We were lucky to catch up with Sandra Hardy recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sandra, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The conception of me becoming an entrepreneur and starting my company, Bootz To Heelz, LLC began in 2003 when my life took a turn for the worst in an already chaotic and heavy hearted time. It was the middle of war and I was on active duty preparing soldiers to leave their loved ones and deploy. I got a phone call that changed my life forever, it was the Red Cross notifying me that my mother had a massive stroke. As an only child, just like that I was considered non-deployable. Being non-deployable in the military means you are put out of the military. Just like that I lost control of my destiny and my future. I was a single mother of a son and now the caregiver of my mother, instead of trying to concentrate on taking care of my now disabled mother, I was having to try and figure out how I was going to provide for both my son and my mother. I was stressed, hurt, confused, scared and became very depressed as I was striped of all my power to provide for my family. I remember standing there crying believing in my heart that God would provide but still feeling paralyzed to my next steps. At this point in my life, I knew never again did I want to feel this helpless and powerless when it came to taking care of my family and myself. I also knew I never wanted another person to ever feel powerless to provide for their families. This is why I became an entrepreneur and created my company Bootz To Heelz,LLC, I wanted to be an instrument to help new business owners to build a solid foundation and grow their businesses and not become a statistic. I also wanted to be a voice to the masses to encourage as many that will listen to become an entrepreneur, start a business that belongs to them. To create stability for their families and for themselves that regardless to what may happen, they can feed their family. So many people lose their jobs everyday due to cutbacks or restructuring and they are left as I was powerless and being reactive. I like to tell people to be proactive and have that business which can be leaned on if they lose their job for any reason, that plan B is already established.

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

Sandra Hardy is a Business Strategist, Certified Transitional Life Coach, Management Coach, Executive Coach, speaker, author, and CEO/Founder of Bootz To Heelz, LLC in Raleigh, NC. As a Business Strategist, she works with small business owners in their first 5 years of business, as well as business owners that are rebranding or scaling their businesses. The services provided by Bootz To Heelz, LLC are essential to helping a small business owner grow their business by providing support such as social media management, business brand building, personal brand building, target market development, and accountability with 1:1 weekly strategy sessions. As an Executive Coach, she works with top level management, executives to help them position themselves for advancement and build stronger leadership skills to motivate and encourage those under their leadership. Sandra Hardy has over 21 years of Human Resource experience and leadership experience she brings to the table for her clients. An MBA in Human Resource Management, Certification in Executive and Management Coaching, and is ICF certified. She has been featured on several podcasts and in STS Magazine. What makes Sandra stand out is her genuine care for every client and looking at everyone as unique. Therefore, all strategies are developed uniquely for the needs of the Client sitting before her. She never believes in one size fit all strategies because every problem is different regardless to whether the industries are the same because the individual is unique and is part of the equation. Her motto “I win when my clients win” sums up the passion she holds for her clients and her company, Bootz To Heelz.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

I believe in order to be successful in managing a team you need to be an active listener and a very attentive observer of your team. Both of these traits will help you as a leader to build relationships with your team and position each member to be successful. Learning everyones strengths as well as their weaknesses allows you to put everyone in a role that will support the team and grow the confidence of each team member. Allowing members of the team to have a voice and participate in the creative side of the missions builds morale. Understanding that there are many ways to accomplish anything and allowing for all ideas to be presented and as a team discussed to determine the best idea allows every member of the team to feel valued and therefore fosters high morale.

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

The lesson or shall I say lessons I had to unlearn was trying to manage and handle everything on my own in my business. Being the lone wolf in my company was tiring, frustrating and kept me in burnout mode. I was not investing in the training and the coaching I needed and everything took me twice as long to accomplish, trying to figure everything out on my own. I thought that getting a mentor or coach meant that I was not efficient in what I did in my company. What I had to realize that everyone can only grow to as far as your knowledge will take you. After you reach the point of your own limitations, you must find someone with the knowledge to the next level you want to obtain in order to train you on that path. If not you will never grow. I also realized that just because I can do something does not mean I need to do it. Bogging myself down with tedious tasks only stopped me from focusing on the things I needed to do to grow my business. So I hired coaches and mentors and a team and business is great.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bootztoheelz.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/hardy7048
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/Bz2Hz
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/sandra-hardy-35019a49
• Other: https://bootztoheelz17.subkit.com