Today we’d like to introduce you to Judy Sarden.
Hi Judy, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I worked as a corporate attorney for 20 years but owned several businesses during that time, including a human resources consulting firm, a skincare business and my own law firm. Despite being primarily employed by a company, I’ve always had an entrepreneurial bend. I always knew that I was meant to run my own company. In 2012, I walked away from my last job in order to homeschool my children. I first worked as an outside contract attorney but then I turned my experience as a homeschooling mom into a homeschool consulting business, ultimately speaking all over the country on homeschooling, education and business topics. In 2020, I met my business partner in a mastermind group. We combined our expertise and over 50 years of corporate experience and are now working with companies to help them create and drive a sustainable culture that helps them retain their talent.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Of course, entrepreneurship is rarely a smooth road. I love what I am doing now but it has taken several years to find my passion. When I left my last job, I had an idea of what I wanted to do but I realized that staying at home with two small children was far more difficult than any job I’d ever had. I was completely unprepared for what being a full-time stay-at-home mom meant in terms of my time and ability to start and grow a business! Then I realized that marketing and sales skills were necessary to growing a business and I had neither. Investing in training, courses and ultimately coaching and a mastermind help me to fill the gaps in my skill sets and surround myself with other high-achieving people and build a community. And finally, trying to do everything on my own while bootstrapping was another obstacle that I learned to overcome. It took me years to realize that getting help would actually help me grow my business and, in fact, that steady growth would not happed if I didn’t hire help.
We’ve been impressed with Strategic Education Planning, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
At Strategic Education Planning, we help companies create and implement a sustainable work culture that helps them retain good people. We do this by comparing the company’s core values and mission statement against the implementation of those values and mission at the management and rank and file level. We support the company’s leaders and help company’s management learn how to be leaders instead of bosses. All our solutions are customized to each client but may include: workshops for employees, leadership coaching, corporate consulting, or working as outside HR or COO to small to mid-sized companies. What sets us apart is that we do not offer cookie-cutter solutions. We spend the time to get to know our potential clients and what their needs are and then build a customized solution around that, rather than offer the same solution to all our clients and then trying to make it work with their different needs.
We also have a more holistic approach to our work, focusing on sleep, wellbeing, stress and other issues that can arise at work and that can have a detrimental effect to retention, absenteeism, and health claims and, therefore, the company’s bottom line. So in addition to the looking at the traditional aspects of culture, we really look into the whole person and address culture and retention from multiple perspectives. The thing that drives me in this business is the ability to make the workplace a great place to be. Because, let’s face it, most of us spend the majority of our waking hours at work. I love being able to make that time productive and stimulating and help people feel valued and appreciated.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
People can find me on Clubhouse @judysarden, at judysarden@strategiceducationplanning.com or reach out to me at https://tiny.cc/CorporateCulture. We would love to build relationships with Private Equity and VC firms to help support their growing companies. Having worked as Director of Legal Affairs for a startup, I understand firsthand how important it is to manage a company’s culture as it grows quickly and moves toward the exit. We are also interested in working with medium-sized to large companies as they manage culture and onboarding of remote staff and as we work through the changes brought on by the pandemic, which include an unprecedented exodus of women from the workforce because of the demands of working from home while managing children who are also doing school from home.
Contact Info:
- Email: judysarden@strategiceducationplanning.com
- Website: https://tiny.cc/CorporateCulture
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strategiceducationplanning
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judysarden
