you know, when you get a call, this is what you should say. And we literally like winged it with some strategy.
Melinda Van Fleet:
So, again, just following our intuition, like listening to okay, like what sounds like a good thing, we should say we had been on a few charters in other countries, like when we got married in Honduras, things like that. So we knew just a little bit, but there was definitely months of every single charter looking at us and I was the mate for a time being too. That’s a whole other thing. And looking at us and saying you guys are new, we were like we’re new, we’re really new. And, yes, everyone starts somewhere, everyone starts somewhere and you are new, and we were new.
Melinda Van Fleet:
And it probably took gosh, definitely six months, maybe even longer. I’d have to ask my husband because eventually I didn’t have to be the maid anymore and we had everything automated. But there was definitely from May to July of that year that I had decided to roll up my sleeves and be the mate to help out to get everything automated. And yeah, people were just like you guys are new. So so I definitely don’t ever want I love your question because I never want people to think that like we just like dived in and everything was perfect. Oh no, like it was not perfect by any means and we definitely had a lot of learning, um, struggles and challenges and pivots and twists along the way, and we’re still learning. Every day we’re figuring something out.
Brad Powell:
so yeah right, that learning curve keeps going up and up. I just want to echo that thing about the Coast Guard regulations. You know, when I started my outdoor sailing school and in fact my history was that I started my own program and then, six years later is when I merged with Outward Bound they approached me and said we’d like you to do what you’re doing for us. But in the beginning everybody and their uncle, it seemed was becoming a kayak outfitter and you didn’t need anything. You could just go buy a half a dozen kayaks. You know, put your thing up, people could come. You didn’t need a license, you didn’t need any kind of anything. You could just start touring with kayaks.
Brad Powell:
But to operate a sailboat with anything more than six people on board, you had to get a Coast Guard license and it’s a big hurdle, like it’s. You know it. There’s a test, but there’s also you have to have documented sea time as well and and it was, you know, for me, like I was able to do that because I’d had I’d had a bunch of sea time. In had four different boats that we use, so there’d be one person who was an instructor, who was licensed by the Coast Guard, and then an assistant instructor who didn’t need a license, and so to keep the, to keep the program staffed, I had to have all these people who had that qualification, and they were rare. And not only that, they were used to, you know, sailing in the Caribbean on some tall ship or something like. It’s like come, come up to the Northwest for just a couple months in the summer and sail out on these little boats Like doesn’t that sound like fun? And you get to camp out with a bunch of teenagers. This is going to be a blast.
Melinda Van Fleet:
Well, I can’t even imagine. Yes, hiring is definitely a huge challenge in this lane. So I’m bucketing you in this lane of yeah lots of things that people don’t realize. People look from the outside, they just think that it’s easy and just you know, do it, and it’s like oh no, there’s a lot, so yeah, so yeah.
Brad Powell:
Right, I want to talk about one more thing, because you’ve done some really creative stuff around marketing, both for yourself and for what Ryan is doing with his fishing business, and when we talked earlier, you mentioned about the pink sock and you brought it. Oh, that’s so great, so okay, like we’re talking about short form video here, so talk about that Like what was it? What’s up with pink sock?
Melinda Van Fleet:
Yeah, I thought it was so cool when we were talking how, just organically, I ended up like sharing that and and that you wanted to talk about that today. So thank you, because I think what is really important is to be creative, and that’s where your intuition comes into play to be open, to listen and hear ideas. And you’re not thinking of something with your brain when a past data or you’re consuming something and like like someone else’s book, someone else’s tip sheet, a video like this. That is thinking. So they’re two very different things and if you dive further, you can say you know left brain and right brain, and that’s a lot of work I do with my clients. So what’s really important out of what I wanted to share was that my husband and I are very focused not only on data and strategy, but we’re very focused on being creative and following our intuition, as we always have, and my husband’s business.
Melinda Van Fleet:
In terms of the sport fishing we branched into coaching in 2020. And the coaching aspect of what he teaches is actually pretty technical. He is a master at what he does. It’s next level fishing and you know, it’s not for everybody, it’s more, for even though he can teach all levels, he does tend to be more advanced or intermediate. So what’s important is he’s actually super funny and really relatable and he wants that to come across to people. So a few years ago he started talking about in his content, very randomly, porgy hole or mutton face and honestly, as his wife and business partner, I was like that’s kind of like cheesy, like why are you saying stuff like that? He was like stick with me. So I listened, I zipped it and I listened and, sure enough, his audience and even his clients loved it. Like they loved his goofy sense of humor and it added this little bit into his content which made his content different than the sea of other sport fishing charters out there. So that’s what’s really important too. It’s like how do you stand out in this crowded sea and we’re in a very crowded sea, especially here in the Florida Keys, it’s the sport fishing capital of the world Like how do you stand out? And so many people are, just, you know, very vanilla in their content, even vanilla in their videos, even vanilla in how they show up on camera, and it’s like, okay, really take a look at that and see, you know, are you vanilla or are you really standing out? Are you really keeping people’s attention so they just don’t scroll you by.
Melinda Van Fleet:
So what happened? A couple months ago not even that long, you know, maybe two months ago I lost my sock. My husband started talking about pink socks and I was like pink socks, like where did that come from? So it just came to him pink socks, like no rhyme or reason. Just he kept saying he’s catching things on pink socks and a lot of people down here follow him. He gets stalked a lot, so it was kind of like a cheeky way to throw people off of his you know trail on the water.
Melinda Van Fleet:
And what happened was I was then sitting at my computer not thinking at all about him, about the business, nothing. I was just doing something else. And all of a sudden it dropped into my brain that’s your intuition that I actually had pink socks in my drawer and go get them and bring them to the Marina. So I did, I listened to the guidance, I went and got the socks and I brought them to the marina. My husband starts laughing. He goes oh my God, you actually have pink socks. And I was like, yeah, because we wear flip flops. So you know it’s not a normal thing for me to have lots of socks and I just gave them to him. I said, here, do what you want with the pink socks. Why is this important? Because it’s his energy, it’s his idea to be talking about pink socks, so I don’t want to dictate to him what to do with the pink socks, get it. So if I were to be like here, do this and this and this with the pink socks and he may not like that direction the energy of the whole piece of content would not work. So I literally just handed him the pink socks, I picked up my phone and I just started like filming him and on one take he did a YouTube short. It was under a minute, so we can make it a YouTube short with him in the bait, well, like digging out the pink sock. And it did really really well as a YouTube short and brought us at least like 30 new subscribers to our YouTube channel. And we convert our YouTube channel to fishing charters and to also being fishing clients for our coaching programs and there’s some crossover even between clients and coaching and it just worked.
Melinda Van Fleet:
And so after that I bought some more pink socks and then I just like, let them be, I just put them on the shelf. And then I got an intuition hit to take scissors and cut up a piece of the pink sock. And I did the same thing. I brought the piece of the pink sock to the marina.
Melinda Van Fleet:
Ryan got back from a charter. He had a nice big grouper. I just gave him the piece. I didn’t tell him what to do and he just did his little video where he stuck the pink sock in the grouper’s mouth. And again another hit on YouTube shorts which brought more subscribers. Another hit on YouTube Shorts which brought more subscribers. His clients yesterday actually thought that was like real, but it just added some life and made our content like different than all the other sport fishing captains out there.
Melinda Van Fleet:
And it’s unique to him. It’s his energetic blueprint and you know you can’t copy that right Like you can’t like copy doing the pink sock, like you probably look ridiculous because that’s not your energetic blueprint. So you have to really go. Okay, I like the general gist of what Melinda is talking about. How can I increase my you know, knowledge of my intuitive capabilities, listen, trust, take action, and then, you know, just do the thing and see what happens. It was, it’s been crazy. So we’re we’re not like going nuts on it. I did buy these pink socks too. So we figure, like every you know these pink socks too. So we figure, like every you know, couple weeks we’ll do something silly. But I just leave it to him, because it’s his energy, to do something creative with it. It’s not mine, I’m just a little helper and, yeah, it’s been super fun, and fun is really important right now to on social media. We need to be having some fun, but also have a little strategy behind it too, so it’s exactly.
Brad Powell:
Well, there is so much to unpack in there. I mean, first of all there’s this big lesson for just couples therapy, to listen when you have an idea for your spouse, for your partner, just share the nugget and let them run, don’t tell them what to do.
Melinda Van Fleet:
It’s so true, I’m not always perfect, though I will say.
Brad Powell:
Neither is anyone else. But I think there’s a really valuable lesson right there. That’s a really good one. But then the whole creative approach to this, I mean I really think there’s so much around being your own person, because it’s really true, when people do things in their content, whether it’s written or it’s video, they tend to take it really seriously and they tend to and they they tend to look at it as saying I need to share something really valuable information. Wise, here I’m going to teach.
Brad Powell:
They get into this, you know professorial teacher mode and say, well, the best thing I can do is share my best information, the stuff that is really going to be helpful. This is my goal and my mission, and they’re being really earnest and whatever. But the problem with that is that’s what everybody does Like, it’s the same like and you can’t out inform Google. You know, like all the information you’re sharing, whether it’s sport, fishing or anything else, is available. Like the basic information is, it’s out there, it exists. So if you bring a little bit of yourself into that content sharing, that’s what people are going to appreciate and that’s what makes you super relatable in what you’re up to.
Melinda Van Fleet:
Yep, A hundred percent. A hundred percent Because, yeah, when someone does the standard and I’ve done this too like what you said you think you’re sharing your really valuable piece of content. People just scroll on by now you know it’s just next, next, next. So how do you stand out to at least get their attention for that short piece of content, to then get them into your, into your sphere?
Brad Powell:
Yeah right, all right. Well, talk a little bit more about the work that you do with clients and sort of. I mean, it’s really kind of cool in that you have this one business with your husband. You guys are doing it together and it’s kind of like a real, a testing ground. Like and I don’t want to put him in this place, but your husband is a little bit of the guinea pig of all your marketing ideas and all your approach to like how do you grow a business, how do you make it work? And then you know, so there’s lessons learned there. You know this sort of practical testing ground of stuff and you can immediately take anything like that and approach it, you know, bring it and share it with your own clients.
Melinda Van Fleet:
So talk a little bit about that, that process coach or even a spiritual coach, because I definitely have a lot of experience to combine the two. And then, to your point, you know, yeah, my husband’s like my number one client, so so, um, yeah, so I definitely I’m very lucky I have my, you know, petri dish, and the things that we’ve done and achieved. Uh, we’ve been here in the Keys. It’ll be 15 years in October, so all of this just didn’t happen yesterday. It’s been a lot of learnings and I would say the biggest thing is I’m a really good listener and I can read energy. So I can read energy through what people say, I can read energy like through them and and just kind of tap in and just see like. And just kind of tap in and just see like, how do they feel about things. And then, since I have such a strong business background corporate world for 16 years with very large retailers you can go on LinkedIn and looked and then 12 years as an independent sales rep on the road, and then our business, obviously, which is tactical as a phishing charter and online as a coaching business since 2020, I have a lot of tools to use, a lot of experience, a lot of things to draw on to really help people understand. Then you know where are they at, where do they want to go, and there’s like a whole it’s called the stages of learning. I actually did a YouTube about this. It’s a great YouTube if someone wants to learn a little bit more and hear me walk through the stages of learning to get to mastery. So, because people want to get there but they don’t realize, like all that happens energetically, like with your belief system, not just mindset, mindset surface, like we’re talking. Delete your belief system, the patterns, the things that come up for you all the day long, that are holding you back and keeping you stuck. And you have to really have a really solid mentor that can help you see those things, call them out to you in a loving, compassionate way and a way of like, okay, how you know, why are you feeling like this? And this is, you know, goes into just understanding some different aspects of how to work with people and see things and a little bit into the coaching world. But, you know, asking some good questions and then sharing some different things to try and seeing what, what fits for them, what works for them. So I also do a lot of work with really helping people learn to understand their intuition, let’s say, and then trust it. So, because a lot of people will like have an intuitive hit, but then they’re listening to someone else over here that tells them to do this, that they should do that, and then they end up like totally like on the wrong page. So that’s just a really important piece of the journey too.
Melinda Van Fleet:
Three, the 3D like very tactical strategies and tips and tools and experience that I can share from my lens or with what I see going on in their business. And then also understand how to use and trust their intuition and the energetic piece of it too, to make sure that they feel good about what they’re doing. Like if my husband didn’t feel good about using the sock, I wouldn’t make him do that. I’d be like, okay, cool, whatever, 10 bucks was wasted on Amazon, or you know, I tried and it’s done, it’s in the garbage. Or just use the socks when they go to Indiana. So there’s just there’s a lot packed into it and I always encourage people. They can listen to my podcast, the Wake Up Call, or the Success Code, or watch a YouTube video. I always share more nuggets and it’s a little bit more gray than some other coaches, but I’ve also worked with a lot of coaches that put people in a box, and I just don’t want to operate like that. That’s not in alignment with me.
Brad Powell:
First of all, it’s really important work. Just, we tend to get in our own way so often and at the same time, we’re also inundated with tons and tons of stuff coming our way via the internet, via email, and every time I look at my inbox I will see all this stuff, l you know, luring me one in one direction or another, and it’s constant, never ending flow and it’s like no go away.
Melinda Van Fleet:
It’s so true, and it takes that strong willpower and to be able to say no, this is where I’m focused, and having a good coach or mentor and this goes across the board every coach can help you with this. You would understand this too with helping people with video, like no, we’re staying focused on really dialing in to learn how to do video and stay that course, because you know where attention goes, energy flows, like all those things. It’s actually true, that’s all really a real piece of it. It’s not just a meme that you read on Facebook. You really do have to stay focused, and a friend of mine contacted me if I wanted to be part of her. You know writing books for Amazon thing and I love her, I adore her. I appreciate that she asked me, but I’m like no, I’m just really focused right now on, um, what I’m, what I’m doing, so I’m not looking to write any more books. So she goes. I appreciate that. I’m like, yeah, I love you, I’ll refer you.
Brad Powell:
Yeah, cool, all right. Well, we are at the end of our time today. This is goes by super fast. Great conversation, thank you. If people want to follow up you’ve mentioned your podcast what’s the best way for them to reach out and say, okay, I want you to help me tune in to what’s going on inside me and my own trusting my gut process.
Melinda Van Fleet:
Yeah, so you can check out my website, melindavanfleetcom. You can message me on LinkedIn. I check in on LinkedIn a lot. That’s how Brad and I connected Facebook. I’m very accessible. You can Google my name. I take up Google, so it’s very simple to find me. So I appreciate you so much, brad, and I hope more people connect with you too, because you’re pretty amazing. So thank you.
Brad Powell:
Great Well, thanks so much again for coming on the show today. This has been fabulous. And for those of you listening at the end, I just want to remind you that if you’d like to go and grab the entire archive of the Standout Business Show, just go to standoutbusinessshow and it’s all there, All the video, all the audio you can binge to your heart’s content. And until the next time I’m going to say so long.
