Beyond Business Podcast Ep3
Episode 3
Small Business Success with Sara Dalrymple
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EPISODE SUMMARY
Join me as I chat with the inspiring Sara Dalrymple, a trainer and mentor who helps entrepreneurs sell with simplicity and integrity. We uncover Sara's journey from investment banking to becoming a passionate advocate for small businesses, discussing the challenges she faced while shifting careers, and the importance of pursuing her passion. Sara offers valuable insights for those who are in a similar career transition phase, battling cultural pressures, and fear of starting anew.
Later in the episode, we explore the pressing issue of gender pay gap and how it affects women in the workforce. Drawing from personal experiences, we shed light on the struggle of balancing work and family life while finding fulfilment. We look at the benefits of entrepreneurship and starting your own business, discussing how it offers flexibility, control, and better work-life balance. This conversation is a great listen for those of us seeking inspiration to pursue their passion through running a successful small business.
You can connect with Sara on Instagram and saradalrymple.co.uk.
You can order a copy of her book More Sales Please on Amazon now.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
00:03 - Debbie (Host)
Welcome to Beyond Business the podcast, the show for impact driven egopreneurs who want to be part of a bigger change and make a difference that reaches beyond your business alone. This week on the podcast, I'm speaking with Sara Dalrymple. Sara is a trainer and a mentor who supports business owners to sell with simplicity and integrity, in a way that doesn't feel salesy. She's also a huge advocate of the role that small business has to play in enabling you to blend purposeful work with other roles in life, while also earning well Good morning Sara.
00:44
A very, very warm welcome to the Beyond Business podcast. I've been super, super looking forward to this conversation and it's a real, real pleasure to have you, Especially on a Friday. I wanted a treat the day after the week.
00:57 - Sara (Guest)
Good morning, I'm so excited to chat. Let's yeah, let me add it.
01:04 - Debbie (Host)
Well, I am. When I first came across you, one of the things that really drew me to working with you was your the white page on your website. I thought, wow, this, like you really haven't sucked there. It really, really resonated with me straight away, and so I wondered, to kick us off, if you could like share a little bit more about your story, like where your career started and how it led you into what you're doing today.
01:33 - Sara (Guest)
Yeah, definitely, let's do it, and that's so nice that you said that. I don't think I knew that. So, yeah, good to know that my back page is doing, it's doing its job. But I'm Sarah, hello everyone. I started I mean, I'm 42 now I feel like we're going back a bit here but I started my career in investment banking.
01:54
I was one of those people who did not know what they wanted to do. I've never I wasn't. I did not go through school thinking I want to be a banker. I didn't think that at all, but I somehow you didn't know what subjects to pick, did not know what to do at uni, did not know, did not know, did not know. And then all of a sudden was like I think maybe for context, I mean, we're really going back here In the 1990s my parents were really like, look, it's really important that you have options, really important for you.
02:24
Like backstory, you know, they maybe didn't have like all the options that they wanted.
02:28
So they were like we really want this for you, we want you to have options.
02:30
So we think it'd be really, you know, in the absence of you knowing what you want to do, why don't you do something that's going to keep things open for, like you know, a steady, reliable job in inverted commas and yeah, so inadvertently, I ended up doing an economics degree and going to work in banking, which is what everybody then did with their economics degrees, I feel like almost by default, because I just did not really know. I just I felt like the world was so big and I just did not know really where to put myself in it. So I started in banking and when I got there I thought what can I see from the desk that I'm in, that I would like to do? And I just kind of worked my way through a couple of jobs there until I found one that I felt was quite a good sort of match for my personality, which was client facing sales job, and so that's, I would say, yeah, that's where I stayed for a few years. So, yeah, definitely, that's the longer version of how I felt it. There we go.
03:38 - Debbie (Host)
Amazing. And then, when did your transition I don't know begin?
03:42 - Sara (Guest)
Yeah, so that, okay, it began when I became pregnant with my first child and I think I kind of already knew, even before having him, that this setup that I had found myself in and I was there I've been there for about 10 years at that point maybe not quite, but I already knew psychologically that it wasn't going to be flexible enough, it wasn't going to work and it wasn't. There, wasn't going to be the option that I would want to, you know, put my child, like, put my child to bed in the evenings, you know the hours just really, really rigorous. So I think I just knew, like it, I just wasn't going to see a world in which I was still getting to my desk for half seven in the morning and just being there all day. I wasn't prepared to do it. So I kind of knew, even before I went on maternity leave, that I was going to need to find something else.
04:31
And that was in 2012,. And it feels like about a thousand years ago now, because things have changed so much in terms of accessibility to, you know, coaching and resources and education and options. But in 2012, like I remember googling, like I need to change my career, I don't know what to do and I felt, please, internet, help me. And if you did that now, I feel like you'd probably get like immediately bombarded with like options, of retraining options. But for me that you know, that took a bit longer. I knew that I wanted to go and find something else, and it felt really scary to start again from scratch, because everything I'd been taught up until that point was like you hold onto a job. You hold onto a job, especially if it's a steady, reliable job. I've got my bunny ears out again.
05:21 - Debbie (Host)
Yeah, a job for life.
05:23 - Sara (Guest)
Yeah, there was just this real notion of like what do you mean? You're going to start again. I want you to. Why on earth could you do that? You've got a great job and you know, salary is good and the benefits are great, and like what on earth? Why on earth would you turn your back on that?
05:41 - Debbie (Host)
Yeah, yeah, I know it's so interesting because we should say, nowadays, google would have the answer, and if Google doesn't have the answer, then chat. Gpd will have the answer for you.
05:51 - Sara (Guest)
Or even just like sort of culturally like a squiggly career is a known concept now, like it's very normalized on goodness, and I'm extremely here for it, but it definitely wasn't in the same way then, Mm-hmm.
06:04 - Debbie (Host)
Yeah, the fact that there's even a term for it and I I think that says a lot, doesn't it? It's really interesting what you said as well about your degree and how, yeah, it's sort of funneled. It sounds like it funneled you into this, the career path that really presented itself, and it strikes me like how different that is to like where you find yourself now. I were like I guess you've really consciously chosen the path that you're on and the work that you do.
06:38 - Sara (Guest)
Yeah, I mean it's like an ongoing evolution, I would say is for all of us. To be honest, I think what it really revealed is that generally, the way like the vast majority of us were brought up no matter what, like the background or where you live or any of that like in the 80s and 90s, like the model was you get your education, you do the best you can, you get the best job you can with the grades that you've got and you work really hard constantly and then in the end you retire and hopefully by that point you've saved up a bit of money and you can ease off a bit. That was the model. That was the like. There wasn't really too much space unless you were lucky enough to know that you wanted to do X, y and Z career. There wasn't really too much space, I don't think, to explore, like, what you really love to do and making a career after that.
07:32
I feel like it was more like here's a load of options, which one do you want Like, which one fits you, which one do you want to do? And if none of those was really like jumping out at you, then it was kind of like I just don't, I don't know, I just don't know. So now, like I'm very much like noticing and here for and trying to bring language to the much better idea of thinking, you know, starting from actually what you want and what you like and what you want your life to be like, not just what you want your work to be like, because also, like working for 12 hours a day, every day for decades and decades is not particularly modern or useful if you're also trying to, you know, do other things with your life caring for people, raising children or not but just doing other things like this. These, none of these things did I think about until I was over 30.
08:24 - Debbie (Host)
And when you describe it like that, it strikes me as the difference between working from the outside in versus working from the inside out. Like I remember, I distinctly remember careers classes in school or like there was a Yuccas like a doorstep thing, and like that was the class you were like giving the textbook, oh it was like a directory.
08:56
it was like a directory of courses and that's what the class was like based on. And so you're really yeah, you were choosing existing options as opposed to, yeah, the alternative that you described of like starting with yourself figuring out what you're passionate about, what your skill set is like, maybe what ties in with the type of income you want to make, the number of hours you're willing to work and like use that as the basis to like go and explore and experiment with.
09:28 - Sara (Guest)
But yeah, I mean even more like. Another kind of probably element to this was that it was very much, I guess, like at the time it was very much like look, hey, like girls, you can go out and get all the jobs that men can get now, and you should. We hadn't really arrived yet at the place where it was like, hang on, do we actually want to work in that way? So it was really kind of screening for like, yeah, I mean, go in and get those jobs, but then, like, when you, you know if you do want to have children, how are you going to make this work? This isn't going to work actually in the current set up.
09:58
So I think there was just a lot of like this is now available to you and it wasn't before. So that's really great. So off you go, I don't even question it. So actually we're kind of the first generation of people who were like, hang on a minute, this really doesn't work, like there really isn't the flexibility here. So there's a lot of burnt out women around who are like I can't be like carrying all the domestic burden at home and also being in the office 12 hours a day. So something's got to give.
10:26 - Debbie (Host)
Yeah, so I like I know the gender pay gap is like a big why behind your work that you do and do you feel like this when you describe it that way is it? Is that something that has developed for you over time, or do you feel like it's been there from the beginning?
10:47 - Sara (Guest)
I don't know if I necessarily like had my full kind of lens on when I started this. When I started this, it was actually less about. It was actually let me think about this, you've got me now. Yeah, no, when I left I was fully aware that I was not getting paid the same as some of the men on my team, even though I was performing the same, if not better, than some of the men on my team.
11:11
So there was definitely a subcon. I think it was kind of subconscious like element of the gender pay issue. But actually for me it was much more about like I really I really resent the fact that if I want to see my child, like that has to happen on the weekends, like that's just totally ridiculous. So there was a. It was partly gender pay, but it was also part of, like you know, the fact that there just wasn't nobody up the chain was really thinking about the actual impact on the domestic kind of setup of somebody with children. It was just kind of like we'll take it or leave it. I'll leave it, thank you.
11:50
I recognise that's not necessarily an option for everybody and I wish it was, which is why we now you know we have to bring this conversation. We have to normalise, you know, this pathway that is available to take and to make sure that more people can set up their own businesses if they want to, and sustain them if they want to. So, yeah, the gender pay you know I could go off on a whole tangent here about gender pay, that, but I would. What I would say is that for years and years, women have been accepting, like their salary, as you know, as the same as the men's, and it's only when you realise it's not that you have to kind of equip yourself with tools to make a change and to actually, you know, speak up, which is something that we've really been taught to do, but we can do it in real time, it's okay.
12:34 - Debbie (Host)
Yeah, yeah, there's like, oh my goodness, when you say we're going off on a tangent, yes, I would like happily doing you on that. There's two things that I take from that. One, like with the gender pay gap. I understand that, like if you have a man and a woman in the same job, then, yes, part of the pay gap comes from them being paid differently for doing the same thing. But I understand like the bigger contributor to it is when you become a mum.
13:06
So it's like more of a motherhood pay gap than a gender pay gap. That's what I was looking for. It's actually right, yeah, and it's like two things One, because taking time out of your career, you're from maternity leave or that like a period of flexible or part-time working in many industries and many companies. Then hold your career back and you can never recover the gap.
13:34
So that's the one thing, and then the second thing is that more not just moms, but like more females are drawn to very caring professions like teaching or nursing, like careers that are traditionally paid less, and so when you can find those two things, that's where a lot of the gap comes from, and so it really links back to what you were saying about companies having really proactive approaches to like clothing, that, or like, I guess, people taking it well, mothers, women taking it into their own hands then and starting their businesses, which is like where you come in. Thank you, yeah, so do you think, like with that, and I guess, like, do you think that starting your business is the solution?
14:31 - Sara (Guest)
I don't think it's, like the like the panacea of all issues, like of all working issues. Of course I don't, but I do think, like it is an available option that I wish I had known like was an available option, or at least that I'd seen more people you know being real about. So I'm not going to sit here and say like, oh yeah, it's really easy to start your own business and then off you go and live happy ever after. But what I will say is, like for anybody who is in a situation where what they, you know, they're perhaps wanting to start a business and they're telling themselves that they can't, or they shouldn't, or it's too late, or it's too hard, or this is the sort of narrative that I'm wanting to get into and understand a little bit more, because I know that, like, the dominant narrative, like I said, for most people that grew up in the 80s and 90s, wasn't like, oh yeah, like start your own business.
15:20
I really remember like a very small handful of role models in terms of people who were like. I mean even the word entrepreneur, like doesn't necessarily resonate particularly. I remember like Richard Branson. I remember him in the 80s doing some things and he's not someone I necessarily like, massively resonated with, to be honest. So we don't think we've had any real role models, particularly in terms of what it means to have your own business. You're almost thinking, oh, entrepreneur, dyson Branson is like no, that's necessarily what we're trying to do here. What we're really very much trying to do and as I say like this is this is new is create a lifestyle that works like work wise and life wise. So I think it can absolutely be a wonderful solution for anybody who is craving more space in their life and more control over how they spend their time as well as how they earn money.
16:14 - Debbie (Host)
Yeah, it's right when you say that it's the difference between, I guess, entrepreneurship. Yeah, I really agree, it's like the bigger companies. But then you know, I know you specialize in supporting people in the small business world, like either solar printers or like small and very purpose driven businesses.
16:34 - Sara (Guest)
Yeah, I mean we all have skip. Like. What's so amazing about, you know, the education economy, the female economy, the small business economy, the creative economy, is that it has never been easier to start your own thing if you want to like genuinely. We all have the internet, we all have you know, most people have phones in their hands. Like it's never been easier to access people who would delightedly pay you for what you do, rather than having a sort of suboptimal experience with somebody else just because they've been around longer or whatever. So in that way, the barriers have really come down and we've got more small business owners than we've never had before in the UK, which is amazing.
17:13
What I'm interested in is how, you know, how, can we make sure that more of those businesses like make, like survive for long term, like successfully, and that don't burn out in the process? Because most of the traditional system of working like for somebody else or working your way up through the ladder or whatever, as described earlier on, is a system that was not made for like modern family life or modern life with or without children. It was made, you know, in a time where predominantly the men were working, the women were at home, people were not sharing the domestic load equally. Now we've got everybody wanting to work, which is absolutely fantastic and quite right to frankly, but what we need is more like. Ultimately, we need more flexibility, we need to have autonomy over our own time, we need to have efficiency and how we make money and having your own business is a really fantastic way, if you know, if you feel called to do so, to create that kind of net, I would say next version of how we work, how we earn money, how we live.
18:14 - Debbie (Host)
Yeah, because I think that I guess the other thing about the tradition of working is that it's a real exchange of time for money.
18:25 - Sara (Guest)
It's not transactional.
18:26 - Debbie (Host)
Yeah, you work. You know you work full time and you get paid this much. You work part time and you get paid this much whereas. I guess one of the like the key differences in the world of small businesses. Like a lot of small businesses really sold A particular problem and so people are willing to pay a small business to like solve that problem for them. That doesn't necessarily for the business owner you're not. The value is in providing a solution. It's not being paid directly for your time necessarily.
19:01 - Sara (Guest)
Right, yeah, and it's also like a really fantastic opportunity to restore like wonderful service and like amazing relationships. So like when we're thinking about that time for money transaction where it's kind of like, well, between the hours of X and Y, you're mine and you'll do as I say, kind of thing is totally the opposite of what we get to do as small business owners, which is where we get to actually like create really long, lasting, amazing relationships with people who feel like friends or we're able to give people that really high level experience with us that they would never get from a big company, because, you know, they're just not maybe not always able to do that in the same way. So there's just a much. It really talks to the sort of more caring, more nurturing side of lots of do that on our own terms.
19:53 - Debbie (Host)
Yeah, really yeah. So there's that directness that you're directly involved with the people that you're serving in a way that you might not necessarily be in a larger organization.
20:06 - Sara (Guest)
Yeah, and also to really get kind of be known for your own skillset, the things that you love to do. But also it's more than that. I think there's an element of, like we've all been taught that we're worth or whatever is only as good as our CV or our last job that we had or whatever achievement we got. But actually, like we're human beings have a lot more to give than just their skills and their these and their experiences. So actually there's a huge space here also for being known for your personality traits and the things that you actually genuinely love to do, as well as the skill element of whatever it is that your business is about. So it's not, you know, transacting skills for money, yeah, and I think, because you know we don't, we're not robots, you know, let the robots. We are not robots, we're human, and so it's really important that we're bringing our human kind of individual traits and personality kind of elements to proceedings, because ultimately, in the small business community, we are all creating a service, which is great, and we all love good service.
21:20 - Debbie (Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I really like that and it's like I guess, yeah, there's so much passion that lies behind, like so many of these businesses, that like really becomes the driver, the care, the care and the passion. And so I'm curious, like, as you like given where your business has got to know, like, as you look to the future, what are some of the aspirations that you have around, like a lot of the things that we've been talking about, and like the part that small businesses have to play.
21:55 - Sara (Guest)
I think I would just love like, at the end of the day, like all the people in my world really want to do, is they want to work in a way that suits the life that they want to have.
22:06
So it's about choices. It's about our kind of understanding that wherever you are right now like I think I said this at the beginning like everything's always evolving, seasons are always changing, things are always happening, planned or unplanned, and really it's about understanding that if you didn't land in the dream job the first time around, that's totally okay. Like you are able to change and twist and turn as many times as you want to and you always get to make money from doing things that you love to do, that you want to do. So we don't have to stay in a job that we don't love just because we think that's what we qualified in or that's what we trained in. So for me, it's really about helping more women see that they have choices and help them understand how to make money doing things that are better suited to them in their current season.
22:55 - Debbie (Host)
I love talking about that in terms of seasons, because this is the thing that I've learned for life in general.
23:02
that seems modern day life is just constantly going through different evolutions, like maybe something fits at one time in life, but then like it doesn't in the next month or the next year or whatever you do, and sometimes that's due to, like, internal circumstances, like your interest change or your values change slightly, but sometimes it's due to totally unexpected external things as well, as the last couple of years had shown us, and I think like, yeah, I think I like personal think it's a really valuable skill for anybody to know how to make that transition, whether it's into the world of small business or even in employment, like being able to have that adaptability and flexibility to consciously make choices.
23:54 - Sara (Guest)
Oh, I really remember like. I don't know if you've ever had any like memories like this, but like the thought when we were sort of growing up, the thought of changing your job or something because it wasn't quite like, oh no, you can't do, people will think you can't stick at your job. If you don't stick at it for at least I don't know two years or something. It's like that's kind of crazy, isn't it? When you think about it's like I'm perfectly capable of knowing when something is not a perfect fit and it's. It's almost like it's so damaging for people to think they must stick at something that they don't like what other people would think. So I'm very here for like people really understanding that the best thing that you can do is continue your quest for the. You know the best for yourself. So it's like knowing what you want, or constantly interrogating what you want and not being afraid to go after it.
24:42 - Debbie (Host)
Yeah, and actually like it's really because I would say that you know not the world, in the world of business, like the needs, the needs like what the services and the products we need are constantly changing. As well as having people fit those is a really good thing, it's always a good thing.
25:00 - Sara (Guest)
No one's ever going to be able to become less than what they are like, than what they are right now. We're always growing new skill sets, new tools, so we always have plenty to offer. There's always going to be another job a great thing but we have to be like you say. We have to learn to be able to twist and turn and change according to all these changing backdrops that are always all the time.
25:23 - Debbie (Host)
Yeah, it sounds like a really like a core skill. A core skill these days? Yeah, totally. So I wonder if people would like to find out more about your work and where are the? Where's the best place to find you?
25:35 - Sara (Guest)
Ooh, fun question, so you can find me on Instagram. I'm at sales with Sarah on Instagram. I've just written my first book, which I'm very excited about, which comes out in January but is available for preorder now, and it's called more sales, please. And that's a guide for anybody who maybe hasn't learned how to talk about what they do in a way that makes you feel comfortable, or how to kind of use the internet to connect with the right kind of clients for their business or their ventures or, if you're sort of self employed. It's a guide to promoting what you do in 30 minutes a day. You can get that anyway. You get your books Amazon or anywhere else, so that feels really exciting. That's called more sales, please. Or my website, which is https://saradalrymple.co.uk
26:16 - Debbie (Host)
Awesome awesome and I shall put all those links in the show notes as well so anyone can find the next. Yay, yay. I can't wait for the launch of your book. How exciting it's been, such an, I imagine, such a milestone. But it's like I'm so impressed you've got it right there and in the world and like what I want to do.
26:41 - Sara (Guest)
I mean to like more women. We need more women writing books as well. That's another whole topic. I'm really pleased to be a teeny tiny part of that.
26:51 - Debbie (Host)
Amazing, awesome, well, thank you so much, sarah. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you for having me Bye. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Beyond Business. If you've loved what you've heard, I would be incredibly grateful if you could rate and review the podcast so that together we can create a global ecosystem of change makers, pioneering business as a force for good. Until then, I look forward to speaking to you in the next episode.