Leneila Lynne previously came from a sports/health background.
Leneila decided to pivot her career path into digital marketing after discovering her love and talent for marketing in her own personal training business. She then landed her first role in PR with a celebrity fashion designer in the Middle East. A few years later she moved back home to Melbourne, Australia where she completely immersed herself in the digital marketing space and found a love for SEO (search engine optimisation) specifically, which landed her in various agency roles.
Acumind was founded by Leneila in 2019. It is a digital marketing agency based in Melbourne that offers all digital marketing services to all businesses.
Leneila is exceptionally passionate about helping people – by maximising reach and visibility online and bringing health and wellness to the fore from all channels of life and business.
For more details, visit their website here.
Here we sit down with Leneila, to know a bit more about her journey as an entrepreneur.
Q. Tell us a little more about your journey as an entrepreneur – how did you get started? What inspired you?
Leneila: I never really fitted into the 9-5 space, and didn’t really thrive at school. I guess you can say I wasn’t really built for structure!
I was always more self-motivated to do things in my own time and with more of the things I enjoyed. I know that sounds like quite an obvious want, but I think a lot of the time, it’s actually not as obvious as you think, to realise those small things about yourself in a society that is made for 9-5, and structure.
Later in life, I found myself getting excited about learning new ways to build my business and the marketing side of it.
Thinking back I can say my inspiration came from within. Really tapping into myself, learning what I’m good at, what I’m average at, and what excites me more than anything. I think I was able to crystalise that a lot more after a lot of travelling, self-reflection, and also doing business workshops.
I love to help people grow and encourage that growth not only across their digital footprint but across their life also. That drive and growth mindset comes from a place deep within and it’s the very thing that inspires me to do what I do now.
With that knowledge, I have been able to design my life specifically around that and also create a working environment where I know I thrive as an individual.
Q. What’s one thing in your routine that you do consistently that has made a huge difference in your personal or business life?
Leneila: I enjoy reading. I enjoy books about human evolution, human behaviour, philosophy, and psychology. I find it fascinating to understand what drives people and the roots of that behaviour. I think that has helped to understand myself, and also other people around me – this has made for better relationships with family, friends, romantic relationships and business.
I also follow a lot of entrepreneurial accounts across social. I ensure my social feeds are filled more with educational and thoughtful content.
Q. Who are your mentors and inspiration? and what knowledge or insight did they give to you that was valuable?
Leneila: One person whom I respect and who has truly inspired me recently is Jack Delosa. I did a workshop of his in Sydney, which I loved. He fosters a wonderful community for like-minded entrepreneurs who are driven by a growth mindset and working on ‘purpose’. He seamlessly integrates conscious living with business, and I have learnt from him that it’s possible to align the two.. For some reason, I always found that a difficult process and felt it had to be one or the other. He encourages a lot of self-reflection and personal growth and teaches you to tap into things that are bigger than yourself.
I resonate with him because he’s quite unconventional.
He actually recently sent me his book ‘Unwritten – reinvent tomorrow”, which I have thoroughly enjoyed, and highly recommend.
Q. What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
Leneila: I think, besides the launch of my website (that was such a high for me), it has to be Acumind recently winning the contract for a substantially large international corporation.
I think that represents the incremental growth in my business, as I would have never been able to service such a client in the beginning.
Q. How do you market your business, and which tactics have been most successful?
Leneila: I’ll be completely honest with you, and it’s something I’m not really proud of but all of my business has been through word of mouth!
I share my knowledge with people on Instagram about small things they can do themselves across business and life. I also let the numbers do the talking. Digital marketing is very data-driven and numbers don’t lie. I think when people can see behind the scenes what you are capable of, it’s all good social proof and awareness.
I post a lot of wins in terms of client results across my socials, I also let my clients do the bragging via video testimonials.
Q. What have been your biggest failures or challenges?
Leneila: My biggest challenge as an entrepreneur at this stage for Acumind is dividing time between a whole new range of demands that require my attention– managing increasing levels of revenue, attending to customers, dealing with the competition, accommodating an expanding workforce, etc.
Hiring good people with not only good skillsets but also passion is necessary to make the most of your company’s potential during this phase. I think any good founder will be spending a lot of time directly involved in the recruitment and training process, and then creating that same growth mindset and same long term goals that everyone can work towards together as one, driving force.
Q. How did this failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
Leneila: Those challenges have made me sit back and just accept the ebbs and flows of running a business. Not everything goes to plan just because you want or need it to.
Things will happen unexpectedly, staff will leave at the worst times, clients will cancel at the worst times, and you may have thought you have finally been able to step out of the business comfortably but then something happens and you are suddenly back on the tools!
And that’s all ok. I have learnt to deal with them by just accepting them, by rolling with the punches and by reducing the mini-meltdowns. I have a very supportive partner who is my saviour in those times. But extra-long nature walks, exercise and meditations always help to reset.
As long as you are learning from each mistake, and implementing those learnings to do that better next time…you are winning. It’s always those small incremental changes to celebrate, leading up to the ultimate goal that is important.
Q. If someone was to create a TV show about you, what would it be about and what would it be called?
Leneila: This was a hard question. I guess it would be a documentary about a young woman travelling Europe, experiencing new cultures, languages and different ways of life then bringing that back home to her homeland after many years to implement all of her learnings and new passions to create a family and new companies.
It could be called, the Many Lives of Leneila.
To keep up to date with Leneila and her journey, connect with her on Instagram.
