We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sadaf Qadir a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sadaf, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Please tell us about starting your own firm and if you’d do anything different knowing what you know now.

It’s actually still the early days of me establishing my own consulting business! But the journey started much before right now. In fact, all through my college years and early career years, I had kept saying I’ll start a business or I’m going to build something of my own. At first it was product related, specifically cosmetics, because I love cosmetics. But I soon realized that products require having a specific type of sales skills that I just am not wired to do. I also dabbled with turning some hobbies into Etsy shops, etc. But none of those really landed. All the while, I had been working and growing as a project manager and absolutely LOVING it. Project management was meant for me and it just comes very naturally to me.

I got to a point where I finally decided I would try consulting, especially after working contracts for a couple of years but I wasn’t 100% sure where I was going to go with it. And it wasn’t something I was really working on at all in the beginning. All of a sudden, out of the blue, I get a message on LinkedIn of someone saying, hey we build free websites, would you be interested in one? And initially, I thought, Not really, like what do I need a website for? I also wasn’t sure if it was a scam or not so I was being cautious. But then I thought, wait a minute, maybe this could be the starting point for the business. I decided to connect with them and learn more. They were legitimate and built the foundational template for my site!

Building a website required me to think more deeply on what services I wanted to offer and even create a logo. So up until this point, I just had the backbone of the site and a logo. Once I thought through the services, I started to create the pages and think about the copy. This is absolutely where I struggled the most; taking me literally a year to do just one page and I still wasn’t happy with it. In between, I also got a contract and was working 40 hours a week so it became more challenging to make time and I did deprioritize it for a bit.

A few months ago, I finally had to sit and be honest with myself and recognize that while I COULD design my website, it would take me a very long time. I’m not an expert in it. That’s when I decided to work with a web designer and in about 6 weeks, I had an amazing website! It felt like half of the business was built just because I had a working, live, website that I was really happy with.

My next steps are doing some final backend things and then finally fully launching it and I’m super excited!

One advice I’d have for a young professional is take the risk but be strategic. Don’t be afraid to start, make a mistake, then scrap that idea and start over again. In fact, making mistakes in your youth can almost be easier at times because there is less at stake. At the same time, be strategic. Learn where your strengths and weaknesses are. Give yourself enough time. And don’t keep all your eggs in one basket.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Sadaf! I’m a Creative/Marketing Project Manager and I have a pretty non-traditional story of how I got here. I was actually pretty set on going to med school as a college student but ultimately found that path wasn’t for me. I started off working in aesthetics cosmetics, dabbling in different disciplines here and there. Where I finally landed was in marketing work and project management work and I absolutely LOVED it. I knew this was where I belonged and now I think I’ve broadened it a bit to just be project management is where I belong, regardless of the industry.

Where I started to shift into business work, I’ve mentioned previously but it was really these foundational years of me experimenting by trial and error and finding my true space that I got to where I am now, feeling confident in my skills enough to create a consulting firm.

With the consulting business, I really want to show up as a voice of strategy and mentorship. It’s not just that I can come in and do great project management work for you but it’s more about empowering others to understand why it’s important work and how they can take steps to also engage in it themselves. One unique thing that I’m offering is the ability to have one hour with me to ask a specific management and project related question. I listen to your problem, process it with you, and then work with you to create a solution specific to you and your team. It’s a lot different than asking me to come in and change process, etc but actually helps train younger project managers and managers in general on how to problem solve, using project management skills.

So that’s sort of the mindset behind the business is offering services that can build people up and use my expertise, at this point I’ve been a project manager for 7+ years, to guide people. And of course, if they want me to just come in and do it for them, I’m also happy to do that too.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One of the biggest lessons I’ve had to unlearn is that in order to succeed you have to be perfect. Especially when it comes to public facing things or things that others might see. For my business in particular, I think one of the reasons why it took me so long to even get it off it’s feet was because I felt like I had to have an elaborate plan, with ten different things, and I had to get it all right otherwise I would fail. Which is just not how life actually works. In life there will be set backs and mistakes that will be made and you can gracefully recover from it and move on. I’m still continuing to learn this because it comes in waves for me. Some days I’m a lot better at just pushing through and getting something done, even if it’s imperfect. But on other days, I need a lot of time to sit with a task and try to get it right in order to feel good about it. I think you need both at times but if your perfection is preventing you from moving forward, that’s when you need to let go a bit and trust that things will work out.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I sort of talked about this earlier but one of the most pivotal moments in me getting to where I am at this stage was deciding I needed help. There are a lot of things in business that you look at them and you think “I can do that myself”. And for most of us, we probably can. But the issue with that line of thinking is you will eventually have an incredibly long to-do list and just because you CAN do it does not mean you’re the expert at it or that you will get it done quickly. So I had to be honest with myself and it’s hard in the early stages because you have limited financial resources but I do believe that certain foundational things are an investment and they are absolutely worth it. So once I came to terms with the fact that I was not a web designer and that it would have taken me a long, long time to complete my website, a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders and I could spend much more time on strategy which is what I did.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thecorporatefirefighter.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sadaf-qadir/