“Get a coach. I don’t know what I would have done without my coach!” – Lauren Malone

Founder@ Interview

Interview with Lauren Malone

“Get a coach. I don’t know what I would have done without my coach! – Lauren Malone

Today we feature lauren:malone, the founder at Lemon Tree Coaching and Development. We hear their story in their own words, their successes, their challenges and their insights.

Let’s start by getting to know you. Can you please tell us a little bit about you and what you do?
Hi, I’m Lauren and I am the founder of Lemon Tree Coaching and Development which I started in March 2019. I am a business coach who supports female entrepreneurs create the health, wealth, happiness and success that they deserve. I am a master practitioner in NLP, NLP Coaching, Hypnosis and TimeLine Therapy and I have also studied psychology and neuroscience – I am passionate about understanding how mastering our mindset can bring us anything and everything we want.

I work with my clients 1:1 and in group, situations to support positive mindset development so they can thrive in their lives and businesses. My values lead my approach and influence everything I do. Abundance, compassion, female empowerment, and positive action.

A great introduction and start to this interview. Can you please tell us, how did you start, from what age, and what made you decide to change direction and start?

My career started in hospitality when I was 19, managing chain pubs and restaurants. In this busy, fast paced environment, that I am sure is familiar to so many, I learnt that having great conversations (or coaching as I would later come to understand) was the most effective method of getting the best out of my teams! After 10 years in hospitality, I left the industry in 2016. I worked in a few different managerial roles and it was in my role as an operations manager at a GP surgery, in mid 2018, that I was headhunted to work as a Learning and Development Coordinator.

It was a 12 month contract, something completely new but that would also allow me to continue to develop my leadership and coaching skills.

It was while in this role that I decided to complete my NLP certification because I was training a lot of the ideas regarding effective communication. Before I started the course, starting a business was something I really liked the idea of, but I thought I wasn’t good enough and believed that it was other people who got to do that sort of thing with their lives.

By the end of the course, in January 2019 I had completely changed my mindset – I was good enough and success was abundant, and I was ready to grab mine! I also knew what my business would be – helping people ditch their limiting beliefs as I had done.

I decided that I would spend the next 8 months of my contract learning more about entrepreneurship; creating a logo, setting up a website and all those other fun exciting things that new business people want to get their teeth stuck into!

2 weeks after completing this qualification I discovered I was pregnant with my first child, due in October 2019. Well, I thought, starting a business the month before my baby is due isn’t really ideal….I decided to look at Google for the answers and typed in ‘Starting a business when pregnant’. The answer I got was ‘don’t’.

So, I quit my job and started my ltd company. I was 32 when I became a founder.

Thank you for that insight. So can you tell us…What does your business do and where is your company based?

I live in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire but I am fortunate that my business is completely online and I get to work with wonderful entrepreneurs from all over the world.

I work with my clients to help them step up in their lives and businesses. Together we release negative emotions and limiting beliefs and then I use coaching techniques in order to help them create goals and actions that align with their energy and their values.

I have a signature 1:1 programme, run regular group programmes (starting 2021) and am launching a new membership in January!

What’s the story behind your success? What led to your aha moment? how did you get to where you are now?

My aha moment was the moment Google returned with the answer ‘don’t’ to my search about starting the business when pregnant. My immediate response was ‘don’t tell me I can’t!’

It was that moment that I knew I was going to write my book The Expecting Entrepreneur and it would be all about growing a successful business while growing a baby…baby was on the way, all I needed was to create a successful business. This was my motivation.

I was very lucky to have the full support of my husband, Luke, who actually started his own accounting business at the same time as me!
I also wouldn’t be here now without all the support of other local entrepreneurs who I connected with in the early days who were able to share their knowledge and recommend me!

Networking – best thing ever!
I am grateful that I am now in a position where I can be super clear about who I work with and support – female entrepreneurs.

In the early days I didn’t niche straight away and I helped everyone I could with my skills in order to develop and discover my true calling.

Thank you for sharing that. What’s been your life’s biggest lesson so far?

My biggest lesson has been that you never stop learning and never stop creating. Learning from those who are where you want to be, those who are new, and also from your clients (past and potential).

Another challenge / lesson comes down to what I now see as my naivety. I don’t quite know where I thought clients would come from but I definitely thought I’d have regular 1:1 clients and a waiting list within a month or so! Now I look back I can laugh at this! About a month in and I hadn’t got any clients…I had a lovely website, I was posting on Facebook, I was networking but no one had bought my services! Outrageous right?

Well it was then that I decided to invest in some Facebook ads and I used them to shout about a free workshop I would run locally, to get to meet my potential clients and start having some conversations!

I signed up 3 clients from that workshop and now I do similar things online. If I could go back and do it differently…honestly I wouldn’t…we all have to learn our way at our pace and I really needed this lesson!

You’ve done it!

If you were to go back in time, what piece of advice would you give to your younger self?

Advice to my younger self would be, just keep going, everything takes you to the right place, even the bad days, which you have a 100% success rate of surviving!

As for the doubters – I would love to find the post on the forum that said ‘don’t’ from that Google search. I love to reply thanking them for the boost they gave me to do it, I’d love to offer them a free copy of The Expecting Entrepreneur.

We’re nearly halfway through our interview so it’s a great time to ask how does your business run. What three tools make your business run better?

Zoom is may main tool in working with my clients. I also think Canva is amazing!

I use Facebook mainly to communicate with my potential clients.
I would always recommend using an accountant (thank you husband!) as that would have been a waste of my energy. I also have a fab VA who helps me with some of the techy bits!

What do you know now that you wished you had known before?

You’ve done it!

What has been your greatest or proudest achievement or moment?

There are 2…
First came on month 5 of my business August 2019 – I checked my business account and saw I had made enough money to cover my standard costs, pay myself and still some left over to invest in whatever it was I wanted to invest in – writing a book.

Second is The Expecting Entrepreneur. I started writing in January 2020 and published in October – just before my son turned one.

What future life goals do you want to achieve and why?

I want to turn my business into a 6 figure business where I can drop off and collect my son from school, where I can take an afternoon off to walk in the beautiful forest and take a family annual holiday/adventure.

To finish our inspire questions…”We believe that sharing inspiring words can inspire others.” If there was one positive thing you would say to someone to inspire and empower them what would it be and why?

Get a coach. Honestly, I’m not just saying this because I am one – I’m not the right coach for everyone. But in those early days I don’t know what I would have done without my coach! It is so so often seen as a luxury but it really shouldn’t be.

“Thank you it has been great learning more about your founder story and Lemon Tree Coaching and Development”

To learn more about Lemon Tree Coaching and Development

Visit www.lemontreecd.co.uk

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