Trust Your Gut, Take Your Power with Melanie White

What does it take to become CEO of a four-generation family business when no one hands you the roadmap?

Melanie White, President and CEO of Hellwig Products and current Chairperson of SEMA, joins Winning Season to share how she went from cold-calling in outside sales to the C-suite by doing the job first and asking for the title later.

Melanie gets honest about the moments that shaped her: crying in her car after a brutal cold call and finding her grit on the drive home, negotiating for the president title by proving she was already doing the work, and showing up at 5 a.m. on the operations floor during COVID because that's what the business needed.We also go deep on something rarely discussed: business travel safety for women.

Melanie and I trade real stories and practical rules, from hotel floors and elevator instincts to why The Gift of Fear should be required reading for every woman on the road.

In this episode:
- Why Melanie did the job first, then negotiated the title and pay
- The follow-up habit that can carry an entire sales career
- Travel safety rules every woman in business should know
- What leading a 4th-generation, 80-year-old company actually requires
- Why your inner world shows up in your outer resultsConnect with Melanie: Hellwig Products (hellwigproducts.com) | LinkedIn linked in show notes

CHAPTERS
00:00 – Welcome: Meet Melanie White, CEO of Hellwig Products & SEMA Chairperson

01:00 – Life on the road as a busy executive and mom

03:10 – Hotel safety: first floors, motels, and the "upgraded room" she turned down

05:30 – The Gift of Fear and trusting your gut as a woman traveler

06:50 – The elevator story: exiting gracefully when your intuition speaks

09:00 – Jacqueline's 3 travel rules: hotels over Airbnbs, the door stop, ride-share location sharing

10:30 – Melanie's 3 rules: higher floors, fully charged phone, carry-on only, never land after 9pm

13:10 – From French bakery to cold calling: how the journey started

14:30 – Crying in the car after a brutal cold call — and the grit that followed

16:45 – Cold calling lessons that still apply: preparation and knowing your product

17:15 – The most underrated sales skill: follow-up (and the 7-touch rule)

21:10 – What Hellwig Products makes: sway bars, helper springs & the "no saggy bottoms" policy

22:30 – The path to CEO: do the job first, ask for the title later 24:00 – Negotiating for president: "Go ahead, tell me no"

26:20 – Why the path wasn't calculated — and why that made her more invested

28:20 – 5 a.m. on the operations floor during COVID: learning through challenge

30:20 – Lifelong learning: Traction, Who Moved My Cheese, and the Audible library

33:10 – The Susie Batiz connection: Alive OS and inner work for business leaders

36:35 – "Your inner world is reflected in your outer world"

39:20 – AI, the future of work, and why human connection can't be replaced

41:40 – Melanie's parting wisdom: sometimes we are our own biggest hurdle

43:50 – Closing: emulate excellence, eliminate excuses

Connect with Melanie

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/melaniehellwigwhite
• Instagram: @melaniehellwigwhite

Hellwig Products (company)

• Website: hellwigproducts.com
• Instagram: @hellwig_products
• Facebook: facebook.com/HellwigProducts
• YouTube: youtube.com/@HellwigProducts
• X/Twitter: @HellwigProducts

SEMA (her chair role)

• Instagram: @semashow / @sema.org