Let me be your mentor
Having benefited from mentoring and coaching over the years I can vouch for how impactful it can be. Dedicating time, even just an hour a month, to talk about you, your career and your business.
I offer mentoring sessions to Creative Founders, Directors and Entrepreneurs, marketing teams and anyone new to freelancing.
If you think you could benefit from mentoring please do drop me an email.
Lean on me to help you plan, develop and grow your business. Let’s use our sessions to think big, hash out and build upon your ideas and bring the fun back to running your business.
Things I can help with:
Creating a business plan
Navigating blockers to growing your business
Supporting you in building a high-performing and happy team
Holding you accountable for reaching your goals
Clarity in your decision-making
Fresh perspectives and ideas
Mentoring for Creative Founders + Directors.
Priced at £150 per session, sessions are recommended every 3-4 weeks.
Kat Spybey, Founder at Spybey Digital_
“As the sole director of Spybey Digital, I can find it difficult to carve out the necessary time to focus on the business strategy and future growth, away from day-to-day client delivery. My monthly sessions with Laura hold me accountable, make me think about the bigger picture, and strategies and reconnect with the reasons why I started this business. With her own experience of running an agency, she’s been a brilliant sounding board to help me overcome pinch points and focus my decision-making. Most importantly, she’s supported me whilst injecting some fun back into running a business which can at times feel like a lonely and overwhelming task.”
New to freelancing or feel it’s time to have someone by your side as your freelancing business grows? I’m here to listen, plan, offer a fresh pair of eyes and brainstorm.
Things I can help with:
Identifying and understanding your target audiences
Nailing your USP, services and pricing
Developing your brand voice + identity
Navigating contacts, day rates, briefs + invoicing
Helping you to network
Cheering you on and celebrating your successes and holding your hand to help you learn from your mistakes
Mentoring for Freelancers.
Priced at £150 per session, sessions are recommended every 3-4 weeks.
I work with the ARU Freelancer Fast Track scheme and always have room for 1-2 recent graduates venturing into freelancing for the first time to mentor free of charge.
Larissa Matias De Lima, Freelance Brand Strategist and ARU Freelancing Fast-Start student
“Working with Laura has been a game-changer for me as I embarked on a new career direction as a freelancer. Her guidance was instrumental in helping me shape my business idea and structure my project with clarity and purpose. Laura not only helped me identify how to build a strong, engaged community but also showed me how to confidently present myself to my ideal clients.
One of the most valuable lessons I learned from Laura was that not every client is the right fit, and she helped me define the kind of clients I truly want to work with—those who align with my values and goals. Her support, encouragement, and insightful advice gave me the confidence I needed to take this step in my professional life.
I’m deeply grateful to Laura for her mentorship and the positive impact she’s had on my journey. I can’t recommend her enough to anyone starting out in freelancing or looking for a trusted guide to help bring their vision to life.”
Marketing Mentoring for Start-ups and marketing teams.
This is designed for team members who want to improve their understanding of marketing to develop their role within the team further.
Things I can help with:
Understanding marketing principles and how they apply to your company and role.
Help you to apply your knowledge to deepen your company's understanding of your core and growth target audiences.
Use your brand voice to talk to your audiences.
Understand and get to know the marketing channels, tools, and tactics relevant to your company.
Feel confident sitting in company meetings and working alongside your marketing team.
Priced at £150 per session, sessions are recommended every 3-4 weeks.
What is a business mentor?
What is the difference between a Business Mentor and a Business Coach?
I often get asked this question. Both can offer invaluable advice and support. The main difference is a business mentor has a minimum of five years personal experience of running a business.
Business mentoring uses a peer-to-peer approach where we use our own personal experiences of running a business to help you tackle your business challenges.
As a business mentor, I support and guide you as you develop and improve your business ideas, growth plans and strategies. I’m there to sit alongside you, listen, understand you and your business, and help you align with your values. You can talk to me when you need to make decisions and I’ll offer a listening ear and constructive feedback to keep you and your business moving forward.
Why have a business mentor?
Running a business can be incredibly rewarding, but it can also be lonely and overwhelming. Having a business mentor means you have someone else by your side. Someone to bounce ideas off, someone to help guide your decision making process and someone who makes you feel heard and supported.
My role is to support you to grow and sustain a successful and thriving business and to do it in a way that lights you up. Some of the benefits of working with me as your business mentor include improving your knowledge across business development and marketing, increased job satisfaction, improved ability to make decisions and handle challenging situations, new ideas and a fresh perspective.
We would meet for regular monthly sessions, in person or online. This also means you have time blocked out every month to focus on you and your business strategy. We’ll work on goals, objectives and next steps together and I will hold you accountable for your actions to ensure your business development stays on track and you can see your progress.
My experience as a business mentor
In 2018 I co-founded a marketing agency called The Doers. It was me, my business partner, our little black book of contacts and my kitchen table. Fast forward five years and we’d built an agency with a leadership team of 6, a core team of 5 and a network of 350+ freelancers. We worked with big brands and small brands, start-ups and charities.
Running my business gave me enormous pride and accomplishment, but I also learnt a lot on the job. From finance and reporting to HR and operations.
I’ve been there and got many t-shirts from the roller-coaster ride of running and growing a business. Now I’m using that experience to guide, support and advise other business owners to make strategic decisions about their business with clarity and confidence.
Since running my business I’ve benefited from coaching myself and in hindsight, I wish I’d had a business mentor to guide me through growing my business and most importantly navigating leaving it.
It was this experience along with my love of working to support my clients with their businesses that led me to business mentoring.
I’m a Foundation Level Business Mentor with the Association of Business Mentors where I continue to learn and develop through their training programmes and a volunteer mentor for Enterprise Nation: Help to Grow, UnLtd and Anglia Ruskin University: Freelancing Fast Start. You can review my Mentoring Code of Conduct here.
How it works
Every mentee is different from how you learn, to what support you need and what stage your business is at. My approach will be different every time depending on your needs but always starts with a free chemistry call. This is so important as I want to make sure we’re the right fit for one another and that my experience is right for your personal and business needs.
The Business Mentoring Process
The format of each session is very flexible but a rough outline of how mentoring sessions work is outlined below. Sessions are recommended to take place every 3-4 weeks and I am of course contactable between sessions as needed.
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A quick online call to get to know each other, find out about your business goals and tell you more about me, my experience and how we can work together.
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Make yourself a cuppa and settle down to answer my online questionnaire which will take between 5-10 minutes.
Be as honest as you can with your answers - I find your first, gut response is always the best!
All of your responses are confidential and will let me get to know you and your business in more detail before our first session together.
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A chance to get to know one another
Find out more about your business
Talk through the mentoring process
Answer any questions you may have
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Mentoring contract signed by us both including my code of conduct
First mentoring session date, time and format agreed
Detailed online questionnaire submitted
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Each session is strictly confidential and is focussed on a GROW model - Goal, Reality, Options and Will
At the end of each session we’ll summarise points and actions and agree the date, time, format and focus for the next session
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A short online form will be shared for reflection and feedback
A summary of the actions and considerations ahead of the next session will be shared
Pricing
£150 per month
£425 for a block of 3 (£25 discount)
£840 for a block of 6 (£60 discount)