Today we’d like to introduce you to Mellissa Tong.
Hi Mellissa, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I began my storytelling journey as a TV newscaster in 1994 at one of the very first satellite TV stations called The International Channel in Los Angeles. Besides anchoring the news, I was also responsible for a daily 5-min human interest segment where I could cover anything but hard news. During the four years on the job, I had the opportunity to interview thousands of people from all walks of life, from everyday people to Hollywood celebrities, and crafted over 1,200 on-air stories. But at the time, I fell in love with producing and did not realize storytelling was my calling.
After the newscaster job, I switched over to the fiction side and worked on a CBS prime time scripted show called Marital Law starring Sammo Hung and Arsenio Hall before I founded my own production company, DuckPunk Productions, Inc. in 2000. At the beginning, my goal was to produce independent feature films and documentaries and I did produce a few. Then 9/11 hit, my phone stopped ringing and all my projects were canceled. But I was determined to not let that derail my producing career. I had a chance to partner with a post-production audio facility to open up a production division to produce TV commercials for the Asian market in the US. We had Toyota as our first client. A year later, I parted ways with the audio facility and decided to roll TV commercials under my DuckPunk banner.
More than fifteen years later, I’ve worked on quite a number of award-winning TV commercial campaigns for some of the Fortune 100 companies such as Nissan, Verizon, Wells Fargo, to name a few. Awards we won include Clio, Addy, Telly, and Best of Business in Video Production for ten consecutive years since 2012. Then I went through some personal changes in 2015/16, and it made me question my life’s purpose. Looking back at my career, it made me realize for the first time that I was more than just a producer, I was a storyteller.
Before I had this epiphany, I had already started doing some public speaking and teaching a seminar called “Finding, speaking, and marketing your why.” In 2018, I decided to incorporate storytelling as a concept at one of my webinars. One of the students in the class achieved remarkable results in three weeks. At the beginning of the class, he was doing just over $100,000 in sales. At week 3, he was at $580,000. It was unbelievable! It also made me realize I was limiting myself to just telling stories on the big screen. So I started doing more and more seminars and webinars about how to apply storytelling in business. I was brought in by SoCalGas and San Diego Gas and Electric to train their preferred vendors on how to use storytelling to grow their businesses. Then in 2019, I was invited to speak at Los Angeles Mayor’s Office about storytelling and marketing. It was quite a highlight for me as a speaker.
The more storytelling training I do, the more gratification I have. It makes my heart full to know that I can actually help people achieve their goals with storytelling, whether it’s gaining more customers, elevating their brand, or helping someone improve their interviewing skills to advance their career. So now, more than twenty years later, my mission has changed. I want to teach, empower, and inspire business owners, regardless of the size of their business, the power of storytelling and how to apply it in their business to build their brand, drive sales, and win more customers.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Being an entrepreneur is never a smooth road. It took me a long time to realize my true purpose. For years, I thought producing was the path for me until I saw that producing was the road that led me to become a true storyteller.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
DuckPunk is an award-winning creative marketing and content production company. We work with B2B companies to build their brand, drive sales, and win more customers by way of storytelling. Services we offer are branding/marketing, TV commercials/branded content, and sales/communication training. What sets us apart is my news background and over 25 years of both in-front-of and behind-the-camera experience. There were almost no topics that I have not tackled. Plus, I was known by my clients to always ask a lot of good questions, and to pull things out of people to craft their compelling stories.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
Share your why and your story, use storytelling to connect instead of talking about how you do what you do. To give you a quick example, I worked with a CPA once, and before we worked together, he’d introduce himself like this at networking events, “Hi, my name is xxx, I’m a CPA. I love numbers and I like helping people save money from Uncle Sam.” But after we worked together, we discovered that his father was audited when he was nine years old. He said he remembers standing in the doorway watching his father pace back and forth trying to get his paperwork ready. As a young child, he wanted to help so badly but did not know how. Subconsciously, he already decided what he wanted to do in that moment. But he never shared that story. Imagine how much more powerful his pitch would be if he were to share his story with his potential customers? Which version do you think can help him convert prospects to clients? Connection leads to reaction, reaction leads to action, and action leads to transaction. Without connection, nothing will ever happen.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.duckpunk.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/duckpunkproductions/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/duckpunkprod/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mellissatong/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/duckpunkus
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/duckpunk-productions-culver-city-3?osq=DuckPunk+Productions%2C+Inc.
