Melanie Stiekman, Director of Revenue Operations at BTC Inc., on landing her first job through a wetsuit-clad Silicon Beach interview, surviving a six-month post-layoff job search, and why she still thinks the tool never matters as much as adoption.
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Chapters
- 00:00 — Meet Melanie Stiekman
- 02:04 — Sandwich artist at Subway, button-pusher at Staples
- 09:42 — The interview in wetsuits, and the job that found her
- 13:23 — Office manager to sales ops, almost by accident
- 16:15 — The first sale that revealed there was no process at all
- 18:16 — A twelve-year company, three acquisitions, and finally boredom
- 21:33 — Six months without a job, and what it taught her about networking
- 24:11 — How BTC Inc. found her instead of the other way around
- 29:25 — Why the tool never matters as much as adoption
- 32:14 — Last call: The Four Agreements
Meet Melanie Stiekman
Melanie Stiekman is Director of Revenue Operations at BTC Inc., a Bitcoin company, based in Austin. She grew up in Baltimore, has since lived in five states, and got to revenue operations through a string of jobs that had nothing to do with revenue or operations.
Asked what she wanted to be growing up, her answer traced back to a specific injury.
You know, that's a great question. It looks a little bit different of where I've landed today, but I grew up always wanting to be a dancer. And I did dance most of my life. And I was about to get onto point ballet and I broke my foot. And that was at the end of eighth grade, and that ended my dancing career formally.
She competed in multiple dance disciplines but never took to the competitive side of it.
I am very influential and I'm you know, I like to lead and guide, but being the actual competitor is not really for me.
Sandwich artist at Subway, button-pusher at Staples
Her first paid work was as, in her words, a sandwich artist at Subway, picked up for a few hours here and there during high school. A second early job, at the Staples copy center, taught her something she still uses.
There's one element of the customer's always right, but there's also the reality of, you know, what products can you actually sell or what services can you actually provide. And I learned very early on that customers will come in having whatever type of day they're having and project that on you.
If you can stay compiled and calm and collected, and sometimes even ask or act as other people's therapists, you can make the customer happy, even if it's not the exact thing that they asked for. A lot of it just has to do with tonality and presentation.
She studied communications at Penn State, landing there after taking stock of which classes she'd already gravitated toward.
I do joke that my bachelor's is professional persuasion, just kind of a bit of a PR ploy, if you will.
Her favorite class was a sociology course on race relations, specific enough that she became a discussion moderator for it, a role she still credits with making her more well-rounded years later. A semester abroad in Amsterdam followed, chosen partly because the program was already established and required no legwork on her part. She still returns when she can.
The interview in wetsuits, and the job that found her
After graduating, she packed her car and moved to Southern California for what she calls "that stereotypical American dream." The first few months were brutal.
I was, you know, walking in and out of every restaurant, you know, applying to every job I could just to get, you know, some small paycheck.
A short stint as a hostess ended when a recruiter called out of the blue about an executive assistant role for the CEO of an unnamed early-stage startup. She took the interview without knowing much more than that.
The recruiter even told me, like, hey, these are Silicon Beach guys, don't wear a suit. But she was really kind of manicuring me to make sure that I fit in, right? Because I'm coming from a little bit more of a business northeast mentality.
I walk into this kind of open space floor plan office, and the CEO and the two other C-suite were standing there in their wetsuits and they were like pulled down. And I just remember being, you know, 21 at the time. And I'm like, am I in the right place?
She treated the interview like a discovery call, asking about growth and objectives rather than performing rehearsed answers, and was called back for a second round.
Organization, multitasking, and performing under pressure are three of those things that I still have with me today.
Office manager to sales ops, almost by accident
The role that started as executive assistant expanded fast. She became office manager, then took on insurance and HR functions, then found herself supporting the company through an acquisition, with contracts and business operations flowing through her desk.
I naturally learned how to run a business from some of those organizational sides. I was there when we made our first sale. So I started to build out a sales operations arm. And that's really ultimately what pivoted me into kind of where I'm at today.
The first sale that revealed there was no process at all
That first sale, in digital advertising, was the actual origin point of her career specialty. She was partnered with a combined CRO/CFO, since the company was scrappy enough that titles doubled up.
That one sale taught me that we had no process. No sales process, no ops process, no invoicing process. And so we had to figure all that out.
Not only do I love to establish and build process, whether it's something manual, automated with a tool or without, I'd also like to enable and to coach that process.
That combination, building process and then teaching it, is what pulled her into ops and enablement for the next decade.
A twelve-year company, three acquisitions, and finally boredom
The company she joined at 21 was later acquired by AOL, then by Verizon, giving her over a decade at the same organization across multiple corporate identities. Eventually, after relocating to Austin, the work stopped being enough.
I really felt that I wasn't being challenged anymore. And I was in what I call maintenance mode and I was getting bored. It wasn't that I was slacking, it's that I honestly didn't have a lot to do.
She left for a role at Restaurant365, her first hire of that specific kind at the company, and finally had the autonomy to build something from scratch. Three months in, COVID hit and the company's restaurant clients began closing their doors.
I had shelved this career with Verizon Media that I've had in the bag for a long time to try something new. And that rug got pulled out from under me, which no one saw coming.
Six months without a job, and what it taught her about networking
She went six months without landing another role, which she's direct about not being a reflection of competence.
It's not because I was incompetent or it's not because I wasn't consistent and persistent, because that's one of the mottos that I tell my sales teams today, and it works. It was just a tough time, whether it was timing or maybe my network wasn't dialed in enough because I was so focused on this one company for so long, maybe not really networking, right?
That was really kind of a reality check to me. It was a wake up call that maybe you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. And it is a lot about who you know.
The stretch pushed her, in her words, on an intellectual level, to refine her voice and start building a personal brand, staying connected to people rather than working in a vacuum.
How BTC Inc. found her instead of the other way around
Her next role, at Restaurant365, lasted only three months before the layoff, which she felt gave her little to show for it despite being introduced to a new tech stack. What she did instead was look backward at six or seven years of prior accomplishments to figure out what she actually wanted next, which led her toward consulting.
She joined RevShop, a GTM strategy and scaling consultancy, in a hire she and the founders still joke about.
There's actually a joke that me and the founders used to have that they didn't hire me, I hired them. I really believed in the mission in go to market strategy and scaling that and I really wanted that chance. And so I ultimately was the relentless candidate.
Consulting taught her to balance multiple clients' priorities simultaneously, a different discipline from running one team under one mission. When RevShop downsized, she was let go, a second inflection point that she navigated differently than the first.
What I was doing differently though is I was tapping into my network. I was becoming more involved in RevOps and sales ops and sales enablement groups in Austin and even just globally. And that experience really, I think, not only unlocked doors of just expanding my network, but it also helped me build my brand on things like LinkedIn.
BTC Inc. found her directly, the second time in her career a company reached out rather than the reverse. The role was advertised as sales enablement, a discipline she loves, but grew into something larger once she started.
Not only did I, yeah, just need a job, it was something I was interested in in the events business and for a mission, which is Bitcoin, that I deeply believe in and did believe in well before I was actually at the company.
Two years in, she's scaled an entire SDR pre-sales team and is now building out a full revenue operations function.
Why the tool never matters as much as adoption
Asked what she's unusually good at now that her younger self wouldn't have predicted, she named something close to a professional philosophy.
I still don't think it matters the actual tools. If you don't have the proper strategy and infrastructure and process in place. I mean, we are now a HubSpot engine because that's what I purchased, mainly because I'm the admin and it's relatively easy to configure. But I don't, it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm like HubSpot's poster child. I am still tool agnostic.
At the end of the day, again, it doesn't matter if the tool isn't being adopted. It doesn't matter what the tool is, but if the team's not using it, that's where the gap is. And so that's where my enablement arm comes in and shines.
She also named a belief she didn't expect to hold: that she could be impactful to a leadership team without a seat at the leadership table, until she spent the past year and a half building exactly that seat through trust and energizing the org.
On the flip side, working remotely since 2016, well before it became standard, is now a non-negotiable for her, and she doubts she could adjust back to an office mandate after this many years of it.
Last call: The Four Agreements
Every Tiki Bar conversation closes with the same question: one thing you find yourself recommending to everyone.
Melanie's answer traces back to the same college sociology class that shaped her worldview: a short book called The Four Agreements.
My favorite one is don't take anything personally. For me, a really humbling agreement or reminder or way to live by, because you never know what kind of day that person's having, and ninety-nine point nine percent of the time it has nothing to do with you, regardless of how someone treats you. It's super short. You can literally read it in a day.
Mentioned in this episode
- BTC Inc. — Bitcoin company where Melanie is Director of Revenue Operations
- Penn State University — where she studied communications and public relations
- Restaurant365 — the company she joined just before COVID hit its restaurant clients
- RevShop — the GTM consultancy where she joked she hired the founders
- The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz — the book she recommends most
About the guest
Melanie Stiekman is Director of Revenue Operations at BTC Inc., based in Austin. She came to revenue operations through office management, HR, and an accidental first sale that revealed her company had no process at all. She spent over a decade at one organization through three corporate identities before moving into consulting and eventually revenue operations leadership, where she has since scaled a full SDR pre-sales team.