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

Sarah , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later

That’s a loaded question. It was my career that gave me the insights and experiences that I lead with in my business now. However, it’s also my career that brought me to the verge of breakdown and missing pivotal firsts in the lives of my kids. I kind of feel like I needed the career to truly value the business AND have the perspective I do.

I dabbled in entrepreneurship while working full time in 2010 — I didn’t really consider it a viable source of income for many years because it required time away from my day job (the consulting work was strictly in person), until 2018. I was laid off while on maternity leave and needed the flexibility of being able to care for my new baby AND make money. That’s when I moved online. I did get hired back in a different capacity a few months later but it was far too stressful and not what I wanted to do be doing. It also left me with a distinct lack of trust in an institution that I had put a lot of time, effort, and energy in. So I continue to focus on and grow my online business.

When Covid hit in 2020, working conditions changed for everyone, and the expectation of still having to hide my children and somehow be online 8 hours a day was too much. It was really the catalyst to leaving altogether and building something for myself that allowed me to start putting my family first AND prioritize my mental health and well being.

That’s the philosophy I brought into my consulting work — I welcomed women with children as clients and had to reassure them day after day that their children, the lives, were welcome and okay, and that businesses CAN be built without having to sacrifice one for the other.

I think if I hadn’t had the experiences that happened during the period of time between 2018-2020, I probably wouldn’t have embraced entrepreneurship fully (because honestly I never wanted to be an entrepreneur), but I also probably would have built it in a very corporate way, which would have defeated the goal of having and doing business my way.

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

My name is Sarah Khan… and I’m a corporate escapee.

I lived my life with the ethos of “hard work equals reward”, but equated hard work as “the more you bring to the table and the more you give of yourself the more valuable you are.” That means I got every kind of certification possible. I have 3 university degrees. While I worked in professional services and higher education for a combined 25 years I took every training they offered. I have online certifications as an OBM (online business manager) and DOO (director of operations) and a variety of other qualifications (mindfulness, marketing, coaching, graphic design, etc) because for too long I thought the more letters I had the more credible I was.

Not only have I realized that isn’t true, but it’s driven me to help other women realize their worth does NOT lie in what they do and how much they learn. That there are already gifts inside each of us that if we can really tap into and leverage, it can make a meaningful difference in how we show up in our own authority.

I’ve always had a knack for seeing connections, connecting the dots, seeing the shortest, simplest path to an end goal. That’s what made me a phenomenal project manager while I worked in corporate spaces, and what made me an excellent teacher when I worked in higher education.

When I moved online, I leveraged all of that operations experience and began working as a service provider for online businesses. I worked behind the scenes to help them streamline and set up strong business foundations, and often found myself mentoring many business owners because so many of them had come online during the Covid years with little to no actual business experience. And a lot of them had been burned by big promises of million dollar businesses that just required a laptop, a glass of champagne, a pool, and a high vibe.

I eventually pivoted back to consulting, and also starting talking a LOT about the nonsense advice and BS in the online business space especially. This earned me a reputation as a BS-buster and trusted advocate for women wanting to build businesses that were sustainable and as someone who wasn’t afraid to call out unhealthy, unethical, and and downright dangerous business practices.

I work now with women in two distinct capacities as a consultant:

1. I create simple, powerful business growth strategies for women leaders who want to create sustainable, values-driven businesses that harmonize professional success and personal fulfillment.

2. I work with women like me who have tons of experience and expertise in their industry or niche, and have been historically prized for what they do (the proverbial unicorn), and who are now ready to be valued for what they know, creating a blueprint for their evolution into authority and one day maybe even thought leader.

My brand, Corporate Rehab®, is bold, direct, decisive. My values include kind candour — so I tell it like it is, but with kindness and compassion.

I’m most proud of the fact that I’ve been able to help women build businesses that don’t just provide them with financial stability, but they’ve learned to trust themselves again. To speak up and speak out. And to feel like they are on the path of true personal agency and autonomy.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

If there’s one piece of advice I can give it’s BE YOU.

It sounds so freaking simple. But really it’s not. There is so much pressure to conform to the status quo and there’s this strong undercurrent of “you have to show up a certain way and present yourself in a certain light” in order to be taken seriously or seen as a successful business owner.

And nothing could be further from the truth.

When I bought into that rhetoric — and if you go back far enough on my social media you’ll see it — I struggled to differentiate myself from everyone in the space who did what I did. Right down to my branding which was the same shade of teal as everyone else.

It was probably a combination of age, exhaustion, and just plain frustration with how little traction I was getting AND just anger at a lot of what I saw being peddled in the space as legitimate business advice — but eventually the veil lifted and I started to speak my mind. I started to speak to what I was seeing. I started speaking from the heart.

And it RESONATED! People were so intrigued and so many started to tell me how refreshing it was.

Now, I wasn’t being intentionally polarizing or controversial. Everything I said was with as much compassion as I could muster, and I never called people out — just practices and tactics.

But it’s the authenticity that I really tapped into — using my OWN language and speaking FROM my heart — that really resonated with people.

I then started to see a huge uptick in followers, my engagement increased, and my business really started to take off. I was finally standing out from the crowd.

So my advice — find your north star. Find the thing that is really you. Tap into who you are and why you’re even doing this. Why is this important to you? Start there and really find the courage to speak your truth. You’ll find your people a lot quicker.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

This follows on from my previous response, but integrity. Being as unabashedly me as I can but also integrity. I have been as honest with people as possible. I have always lived up to my end of the bargain and owned whenever I couldn’t or if I made a mistake.

I’m also the same person offline. There’s no facade here.

I’ve also tried to be as generous with my advice as possible. I remember what it was like to start out and feel like I had NO clue what I was doing. So I’ve always tried to give as much general knowledge as I can for free. I’ve often offered special deals for new business owners to pick my brain or given them opportunities to come learn for free.

Or, I’ve just allowed them to ask for whatever they needed. I’ve gotten very good at holding boundaries but still serving fully and from the heart.

Coupled with the knowledge that I don’t blow smoke and that If I don’t know I’ll find the answer for them, AND the fact I am a firm believer no one way is right for everyone, people have come to trust that I am someone they can count on to truly help them, advocate for them, and cheer them on.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://getcorporaterehab.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/corporate.rehab
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/the.sarah.khan
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/sarahikhan

Image Credits

Reanna Khan of Reanna Khan Creative