Women Of The C-Suite: Melissa Machat On The Five Things You Need To Succeed As A Senior Executive
By: Alexandra Spirer
Tags: Alignment, Consulting, Women In Business, Entrepreneur, Coaching

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I come from a theatre and dance background and moved to Las Vegas at 24 years old to audition for shows and got a job dealing blackjack in a downtown Casino while I was auditioning. After a few months I realized I wanted a “real job” and career and decided to get my real estate license in 2009 and quickly built my business not realizing that my work ethic and personality was perfect for sales.

I joined a coaching organization to help me grow my real estate business and was introduced to the world of mindset and personal development, and became obsessed with figuring out what was wrong with me or why things weren’t working the way I wanted to.

This led me to NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and all of the pieces started to connect, nothing was wrong with me and I wasn’t broken, I was out of alignment and in the wrong role. I knew this was my purpose, helping other entrepreneurs create a business that’s in alignment with who they are and help them grow and scale with ease.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

Leadership is a skill that you need to learn just like anything else in business and learning how to not take responsibility or take things personally is an ongoing process. The most interesting story or lesson is how to take ownership and responsibility, without blaming yourself. I believe in taking ownership and responsibility for everything within my business and I also took it personally that I must be a terrible leader and not know what I’m doing if we aren’t seeing results. If something isn’t working, it’s actually feedback and time to look at the bigger picture and figure out what the gap is or what is actually missing, instead of beating ourselves up and thinking it must be us.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Where do I start? I didn’t know real estate was commission only or that you run your own business as an independent contractor so I just showed up and was like what do I do now? I thought I had to wear a suit and straighten my hair to be taken seriously and be successful, and I basically dove head first into the deep end without realizing I didn’t know how to swim. With my consulting business I’d say the biggest mistake was thinking I had to have all of the answers or certifications before I could be taken seriously (common theme here), and the lesson in all of this is when I just went for it and showed up authentically, business came to me without having it all perfect. As far as funny stories go, I’ve tried getting into a home that wasn’t actually my listing (it was the house next door), recorded amazing videos realizing there was no sound, and pretended I didn’t have a full time job (the casino) so I told clients I was only available at 7am or 7pm on days I was working and they thought I was just really successful and busy!

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

I have always been known for authenticity, tenacity, and commitment to caring about my clients needs and putting them before my own. Knowing how to listen to a client and understand their goals and what they are trying to achieve is crucial if you want to know how to best serve them and help them get what they want.

In Real Estate I would compete against other agents for listings and sellers would interview 5–10 different people, and they would choose me because I actually cared about what they wanted and was willing to do whatever it took to get their home sold. With consulting, it’s the same attitude and really being able to understand your clients pain points so you can help them with a solution.

I help entrepreneurs with money blocks or there is something holding them back and they aren’t sure what it is. I’ve had multiple clients that had big goals and they kept falling short. By really taking the time to listen and understand their pain points I could see what was actually blocking them and help them uncover what was holding them back. After our sessions they were inspired to take action and left all the doubt and fear behind and made immediate changes to their business and started seeing results they originally didn’t think was possible.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Yes! I am creating a course about how to find your perfect assistant and taking all of the stress and overwhelm out of hiring. I’ve figured out a simple and effective method to attracting your ideal assistant and for anyone who feels like they’re drowning and knows they need help but the thought of slowing down to find someone is overwhelming, this will be a hands on group course that will walk you through the process so you feel confident in what to do and can get help ASAP!

What advice would you give to other female leaders to help their team to thrive?

Really understand your values and the mission of your company and find the right people who align with it. You can train and teach skills, you cannot train and teach your culture or personality. We spend so much time thinking we can change someone or teach them what to do, and then take it personally if nothing changes. Also understanding your team and their goals allows you to be a better leader and pour into them in a way that helps them thrive.

What advice would you give to other female leaders about the best way to manage a large team?

Have consistent check ins and run to conversations. If it’s a large team then your weekly check ins are with the other managers to keep a pulse on your business. I have my team fill out a small survey with questions every week with their attitude, mindset, challenges, and wins so I can quickly tell who needs help, if someone is in a funk, or what the pain points are.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I have had so many amazing mentors and coaches over the years and been to so many events it’s hard to narrow it down to one. What I’ve learned though is I need to be clear about what I’m trying to achieve and then figure out who has already done it so I can follow them. I’ve made a lot of mistakes following people who were successful, but it wasn’t the way I felt was right to build my own business and that led to years of feeling like it wasn’t working or feeling like a failure because their methods did not align with me.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I empower others to get back into alignment with themselves, and give them permission to build their business in a way that makes sense to them. This creates a ripple effect in their lives because transforming yourself will change the lives of those around you. I also want to help rescue as many animals as possible and contribute to different rescue organizations.

What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Leadership is a skill and how much time are you spending learning to become a better leader. When I made my first hire and started my team, I did it the wrong way and didn’t understand why the business wasn’t growing or why results weren’t doubling. I thought the answer was I had to train more and stop what I was doing to help build the business and that’s a huge mistake. I learned a valuable lesson that the best leaders have a “I do it, We do it, They do it” mentality and you do not stop what you’re doing to teach, you have them shadow or follow you to learn until they can start doing it themselves. And if you are teaching something, record it so you can create your own training library to save time for anyone else who joins. Your job is to find the right people who are in alignment with your business, not drag someone and force them to show up or do their job. This might sound odd, but I don’t believe in accountability. If I have to ask where someone is, did they do their job that day, why didn’t they do their job, then that is NOT the right person. I used to take that personally that I just needed to be a better leader and more motivating, or I needed stronger accountability to force someone to show up and produce results. Leaders waste so much time trying to pull and drag underperformers up to minimum standards, when that actually affects the morale and culture and shows the top performers that they might be a better fit somewhere else. Communication, Standards, and Expectations is everything. I was taught that if you let someone go and they’re surprised, then it’s your fault as a leader. That also caused me to avoid firing and confrontation and I’d rather let someone stay than have a hard conversation. What I was missing was communication around standards and expectations which didn’t exist. If you are clear on the standards and expectations of the job, then it’s much easier to stay out of your emotions and look at the evidence if someone is performing or not. They also know if they are performing or not and it makes it a lot easier to part ways when they see for themselves that it’s not the right fit. Take ownership without blaming yourself. I thought taking ownership and responsibility meant that whether we are succeeding or losing and failing, it’s still 100% on me. Now I do believe great leaders take ownership and responsibility whether the outcome is good or bad, the difference is whether you are blaming yourself and beating yourself up instead of looking at the business and figuring out where the gaps or missing pieces are. I also took “lead by example” literally and when things weren’t working that must mean I’m not leading by example enough and maybe shouldn’t be doing this. When you hire the right team, magic happens and a lot of the headaches leaders face is by not realizing they might be missing key people around them. Hire before you are in pain and desperate. Good decisions usually don’t come when you are already drowning and need help. Have a clear vision on where your business is going and what the strategy is to make sure you get there. Who do you need to hire and who is missing that can help you achieve your goals? I believe you hire before you are drowning, and a great hire will always bring an ROI on their salary.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I would create a movement where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs remove their fear and doubt and go after what they want. By empowering them to get out of their own way and remove the negative self-talk, it’s an unlimited amount of possibilities that can be created and brought into the world when people have permission and confidence to create the life they always dreamed of.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

When you are in alignment you are inspired to take action and do not need accountability - this is my motto and biggest life lesson because it’s so easy to get stuck and not take action and then feel like there’s something wrong with us so we must not be motivated enough, disciplined enough, etc. When in reality if you are truly in alignment you are inspired to take action and make it happen, so if you say you’re going to do something and don’t follow through, there is something holding you back.

This is so relevant to my life because I was burned out with Real Estate, felt like I was stuck and things weren’t working, I knew what to do to increase sales yet I was self sabotaging and not doing it, and I really thought I just wasn’t meant to do this and clearly not good enough or smart enough to run a business. It took years for me to see that the message coming through was actually about not being in alignment in the first place and violating my own values and boundaries and what I really wanted my life to look like and I was following the wrong path. Everything in my life changed when I got clear about who I am, what I want, and what I need to do to make it happen my way.

Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

Sara Blakely and all of the sharks and guest sharks on Shark Tank (Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner, Barbara Corcoran, Daymond John, Kevin O’Leary, Robert Herjavec, Bethany Frankel) . My dream is to be a shark and be able to invest and help businesses grow and I would love to spend time and learn from these incredible and inspiring entrepreneurs.

How can our readers connect with you on social media?

You can find me on instagram @melissamachat and YouTube http://bit.ly/RE-Align