Lauren Currie | UPFRONT: How to build resilience in sales

Starting a business is tough & making sales in a challenging economic climate is even harder. So, resilience is key to keeping on track. 

But how can we manage rejection alongside the expected setbacks? To find out, I spoke with Lauren Currie OBE, Founder of UPFRONT, a global organisation upskilling 10 million women. Teams at Nike and Just Eat Takeaway have enrolled their teams in UPFRONT’s Bond course to transform their team culture.

Keep listening to hear Lauren’s advice on developing resilience in sales & when to acknowledge you should probably cut your losses. 

Lauren's advice:

• Your energy is vital to running a business, so manage it
• Avoid those people who drain your energy and seek out those who replenish it
• Marketing equals revenue - the more you do, the more returns you will have
• Accept the loneliness of the founder, which can be hard
• Be comfortable and confident about your pricing
• Also, be very clear about your pricing so the customer doesn’t have to work hard to find it
• When a potential client or customer approaches you for the first time, always ask them how they found you
• Get them to say yes or no as soon as possible!  Don’t spend a long time courting a potential customer - move on to find someone new
• Make life easy for your clients: for example, don’t let them have to work out time differences
• Don’t take rejection personally!
• If you need to make a customer more comfortable, include an older white man face in a call
• Nurture yourself and your energy before you decide to quit: are you tired? Dehydrated? Hungry? 

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Recorded, edited & published by Juliet Fallowfield, 2024 MD & Founder of PR & Communications consultancy for startups Fallow, Field & Mason.  Email us at hello@fallowfieldmason.com or DM us on instagram @fallowfieldmason. 

FF&M recommends: 

• LastPass the password-keeping site that syncs between devices.
• Google Workspace is brilliant for small businesses
• Buzzsprout podcast 'how to' & hosting directory
• Canva has proved invaluable for creating all the social media assets and audio bites.

MUSIC CREDIT Funk Game Loop by Kevin MacLeod.  Link &  Licence

Transcript

Juliet Fallowfield: [00:00:00] Starting a business is tough and making sales in a challenging economic climate is even harder. So resilience is key to keeping on track, but how can we manage rejection alongside the expected setbacks? To find out, I spoke with Lauren Curry, OBE, and founder of UPFRONT, a global organization upskilling 10 million women. Teams at Nike, Just Eat, and National Entrust have enrolled their teams on UPFRONT's Bond the course to transform their team's cultures. Keep listening to hear Lauren's advice on developing resilience in sales, and when to acknowledge you should probably cut your losses early on, and why getting a no quickly is a good thing.

 It's wonderful to have you on the show.

Before we get into all the nuts and bolts about resilience, I would love it if you could just give a brief introduction as to who you are and a bit about UPFRONT, which is the business that you founded.

Lauren Currie OBE: Of course, I'm super happy to be here. Thank you for having me, Juliet. My name is Lauren Curry and I [00:01:00] am a founder. I'm an entrepreneur. UPFRONT is my sixth business, and we are are on a mission to upskill 10 million women with confidence, visibility, and leadership skills. I'm also a writer, this year my children's book is coming out in September.

My nonfiction book is coming out in January next year, and I live in Sweden with my partner and my son, who's seven, and I'm originally from Scotland, which you can probably already tell. Yeah, I grew up in Scotland and left London a few five years ago and moved to Sweden.

Juliet Fallowfield: I was gonna say that explains the beautiful light that I can see on your face, because that's not English light, that's Scandi light. I'm very jealous. thank you so much. And. I want to do about five episodes with you because how you wear all the hats, how you manage a family, writing a book, and running a company.

I have no idea, but we're gonna focus on UPFRONT today and talk about resilience in [00:02:00] sales. we're just about to finish our sales season.

Lauren Currie OBE: we've been doing six months focus on all things sales, because I think a lot of founders forget that when they start a company, you need cashflow and you can have the best idea in the world.

Juliet Fallowfield: But if you don't have any cashflow, you don't have a business. And for that comes sales and something that's quite interesting that a lot of people say, is it product based? Is it service based? Are you going to do a lifestyle business? Are you going to sell it? Questions I was asked after I started and I was like, I don't know.

I know I'm a service based business, but I lifestyle business, what is like. All of this stuff. So in terms of you, you've been building businesses since you left university, including UPFRONT plus a leadership development platform and service design agencies. What did you learn the hard way when you started your business? It's always good to go in with the guts.

Lauren Currie OBE: Yes, and I think with business there's so much. you can only learn by doing. I think that's so annoying and not a fun answer for your listeners. [00:03:00] And when I think back, I started my first business when I was 23, very much by accident. didn't go through my education thinking I'm gonna start a company or, Feeling like I was on the path of entrepreneurship. So when I look back, I definitely could write a book of all the lessons and one day I'm sure I will. But if I was to choose the top three, I think the first one is around energy. So I have definitely learned the hard way that my energy is my business's most precious asset, like far more than the product.

Juliet Fallowfield: The team like. It just trumps everything. 'cause I went for a run this morning knowing it was a preemptive strike on stress. 'cause I've got three podcast recordings today and

Lauren Currie OBE: oh

Juliet Fallowfield: that my energy would be up if I went for a run

Lauren Currie OBE: yeah.

Juliet Fallowfield: and I didn't wanna go for a run. It's the last thing I wanted to do. But I did it and I'm high on endorphins now because of the energy, so you saying this, how do you bring more energy into your day?[00:04:00] 

Lauren Currie OBE: So I also run, And if any of these's rolling their eyes at that, I need you to hear me in that. When I moved to Sweden five years ago, I did not even own trainers. Like I am not, didn't grow up with people around me running have, it was a, it's a very new thing for me and part of it has been moving to Sweden where there's so much nature and it's much more safe. I hadn't actually realized how unsafe I'd felt to run in all the parts of the UK that I've lived. Like I've come here. So running is definitely, part of how I look after my energy, but for me, I think it's more about prioritizing people and work that gives me energy and deprioritizing, particularly people who drain my energy.

 and that's why it's a lesson I've learned the hard way. I can see looking back that I spent a lot of time with people who drain my energy and feed off my energy. Like I am a very energetic, like my friends call [00:05:00] me a Springer Spaniels, like I'm naturally very excited, really enthusiastic, a hundred miles an hour, and I realize now that people want to be around that and they want to suck it out from me.

Slightly, that's not been good for me. So

Juliet Fallowfield: okay.

Lauren Currie OBE: that's definitely how I think about my energy as an asset. I think the second big lesson that sticks out is the relationship between marketing and revenue. And somebody, a wise man once said to me, if you wanna double your revenue, you need to double your marketing activity.

And now I really live by that rule and it. And I really believe it to be true. It's like if you wanna triple sales triple marketing activity, and I know before we went live, you and I were just despairing at the fact that, to be a founder and an entrepreneur in 2025 means you also have a full-time job as a content creator.

Juliet Fallowfield: yeah, which takes my energy.

Lauren Currie OBE: Exactly at the very, least

you know, a [00:06:00] creative director for a content team. if your business is in a place where you have people helping you with that. You're right. That is a whole other, it's a whole other podcast episode, but I think the relationship between sales and marketing is really important.

And that lesson helped me a lot. 

Juliet Fallowfield: And I think the third lesson is accepting the loneliness of this path. I think the path of being a founder, being an entrepreneur. Is one that is inherently lonely. And yes, we can build support systems and networks, but I think even with that support system, being a founder, especially if you're a woman, especially if you're a business that is mission led it's very lonely work and I'm still learning.

Lauren Currie OBE: That and learning how to navigate that, but it's,

Juliet Fallowfield: thank you for calling that out. 'cause a lot of people glamorize entrepreneurship and there's [00:07:00] a lot of beating of trusts in gyms saying How, I'm a founder. I'm an entrepreneur. And it's really hard work. And the loneliness is something that no one talks about because you are also the expression that you are lonely at the top. You get to Elon Musk,

It's like you are looking into abyss and swallowing glass. Like you get all the bits of leftovers that no one else wants to touch, that you're paying to do. It's really hard. how do you manage your loneliness? Because I think there's a difference. Solitude. I'm, I've just moved to the countryside and I live on my own, and I find there's a difference between solitude and loneliness.

Solitude, wonderful. Loneliness, not great. How do you manage it?

Lauren Currie OBE: I think it's something that I'm much more aware of, and I understand a lot better. I think there's been times in my past where I have felt that loneliness and made up a story in my head that's was something that I was doing wrong or it was something about me personally. [00:08:00] And now I understand that to be a woman who is publicly and openly, very ambitious to be a woman who publicly and openly talks about money, who is building a business that at its core is challenging the status quo. That is the word controversial, feels extreme for me, if we zoom right out, it is a controversial place

to be.

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah,

Lauren Currie OBE: it's a bold place to be.

Juliet Fallowfield: But someone has to do it. And I'm really grateful there are women like you who are, because you lead and others will follow. Again, that makes it more lonely. 'cause you're one of the first people doing it. it's hard.

Lauren Currie OBE: so really, and I spend a lot of time and energy and I do invest in support through, I have an incredible coach, Sarah, who is a huge support to me, and I'm very good at asking for [00:09:00] help. I will reach out to people and ask for what I need. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Now that for me was the podcast.

Lauren Currie OBE: Yeah. It's like combine that with living in a country away from my family and friends, having a young son raising a family, like all of these things are not conducive to having a thriving support system of friends and family and supporters.

Juliet Fallowfield: Well for me, it was starting the podcast and I was, by accident, asking lots of people for lots of advice and I thought, I just record it and then I, become my support and it's become my network and become my community in a very happy accidental way. For me, I also joined coworking offices and people are like, oh no, I can't spend any money on anything ever.

'cause I'm starting a business. And it's like, no, you need to invest in yourself. if you are not thriving, business is, there's no hope for it. and with UPFRONT, what year did you start UPFRONT?

Lauren Currie OBE: So we [00:10:00] officially became an organization four years ago, but I started it as a side project nearly 10 years ago. So it was my side project on the side of my other businesses for six years. And then I went full time four years ago and we became an organization and we built a team.

Juliet Fallowfield: And before we get into how you've grown that business, do you want to just give a sort of an overview as to what UPFRONT offer?

Lauren Currie OBE: Yes. So we are an online education company, and we are on a mission to upskill 10 million women. And we do that through our flagship product, which is called the Bond, B-O-N-D And Bond is the collective noun for a group of women. And so, every cohort that goes through our product is its very own Bond and we host Bonds for the public where any women from any walk of life, in any circumstance can turn up and buy a [00:11:00] ticket. We host Bonds for organizations, so we just hosted a Bond for Nike. We had a network rail Bond. We are hoping to launch a Sainsbury's Bond and we host Bonds for specific sectors. So we have the charity Bond. For women who work and volunteer for the charity sector.

We have government Bonds for women who work in central local government, and we are just in the process of building Bonds in different verticals of expertise. So we have a Bond for founders and freelancers. We have a financial literacy Bond, a leadership Bond. And the vision that we are working towards is UPFRONT becomes the place where women come to learn.

And no matter what you want to learn, there will be a Bond that teaches you that skill. And a Bond is an online experience where there's prerecorded content, there's weekly touch points with experts, which are live, and then there's the [00:12:00] community element, which we really emphasize, because we believe that

 your learning is enhanced when you're in community. So in a nutshell, that's what we.

Juliet Fallowfield: Oh, thank you. It's fantastic. I know the answer to this, but for listeners, why women, why do women need the support?

Lauren Currie OBE: Because we live in a patriarchal society where 90% of all people have a negativity bias towards women. And that is a statistic from the United Nations that hasn't changed in the last 10 years. And what that means is, women need specific tailored support to learn new skills.

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah. with that, with your growing of the business, how did you learn to sell your product?

Lauren Currie OBE: So, I learned to sell from my mom. Because I grew up watching her sell and hustle and not give up, and not take no for an answer [00:13:00] on a cordless phone.

Essentially my whole early childhood, she always had sales roles in a kind of nine to five capacity, and then she had side hustles, which were very craft based.

my mom is definitely a closet artist, so she used to make, beautiful flower arrangements. She used to make ragdolls, I remember our neighbors would bring her the fabric from their bedspread or their curtains, and she would make big, beautiful ragdolls

made out of the same fabric. so I think at its core.

That had a huge influence on me and I very much learned by doing. as I said, when I was started, my first business, I was 23. We were one of the very first service design for social change agencies, and really [00:14:00] we were one of the first, which meant a huge amount of my job was evangelizing and inspiring and trying to convince people. Designers do belong in government. Designers do belong in the NHS. And now that's really ordinary and boring. But at the time people thought we were crazy. but I think I had so much fire in me for that cause that I just stood on those stages and did it without really understanding the weight of what I was doing at the time.

Juliet Fallowfield: So your passionovertook any under confidence you might have had in yourself, but for those, I mean, something that I definitely learned backwards in starting my business is that you have to be so confident in your service that you are offering. You have to be your biggest supporter, your biggest backer. If you don't believe in it, no one else is going to. And we all know that women have crippling disbelief, crippling under [00:15:00] confidence and lack resilience. this is a huge conversation to ask you or huge piece of advice to ask you, but what would you suggest female founders do when they start their business to bolster their confidence and build that resilience?

Lauren Currie OBE: So I think when it comes to sales and how to sell with confidence, there's three things that you should always do. I think the first thing is, You need to make your price really easy to find and be so comfortable saying that price out loud and saying those numbers and talking about discounts or multiple contracts or deposits and con-, like all of these things need to be become, they need to be so comfortable in your mouth.

It's almost like I need you to practice seeing them in the shower. And when you go, whether it's you have a sales deck or a website or a PDF or whatever it is, it needs to be super [00:16:00] clear what your product costs Like I see so many women who run businesses making their costs like a mystery, a puzzle to be solved.

It's like, I just wanna know what is it you do and how much is it? How do I buy it? Like I don't want to have to fill in forms and read pages and stuff. So,make it very easy to find. Get comfortable saying it out loud. The second thing is, whenever you have a new interaction with somebody who's interested in your business, especially in the early days, you wanna ask them really directly, where did you find out about me?

'cause that information becomes gold for you because you start to understand where people are finding you, and then you can double down on those things. And then the third thing is to try and get them to say yes or no as soon as possible. And I know that the advice of try and get people to say no quickly might seem counterintuitive or might make you feel uncomfortable, but the [00:17:00] reason we want them to say yes or no quickly is so that we can know where we stand and move on.

Because if it's a no, you need to know as soon as possible so that you can move on and go and find the next yes. And when I look back at my journey, I've definitely spent, months and months following up, chasing, let's have another coffee, let's have another coffee. And you know, you're 25 coffees in and there's no contract, there's no contract coming, there's no money coming.

So I think that needs to be a really kinda firm boundary that you hold. And then three things that are like absolute 'no-nos' never do these things when it comes to sales is never make your client do the work of figuring out time differences if they wanna engage with you. And that seems so simple.

But if I am hiring someone, or I'm hiring a partner or a supplier and they're like, yeah, I'm in New York, it'd be fun to chat something like, I'm not gonna go and figure that [00:18:00] out. I need them to tell me I can meet your time. this. And of course the big one, which we've talked about already, and I think we'll talk about some more, is around rejection and really doing the inner emotional work that you need to do so that you are not taking rejection personally.

And I I'm not sitting here from a place of, I never take anything personally and I never get upset when they say no. Or, of course it's personal and it would be naive to suggest you can get rid of that completely. But I do think you can really reduce it to a minimum where it doesn't really affect you.

but you do need to do the work to get to that place.

Juliet Fallowfield: We're taking a quick 30 second break from this episode to ask, are you thinking of starting your own podcast? If so, this is great news because we run a course that will train you how to produce your own podcast yourself. This course is for people who do [00:19:00] not want to outsource and pay someone else to do it.

You want to learn how to do it yourself. We teach you everything that you need to get up and running with your own podcast show, and so much more. Just DM us at hello@fallowfieldmason to book your spot.

Someone said to me don't waste time on worry.

 It's like, at it, accept it and move on. And don't give it any more time than it, it's already in the past.

You have to move on. And I think that's the thing. When you are busy running a business, I noticed that I, my resilience went up quite quickly at the beginning. 'cause you just have to, you don't have the luxury to just sit and wallow. but it's interesting what you said about getting to the no quite quickly, I was kicking myself.

I'm five years in, I should know better. I had a potential client, come to me. Everyone raves about you. Everyone says you're amazing. I'm like, great, flatter my ego. That's lovely to hear. Like all the journalists think you are the best. I was like, wonderful. I know they rate me, but I'm definitely not the only one out there. I just have to talk to you. And I was like, here are our services. Let me know if they work for what you are looking [00:20:00] for. And she said, no,I need something a little bit different. And I just need to talk to you. And I am so protective over my time and my zoom hours. I was like, okay, she sounds interesting.

I love her business. Let's have a quick chat. Got on with her so 

well, loved our conversation. Said Actually, I'm in London tomorrow. Why don't we meet face to face? 'cause I knew there was a great connection between us. I said, what's your budget for this work? It's it is something of interest. We could do this. Well, I'm just talking to lots of people. I don't have a budget and I'm like. That's normally a red flag and that's a normal, no, we don't take this any further, but we'd already built this rapport and I thought, I'm in London anyway. I can spare an hour. Ended up being two. Fast forward, spent a full two days putting a proposal together, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. She still hadn't given me a budget and then she came back saying, it's so outside of what we thought we were gonna spend on this, we just can't work with you. I was like, so you do have a budget? And I put, on LinkedIn, going back to our content creator point I put on LinkedIn, it's been our best performing post.

It's like, no budget, no problem. We'll just charge you [00:21:00] for a proposal because I am so done. Having my time wasted that I just thought that's the only way I can protect. It's if you are not gonna put skin in the game early on, nor am I. It has to be this mutual. 

Respect and that was the only way I thought LinkedIn could gimme some other answers.

And lots of people are like, oh, have you not checked their revenue? But it's I support startups. So it's a bit tricky. So yeah, it's that exasperation where people waste your time. But getting to that, no, I love that. I'm gonna really remember this. Thank you.

Is there anything else you wanna share on that?

Lauren Currie OBE: Yeah. I think one, piece of advice I always share, which sometimes gets a bit of a reaction is, especially for women founders, is to just bring a white man into your sales calls every now and again, and just watch how the whole conversation becomes a different conversation.

Juliet Fallowfield: Oh, it's heartbreaking, still. You think that is more effective,

Lauren Currie OBE: Yeah, of course.

Juliet Fallowfield: so play the game.

Lauren Currie OBE: Yeah, and it's not [00:22:00] like it's depressing, infuriating, but it's the world we live in, so use it. How can you use that to your advantage to support your business? for me it's if I need to bring a man into a call so that a client feels comfortable to put a thousand female staff through our training, that's okay.

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah, because you need the business to affect change, and if that grows the business to be able to affect more change, you're at peace with it.

Lauren Currie OBE: Yeah, and we help the women that we're exist to help in the first place.

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah, International Women's Day comes around every year. I'm like, oh, great. We get a day and it pains me so much, but I get it. We're still not there yet. And we went through B Corp a couple of years ago and that was fascinating to learn about the disparity. but in going back to that. Our economy would, or everyone's economies would be better off if more women started businesses. Do you have some stats you could share on that?

Lauren Currie OBE: [00:23:00] Yeah, so we know that 60% of women say that the reason they don't start a business is lack of confidence. And we know that if women started and scaled businesses at the same rate as men did, we would add 250 billion pounds to our economy. So, to me, it's like this should be top of the agenda for policy makers and institutions.

But of course we understand the reasons why it's not so, It's what can we do about it? For me, with my UPFRONT hat on, it's like if we want more women to start and scale businesses, then we need to stop telling them to just be more confident. And start creating conditions where confidence can actually grow.

that's fundamentally why I built up front, because confidence is so misunderstood and women are just constantly being told, 'be more confident', or 'you're too loud' or 'you're too much'. Like we're constantly in this double bind, where essentially no matter if our, what our confidence looks [00:24:00] like, we are told that we are doing it wrong.

And so I think the way that we start to tackle that is the first thing we should be funding confidence, not just ideas. It's like confidence is an infrastructure. I think it should be built into business support programs, and it's like pitch prep, pricing, visibility, negotiation.

You can't do any of that if you're not confident. And so I would really love to partner with an incubation program or a VC firm or an investor pool where they were really willing to put their money behind the confidence and then they're money's gonna make them more money. So maybe one of your listeners will fit that bell and get in touch.

I think the second thing is about risk. It's like we understand, that it's not a case of women being less ambitious, it's because the cost is much higher to women if it goes wrong. So it's like we need to think about the [00:25:00] infrastructure around childcare, peer support, and some of that can feel almost like, oh, that's out of our hands. We would need to change the law. What can little old me do to do that? And it's yes. And we know there's a culture of female founder take downs and we know that we hold female founders to very different standards than we hold male founders.

that is society as a collective performing that pattern time and time again. And I believe that the way that when we think about large scale behavior change, really that's just individual behavior change on mass. So if we all started to do more work of 'why am I judging her?'

 who does she think she is?' internalized misogyny is a really good example, because I'm always thinking about this balance between what we can do as individuals, and we all have far more agency than we realize. And then what we need to do from [00:26:00] a systems perspective, is if we want new policies and new laws, the people who make those policies and laws are people, are individual people.

that's, I guess what makes me feel hopeful and that we can do something about it.

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah. And have you seen in the last five, 10 years some change happening? you must have hope to keep leading your business.

Lauren Currie OBE: What makes me hopeful is the power and the impact that is created when women unlearn all of the bullshit they've been taught about what they're capable of. I don't know if you, have you seen the Barbie movie?

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah.

Lauren Currie OBE: So do you remember the scene where the Barbies are brainwashed and they're like, we have to wake them up and help them realize what's happening.

So they pull them into the back of the van and give them like a short shirt talking to, somebody said to me like, UPFRONT is that van? [00:27:00] And I was like, okay, first of all, I need to get a giant red van and drive around London and one day do a really fun campaign around that. But it was, a really special thing for somebody to say to me, because UPFRONT is that van, and it might be because you take part in a Bond. It might be because you have a conversation with somebody who's been in a Bond. It might be because you listen to our podcast or you come along to our conference, but our content is once you put the UPFRONT glasses on, you can't unsee it.

You can't unsee how much you're apologizing for no reason. How much time you're wasting, second guessing and trying to analyze what other people think about you, how much you are underpaid, undervalued, underappreciated. And when you realize that yes, it can be very, it is upsetting, it's shit, but when you see it, then you can do [00:28:00] something about it, and then you start to move through the world.

In a very different way. And that leads to more happiness, more opportunity, more money. And that's what makes me hopeful every day because I just see it every day. And we've had over 11,000 women have gone through the Bond now, and they're all out there making change happen in their own ways. And for some of them that's, around their dinner table on the conversations they're having with their husband about housework, and some of them are, changing their organizational culture from within. Some of them are shaving their heads and getting tattoos. Some of them are coming out even though for the first time when they're in their forties, like there's such a vast and varied array of what that confidence looks like and how it manifests itself.

But that's what makes me hopeful.

Juliet Fallowfield: That's great to hear because I'm sitting here thinking there's the chicken and the egg. It's empowering women and [00:29:00] then giving them the tools to change for the better. But then it's also trying to change the audience and how it's received, because I've definitely seen that, I became self-employed five years ago.

Typically, before that, I was working for big luxury brands where one's bigger than the brand. It wasn't about me, and that was fine, but. It was suddenly I saw everything in a different light and I was like, hang on a second. but now I'm typically normally quite good with boundaries and I know my worth and I won't have clients speak to my team members in a certain way.

Like I feel very empowered to say my thoughts and if someone doesn't like it, that's on them. But then you're like, but I can hear my words skimming past your ears. 'How do I get them in your ears?' It's like getting that reception in a better frame of mind. But I guess we just have to keep chipping away at it, don't we?

We have to keep banging the drum. and the more women who are empowered scaled. 

Exactly, 

Lauren Currie OBE: and you [00:30:00] focus on the people who do hear you.

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah. That, going back to the energy point.

Lauren Currie OBE: Yeah. don't waste time trying to get people who don't really want to listen to you to listen to you. That's a waste of your time. You're focusing on the people who are listening.

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah, that's quite freeing as 

well. Especially when you don't have much time, spend it wisely. Is there anything that you would like listeners to walk away from this conversation feeling?

Lauren Currie OBE: I want them to feel excited to sell. I love talking about selling and I really do believe that when women learn to sell, amazing things happen. I want them to leave feeling motivated to get more rejections, to get more no's, and to really think about their confidence as a practice. Think of it, it's a muscle.

It's a muscle that you can build. It's not something you're born with. It's not something some people have and some people don't. So how are you gonna build [00:31:00] that muscle? What does that look like for you? Of course, I always want you to come and join a Bond 'cause that's gonna be the best fun and the most learning.

But there's a million bazillion different ways you can build that muscle.

Juliet Fallowfield: Well, 

Lauren Currie OBE: But you have to start, nobody's gonna do it for you.

Juliet Fallowfield: To your point earlier, what are your pricing for joining a Bond?

Lauren Currie OBE: That is a really good question. So for organizations. We have a model that is dependent on the size of your organization. So we have four tiers. For large organizations with more than 250 employees, it's 32,000 pounds, and you can enroll every single woman in your organization for that fee. Exactly. So it's extremely cost effective.

Because we are prioritizing impact and scale. Even over profit at this point in our business [00:32:00] growth for the charities and the local and central government, it's a similar model, which is dependent on the revenue of your organization so that it's fair for the sector. So for example, if you're a small to medium sized charity, the fee is 3000 pounds.

And for that 3000 pounds, you can enroll every single member of staff and every single volunteer. And then for our Bonds, where individual women come and buy a ticket, they have different prices depending on what Bond it is. But for our confidence Bond, it's 590 pounds. And you can pay that over a period of three or four months.

Juliet Fallowfield: That's amazing. So it is practical and accessible for women who are solopreneurs or freelancers. Fantastic. Amazing.

Lauren Currie OBE: Yeah. Our Bond for founders and freelancers is 120 pounds, so we made that even more accessible because we know that founders and freelancers are at lots of different stages in their funding journey.

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah, [00:33:00] absolutely. And also once they've invested a little bit, they'll get a taste for it 'cause they know how impactful they'll see the numbers come back and it's the best return on investment. What we do is a question from our previous guest, which is Jamila Brown, who's a sustainability expert. And her question for you is, if you could start a business from scratch and 

 do something totally different, what would it be?

Lauren Currie OBE: Oh, I love this question and I have a million ideas of other businesses that I want to build and some that I'm sure I will build in future. But if you ask me that right now, today in my life where I'm living in Sweden and I've spent the last 15 years building businesses that require me to be very visible and vocal and.

very online. I would build a chip shop because they don't have chip shops in Sweden

Juliet Fallowfield: Oh, you poor thing. 

Lauren Currie OBE: Potatoes have a very, very high margin. Chip [00:34:00] shops are really good businesses. If you can get the location right and you can get the footfall right, chip shops. So that's what I would build.

Juliet Fallowfield: I love it. And what would your question be for the next guest? And it could be anything on entrepreneurship.

Lauren Currie OBE: So my question for your next guest is, when did you last want to quit and what stopped you?

Juliet Fallowfield: That's a good one. I did some coaching recently and someone said, just tell yourself a truth and see how your body feels. Like I'm tall, I have brown hair. And then tell yourself a lie and see how your body feels. And it was a real. Body reaction to the yes and the no. He's like, right. You know how your body reacts to yes's and no's Now ask yourself a question about your business and how your body reacts. And I was like, this is amazing. I'm gonna apply this to dating, let alone the business of like, should I go out on another date with that guy? No,

Lauren Currie OBE: Yeah, your body knows. Your body knows.

Juliet Fallowfield: But you asking me that question, I was like, Ooh, it's right in my gut of, because every day you question [00:35:00] everything all the time. And that inner dialogue is something that sometimes I wish I could just mute. And when you're busy it's quite good 'cause it does quieten, but you have to constantly question stuff and a lot of it is, 'is this a viable business?' 'Does this have a future?' 'What am I doing this for?' 'What job satisfaction do I get from it?'

And I often land back on, even if it made no money, it gives my brain great happiness, I talk to incredible people, my colleagues are fantastic, I love the work that we produce. That's enough. And if we make money, then great. But it money is the kind of means to the end. But on the bar chart of things that matter now, it's totally different to when I was gunning for a new promotion or a pay rise or a bonus or something like that,

That question I, I'm gonna ask everyone that. That's brilliant.

Lauren Currie OBE: Yeah. I think for me. When I have those moments, I have a rule of okay, are you tired?' 'Do you need a snack?' 'Are you dehydrated?' And like [00:36:00] 95% of the time, it is one of those things. And I, and then the next day I'm like, oh.

Juliet Fallowfield: Or you haven't had a break. A colleague of mine, she's like, you've not had a holiday since you moved house, and that doesn't count. You have to have a break. And I was like, I'm not leading example. Like was right. And I went away and I was like, I love reading a book and lying in the sunshine. And I came back so zen. And that, you are right. It's like you're a small child. You need to just manage yourself of like, go and have a nap, go for a walk, drink some water, don't be hungry, hangry. I'm just gonna go and buy lots of Snickers now. 

Lauren Currie OBE: Yeah.

 I feel like my biggest responsibility in my job right now is managing my own energy.

Juliet Fallowfield: Oh, I love this. You are so wise to point this out. Thank you.

Lauren Currie OBE: And it's like you're a child. It's like, being a child, it's as you say, fresh air, daylight, water.

Juliet Fallowfield: Nature, community connection, support. But the kicker is that you are responsible for yourself. No one else is. And no one [00:37:00] else is gonna do it for you. You have to accept that it's on your shoulders, because no one's gonna feel sorry for you if you're like, I'm really tired. Everyone is. So, yeah. Ooh. Okay. Thank you so much, Lauren. It's been wonderful chatting to you.

Lauren Currie OBE: Thank you, I've loved it!

Juliet Fallowfield: If you'd like to contact Lauren, you can find all of her details in the show notes, along with a recap of the advice that she has so kindly shared. And tune in next week to hear Amber Nuttall, founder of Extreme Hangouts, reply to her question.