Cat
Hi guys, my name is Cat, and welcome to Meet the Mentor. Today we are interviewing Mel. She's actually based in London, so she's visiting for the week, which is super exciting. So Mel, if you want to tell us a little bit about you, what did you do before?
Mel
Basically, I had finished university. So I went, I studied at Birmingham City, and did law and criminology, and then obviously I was doing the odd jobs in between, so like retail, I worked at All Saints, I've worked at a bagel packing factory, I've done paper round, I've done all sorts, but I was always just looking for like odd jobs, basically, yeah. Yeah.
Cat
And, what has attracted you to work in the sales industry?
Mel
I think the biggest thing for me when I first joined was like the environment. Obviously, there's not many places where you meet so many like-minded individuals and individuals that are interested in actually like progressing as well in life. Obviously, you meet a lot of people that are quite laissez-faire, like go, go, go and see what happens, you go with the flow. But, it was that, and then it was also like the opportunity as well. So there's not many places, again, that kind of give you information on how to run a business, how to develop yourself personally for free.
Cat
Yeah, of course. So essentially, what has made you decide to go this is my place, I'm going to have a career here.
Mel
Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me was seeing so many different examples do well. Like, my mentor, Chris, I saw how time rich he'd become and how much he was able to like give to his family. And, you see people like George, how much they're able to like travel around the world. And I think those kind of examples make you want more for yourself and make you see yourself doing better as well, because you can see like a real life example of that too.
Cat
Yeah, of course. And tell us, what are some of the highlights of your career so far?
Mel
Obviously, it's going to be the travel. Like, I've been to a few places where it's like I wouldn't have paid for myself to go, like, initially. I wouldn't have even thought to go to that kind of country. So places like I've been to Brussels, obviously Amsterdam, Turkey was one of my favourites as well. Like, that would have never been on the top of one of my lists, but going there, experiencing the culture, the food, the people, the dancing, it was really quite eye-opening as well, and it's nice to see outside of London as well. Yeah.
Cat
No, absolutely. And lastly, what are some of your long-term goals now on a business and personal level?
Mel
Yeah, so I'm really, I'm at a stage right now where I want to move out up into the Midlands or up into the North, so I'm hoping to open my own marketing company by the beginning of 2027, and then try and conquer the Midlands, the North, all that place, yeah. But then also personally, on more of a long-term scale, one of the biggest things for me is I want to open a community centre in Ghana, where I'm from. So this is going to be women's only, obviously just getting them to go through like VSHE or like building up their own personal skills as well. And then I love wine. I love tea. So I want to open like a coffee bar that turns into like a wine bar later on in the evening as well, yeah.
Cat
Those are amazing goals. Thank you so much, Mel. And stay tuned because we're going to be doing an interview with another mentor next week. Thank you.