Scarlett is a ground breaking, game changing, rule breaking programme of experiential, high impact training and mentoring for high achieving women on a mission.
Our promise to our members is: Give us 3 months of your time and our unique methodology will give you the tools to transform your confidence giving you a year full of achievement and the power to create the rest of your life.
1: Why is it a great time to be a women in business?
It’s not just a great time – we believe it’s the best time in history to be a woman in business! The lovely chaps at Harvard, Deloitte, Bain and McKinsey have gone and proved it with clever, credible and valuable research about the economic and business benefits of having women at the helm – thanks for the leg up boys! Our own Mr Cameron agrees and states that he will introduce targets if we don’t see numbers of women on boards rising to 25% by 2015. Even the Queen is going all girl power on us; she recently changed a 300 year old law so that the next born royal child will inherit the thrown – EVEN if it’s a girl! So, it appears the world is catching up as we float around in this sea change of equality that is upon us. The world it appears is finally ready for us ladies to shine.
Not to mention the obvious – the wonderful flexibility of working from anywhere you like on your laptop and still having the opportunity to build a global brand. You can work at three am while breast feeding / getting home from a late event and be perfectly contentedly forging a business relationship with someone lovely in San Diego. I did this yesterday. What’s not to love?
2: Why did you setup your business and how long before you reached a point you were confident it would be successful?
I set up Scarlett because having spent over a decade working with and for some of the worlds leading personal and professional coaching organisations (many run by men) I realised that there were many great tools and learns I wanted to share with the world and also that those programmes had certain things missing for me, particularly as a woman.
There seemed to be an over emphasis on the ‘millionaire mind’ and my experience of women, myself included, was that this does not drive me in life. I want to make a difference, be my best version of myself, leave a legacy, inspire others and yes, create a lifestyle that I love – but I am a bit turned off by the chest thumping, get rich yesterday approach I found myself delivering on behalf of others (whilst not getting rich and lining their pockets along the way!)
I also knew that for real, lasting, profound change to happen it’s the little things that make the big difference. Putting one heel in front of the other, daily rituals and habits that support your growth, constantly being in a state of action and things happening because you said they would. Sometimes these big events can, indeed be life changing, but all too often the knowledge, inspiration and drive wear off over time; I wanted to provide a hand-holding space for women to keep that buzz alive and to develop daily rituals that would be with them forever, not just for Christmas! I basically decided to create the programme and tribe that I had been looking for and failed to find.
As for how long it took to become confident? Well, we are still a work in progress, and like many startups I have moments of euphoria and moments of despair. I am confident that we will remain successful because of the constant feedback from our Ladies and the levels of enthusiasm from people I’ve never even met before that are pretty much ‘where do I sign?’ And the moments of anxiety and the night terrors always come when I hit a new roadblock or unchartered waters, like social media for example. For me, this has been a real passion killer at times, I find it noisy, frustrating, and overwhelming and it’s constantly changing! Just when I think I’ve grasped blogging or twitter, suddenly it’s all eyes on Pinterest! Grrrrr! Honestly makes me want to chuck my laptop out the window and scream like a banshee!
To counter this, I remind myself to get out in the world with the real people and do what I know I’m good at. Too much time spent trying to grapple with new domains can leave you feeling totally flattened and disempowered, it’s important to keep doing that which you’re great at or you’ll want to throw in the towel, pack up shop and go home.
3: We found you on twitter, how useful is twitter in your business?
Please see paragraph above for my ongoing dance with all things tech! I have actually started to fall a little bit in love with twitter and can really see the benefit of it now that I’ve started to connect. Nowhere else in the world can you stalk your personal heroine’s, potential joint venture partners and find people looking for your services all at once. For me, the real value is in building that all important community and being able to easily share our content such as blogs and slides. I think it’s also been really invaluable in keeping ahead of the conversations out there in the world. Knowing that what we’re up to and wanting to provide is also being discussed out there, by real other women, often in high places, can be very reassuring to little ole me sitting in my pyjama bottoms at the kitchen table!
4: What advice would you give to our members on being successful?
TAKE ACTION! ANY ACTION! Even if it’s the tiniest step, make sure you take an action in the right direction of travel every single day. The biggest action (and passion) killers are the three P’s:
- Perfectionism – Did you know that PayPal was a mistake? It was started as an app designed for friends to lend each other money on a night out. It failed (as that). And now look what we have instead. I wish that had been my mistake! Whatever your idea, just get it out of your head and into the world, even if it is a diamond in the rough, your audience will tell you what it needs to be and the less attached you are to the idea of perfection the more willing you will be to make subtle changes and move direction. But you will never know this information by staring at a perfectly written business plan.
- Procrastination – Ultimately driven by fear; lack of confidence and self belief which in turn lead to uncertainty about your ability to deliver. Stop it! As Pablo Picasso says ‘Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone’ and also consider the feeling of satisfaction you get when you know you’ve done all the things on the to do list and you can sleep easy tonight. It is actually more liberating and freeing to just get on with it than it is to procrastinate. And a final word on procrastination: Just put it off!
- Paralysis – An all too common, modern disease. And an understandable one at that. There is SO much to take in these days, which marketing strategy, what’s your niche, what platforms, before we even get to the all important ‘am I really the woman for the job?’ Guess what? You will never be ready; it’ll never be perfect and now is definitely not the right time. So just get on with it woman, your life is waiting!
5: If you could start over again what would be the one thing that you would change in hindsight and what would be the one thing you did that you would want to keep doing?
Ah, hindsight what a wonderful thing! Without doubt the thing that I would change would be the years I spent trying to figure it all out myself. If I could turn back time I’d go back 5 years, find a geeky girl graduate looking for experience and have started Scarlett back then, with them taking on the crap that I hate but that they would consider the most ridiculous amount of fun! I’d give her some pocket money, put her through the programme, give her work experience and ensure we both came out winning. Instead of which I attempted things that were way out of my skill sets and just gave up before I even got going. These days I reach out for help (that beautiful website of ours, not a cat in hell’s chance I could’ve created that myself!) and there are plenty of people who need exactly the kudos working for you will offer. I think I finally understand leverage, something our male counterparts mastered long before us.
And the thing I’d keep doing? The stuff that scares me. It can feel a bit masochistic to be constantly getting terrified, but how else would I know I could deliver presentations to thousands of people? Or audition for a mentor that leaves me slightly starstruck? Each time you take a leap outside of your comfort zone, it expands. I say, if it doesn’t make you nervous you’re playing too small. And I’m really glad that I put myself through it now because the whole world of what’s possible for me is so much bigger than it was, my confidence has grown and I’m a much larger version of myself than I otherwise would be. Which in turn inspires other women to want to hear my story and do what I’m doing; something that I’m both surprised and thrilled by every single day.
6: What do you see to be the next big enabler for you?
For me, what most enables me is things like this! Knowing that organisations such as WATC would be willing to hear my voice and give us some air time. I always find it reassuring when I feel I can connect to those that are both making a great success of what they do and have also trodden the path before me. I find associating with, forging connections and allegiances with those ahead of me on their journey increases my confidence and reminds me that they too started out small and figured it out along the way. And of course, if they can, I can and YOU CAN!
News Flash: Salli has published her book “How To Attract Mr Right In 90 Days Or Less?”
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