About Me
My story
I'm Lou. And this is the real version of my story.
Not the polished one. Not the highlight reel. The actual one — because I think that's the only version worth telling.
I've been in business for ten years. And if I'm honest, the first chapter looked nothing like I expected it to.
I left the corporate world after nearly a decade at The Flight Centre Travel Group in Australia — a company I loved, that taught me an enormous amount about people, culture and what it means to build something with real values. But somewhere along the way I knew I wanted something different.
More connection. More meaning. More of my own.
So I stepped out on my own.
The early years — learning the hard way
My first big move was investing in a 12-month business mastermind. It was significant money. I followed every step, showed up consistently and did everything I was told.
The results never came.
What did come was clarity — expensive, hard-won clarity about what I didn't want. How I didn't want to market. How I didn't want to treat people. What kind of business owner I had no interest in becoming.
That experience shaped everything I do now.
It also gave me something I hadn't expected — a group of incredible women I met inside that programme who are still some of my closest friends today. A few of them I genuinely credit with keeping me in business through the harder seasons that followed.
The seasons nobody talks about
Here's the part that doesn't make it onto most about pages.
A few years into building my business, burnout arrived. Not dramatically — quietly at first, and then all at once. I kept pushing, kept doing more, kept trying to keep up. And it cost me. My mental health suffered in ways I couldn't ignore.
And then my dad got sick.
A rare and progressive cancer. He was given six months. He survived three and a half years — and through all of that, I kept trying to build a business alongside everything else life was asking of me. I moved to be closer to him. I gave myself permission to stop growing a business that no longer felt right and focus on what actually mattered.
That season rebuilt me from the inside out.
It taught me that the way we build matters just as much as what we build. That a business has to fit your life — not the other way around. And that clarity, when you finally find it, changes everything.
Today I work with women in service-based businesses across New Zealand and Australia who have something real to say — and who want to find a way to say it that actually feels like them.
Not the performed version. Not the version they think they should be sharing. The actual one.
I do that through 1:1 mentoring, done-for-you content marketing and podcast mentoring — and through The Part Time CEO Podcast, where I have the kind of honest conversations about business and life that I wish someone had been having years ago.
The Client Attraction Method sits at the heart of everything I do — a simple framework built not from a textbook but from my own lived experience of what it actually takes to attract clients, build visibility and grow sustainably.
I'm based in Waihi Beach in the Bay of Plenty. I play golf, walk the beach with my two dogs Panda and Poppy, and show up for my clients the same way I show up for everything — honestly, practically and always with the bigger picture in mind.
If you're a woman in business who has something worth saying and you're ready to find your way of saying it — I'd love to work with you.
Meet The Team
Louise Stephens
Founder
+ Lead Strategist
Tarlei Hedger
Graphic Designer
You’ll be working directly with me across all strategy, mentoring, and client work. I partner closely with business owners to bring clarity, direction, and a more intentional approach to how they grow their business and show up in their marketing.
Tarlei supports behind the scenes, bringing your content and brand to life through thoughtful, high-quality design that aligns with your message and overall direction.
A Few Of Our Incredible Present & Past Clients
