With over 20 years of experience, Stephanie Hayes helps entrepreneurs, small business owners, and corporate executives who have plateaued or reached the edge of their comfort level to excel. Sought out because of her knack for being able to see the big picture and her expertise to design, plan, and implement the next phase of their business, Stephanie thrives in transforming the fears and struggles of her clients into opportunities and successes. Website Facebook LinkedIn Twitter Instagram Click Here to Tweet to Stephanie & Nicole Building a Better Business Model with Stephanie Hayes Meet Stephanie: full-time mom, business coach and strategist who shares with me the power of building your business on a solid foundational model and how to truly create balance between your personal and professional life. Stephanie has been working with startups in the online business space for over 20 years and has been in business for herself for the past 15. It’s through this work that she’s discovered where many businesses fail: they’re built on shaky foundations. Building a better business model and leveling up is the essence of what Stephanie does for her clients. In addition, Stephanie has learned how to fully align her business to what she wants in life -- not the other way around. Read on for the full interview.   What is your business and what do you do?  I am a business coach and strategist. I work with experienced entrepreneurs who are looking to level up their business and mature the way that they are working with their own clients. I work with them usually in a one on one capacity sometimes in a group. We’re building a framework for them to have a sustainable business that can grow. How long have you been in business?  Formally in my coaching business for about five years. Informally I've been working with small businesses and startups for the last 20 years. It's been really fun to have my feet in both the small business and the corporate camp because I get to see how we can marry both together to give small business owners what they really need. When did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur and how did you get started? I have been an entrepreneur at heart since I was a young child and I always knew that I wanted to own my own business. It took me a little while but I was able to finally make that happen about 15 years ago. Before that, I've been working in startups my entire life in the technology space. And so I got a lot of exposure to seeing how small businesses and startups grow, and all the things that they need to do. When you're in that kind of environment, you have to do all the things, you have to play all the roles and you have to get all of that experience. So by the time I started up my own business, I already had a lot of that under my belt. But I've always had that entrepreneurial spirit along the way. I moved into being an entrepreneur mentor at the University of British Columbia and worked with small businesses and startups who wanted to become funded for the the ideas that they had. It all kind of all progress naturally. Eventually people started asking me, can you help me with my business? Can you help me figure out what's wrong? Can you help me get to that next stage of growth? It became really obvious that what I wanted to do was not do the work within the business itself, but help these businesses see the forest for the trees. So it gradually evolved to the point where I recognize what I was really good at is that bigger picture of the strategy and being able to see all the pieces working together. A few years ago, I actually formalized that capacity, and now I work as a coach and a strategist helping all of these different businesses, whether they're a product business or service business or something in between, establish their strategy, their business model and realign their businesses so that they can implement.