Meet the Founder of Turbocharge Your Transformation Membership Academy

Lisa is a strategy execution specialist, scaleup mentor, and co-founder of FutureBuilders Group, a network of Organisational Development specialists. Lisa started her career with McKinsey and Accenture and has worked in her own consultancy since 1999 with many prestigious global clients, through to government and venture capital-funded early-stage businesses.

She works with leaders who want to accelerate their transformation and business planning. Lisa has an impressive track record, having successfully delivered or mentored over 50 transformation programs with an outstanding 96% success rate, far surpassing the average success rate reported in research.

Her passion now lies in improving implementation success, which led her to establish a membership academy for professionals to implement projects, change and digital transformation programs with influence and momentum. Lisa’s dedication extends beyond her professional pursuits, as she also volunteers as the Chair of an Education not-for-profit organization.

For more details, visit their website here.

Here we sit down with Lisa, to know a bit more about her journey as an entrepreneur.

Q. What inspired you to become an entrepreneur?

Lisa: Over my career, I’ve designed, delivered and mentored clients through over 50 transformations. I’ve been in the trenches for many years delivering projects and change, and more recently working 1on1 with the leaders, mentoring them through the implementation. I’ve had significant success, and now want to “give back” and make a difference to more organizations. I’ve realized that I have something valuable to share with others who are working on implementation: deep insights into what distinguishes success and failure of projects, change, strategy and digital transformation.

I want to have a bigger impact, not just on a handful of clients every year, but on multiple people and organizations. So I founded a membership academy within FutureBuilders called Turbocharge Your Transformation, to teach and provide affordable group mentoring to leaders and professionals to deliver projects successfully. My passion for making a difference to many has now inspired me to get out there and share my message. So this year, I’ve started doing guest podcast appearances, talks at conferences, and launched a newsletter. My free Turbocharge Your Transformation Weekly blog is growing nicely, and already has around 4.000 subscribers. (Subscribe here: https://tinyurl.com/4jr7r23d)

Q. How did you get started?

Lisa: I started my own consulting business in 1999, after working for some global prestigious consultancies. At the time, I wanted to do more implementation work rather than just advisory work which consultants are often asked to do to contain costs. But I wanted to spend longer with organizations to make things happen at scale, and see those changes through to completion. Working as an independent consultant or solopreneur meant I didn’t have big overheads, so I could offer this service at an affordable price point for clients.

Then the second stage of my journey was in 2013. I got a bit lonely and teamed up with some amazing organizational development colleagues to form a networked organization “FutureBuilders Group” which has been fabulous fun, loved by our clients, and we continue to do great work under this ‘umbrella’ brand. We tried out a serviced office back in the days when most businesses had a physical address. Then we realised we preferred working out of our client’s offices, with the occasional day at home. So we scrapped the office and have had a virtual office ever since.

The third stage of my journey is recently launching a product, Turbocharge Your Transformation membership for leaders implementing projects, change and digital transformation. Since most of my mentoring work these days is with digital leaders and tech firms, I had the know-how of digital business strategy, GoToMarket, and the benefits of product led growth vs sales led growth. So I now have fun mentoring my clients and implementing my advice and hacks on my own product as well! My consulting work with FutureBuilders Group has enabled me to fund the product-based business myself, so it is bootstrapped. I already had a solid base of clients and colleagues, and have already been running mastermind groups for transformation professionals since the start of Covid. So it has been an evolution to now introduce this membership academy, while continuing to do some 1:1 mentoring work with select leaders.

Q. What was your biggest startup challenge? What steps did you take to overcome it? What did you learn?

Lisa: My biggest challenge is my own mindset. I’ve always been a management consultant who charges for their time. Time means money. Literally. So I’ve always minimised “non-billable” non-client work.

I’ve recently launched Turbocharge Your Transformation, a membership academy for. Launching a membership academy has required countless hours of developing my IP — capturing all the techniques and templates that have supported my clients’ success. I’ve bootstrapped the development myself, so my client work and revenue have reduced, while business expenses have increased significantly.

Being able to accept this has been hard, and having the faith that it is all heading in the right direction. I’m very purpose-driven so it motivates me to be doing something that has a greater good attached to it. It is early days, and I’m learning to be patient and be pleased with the early signs that I have product-market-fit!

Q. What is the most memorable thing you’ve done since you started your business?

Lisa: I mentored a tech CEO who was scaling up the business. When I started working with them, they had significant cash burn rates, a lack of product-market fit, and then a key long-standing executive had just let them down and left.

I provided the CEO with a sounding board, as well as advice on their strategy, structure, team, go-to-market, and new product launch. Bit by bit each element has been put in place. The best moment was when the business finally delivered a profit.

Times like these are memorable when you look back at how much my client has grown personally and how much the business has grown.

Q. What is one book you recommend, and why?

Lisa: The best book I’ve read this year is Richard Brunson’s Traffic Secrets. He is a master of digital marketing and shares his lessons of success.

His best tip is not to create the traffic yourself but to find out where the traffic is and go and direct it your way.

Q. What are your top 3 favourite online apps, tools or resources and what do you love about them?

I’m a gadget and tech junkie, so it’s hard to choose but here is a selection that includes a phone app, a platform and a piece of hardware on my desk.

1. Pocket Informant — I used to use this App in the early days on my Palm Pilot (my personal digital organizer) around the dot com crash… just before smartphones were invented. Way back then, I was an early smartphone fan as I had a Treo with Pocket Informant. My Treo was actually a “brick”, a super-heavy smartphone which included the Palm Pilot features. Personal Informant was my killer App with an outstanding one-page diary view. So much so, that when the iphone came out, I waited several months, chomping at the bit, waiting for Personal Informant to finish their beta on the iPhone. Finally it was ready and my killer app was launched on the iPhone! So I gave gave up my Treo for my first iPhone, and I haven’t looked back since!

2. Tekmatix is my all-in-one CRM and business platform (for my Turbocharge membership academy and mastermind groups) + CRM + Social posts planner + workflow automation = community platform + forms + calendar link.

For a free trial, please use my affiliate link: https://www.tekmatix.com?ref=lisacarlin

3. My tiny desktop scanner Scansnap S1300i — small, portable, foldup, takes faster to scan than the time to remove a staple, crunches the doc size, scans double-sided, converts docs to editable text with accuracy, and supports my paperless office. About 20 years ago, I used to have 2 large filing cabinets. Now I have just a handful of legal documents and certifications. Fortunately, even those are now becoming digitized.

Q. In terms of legacy, what is the mark you’d like to leave on the world?

Lisa: My purpose is growth; growth of business, growth of others, growth of myself and growth of communities. Through Turbocharge Your Transformation membership, I want to leave a legacy of supporting thousands of individuals and their organizations to grow, through implementing successful projects, changes, digital transformation and growth. It is a win-win-win.

A win for the financials of a business, a win for the leaders joining the membership, and a win for the rest of the people in the organization because my approach gives a voice to people throughout the business and improves the workplace.

Q. In one sentence, what’s the best advice you’d give to someone just starting out on their entrepreneurial journey?

Lisa: Focus on what you’re good at, learn as much as possible and surround yourself with talent to complement your own strengths.

To keep up to date with Lisa and her journey, connect with her on LinkedIn.