E5: Starting again after 30 years in Corporate with Leanne Lorains

When you have built the most amazing career working for the same company for over 30 years imagine having to make that call that says 'it is time...I am ready to take redundancy'

That is exactly what Leanne had to do and in today's episode we explore the emotions this evoked but most importantly we discuss how she took her wealth of experience and used it to build her dream business including the challenges it brought.

Leanne is an accredited strategist, passionate about helping ambitious people grow a wildly successful business or career they truly love, on their terms.
 
With 30+ years of corporate business experience, Leanne specialises in optimising the customer journey, streamlining processes, recruitment, and social media marketing.  She firmly believes that success starts with a plan and likes to shake things up a little by keeping things simple, fun and remarkably effective, ensuring every unique journey towards success is enjoyable and rewarding.

Leanne's website: www.leannelorains.com

You will also find Leanne on all the socials @leannelorainsstrategy

Want to connect? Find me here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamemmahine

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/behappybesuccessful

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-hine

Website: https://www.emmahine.co.uk

You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/@EmmaHineStrategy

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Dream Business, Dream Life. Helping ambitious people like you to grow a business they love.  I'm Emma Hine and I'm on a mission to show you that it is possible to grow a business without sacrificing your life. Having experienced the rollercoaster of making millions of pounds, but feeling overwhelmed, anxious and totally unsuccessful, I know first hand the importance of growing a business.

On this podcast, I'm going to share with you lots of tips and advice that will enable you to grow a business that gives you the financial freedom To live the life of your dreams while sharing with you some inspirational growth stories from other fabulous business owners,  ready to live the dream, then let's get stuck in.

Hello and welcome to today's episode of Dream Business, Dream Life. Today, I am joined by Leanne Rose. Leanne is an accredited strategist, passionate about helping ambitious people to grow a wildly successful business or career they love. With over 30 years of corporate business experience, Leanne specializes in optimizing the customer journey, streamlining processes, recruitment, and social media marketing.

She firmly believes that success starts with a plan and likes to shake things up a little by keeping things simple and fun whilst making sure they are still remarkably effective. Hello Leanne, great to have you with us.  Hello, Emma. Thank you for having me. I am super excited to be here today. And I am super excited, too.

Super excited. Just to pre warn anybody, everybody, me and Leanne have a great relationship, so we might end up being a little bit naughty, but we will try to behave. We will try to behave. So, Leanne, take us through your journey from corporate to running your own business.  Thank you. Yeah. So 30 years, Emma, it's a long time, right? 

It is. Three decades of my life. And I want to start by saying it was an absolute privilege to work for the same global pharmaceutical company for the entirety of that 30 years.  And I genuinely, honestly would not change a thing. I had a varied career. I started in HR, worked in R& D, business development, facilities management, before my final resting place of operations.

And each department and each role brought different variety, opportunities and growth. And a whole heap of business experience. So I feel I was the luckiest girl alive. I got to work on some amazing projects and most importantly, to work with some of the most talented, inspirational people, people who were curious and determined, people who were leaders.

And those people shaped me into the person that I am. today. Now, come on, this is corporate. So, of course, there were a few sticky patches and a few bumps in the road. That's only natural. But you know what? That's where I learned the best lessons. And if any of those people happen to be listening today, thank you. 

You know, because that really is what has shaped me into who I am.  So we're here to talk about growth  and I want to take you on a little journey now. I want to take you back to 2013 and I was at that point 20 years into my career  and we had a shock announcement. The company announced they were closing the golden site in Cheshire  and they were going to build a new R& D facility in Cambridge, which was.

125 miles away from home.  It was just, it was like, wow, where has this come from? And you know, for me, it was a move that not only, it was not that I wasn't prepared to make at the time, I wasn't able to make. I've got three daughters and they were, they were so  little. They were eight, 10 and 17 at that time.

And we loved, and we still love. Our life in Cheshire. So I had two options, be okay, or take redundancy. And it was redundancy for me. And then what happened really was I had a 10 year redundancy period. The original plan was to, to, for the company to have made that move by 2016. But I'll explain that as I, as I go through.

And I guess  I can only describe it really as it was the beginning of the end For me, but it was also the beginning of me. I guess I played it safe up to this point. I was terrified of change. I was terrified of feeling out of control,  but it was fascinating for me to watch how other people responded to this, this news.

And I think it's the first time I started to really take control of my career. And I started to be. more strategic. I'd always been very driven and you know that Emma, that still comes through now, really passionate, a real high performer, but I had played it safe. So I, I took a risk.  Um, I, an opportunity came my way to take an 18 month secondment. 

on a hybrid role working between Cheshire and Cambridge to recruit the Cambridge operations leadership team. So completely blank piece of paper to shape the future of what is now that new organisation in Cambridge. For me, Cambridge was a real,  a thorn in my side and it was a big disruptor to my life.

So why not throw myself into the middle of that disruption? So during the time of recruiting the leadership team, I also qualified as a project manager and then another door opened another, um, opportunity in Cambridge to lead the project management office and service readiness for all of the services moving into this new facility. 

And I just want to just, just try and paint a picture for you about just how iconic this facility was or is. So it's a 1. 3 billion dollar R& D build.  I was responsible for a six million dollar operational readiness. revenue budget.  We were working with third party outsource suppliers, but we also had this conundrum because the timeline was extending.

We've got people that had originally said they wanted to relocate. So we also, massive team of us, we We also opened eight satellite sites within the Cambridge area to enable those people to relocate, but also to start the recruitment. We couldn't just open the doors of a new facility and then suddenly have what, you know, a new team of people.

So,  oh my goodness, you know, I'm a mum of three, a very hands on mum of three. I found myself working away from home for majority of my time. And when I look back now, it was wild. Honestly. I mean, we worked hard. We, we played hard as well. And it absolutely was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I can only describe it  as a project on Red Bull.

I will never have the opportunity to work on anything like that again. And actually, I don't think I would, I would, I would want to, because when I look back, I don't know how I did it, Emma.  But it felt normal at the time. I was surrounded by people doing the same as me. You know, we were all battling our way through security control at Manchester airport.

And if you know Manchester airport, it's not a pleasure at six o'clock on a Monday morning, week in, week out. Yes, we were privileged. We had a private plane that flew us to Cambridge and then it would fly us back on Thursday and we'd unpack our suitcase and do the washing and all those things. And then we'd repeat it the following week.

That felt the norm.  It was a complicated build, there were construction challenges followed by the pandemic,  so it resulted in a, in a delayed timeline again to liken it to a bit like grand designs, except I didn't have a baby in the middle of it.  Those days were gone.  And in 2022.  We were nearing the end of the project and we were preparing for occupancy in Cambridge,  preparing to exit the site in Cheshire.

And I suddenly became very, very anxious and exhausted and unsettled by it all because there were all those rumours of who was going to be released, what, when, and different timelines of people, um,  being released. And for the first time,  I didn't want to go to work. It was first time in these 30 years.  I just did not want to go to work and I finally understood what the Sunday scaries meant. 

So I should just add in here at this point that in 2021 during lockdown, I'd set up a business with my husband. He's a joy, a landscaper, and that had quickly grown to six figures. And I was finding that that was giving me more enjoyment than, than my job.  So deep breath, Leanne. And this, this, you know,  I made the decision.

I took control. I made the phone call to say I wanted to take  redundancy. It's a phone call I will never forget. And I still genuinely feel queasy about it. It was me taking control.  But you see, I'd worked for that company since I was 15. I didn't know anything else.  And I can absolutely hear still today, the emotion in your voice when you're saying that. 

Um, because I know you obviously gave your heart and soul to that job as a, as in your corporate career, you gave everything to it. So I imagine that was a very uncomfortable call to make, but I love the fact that you took control and you did it when you were ready. I mean, you must have a world record for the longest person ever to wait to take this redundancy.

It must be the world record.  So what happened next when you made this call?  So what happened next was. A month to the day, I found myself on garden leave and whilst I'd planned my exit perfectly, for me, I couldn't control what that next, that next move was going to be by the organization. And I found myself in a place I didn't expect to be.

I'd never been in a, in a place before. So I had seven months garden leave on full pay. Yeah, really privileged. I, I acknowledged that, but that was longer than any of my three maternity leaves. You know, let's put this into context. I'd always worked full time and I found myself totally lost in a really dark place that I can only liken to, to grief.

I,  my life literally turned upside down and I don't want this to sound dramatic. This is, this is real. It, it literally, the constant that had been there  had been whipped from, from under me. It was horrendous. And the worst thing for me was the guilt.  and the shame that I'd made this happen. I'd made that call.

I'd walked away and  my calendar was empty. My phone stopped ringing. Those people that have been closest to me that I'd been living week in week out with,  they just slowly frittered away. And it, you know,  Yeah, it hurt. It still hurts, I'm not gonna lie.  At the same time, on a personal level, Phoebe, our youngest daughter, passed her driving test, so she didn't even need mum's taxi to take her to work and pick her up, and I kind of had lost all purpose. 

And this is where it gets quite funny for me, because ironically, it was experiencing the, what was supposed to be  a positive,  A positive outplacement support was absolutely atrocious, but it helped me to get clarity and to know what I wanted, exactly what I wanted to do next. So I never met this poor boy, we can only call him a boy.

I feel like I could have been his mother. And it was quite comical, you know, there's me having literally a midlife crisis.  Literally, I'd never met him on the, on the phone. We had to talk every, every couple of weeks. And he clearly wanted me to take option a, he would help me to position myself to get a job, which given my background, I didn't really need that help or option B.

I could use the funding that I had.  To take a course, a course in what? I never quite understood what he wanted me to do.  He had zero empathy and he just could not resonate with me and my, and my situation. The only suggestion he could make to me was perhaps he could help me to update my cv. So fair to say, that didn't last.

He didn't, didn't go particularly well. I politely de declined because I needed time to peel back the layers, Emma, to find me to dust myself off.  And it was time to bring my dreams to life.  Wow. I, I'm sorry, I, I was holding back the laughing there when you were saying it was trying to help you with your cv.

'cause I know that is something that you help other people with because you have so much experience of that. So I just found that bit quite amusing. Sorry, that somebody was offering to help you as something that you've just done for, you know, a however many billion pound project. Um,  um, okay. So time to build the dream.

What was the dream? Or should I say, what is the dream?  Yeah, so the dream was to, I didn't want to, I didn't want to go to another job because for me nothing could compare to what I'd just, I'd just done. The dream was, I'd had a taste of having, having our own business. My husband's business was flourishing, but I wanted that for myself.

And I, I guess a challenge I had was  you come out of corporate with so many skills and so many transferable skills and experience. How do you funnel that down into, into, into a, into a business and who did I want to work with? But, you know, I was really clear. I wanted to work, I wanted to work with people like me.

And I wanted to be  that thing that had been missing for me. That person that, that could help somebody to transition from something from corporate into, into their own business. So I'm really super clear on who I work with. And that is ambitious people. And I know the experts out there will be like, you need to narrow it down.

But I want to work with ambitious people who wants to build a wildly successful business or career. And I do believe there's a place for both  that they love because I firmly believe nobody Should go to work, to a job, a business, or whatever's classed as work that they hate. And I do feel, sadly, that I come across, and I know I've got friends and family that live for the weekend, they live for the next, that next holiday, that they're not, they're not happy.

And  bigger than that, I want to help people to create a life that they don't feel that they want to or need to escape from.  And I just wish there'd been somebody that I knew doing this when I was in that situation.  Yeah, and I totally get that. You know, this is exactly the same position I was in. I was going from business to business, not corporate to business, but in exactly the same position, needing that somebody to just sort of say, it'll be okay.

This is, this is what you have to do.  Okay. So you come into this online world, you've already had a really successful corporate career. You've built a six figure business with your husband. You start your own business. What, what does that feel like? Is it sort of a case of I've done this once, I can just copy everything that I've done and do it again? 

Is that what it felt like when you started your, your new business?  I thought it was going to be.  I honestly did. And that was the biggest lesson in that, I think, so my husband's a junior landscaper and, and I was the, I laid the foundations, I did all the strategic, he just wants to make stuff. He wants to go into somebody's garden and transform it.

So, I,  I was able to be the strategist. You know, in, in his business and I could do all of his social media pretending to be him. I still do that now, you know, people, it goes to see customers and they, they talk about, and he doesn't have a clue. He doesn't use social media or the online world. And I, I thought I was going to be able to replicate that with me.

But what I was feeling. Almost naked. I was so vulnerable and oh my goodness, there are, the online world, forget I've got 30 years experience, that online space, when you first come into it, it's a beast. It still is. There's so many, I always say, can I say a rude word? Go for it. Opinions are like  arseholes and everybody's got one. 

Literally. Good point. Good point.  Everybody is, and it's just so like, almost like a rabbit in the, in the headlights. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and, and I, again, I felt exactly the same when I moved from one. Everybody always tells me that my previous business was an online business. Well, absolutely. It wasn't the sense that it was an e commerce business.

online, you buy things on the website.  Nothing else was the same. There was no other similarity, I can't even say that word, between the two businesses. They were completely different monsters. You go from, um, the pro, when it's a product based business, the product is what people are buying. The product is what you are selling.

When you come into a business where suddenly that it's a service based and you are the person selling the service, suddenly you've got to be able to do things for yourself. You've got to be able to sell yourself. You've got to be able to talk about yourself and it's a completely different animal. And that's before we even get started on, you know, some of the other things.

And I know we had a conversation recently. Um,  And I said something along the lines of, just get a freebie out there, Leanne, just get a freebie out there. And I know you throw this back at me regularly. So do you want to tell us a little bit about that? Cause I think that was a great learning for people.

Yeah, absolutely. So you've called it a freebie today, but you know, people start talking about a lead magnet. A what?  I'm sorry. What the hell is a lead magnet? Yeah, I didn't need that in my corporate career, did I? You know, I, I, I, so yeah, let's call it a freebie today. And, and  I think that was one of the challenges.

There's so many people out there making this look easy. And I, I want to be really real about this. I'm a firm believer that business. Isn't complicated. People make business complicated, but business is hard. There's a difference between hard and complicated and just creating a freebie. So first of all, you need to know what, what it is that you want.

What's going to add value, who what's going to appeal, who your audience are. Create that freebie.  Okay. So you've got the plan in your mind, but then you've actually physically got to get the template together and create a physical document. You then have to. Have a landing page, a landing page. What is a landing page?

Yeah. And all of these, these terms that are banded around and then an email nurture sequence. And  I feel really fortunate that you are in my world. I am in your world. And I, I, I mean, how many silly questions do I ask you, Emma? No question is a silly question. I think that's the thing, isn't it? We all have to remember, we all ask them.

And when I first came into this world, you wouldn't believe the things that I Googled. I found an old notebook recently from some training and it. All these free challenges that we get involved in at the beginning, we do them all, don't we? Um, and I found an old notebook that I've got some of the notes in there, and I'd actually got a page in the notebook that said Google.

And it was a list of words and phrases where people had said things. And I'm thinking, well, I don't know what one of them is. You know, I've just walked away from a business turning over in excess of a million pounds a year.  How? When I don't even know what one of these things is. Exactly. It's like a foreign language, isn't it?

Yeah. And I know you have that in corporate with all different acronyms and things, but, you know, and I remember putting my freebie out there and thinking, okay, so I've, I've ticked all of those boxes. I've created it. I've done my landing page. I've done my, um, email nurture sequence. So come on guys,  everyone come and come and, you know, of course everyone wants it.

And, um, Yeah, it's just,  there's just so many different elements of it. And all the time you're trying to, you know, you've got social media and trying to  position yourself in, in this market.  Yeah. Yeah. And you're very clear from the, from the beginning here that your dream was to grow a business that you love.

That's what you help other people do. Therefore you want to do that yourself. So for you. That has got to be doing it in a way you enjoy doing, which isn't necessarily. Is it just replicating what other people do and doing the same as other people? Um, and I think that's important, isn't it? So if there was somebody out there now who's listening to this, that's thinking, do you know what?

I'm just starting out here and I haven't got a clue where to start. What, what would you suggest that they do? Where would you suggest they go?  Okay. So  this for me is where I maybe get a little bit more serious in that. I think starting out, I think the first question is, are you  serious about this or are you playing at it?

And I think there were two very different  things there for the serious, the action takers, the roll up your sleeves, the wildly ambitious people. I think to get that there's a course for everything. There's a free challenge. For everything. There's a master class for everything, but it's about getting super clear on what good looks like and having, having that, that clarity for me, you're always gonna get the best results by working one-to-one with somebody because that's bespoke to you.

And I've invested a lot of money in me. Um, and I would always suggest to people that they invest what they can. And I think there are different, different price points. out there and, you know, but my biggest tip is to do your homework, your due diligence, as it would be known in the corporate world,  because  there are a lot, unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there that are shouting from the rooftops.

They are the big, I am how amazing they are. They're charging a lot of money when actually they can't help you specifically. And this has, this is where it has to get back to being personal about you, just because somebody has won awards.  And there's a whole different topic on awards here. Doesn't mean they are the right person for you.

Doesn't mean they are the best person. I have a saying there, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. And for me, it's about finding somebody that has the right experience for you. Somebody that has  walked the walk, not just talked the walk. the talk and most importantly, somebody that you connect with, somebody that you'd want to go out for dinner with, somebody that you can have fun with.

Um, because  you can find the best person, but if you, if your values aren't aligned or, you know, you've got, you've got children, they've never had children. They're telling you to work 24 seven when actually you don't, that isn't what good looks like for you. So, and, and just to  try and have some fun along the way, because you've, you're already a.

Breaking boundaries by being bold and following your dream. No, it's easy to just take another job or to stay the same and not do anything, but  just do your homework.  Amazing. Amazing.  So finally, Leanne, if any of our listeners want to learn more about you, where is the best place for them to connect with you? 

So I've got my own website with lots of information on there. So, um, leanneloraines. com. But I think I'm me on my socials, on my Instagram account, um, which is leannelorainesstrategy. Um, you know, I'm always on stories, living, I'm living my life. And what you see is what you get on, on Instagram. I'm on Facebook and I'm on LinkedIn as well, but  Instagram is definitely the real Leanne.

The real Leanne. And I will vouch for that. 100 percent I will vouch for that. And if you love horses and dogs, definitely. Go and give Leanne a follow. So thank you so much for joining me today. It's been absolutely amazing as ever chatting with you. I have loved exploring your journey. I've loved talking about how you've taken your huge wealth of experience from the corporate world and turn that into a business that you love.

And now the fact that you take that and help other people. Absolutely love it. So thank you for joining me.  Thank you for having me. And thank you to everybody else for listening. We will see you next time. 

You have been listening to Dream Business, Dream Life with Emma Hine. If you want to know more about how I can help you to build your dream business and your dream life, then visit my website, emmahine. co. uk.  Until next time, remember, you really can have it all.