Melissa Martin

I attribute my success to being obsessed with my craft - being obsessed with wanting to get better, being obsessed with wanting to find the solution. It's similar to lifelong learning, which is very important to me. I focus on being able to read, and then apply what I've learned, and take action. That combination of learning, applying, and taking action is what has driven my success.

The best career advice I've received is specifically for entrepreneurs, and it's about having a big vision while taking small steps. Most of us are very ambitious, and we have a vision that is big. When you know where you want to go and you can see it, you can feel it, you can taste it, it can make the process hard to be patient with. It can make you do things out of order and try to accelerate the process and jump ahead, and a lot of times you bite off more than you can chew. So, having a big vision doesn't mean you need to take small steps - when you take small steps, it doesn't mean you're thinking small. You still have your big vision, but you take smaller steps. Trust the process, and you will succeed.

My advice is that mentors are great, but aside from a mentor, get an advisor. Work with someone you admire. It's hard to find good leadership, and when you do, be grateful and hold onto it. At the same token, don't put too much stock into people - your leaders are humans, too, so give them grace. But find good leadership and truly learn from them. A mentor is someone who's going to be rooting for you and things like that, but an advisor is someone where you can be an apprentice. That's what I would say.

The biggest challenges are going to be rising above the noise. You're going to need to be a content entrepreneur - a lot of people are going to get in business and realize they got into business to do a specific thing, and they didn't realize they're going to have to be a content creator. You're going to have to be a master communicator. With the rise of AI and the rise of just everyone flooding into entrepreneurship with the current times that we're in, there's a flood of entrepreneurs entering the market, and so you're going to need to be able to cut above the noise. This is a part of being authentic, and it can sound cliche and overused, but it's the truth, and it does work. It's going to allow you to attract the people who are your people. And the better you can communicate, the farther you'll go.

The values most important to me are respect, trust, and lifelong learning. When I talk about respect, I mean it in the sense of equal business stature. Especially dealing with service-based businesses and expert-led businesses, you have a respect for your client, and your client has to have a respect for you. That's just that. Trust is also big on both fronts - trusting your team, trust in yourself. And lifelong learning is definitely my thing. I don't want to stop learning.