#awinewith Lauren Fraser
MEET Lauren
Lauren is the Founder & Head Strategist of LMF Marketing.
Find Lauren here:
LMF Marketing website or Instagram @lmf_marketing
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:08):
All right. Let's do it. Lauren, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us on Spark tv. Let's get started by telling everybody how you got to actually running and creating LMF Marketing.
Lauren Fraser (00:25):
Sure thing. Well, look, thank you for having me. Firstly, very excited to be on Spark tv, and it was an interesting journey, actually. So I always knew that I wanted to work for myself. I just never knew what the business was going to be or when or how or any of that, but I hated working for other people.
Danielle Lewis (00:47):
Me too.
Lauren Fraser (00:49):
I was actually living in Melbourne with my partner at the time, and we both wanted to keep traveling the world. We were big travelers and well, neither of us were digging our corporate jobs in marketing in Melbourne, and he pretty much gave me the push. I was still a bit like, oh, I don't know. I don't know if I've got enough savings. Oh, I don't know if I've got enough experience. There was a lot of uncertainty on my end, and he was pretty much like, come on, we want to travel. You've got this, you can do it. And he kind of actually pushed, I would say, pushed
Danielle Lewis (01:30):
Me like that sometimes. Yes, it definitely
Lauren Fraser (01:33):
Felt like that working with partners. And so we got the company set up, and that was, I'm sure that was 2018 in Melbourne and managed to poach clients straight off the bat, which, and it was originally called Porcupine Digital. That was the first name. Very cute business. Yep. Yes. You say it's cute. I loathed it.
Danielle Lewis (02:04):
Oh, really? I
Lauren Fraser (02:05):
Loathed it so much. I
Danielle Lewis (02:12):
That'd be like, hi, it's Lauren from Porcupine Digital. Oh, no,
Lauren Fraser (02:18):
No. Working in partnership. Yes. Sometimes
Danielle Lewis (02:22):
You have to make compromises.
Lauren Fraser (02:24):
Yes, yes. So that was how it started. But then quite quickly we realized I had, I guess the drive and the passion and worked really well, autonomously working for ourselves. He missed the team environment. He missed, I guess maybe more the corporate style. It just wasn't quite suited to what he wanted. So yeah, it didn't take long for us to decide that You back out of it, buddy, and let me take over,
Danielle Lewis (02:58):
Take the reins and change the name.
Lauren Fraser (03:02):
Yeah, that was one of the first ones because I mean, as you know, have to feel that connection to your business and your brand, and I didn't like telling people about it. I didn't like marketing it and LMF marketing just was easy. It was me. I took ownership. So yeah, it was an interesting first year of business going through that journey with my partner, but once I took it on as my own baby, yeah, I guess when the magic started happening, which was really cool.
Danielle Lewis (03:35):
That's amazing. I love that. So it's good. I mean, it's really funny that he was the one to kind of go, let's do it. Let's make this leap. But then was the one that was like, oh no, I don't actually want to make this leap. And I think that that's really interesting. I don't think people realize what running a business is. You don't have that team, you don't have the big office, you don't have the marketing budgets. You are kind of wearing all the hats. It's really hard.
Lauren Fraser (04:06):
Yeah, no, it is. It really is. And especially I think that whole digital nomad lifestyle is so, what's the word? Glamorized, how fantastic and easy. And me and my partner, we take beautiful photos and travel the world and
Danielle Lewis (04:24):
Bodies as well.
Lauren Fraser (04:29):
It was because we then started traveling. We went through Europe for six months with the business. Cool. But it was tough. We were sitting in train stations on the floor waiting for trains, doing work. It was not glamorous with the time zone differences and all those things, but for me, I was like, oh, hang on. We're doing some good work and I love being my own boss, and actually I could really do something with this. Whereas he did love many of those aspects, but was also like, oh, I just would prefer to travel and not have to do all this. And I'd prefer working with more people in a different environment instead of you and your partner 24 7 together.
Danielle Lewis (05:17):
Yeah. Oh my God, on a train station four,
Lauren Fraser (05:21):
Not the cleanest place to be working.
Danielle Lewis (05:24):
So fast forward to today. What does LMF marketing do and services you offer clients you serve? What does that look like?
Lauren Fraser (05:35):
So it's evolved really nicely, and so we are now working with predominantly established businesses in the health, wellness, lifestyle space. And in particular, my passions are very much health wellness. So I really resonate with those businesses and love working with them. My goal was always to build an agency that had the skills of a high-end agency, but felt like part of the team for businesses was at a really, I guess, approachable budget as well. We're not exorbitant pricing. We're for those, I guess small to medium, but established businesses. Family owned lots of husband and wife teams, which is really lovely. And so we're servicing them across Google Marketing, so your SEO and your Google ads, social marketing, both organic and paid, whether that's Facebook and interest, Instagram ads, Pinterest, TikTok, so all of those kind of under the social umbrella as well as email marketing and then supporting them with strategy as well, and pretty much their own marketing team, but we're just not actually in-house.
Danielle Lewis (06:59):
Cool. But it's like that's what you want in an agency, I think, right? You want the idea of outsourcing your marketing to an agency sounds like a good idea, but I know from experience that sometimes outsourcing it, you lose the passion, you lose 'em really understanding what your values are. So I love that you guys want to be part of the team and want them to feel like you're part of the team.
Lauren Fraser (07:28):
Even when I was in corporate and I was working for one of the biggest digital agencies in Australia, and I just saw it, the clients weren't receiving that, and they were kind of treated just a number. They were just bringing in revenue. It didn't matter about the service or the connection or really about caring about how their business was growing. So yeah, I was like, oh, I hate this. I hate working in this environment. It's all sales and KPIs, customer service. So yeah, that's always been a value. So it's so nice to four years down the track really being in that position where we've got fantastic clients who have, some of them have been with us since the start four years ago,
Danielle Lewis (08:15):
And
Lauren Fraser (08:17):
When we catch up with them, they just talk to us, how is the business going? And we get all the details and we care, and I want to know about what's going on. So yeah, it's really a nice place now.
Danielle Lewis (08:30):
Oh, I love that. So then from you, what does your role look like? So obviously you're the founder of the business. What's the difference been from sitting on the floor in a train station through to today? Do you still do the same things or has your role changed along the way as well?
Lauren Fraser (08:51):
Yeah, no, my role is always, and yeah, it's been interesting because since I started, well, when I first started, I was like, no, I don't want any other team members. I want it just to be me so I can have full control and make sure it's the best service ever and fantastic results. But then quite quickly I was like, okay, there's not enough hours in the day.
Danielle Lewis (09:18):
I need to sleep. I need to sleep,
Lauren Fraser (09:22):
Sleep and eat and actually earn a living.
(09:26):
So then I realized, okay, I need to bring in teams. So I've got half a dozen contractors who are amazing and specialists in each of their fields, so I've really built them up and built up my systems. So I'm still the face of the business. I'm still the one connecting with clients, but I'm also the quality controller of what's going on in the work being done. But I don't do as much of the actual day-to-Day campaign management now as what I did when I started out, and now I'm at that really interesting stage that I actually need to remove myself from the day-to-day management to, as they say, step into that CEO role. But this is, I think it's that every level in business has a new challenge.
Danielle Lewis (10:20):
Yes, definitely it does.
Lauren Fraser (10:22):
Oh, it does. And at the moment, the challenge is now being okay with letting go of control, and I'm coming up against it a lot. I've got a fantastic team member who I'm slowly handing over client communications to that she's going to be dealing with them, and everyone does things differently and interprets things differently and thinks creatively in different ways and strategically, et cetera. But if I'm going to be the CEO and keep growing the business, I have to be okay with people doing things differently to how I do.
Danielle Lewis (11:00):
Oh my God, it's so funny because this is the second time I've had this conversation today. It is really, really interesting. I think that so many people start a business, they get this founder title, and as a founder you wear all of the hats. You literally have to do everything, the sales, the delivery, the admin, the fine, the bookkeeping, literally everything. And then you kind of have this slowly bring in specialists. And I think the move into the CEO role is huge, empowering other people to run the operations of the business. And you are right, let go of the way you normally do things is really confronting.
Lauren Fraser (11:45):
Yeah, it's scary. It's really scary.
Danielle Lewis (11:49):
But I love the way that you've said kind of small handover, small pieces at a time. I think that's a really nice way to go about it. It de-risks it as well. Let's be honest, we're all control freaks and we're startup founders, so letting go of little bits at a time is sometimes a really nice approach.
Lauren Fraser (12:11):
And I think also what it is your own business, and I am the face of it, so I need the team that I'm building around me to really see that vision and share those values and any new person coming into a role, it takes time to adjust to it. And ideally, I could just hand over everything and it would be perfect, and I could just be like, oh, I finally get a proper holiday afterwards.
Danielle Lewis (12:36):
I was just about to say, lie on a beach and have a margarita.
Lauren Fraser (12:40):
It's so overdue. But I feel like my motto has always been, I want to grow sustainably,
Danielle Lewis (12:51):
Not
Lauren Fraser (12:51):
That, which I feel like there's a very almost masculine approach to business of grow fast break things, figure it out on the way. It's like, yeah, I would actually prefer to grow sustainably and I don't work weekends and I haven't for a very long time now. It's like I
Danielle Lewis (13:09):
Love that so much.
Lauren Fraser (13:10):
So it's just like I'm doing it in a real healthy way. So hopefully in five years it is that multimillion dollar business, but I'm not burnt out. I love the team around me and there's that shared vision and value.
Danielle Lewis (13:26):
Yeah, and I love the idea of I don't work weekends, but I love Mondays because I love what I've built. I love the team, I love my customers, I love what we do.
Lauren Fraser (13:35):
Exactly. And you can only, I think, appreciate your business when you take a break from it. Anything you need to have a little bit of distance to be like, I want to go back.
Danielle Lewis (13:45):
Definitely. Definitely. And if you don't have that, if you are working 12, 18 hour days, you're burnt out. You're not getting enough sleep, you're not exercising. It's so easy to get to that point where you've resented, I think.
Lauren Fraser (13:58):
Totally. And it is a tough one because I think every business owner or entrepreneur, whatever we call ourselves, but you almost have to go through that or you pour your heart into it. You try to do everything. You try to learn as much as you can. You buy all of the online courses and download all the freebies, but then you actually get to that point where you're like, oh, okay, this isn't sustainable. What do I really want my life to look like? Okay, how can I build the business to support it? But you kind of have to go through that trial by fire to be like, do you really want to do it? Because which is okay, because some people get to that point. They're like, actually, this isn't building the life I want. I would prefer to work for somewhere else. So go back to corporate. And that's fine, but you don't know until you really go through the thick of it.
Danielle Lewis (14:52):
Oh, that's so true. And I mean it's even like I say this about myself, I download all of the things, I buy all the courses, but unfortunately I don't learn unless I do it. And I'm like, damnit, I tried not to make the mistakes because I tried to learn from someone else. But sometimes you don't really know until you go through those experiences and that visceral like, wow, I really don't want to do this then if I really don't want to do this, how do I build my business so I never have to do that thing?
Lauren Fraser (15:22):
Exactly, exactly. And I still have a lot of inquiry calls with startup businesses who are very early stages and they're talking to me about, oh, well, I'd love to outsource my organic social media management to you. And I just say to them like, no, don't do it for where you're at. You actually need to hustle for a bit. You need to put that effort, do that groundwork because not only is it going to well save you money, not outsourcing in those super early stages on things you don't actually need to necessarily be, but you learn the value of them and you learn how much you value your time and where it should be focused in your business as well.
Danielle Lewis (16:06):
Yeah. It's actually super funny you say that. So in my other business scrunch, so influencer marketing, so we are not an influencer agency anymore, but when we were an influencer marketing agency, what we love the most is people who had run influencer campaigns before because they know the pain. So they know exactly what they were outsourcing, they knew the amount of work it was, they knew how much it wasn't their day to day. That was the best customer. Like, okay, you are going to value everything we do because we are taking all of that pain away from you. And I think if you outsource straight away, you're absolutely right, you waste a lot of money and you don't really understand all of the pieces of the puzzle. And I think sometimes too, you don't actually know what works for you because not every marketing strategy works for every business. You really do have to test and optimize and figure things out to know. Yeah, that's the thing. It works really well. Now let's get someone that's awesome at it to keep going.
Lauren Fraser (17:03):
Exactly. And it is kind of cutting through that noise as well, because I'm sure everyone sees it. You're scrolling through Facebook and there's some guru who's telling the latest secrets to achieve a seven figure business or six figure launch, and it's just like marketing is not that easy.
Danielle Lewis (17:24):
No. Oh my god, if sales and marketing was easy, everyone would be billionaires, right? That's ridiculous. I love it.
Lauren Fraser (17:34):
It's just, oh, but it's so just frustrating. Then you do talk to people and they're like, oh, well can't you do that? It's like, well, no. And they're like, can't you guarantee this? It's like, no. And I always say if an agency's guaranteeing something, think twice because
Danielle Lewis (17:50):
Totally.
Lauren Fraser (17:52):
You've either got to be ticking a hell of a lot of boxes, in which case pretty much anyone could probably achieve those results for you, or they're going to be shaping it to suit them so they can achieve the guarantee,
Danielle Lewis (18:05):
Or you are just paying through the nose or you were just wasting a lot of money to achieve said results.
Lauren Fraser (18:12):
Yes, exactly.
Danielle Lewis (18:14):
Oh my God, that's crazy. Well, and you've mentioned a couple of times as we've talked about transitioning into this new role about you being the face of the brand. And it's interesting because as we've been going through the latest Spark 12 week program, a lot of people have been like, I don't want to be the person. I don't want to be on stories. So what's your thought about a founder of the business showing up as the face of the brand? How important do you think it is? Do you think that it's necessary? Unnecessary helps? What's your vibe? Tell me.
Lauren Fraser (18:51):
Yeah. Well look, I mean, firstly, it's going to depend on your business and your industry first and foremost, and what you are doing something like service-based businesses such as ours where it is about connection and building relationships,
Danielle Lewis (19:07):
Then
Lauren Fraser (19:08):
It's crucial. I still hate it. I don't like,
Danielle Lewis (19:14):
This is scandalous.
Lauren Fraser (19:16):
Don't, I've never been my personal social media. It's private. I don't post things very often. I started it so my nan could follow along when I was traveling.
Danielle Lewis (19:30):
I love that. Awesome.
Lauren Fraser (19:33):
I'm not one, some people have a connection to it, and they have that, I guess extroverted personality. They love connecting. They can do it online so easily. I don't, and you'll see, I'll pop up and I'll be like, I'm going to show up with lots of tips. And then I'll be, two weeks later, I'll be like, oh, I'm back again.
Danielle Lewis (19:55):
But it's so funny because I know that you're saying that and you're on stories and you have no idea about time anymore, but I always think when you show up, I'm like, oh, cool. What's she saying? What's she doing? And I'm like, oh, I wish I was talking to camera like her. So it's so funny that you are going, oh my God, I didn't do two weeks from the last story, and I'm just going, oh my God, cool. She's back. What's she saying? So I think that that is actually an awesome lesson. I think we kind of, as founders, we go, oh, I'm not showing up consistently enough or I'm not doing this, but I'm like, the people that you're giving the value to are just going, oh my God, okay, I'm dialing in what she's saying today because this delivers value.
Lauren Fraser (20:33):
No, totally. And that's also something I've learned because I think it was maybe the second year of business, so I was still that early stage, and so I had a lot more time. I wasn't as busy with client stuff, so I was showing and I was messaging people and DMing and responding to things and reaching out to new accounts. And so the Instagram account really grew then and it was great, but then I got busy, and so the third year it was like, I don't literally have time to do any of this. And I was really harsh on myself about not showing up and seeing other competitors who were growing consistently and showing up consistently. I was like, oh man, I'm not doing that. God, man, I'm so shit at. I can't even,
Danielle Lewis (21:21):
Yeah.
Lauren Fraser (21:22):
I was like, I can't even market myself. Oh my God. But then I realized, I was like, oh, actually, well, that's not my main channel that brings in inquiry for me. It's SEO brings in lots of organic inquiry and then word of mouth and the connections I build. So it's like, oh, actually for me and my business, I don't need to be showing up every day or posting multiple times. So then I've now built a strategy that works for me, and it's a few posts a week. We treat LM F1 of our clients now, and we plan out the content, we schedule it in, and now it's just, I know I need to jump on, but if I don't get the chance, well that's fine because I've got scheduled stuff just rolling out. And when I do, then I do add value. So at least people know I'm not just jumping on for the sake of it and waffling.
Danielle Lewis (22:20):
But I think that's the best point because I think when you do scroll through stories and you do watch the courses and the ads and you're like, well, obviously I need to talk on stories every day if my business is going to be a success. And it's like exactly what we said. You're like, well, no, I actually know that SEO and this and this, this other things that move my business forward. So if I show up on stories, excellent, I'm engaging with my community, it's happening, but it might not be the thing that actually drives leads and grows my business. I think we just get obsessed with what everyone else is doing and kind of forget about tracking and measuring what works for us as a business.
Lauren Fraser (23:01):
And it's so easy to do on social media and even the last six months, well, it may be a bit longer, but with the rise of reels and all these,
Danielle Lewis (23:12):
Oh my God, reels, don't get me started.
Lauren Fraser (23:16):
You see it and you're like, oh, well they're doing so well, and they're like tens of thousands now, a hundred thousand followers. It's like, oh, I haven't done that. But then I've heard through the grapevine of some of those owners in their business and it's like, oh, hang on. I'm actually making four times the amount of money they're making and oh, okay,
Danielle Lewis (23:37):
Do zero reels. Okay. It's so easy to get caught up in social media.
Lauren Fraser (23:45):
And so now, actually, so I've got a time limit on my Instagram. Oh, I like
Danielle Lewis (23:52):
This. Yeah,
Lauren Fraser (23:55):
I do a screen detox. So 24 hours from Friday night till Saturday night going offline completely.
Danielle Lewis (24:02):
Oh my god, this is awesome. But
Lauren Fraser (24:05):
It makes such a difference because we just get sucked in and waste time and brainpower on such shit.
Danielle Lewis (24:12):
Oh my God. Totally. Totally. Well, it's funny, I think sometimes we go on for business, just got to check inbox messages, got to do this, got to do this, and then it's like I'm like, oh my God, 15 minutes fast. Then all I've been doing is watching stupid stories like, oh
Lauren Fraser (24:30):
Yeah. And again, as you were saying before, that's why we don't necessarily need to be showing up all the time because you just, the time goes so fast, and so we're not really noticing how we are consuming it. And so for me, it may be two weeks between stories, but for you, you're like, oh, Lauren's back again. Oh, sweet.
Danielle Lewis (24:50):
Hopefully that's exactly how it is, by the way. I have no concept of time anymore. Oh, that's so good. I
Lauren Fraser (24:59):
Think, yeah, we just need to be so conscious of social media in business, how we use it for ourselves, and maybe being like, is it the best channel? Do I need to focus my energy here? Because lots of, again, startups, I'll have inquiry calls with them. They're like, I want you to do socials. And because we focus in the health and wellness space, I know what works for them. And I say, don't do that. You should be doing Google marketing. Yes,
Danielle Lewis (25:25):
Totally.
Lauren Fraser (25:25):
And they just say, oh, really? It's like, yes, don't waste your time there. Use it as a fun tool for you to connect and show off your brand, but that's not going to be the lead generating channel for you. Google will be for that business type. So yeah, you've got to understand your business, where your audience is, which channel's going to work best, and then try to be conscious of social media, I think.
Danielle Lewis (25:50):
Yeah, and I love that because you provide that as a service and they're saying it's not right for everybody. So I actually love the honesty of, because I think that that's funny, even with, I think about this with influencer marketing, everyone's like, if I just get that influencer with a million followers, my entire business will be changed. And I'm like, no, please don't pay that influencer. Please, please don't give me your money to pay that influencer because you are just wasting it. So it kind of makes me, yeah, I guess I want to ask the question. So we think about the startups and small businesses that might be contacting you and you saying, no, that's not the right thing. Maybe you should consider understanding who your customers are, where they are online, other conversion channels, because a lot of the people watching smart TV are business owners and people either just starting out or early stage in their business and they're kind of going, oh my God, I dunno what to do with sales and marketing. Is there a tip that you could provide for small business owners or startup owners in terms of maybe a little bit of self-reflection? So rather than getting sucked into what all of their competitors are doing on social media, is there some fundamentals that these startup businesses should be thinking about before they consider outsourcing any of their marketing?
Lauren Fraser (27:14):
Yeah, look, mean it does. Again, industry business types will have an influence of which is best, but a lot of startups are still really undervaluing the brand they're building.
Danielle Lewis (27:30):
That's a good point.
Lauren Fraser (27:31):
And so they feel like, oh, well we'll just put that up, or we'll just do a really basic logo. Or you can very much see it's crack.
Danielle Lewis (27:45):
One of the team have jumped on the Canva and popped something together.
Lauren Fraser (27:49):
Exactly. And it is great intentions because you do, you want to hustle, you want to do these things yourself, but you need to be thinking of the way people engage online. It's such a crowded space and subpar brands don't stand out anymore. Or if they do and they see results, they're usually having to do a lot of cost cutting. And so it's actually, again, it's inefficient and doesn't have that long-term sustainability behind it. So I think early stages really look at how can you build your brand? And it doesn't have to mean you're spending thousands on having an actual brand design for you, but it's having that bit of consideration, being clear on your values, and then in those early stages, trying to build user generated content, gather reviews as soon as possible because again, I have a lot of inquiry calls and they're like, oh, we want to start running Facebook ads and maybe let's say skincare as an example.
(28:54):
And they've got no social proof, they've got no reviews behind them. It's a beautiful product and it sounds really good, but that's not going to get any cut through in a crowded marketplace. You need that social proof. You need a foundation for your brand to then build on it. So I think those early stages, just being conscious of that and there's so many great resources out there, there's so many people you can reach out to. There's small scale services to large scale depending on your budget, but I feel you can't overlook it anymore. A few years ago. Yes, not now.
Danielle Lewis (29:38):
But I love what you kind of touched on there as well about building a community early, like a community of advocates and review. So it sparked when you said reviews and I was like, yeah, what about, so these new brands, how do you get in touch with your potential customer and build that early community of people that love what you do that are advocates of what you do so that when you go to spending money, the people that you're targeting actually see that there are other people that love it? I think community now is kind of really undervalued. People think that we have to go straight into ads, straight into reels, straight into everything, but just connecting with the actual people who are going to buy your product and service is considerably undervalued
Lauren Fraser (30:29):
And it's so much easier than you realize. But again, it's something the business owner needs to have that real take the responsibility for. And again, as an example, a client of mine incredible, and she's just always been so clear on her vision, what she wants to do, how she wants to help people. And so in the early stages she did actually, not with me, but she did invest in paid ads and didn't see any results. It was thousands of dollars, just didn't get any traction. And I'd supported her with SEO with a previous business. So we were chatting again, it's like, well, what do we need to do? It's like, you need to do outreach, you need to get your face there, you need to build connections. And so via Instagram, she just started reaching out to potential stockists and resellers awesome. She's now multi six figure business within two years
Danielle Lewis (31:27):
And
Lauren Fraser (31:27):
That, oh, maybe two and a half. So the first year, six months was just hard, no traction, minimal sense. Then from hustling and building those connections and getting her face behind it, that's what just catapulted it and to put it on that trajectory, and she's doing so well, but it's because she hustled and she put in and she built the connection, she built the community, she gathered the review, she got people talking about it's cool, and now the paid as she is running, she's showing reviews, she's showing before and afters and it sells so well.
Danielle Lewis (32:09):
And that's so cool. And it's like I love also that you said, you know what? The first six months didn't really see a lot because I think it's really easy to get disheartened as a business owner when you reach out to 10 people and no one replies. And I said this the other day, someone said to me, I reached out to 10 people and only one person replied. And I'm like, that's 10% conversion rate. That's actually good. So I'm reach out to a hundred people, reach out to a thousand people. I'm like, it's really interesting. I think it's so easy to not figure out how many people you need to reach out to and what volume of time before you hit that tipping point of things actually snowballing and kind of working in your favor. So sometimes you do have to do that work.
Lauren Fraser (32:58):
Unfortunately, if things are easy, it'd be great. But we do have to hustle every so often.
Danielle Lewis (33:04):
Totally. It's a good balance. I think we started the chat with how do we bring a little bit more ease into our businesses and design them in a way, and I think this is before we started recording, but design our businesses in a way that we as founders are doing things that we love and not being burnt out and really being considerate about the people that we bring in our roles. But in the early days, there's a little bit of hustle that has to happen.
Lauren Fraser (33:37):
Yes. Which is okay, but it's actually part of the journey. And there's almost going through it, having that gratitude. And that's why when everyone says celebrate the little moments and milestones, it's like you really have to
Danielle Lewis (33:52):
Do. Yeah,
Lauren Fraser (33:53):
That first client, the first 10, the first $2,000 in the business, the first 20,000, the first 50, it's
Danielle Lewis (34:00):
Like, oh my god, when someone pays me $10, I jump for joy. I'm like, that is amazing. I swear I'm spending more on the wine than I am being paid on the 10, but that's okay. That is okay. Celebrating. I'm manifesting future sales.
Lauren Fraser (34:18):
Absolutely. But no, but it's so true. It's so, so true. And it's easy to slip into that lack of, again, I reached out to 10 and only one came back and nine didn't just like, Hey, one of them wanted to, that's epic.
Danielle Lewis (34:31):
Oh my god, amazing. And I love, it's like, okay, well why did that person reply? What is it about them? Were they a different industry? Were they a different role in the organization? What was it go to the effort of analyzing why they were replied so that you can tweak the next 10 that you reply to. Because what if it was like, oh my god, that was the one person that was a different role in the business. Lemme try 10 people in that role. Oh my god, now three people out of the 10 replied to me. All of those little insights about your potential customer are so valuable.
Lauren Fraser (35:06):
And this is the beauty and challenge of marketing, which so many people don't appreciate. It's not just one facet or it's not just one equation to things. It's actually like you've got to have that creativity and that kind of outside the box thinking, but you need to also drill down and make those connections and analyze what's being done. It's such a beautiful mix, but you have to have both of them working together to see it actually work.
Danielle Lewis (35:35):
Oh, totally. I love that. Okay, so we're talking about a little bit of hustle. So tell me, along the last few years of running your own business, have there been any challenges? Dumb question. So tell me, have there been any, so all of the people listening right now are probably either going through the same challenges that you've been through or they're just about to take the leap and they dunno what's in front of them. Have there been a couple of challenges that you have faced that you have overcome that you might be able to say, look, you're about to face this, but here's how to handle it with a little bit of grace and a little bit of forgiveness of your own self because everybody goes through it.
Lauren Fraser (36:19):
Oh my god, how do I pick just a couple?
Danielle Lewis (36:23):
Okay. No clear everyone's schedule. We're here for the rest of the night.
Lauren Fraser (36:29):
I mean it really has been an absolute roller rollercoaster. Even I would say the first, I think two and a half years was still like, can I turn this into a viable business that will pay a decent income? It took time.
Danielle Lewis (36:49):
Yeah.
Lauren Fraser (36:50):
So was, oh yeah, there was lots of, oh yeah. I think even at one stage I couldn't pay rent and my partner at the time and he had to pay and it was like, what am I doing
Danielle Lewis (37:04):
In there? In there? Don't worry. I think it's a rite of passage almost. I think it's like if you have struggled to pay rent as a business owner, you know how much you've got to hustle and make sure it doesn't happen again.
Lauren Fraser (37:18):
Oh God, totally. But I think actually, so yeah, there's probably two good ones. So one of them was I guess the first big mistake on client projects and that was when I was still doing the work. So it was on me and the website actually crashed. It was like we were changing a record on the servers. So the website went down and I was just like, oh my God, I'm going
Danielle Lewis (37:55):
To die. I'm going to die. Oh no.
Lauren Fraser (38:00):
When you're just in tears and shaking like, oh my God, what have I done? But then it was just like, well, I've got to fix it. And so then you're on the phone. And then I was in the backend doing stuff and it was different support chats and we got it back online and it was fine. And even though I told the client, oh, okay, this shouldn't have happened. I managed their kind of expectations around it all and I just did what had to be done, even though it was one of those sick in the stomach, I have really screwed up. But then afterwards it was like, oh, okay, yeah, I screwed up, but I did fix it. Oh my God,
Danielle Lewis (38:43):
The world didn't end.
Lauren Fraser (38:46):
Yeah. I was like, okay, we're cool. Cool, cool, cool. Okay. I'm alive. The client's happy. Things are good. Okay.
Danielle Lewis (38:54):
But it's also like I love what you said about telling the client the expectation management because it's also, I have this philosophy that so best customers are customers that have experienced an issue and a problem because if you super communicative, that can't be a word, but if you show a bit of grace, if you tell them what's going on, if you own up to it, if you say, oh my God, we are dropping everything, you are the only person that matters right now. You can have a customer for life.
Lauren Fraser (39:27):
And they have been with me the entire time.
Danielle Lewis (39:30):
Yes. That's so good.
Lauren Fraser (39:34):
That transparency is such a value of mine. And look, maybe sometimes you do need to sugarcoat and they don't need to know every single detail.
Danielle Lewis (39:44):
Absolutely. I dunno what you're talking about, but absolutely
Lauren Fraser (39:48):
It is saying, look, this is where we're at, but this is what we are doing. This is when you can expect things to be back online. And because when people have that kind of safe space, they're like, okay, they've got it, that's cool. I don't need to worry. So it's just if
Danielle Lewis (40:05):
You can create and that's it, because the last thing you want is them to notice that the website's down or that the issue has occurred and they don't hear from you. If you get on top of things as quickly as possible, they know that they are the most important thing in your world right now.
Lauren Fraser (40:20):
Yeah. And I think when you go through that and then you have that approach and you get through it, because since then of course there's been more issues, thankfully nothing quite like that, but little things or error. But then you just realize,
Danielle Lewis (40:36):
So something's always going to be a problem,
Lauren Fraser (40:39):
But you realize you're like, oh, okay, these things unfortunately happen that is literally humans. We are prone to these kinds of failures. So yeah, I think that's one of the big lessons that it's going to happen, but you are going to be able to handle it and get through it, which at first it's like, oh my God, I'm never going to recover from this. My business is a failure. I'm a failure actually, I'm okay.
Danielle Lewis (41:07):
Oh, it's fine. How can we push these limits a little bit? No, I love that. I love that so much. And so on that note, so today we've talked a lot about change and growth and challenges, and that is going to be the story of every female founder on the planet. So let's end on a how do you in those moments, give yourself a little bit of grace? What do you do in your home life, personal life, business life to say, okay, things are stressful, things are overwhelming. How do you get out of that mode and reset? And I know it's different for everybody, so not everyone's solution is going to resonate, but how do you manage it for yourself and remember to center yourself and ground yourself and what do you do to kind of make that happen so you can actually take the next step forward without getting trapped in the overwhelm?
Lauren Fraser (42:06):
Yeah, I mean, so I do a lot of things, but I also don't do any of them consistently. And I think this is something I've learned is actually almost a good thing or it's okay because I know we probably all see it. Your morning routine should be this to be successful or you should meditate every day. Whereas I
Danielle Lewis (42:29):
Do none of those things. Don't worry. Damn it.
Lauren Fraser (42:34):
But I do meditate and I journal and I do yoga and I do breath work and I go for walks and I do my Pilates, I do all the things, but not every day, but I just identify and I'm very good at it now of listening to my body. So if I've done too much death time, my body's going to feel it, so I have to step away and I've learned I have to look after that. Otherwise bad back, you're in bed for a week and not fun.
Danielle Lewis (43:07):
Yeah, totally.
Lauren Fraser (43:08):
But then mental health, I've just now got to a place where I've got really clear boundaries and as I said, I don't work weekends. If I do, it's because I'm inspired and I actually, it's more of a creative outlet than having to do the work. Yeah, that's awesome. My to-do list is never ending. I could work every weekend, but I'm not going to, and yeah, then I
Danielle Lewis (43:35):
Like the Tim Tam packet to-Do lists are like the Tim Tam packet. That's what I've figured out this week. It's like the to-do list just keeps filling up. It's magic.
Lauren Fraser (43:45):
Yeah. You get to the end, you're like, oh, there's only one left, and then you look back again, it's full. You're like, damn, it
Danielle Lewis (43:51):
Only they tasted as good as Tim taste. Sorry, I interrupted you.
Lauren Fraser (43:58):
Yeah, so pretty much just being very mindful, having boundaries that I'm very good at sticking to them now and yeah, lots of getting into nature for me, whatever that may be. Sometimes it's just literally going to the beach and sitting down if I'm too exhausted to have a walk. Other times it might be going for a hike, so it doesn't always have to be the same thing, but it's just taking space from the business is actually the most nourishing thing I can do for myself so that I come as you say, and love Monday and want to be jumping back into it.
Danielle Lewis (44:35):
I love that so much because I think there's so much pressure to have the morning routine, have the things do them consistently, and it's like, well, if I didn't do yoga today, obviously my businesses are failure. It's like, no, no. Some days are going to be crazy, and you've got deadlines, and you've got launches, and you've got things, and other days you're like, you know what? Nothing's going to catch on fire. If I go for a walk for an hour, I capitalize on that. Listen to your body. Be self-aware. I love that so much. That's awesome.
Lauren Fraser (45:08):
Especially women with hormones. We need to actually be easy on ourselves and be like, yeah, this week it ain't happening.
Danielle Lewis (45:15):
Totally. Today I am lying in bed all day.
Lauren Fraser (45:20):
Totally.
Danielle Lewis (45:21):
Yeah. Oh my God. Well, I love this so much. You have been amazing, Lauren. Thank you for spending your time with us and divulging all of your business secrets. We could not be more grateful.
Lauren Fraser (45:33):
Absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me and for chatting
Danielle Lewis (45:37):
Anytime.
