We were lucky to catch up with Sarah Elder recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sarah, thanks for joining us today. Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

I started my business at exactly the right time.

Okay, the truth is there’s no such thing as “exactly right” when it comes to making any major life decision, whether you’re thinking about having kids, buying a house, starting a business, or selling it all to travel the world nomad-style. But having now owned my business for two years, following a 17 year corporate career, I wouldn’t change a thing about how and when I finally made the leap from employee to entrepreneur.

I started my coaching and consulting business in March of 2022 after spending my entire corporate career at the same company. By same company, I mean that all 17 years of my corporate life were spent with Kalisher, an art consulting firm that created, curated and manufactured artwork for commercial clients. What I DON’T mean is that everything was the same for that entire 17 years – in fact quite the opposite.

When I started as a part-time admin, we were a company of three, with annual revenues of $300k, working out of the founders’ house. During my time with Kalisher we grew from three people to 100, hit $20M+ in revenue, were acquired by Private Equity, lost Jesse to cancer, acquired direct competitor Soho Myriad, and navigated a pandemic. It was a wild and emotional ride.

There were several points along the way when I entertained the idea of starting my own business, but each time there were other life transitions that required my focus and energy – having kids, navigating a messy divorce, losing my mentor Jesse in a matter of months. I also recognized that with every major change that we navigated at Kalisher, I was learning, growing, and developing skills that would ultimately serve me when I did pursue my own dream.

After stepping up as CEO and leading Kalisher through the bottom of the pandemic, I finally felt in my gut that the time was right for me to move on. I’d learned and accomplished more than I could have hoped for when I took that part time role back on 2015. I was 39 and I just knew that my forties were going to be a period of tremendous personal expansion, which would start with pouring all of my experience, knowledge, and creative energy into building my OWN dream.

I gave the board at Kalisher eight months notice to find and onboard a replacement CEO, which they did just a couple months before my official last day. During those final eight months, I continued to show up 100% for my company and team, fulfilling my CEO duties by day. By night, weekend, and whenever else I could squeeze in time, I began crafting a plan for my coaching and consulting business.

And on June 3, 2022, my last official day of employment with Kalisher and two months after launching Sarah Elder Coaching & Consulting, I drove down the road, music blaring, fists pumping, tears streaming down my face, knowing with every fiber of my being that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Coach & Mentor, Empathic Leader, Mother of two, Partner to one. My purpose is to serve and support women as they define and go after their biggest, scariest, most fire lighting goals and dreams.

What I Offer:
✔️ Executive Coaching
✔️ Business Coaching & Consulting
✔️ Leadership Coaching
✔️ Fractional Ops Leadership
✔️ Facilitation
✔️ EOS support

Who I Serve:

I’m here for women who are DRIVEN and READY…

⚡️To put their wants and needs FIRST.
⚡️To make and live by their OWN rules.
⚡️To define and seek their OWN version of success.
⚡️To unapologetically LOVE the f*ck out of their lives.
⚡️And to receive the support and accountability needed to get what THEY WANT.

I’m not the right Coach for every woman, but when I connect with my soulmate clients, fires are lit and sparks fly!

My clients are:
💪🏼 Executives
💪🏼 Solopreneurs
💪🏼 Small business owners
💪🏼 Emerging leaders
💪🏼 Side hustlers

My Story:
I began my career as the first employee of a two person art consulting firm, working out of a spare bedroom of the founder’s house. Over the course of 17 years, we grew Kalisher from three people to 100, hit $20M+ in revenue, were acquired by Private Equity, lost our dear founder Jesse to cancer, acquired direct competitor Soho Myriad, and navigated a pandemic.

It was a wild and emotional ride that taught me tons about building, scaling and leading an organization. I also learned hard, uncomfortable lessons about balance, rest, resiliency and self-love. Sharing these lessons with women to help them achieve their goals is my favorite way to impact lives.

I’ve stood where you stand boo. I know what it’s like to have a love-hate relationship with leadership; to navigate seemingly endless changes and challenges; to feel like no matter how hard you try, it’s never enough for some folks; to fear judgment and dismissal because who YOU are and how YOU want to do things doesn’t fit some BS, shamed-driven expectations defined by the patriarchal programming you most definitely did NOT sign up for.

If you’re DRIVEN and READY to get what YOU want, let’s connect to learn about each other and see what we can make happen together.

I’m a lover of lots of things, not limited to lifting up lady leaders – running, cycling, kayaking, fishing, food, wine, beer, tattoos, travel, coffee, reading, listening, learning, and just generally squeezing every ounce of joy out of life that I possibly can. Also, cats. I love cats.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Put as simply as possible – meeting people and telling them what I do!

I know, I know, that sounds too easy, how could that possibly work? But it does! Especially for service-based solopreneurs like me, though I venture to guess that literally any business owner looking to grow their client base could benefit from this incredibly effective strategy.

I’ve seen so many women struggle with this. It stems from a place of self-doubt and fear of judgment – we hold back on telling people about our new identity as entrepreneur and the specifics of what we’re offering because we don’t believe in ourselves and we think that others might not believe in us either. So we sit quietly at home, feeling anxious about how we’re going to make this whole business thing work, wondering why we’re not getting clients or making money yet. This feeds the self-doubt and leads to us operating from a place of scarcity and desperation, so that when that one magical client does show up, we freak them the F out with our intensity.

No, just no.

We have to believe in ourselves first for others to believe in us and want to give us their money. And we have to tell people, LOTS of people, about our business if we expect anyone to know it exists and even have the opportunity to consider whether or not they want to buy something from us.

Get out there boo! Start with your friends and family – tell every single one of them about your business and offer. Get on your socials and tell all the people you’re connected with, not just once, over and over and over again. Join communities, go to networking events, volunteer, and tell all those people too! Tell your dentist, your chiropractor, your hairstylist, a stranger in the checkout line. The more you say it, the more comfortable it will get, and the more people that know, the more chances you have of someone being like “oh hey, I actually need what you are offering!”

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Business/Life/Leadership Book Faves:

– Traction and Rocket Fuel, Gino Wickman (I’m a huge nerd for EOS)
– Radical Candor, Kim Scott
– Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss
– Atomic Habits, James Clear
– We Should All Be Millionaires, Rachel Rodgers
– Anything by Brené Brown
– The Anatomy of Anxiety, Ellen Vora
– The Big Leap, Gay Hendricks

Podcasts I Enjoy:

– Financial Feminist, Tori Dunlap
– The School of Greatness, Lewis Howes
– Mastering Coaching Skills, Lindsay Dotzlaf
– Make Money as a Life Coach, Stacy Boehman
– I am Your Korean Mom, Simone Grace Seol

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sarahelder.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachsarahelder/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarelder/