231: Louisa Whitney: How to Create Unique Collaborations in Your Business

Today’s Guest

Table of Contents

I’m excited to introduce today’s guest, Louisa Whitney. We originally met in a local networking group several years ago, and we actually live in the same town! I love this episode for a couple of reasons: Louisa’s story is a perfect example of how you can pivot in your business so you can serve the same audience in a totally different way that feels more aligned for you, and because she’s created a very unique network of professionals who work together in a very coherent way, providing packages of services based on what each client needs. I’d like to encourage you to think of how you might do something similar in your industry as you listen to this episode.

You may also remember that I’ve been calling for listeners who want to be a guest on the show. This is the special guest listener episode! Enjoy. And happy holidays. 🙂

About Louisa

Louisa Whitney is a family mediator. She helps couples who separate to make arrangements regarding their children and money and property. She facilitates discussion and helps to give people the tools to manage their separation in a constructive way and to map out what happens for everyone involved. Where couples are locked in conflict she encourages them to think about things from different perspectives and particularly to consider how this conflict might impact on their children. She is also a Professional Practising Consultant (PPC) which means she supervises and helps develop other family mediators to develop their own experience, training and skills. In addition to her own consultees Louisa also offers training to other mediators, lawyers and counsellors.

Louisa’s family mediation practice is LKW Family Mediation and this can be found at www.lkwfamilymediation.co.uk. The practice can also be found on Facebook or Twitter @LKWFamMed. Louisa can also be found on Twitter @LouisaWhitney. You can also connect with her on LinkedIn.

Listen to this episode

What You’ll Learn

How Louisa made a major shift in how she serves her clients
How she created a very unique network of professionals who provide bespoke packages to clients
The benefits of helping clients by creating a network like this
How you can create something similar in your industry
How changing her mindset has helped Louisa in her business and in building this network
How to market your business when it’s hard to pin down your target market (most people aren’t looking for divorce solutions until they’re actually in that situation)
How to keep building relationships so you can encourage referrals from other professionals
How listening to the podcast has helped Louisa and her business
Louisa’s favorite episodes

Things We Discussed

Connect with Louisa

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Business Mindset Podcast episode 231. This is the last podcast episode of the year, and this is my last interview for a really long time!

I haven’t mentioned this to you yet, but I am changing up the format of the podcast a little bit for 2018, of course this is always subject to change because this podcast is kind of an experiment, even though it is an experiment that has been going on for four-and-a-half-years now. So, what my plan is for 2018 is to have, as I have been doing, two solo-episodes a month, one co-hosted episode with Jo Casey; and because I have been loving my co-hosted episodes with Jo Casey so much, I am going to be bringing on a quarterly guest co-host who I will be having for throughout the year, four special episodes where we talk about business and business mindset stuff.

I am really, really excited about this and I look forward to introducing the first co-host later on in January. And it is someone that you should probably recognise from the show, because she has been a guest a couple of times already, so I look forward to doing more of a co-hosted episode format, rather than interview. I will continue to do interviews, but as videos. So, as I say, this is an experiment, we will see how it works, but I am really, really excited about this. I love the interviews, and I also love the idea of having a deep conversation with someone on a business topic that I know is useful for people, so we shall see how this goes.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this last interview of the year, and last podcast interview for a while. This is a very special episode, also because you may remember that I had put out a call for a guest listener to come on the show and talk about her business. So, here we are with Louisa Whitney who is a family mediator; she helps couples who separate to make arrangements regarding their children, and money, and property. She facilitates discussion, and helps give people the tools to manage separation in a constructive way, and help map out what happens for everyone involved. She is also a professional practitioner and consultant, which means she supervises and helps develop other family mediators to develop their own experience, training and skills. In addition to her own consultees Louisa also offers training to other mediators, lawyers, and counsellors. Now, I love this interview, and I love Louisa’s story, because she started out as a lawyer, and ended up pivoting in her business to become a mediator.

I love this because, I hear so many entrepreneurs talking about how their business isn’t quite right, they have fallen out of love with it, it is not what they expected; and some people give up and go back and find another job. And that’s fine, and that’s the right path for some people, but I think there is a lot of value in looking at how we can pivot and maybe stay in the same arena of work, and help people in a different way but with similar issues. So, Louisa’s story is really, really useful in showing how she is helping a similar group of people but in a very, very, different way which feels so much more aligned to her.

This episode is also really interesting because she has put together a really unique network of professionals, who are collaborating to provide really unique packages, to help clients in a variety of ways. So, she has got lawyers, she has got her as a mediator, she has got counsellors, she has got financial planners; she has got different professionals, who offer all the things that people need, when they are separating as a family. So, I would like you to think, as you are listening to this episode, and hearing Louisa’s story, how you could perhaps create something similar in your industry, or with your business. Because, I think there is a lot of value in business owners coming together to support each other, but not just through referrals, through creating something really structured, like this really unique network package that she has put together. I love the way she has done it, and you will hear all the details in just a few minutes. So, I hope you enjoy this very special interview with Louisa Whitney. Enjoy!

Holly: Hello, Louisa, how are you?

Louisa: I’m good thank you, hi Holly!

Holly: I am really excited to talk to you today.

Louisa: I am really excited too, I am really looking forward to this!

Holly: Yay! Alright, so, this is a special interview for many reasons, first of all because it is my last interview on this podcast for a long time; because I am changing up the format for the podcast in 2018, so I am really excited that you are my last person. And also, because you are also a listener of the podcast, so, you responded to my request to get listeners on the show, so thank you for that. So, I wanted to start out by asking you how has the podcast helped you and how has it helped your business? What have you gotten out of it?

Louisa: Okay, so I was thinking about this and I think the things that I have got out of it are #1 on a practical level, that sometimes… someone who talks about something, and you think: oh yeah, I could incorporate that into my business! And sometimes when you have known that there is a block around something, you don’t know what it is, and then you listen to the podcast and suddenly you will say something, or someone you have interviewed will say something, and you think: ah wow! The episode particularly on money blocks, I was just like: oh, my goodness, yes! And that kind of thing. But also, one of the things that I think I really get from the podcast, is really making me focus on incorporating me, and my soul journey, into my work and making that much more of a: okay, somebody else might run my business differently, but this is about me and how do I do it? And tapping into that, and I think that’s been a game-changer as far as I am concerned.

Holly: That’s actually really useful to hear because I think one of the things that I very strongly believe in is that there is no blueprint that works for everyone, you have got to find what works for you, and what works for your business, and you have got to make all this stuff uniquely yours. And so I am glad that is coming across, because that’s something that is really, really important for me, I do not believe that there is one blueprint or template that works for everyone.

Louisa: I think that’s true, and I think the early parts of my business were really punctuated by me kind of looking at what other people were going and going: oh, my goodness, should I be doing that, should I be doing that? Or like going to a networking meeting and someone would stand up and say: well, if you haven’t got this in your business, your business is basically ruined. And it has taken me a while to realise, do you know what, actually, your business might be ruined if you are not doing that, but mine is okay.

Holly: Exactly, on the one hand it can be useful in the beginning to look at what other people are doing, but then it can also be really dangerous for the reasons that you just said.

Louisa: Yeah totally.

Holly: So, you mentioned money mindset, what are some of your favourite episodes of the show.

Louisa: Well, hang on, let me look. I have written them down, because I loved so many of them and I was like: okay, I need to focus in on which ones and actually worked well. The fear of overwhelm, was a big thing for me; because I think if you run your own business, and you pretty much are your business, then I think the fear of overwhelm is a big one, because it is not like: oh well, that’s somebody else’s job… you are everything you are doing, and I think that’s a big thing. But I think it links in with boundaries, which you talked about recently as well, and there is such a big play there because if you have got strong boundaries you are less likely to go to the overwhelm side of things.

Holly: That’s so true, and I think boundaries are something that a lot of people really struggle with, because it is again hard to get clear on what you want, what you don’t want, and then standing up for those boundaries.

Louisa: It is, and I think when you run your own business you have that kind of fear of: Well, if I don’t say yes to this, what happens if I never get any work ever again. And I think it is a really big thing to know; and there is a trust element there as well, that if you have boundaries things will still come.

Holly: Yes, yes, and trusting yourself, trusting…

Louisa: Trusting your own judgement.

Holly: Exactly, that the decisions that you make are going to be right for you. So, moving onto mindset, how has thinking about your mindset, and working on your mindset, and focussing on mindset, how has that helped your business and your life?

Louisa: I think that one of the big shifts for me is when you get a kind of: ‘I can’t do that’ in your head; before I might have just kind of moved on and been like: oh, okay I can’t do that. But now, it is like: whoa, whoa, whoa what is that I can’t? Why do you think you can’t? And one of the big things is that there is nowhere to hide with your own business, when I worked in an office and we had someone else do the accounts, and someone else do marketing; now if something goes wrong, it is me, I have got to sort it out. So, if there is something that I am saying to myself: ‘I can’t do that’, I need to know why, and I need to know what I can do to make sure I can do that.

Holly: Exactly and I think so many people take their beliefs as facts, like: I can’t do this. Rather than saying: okay, is that an actual fact? Is that reality, or is that just a figment of my mind?

Louisa: Totally.

Holly: And if it is something that’s in your mind, a belief, you can shift that.

Louisa: Yeah, and my whole life, I have always thought: I am not a runner. I can’t run. And I did the coach to 5k app a couple of years ago, and do you know what, I am not a brilliant runner, but I can actually run now. And I see parallels with that and what I do in my business. That if you give people the right tools they can actually do anything.

Holly: Exactly. And the right tools, and the right plan, and a way to take baby steps until you can start running towards your goals, I think that’s an excellent analogy, because you have just got to take action towards what you want, and practise and implement and practise and practise. Then you get there.

Louisa: Yeah, I think your baby steps is a really good point, because if you try and go from step one to step 10, you are going to set yourself up for a massive problem. But if you go from step one to a little bit more, step two, and take it forward, there is a journey there and you will get there.

Holly: Yeah, exactly and if you go from coach to marathon, instead of coach to 5k, you might be disappointed, you might need to put some milestones in there before you get to the marathon.

Louisa: Absolutely.

Holly: So, let’s take a shift over to your business, because I absolutely love what you do, and I love the way that you do it. So, can you tell us a little bit about your background and your business journey, and how you got to where you are today with your business?

Louisa: Okay, so, from the age of about 12, I really wanted to be a lawyer, that was always in my head, and I did all that, went to university, did all the academic route, became a lawyer, mainly because I wanted to help people, and I wanted to right wrongs. But, towards the end of the time that I was working as a lawyer I really felt that I wasn’t necessarily doing good; I felt quite frustrated with the systems in which I had to work, and then I qualified as a family mediator. So, instead of representing people that were separating, or having issues following a separation; I actually sat down with both people in a room to help them work out how they move forward. And that was just huge for me, it just felt like I was suddenly doing something way more constructive, and it just felt much better in myself. And after doing that for about a year or so, I made the decision to quit my job and set up my own business working only as a family mediator which is what I’ve been doing for four-and-a-half-years now.

Holly: Wow, I love that. I love how you work within the same field, but it is like you have pivoted. You were working as a lawyer, that was what you had always wanted, but it wasn’t quite what you really wanted. So, you did some additional training and just kind of pivoted a little bit into doing similar work, with probably the same people, but in a very different manner.

Louisa: Yeah, completely. If I look back, honestly, I am not sure I ever totally fitted in with the lawyer thing, which I used to go to conferences, or meetings, I would always slightly on the outside of people. And, being a mediator, just felt much more me and who I was; and I love the fact that I sit with both people; because you only ever get one side of the story, and there is always two. So this way, I get to hear both sides of the story and to say to people: you know what, there are always two sides to every story; and what I do is draw a line under what has happened before and help people talk about what happens next.

Holly: And was there ever a point before you trained as a mediator that you thought: legal thing is not for me, I am going to give it up; or, did you realise that there is a new way forward in the same industry.

Louisa: I don’t think I ever thought about giving it up, I think there were points where I felt a bit frustrated, but shortly before I did my mediation qualification, I had kind of been on two periods of maternity leave, so there was sort of something else going on in my life, and I think there was probably a bubbling thing in the background that maybe this wasn’t working, but I was a bit kind of like: do you know, I have got enough to think about at the moment; and it was the mediation training that just changed everything, because it helped me to see that there was a whole new way of doing things.

Holly: So, did you have any fears as you were shifting into this new world of mediation? Or any blocks about your ability to do it, or did it just completely flow and feel natural for you?

Louisa: I think setting it up felt completely natural, I think the blocks came after I had done it, when I was suddenly a bit like: wow! running your own business is harder than I thought because there is just nowhere to hide, it is just you. If I am honest I think I was probably quite naïve about running my own business, I just thought: oh, the work will come, and it will be fine. And, I think that the work has just come, there have been points where not as much has come as I wanted, and I have thought: oh goodness, have I done the right thing? And one of the things that I have really been on a journey with running my own business is picking into those, ‘I can’t’ things, what are they and why are they?’ To expand and to do well in my business. But, also, because I think it brings an authenticity to working with clients, knowing what it is like to hit a wall with something and to have to work past that, and drawing on that experience helps me help people who are hitting their own walls in a different way.

Holly: Mm, I like that. So, was there a tipping point in your business where things went from that uphill struggle to just kind of flowing?

Louisa: Yeah, I think so. And I think it was a combination of partly having really started to dig in to the mindset things; I don’t park things anymore if that’s not me, I work through it. And sometimes things aren’t for me, but I get to the point where I know I can do them, before I will say that they are not me, and I think that has really helped. And I also think that this kind of… you have to put the groundwork in of getting yourself noticed, and I didn’t work in the area that my business is set in in Dorking beforehand, so there is always a period of trying to make people aware of what you do. I also think that in what I do, there has been governmental changes which push people towards mediation, and I think people are a lot more savvy now: I think that when people separate they are much more inclined to look around and see what works for them, and that’s definitely helped my business as well.

Holly: Mm, so do you have mostly a local business, meeting face-to-face with people; or do you also work online with clients?

Louisa: I do. At the moment I only work meeting people face-to-face, but online mediation is also a growing field in my area, and it is something that I am looking at introducing in 2018. I think there are people who don’t live in the same place, I was contacted by someone up north recently, and the other parent lived down south, and they wanted to talk about children matters. It is impractical to make people meet up half-way to go to a mediation session. So, I want to offer online mediation to give people who can’t make face-to-face meetings the opportunity to actually be able to come into mediation.

Holly: Yeah, that makes absolute sense, because in a split up sometimes people move away.

Louisa: Yeah, completely, or sometimes there are other reasons, working patterns, sometimes parents work at opposite shift patterns in order to be there for their children. And you really don’t want to have to use your precious annual leave entitlement to have to sort out things, you really want to save that for fun stuff

Holly: Yes, exactly. Especially if you are splitting up you probably want to spend it with the kids to make sure that they are okay.

Louisa: Absolutely, absolutely. So, yeah, online mediation is definitely going to be a new thing in 2018.

Holly: So, one thing I wanted to talk to you about, you have created a really unique collaboration with professionals in your area, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Louisa: Yes, I have helped put together a group called: Surrey Divorce Solutions and that is different professionals. Also, we have councillors, mediators, lawyers, a financial planner, all working together under one umbrella. And the idea is that clients can then access all of our services, through the same umbrella; all of our services are offered for fixed fees so you know exactly how much it is going to cost you at the start; and it means that you are not just rooted in with one professional that you have met, and it enables you to move between professionals; because sometimes when you have separated from someone you might start off needing some counselling just to enable you to actually be in a place where you can actually make decisions, and then you can start to talk about things in mediation. Then you may discover that you have got big pension issues and you might need a financial planner to talk that through with you. And one of the problems I think when people separate, is that sometimes they need different professionals to help them; but you worry, because you have already made a relationship with one person, do you really want to talk to another person? What about the cost, if you are going to include other people? So, the idea was to address that and to set up a group of people together, collaboratively, to best help clients to separate to get the best possible outcomes.

Holly: So, how does this work then? Do you have different packages, or how do people put together the services that they need?

Louisa: What we do is, we have three different packages, which gives you three levels of help, depending on how many mediation meetings you think you might need; or how much support from a lawyer you think you might need. And you can choose the package that you think might be right for you, but you can also add in extras to it. So, kind of in the same way as when you buy a car, you can add on satnav or that kind of thing, you can add in optional extras based on what you need. And, everything is transparent, fixed fees, so it is not like you suddenly discover at the end that it is suddenly twice as much as you thought it would be.

Holly: I like that, because I can imagine that different people’s situations are very, very unique, and very different; and it sounds like it is easy for them to create the package that they need, or they want, and then add on extras, if they see that they need extra things in the future.

Louisa: Exactly, because some people separate, and they are able to talk to each other, they just need a bit of input to sort out the last few things; other people are finding it really difficult to talk to each other, at all, and they are going to need a bit more help.

Holly: And how has it changed the way that you work with people, to know that these clients have additional support in these other areas.

Louisa: The whole thing started because I did a presentation to lots of other professionals, basically saying: look, I think we should work more closely together, I think that would give people better outcomes. And the talk started as a kind of, essentially it was kind of a marketing exercise to try and get to know people; but it was also something that I believed in. And what happened at the end was, people said: yeah this is brilliant, how can we make this happen? This is exactly what we should be doing. So, the one thing that I have got is confidence that ideas that I have, and things that I talk about in my line of work, are things that people actually believe in and want to see. And, working together with other professionals, is just fantastic because my background is actually law and practicalities of sorting things out, but what I have learnt along the way is so many, kind of, things about human dynamics, about how the brain works when you feel anxious, and stuff like that really informs what I do. Because, when you are in mediation and trying to have a conversation, if you are in your flight or fight response, or you are feeling really anxious, your rational brain does not turn on, so you can’t have those conversations. And those are things that I have learned from working with therapists and councillors, and I could name 50 things that I have learned from people that helps my work, that I have learned from other professionals.

Holly: And do you feel like your clients, that it is easier for you to work with clients now, that they are getting this support, that they are not in fight or flight mode?

Louisa: Yeah, definitely. One of the things that I always ask people in my initial meetings is: what kind of extra support do you think you need? What kind of help? And sometimes they might say: yeah, I might need a councillor, but it is that whole other having to see another person, but if you have got it built into the package that they meet someone, they have already opened the door to that. So, to carry it on is much easier than if you give someone a business card and say: well, you need to speak to this person; but they don’t know them, it is really scary to pick up the phone. And having that introduction and opening that door, I think, makes it much easier and much more likely that someone will access help that they need.

Holly: And how long did it take you to put together this collaboration of professionals?

Louisa: The best part of about two-and-a-half years before we got to the point where we were going to launch it. Because it is not an easy thing to work with other professionals within such a close umbrella, because we all have different professional bodies, and there are various different rules; and the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which is the rules for solicitors, has really strict rules on things, and obviously councillors have strong ethical code, which is really important. And, we all had our businesses to run at the same time, so it has been quite the journey of working out how we could do it. I think we were all united by the vision that this would be so good to do, that it kept us going, even though the difficult conversations about: well, how are we going to do this?

Holly: So, were you just having regular meetings with these people, to try to figure out how you were going to make it work, what boundaries, the guidelines, the rules and regulations?

Louisa: Yeah, exactly that. We always used to meet over lunch, so we could have lunch. We would meet at my offices and I would have the sandwiches out and the flip chart out, and we would kind of run through things, find a way forward. Then we would have an action plan; and we would go away and do our actions, and work it out, and then when we felt like we had one that or got stuck with something, we would come back and have another meeting and then sort it out. The fabulous thing is that having gone from loads of ethical discussions, our meetings now are marketing: what are we doing to get this more widely known, and get it out there, and all those kinds of things. So, we are now: Surrey Divorce Solutions, we have a website, we have things that people can actually look at, we can have clients. All those kind of things, rather than it being a theoretical concept like it was for quite a long time.

Holly: And did you ever feel at any point: is this worth it? Are we going to be able to do it? Because this is such a unique solution, you didn’t really have any examples of other people doing it to make sure that it worked.

Louisa: Exactly; and there was no kind of blueprint that you could go: oh, this is the way that you do it, because although there are a couple of examples of people doing it in the UK, no one is working in the same way we are. There are eight or nine different businesses involved in this. And there were moments when we thought: how are we going to be able to do this? And I think, for me, because I had been the one that started it, and started the conversation, there were blocks about leadership, and how can I move this forward? And those kinds of things. And what’s great, is the way everyone supported me and said: this is brilliant, thank you for taking us along…and I think that everybody has just been committed to the idea of how good that will be, and that has seen us through.

Holly: If our listeners are inspired by what you’ve said, and they are interested in perhaps creating their own kind of collaboration, or network of professionals, how would you recommend they get started with that?

Louisa: I think having a…like I did basically, inviting everyone to come to a meeting and saying: look, these are my ideas, this is what I am thinking, what do you think? And opening the floor up. I think that’s a really great way to get started, it doesn’t have to be in person, it can always be online, but if you don’t start the conversation with people, you will never know if they feel the same way.

Holly: And then, what would you say is a way forward from that. Once you have got people who are interested, do you just set up regular meetings as you did, what would you suggest people do?

Louisa: I definitely think you have got to make sure that you are regularly touching base with people, because you need to make sure that everybody is onboard with the vision of what you are trying to achieve, and everyone knows what they are going to do. So, I think regular kind of making sure that you are all in contact with each other. I also think clear action plans are essential, so that you know exactly what the next steps are and who is doing what.

Holly: Was this a challenge for you, making sure everyone did their action plan, or was everyone so excited about this that they were on track with things?

Louisa: Yeah it was at points, because it is hard to be the person who pushes things along, because you have kind of got to check in with people and say: well, have you done this, how is this going with that? But you don’t want to be always on at people, the person who is always sending the emails going: hi, you are supposed to do this, and you haven’t. And I found that quite hard striking that balance between being motivational, of let’s keep this going, but not being that person that you just think: oh no, it is another email from her, that kind of thing.

Holly: Excellent. So, do you have any other last tips on how people can create a collaboration like this?

Louisa: I think, what I would say to people, is: don’t be afraid to start a conversation about it, because sometimes you have ideas in your head and you never know whether there are other people feeling the same way. So, definitely even if people say: actually, no, that’s not my thing. If you don’t start a conversation with people you don’t know. Just because you start it with one person and they are not necessarily on board, it doesn’t mean that other people might not be; but I would say: don’t start it lightly – if there is something that you really want to achieve with a group of people you have really got to know that you have the capacity to be able to do that, and to see it through, because it is a project, and if you are going to be the person that starts it, you are probably going to end up being the leader of it and the manager.

Holly: Exactly and that’s going to trigger all of your leadership issues that you might have. {laughing}

Louisa: Absolutely, definitely.

Holly: So be aware of that. {laughing}

Louisa: Definitely, good tip.

Holly: So, tell us more about your business, how can our listeners work with you, if perhaps they are in a situation where they need mediation?

Louisa: Okay, so my business is called LKW Family Mediation, and the website is: http://LKWFamilyMediation.co.uk and there is a whole wealth of things on that website that I have added to, blogs, I have done video blogs talking about things, explaining some of the questions that people ask, talking about mediation. It also tells you how to get in touch with me, and that is a good place to start if you are separating from people, because I have information about things to think about; it also has links to other websites, or other sources of information that may be helpful. The Surrey Divorce Solutions website is also quite useful, that’s: http://SurreyDivorceSolutions.co.uk and that sort of has links to all the social media as well, well you can get… I like to post updates and links to articles that people may find helpful, all those kinds of things.

Holly: And how do you find… to be the most useful way of marketing your business, because you have such a unique offering that people don’t always need mediation, they only need it at certain points of their life. So, do you just try to stay top of mind for people? Encourage word of mouth? What works for you?

Louisa: It’s a really, really, point, because anybody that works with people who separate will say marketing is a challenge, because when you talk about your target group, you are targeting people that have separated, which is obviously not everybody. So, for my marketing I tend to target referrers, I get quite a lot of work referred to me by other professionals. And, in terms of clients I tend to try and make sure that I have got really useful stuff out on social media, that my website comes up quite high on google, those sorts of things so if anybody is looking that’s how they can find me.

Holly: And referrals is something we have talked about in the past on the podcast, but I think this is something that a lot of people find really challenging; because a lot of people are afraid to ask for the favour, to ask for the business, to ask for help. What do you find to be most useful or successful in getting referrals from other professionals?

Louisa: I find that if I come into contact with another professional, who I may be able to refer work to, they may be able to refer work to me, I tend to try and meet them for coffee. Just to start to get to know them, to talk about whether we might be able to help them. I think it is really important that any referral relationship is a two-way street because if people are referring work to you they want to know that they are going to get a benefit from it too. And sometimes you meet people and it won’t work because you are on a different page, and, that’s okay, you are just not meant to work together. I have made some great relationships with people and I try to make sure to check-in with people who refer me work every couple of months and say: how are you? I buy everyone Christmas presents who refer me work because I just love buying Christmas presents anyway so that works quite well for me and I just think it is valuing referrer relationships if you have them.

Holly: Yes. And I think one of the things that people also find challenging is: how do you remember to stay in touch with these people, do you use a CRM? How do you set up reminders to keep those relationships going?

Louisa: I use Google calendar and I put reminders in my calendar: you haven’t recently seen that person, drop them a line. And I have to diarise it, because as much as I would love to think that I am good at remembering I cannot remember everything.

Holly: {laughing} I think that’s a really good point because, so many things are going on in our businesses, and if you work with a number of referral partners it can be really difficult to remember: when did you last see so and so; when did you last speak? When did you last get in touch? So, I think that’s a really, really good solution to stay in touch with people, because otherwise it is just so easy to let those relationships slip away.

Louisa: Definitely.

Holly: So, thank you so much for joining us today. I think it is really, really interesting to listen to how you have put together this collaborative group, this network of professionals that I think is really, really unique. And I also love to hear your story of how you made that change in your business from lawyer to mediator and how that made such a huge difference for you.

Louisa: Ah thank you for having me on. I have really enjoyed it. It is lovely to share notes with other people and hear about people’s different journeys.

Holly: Yeah, I think that’s what I love about this podcast, is hearing other people’s journeys; because everyone has such a different path to business and how they built their business and how perhaps they left a job and started their business. So, it is really useful to hear what all the different journeys look like, because they can help us realise that there are other options for us.

Louisa: Yeah that’s one of the things that I love about the podcast too. I always love hearing people’s stories and journeys and…

Holly: Well thank you again for joining us today. And thank you for listening and remember to visit hollyworton.com/231 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you.

231: Louisa Whitney ~ How to Create Unique Collaborations in Your Business