Melanie McSally: Optimizing Businesses, Trailblazing Path for Women in STEM

Picture this: a businesswoman who is also a speaker, author, executive coach, profit maximization and automation expert, strategist, thought leader, empowering women in executive leadership, and promoting gender equality in sports, all rolled into one. Yes, that is Melanie McSally for you, CEO and Founder of “WyzeTribe”, who is following her passion for helping positive changemakers make their biggest impact by providing affordable, done-for-you technology services. 

Melanie started her professional career as a pastry chef, and while that brought some success, she quickly realized that it was not a career for her. Computers have always fascinated her, and she has been a software engineer since 2003 and really loved it. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in Computer and Information Science from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and an M.S. in Engineering Management from Tufts University, besides holding a number of certifications, including a Lean 6-Sigma Black Belt. Melanie started working as an executive for C-suites, but over time realized that the higher you go up the ladder, the harder it becomes to accomplish things. She felt restricted working for others and wanted to make a bigger impact in life by equipping entrepreneurs to help others in a better manner. After a decade of doing this, she decided to share her expertise and passion with other entrepreneurs and small business owners and thus began her journey toward entrepreneurship. 

Working Towards Making a Bigger Impact 

During her career in corporates, Melanie learned how to navigate different aspects of the business to accomplish goals and become a respected leader in technology. She has a proven track record of quickly mastering new technologies, predicting what’s coming down the pipeline, and using new, creative, and innovative methods to produce simple solutions to complex problems. Better known as a “fixer” among her peers, she leveraged these qualities to utilize them in her company WyzeTribe which she founded in 2019. The goal of WyzeTribe is to bring high-quality technology services to others in a bid to maximize profits by streamlining and optimizing the business. 

Melanie focuses on the heart-centered changemakers who wish to grow and make the world better than they have found it. Her company has become a hands-on tech shop for such businesses and offers services including, but not restricted to, website management, graphics, automated funnels, workflows, and marketing. The values here are to save the client’s time, energy, and money so that they can work less and serve more. Her team starts with learning and assessing the current state of the business, the vision behind it, and its goals, and then building a customized, actionable plan within the budget that creates the most efficient path to scaling the venture and maximizing profits. A variety of packages are on offer that assesses common processes and workflows, such as the sales process, and re-engineers them to make them even more efficient. This technology partner ensures you are not wasting your money on software or losing time on doing things manually, which are both important resources for small and mid-sized businesses. 

Optimal Use of Available Resources 

Technology is a major harbinger in today’s market, with people’s digital reach and accessibility reaching new heights every day and making a bigger impact. WyzeTribe’s full-service technology team can help you streamline and automate your brand, and implement the right tools to help in scaling the business and achieving its goals. “No matter what technology you are currently using or what comfort level you share with it, we guide you in going from your current position to the desired state in the most optimized and cost-effective manner,” says Melanie.  

Additionally, Melanie puts together courses to prepare her clients to work with her. Interestingly, Melanie operates her business from her laptop and travels full-time, residing wherever is convenient for her, or as she likes to say, “she travels with the sun”. This, she believes, enriches her experiences. She gets to learn how different businesses run in different countries, and the socio-economic levels associated with it, and these varied perspectives aid in making a wider impact. 

Women are still underrepresented in STEM, and many challenges come their way. There are many battles to be fought and roadblocks to be overcome in various situations. The biggest challenge women face is their belief in themselves or the lack of it. Men are far better at either having or faking confidence. Controlling other people’s actions is not possible, but one can control their response and attitude towards it. There needs to be an overhaul of compassion, empathy, acceptance, and inclusion to move the needle toward equity. “The only way is to keep moving forward, despite not seeing immediate results, and leave something for the future generations,” says Melanie. The pandemic somehow worked out positively for Melanie’s business. Many companies were looking to leverage technology during that time, and WyzeTribe was hands-on, offering remote services.  

Strategic Juggling to Create Bigger Impact 

Studies show that more than half of the companies fail at staying relevant and many experiences shrinking profits because they do not take the time to optimize their business strategy. Melanie believes that thinking strategically, planning, and covering bases is what will keep one going against all odds. To this effect, she runs a 20-minute mini-class every Tuesday and Thursday called “Optimizing Your Business is as Easy as 1.2.3”. In each session, Melanie talks about optimizing an aspect of your business to save time, money, and energy running the venture to make a bigger impact without sacrificing the life that you have always dreamed of. The teaching ends with a 15-minute Q&A to ask questions or discuss setting up a call post the session.  

Melanie wants people to understand that technology does not have to be expensive. Hence, before diving into spending on enhancing the technological aspect of the business, one should ask whether they need that change or upgrade at that point in time and whether it is fulfilling any goal. The technology used should be proportional to where you stand in the business you run, both in cost and function. “Build as you grow, and the technology should grow with you as well,” Melanie said.