Sara Tye on becoming a successful coach

I’m Sara Tye a coach/teacher, award-winning entrepreneur, top 500 PR, speaker, published writer, adopter mother and 70.3 triathlete and I recently won a lifetime achievement award and was Voted ‘Green PR of London’ by the Evening Standard.

I own a multimillion-pound property portfolio in and outside the UK and run redheadPR an PR consultancy I started 20 years ago. Running an agency has given me a huge insight into the needs of businesses, brands, products and entrepreneurs such as Green & Black’s,  Centrepoint with Prince William now Prince of Wales and RSA 250th anniversary.

I also run two very successful coaching programmes Mastering Your Own PR and Mastering A Smart Agency.

I’ve coached 60 entrepreneurs 1:1 in the last 18 months, given nearly 250 free consultancy calls and had over 4,000 people attended my webinars, building a large email list in only 12 months through a very successful funnel on and offline.

I have over 35 years of communications and business development expertise and was a finalist in the first Cosmopolitan Women of the Year Awards 1999. I played a key role in the implementation of the BT’s environmental policy, development and management of the philanthropic ‘Best Practice’ process at Yell.

I developed stakeholder relations at Thames Water Utilities, headed up communications at Yellow Pages and spent three years managing the personal PR initiatives at home and abroad of The Body Shop and its eminent founder, the late Dame Anita Roddick.  I also ran Etape Suisse a luxury cycling experience company and a Mexican home delivery and restaurant.

I’ve helped drive the organisational development and marketing communications strategies for many organisations, individuals, brands and companies across the world.

A keynote speaker at many events, including StartUp 2016, Enterprise Nation, the GIMA Conference and The Whitewed Directory Awards in January 2018.

I know it’s a lot isn’t it!!

I became coach because after working in corporate and agency for over 30 years at the highest level, I felt I had so much expertise, experience, and knowledge of running growth businesses that I should pass this onto others.  My two coaching course I have online are made up of 100 videos and templates on how to raise your profile and grow a business.  So mainly women can watch in their own time.

I have been through 3 – 4 recession’s and consulted many businesses in many many sectors.

I knew that I could absolutely help coach and develop leaders of other businesses to do the same.  I’ve been through every single scenario a business and owner can go through.  I went through these problems alone without help especially in the last recession in 2008.  I made many many mistakes and have also had huge wins. I knew I could definitely help others avoid some of these pitfalls.  In order to understand the landscape I surveyed 500 businesses which helped define what I do.

The way I differentiate myself from other business coaches is the knowledge and experience I have.  I have worked at board level globally for nearly 40 years.  I have made many sacrifices to be hugely successful.  I am not just a coach, I am a teacher, mentor and business partner but from afar – I am not permanent which means those who want to go it alone can and use me as a sounding board.  I have adopted two children that has given me many insights in the lives of mothers that run businesses, an insight that it hugely helpful and empathetic.  My coaching comes from the heart, but I help with my head in a logical pragmatic way.  I am not wishy washy at all.

I have over 100 videos online; a training programme to help businesses and solopreneurs manage every aspects of their business and profile.  It’s all in one place like a big boot camp but I also individually coach every single person that comes through the programme to ensure they get through it.  Become accountable.  This is very different to a lot of coaches.  I also help coaches implement this themselves.

I faced many challenges when I started but I didn’t let that phase me at the beginning when I started the coaching business. I was lucky enough to already have a profile and a huge community network on and offline but it’s tough when you are working in a space where you’re less known. Building on my current profile was a must.  Many of the people I coach need to become thought leaders in their niche or speciality which means becoming high profile in order to stand out.

Get the pipeline started

You have to start at 1 and work up from that and that can be hard in its own right.  But I knew from experience that you can build a pipeline and it will snowball.  But you have to do this relentlessly every day.  I help people understand how to do this.

Facing starting something again and new

Again – I am not a procrastinator but getting started on something brand new, a new revenue stream is daunting and a tiring thought.  However, I always write a business plan and then carry it out one step at a time.  That means by the end, say step 50, you have completed all the tasks and hopefully started.

I also run things in parallel so I have 10 steps going at once.  A lot wait for each step to be completed before starting the other. The Great Juggle!

Sometimes this can be confusing, overwhelming and  labour intensive but that is the nature of business.

Don’t start until you’ve started

The one thing I didn’t do which I am so glad of is write my course until I had my first paying customer.  Yes, this may seem stressful when faced with 100 videos but I am so glad I didn’t.  As we went through the 1:1s there were tutorials I added in to help those questions in the future.  So, the first and second client I coached had the extra info. The first ten people I charged a reduced amount to ensure they received very good value for money.   My coaching and course are also priced reasonably so affordable to all.

Any advice you can offer aspiring business coaches.   

The biggest pieces of advice or couple of pieces of advice 😊 is as follows

Procrastination

Please do not procrastinate over starting.  I coach coaches, especially to become much more high profile and grow their communities and networks and in the end to stop procrastinating. Just take one step to find a client and then you have started.

Imposter Syndrome

A lot of solopreneurs and coaches feel like this.  Knowing what you are doing stops this.  Then repeating it time and time again confirms this.  So, start with the first client and then the second.  The more you coach the more you will see you’re not an imposter.  Then use this information to raise your profile as it’s the credible truth and you have just coached someone successfully.

Work day in day out

If you want to be hugely successful it takes work. Generally, more than people think it does. Once you’ve worked out what you want to do and the plan – you will know how much time this is going to take.  Generally it’s more not less.