From Lawyer to Life Coach: Melanie Pritchard’s Real Career Shift Story

In this insightful episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Pedro sits down with Melanie Pritchard, a former lawyer turned career and life coach, to explore the truth behind career transitions and personal growth.

Melanie shares how she works with clients from all walks of life—from undergraduates to high-level professionals—and why, despite different careers, people struggle with the same fears, doubts, and challenges. She dives into her unique coaching approach, focusing on clarity, mindset mastery, and aligning success with true personal fulfillment.

This episode uncovers the reality of building a coaching business, the importance of authenticity over trends like AI-generated content, and why understanding yourself is the key to any successful career change.

If you’re feeling stuck, considering a career shift, or building your own coaching path, this conversation will give you both clarity and direction.



Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanie-pritchard/
Website: https://www.melanie-pritchard.com/

Transcript

Melanie Pritchard 0:00

I work with people across all sorts of industries and at all levels from undergraduates all the way up to like knighted barristers. I have noticed that there is a certain trend to a lot of the clients I work with. They're generally very smart, successful, sometimes professional services, so lawyers, consultants for sure, because I guess that's my background in law. My brain works in a similar way. I'm very analytical. So yeah, I suppose they feel a resonance with me and my pathway. But I do also work with, you know, all sorts of people, whether in the kind of, you know, I've worked with like occupational therapists, I've worked with people in people in sales and creatives, and that's the way I like it. I love that varieties. To be honest, I don't really have a niche beyond, I like to think of myself as quite an expert in career change and career development. And even though the people are different in terms of their careers that I work with and their varied personalities, I've also noticed that people are people are people, right? We often have the same points, the same fears, the same challenges. So the outer wrapper might be different, but often the same themes pop up. And I'm dealing with the same themes, just to different degrees with different clients.

Davis Nguyen 1:03

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Wynne, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Pedro 1:34

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today's guest is Melanie Pritchard, a lawyer turned life and career coach who helps individuals and organizations peak perform both personally and professionally. Drawing on her background in law, psychology studies at Oxford, Counseling, and NLP, she supports clients in areas ranging from career transitions and leadership development to mindset mastery and life design. Melanie also works with companies through corporate success master classes focused on resilience, emotional intelligence, and workplace well-being. Her clients include organizations like the NHS, Network Rail, and the Natural History Museum. And her work has been featured in outlets such as the Financial Times, Mary Claire, and Women's Health. Welcome to the show, Melanie.

Melanie Pritchard 2:29

Thank you very much, Pedro. That was a wonderful overview.

Pedro 2:32

From the day we met, and I always like to rewind a bit, you know, get back to the origin story because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now. Right? So when was that for you?

Melanie Pritchard 2:46

Well, we can rewind to a Sunday in London, sitting outside a law firm I was working at for the nth time at the weekend, thinking, not again, not again, I'm sick of working at weekends. So that's when I had the realization that I wanted to get out of, I guess, the high pressure world of family law in my case to move in a different direction with greater work-life balance. The next sort of ding-ding-ding soulmate realization moment came atop a double decker red bus, reading an article about coaching. And it was one of those moments that we have when we meet a soulmate and we think, this is it. I thought, this sounds great. It's using similar skills to being a family lawyer, helping people through big life changes, the vulnerability and fear that comes with that. That's what drew me to family law. But I thought, hey, I can use those skills and my passion for people and supporting people in a different, more entrepreneurial context, with much with much greater balance, really, and freedom. So um, in a nutshell, that was it.

Pedro 3:42

Okay. Now, I always ask this and I want to know, you know, it's because that feeling of when did it shift, you know, from I'm helping people, this is a calling, to you know what? I I'm building a real business around this. You know, that first invoice, that you know, when you start getting paid and you and you're like, I think this is this is about it. You know, when did that shift happen for you, Melanie?

Melanie Pritchard 4:04

That's an excellent question, Pedro, because you can feel a bit like a fraud in the beginning before you're a proper entrepreneur. So initially I was doing a lot of freelance work for a market leader in London, um, a career coaching company, um, and that really built my skills and my experience and my confidence. But I guess I felt a little bit of an imposter being a freelancer. So the shift actually happened, and this is an inspiring reminder for people going through redundancy or other crises. The shift happened when that company went into liquidation. She was brilliant at coaching and marketing, but maybe the money management side was a bit trickier. So when she liquidated the company, it gave me a lot more time to focus on growing my business and essentially leveraging everything that her organization had taught me how to monetize coaching packages, how to do brilliant discovery calls to convert clients, and how to leverage the skills I'd learnt in coaching to actually grow my business. So I'd say that was the kind of the sort of moment the switch kind of flipped a little bit. And I really felt I've really got my own gig here now. I'm ready to go.

Pedro 5:01

Okay. And after you got rolling, right? Who are the people that kept showing up for your business? You know, the ones you realize, okay, this is my tribe, you know, because at the early days in coaching, there's a lot of testing the waters, a lot of I'm trying to help everyone. So were you eventually able to niche down or how that played out for you?

Melanie Pritchard 5:20

Yeah, I mean, to be horribly rebellious, Pedro, I hate being put in boxes and I I love variety. I'm a bit of a GP, if you like, in the career and life coaching world. So I work with people across all sorts of industries and at all levels, from undergraduates all the way up to like knighted barristers. I have noticed that there is a certain trend to a lot of the clients I work with. They're generally very smart, successful, sometimes professional services, so lawyers, consultants for sure, because I guess that's my background in law. My brain works in a similar way. I'm very analytical. So yeah, I suppose they feel the resonance with me and my pathway. But I do also work with, you know, all sorts of people, whether in the kind of, you know, I've worked with like occupational therapists, I've worked with people in people in sales and creatives, and that's the way I like it. I love that variety. To be honest, I don't really have a niche beyond, I like to think of myself as quite an expert in career change and career development. And even though the people are different in terms of their careers that I work with and their varied personalities, I've also noticed that people are people are people, right? We often have the same points, the same fears, the same challenges. So the outer wrapper might be different, but often the same themes pop up. And I'm dealing with the same themes just to different degrees with different clients.

Pedro 6:34

Interesting. Yeah, you know, and I like to, you know, dive into the marketing bit because you have that variety, right? The variety that you mentioned, you you're helping like a lot of people out there and different kinds of people. So how do they usually find you? You know, how do we get to you in the first place? Just so I can understand.

Melanie Pritchard 6:52

Yeah, good question. Um, to be honest, it's all been quite holistic, um, which has been rather nice. So I've never really had a particular strategy so far. I'm probably at the point where I'm thinking about that more now. I've always been quite active on social media, so writing is a real passion of mine. I did an English degree, I love writing. I'm quite a creative person, so I've always been quite active on Instagram and LinkedIn. I generally write when I feel inspired by something in life or inspired by my clients, and I'll write sort of like short posts or articles on that. I've also sort of shared quite a lot of, I suppose, short videos on Instagram and LinkedIn over the years, and I think videos are helpful because if I was selling like welly boots, you know, I'm selling a product, but I am the product if you like. So people need to feel a connection with me, the kind of service provider. So I think videos are really powerful ways to express your energy and allow others to feel that connection if there is that fit. So I found that to be quite fruitful. The other way that I've indirectly marketed is really just by focusing Pedro on doing a really good job with clients. So just making sure I'm giving them the best possible service, supporting them throughout the process. And then, you know, if they're finding that their lives are really positively impacted by me, which they should be, they'll obviously speak highly of me because those near them are seeing really positive change and transformation. In other words, referrals have been quite a big part of my success. Yeah, I would say.

Pedro 8:10

Okay, so let's picture this. I was referred to you, right? I am like I watched your videos and all that. I resonated and with with your content, you know, I created a connection just like you said. And I want to know what working with you looks like, right? So imagine I'm being on boarded, right? We threw we went through the discovery call. I just want to understand, like structure-wise, how how would that look like from my per perspective as a client to work with Melanie?

Melanie Pritchard 8:38

Do you want to know about structure and style or just the structure?

Pedro 8:41

Whatever feels like people that would love to work with you could use the exposure just to try just to understand what what would look like to work with you.

Melanie Pritchard 8:51

Okay, yeah, great. Well, firstly, I think having an energetic match connecting with me is really important. So I guess the jumper I'm wearing captures my personality quite a lot. I'm quite a vibrant, dynamic, fun person. So although my clients come to coaching in various states of stress, often very stressed, we have a lot of fun, right? So what I do coaching, it's very deep and soulful and quite existential. Um, and there's a holding space for that depth. But I bring quite a lot of lightness and fun to the process, so it's not all super heavy. Um, so that's the first thing. That's my style, sort of dynamic, fun, interactive, and quite light touch, but very deep and sort of pseudo-therapeutic as well. So I have that kind of duality. In terms of the structure and things, I have a very structured program, which I learned from this big market leader I worked for. It's it's three parts. Really, the most important thing for clients to realize is you need to get really clear on who you are and what you need to be happy before you can even consider, for example, career change. And so we get, we sort of dive deeply into exploring clients' frameworks for happiness and success. So, like their values, their interests and passions, their strengths and superpowers, any higher purpose. And because you need to get super clear on those things, those existential foundational points before you can even explore other careers successfully. And often obviously people are confused because they haven't got clear on those foundations. So that's part one of the three-part structure. And I found that structure really helps clients to feel a sense of safety and growth at a time of flux. The other thing that's probably different about me, Pedro, compared to maybe some coaches. So obviously, traditional coaching is asking clients questions to help them connect to their truer selves so that change can effectively take place. Um, but I do also offer an aspect of mentoring, and so giving them guidance and advice based off of my varied commercial experience and exposure to a wide range of industries. Um but I'm very careful about when I bring to bear that mentoring. I hate playing God. So if I hear a theme pop up and I'll ask a client, would you like my thoughts on that based on my experiences? And invariably they'll say yes. I also offer mentoring around sort of mindset mastery. So I've learned a lot from my background in sort of mental health as well, in terms of really powerful but very practical five-minute mindset mastery hacks. So it's not just like we're swimming around in difficult emotions. We'll explore that, we'll connect with it, and then I'll give them really helpful structured tools to help them basically reframe negative thoughts, sort of keeping them entrenched and stuck. And um clients seem to find that very helpful because you can explore options, you can explore new avenues, but unless you've dealt with the mind and overcome limiting beliefs, essentially it's quite hard to affect change. So I'd say those are some of the aspects of my coaching that um are perhaps a little bit different to some other coaches, maybe.

Pedro 11:21

Interesting. I mean, your work seems pretty hands-on, right? So how do you think, and this is like a tricky question because I see coaches sometimes wearing all the hats, right? So how do you think about capacity? So don't stretch yourself too thin, you know? In what sense, Pedro, when you said how do you think about capacity? Well, it's like I've seen coaches like like I mentioned, they're wearing all the hats. Sometimes I've seen people like advocating about burning out, right? The coaches specifically. Yeah, you don't burn out, I'm gonna help you. And sometimes I've seen coaches, I'm not saying this is the case, but it's like I've seen coaches in the space, like working 10 hours plus, getting a lot of clients, they're like doing the follow-ups, they're doing, they're the marketing expert, they're you know, they're they're they're doing everything, the coaching, the business development side. So how do you think about that in a way that you don't get yourself pinned down or you get yourself trapped like that? Just so I can we can potentially deliver some value for our audience there.

Melanie Pritchard 12:16

Well, firstly, full and frank, you know, I guess there's an assumption there that I've nailed it. It's a work in progress, right? Probably for anyone who runs a business, because as you said, what people don't realize, I want to be a coach, it sounds so fun, sit, work from home, design your day. Yeah, but you've got to know how to market and sell, and that's not an overnight thing. So, in other words, I do burn out sometimes. I got better at managing that and connecting with my values to ensure that I um am finding enough balance within my own world. But it can be hard, is the honest answer. I'm not gonna sit here and be like, yeah, I've got it all sorted, Pedro, easy peasy, lemon squeezy. And even even though even though I find coaching in many ways quite easy, it comes very naturally to me. It's a deep expression of self. You're bringing deep presence um and and it's an expression of soul and a lot of things I've been through, which clients won't realise, which help me to really help them transform. Sometimes I'm surprised when I feel burnt out because I'm like, I don't get it. I find this work really easy, like, why am I burnt out? And then I realize it's because I'm doing so much active listening as well as, you know, writing and selling in a way. It sometimes doesn't feel that way because it's it's sort of quite heart-led work to me. And I've had quite a holistic approach to marketing and selling. But if there's still the mental load of I need to bring in X number of clients and I need to be growing my business and making sure that I'm always developing a couple of things I find helpful is routine. So, you know, going to the gym is very important to me. I'm obviously having um a way to sort of yeah, express that stress. And um, I find always reading and learning um is very stabilizing for me because it helps me to add value to clients when I'm gaining knowledge myself, and it also gives me a sense of being ahead of the curve and sort of being the best I can be, versus like competitors who have maybe done coaching but aren't committed enough to their own growth to really add value to clients, maybe. Um, and yeah, I regularly, you know, engage with social media because again, that's how I've sort of so far sold and marketed myself. And I regularly focus on yeah, just really doing a good job for clients. So I always give 200% in sessions, in follow-ups. I sort of go above and beyond. That's something my Google reviews say a lot. So that's my way of um yeah, trying to balance within getting that feature client flow and staying in balance myself.

Pedro 14:19

Right. Yeah, I love the honesty because at the end of the day I see a lot of coaches joining the space, you know, the coaching space, and they're like, What? I need to market, you know, I need to get a CRM, and they're in for the coaching aspect, right? Most of them. And not necessarily for the business side. So and sometimes they get caught up, right? So it's cool that you're you're so open about it because I think most coaches are in the same spot, right? They're trying they're still figuring out how to do it and how they can market themselves in a way that's not, you know, salesy or tactic, you like sense tactic, or it's like just being aligned with who you are and what you represent, you know. Now, Melanie, I feel like I need to ask you something because this is such a hot topic, you know? And uh we don't and it's pricing, right? But we don't need to talk about hard numbers. My question is more about the mindset behind it, especially in the early days, right? Because that this is such a self-worth path, you know. Am I charging enough? Am I not charging enough? Because at the end of the day, sometimes, and I'm a coach myself too, you see the calendar, right? And it's like, oh, I could have like X, Y, and Z clients if I, you know, drop my rates, and that's a you know, that scarcity mentality behind it. So that's something that I see every coach wrestling with at some point. So my question to you is how do you think it? You know, how do you think about it today? And were there any lessons along the way that how shape that shaped how you landed where you're at right now?

Melanie Pritchard 15:49

Yeah, it's a really good question, Pedro. Yeah. Um, again, I I suppose I was lucky working for this market leader because it gave me it gave me a sense in a way of of what people will invest if they're ready to commit. And so she charged quite a lot more than I charge now. But you'd see all sorts of clients, not just wealthy clients, but people who didn't really have the money investing, whether it was going into debt or or otherwise. So that was good to see. That being said, um, I haven't reached the stage in my business where I'm like, I'll charge what she was charging because her machine was really established and quite slick. And I guess one of the reasons potentially why the business was liquidated is because she was investing so much in Google ads and costly marketing overheads that while there was always a steady flow of clients behind the scenes, there was probably too much investment in that. So what I've done really is the way that I've worked with money, and my prices haven't really changed that much, to be honest, Pedro, over the years. Um I hit on a figure that's sort of the minimum that I would need, not to resent my clients for the male perks they're getting, you know, the rich commercial background, the huge amount I've invested in courses and training, and the transformational impact I can see I have on my clients from their Google reviews. So I pick out a number that I think reflect sufficiently reflects that. Doesn't make me feel resentful towards that get what they're getting, but also a number that most people from different backgrounds can afford. So I basically offer an early bad price if they sign up, which is a bit cheaper than an in than a kind of instalment option, which is a little bit more. And that way I think it it meets the needs of both parties. Because it can be quite hard to also know what people can afford. I do work with some, a lot of my clients are quite wealthy by all intents and purposes. Often they're on six figures. But what I've realized, Pedro, I'm sure you have too, is income and net income are different. So they might be on six figures, but they might have children in private schools and a massive mortgage and be in that kind of corporate cage with lots of liabilities. So their net income might not be as high as you might assume from their job title. And also you might get someone who frankly is really rich but is it doesn't have any idea what coaching is, and that X number is a drop in the ocean for the huge benefits and changes they'll see in their life from working with me. And quite often my clients will say afterwards, you really should charge more. And I'm like, Yeah, I know, but you've been through the coaching and you understand the value and how cheap I am for what you're getting. But you know, other people, you know, they might not fully understand something intangible like coaching in the way that they might if they were buying a new car or I don't know, spending money on ballet classes or something.

Pedro 18:04

That is so funny. You brought me to my teen, you know, when I was 18 and uh my teen years, and I'm like, sometimes I feel like I had more money for myself, right? Because uh these days I have two kids and wife a house. And at that time I was living with my parents, and it's just you know, fun money, you know, and I'm money, bring it. That's hilarious. Okay, yeah, that is so true.

Melanie Pritchard 18:30

That's a great way to put it, Pedro. Fun money is true though. Yeah, no liabilities, loads of freedom, and yeah, what should we like to do?

Pedro 18:36

Speak these, you know, tweak oh that's just for partying and all that, and they're like, yeah, I'm gonna buy a skateboard, whatever. I'm like, what? Not really how it works, Pedro. Take it easy. We have bills, right? Exactly. Oh my god, that is so true. Now, what I want to know is like future, right? I mean, what's you know how how does that entails for you? Now, I'm curious about like where are you taking all this, right? At the end of the day, looking ahead, where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about scaling, hiring, or is there a next step you're excited about, Melanie?

Melanie Pritchard 19:11

Wow, the future is such a loaded, exciting, and terrifying word, Pedro, all at once. I mean, I guess I'd start with saying I'm I'm surprised by like where I am today, and that you know, when you start, if if you're anything like me, you kind of think, gosh, I'd be surprised if I could earn any money from this, you know, because you're not an expert yet. So I've been pleasantly surprised by how well I've done just through kind of following my heart and being holistic with the sales and marketing. Now, as I said, I'm at the stage where I'm like, right, I want to get more structures in place. Because anyone who's in this field knows, you know, income can be quite volatile, you know. One month you might get X amounts of clients, another month might be quieter. So although it's wonderful having freedom, the pain point is the stability that can rub up against that freedom value. So I'm at the stage where I'd like to almost um not automate processes yet, but have more regular structures in that bring in more, I don't know, where I feel a bit more in control of the number of clients I'm getting a month. In terms of the future, though, yeah, I'd like to be doing I do corporate training as well. So corporate success masterclasses, whether resilience, um mindfulness masterclasses, mindset mastery, or helping people optimize their management skills, mental health first aid and stuff. I'd like to be doing more corporate training and also more corporate coaching. So I do like sort of uh drop-in surgeries, coaching surgeries, where businesses can essentially buy me for a day and from there, employees can have, you know, life or career coaching sessions with me. So I'd like to be doing more corporate stuff, coaching and training, and probably like building out more kind of sales funnels within my coaching business. So I have a more of a sense of if I do this, I on average get X number of clients a month, and that stabilizes my expectations a bit around the coaching side. Does that make sense?

Pedro 20:40

Yeah, it does. It does.

Melanie Pritchard 20:42

That's the short-term, that's the short-term approach. The longer term goals are sort of building out online masterclasses because obviously I've noticed some real pain points that help all clients that are hugely valuable. Yeah, and then you've obviously got the kind of passive income model there potentially built. Yeah. So that would be the kind of broad brush business model, I'd say.

Pedro 21:00

Let me ask you this because I got really curious. Like you're from Dublin, right? You're in Ireland. This is like I didn't have I I didn't talk to way too many coaches in in that specific place. And I've talked with uh people in the UK, but I want to hear from you, you know, comparing let's compare it to the US, right? Um because I'm in Brazil and I have my own opinion about coaches in Brazil, but it's a different setup. Now, how would you frame Ireland for the coaching space? Do you feel like there is still some friction or people are more open to coaching? How would you frame that?

Melanie Pritchard 21:34

So far, I'd say they seem similar to obviously like the UK market. I mean, I think Ireland and the UK are quite closely aligned. They're basically more charisma charismatic versions than the Brits. Um but I'd say they're quite similar in makeup. You know, Dublin and London are both capital cities, similar pain points, you know, very cosmopolitan, expensive places to live, easy to follow the corporate paths. And then to find ourselves feeling slightly disillusioned. So I find in both places there's a need for the same service. Yeah, I'd say that there's not really a particular difference I found between like UK and Irish clientele.

Pedro 22:09

Interesting. Appreciate you sharing that. Now I want to tap into your experience for a second, right? Because people listening can really benefit from this. I mean, you've been in the game long enough to hear all kinds of business advice. You did mention some marketing tactics you're not a fan of. So I want to hear from you, right? Because there's a lot of noise out there, good and bad, towards business advice, you know. So what's one piece of business advice you hear all the time that you think, eh, I think that's overrated or maybe misunderstood, you know?

Melanie Pritchard 22:41

I guess the current one in my mind is AI. AI saves time. I think a lot of coaches are now writing AI articles. I would caution people to be careful with that, because one thing that's helped me to get to where I've got to today is speaking from the heart and writing from the heart. Cheesy as that sounds, again, coaching unlike a product business. Some coaching organizations are like, you must not show personality, but you must not. And I completely disagree. I think personality differentiates coaches, I think, from one another. I think it helps people identify who they're going to feel most energized around. Like my job is to facilitate people's growth. But my personality is a big part of my connection with clients. We have fun. If you don't want to have fun, don't work with me. Most of my clients are really fun. They're highly intelligent, but they're really freaking fun. And you know what? Fun is really great when you're quite stressed. You want to have a bit of a laugh, you want to bring a bit of lightness to deep, existential, you know, coaching sessions, really. So I I would encourage people to be careful with the use of AI, particularly in marketing and articles and things, because I think it disconnects you from your true self and the heart that people feel they feel that heart. They can feel when you're being genuine and authentic, and that's what truly inspires people. And actually, genuinity is one of the core tenets of successful counseling, actually being genuine. So I would uh caution people against all you know, sort of roboticizing their marketing their marketing through AI because it disconnects you from that all-important heart connection and that genuinity that you need to have to attract your tribe, really.

Pedro 23:59

Yeah, and it shows, right? Sometimes we're browsing through social media and you're like, oh thanks, chat GPT. Not a problem, right? I mean, I mean, I think people I I'd love to use it for more for grammar, you know, instead of just giving me the copy or something like that. Because it sometimes it shows, like, oh, it's not X, it's not Z, it's just like not theory, just blah blah blah. And you know, and um and it's all over the place, you know, and people are like posting nonstop, and you're like, okay, this is a yeah. I mean, I can tell at least I'm not sure you, but I can tell when it's sometimes sometimes it's like special like that, right?

Melanie Pritchard 24:36

Yeah, I get the sense a little bit. I think you can a couple of times my clients use chat GPT sent to send messages to me, and it it literally feels like I'm talking to a robot. I can feel the dislocation between that client and their energy, and I'm like, this isn't her, this is chat GPT. I'm having a conversation with and it's jarring because it's not it's not authentic. Right, it just seems connection.

Pedro 24:55

Right. Yeah, I think the video the video piece is good for that. If we I mean, at least we didn't get into that place that you cannot tell. Well, you never know, right? Now, on the other side, what's a piece of advice you wish more people actually took seriously as a business advice?

Melanie Pritchard 25:12

Oh, that's easy peasy, Pedro. Okay, you get so many people being like, oh my god, I just want to be a coach, quit my job, you know, work from home, from kitchen table, design my day, nine to five, fix all the boxes. And to be horribly honest, it's horribly idealistic. It's one thing becoming good at what you do, but as we've said, you know, you have to become good at sales and marketing. I was very lucky to work for that market leader because it taught me a lot about that. She was very good at sales and marketing. So it really plugged some gaps for me. But even now, you know, I'm still a work in progress with sales and marketing. So as I always say, it's like a beautiful chateau in France, you know, with the most amazing champagne. The champagne may be amazing, but if you don't have the right road signs to that chateau, you don't know it's there. So you could have an amazing or be an amazing coach. But if you don't know how to market yourself with those road signs, the best will in the world, you're screwed, you know? Um, so I think people can be naive about the business aspects of it. You've got to become good at those, and not just the sales and marketing, but the back-end stuff like SEO and Google Analytics Analytics and all that stuff is quite a big part of running any business.

Pedro 26:11

I want to dive in real quick and something you mentioned. You you mentioned marketing and you mentioned holistic, right? How would you define the holistic approach? Just so I mean the audience we can understand exactly what you mean.

Melanie Pritchard 26:26

I mean, I guess I've never really had a strategy, really. Um I suppose that's what I mean by holistic. I've just sort of followed my nose and followed my heart. I've done what sort of felt right, and so far it seems to have done the job quite a lot. I mean, there have been some strategic decisions, which I can tell you about in a minute. But what I mean by holistic is uh I write when I feel inspired, and I'll be like, right, I should write regularly, I should try and make that, you know, be writing every day or every other day, really, but I'm not too fixed and stringent, and I must do this and I must do that. I've sort of been quite flowy in terms of exploring what's worked there and like developing a referral system. I wasn't I well, that wasn't really a strategic thing. I just noticed I was getting referrals, and then I kind of thought, right, I wonder if I can formalize this a little bit and incentivize clients to give me referrals to actually sort of um mention that at the beginning of the process. For example, I've always loved writing by way of another holistic example. So I always, you know, I had a blog initially when I was starting out as a coach because I loved writing. I noticed certain articles are resonating with people that were generally on the coaching themes of like happiness, fulfillment, all that sort of stuff. And so I was writing holistically and then um then I was became a bit more strategic in COVID, like maybe I should start doing a bit of PR, and then you know, so that was sort of like a strategic choice, and now I get approached more from like magazines and newspapers. So that's what I mean by holistic, if that makes sense.

Pedro 27:39

No, it makes sense, and I love that it's like write writing at your own pace, right? And considering the creativity as the main drive for it, instead of just pushing an agenda or pushing, you know, consistency on posts. I got that. It's basically around that, right?

Melanie Pritchard 27:56

Absolutely, that's exactly it. It's it's all sort of heart led and um yeah, sharing spontaneously when I feel inspired, because again, it comes back to authenticity, that's what inspires others, versus having an agenda. I I find that energy very at odds with the coaching energy.

Pedro 28:10

Yeah, if you're just pushing it for for the sake of it, there's no it's gonna be hard to create connection, right? And it's hard to to to write properly when it's not fun. I think if you're not having if you're not having that passion and you're just pushing to something like I'm just gonna put content out there, sometimes people are not gonna create a connection anyway, so they're just wasting time. You know?

Melanie Pritchard 28:34

I love that Pedro, yeah. And fun is, you know, if you read any of my social media posts, you know, they're they're quite serious, but there's a lot of fun. And I'm very authentic, like you know, sometimes I'll swear in sessions with clients, for example, or in workshops. But you know, I'm being authentic. I mean, they're not they're not really awful swear words, by the way.

Pedro 28:50

You're allowed to swear here if you want to, okay? I'm just gonna put it out there. If you're holding yourself back for the past, what 30 minutes, just go and do it.

Melanie Pritchard 29:01

Yeah, I know, right? I think fun is fun is actually one of my values. It's my favorite F-word. If you're coming back to the swearing, it's my favorite F-word. Um, and it's a big part of my personality. So yeah. And it it's it's a really lovely part of um, you know, life is stressful, right? Adulting is bloody hard. Um nice to be able to bring a bit of lightness and personality into an existential process. It's wonderful. It's a big part of the work that I do with people, and I find it adds huge value. I would say huge value to my clients. And selfishly me, I like laughing with my clients too.

Pedro 29:33

I love that. That's beautiful. Now, if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work, Melanie, where can people find you and connect with you?

Melanie Pritchard 29:41

Yeah, so um, I have a website which is um obviously www.melanie M-E-L-A-N-I-Pritchard, P-R-I-T-C-H-A-R-D.com. So that's my website. I'm quite active on Instagram in particular. That's Melanie Pritchard Coaching and on LinkedIn, which yeah is my name. As you can guess, I'm on TikTok as well. Um I'd say LinkedIn Instagram on my website, the main um places to find me.

Pedro 30:04

Okay. You know, certain things I feel like I I have to highlight based on the chat we had today. Like I love how open you were about feeling an imposter, you know, when you were being a freelancer and then you had that shift, that pivot, and you started your own business, you're like, you know what, is this really going to, you know, work? And eventually it did. What which are I'm happy it did since we're having this chat. Now, I would emphasize also the three-part structure of your program, right? And I love the first one, which is the happiness and success. It's like peeling off an onion, you know, trying to get into the root cause of the decision making of why are you chasing that or why do you want that? Because that's sometimes, at least the feeling I have is like most people they have surface level answers to really deep questions, like, oh, I'm chasing the next paycheck, I'm chasing the next car, and they're not really playing by their own, you know, rules, they're just seeing someone else, and they're like trying to copy that, and it sounds like a good idea, yeah, you know, and at the end of the day, that and when you start peeling that off, like do you really want to do this? I think that's powerful, you know, that's super important. Absolutely, yeah, and also you're so open about figuring figuring it out, right? It's not like you have all the answers, you know. It's not like oh, I'm I'm here in this pedestal, I'm preaching. No, it's like I'm here. Yeah, yeah, I can tell it. Like you're you're true to yourself, you know. You're like so vulnerable, and I feel like that's so so powerful and so easy to create a connection with someone like that, you know. The reality check for people looking to be a coach and thinking it's just oh, that's easy peasy, uh, you know, work from home, I'm just gonna talk with people eventually. No, there's a whole business development that people are not aware of it, like in the backstage and not that easy, right? And last but not least, Melanie, I would say having fun, right? I think, oh my god, that's such a great reminder. Not that you're gonna just have fun, but allow yourself to have some.

Melanie Pritchard 32:10

Yes, absolutely.

Pedro 32:11

This is my long-winded way of saying that I appreciate what you do, Melanie. I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today, okay? It was great having you on.

Melanie Pritchard 32:21

It was wonderful to be here, Pedro. I really enjoyed it.

Davis Nguyen 32:24

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit join purplecircle.com.