You Never Lose You Learn With Lauren Tickner

What’s your backstory? 

Lauren Tickner may only be a 22 year old girl from England, but she’s been in the game since she was just 16 years old. She didn’t know back in 2013, but the private Instagram account she created in order to connect with others who were also on a fitness journey and transform her health away from crippling anxiety would eventually spiral into her entire empire.

As a teenager, Lauren was mocked by everyone for doing something which wasn’t the ‘normal’: her Instagram fitness account. She was 17 at the time and fortunately chose to persevere despite the critics, because she knew that her message could help so many people. While doing this, Lauren applied for a couple of jobs in asset management. She always dreamed of becoming the CEO of a FTSE 100 corporation. After many assessment days and interviews, Lauren was awarded a role at a FTSE 250 asset management firm which has over £100 billion assets under management. She took her dream job, and started there at the age of 18.

From the outside, Lauren was seen as ‘successful’: this role was highly sought after for someone of her age. Inside, Lauren was deeply unhappy. Her parents told her that they’d “lost the Lauren they once knew,” because this job sucked the life out of her. While working here, Lauren realized that nobody should ever feel that deep sense of unhappiness which stems from the pit of their stomach due to the thing which is supposed to provide them with their livelihood. She was continuing to post to social media at this point, and noticed that many people were successfully building their own online business.

So, after careful consideration, she quit her job, went and got her personal training qualification, and started an online fitness coaching business. This was a pivotal moment for Lauren, because it is what taught her how possible it is to build an online business, even without any knowledge about sales or marketing. Her business took off, and within just a few weeks she was already earning more than double her monthly paycheck in her previous job. Lauren was 19 at the time and her deferred her place at The University Of Bath, so in September of 2016, she started on The UK’s top ranked business degree.

Lauren didn’t miss one day of posting to Instagram for over five years. She focused on adding value to those who were wanting to become strong both physically and mentally, and built her audience to over 100,000. She did this while she was in school, in a corporate job, and at University.

While studying, Lauren was still doing online coaching, and eventually decided that she wanted to sell fitness ebooks. She successfully sold thousands of ebooks resulting in six figures in income, without even knowing what a ‘sales funnel’ was. When she began learning about all things online business, her mind was opened up to so many new possibilities. The questions she was getting asked switched from “how do I lose fat?” to “how do I start online coaching?” Lauren noticed the trend, and catered to it… She pivoted her messaging away from being the coach, to educating the coaches.

She knew she had two options: to split her efforts between University and her online business, or to go all in on one. What she was learning at University was not as powerful as what she was learning through podcasts, the masterminds she invested in, and the mentors she was speaking to. So, she dropped out of her highly respected business degree to go all in on her online business. Since then, Lauren has become the ‘go to’ person when it comes to personal branding. Her messaging is no fluff, and she cuts to the chase, always delivering actionable value. She has successfully helped thousands of people, worldwide, build a profitable and well respected online, personal brand based business.

At the age of just 22, she has two six figure businesses and one of the world’s top business podcasts: Online Fitness Business School and Impact School. Online Fitness Business School is the leading education provider for those within the fitness industry who want to build an online business. Impact School is a business and a NASDAQ top 10 rated podcast. Impact School is the place to go to for mentorship regarding personal branding. Impact School is an online education provider containing online courses, for example Impact Your Niche, and an accelerator program for those who want to scale their existing business online while simultaneously building an audience.

After experiencing the immense contrast between an energy-draining corporate job versus the freedom, fulfillment, and profitability of building her own online business, Lauren is committed to helping impact driven entrepreneurs build a personal brand and online business that makes a difference.

 

What made you decide to choose this career path? 

Despite only being 22, I have had a lot of pivots along the way. There are a few key moments which helped me choose the path I am on right now:

 

• Losing weight in an unhealthy way and starting my Instagram to connect with those who were on their own health journey.

• Working a corporate job that left me so, deeply unhappy. At 18, this made me realize that I am not designed to be employed by someone.

• Creating my online fitness coaching business: this helped me realize the possibilities that lie in online business.

• Seeing success with my online coaching business and selling thousands of ebooks, all without online business knowledge: this led to others asking me how I did it.

• Through others asking me how I did it, I began researching and fell into the rabbit hole of online marketing. I spotted an opportunity and ran, full force, into it.

 

I truly believe that this career path chose me, haha. I really am not a good employee. I like to do what I want, when I want, how I want. I know that sounds entitled, but aren’t we entitled to live a life that we want to live? We have one shot at this, so I believe it is our duty to do what makes us happy and allows us to serve as many as people as possible.

 

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Wow, I have made a LOT of mistakes! I still make mistakes to this day… So picking just one is really hard! The funniest has to be when I posted a YouTube video and I left this entire clip in (which I meant to edit out) where I was just being really weird and talking to myself. I didn’t notice until someone commented “ermm, Lauren… what are you doing at 5:03?” Haha, it was so funny! Now I know to check every single piece of content before it goes out!

 

What do you think makes your company/personal brand stand out?
It all comes down to storytelling. You need to be able to tell a story that connects with your people. And before that, of course, you need to know who your people are! Who is your ideal client? Get so crystal clear on that, that you know who they are better than they know themselves! This doesn’t just include demographics, but also psychographics. Add value, get personal, and always tell a story.

 

What’s a quote that you live by? 

You never lose, you learn.

– Lauren Tickner