July 28, 2025 • 39 mins
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Tired of complicated marketing strategies that don’t deliver? Melanie Gorman, founder of Crownsville Media, shares how to attract leads by being real, staying consistent, and ditching fear-based tactics. If you want a smarter, more human way to get clients—without the hype—this conversation is for you.
Melanie Gorman didn’t set out to be a digital strategist—she started her career in mental health. But like many purpose-driven professionals, she quickly realized that her impact would be limited unless she learned how to reach clients. That realization set her on a new path—one that turned her into a sought after marketing partner for therapists, coaches, and entrepreneurs who want to market themselves authentically.
In this lets-keep-it-real episode of the Business Growth Architect Show: Founders of the Future, Melanie shares how her background in therapy helped her decode the emotional blocks that keep many business owners stuck—especially when it comes to promoting themselves. From why we feel resistance to marketing, to the subtle self-worth issues that show up in client attraction, she goes into why we want to find and yet avoid doing the work to find leads and offers grounded, compassionate solutions. Melanie also outlines how to use your intake calls, website language, and SEO strategy to align with your values and attract leads—without ever resorting to fear-based messaging.
Marketing has a bad name, mostly because of outdated fear based tactics. This episode offers a mindset shift. Whether you’re burned out from bro-marketing, confused by SEO, or struggling to explain what makes you different, Melanie offers clarity, strategy, and a deep respect for the real humans behind every brand.
👉 To learn more about how Melanie and her team help service professionals grow with integrity, visit crownsvillemedia.com and book a free consultation.
Resources Mentioned: Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Melanie Gorman (00:00):
Hi, I'm Melanie Gorman. I'm the founder of
(00:02):
Crownsville Media, and on myepisode of the Business Growth
Architect Show, I share sometips and tricks that you can put
into practice right now for howto get leads from not just
somewhere, but from anywhere.
BEATE CHELETTE (00:15):
This is the Business Growth Architect Show
for founders who don't followtrends. They set them for
entrepreneurs who aren't here tofix the past, but to build the
future they actually want tolive in. Hi. My name is Beate
Chelette. I'm a Palisades firesurvivor strategist and the
entrepreneur behind a multimillion dollar tech exit Tuva
(00:36):
Gate. And every week I bring youthe fire real guests, real
strategy and the real talk onhow to control your mind move
fast and create your future.
This is where strategy needsenergy, because your next level
needs both. Let's grow andwelcome back your host, Beate
(00:56):
Chelette here from the BusinessGrowth Architect Show, and our
Founder of the Future is MelanieGorman from Crownsville Media.
And Melanie addresses somethingthat many of you struggle with,
and that is how to addressleads. Because you leads are
going to have to come fromsomewhere. Melanie, I'm really
excited to have you on the show
Melanie Gorman (01:16):
talk about slow to topic. Thank you for having
me.
BEATE CHELETTE (01:20):
Thank you so much. So Melanie, for somebody
who's never heard about you oris unfamiliar with your work,
tell us who you are and whatproblem you solve for your
clients.
Melanie Gorman (01:30):
So 20 some years ago, I trained to be a mental
health therapist, and not longafter doing that, I realized
that building a private therapypractice was very limited by all
the technology. So I got intodigital marketing. It's a long
story, but I got into it. Andwhat I re the problem I solve
for people is how to beauthentically themselves. So
(01:53):
what I realized was that it'sreally difficult to be a
therapist and find leads at thesame time, because so much of
what digital marketing asks usto do is to market based on
fear, like we have to scare ourclients. We have to talk about
their symptoms. We have to talkabout the things that they're
afraid of, and we have to pokeat those things in a way that
inspires or motivates someone towant to be a lead. And I think
(02:14):
there's a better way. I thinkthere's a way to be
authentically ourselves and berooted in our values and also
find people and help people outthere in the world. So that's
what I do today. That's theproblem I solve for my
BEATE CHELETTE (02:26):
clients. Is it a fair statement to say that
marketing in general? I mean, wesee the same thing in internet
marketing, in literally any,any, any industry. It's always
this fear based if you if youdon't solve the problem that
hurts the most then it can besolved. I always say myself, if
the fear, if the pain of stayingis not greater than your fear of
(02:47):
change, you will not make anychanges. So I think we are in
partially a trained environment,because that's what we expect
internet marketing to do. Youknow, the thing the IRS won't
tell you what Big Pharma hidesfrom you. It's like all these
kinds of language. Do you thinkthat stuff even works anymore?
Melanie Gorman (03:04):
I don't know. I feel like when somebody's
legitimately in a mental healthcrisis, when someone names the
crisis on their website, likeyou're you know you're anxious
and it's preventing you fromgoing to work, or your trauma is
preventing you from being inrelationships, people identify
with that, because that's whatthey feel, right? Those are
real, live things andexperiences that people have. So
(03:26):
I do think that naming theproblem is important, but
there's a way to name it andthen authentically lead people
to getting help, versus, like,really dragging them down into
the pain, right, and then overand kind of opening up the old
wound and saying that's the onlyway to get people to get help.
People are smarter than that. Ithink people are more
intelligent. The pandemicallowed our conversation about
(03:47):
mental health to change. Somental health is now everywhere.
You can see an ad from betterhelp on every YouTube video you
ever watch, if you just give ita second. So we're pedaling
mental health as opposed toauthentically trying to help
people own their mental healthand get better. And I think the
difference is, you name thesymptom, you talk about the pain
(04:08):
they're in, and then you leadthem to the empowering solution
that helps them to do something,as opposed to saying, you know,
your life is going to beterrible if you never do
something else. There's just adifferent way to do it.
BEATE CHELETTE (04:20):
Yeah, I agree with you that we certainly see a
lot of transformational changes,and I think a lot of the changes
are really good. I mean, I seethis in the internet marketing
world. We've talked about it onthe show, on other industries,
that a lot of this language justdoesn't work. So it's about, if
you understand, you're right.
It's about finding this, thiscorrect language between what
you really feel addressing theproblem without making it sort
(04:43):
of this manipulation tool. If Iunderstand this
Melanie Gorman (04:48):
correct exactly, I think there's a way to name
what people feel so that theysee themselves in your
marketing, right? And I thinkthat's a critical component. And
once that happens, you can lead.
Them with choices to what theywant to do next, instead of
pushing on the buttons ofcatastrophe and everything's
going to fall apart, and you'regoing to do this to your
(05:10):
children if you don't learn howto heal this thing. I just think
there's a more value based wayof doing marketing that allows
intelligent people to say, Iunderstand this is what's going
on for me, and I'd like to knowwhat my options are, because I
think you could talk to peoplein a straightforward way, and
they will do something. So Ithat is a way that lead gen,
when I work on that with myclients, really does turn the
(05:33):
corner. And people who don'totherwise like marketing feel
better about marketing, right?
Because the other side of it isthe therapist needs the client
to stay in business. I mean,that's a reality for all of us
of being in business. So therehas to be a way that we can kind
of let these two things livetogether. You do need to market
your business so people knowyour doors are open and that you
(05:56):
have availability and thatyou're not full or out of price
or and by that, I mean, likepriced out of their pocketbook,
because therapy is not aninexpensive thing in the United
States, it's very expensive. Soand at the same time, there's a
lot of different options for howto get therapy, so the more you
lead with information andeducation that's authentically
(06:17):
who you want to be to yourclients, the more the right
clients show up.
BEATE CHELETTE (06:22):
How did you figure this out for yourself?
Because I think that part of itis that we are trained by what
we see and the courses we takeand the programs we buy into. So
was there a moment for you whenyou looked into all of this and
said, Yeah, I get what they'redoing, but this is not for me,
and here's what I'm doinginstead, was the pivotal moment
you can share.
Melanie Gorman (06:42):
I have two I remember being in final years of
graduate school and talking to acareer counselor about what I
was going to do with thisdegree. And I said, well,
where's the class you take forhow to build a private therapy
practice? And she said, What doyou mean? We don't do that? And
I said, Well, I just took out$70,000 in loans, I would I have
(07:03):
to pay this back, right? So howdo I make an income? Because
this is 25 years ago, therapistswere making $8 an hour, right?
There's a chain of command whenyou become a therapist, where
you have to earn your hours, andyou have to do all this
effectively, pro bono work insome ways, and then low pay work
in other ways, and that's howyou earn the right to be a
(07:23):
therapist. You have to earn yourskill. It's not a cerebral
thing. You have to practice,right? So the practicing part is
just part of the journey.
Anyways, this person said to me,sorry, we don't teach people how
to build a business. And Ithought, That's absurd. Like you
would never go to get your MBA,and nobody taught you how to or
get a get a law degree, andnobody would teach you or mentor
(07:44):
you on the next steps, but itwas not available, And to this
day, has is not available in thein many universities like you
don't learn how to build abusiness. So that felt strange
to me, energetically,spiritually, it didn't make
sense to me either. Because wevalue the things we spend money
on, we value right the thingsthat we invest in we really put
(08:05):
a premium on in terms of how wespend our time, do we make good
use of it? So the idea thattherapy wasn't a valuable thing
to invest in didn't make senseto me either, because I think
our mental health is one of themost critical elements of living
a healthy, happy life. Yeah,that it wasn't valued in terms
of how to build a businessaround it as a practitioner, nor
(08:29):
was it valued at the rates thatpeople were charged to me. Set
up this dissonance around it. Icould not those two things
didn't add up. So I started onthis journey of trying to figure
it out. And that's the that wasthe moment that I thought, man,
there's something missing here,and I want to try to help figure
it out.
BEATE CHELETTE (08:49):
Well, as a matter of fact, I have the same
conversation with the lawyersthat I speak to and the doctors.
They also not taught how to runa business. And you know the
doctors that are going tomedical school, and now they're
surgeons. And you know, theyhave what half a million in in
medical school did, and now theyneed to figure out how to how to
make that money back. They gointo into hospitals, and then
(09:12):
they hate their work, and thenthey try to figure out how to do
their own so I think that theproblem on the education versus
the how to run a business withthe education, how to be
successful. That's a gap that,frankly, keeps you and me now in
business, but it is painful onhow some of these basic things
are not being managed. I thinkyou're the perfect person with
(09:32):
your background to ask, what'sthe psychology behind me? And
not wanting to figure out how todo the leads, or having such a
difficult time with it? What isit?
Melanie Gorman (09:43):
So that's such a great question. I mean, I feel
like people, there's a selfworth issue that shows up for
people they really do strugglewith. You know, I'm the right
person for the job because, Imean, that requires a level of
inner confidence, and not everyyou. Person that, in any
industry has done their ownwork, right? So I do think we
(10:04):
can only take people as far aswe've gone ourselves. And there
is a journey that all of us,independent of our profession,
are on, so spiritually,psychologically, like whatever
our backstories are, and we allhave them. We all came from
something, right, even if it wasperfect, you came from
something. So a person'swillingness to answer the
(10:24):
question of why I'm the rightperson, why I'm the right
therapist to help you, leadsinto feeds, into the marketing.
Right? Because when we'reconfident, confidence is not
like, I don't care what youthink confidence is. I feel
confident. I feel capable andlike I'm the right person for
the job independent of what youthink, right? So that is not
(10:45):
something that is a copywritergives you. It's not something
that's fed to you. It'ssomething you earn, right? And
you earn it by dealing with yourown demons and facing the things
from your past that cause you tonot feel like you can stand up
for yourself as a qualifiedprofessional. And I do think
that that interferes withclients all the time, right? All
(11:05):
the time. This is somethingwhere, yeah, one of the things
we do in in my agency is that weinterview people not unfamiliar
to this situation. We interviewthem to listen for their their
value, that they can't comeright out and say, right, we've
asked them questions to tell us,you know, so tell us why. If
(11:28):
someone comes to you foranxiety, depression, trauma,
like, how would you treat thisperson? What would you do? Like?
What are the ways you wouldapproach their unique situation?
How do you like? How much valueHave you put into helping people
based on your own training?
Because that's something thatmost therapists have in spade is
mountains of training they'vedone. You know, every CEU they
(11:48):
can, they go to, every class,they take, every extra study
thing that they can do. And it'sa testament to how seriously
they take the work that they do.
BEATE CHELETTE (11:59):
I see what you're describing these
challenges. I see, as I said,across all industries. I think
the question is like, what areyou really good at? Or what do
you want? Is just challengingfor people? I do agree with you.
I think that our psychology fromour childhood comes in, that the
stuff we've heard, also society,don't brag. And specifically for
(12:23):
women, I think we have an evenlarger thing to overcome,
because well behaved girls areseen but not heard. My mother
always told me, let the workspeak for itself. Don't brag.
And that just doesn't work atall in marketing, because then
we'll never work another dayagain. So let's, let's switch
gears here and talk about, okay,listening to this episode. I'm
(12:46):
going, you know what? I amconfident that I'm here to help
more people. How do we get themin the mindset, and then how do
we get them into the action setto, you know, figure out where
the leads are going to comefrom.
Melanie Gorman (12:58):
I mean, I think the best way to think about lead
gen is to get curious about theclient and how the client
behaves. This is morepsychology, right? But when I am
thinking about finding new leadsfor my business, I want to
understand how that person islooking for me. What are they
searching for? Where are theyattention based marketing is the
big thing. Now they don't. Youknow, everybody's talking about
(13:20):
AI, but attention basedmarketing is really where people
spend their attention. Is likeour we're so strapped for time.
If I give you 40 minutes of mylife to listen to this podcast,
I must really care about whatyou're talking about, because I
could spend that 40 minutesdoing absolutely anything so
understanding where your clientsspend time and where they're
(13:42):
willing to look for someone likeyou, and thinking less about how
you want to sell yourself andmore about how that person needs
to be talked to, is are reallygood clues. So I tend to go
spend a lot of time on placeslike Psychology Today, like what
are people looking for? But Idon't just look there. I look at
all the niche therapydirectories, because those are
(14:03):
small little ecosystems of wherepeople are looking for someone
like a therapist to figure out,to help them with their lives.
And you can spend a lot of timedoing that kind of curiosity
based research to figure out howyour ideal client is going
through, the journey, thebuyer's journey, to figure out
what they need. Once they figureout what they need, then your
(14:26):
marketing kind of begins at thatpoint. Because I feel like so
much of what we're seeing inthis transition away from Google
and into AI, right? Whether it'sGemini or it's perplexity or
it's Chad, what we're seeing isthat people want to think
through their problems in adifferent way, right? They want
to be able to ask a bunch ofquestions back and forth and
(14:46):
figure out the there's aninflection moment where they
can't solve it themselves.
That's the curiosity we all needto start taking and thinking
about it. Doesn't matter how theclient gets to you once. They
get to you, how do you becomethe solution? How do you become
the person that they pick oversomebody else? And I think a lot
of that comes from knowing whoyour ideal client is and how
(15:07):
they want to spend their time,what they're looking for in
terms of therapy services. Sothe mindset has to be one of a
curious student, right? And fortherapists, their absolute best
resource are their intake calls,right? Every person, every call
that comes into their office,every person that sends them an
(15:28):
email and says, This is what I'mlooking for. That's the stuff to
mine, because that's gold,right? And it's true. If you do
free consultations, like any ofthose things, provide that kind
of data for you, if you listento it, and I take every single
call that comes in to me, I makean effort to speak to people,
even if I know they're a wildlead, they're never going to go
(15:48):
anywhere, because what I'mcurious about always is what led
them to me, and I had my firstlead a therapist in Washington,
DC, because I'm in Maryland, soright there, and he's at the end
of the call. I said, How'd youfind me? And he goes, Oh, I want
chat GPT. And I was like, Oh,here it is, right the first one.
And I he was doing researcharound, you know, SEO
(16:11):
practitioners that specialize intherapists and have done this
work for mental health providersfor a long period of time. And
he did all of that work inChatGPT and then said, Well,
who's the best person to talkto? And I came up so that
mindset of being curious andthen representing that on the
website in a way that speaks tothe pain points the clients
(16:34):
have, but with that sort ofeducated human values
perspective, so you're able tosay, now that you're here, this
is what we can do together,right? And doing it your way. I
think the biggest compliment myclients get from their clients
is when they say, I felt like Iread your website and I was
having conversation with you,like the person I met on this
(16:55):
consultation is the same personthat was on my website. And I
think that marriage of curiositythat leads to the copy, that
leads to the confidence to saywho you really are, and being
clear about your values, beingclear about who you are and how
you what you stand for and whatyou can do for people, I think
all of those things together aregoing to get you the leads that
(17:16):
you're looking for.
BEATE CHELETTE (17:18):
So what I'm hearing you say now is it's
actually really interesting.
I've never heard it quite likethis before. Is that you were
saying that now AI is actuallychanging certain parameters or
algorithms on how things arebeing approved. I mean, we
always have heard this beauthentically you, because
everybody else is taken and thatnever makes any sense until
you're sort of in it. But Ithink this persona driven
(17:41):
marketing on how do I portraymyself with the watts of cash,
the fast planes, the girls, thethis or that, that was only
always attractive for a verysmall percentage of young men
that Aspire the girls, the carsand the watts of cash. I don't
think that even applies for 99%of everybody else, but it was
(18:03):
very successful and veryappealing. This, to me, is is
absolutely crazy making now, ifI am now more aligned, and
that's the purpose of this wholeshow, is to say, but I feel
mission driven. I have astronger purpose. How do I now
take this and create thisconsistency, consistency
(18:26):
throughout, which is what I'mhearing you say, there has to be
consistency in how I show up andhow I talk and how I do my job
and how I am in the world,because there's no more hiding.
Is that true?
Melanie Gorman (18:39):
I think so. And I think, I mean, look like I
think the more that you are, youeverywhere you go, it's easier
to it. Life becomes easier. Doyou know what I mean, like,
there's some without like this.
You know the way some peoplemarket their business? I mean,
they don't show up as them theirreal self, which takes a lot of
work to get ready. I mean, it'sa lot more than putting makeup
on in the morning, right, toactually show up as somebody who
(19:00):
isn't your real self, becauseyou're trying to score a lead or
you're trying to close a deal. Ithink some business, and this is
a reality check for people, somebusinesses don't have clients
because they're sellingsomething the world isn't really
interested in, right? So I dothink that when you get into
authentic marketing, part ofwhat you have to actually ask
yourself, is, is the worldinterested in what I'm selling
(19:22):
like I when I talk about doingSEO for people, I talk about, I
want to help optimize yourwebsites to strangers who are
looking for you can find you.
It's all great. When yourbusiness is referral based and
people are just showing upbecause of who you've been in
the world, that's great. But ifyou're trying to market to
Strangers. Strangers have towant what you're selling. And
(19:43):
when you get into, you know,this discussion about how to be
more authentic with myself,there is a question mark of, is
the world interested right?
There has to be somethingpragmatic about what you're
offering world. I had a clientnot too long ago who wanted to
sell a pro. Private art studiothat was so she bought the
space, and it was shetransformed it and made it into
(20:05):
a suite of businesses wheresomeone like you or me could go
rent the space and we could havea conference there. And it was
like different rooms were donein different ways, and one had
computers, and one had bigblackboards and all this sort of
creative space for a meetingspace. And her thinking was,
everything with business issuper stodgy. You've got to have
something out there in the worldwhere people can go and kind of
(20:28):
figure this out, and they canmake this space their own. They
can be super critical cookingclass or whatever, right? And it
failed utterly miserably, right?
Because she put this art space,this studio for big conferences,
in a small town in WestVirginia, right where there
wasn't an easy access point fromthe train station or from the
(20:51):
airports, and she didn't buildit and then market it and spend
money on advertising to get intouch with people from New York
or DC or even Philly that hadthe money to afford a space like
this, she just built this big,beautiful space in this
beautiful part of the world, andhad nobody show up. It was
complete crickets, right? Andhad to price it because of all
(21:14):
the renovations, so that you andI couldn't afford it for our
daughter's birthday parties,right? So she couldn't make
secondary use of it. There hasto be a pragmatic reason why
someone would invest their moneyin you, and it has to solve a
problem that people are awarethat they have without you
convincing them, right? Becauseif I have to convince every
person that this problem isreal, right, they're not aware
(21:37):
of it. They're not searching inchat, GPT, they're not doing all
this leg work to figure out howto solve the problem, right? So
find something that's practical.
I have
BEATE CHELETTE (21:45):
the best example. I always think about
the boundary coach. When theboundary coach called me and I
said, Do you think that peoplethat need boundaries have any
awareness that they needboundaries, or do you think that
they think the problem is otherpeople consistently take
advantage of them? That's 100%and to this day, I see boundary
(22:09):
coaches. And to your point, itis really important that you
have to address the problemthrough the lens of the person
that wants to buy it, because ifthey're not aware of the
problem, you don't have a sale,
Melanie Gorman (22:21):
not at all, not at all, because the whole buying
journey is something that wedon't talk about enough, right?
We spend so much time. I call itthe dance, right? We spend so
much time in my world, mentalhealth, right? So, okay, I feel
really rotten. I'm going to gothe internet and I want to
figure something out. Great,here's my symptoms, right? Okay,
great, Oh, okay. I need moresleep. I need some exercise,
right? I probably need to drinka little less. I need to, okay,
(22:43):
I'm gonna do these things, andthen you do those things, and it
doesn't solve your problem. Andyou go back to the internet, and
we do this dance back and forthand back and forth and back and
forth until we reach a pointwhere we cannot solve it
ourselves. And there is abecause we are also human beings
that think it's ourresponsibility to take care of
ourselves. Right now, you canmake arguments counter to that,
(23:05):
but I think most people outthere in the world don't look at
the world and say, fix me. Ithink they look at the world and
say, It's my responsibility, andI'm ashamed of the fact that I
can't figure this out, right?
Which is why Google got to be sopopular in the first place,
because you can look anything inthe world up at three o'clock in
the morning, right? And peopledo, and there's evidence that
people do based on data and, youknow, SEO tools like sem rush,
(23:26):
like you can see how many peoplelook anything up, right? So
knowing that you get a sense of,you know, the boundary stuff and
how absurd it can be, right, forpeople to think that that's the
coaching that they need. Findthe thing that they really need,
right? You want a relationship.
Your relationships don't workout. They don't work out
(23:46):
because, you know, like, whydon't they work out? Like,
what's Ha, so then flip it, havea conversation and ask some
questions. That's how lead gen,I think, really gets going, and
how we make a big difference in,you know, people having thriving
businesses versus strugglingbusinesses?
BEATE CHELETTE (24:02):
Yeah, I agree with you. And then, and then,
how would you address thevulnerability, the sharing of
who I am in all of this? And Iwant to give you, give you some
examples. We just lost our housein the Palisades fire a couple
months ago, and now my mother'sin the hospital. She's 90 years
old in Germany, so there's sortof a lot going on. How does
(24:25):
vulnerability of what I am goingthrough factor into this? And
the reason I'm asking you thisis because a lot of people feel
that they have to, that they canonly teach what they've already
solved, and they're worriedthat, if they're sharing, that
they're in the mid of figuringit out, that that somehow
reflects back on them. What'syour take on this?
Melanie Gorman (24:47):
I think there has to be a reason for it on
some level, right? Like, ifyou're you know you're gonna go
see your mother, I think sharingyour vulnerability that you know
there's a purpose to it attimes, right? So you're. Are
dealing with, you know, yourmom, and I think that that could
have an impact on your time. Itcould have an impact on your
(25:08):
focus, right? It could have animpact on how a client shares a
story and it chokes you up,right? Because you're in that
space. I think in all of thosethings, there's a good reason to
be vulnerable and to share that,arguably, you want to share that
with people you're safe with,you know what I mean, and people
that are not going to manipulatethat and use it for their own
benefit. I don't think, like alot of people ask me, Should
(25:32):
they share their whole story andtheir about page? I think your
about page on your website isincredibly important, right? So,
and therapists are trained notto self disclose like so there's
a big part of the therapisttraining where it's really about
it's all client focused. It'snot about me, it's about you,
right? So I take the line thatsharing your story is something
(25:53):
that is a personal decision,right, and you share it to be on
the same level with people,right? So you share it to be
human, right? Otherwise, attimes, it can feel like it's top
down, it's power focused, right?
Which is not the point of that,nor do. But I also don't think
that you need to shareeverything your life story isn't
required to be qualified to besomeone's therapist or to be
(26:16):
their coach or to do thosethings. So I think sharing
should be contextually relevant,and you should think about the
reason why you open up aboutcertain things. If it is like
the stuff with your mom, thenyou may need to share that
because you need people tounderstand and have compassion
for where you are. I
BEATE CHELETTE (26:35):
call it like a measured release of information.
And to your point, there has tobe a point to it, but I agree
that vulnerability is a it'salmost like I'm hearing you say
it's a tool to be useddeliberately, not recklessly.
Melanie Gorman (26:50):
Well, yes, I mean, I think everyone should,
has to think thoughtfully aboutbeing vulnerable with people
that are not safe to bevulnerable with, because,
unfortunately, not everybody hasa good heart, you know what I
mean? So no, and I do think thatthere are moments in life where
Loving yourself is reallycritical, and sometimes you just
(27:11):
have to say, I can't do ittoday. You know what I mean? I'm
having a hard one, or whateverthat might be. Like, being
honest about your situationwithout giving all the details
being vulnerable. Doesn'trequire a full self disclosure.
Right? Being vulnerable can be,you know, I need to take
personal day, yeah, or
BEATE CHELETTE (27:30):
I'm dealing with something family related, or
I've been really triggered, I'mgonna need to find my center. So
there's ways around it. So nowwe've covered that we can use
our website. We've covered thatwe need to be consistent in how
we show up in all areas of ourlives. We talked about
vulnerability, measuredvulnerability, so now, how does
(27:50):
all of this help me to getbetter SEO and get the leads in?
Melanie Gorman (27:54):
So I think they're two separate questions.
SEO is really going to come downto understanding how strangers
look for you. I mentioned that alittle bit ago, like thinking
through and using data to giveevidence that people are looking
for whatever it is you'reselling in whatever way you want
to sell it, so someone like mecan help you figure out, like,
what that data is, because thereshould be evidence. There should
(28:16):
be something that's not myopinion that says this is
valuable, because that's notenough to get the lead right.
So, and then getting the leadsonce you know the data is about
having two sides your websiteand your content reflect your
educated opinions about whateveryou're talking about, right? So
blogging is really important,right? So that you're having an
(28:38):
ongoing conversation withGoogle. So, and the way that
things are working with AI rightnow, your blog and your landing
pages of your website are arefed into the AI systems, and
pieces of them are exposed basedon the questions that people
ask. So couple data points foryou. The average Google search
(28:59):
is three or four words. Theaverage chat GPT search is 23 or
24 words, right? So we don'talways know the questions that
we're trying to ask, and we needworkshopping. We need to think
it through. And chat GPT, AI ofall perplexity or whatever, when
you use they give people thisopportunity to be really human
(29:20):
and and to ask these kinds ofquestions, and then make your
way down through the buyer'sjourney, and then eventually get
to a place of saying, What do Ido? Where do I go? Who can help
me? So your website has to befully optimized to be discovered
for that answer, right? And yourblogs, all your content, really
feeds into the AI engine and andhelps expose you as a trusted
(29:43):
source. What and a chatGPT andGemini are very different. They
gather data from differentsources. So the second part of
everything is marketing. Andmarketing is finding your group
of people sharing your content.
Whether it's a podcast or it's ablog, social media, posts like
sharing that and developing arelationship with those small
(30:05):
pockets of people that are intowhat you're talking about. So
you prove that there's interest,and then you become a
contributor to that discussion.
YouTube, second biggest searchengine in the world, right? So
if you're a video person, bethere. Have be in that
conversation. But you have tounderstand, you know, the value
(30:28):
of a long form and a short formvideo, right? And they're
incredibly different. Somarketing, after you've figured
out your niche, and then you'rein the place of being in this
ongoing conversation, is aboutlistening and understanding. Are
people paying attention? Lookingat your analytics, like, which
of your podcasts do people paythe most attention to? There's a
(30:49):
clues there for what you shoulddo. More of your leads come from
people being interested in whatyou have to say organically,
like not because you pushed iton them, but because they found
you and they want you. My leads,by and large, come from the
website. I have the blogs thatI've written, and I just started
doing podcasts and being guestson podcasts, so this is new for
(31:11):
me, so, but the majority of myleads come from referrals,
right? So I'm very clear withclients, like, I'm full, I can't
take anybody else, or I'm open,and I have room in my calendar,
right? And my clients on theregular refer people to me,
because I do a good job, right?
And when you do a good job, wordof mouth spreads, but you have
to, you have to feed all ofthose things. You have to work
(31:33):
all of those things. And then,you know, it's kind of like
you're Geppetto in your in yourworkshop, like you're really
kind of tweaking things andtinkering, and you're in
relationship with yourmarketing. So it's not one and
done, right? It's somethingyou're into and you're doing all
the time, and that's whereyou're that's where the gold is,
BEATE CHELETTE (31:54):
yeah, and then you think you have it figured
out, and then something happens,and then there is an event, or
the market changes, or AI showsup, or something, something, and
then you have to go back andrearrange everything. We've been
doing this for a very long time.
A lot of our our our organicexposure comes through LinkedIn
and the newsletter and theoutreach and podcasting is a
(32:16):
long term game. You down to twopodcasts. You have to have
hundreds for this SEO and thelinks to really work like you.
I've gotten my first clientthrough chatgpt Because I'm the
authority. It's called Open AIfor a reason, so other people
will have access to your stuff,and you can do a lot of really
(32:39):
good competitor research rightnow, because they are doing
their stuff in AI, and becauseit's open, you can see it, but
then it has other benefits onthe other side as well. So now,
is there anything specific aswe're closing our interview? Is
anything specific on my websitethat I should be watching out
for, like, is it better to haveSEO done professionally? Are
(33:03):
there, like, any sort of, okay,do these, like three things, you
know, if you do nothing else, dothese three things to help our
audience.
Melanie Gorman (33:12):
So make sure that you are using a tool for
keywords. You want to make surethat you have, you know, legit
keyword research where you cansay 320 people look this phrase
up over the year, and you canestablish the roots of it,
right, so that your website isread in a particular way. And
(33:33):
you want to make sure all of theSEO fields are filled out. Page
title, meta description, one h1,tag, your H twos and your H
threes make sense, and they'resort of nested. The way I
explain that to clients is,think of SEO like a book, right?
So your book is your one h1 tag,so title of your book is your h1
your chapters are your H twos,and the sub sections in your
(33:55):
chapters are your H threes. Soyour H threes are these are not
design elements. There arespecific ways that you're
talking to these engines, andyou're saying like, this is
hierarchically more importantthan something else. So make
sure you fill all of that stuffout and that you're using all of
the SEO tool like so you know,in addition your heading tags,
(34:17):
your alt text, so that peoplecan understand your images,
right? You make sure your anchortext makes sense. Anchor text is
the words that you're using in alink. Don't stuff them with your
keywords, right? So use all ofthe fields that you can for SEO.
And I guess the last thing Iwould say is make sure that
you're regularly producing somekind of content, and that you
(34:39):
understand which AI engine istaking it in, right? So for
example, chat GPT doesn't takein YouTube videos, right? So
thinking through things likethat, right? Gemini is the
Google based AI, and it's takingin all Google features, right?
So if you're a big YouTubeperson, you should play. On
(35:00):
really targeting Gemini, sounderstand the different engines
and how they work. And you couldjust get a graph of this, and
it'll show you, this one doesthis, and this one does that,
like all of stuff is availableout there in the world. Do I
think people can do SEO on theirown? You know, bias to be fair,
BEATE CHELETTE (35:17):
right? No, it's very hard to do it consistently.
And we have a team, and we arevery good. I think we got better
at it, but I wished I hadsomebody that I I would feel
does it consistently and is notjust somebody who randomly fills
out stuff, because that thechallenge that I find, is people
(35:38):
look at me as the boss of thiscompany to tell them what to do.
I want subject matter experts totell me what I should be doing.
And I think this is the SEOdiscrepancy.
Melanie Gorman (35:50):
Yeah, that's how I get hired by people. People
say to me, they're like, this isa world I don't understand,
right? And you know theconcentric circles for me, 85%
of my clients are in the mentalhealth space, right? So they
will say, like, you speak mylanguage, that's why I'm the
right person. And do this like,tell me what to do. And I think
a good SEO agency is going togive you very tactical advice
(36:13):
where you can take action onthings and set your expectations
fairly, because your pointearlier was the right one, SEO
is a long game, right? And thoseof us that have been doing SEO,
the move over to to AI, it'slike a wave, right? But there's
been waves all the time. Theyjust Google released a June
update, core update today,right? And people like me are
(36:37):
going to go, oh golly, like,here we go again, right? But
here we go again. Is always inplay, right? So that's just
something that you know, youwant an agency you work with to
be able to give you advice andto be in the game of it, right?
Like I'm talking to my clientsabout AI every day, right? I'm
not shying away from it, right?
We have to talk about this. Wehave to talk about how to use
(36:58):
it. We have to talk about whatmakes sense, what's ethical, all
that good stuff. So I think thatthe robotics of SEO tools are
really helpful for becausethey'll evaluate your page. Did
you do everything properly basedon the focus keyword? Great,
right? But there's more to it,right? So those are the pieces
that sometimes having agencyhelp can be
BEATE CHELETTE (37:17):
better. I think you are absolutely correct.
There's a difference betweenhiring somebody who is an SEO
specialist and all the HYPEE,HYPEE, LinkedIn, outreach, the
link building and the SEO stuff,proceed with caution, because a
lot of that stuff is notproperly researched, is not
(37:38):
geared toward you. They just goand do a couple of on page
things, but they don't really goin the meat of what needs to be
what needs to be fixed, becausethen, you know, as you said,
then you need to go back in yourwhat's a paragraph, what's a
headline, what's a headline towhat's a sub chapter, what are
my bullet points? What's bold?
Because all of these are beingread and weighted in SEO, and so
(37:58):
you want to be deliberate aboutit, what stands out to be the
more important. And having apartner certainly makes it a lot
easier. If it's somebody's fulltime job, I probably shouldn't
be doing it only one so Melanie,for somebody who has now
listened to this interview andsaid, My gosh, I need to speak
to her, where do we sent them.
Melanie Gorman (38:21):
So my website is crownsvillemedia.com I'm sure
you'll put a little link in, andI have a free consultation. You
can just go the contact page andget in touch with me. I own it.
I answer everybody's email. So,yeah, happy to talk to anybody
BEATE CHELETTE (38:35):
wonderful. Yeah, I'd make sure you mentioned the
show. Well, thank you so much.
You've been amazing. I reallyliked our non threatening, non
hype conversation about whatanybody can do to have your
leads come from somewhere. Sothank you so much for
Melanie Gorman (38:47):
being on the show you got. Thank you for
having me, and that's it
BEATE CHELETTE (38:51):
for us, for today. So as you can tell, SEO
does not have to be scary, andit does not have to be language
that nobody can understand. It'sactually something that makes a
lot of sense the way we talkedabout it today. So please reach
out to Melanie, and if you foundthis show helpful, please share
it with somebody who needs tohear what we have said today.
Thank you so much, and untilnext time and GOODBYE, that's it
(39:13):
for this episode of the BusinessGrowth Architect Show, founders
of the future, if you're doneplaying small and ready to build
the future on your terms,subscribe, share and help us
reach more Trailblazers likeyou. And if you're serious about
creating, growing and scaling abusiness that's aligned with who
you are, schedule your uncoverysession at uncoverysession.com.
Lead with vision. Move withpurpose. Create your future you.
Hi, I'm Melanie Gorman. I'm the founder of
(00:02):
Crownsville Media, and on myepisode of the Business Growth
Architect Show, I share sometips and tricks that you can put
into practice right now for howto get leads from not just
somewhere, but from anywhere.
BEATE CHELETTE (00:15):
This is the Business Growth Architect Show
for founders who don't followtrends. They set them for
entrepreneurs who aren't here tofix the past, but to build the
future they actually want tolive in. Hi. My name is Beate
Chelette. I'm a Palisades firesurvivor strategist and the
entrepreneur behind a multimillion dollar tech exit Tuva
(00:36):
Gate. And every week I bring youthe fire real guests, real
strategy and the real talk onhow to control your mind move
fast and create your future.
This is where strategy needsenergy, because your next level
needs both. Let's grow andwelcome back your host, Beate
(00:56):
Chelette here from the BusinessGrowth Architect Show, and our
Founder of the Future is MelanieGorman from Crownsville Media.
And Melanie addresses somethingthat many of you struggle with,
and that is how to addressleads. Because you leads are
going to have to come fromsomewhere. Melanie, I'm really
excited to have you on the show
Melanie Gorman (01:16):
talk about slow to topic. Thank you for having
me.
BEATE CHELETTE (01:20):
Thank you so much. So Melanie, for somebody
who's never heard about you oris unfamiliar with your work,
tell us who you are and whatproblem you solve for your
clients.
Melanie Gorman (01:30):
So 20 some years ago, I trained to be a mental
health therapist, and not longafter doing that, I realized
that building a private therapypractice was very limited by all
the technology. So I got intodigital marketing. It's a long
story, but I got into it. Andwhat I re the problem I solve
for people is how to beauthentically themselves. So
(01:53):
what I realized was that it'sreally difficult to be a
therapist and find leads at thesame time, because so much of
what digital marketing asks usto do is to market based on
fear, like we have to scare ourclients. We have to talk about
their symptoms. We have to talkabout the things that they're
afraid of, and we have to pokeat those things in a way that
inspires or motivates someone towant to be a lead. And I think
(02:14):
there's a better way. I thinkthere's a way to be
authentically ourselves and berooted in our values and also
find people and help people outthere in the world. So that's
what I do today. That's theproblem I solve for my
BEATE CHELETTE (02:26):
clients. Is it a fair statement to say that
marketing in general? I mean, wesee the same thing in internet
marketing, in literally any,any, any industry. It's always
this fear based if you if youdon't solve the problem that
hurts the most then it can besolved. I always say myself, if
the fear, if the pain of stayingis not greater than your fear of
(02:47):
change, you will not make anychanges. So I think we are in
partially a trained environment,because that's what we expect
internet marketing to do. Youknow, the thing the IRS won't
tell you what Big Pharma hidesfrom you. It's like all these
kinds of language. Do you thinkthat stuff even works anymore?
Melanie Gorman (03:04):
I don't know. I feel like when somebody's
legitimately in a mental healthcrisis, when someone names the
crisis on their website, likeyou're you know you're anxious
and it's preventing you fromgoing to work, or your trauma is
preventing you from being inrelationships, people identify
with that, because that's whatthey feel, right? Those are
real, live things andexperiences that people have. So
(03:26):
I do think that naming theproblem is important, but
there's a way to name it andthen authentically lead people
to getting help, versus, like,really dragging them down into
the pain, right, and then overand kind of opening up the old
wound and saying that's the onlyway to get people to get help.
People are smarter than that. Ithink people are more
intelligent. The pandemicallowed our conversation about
(03:47):
mental health to change. Somental health is now everywhere.
You can see an ad from betterhelp on every YouTube video you
ever watch, if you just give ita second. So we're pedaling
mental health as opposed toauthentically trying to help
people own their mental healthand get better. And I think the
difference is, you name thesymptom, you talk about the pain
(04:08):
they're in, and then you leadthem to the empowering solution
that helps them to do something,as opposed to saying, you know,
your life is going to beterrible if you never do
something else. There's just adifferent way to do it.
BEATE CHELETTE (04:20):
Yeah, I agree with you that we certainly see a
lot of transformational changes,and I think a lot of the changes
are really good. I mean, I seethis in the internet marketing
world. We've talked about it onthe show, on other industries,
that a lot of this language justdoesn't work. So it's about, if
you understand, you're right.
It's about finding this, thiscorrect language between what
you really feel addressing theproblem without making it sort
(04:43):
of this manipulation tool. If Iunderstand this
Melanie Gorman (04:48):
correct exactly, I think there's a way to name
what people feel so that theysee themselves in your
marketing, right? And I thinkthat's a critical component. And
once that happens, you can lead.
Them with choices to what theywant to do next, instead of
pushing on the buttons ofcatastrophe and everything's
going to fall apart, and you'regoing to do this to your
(05:10):
children if you don't learn howto heal this thing. I just think
there's a more value based wayof doing marketing that allows
intelligent people to say, Iunderstand this is what's going
on for me, and I'd like to knowwhat my options are, because I
think you could talk to peoplein a straightforward way, and
they will do something. So Ithat is a way that lead gen,
when I work on that with myclients, really does turn the
(05:33):
corner. And people who don'totherwise like marketing feel
better about marketing, right?
Because the other side of it isthe therapist needs the client
to stay in business. I mean,that's a reality for all of us
of being in business. So therehas to be a way that we can kind
of let these two things livetogether. You do need to market
your business so people knowyour doors are open and that you
(05:56):
have availability and thatyou're not full or out of price
or and by that, I mean, likepriced out of their pocketbook,
because therapy is not aninexpensive thing in the United
States, it's very expensive. Soand at the same time, there's a
lot of different options for howto get therapy, so the more you
lead with information andeducation that's authentically
(06:17):
who you want to be to yourclients, the more the right
clients show up.
BEATE CHELETTE (06:22):
How did you figure this out for yourself?
Because I think that part of itis that we are trained by what
we see and the courses we takeand the programs we buy into. So
was there a moment for you whenyou looked into all of this and
said, Yeah, I get what they'redoing, but this is not for me,
and here's what I'm doinginstead, was the pivotal moment
you can share.
Melanie Gorman (06:42):
I have two I remember being in final years of
graduate school and talking to acareer counselor about what I
was going to do with thisdegree. And I said, well,
where's the class you take forhow to build a private therapy
practice? And she said, What doyou mean? We don't do that? And
I said, Well, I just took out$70,000 in loans, I would I have
(07:03):
to pay this back, right? So howdo I make an income? Because
this is 25 years ago, therapistswere making $8 an hour, right?
There's a chain of command whenyou become a therapist, where
you have to earn your hours, andyou have to do all this
effectively, pro bono work insome ways, and then low pay work
in other ways, and that's howyou earn the right to be a
(07:23):
therapist. You have to earn yourskill. It's not a cerebral
thing. You have to practice,right? So the practicing part is
just part of the journey.
Anyways, this person said to me,sorry, we don't teach people how
to build a business. And Ithought, That's absurd. Like you
would never go to get your MBA,and nobody taught you how to or
get a get a law degree, andnobody would teach you or mentor
(07:44):
you on the next steps, but itwas not available, And to this
day, has is not available in thein many universities like you
don't learn how to build abusiness. So that felt strange
to me, energetically,spiritually, it didn't make
sense to me either. Because wevalue the things we spend money
on, we value right the thingsthat we invest in we really put
(08:05):
a premium on in terms of how wespend our time, do we make good
use of it? So the idea thattherapy wasn't a valuable thing
to invest in didn't make senseto me either, because I think
our mental health is one of themost critical elements of living
a healthy, happy life. Yeah,that it wasn't valued in terms
of how to build a businessaround it as a practitioner, nor
(08:29):
was it valued at the rates thatpeople were charged to me. Set
up this dissonance around it. Icould not those two things
didn't add up. So I started onthis journey of trying to figure
it out. And that's the that wasthe moment that I thought, man,
there's something missing here,and I want to try to help figure
it out.
BEATE CHELETTE (08:49):
Well, as a matter of fact, I have the same
conversation with the lawyersthat I speak to and the doctors.
They also not taught how to runa business. And you know the
doctors that are going tomedical school, and now they're
surgeons. And you know, theyhave what half a million in in
medical school did, and now theyneed to figure out how to how to
make that money back. They gointo into hospitals, and then
(09:12):
they hate their work, and thenthey try to figure out how to do
their own so I think that theproblem on the education versus
the how to run a business withthe education, how to be
successful. That's a gap that,frankly, keeps you and me now in
business, but it is painful onhow some of these basic things
are not being managed. I thinkyou're the perfect person with
(09:32):
your background to ask, what'sthe psychology behind me? And
not wanting to figure out how todo the leads, or having such a
difficult time with it? What isit?
Melanie Gorman (09:43):
So that's such a great question. I mean, I feel
like people, there's a selfworth issue that shows up for
people they really do strugglewith. You know, I'm the right
person for the job because, Imean, that requires a level of
inner confidence, and not everyyou. Person that, in any
industry has done their ownwork, right? So I do think we
(10:04):
can only take people as far aswe've gone ourselves. And there
is a journey that all of us,independent of our profession,
are on, so spiritually,psychologically, like whatever
our backstories are, and we allhave them. We all came from
something, right, even if it wasperfect, you came from
something. So a person'swillingness to answer the
(10:24):
question of why I'm the rightperson, why I'm the right
therapist to help you, leadsinto feeds, into the marketing.
Right? Because when we'reconfident, confidence is not
like, I don't care what youthink confidence is. I feel
confident. I feel capable andlike I'm the right person for
the job independent of what youthink, right? So that is not
(10:45):
something that is a copywritergives you. It's not something
that's fed to you. It'ssomething you earn, right? And
you earn it by dealing with yourown demons and facing the things
from your past that cause you tonot feel like you can stand up
for yourself as a qualifiedprofessional. And I do think
that that interferes withclients all the time, right? All
(11:05):
the time. This is somethingwhere, yeah, one of the things
we do in in my agency is that weinterview people not unfamiliar
to this situation. We interviewthem to listen for their their
value, that they can't comeright out and say, right, we've
asked them questions to tell us,you know, so tell us why. If
(11:28):
someone comes to you foranxiety, depression, trauma,
like, how would you treat thisperson? What would you do? Like?
What are the ways you wouldapproach their unique situation?
How do you like? How much valueHave you put into helping people
based on your own training?
Because that's something thatmost therapists have in spade is
mountains of training they'vedone. You know, every CEU they
(11:48):
can, they go to, every class,they take, every extra study
thing that they can do. And it'sa testament to how seriously
they take the work that they do.
BEATE CHELETTE (11:59):
I see what you're describing these
challenges. I see, as I said,across all industries. I think
the question is like, what areyou really good at? Or what do
you want? Is just challengingfor people? I do agree with you.
I think that our psychology fromour childhood comes in, that the
stuff we've heard, also society,don't brag. And specifically for
(12:23):
women, I think we have an evenlarger thing to overcome,
because well behaved girls areseen but not heard. My mother
always told me, let the workspeak for itself. Don't brag.
And that just doesn't work atall in marketing, because then
we'll never work another dayagain. So let's, let's switch
gears here and talk about, okay,listening to this episode. I'm
(12:46):
going, you know what? I amconfident that I'm here to help
more people. How do we get themin the mindset, and then how do
we get them into the action setto, you know, figure out where
the leads are going to comefrom.
Melanie Gorman (12:58):
I mean, I think the best way to think about lead
gen is to get curious about theclient and how the client
behaves. This is morepsychology, right? But when I am
thinking about finding new leadsfor my business, I want to
understand how that person islooking for me. What are they
searching for? Where are theyattention based marketing is the
big thing. Now they don't. Youknow, everybody's talking about
(13:20):
AI, but attention basedmarketing is really where people
spend their attention. Is likeour we're so strapped for time.
If I give you 40 minutes of mylife to listen to this podcast,
I must really care about whatyou're talking about, because I
could spend that 40 minutesdoing absolutely anything so
understanding where your clientsspend time and where they're
(13:42):
willing to look for someone likeyou, and thinking less about how
you want to sell yourself andmore about how that person needs
to be talked to, is are reallygood clues. So I tend to go
spend a lot of time on placeslike Psychology Today, like what
are people looking for? But Idon't just look there. I look at
all the niche therapydirectories, because those are
(14:03):
small little ecosystems of wherepeople are looking for someone
like a therapist to figure out,to help them with their lives.
And you can spend a lot of timedoing that kind of curiosity
based research to figure out howyour ideal client is going
through, the journey, thebuyer's journey, to figure out
what they need. Once they figureout what they need, then your
(14:26):
marketing kind of begins at thatpoint. Because I feel like so
much of what we're seeing inthis transition away from Google
and into AI, right? Whether it'sGemini or it's perplexity or
it's Chad, what we're seeing isthat people want to think
through their problems in adifferent way, right? They want
to be able to ask a bunch ofquestions back and forth and
(14:46):
figure out the there's aninflection moment where they
can't solve it themselves.
That's the curiosity we all needto start taking and thinking
about it. Doesn't matter how theclient gets to you once. They
get to you, how do you becomethe solution? How do you become
the person that they pick oversomebody else? And I think a lot
of that comes from knowing whoyour ideal client is and how
(15:07):
they want to spend their time,what they're looking for in
terms of therapy services. Sothe mindset has to be one of a
curious student, right? And fortherapists, their absolute best
resource are their intake calls,right? Every person, every call
that comes into their office,every person that sends them an
(15:28):
email and says, This is what I'mlooking for. That's the stuff to
mine, because that's gold,right? And it's true. If you do
free consultations, like any ofthose things, provide that kind
of data for you, if you listento it, and I take every single
call that comes in to me, I makean effort to speak to people,
even if I know they're a wildlead, they're never going to go
(15:48):
anywhere, because what I'mcurious about always is what led
them to me, and I had my firstlead a therapist in Washington,
DC, because I'm in Maryland, soright there, and he's at the end
of the call. I said, How'd youfind me? And he goes, Oh, I want
chat GPT. And I was like, Oh,here it is, right the first one.
And I he was doing researcharound, you know, SEO
(16:11):
practitioners that specialize intherapists and have done this
work for mental health providersfor a long period of time. And
he did all of that work inChatGPT and then said, Well,
who's the best person to talkto? And I came up so that
mindset of being curious andthen representing that on the
website in a way that speaks tothe pain points the clients
(16:34):
have, but with that sort ofeducated human values
perspective, so you're able tosay, now that you're here, this
is what we can do together,right? And doing it your way. I
think the biggest compliment myclients get from their clients
is when they say, I felt like Iread your website and I was
having conversation with you,like the person I met on this
(16:55):
consultation is the same personthat was on my website. And I
think that marriage of curiositythat leads to the copy, that
leads to the confidence to saywho you really are, and being
clear about your values, beingclear about who you are and how
you what you stand for and whatyou can do for people, I think
all of those things together aregoing to get you the leads that
(17:16):
you're looking for.
BEATE CHELETTE (17:18):
So what I'm hearing you say now is it's
actually really interesting.
I've never heard it quite likethis before. Is that you were
saying that now AI is actuallychanging certain parameters or
algorithms on how things arebeing approved. I mean, we
always have heard this beauthentically you, because
everybody else is taken and thatnever makes any sense until
you're sort of in it. But Ithink this persona driven
(17:41):
marketing on how do I portraymyself with the watts of cash,
the fast planes, the girls, thethis or that, that was only
always attractive for a verysmall percentage of young men
that Aspire the girls, the carsand the watts of cash. I don't
think that even applies for 99%of everybody else, but it was
(18:03):
very successful and veryappealing. This, to me, is is
absolutely crazy making now, ifI am now more aligned, and
that's the purpose of this wholeshow, is to say, but I feel
mission driven. I have astronger purpose. How do I now
take this and create thisconsistency, consistency
(18:26):
throughout, which is what I'mhearing you say, there has to be
consistency in how I show up andhow I talk and how I do my job
and how I am in the world,because there's no more hiding.
Is that true?
Melanie Gorman (18:39):
I think so. And I think, I mean, look like I
think the more that you are, youeverywhere you go, it's easier
to it. Life becomes easier. Doyou know what I mean, like,
there's some without like this.
You know the way some peoplemarket their business? I mean,
they don't show up as them theirreal self, which takes a lot of
work to get ready. I mean, it'sa lot more than putting makeup
on in the morning, right, toactually show up as somebody who
(19:00):
isn't your real self, becauseyou're trying to score a lead or
you're trying to close a deal. Ithink some business, and this is
a reality check for people, somebusinesses don't have clients
because they're sellingsomething the world isn't really
interested in, right? So I dothink that when you get into
authentic marketing, part ofwhat you have to actually ask
yourself, is, is the worldinterested in what I'm selling
(19:22):
like I when I talk about doingSEO for people, I talk about, I
want to help optimize yourwebsites to strangers who are
looking for you can find you.
It's all great. When yourbusiness is referral based and
people are just showing upbecause of who you've been in
the world, that's great. But ifyou're trying to market to
Strangers. Strangers have towant what you're selling. And
(19:43):
when you get into, you know,this discussion about how to be
more authentic with myself,there is a question mark of, is
the world interested right?
There has to be somethingpragmatic about what you're
offering world. I had a clientnot too long ago who wanted to
sell a pro. Private art studiothat was so she bought the
space, and it was shetransformed it and made it into
(20:05):
a suite of businesses wheresomeone like you or me could go
rent the space and we could havea conference there. And it was
like different rooms were donein different ways, and one had
computers, and one had bigblackboards and all this sort of
creative space for a meetingspace. And her thinking was,
everything with business issuper stodgy. You've got to have
something out there in the worldwhere people can go and kind of
(20:28):
figure this out, and they canmake this space their own. They
can be super critical cookingclass or whatever, right? And it
failed utterly miserably, right?
Because she put this art space,this studio for big conferences,
in a small town in WestVirginia, right where there
wasn't an easy access point fromthe train station or from the
(20:51):
airports, and she didn't buildit and then market it and spend
money on advertising to get intouch with people from New York
or DC or even Philly that hadthe money to afford a space like
this, she just built this big,beautiful space in this
beautiful part of the world, andhad nobody show up. It was
complete crickets, right? Andhad to price it because of all
(21:14):
the renovations, so that you andI couldn't afford it for our
daughter's birthday parties,right? So she couldn't make
secondary use of it. There hasto be a pragmatic reason why
someone would invest their moneyin you, and it has to solve a
problem that people are awarethat they have without you
convincing them, right? Becauseif I have to convince every
person that this problem isreal, right, they're not aware
(21:37):
of it. They're not searching inchat, GPT, they're not doing all
this leg work to figure out howto solve the problem, right? So
find something that's practical.
I have
BEATE CHELETTE (21:45):
the best example. I always think about
the boundary coach. When theboundary coach called me and I
said, Do you think that peoplethat need boundaries have any
awareness that they needboundaries, or do you think that
they think the problem is otherpeople consistently take
advantage of them? That's 100%and to this day, I see boundary
(22:09):
coaches. And to your point, itis really important that you
have to address the problemthrough the lens of the person
that wants to buy it, because ifthey're not aware of the
problem, you don't have a sale,
Melanie Gorman (22:21):
not at all, not at all, because the whole buying
journey is something that wedon't talk about enough, right?
We spend so much time. I call itthe dance, right? We spend so
much time in my world, mentalhealth, right? So, okay, I feel
really rotten. I'm going to gothe internet and I want to
figure something out. Great,here's my symptoms, right? Okay,
great, Oh, okay. I need moresleep. I need some exercise,
right? I probably need to drinka little less. I need to, okay,
(22:43):
I'm gonna do these things, andthen you do those things, and it
doesn't solve your problem. Andyou go back to the internet, and
we do this dance back and forthand back and forth and back and
forth until we reach a pointwhere we cannot solve it
ourselves. And there is abecause we are also human beings
that think it's ourresponsibility to take care of
ourselves. Right now, you canmake arguments counter to that,
(23:05):
but I think most people outthere in the world don't look at
the world and say, fix me. Ithink they look at the world and
say, It's my responsibility, andI'm ashamed of the fact that I
can't figure this out, right?
Which is why Google got to be sopopular in the first place,
because you can look anything inthe world up at three o'clock in
the morning, right? And peopledo, and there's evidence that
people do based on data and, youknow, SEO tools like sem rush,
(23:26):
like you can see how many peoplelook anything up, right? So
knowing that you get a sense of,you know, the boundary stuff and
how absurd it can be, right, forpeople to think that that's the
coaching that they need. Findthe thing that they really need,
right? You want a relationship.
Your relationships don't workout. They don't work out
(23:46):
because, you know, like, whydon't they work out? Like,
what's Ha, so then flip it, havea conversation and ask some
questions. That's how lead gen,I think, really gets going, and
how we make a big difference in,you know, people having thriving
businesses versus strugglingbusinesses?
BEATE CHELETTE (24:02):
Yeah, I agree with you. And then, and then,
how would you address thevulnerability, the sharing of
who I am in all of this? And Iwant to give you, give you some
examples. We just lost our housein the Palisades fire a couple
months ago, and now my mother'sin the hospital. She's 90 years
old in Germany, so there's sortof a lot going on. How does
(24:25):
vulnerability of what I am goingthrough factor into this? And
the reason I'm asking you thisis because a lot of people feel
that they have to, that they canonly teach what they've already
solved, and they're worriedthat, if they're sharing, that
they're in the mid of figuringit out, that that somehow
reflects back on them. What'syour take on this?
Melanie Gorman (24:47):
I think there has to be a reason for it on
some level, right? Like, ifyou're you know you're gonna go
see your mother, I think sharingyour vulnerability that you know
there's a purpose to it attimes, right? So you're. Are
dealing with, you know, yourmom, and I think that that could
have an impact on your time. Itcould have an impact on your
(25:08):
focus, right? It could have animpact on how a client shares a
story and it chokes you up,right? Because you're in that
space. I think in all of thosethings, there's a good reason to
be vulnerable and to share that,arguably, you want to share that
with people you're safe with,you know what I mean, and people
that are not going to manipulatethat and use it for their own
benefit. I don't think, like alot of people ask me, Should
(25:32):
they share their whole story andtheir about page? I think your
about page on your website isincredibly important, right? So,
and therapists are trained notto self disclose like so there's
a big part of the therapisttraining where it's really about
it's all client focused. It'snot about me, it's about you,
right? So I take the line thatsharing your story is something
(25:53):
that is a personal decision,right, and you share it to be on
the same level with people,right? So you share it to be
human, right? Otherwise, attimes, it can feel like it's top
down, it's power focused, right?
Which is not the point of that,nor do. But I also don't think
that you need to shareeverything your life story isn't
required to be qualified to besomeone's therapist or to be
(26:16):
their coach or to do thosethings. So I think sharing
should be contextually relevant,and you should think about the
reason why you open up aboutcertain things. If it is like
the stuff with your mom, thenyou may need to share that
because you need people tounderstand and have compassion
for where you are. I
BEATE CHELETTE (26:35):
call it like a measured release of information.
And to your point, there has tobe a point to it, but I agree
that vulnerability is a it'salmost like I'm hearing you say
it's a tool to be useddeliberately, not recklessly.
Melanie Gorman (26:50):
Well, yes, I mean, I think everyone should,
has to think thoughtfully aboutbeing vulnerable with people
that are not safe to bevulnerable with, because,
unfortunately, not everybody hasa good heart, you know what I
mean? So no, and I do think thatthere are moments in life where
Loving yourself is reallycritical, and sometimes you just
(27:11):
have to say, I can't do ittoday. You know what I mean? I'm
having a hard one, or whateverthat might be. Like, being
honest about your situationwithout giving all the details
being vulnerable. Doesn'trequire a full self disclosure.
Right? Being vulnerable can be,you know, I need to take
personal day, yeah, or
BEATE CHELETTE (27:30):
I'm dealing with something family related, or
I've been really triggered, I'mgonna need to find my center. So
there's ways around it. So nowwe've covered that we can use
our website. We've covered thatwe need to be consistent in how
we show up in all areas of ourlives. We talked about
vulnerability, measuredvulnerability, so now, how does
(27:50):
all of this help me to getbetter SEO and get the leads in?
Melanie Gorman (27:54):
So I think they're two separate questions.
SEO is really going to come downto understanding how strangers
look for you. I mentioned that alittle bit ago, like thinking
through and using data to giveevidence that people are looking
for whatever it is you'reselling in whatever way you want
to sell it, so someone like mecan help you figure out, like,
what that data is, because thereshould be evidence. There should
(28:16):
be something that's not myopinion that says this is
valuable, because that's notenough to get the lead right.
So, and then getting the leadsonce you know the data is about
having two sides your websiteand your content reflect your
educated opinions about whateveryou're talking about, right? So
blogging is really important,right? So that you're having an
(28:38):
ongoing conversation withGoogle. So, and the way that
things are working with AI rightnow, your blog and your landing
pages of your website are arefed into the AI systems, and
pieces of them are exposed basedon the questions that people
ask. So couple data points foryou. The average Google search
(28:59):
is three or four words. Theaverage chat GPT search is 23 or
24 words, right? So we don'talways know the questions that
we're trying to ask, and we needworkshopping. We need to think
it through. And chat GPT, AI ofall perplexity or whatever, when
you use they give people thisopportunity to be really human
(29:20):
and and to ask these kinds ofquestions, and then make your
way down through the buyer'sjourney, and then eventually get
to a place of saying, What do Ido? Where do I go? Who can help
me? So your website has to befully optimized to be discovered
for that answer, right? And yourblogs, all your content, really
feeds into the AI engine and andhelps expose you as a trusted
(29:43):
source. What and a chatGPT andGemini are very different. They
gather data from differentsources. So the second part of
everything is marketing. Andmarketing is finding your group
of people sharing your content.
Whether it's a podcast or it's ablog, social media, posts like
sharing that and developing arelationship with those small
(30:05):
pockets of people that are intowhat you're talking about. So
you prove that there's interest,and then you become a
contributor to that discussion.
YouTube, second biggest searchengine in the world, right? So
if you're a video person, bethere. Have be in that
conversation. But you have tounderstand, you know, the value
(30:28):
of a long form and a short formvideo, right? And they're
incredibly different. Somarketing, after you've figured
out your niche, and then you'rein the place of being in this
ongoing conversation, is aboutlistening and understanding. Are
people paying attention? Lookingat your analytics, like, which
of your podcasts do people paythe most attention to? There's a
(30:49):
clues there for what you shoulddo. More of your leads come from
people being interested in whatyou have to say organically,
like not because you pushed iton them, but because they found
you and they want you. My leads,by and large, come from the
website. I have the blogs thatI've written, and I just started
doing podcasts and being guestson podcasts, so this is new for
(31:11):
me, so, but the majority of myleads come from referrals,
right? So I'm very clear withclients, like, I'm full, I can't
take anybody else, or I'm open,and I have room in my calendar,
right? And my clients on theregular refer people to me,
because I do a good job, right?
And when you do a good job, wordof mouth spreads, but you have
to, you have to feed all ofthose things. You have to work
(31:33):
all of those things. And then,you know, it's kind of like
you're Geppetto in your in yourworkshop, like you're really
kind of tweaking things andtinkering, and you're in
relationship with yourmarketing. So it's not one and
done, right? It's somethingyou're into and you're doing all
the time, and that's whereyou're that's where the gold is,
BEATE CHELETTE (31:54):
yeah, and then you think you have it figured
out, and then something happens,and then there is an event, or
the market changes, or AI showsup, or something, something, and
then you have to go back andrearrange everything. We've been
doing this for a very long time.
A lot of our our our organicexposure comes through LinkedIn
and the newsletter and theoutreach and podcasting is a
(32:16):
long term game. You down to twopodcasts. You have to have
hundreds for this SEO and thelinks to really work like you.
I've gotten my first clientthrough chatgpt Because I'm the
authority. It's called Open AIfor a reason, so other people
will have access to your stuff,and you can do a lot of really
(32:39):
good competitor research rightnow, because they are doing
their stuff in AI, and becauseit's open, you can see it, but
then it has other benefits onthe other side as well. So now,
is there anything specific aswe're closing our interview? Is
anything specific on my websitethat I should be watching out
for, like, is it better to haveSEO done professionally? Are
(33:03):
there, like, any sort of, okay,do these, like three things, you
know, if you do nothing else, dothese three things to help our
audience.
Melanie Gorman (33:12):
So make sure that you are using a tool for
keywords. You want to make surethat you have, you know, legit
keyword research where you cansay 320 people look this phrase
up over the year, and you canestablish the roots of it,
right, so that your website isread in a particular way. And
(33:33):
you want to make sure all of theSEO fields are filled out. Page
title, meta description, one h1,tag, your H twos and your H
threes make sense, and they'resort of nested. The way I
explain that to clients is,think of SEO like a book, right?
So your book is your one h1 tag,so title of your book is your h1
your chapters are your H twos,and the sub sections in your
(33:55):
chapters are your H threes. Soyour H threes are these are not
design elements. There arespecific ways that you're
talking to these engines, andyou're saying like, this is
hierarchically more importantthan something else. So make
sure you fill all of that stuffout and that you're using all of
the SEO tool like so you know,in addition your heading tags,
(34:17):
your alt text, so that peoplecan understand your images,
right? You make sure your anchortext makes sense. Anchor text is
the words that you're using in alink. Don't stuff them with your
keywords, right? So use all ofthe fields that you can for SEO.
And I guess the last thing Iwould say is make sure that
you're regularly producing somekind of content, and that you
(34:39):
understand which AI engine istaking it in, right? So for
example, chat GPT doesn't takein YouTube videos, right? So
thinking through things likethat, right? Gemini is the
Google based AI, and it's takingin all Google features, right?
So if you're a big YouTubeperson, you should play. On
(35:00):
really targeting Gemini, sounderstand the different engines
and how they work. And you couldjust get a graph of this, and
it'll show you, this one doesthis, and this one does that,
like all of stuff is availableout there in the world. Do I
think people can do SEO on theirown? You know, bias to be fair,
BEATE CHELETTE (35:17):
right? No, it's very hard to do it consistently.
And we have a team, and we arevery good. I think we got better
at it, but I wished I hadsomebody that I I would feel
does it consistently and is notjust somebody who randomly fills
out stuff, because that thechallenge that I find, is people
(35:38):
look at me as the boss of thiscompany to tell them what to do.
I want subject matter experts totell me what I should be doing.
And I think this is the SEOdiscrepancy.
Melanie Gorman (35:50):
Yeah, that's how I get hired by people. People
say to me, they're like, this isa world I don't understand,
right? And you know theconcentric circles for me, 85%
of my clients are in the mentalhealth space, right? So they
will say, like, you speak mylanguage, that's why I'm the
right person. And do this like,tell me what to do. And I think
a good SEO agency is going togive you very tactical advice
(36:13):
where you can take action onthings and set your expectations
fairly, because your pointearlier was the right one, SEO
is a long game, right? And thoseof us that have been doing SEO,
the move over to to AI, it'slike a wave, right? But there's
been waves all the time. Theyjust Google released a June
update, core update today,right? And people like me are
(36:37):
going to go, oh golly, like,here we go again, right? But
here we go again. Is always inplay, right? So that's just
something that you know, youwant an agency you work with to
be able to give you advice andto be in the game of it, right?
Like I'm talking to my clientsabout AI every day, right? I'm
not shying away from it, right?
We have to talk about this. Wehave to talk about how to use
(36:58):
it. We have to talk about whatmakes sense, what's ethical, all
that good stuff. So I think thatthe robotics of SEO tools are
really helpful for becausethey'll evaluate your page. Did
you do everything properly basedon the focus keyword? Great,
right? But there's more to it,right? So those are the pieces
that sometimes having agencyhelp can be
BEATE CHELETTE (37:17):
better. I think you are absolutely correct.
There's a difference betweenhiring somebody who is an SEO
specialist and all the HYPEE,HYPEE, LinkedIn, outreach, the
link building and the SEO stuff,proceed with caution, because a
lot of that stuff is notproperly researched, is not
(37:38):
geared toward you. They just goand do a couple of on page
things, but they don't really goin the meat of what needs to be
what needs to be fixed, becausethen, you know, as you said,
then you need to go back in yourwhat's a paragraph, what's a
headline, what's a headline towhat's a sub chapter, what are
my bullet points? What's bold?
Because all of these are beingread and weighted in SEO, and so
(37:58):
you want to be deliberate aboutit, what stands out to be the
more important. And having apartner certainly makes it a lot
easier. If it's somebody's fulltime job, I probably shouldn't
be doing it only one so Melanie,for somebody who has now
listened to this interview andsaid, My gosh, I need to speak
to her, where do we sent them.
Melanie Gorman (38:21):
So my website is crownsvillemedia.com I'm sure
you'll put a little link in, andI have a free consultation. You
can just go the contact page andget in touch with me. I own it.
I answer everybody's email. So,yeah, happy to talk to anybody
BEATE CHELETTE (38:35):
wonderful. Yeah, I'd make sure you mentioned the
show. Well, thank you so much.
You've been amazing. I reallyliked our non threatening, non
hype conversation about whatanybody can do to have your
leads come from somewhere. Sothank you so much for
Melanie Gorman (38:47):
being on the show you got. Thank you for
having me, and that's it
BEATE CHELETTE (38:51):
for us, for today. So as you can tell, SEO
does not have to be scary, andit does not have to be language
that nobody can understand. It'sactually something that makes a
lot of sense the way we talkedabout it today. So please reach
out to Melanie, and if you foundthis show helpful, please share
it with somebody who needs tohear what we have said today.
Thank you so much, and untilnext time and GOODBYE, that's it
(39:13):
for this episode of the BusinessGrowth Architect Show, founders
of the future, if you're doneplaying small and ready to build
the future on your terms,subscribe, share and help us
reach more Trailblazers likeyou. And if you're serious about
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you are, schedule your uncoverysession at uncoverysession.com.
Lead with vision. Move withpurpose. Create your future you.
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