Think You're Too Much for People? Think Again

Once in a while, I like to spotlight people who are using their voice and content to improve the world. Today, I’m pointing the spotlight on Sara Torpey, an entrepreneur who speaks my language with her course Selling for Weirdos.

As a self-proclaimed weirdo, I know how challenging it can feel to enter a conversation awkwardly. I’ve also seen the beauty that can come from pushing through the discomfort and showing up as my odd little self anyway. Sara has, too, which you can see in her powerful story about shifting from the traditional classroom setting to empowering others.

Meet Sara.

I’m Sara, and I’m the creator of Selling for Weirdos, which is a course built to help the people who often seem to feel the weirdest about selling (the teachers, the helpers, and the givers!) sell more and feel (significantly) less awkward about the whole thing. 

I started out ‘grown up’ life as a classroom teacher - specifically, middle school math (which was an accident and is a story for another day!). I moved from teaching in my own classroom to coaching teachers in theirs at both the middle school and elementary level, and then, after five and a half years in that role, my family relocated for my husband’s job to where we are now here in the greater Philadelphia area. I left public schools for the corporate world (which was another accident, but a happy one!) and found myself coaching in a new way - with salespeople, tech teams, and content developers & editors at Encyclopedia Britannica. In my time at Britannica, I had 2 kids, traveled the country talking to teachers, administrators, and librarians, and learned a TON about sales and selling… but eventually, I was too far from teaching and had new things I wanted to create. I left to start my first business, which is called exSTEMsions, and also to teach again (this time, still math, but to college students!). As I worked with my partner to build exSTEMsions, I learned a lot (and made all of the mistakes) as an entrepreneur and found myself helping friends and colleagues who also had businesses. That turned into the business coaching practice I have today, where I work with clients 1:1, in small groups, and through Selling for Weirdos! 

Today, I run my coaching business full time and also use the flexibility that being my boss and owning my calendar affords me to be with my family, especially my 10 and 12-year-olds (who both play travel sports! One’s a baseball player, and the other is a competitive rock climber!). I LOVE my days.

YES, absolutely. I work every day in the business world as a business coach… without a business degree, without an MBA, without any real ‘formal’ training. SO often, I’ve thought some version of ‘Why should people listen to you? You’re *just* a teacher…’ and that thought, especially early on, made it difficult to step out and share both my perspective and the ways I knew I could help people. 

There are two things that have helped me the most in overcoming this particular version of doubt. First, I have learned to love talking to new people and connecting — and the more of it I’ve done and the more stories I’ve heard, the more I realized that very few of the people doing the most interesting + inspiring things out in the world and very few of the people I’m most in awe of, went to school to do/be the thing they are doing. So many of the people in the entrepreneurial space came from one place (maybe teaching; there are SO MANY under-the-radar-form teachers out here!) and moved into doing similar work in an unexpected place and in a transformed way. Knowing these people and their stories reminds me on a regular basis that expertise isn’t a degree or certification, and having those things doesn’t necessarily make people good at helping others.

Second, I have found journaling just a little bit most days to be such a huge help. I am still generally a reluctant journaler - it’s never the first thing I want to do - but writing down the doubts in black and white and countering them with the actual evidence of success I see in my day to day, in my business, in my people on a regular basis helps to keep me connected to my own expertise and confidence. It’s been a game-changer for me.

One of the scariest things I’ve done in business is talk directly to teachers about becoming business owners. A few years ago, I shifted my Facebook group and messaging to speak much more directly to teachers who were considering becoming entrepreneurs or who already had (without leaving teaching, in some cases). Doing this was scary, first, because being more specific in what you do as a business owner, who you help, and why is always scary - the more specific you are, the clearer, the easier it becomes to find your people who might then say no to you. It was also scary because I knew (and had already experienced) that other people - who were not necessarily my ideal clients - would have thoughts about teachers leaving classrooms to become business owners and would be out in the world sharing them with me. 

But really, in the end, I know that teachers, whether they’ve ever been in a traditional classroom or not, should be the people running the business world. The world works differently when people who know how to teach and who lead with service to others and giving FIRST are at the head of the tables - and that’s what I believe I’m here to help create. Hiding from that, NOT talking about that, didn’t help the people who needed me. Knowing that helped me make the leap.

When I first started speaking directly and clearly to teachers and people who teach (whether they see themselves as ‘teachers’ or not), it was wild to see the people who showed up in my world and told me that I was talking to them, who were glad to be seen and heard, who were happy to join the FB community I’d created and find other people like them. When I started speaking more clearly, the people who I was meant to help showed up and connected. I got to help more of the people I was meant to help.

And that’s not at all to say that it went perfectly. There were (and are) people who definitely didn’t get what I was doing, who I was talking to, what I was talking about - and it’s hard to have those people giving you their feedback because, as a teacher, I’d been trained that my job was to reach EVERYONE. But one of the magical joys of business, as it turns out, is that I don’t actually have to reach EVERYONE and I don’t have to help ALL of the people - I get to be here only for the people who actually want the help I have, who get what I do and want to be a part of the world we’re creating. Knowing that - and seeing it happen in real-time - is magic. 

Part of what I get to do in coaching - in all the forms that I work with people - is help them create specific offers that make sense for both them and the people they are meant to serve and then find ways to talk about what they do that are simple, and easy, and fun for them. I know doing this works and how to keep it simple and effective because I’ve had to figure it out myself - and so many of the people in my world have gotten to see that journey out loud, in the world, on the internet (and for those who joined more recently, they can scroll back, it’s all still there!). 

Having taken the risks that come with speaking up and created success from doing so, I get to be an example that other people can point to, I get to model the process of speaking up and sharing in a way that is authentic and fun, and I get to be like a living permission slip for my people - if I can do it, so can they. My job in my business is to help other people take the risks that come with speaking up and have fun in the process.  

I think there are two that have been really important for me. The first was the realization that there are always - and were always - people rooting for me, people who are paying attention to what I’m doing, learning with me, supporting me and my work. These people are always with ALL of us - and a lot of the time, they don’t tell us they are fans. They don’t wear shirts with our names on them, they don’t like every post or comment - but they ARE watching, and when the time is right for THEM, they tell us. Knowing these people are with me (and YOU!) and remembering that I get to keep showing up for them helps me to keep sharing.

The second shift was to know that I’m never bothering people. It’s really easy (at least for me and all the people I have ever met ;)) to fall into thinking that if I talk about my work/business AGAIN today on social media, or at dinner, or wherever, people will be annoyed, that I’ll be too much, or that I’ll be bothering them. What I have found to be true, though, and what I’ve changed in my thinking is this: I’m never too much for my people. WE are never too much for our people. For the people who get me, who need me, and who want my help - there’s no such thing as too much. And for everyone else? Well, it’s not for them, and that’s fine - it’s okay if they think I’m too much as long as I’m getting to help the people who I’m meant for. This shift was such a big eye-opener for me - the idea that the people who get it never think it’s too much - and it’s something I go back to again and again when the inner doubts start to get loud. We’re never bothering the people who need us. 

People can find me all the places 🙂

Here are the links: 

https://www.torpeycoaching.com/