We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tia Slightham a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Tia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?
To be honest, I didn’t set out thinking that I would one day become a parenting coach, let alone start and run my own business. I’m a firm believer in the cliche saying, “everything happens for a reason.” With this belief at hand, I hold a very strong value in focusing on my journey step by step, instead of only looking ahead at the outcome.
I started my journey as a Kindergarten Teacher with my Masters in Early Childhood Ed. If you had asked me back then, over 15 years ago, if I thought I would one day change my job, own a business, be my own boss running a small team, I would have probably laughed out loud. As time went on, life happened and unraveled. Each step I took. Each idea I acted on moved me closer and together those steps along my journey have led me to where I am today.
Before I started Tia Slightham – Parenting Solutions Inc. I was spending my time writing blog posts for my first ever blog which focused primarily on sleep training tips for parents. This eventually led me to coaching clients 1:1 via phone consults to help them get their babies to sleep. As time progressed I grew by clientele bit by bit and before long created Tia Slightham – Parenting Solutions where I finally combined sleep and behavior to help parents with every struggle from morning to night.
Again, I was still feeling held back and tied down by the fact that I was only able to support parents via 1:1 coaching. Being only one person with only x amount of hours in day, all while raising my own two young boys at the same time, I felt like I had hit the ceiling. I felt the need to scale, but didn’t know how or which steps to take.
Until…Covid hit and I found myself listening to Lori Kennedy talk about her course on her morning Facebook show, which claimed she would show me how to build an online program and scale.
This lit a fire under me and although I didn’t have the money to pay for the program, I knew I had to find a way! I did what I needed to do and in a matter of a few months I had created my 12 week online program, The Parenting With Purpose Method! Right off the bat we had such amazing results for parents who were going through our program it created a steady flow where we were bringing on new clients into our one:many coaching format at a rapid rate.
We now serve parents from around the world inside our program and have been able to grow to a multiple 6 figure business with big goals to grow even more!
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.
Tia Slightham – Parenting Coach
Tia is a parenting coach, teacher, business owner, best selling author and most importantly a MOM. She is the founder of Tia Slightham- Parenting Solutions and The Parenting With Purpose Method, where she works with parents to teach them positive ways to decrease the daily struggles we all encounter as parents.
Tia has a Masters degree in Early Childhood Ed., certified in Positive Discipline and has worked with kids and families for over 19 years. Her passion to help families shines through her work and coaching program, which has been proven to work for hundreds of families.
Tia is passionate in her mission to break generational trauma and cycles. She can’t stress enough the importance of all parents needing to know that parenting is not intuitive, but rather it’s a learned skill.
The truth is, parents can’t be expected to know how to get their kids to go to bed, stay in bed and fall asleep independently. They can’t be expected to know the difference between tantrums and meltdowns. They can’t be expected to know how to stop yelling, especially if as a child they were yelled at themselves. Parents can’t expect to know how to meet the needs on their child behavior roadmap to set their kids up for success. Parents are not born knowing how to handle the challenges, phases and stages that come with raising kids.
Instead, parents need to know that they can LEARN THESE SKILLS and create a positive and effective parenting experience where their kids feels seen, heard and understood. All without yelling, anger or punishments. Learning to discipline kids without punishment is the secret to an easy, joyful parenting experience with kids who listen, cooperate and act respectfully in return! The key is taking time to learn the skills.
The Parenting With Purpose Method is designed to do just this and it’s built to meet the needs of any parent with a child of any age. We focus on root cause problem solving, which teaches parents how to avoid the unwanted behaviors all together and leaves parents equipped to respond to their kids without negative reactions.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
Social media is such a powerful tool! I believe that having the strength and courage to put yourself out there is a critical piece to building a successful online business.
I have never paid someone to edit my videos or make the fancy. I have been natural, raw and authentic. I have created most of my videos inside my home office and have reached millions of viewers by speaking from my heart.
Taking time to really learn about my ideal client and audience from the inside out has allowed me to speak directly to their pain points, challenges and needs so that when they listen to my videos they find themselves saying, “Oh my gosh. She’s talking about me!”
Parents (or your potential clients) need to trust you and believe that you fully understand their challenges. This is where they build the courage to move forward with you as their guide to the results they’re craving.
I have built a large social media following, organically, over Tik Tok (@parentingcoach), Instagram (@tiaparentingcoach) and Facebook (Simple Parenting Solutions with Tia Slightham) which reaches over 800K followers.
For these followers I post almost daily with tips, videos and value to help them learn more about me, what we do inside our coaching program and how we can help them parent free of anger and guilt.
The moral of the story is… just get out there! Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks or says. When you have an idea run with it. You’re so capable of anything you desire! Move forward and go for it!
If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?
Our business works to meet the needs of as many parents as possible to help support them in a way that’s feasible for them.
The Parenting With Purpose Method has 4 levels of support (Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum). I designed our program with these specific varying levels to allow parents to start where they feel it meets their needs both financially and with the offered support. Parents have the ability to upgrade to any level at any time.
We also offer monthly live zoom workshops for $87 to help parents get results and learn more about what we do and how we do it inside The Parenting With Purpose Method.
Mini online courses are available as well ranging from $47-$497 to help parents start somewhere.
I say this all the time and can’t stress it enough…any step is a good step. Taking action = results. Take a step, learn new skills and remember that it’s your journey to solving your parenting challenges that matters. Don’t get hung up worrying about the end result. The results will come if you’re on the right path and taking the right steps!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tiaslightham.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/tiaparentingcoach
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/groups/simpleparentingsolutions
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiaslightham?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCembj98t0Tjm1vkrkexIvWA
- TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@parentingcoach?_t=8gZVHdKmD94&_r=1
Image Credits
@anchorstudio instagram Anchor Studio