Pricing Strategies for the Intuitive Entrepreneur with Sarah Corbett

Welcome to the Intuitive Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Brigit Esselmont, intuitive business strategist and mentor. As the founder of Biddy Tarot, I turned my love for tarot into an abundant seven-figure business. The secret to my success? Making intuition and strategy my entrepreneurial superpower, and now, I'm inviting you to do the same. In this weekly podcast, I'll be sharing advice, tools, and real-life examples from some of the best intuitive entrepreneurs to show you how you can trust your intuition, align with your purpose, and create a positive impact through your work. Let's make it happen.

Brigit:                    Hello, and welcome back to the Intuitive Entrepreneur Podcast. Now, today, I'm talking with Sarah Corbett who is a clinical herbalist and co-founder of Rowan and Sage, which is a small-batch apothecary brewing plant potions and other herbal magic in the heart of Atlanta, Georgia.

Brigit:                    Now, Sarah's path in the healing arts blossomed from experimentation with the plants to support her own health challenges and also a desire to trust her intuition as her greatest source of healing as you're going to hear today. She is a forever student of the magic of nature and the human body, and she holds a bachelor of science in psychology with additional coursework in nutrition, certifications from the College of Prana Yoga, and over seven years of combined self-study and formal education in herbalism.

Brigit:                    Now, Sarah is also a certified Biddy Tarot reader, and she combines her love of tarot in her products, and also as a strategic tool for planning and development in her business. Now, also, she runs SC Digital Studio, and through this business, Sarah served fellow soul-centered entrepreneurs, and she's helped them to craft visual brand identities, custom web designs, and also marketing strategies to help them make a difference in the world, so Sarah is definitely a little superstar. For sure.

Brigit:                    In our conversation today, we talk about Sarah's journey from freelancing in digital branding and marketing to now creating those plant potions and a thriving online business in herbalism. We also talk about how Sarah continued to courageously trust her intuition throughout the journey even when her mind was pulling her in a different direction, and we talk about how a vulnerable and public breakdown on Instagram Live became an important turning point for Sarah so that she could refocus her efforts and really show up more consistently in her business, and good on her for taking what was a very rough, vulnerable moment and turning it into a learning opportunity and a point in which she could turn things around.

Brigit:                    We also talk about what changed Sarah's mindset from, "I don't deserve to earn money," to, "I'm going to accrue wealth to help more people." That's a really juicy part of our conversation, and also, why 12-hour workdays are part of Sarah's self-care practice. Yes, that's right. You heard correct, 12-hour workdays can be an important part of self-care, so you'll hear more about that today. All right, so without further ado, let's get into this beautiful conversation with Sarah Corbett.

Brigit:                    Welcome, Sarah. I am so excited to welcome you to the Intuitive Entrepreneur Podcast. How are you doing today?

Sarah:                   I am doing well. Thanks so much for having me on today.

Brigit:                    Wonderful, and we were just chatting before that you are in "Hotlanta," but it's actually not that hot today so that's a good thing. Yeah, wonderful, so let's just get straight into it. I would love to hear about a little bit of background about how you got into what you are doing now, so can you walk us along that journey?

Sarah:                   Yeah, so as I was telling you before we hit record, I have been running my own business for a very long time. I started freelancing six or seven years ago in the digital marketing space and ended up going down the route of like web design, and business development, and working with other soul-centered entrepreneurs, and helping them develop their businesses. Along the way, I always had so many different projects going on like I am an online course junky. I'm an education just like person, and so even when I was in college and working a full-time freelance gig, I was still studying everything I possibly could. I've been getting certifications and all this kind of stuff, so I've always been a very multi-passionate person that ended up with me becoming a multi-passionate entrepreneur.

Sarah:                   A couple of years ago, two and a half years ago, I got to a point in my graphic design and marketing business where I was like, "I'm good at this, but this is not the thing that I'm supposed to be doing," and I had a very poignant conversation with someone in my life at the time who reminded me that my goal was always to be a wellness professional like work in the healing realm of things, and he just said to me like, "Don't let these means justify..." like, "Don't get so caught up in your means," basically. "You make really good money doing what you're doing, but this isn't the thing that you're supposed to be doing, so just remember that." Then, that became a mantra for me at that time of my life like, "Okay. I can do this and I can succeed at this, but I could probably do so much better at something else and succeed way more at it because it was something I was truly, truly passionate about."

Sarah:                   Flash forward about a year to November of 2017, and I was... I had actually just come off the hills of finishing your Biddy Tarot certification program, and I was like, "Okay. No, this is the thing." I had a dream one night. I woke up the next morning and was like, "I am going to build an herbal business. That is what I'm going to do," and I remember posting a picture of like an empty amber glass bottle on my Instagram that day and saying, "This is the thing that I'm going to do," and then two months later, I launched our first product line.

Brigit:                    Wow, and so like... I mean, that sounds awfully easy, right?

Sarah:                   Yeah.

Brigit:                    Surely there were doubts along the way, or were there not?

Sarah:                   Oh, yeah. Well, so I've always just created things through myself and never really followed the mold of what we're "supposed to do," so me saying, "I'm going to try this thing," was... I was very confident in that. There wasn't really second... I wasn't second-guessing myself within that thinking process, but after a few months of doing it, there were many breakdowns, many tear-filled nights, and waking up in the middle of the night stressing out like wondering if I was actually doing the thing I was supposed to be doing, and that had absolutely nothing to do with me not feeling like I was capable of this or me not feeling like I was following what I was... my soul's purpose.

Sarah:                   It had everything to do with me getting caught up in expectations based on how other people run their businesses and what they choose to share with the world on social media and not seeing the full picture of what having a products-based business is actually like until I was in it because no one talks about it. Everything is just like beautiful and curated, and when my life was not matching up with this pretty picture everyone had painted for me, I thought I was failing.

Brigit:                    Yes, and I think that... I mean, that's the thing that comes up with social as well that sometimes it's just so unreal and fake in a way because it's the 5% of moments that are awesome that get presented on social. Maybe even sometimes the 1%, right?

Sarah:                   Right.

Brigit:                    As you say, it can set at least different expectations. What was your experience at that point? What were you experiencing that was different to what you had thought it would be like?

Sarah:                   Well, we weren't making many sales, so I remember... So, yeah, we started the product... We started Rowan and Sage officially in November of 2017, my partner and I. Then, in March, I remember having this like breakdown one day. I think I was actually on Instagram Live. Not my best moment. I remember being so frustrated and saying like, "Everyone in this community is loving what I'm doing apparently. You're liking on my posts. You're commenting on me, but why aren't you buying anything from our shop? What's going on? It's like this doesn't make any sense."

Sarah:                   I was really frustrated because it seemed like all these other makers and creators in this space that I was in were like really kicking ass at selling their products like selling out every time, and then I started to... Yeah. I remember I had this like whole breakdown, and I just didn't know how I was going to do it, but I knew that I had to do it. I didn't have a choice in the matter that this was the thing I was supposed to be doing, so there was this element of resistance of me seeing that it wasn't working out the way that I thought it was going to, so surely, it can't be the right thing for me.

Sarah:                   As soon as I finally accepted that this was going to work out in whatever way it was going to work out, this one thing started getting a heck of a lot easier, but I also started really watching other people's businesses and like really going through their process with a fine-tooth comb and seeing how they were making their money. "Oh, this person is selling products, but they also have affiliate partnerships that they don't really openly talk about. Now, I understand."

Sarah:                   It wasn't in a way... I wasn't doing that in a way to hack their business or to look down on them in any way. I was doing that because I, as an entrepreneur in my other life, I go into people's businesses, and see how they work, and see where they're not working, so I just couldn't help but analyze a bunch of people in my field to see what exactly it is that they're doing so that I could understand it from a business development and marketing perspective. It had nothing to do with my own personal goals for my business or my vision. It was just like numbers, and nuts and bolts.

Brigit:                    Yeah, and I think that's really smart to go beyond what's being presented in social media because, again, you can see... It's like the tip of the iceberg, right? You sort of see this front end of things, but without knowing what's happening in the background. You can't really make a full assessment of how that particular business runs, so getting an idea of, "What is the real business model here? They are presenting products. What else is there?" because I think that gives you so much more information about what's possible and what's working.

Sarah:                   Yeah.

Brigit:                    How do you stop it though from influencing what you do? How do you maintain your unique voice and your unique energy in your business?

Sarah:                   I was thinking about this earlier actually like how much I would love to be able to throw my phone into a lake and have no outside influence, whatsoever, and just like hide myself up in a mountain cabin and write for a year, but that's not the reality of my situation, and the way that I maintain my voice and like my sense of visuals and our brand across all of our content streams without it sounding like anyone else is truthfully because I have a brand style guide, because I have a messaging guide that I have written for myself, because I curate my content.

Sarah:                   There are some days that I get online and I'm just thinking about something, so I post about it, and I really make an effort to just sound like the way that I talk with southern colloquialisms and all. I don't want it to be super refined, and I don't... I mean, refined in a way that it doesn't sound like me, and I don't want anyone to look at my post and be like, "Oh, they're just a business." I want them always to be remembering that it's me sitting on my phone with my two thumbs typing that caption.

Sarah:                   Yeah. I mean, I have like a solid framework that I've built for myself to stick with to keep things consistent. On those days where I'm feeling tired and burnt out, and like I don't even know how I'm supposed to be delivering a piece of content, I have something I can refer back to, and it seems like the most simple thing to do. Right? As business owners, we're taught like we need to build a brand, we need to have these things. I can only really speak for my field, but in like herbalism and in the scope of wellness practitioners, a lot of people aren't doing that, so I think the way that I have been able to really succeed is by positioning myself very strategically and having a reason why everything is the way that it is with my brand and my business.

Brigit:                    Yeah, and so it's almost like your core essence, envisioning like sitting there in meditation and coming back into like your inner being, which is in some ways the manifestation of your inner being is your branding guide. Right?

Sarah:                   Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Brigit:                    Those are like more physical or tangible ways that your core essence is being articulated and expressed in the physical world. I think having that there is that guidance, and it is guidance, right? It's not like you have to do this because I found, say, in Biddy Tarot, sometimes my whole creativity is being stifled because we've got like a schedule and we have to like make content, and it has to be this kind of content by this time. I'm like, "Ugh, no. I'm not handling this very well." It's sort of that balance where it is a guide versus a directive, I suppose.

Sarah:                   Yeah. Well, and you probably know this. Once you get to a certain point in your business where you've cultivated that framework for yourself, you don't really need to have the calendar to know what you need to do. It's nice to have it there, but when you build the habit, and you built this voice, and you know how to deliver this piece of content in the voice and style of Biddy Tarot, you can just keep flexing that muscle and doing it.

Brigit:                    Yes.

Sarah:                   Now, I can say that because I am someone who has worked with a bunch of different businesses all across the world in various different industries, and I've had to fine-tune their voice, and develop content calendars for them, and manage their cross-platform digital marketing strategies, so I understand that, but a lot of people come to me and send me messages saying like, "Hey, what's this whole marketing thing? How do you do it?" I'm like, "Well, I get it. It's really easy for me." I live and breathe this stuff all the time, so it's genuinely not difficult for me at this point in my business to develop content every day.

Brigit:                    Yes, yes. So then, coming back to your journey, I mean, you've had... Talk us through to where you had that more, I don't know, public breakdown on Instagram Live, which I think is gorgeous, by the way. I think it's absolutely fabulous, and so beautiful, and authentic, and vulnerable. I haven't watched it, but from what you're telling me about it, I think it sounds like a really nice vulnerable moment in hindsight because I'm sure at the time, it was like, "Oh."

Sarah:                   In the moment, I was just really angry and really sad.

Brigit:                    Yes. Yes. So then, how did you pick yourself up from there? Also, I think you're in a distinct advantage where you do have this marketing background. You could integrate that with your business, so walk me through from that point through to where you are now.

Sarah:                   Yeah, so at that point... I mean, I had my breakdown. I was really upset. I think like within those few weeks, I was having regular like crying fits late at night just saying to my partner like, "We're never going to make this work like we're never going to turn a profit." We were breaking even, which was remarkable. I should have been grateful for even that having been seven months into a products-based business and we were breaking even, so like clearly, something was working, and I was being a little overdramatic, but I stepped out of my feelings for a minute and put on my business hat. I was like, "Okay. What would I tell a client to do?" I'm always telling everyone like, "Just be consistent. Just do one thing consistently because that's the only way you're going to know if it's going to work."

Brigit:                    Hmm, yeah.

Sarah:                   I was like, "Okay. What can I actually feasibly do?" I took away the idea of, "I have to do all the social media platforms. I have to build my mailing list. I have to do X, Y, and Z. I have to get wholesale accounts," and I was like, "What is the one thing I can do every single day consistently?" I said, "Okay. I'm going to post on Instagram every single day or at least five times a week. Like I can do that." That is sustainable for me, and so I did that, and we grew from 500 followers to 10,000 in seven months.

Brigit:                    Awesome.

Sarah:                   I started turning a profit. I've realized I was able to walk like start transitioning out of doing marketing work full-time and leaning more into this work with Rowan and Sage. I freed up time in my schedule to really grow my clinical skills as an herbalist so that I could start working with clients one-on-one, and then I started adding other things in, so I did like a whole year of being consistent with this one thing, and I blogged every now and then, and like did launches and little things, but I... That's really all I did for years. I just did Instagram.

Sarah:                   Now, this year, it's like, "Okay. Now, we're growing our email list," and I'm trying to get consistent in developing other forms of content and like brainstorming what I want to be doing this time next year because now I've got a good rhythm going, but really, last year, it was just like, "I don't have a choice in the matter. I have to do this." My intuition is telling me that this is the thing that I have to do. Ignoring that would be foolish because I've ignored that before and gotten myself into all sorts of trouble, and so I just stayed consistent with my goal, and I absolutely exceeded what I thought was possible in that first year.

Sarah:                   Throughout that process, too, I was still somehow growing my other business, and I wasn't really taking like major direct steps to grow my business. It was just an accessory phenomena to following my purpose, so within... With both of those businesses and if I add all of my income together with them, I like tripled my income last year from the previous year, and this year, I've already made what I made last year, and it's June.

Brigit:                    So good. I love it. Congratulations. Yeah, it's awesome.

Sarah:                   Thank you.

Brigit:                    Yeah, and particularly, I bet when you were doing that Instagram Live, you would never have imagined that you could triple your income and go again like this year, you're on track for maybe doubling or quadrupling.

Sarah:                   Double.

Brigit:                    Yeah, doubles.

Sarah:                   Yeah, that'd be amazing.

Brigit:                    Yeah.

Sarah:                   I had no idea what was going to happen truly, and also, there's this culture in the wellness community, and also, the tarot community, and also, the intuitive entrepreneurial community of we don't deserve to make money because we're doing like positive transformative work, and I struggled with that for maybe a few months and was then really like, "No, that's ridiculous. I'm absolutely not going to let such a limiting belief system keep me from reaching my goals." Truly, as soon as I let that go, opportunities just started falling into my lap. I wouldn't say that I necessarily manifested to them. I just stopped being a roadblock to allowing them to come into my life.

Brigit:                    Yeah, and this piece around mindset, beliefs, even just our energy field, and how that influences what we attract and what we repel is really important and really powerful because even going back to your marketing business growing at the same time as Rowan and Sage, it was growing. Oh, I see that as like... That's an energetic outcome. Do you know what I mean? Because your energy has started to lift, and elevate, and accelerate in the Rowan and Sage, and that has these beautiful spinoff ripple effects into other areas of your life.

Sarah:                   Yes.

Brigit:                    I don't think that stuff should be downplayed because I think it's incredibly powerful and even... Yeah, just removing that stupid belief. Sorry. [inaudible 00:21:18] able to make money because you're having a positive impact, like it doesn't... Just listening to that, doesn't that sound ridiculous?

Sarah:                   It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Now, as much as I would love to not live under the thumb of capitalism, unfortunately, I do, and unless like the whole world as we know it collapses, which it just might in the next 20 years. We'll see what happens, but unless that is going to happen tomorrow, like I need to accrue substantial amounts of wealth so that I can help more people.

Brigit:                    That's it. Yes.

Sarah:                   And so that I can help the planet, right, because as a clinical herbalist and as like a plant person by nature, I work with people and plants, so my whole practice in all of Rowan and Sage is not just about getting herbalism into the hands of individuals so that they can grow. It's about getting people to understand and recognize that they need to put as much value into the planet as they put into everything else in their lives.

Sarah:                   There's like an energetic, almost prayer, whatever you want to call it, invocation in every single drop of our herbal line that's like trying. The goal is to re-awaken this earth consciousness in the people who buy our products, and we do that through like the intention we're setting into our products, but also, we're giving back to plant conservation nonprofits. We're spending a lot of time in nature with these plants, redistributing seeds, planting things, like really trying to have this truly holistic business that's not just about exploitation of plant medicine for profit, but is really like healing for people and the planet.

Brigit:                    Hmm, yes. I think that's called like conscious capitalism or like social enterprise in a way.

Sarah:                   Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Brigit:                    I think to be able to do that, you do need wealth. Right? You need to be bringing in like good amounts of money so that you can circulate that wealth into the right areas. I can see it as like being a custodian for money, and the more money that you can make, the more that you can direct it into the things that will have a really positive impact.

Sarah:                   Yes.

Brigit:                    Because if you weren't accepting payment, you don't have this sort of tangible thing that you can distribute into these good aspects, and also, I really want to just emphasize your point around the acknowledgement of value, so like in our society, yes, money is a form of value. It's something that acknowledges that value, and I think charging good prices for what we do in this... Whether it's like metaphysical world, or spiritual world, or whatever you want to call it, it's almost reinforcing that idea that what we're doing is highly valuable like 100% it's highly valuable, and money is a way of showing that value, so I'm so glad you let go of that limiting belief.

Sarah:                   Well, and I think, I think actually, if I look at the timeline, you were an integral part of me letting go of that limiting belief, even though you weren't directly having that conversation with me. It was a pre-recorded part of our course.

Brigit:                    Yeah.

Sarah:                   I remember watching the module that you have talking about pricing and pricing for what it costs like means of production and pricing to the value.

Brigit:                    Yeah.

Sarah:                   As I was integrating those teachings, I was like, "Holy crap, money is totally this weird number on a screen. Like how do I actually assign a value to something?" I walked out of that like I was really thinking about it for a long time, doing tons of tarot readings like, "What can I expect if I price it as this, and what can I expect if I price it at that?" Then, I did my highest one, and it was like an incredibly positive card, and I increased my rates on everything, everything in my life. I'm charging 10 times more than what I charged before.

Sarah:                   While like my products aren't astronomically priced or anything, working with me became much more expensive, so it's not just that I like tripled my income really, really rapidly because I was selling triple the amount of product that I was three months prior. It was because I was like, "It's ridiculous that I charge less than $100 an hour for this, so that's what I'm going to do now."

Brigit:                    Yeah, and what... Like what did you experience as a result of doing that in terms of, say, the clients that you attracted or the results that you were able to create?

Sarah:                   I got rid of people who really didn't support me. I learned who was actually right for me as clients, and I started to bring in the clients that saw the value of the work. If I send a proposal to a client for $7,000 and they say, "Yeah, signing the contract right now. No questions asked," that's the person I want to work with, not the person who's sending me an email saying, "Well, what if I DIY this, and what if I take this off? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." I'm like, "You don't recognize the value of this work. I could have made it $500, and if you still didn't recognize the value of the work, you still be trying to get a discount, so I'd really just rather not work with you."

Brigit:                    Ugh, so empowering, and even as you're saying that, like how does that feel in your body?

Sarah:                   I mean, it's very... It feels very like strong. I feel like my shoulders square up.

Brigit:                    Yeah, yeah. No doubt. It's also reflecting back into the client about how much do they value themselves and what they're creating in this world.

Sarah:                   Yeah.

Brigit:                    Yeah. I really do believe in money as exchange and that acknowledgement of value, and it has such deep... I don't know, like deep... A deep relationship to how we interact in this world, and how we engage, and how we think of ourselves, and treat others, and all sorts of things.

Sarah:                   Yes.

Brigit:                    Sometimes, we have like this [inaudible 00:27:20] idea of money, but there's some really deep spiritual elements to money that I think you've certainly tapped into through your like practice and your business. It's cool.

Sarah:                   Yeah.

Brigit:                    Tell me, like right now, you're running Rowan and Sage, and you're running the digital marketing business.

Sarah:                   Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Brigit:                    How do you see... How do you manage those two businesses? Plus, you've got a few other things on the side as well. How do you manage these multiple things, and do you think it's sustainable in long-term?

Sarah:                   Oh, it's absolutely not sustainable in the long-term, unless I hired someone to work for me. I resigned myself to knowing I was going to be really tired for a little while and just got okay with that. I did not want to take the risk of stepping out of my cushy income stream to just do what I love.

Brigit:                    Hmm, smart.

Sarah:                   I was like, "I could probably do it, but I don't want to be worrying about paying my bills." I don't want to have to be concerned about tapping into my savings. That was just not something that I was willing to do. I would rather be exhausted and slightly higher up on the burnout scale than be like worrying about if I can go to the store and buy the food that I need, and my business was built... The whole reason why I work for myself is because I have a chronic illness. I have celiac disease.

Sarah:                   I was downright unemployable when I was in college. I had to build something for myself, so there are certain things in my life that I have to be able to afford like even just the groceries that I buy. The groceries that I buy are four times more expensive than any of my peers because I have to make sure that I'm getting the hightest quality food for my health. It's just a health thing, so there were some non-negotiables, and I knew that the only way that I could meet them was to work two jobs basically, work two full-time jobs.

Sarah:                   How I made that transition a little bit easier on me was I made myself a little less accessible by raising my prices, so if someone... I mean, I have the years of work history to prove it. I have the metrics and the case studies. It made no sense for me to continue to devalue myself so much and keep myself on the lowest tier of paying myself, so I brought my pricing up.

Sarah:                   I knew I was going to attract a different caliber of clients that were going to meet that pricing, and that made it a lot easier for me to not be working 10 times more hours to pull in the same amount of money, but I was able to equalize the shift where I knew that with my digital studio, I had to cut back on hours, but I couldn't afford to, but I had to make time on my week for Rowan and Sage, so I offset a little bit and padded it up by increasing my prices. Helped a ton, brought me better clients. Now, I'm working with like reiki practitioners, and spiritual mediums, and other herbalists like people that I want to hang out with and get coffee with, not just build their websites.

Brigit:                    Yeah.

Sarah:                   I did that, and I dedicated one day a week to just myself, so Mondays are my days. I work on those days, but no one has access to me. I refuse to book things on Mondays unless it's absolutely necessary, and so that's the day where I'm waking up whenever I want, and having a cup of tea, and reading a couple of chapters of my favorite book that morning, and sitting down and doing some schooling, and then like working on my content for the week. I gave myself that, but at this point, I've just gotten it down to where I only take a couple of projects at a time, and they're all high-dollar like 6 to 12-week-long projects.

Sarah:                   I have a couple of clients on retainer, and they've been on retainer for a long time, so I know what they need. I know how many hours to budget in for that, but some days, I work 12-hour days. Some days, I work 4-hour days. It really is just depending on my energy level, and I try to be really conscious of not overbooking myself and not pushing myself too hard, but when inspiration strikes, I go with that too, so like for the last two weeks, we just recently rebranded, and that meant I had to redo our whole website, and I worked on it for three days like 12-hour three... a space of 12-hour days for three days.

Sarah:                   Then, I was done with that project, and then I decided to do like a whole research project on something, and I wrote for 12 hours on this one topic, and then I worked over the weekend, and that was just the pace of which my body wanted to work. Now, I'm very much in the space of like, "Okay. I just want to like take a bath and rest." That's how I follow my intuition and my business too. If I intuitively feel like I've got to get this out and I've got to do this because it's just what's coming up, I'll follow that. But when I need to take a break and I need to shut off my phone, and I need to say to a client like, "I'm a little overbooked right now. I need to take a step back," I totally honor that too.

Brigit:                    Yeah. I think this is really important too because a lot of people think, "Oh, passion-based business. I'll just work when I feel like it. I'll do my four-hour work week." Whatever it might be, and I think a real testament to show that it's an ebb and flow. Sometimes, you do have to push it really hard... oftentimes because you're super energized to get something done and that passion is fueling like this sort of extra work energy, but it's not just like a walk in the part and, "Oh, look. I just created this million-dollar business out of the blue. Lucky me." There's a lot of work.

Sarah:                   Anyone who's...

Brigit:                    Yeah.

Sarah:                   Yeah. Anyone who's saying that is not sharing their breakdowns on Instagram Live.

Brigit:                    That's right. Yeah. Well, tell me a little bit about what you think it means to be an intuitive entrepreneur.

Sarah:                   Well, for me, it's really like intuition just in general is this deep sense of knowing that totally... That's how I make decisions and how I understand the world around me. It's really like an exploratory tool for my own personal development, and so intuition really guides all aspects of my life, especially in my business, and I won't say that it's something I necessarily work at currently, but it's like a muscle I learned how to flex. We're all intuitive, but not all of us are trusting that intuition, and so now, I've gotten into a rhythm where I have a gut feeling. I know that this is my intuitive instinct kicking in, and I just follow that. I just go with that wholeheartedly.

Sarah:                   If, in my business, I feel like something is not working, and I need to shift something, and I have an idea for what might take its place, I'm going to look and make sure I'm not being reactionary and like make sure that I'm not messing up my consistency here because I just decided to go on a whim, but I'm going to explore that and trust that intuitive hit as something that I need to look at, so I use my intuition a lot in my business when it comes to actual like planning and development.

Sarah:                   Pricing. I use my intuition constantly with pricing. I actually... I know how much it costs for me to do business, but because I don't price on that, I price on value, when I'm developing something and I'm like, "That should be $655," I'm like, "Okay. That's how much it should be."

Brigit:                    Yes, yes. Yeah.

Sarah:                   I just think in my mind. It's like a number appears to me in my mind. I'm like, "That's what it is. Cool. [crosstalk 00:35:10]."

Brigit:                    Yeah, and then do you feel that in your body as well like do you feel that it's in resonance and in alignment like it feels good?

Sarah:                   Yes.

Brigit:                    Yeah.

Sarah:                   If it doesn't, that's when I'll pull a few cards and see what then is most resonant. I don't let my clients dictate my pricing.

Brigit:                    Hmm, yes.

Sarah:                   I dictate my needs.

Brigit:                    Yes.

Sarah:                   That is like a big boundary that I am constantly setting because like someone could probably work with someone else who does what I do and get it cheaper, but they're not going to get what I do.

Brigit:                    Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah:                   I'm very confident in my skills and in all of the ways in which I know how to help people whether that'd be with their health or with their business, and so I am showing up to that with the value in mind. I use my intuition a lot in that, and I use my intuition the most in identifying if an opportunity or a client is right for me.

Brigit:                    Tell me more about that. How does that work?

Sarah:                   Yeah, so it works by... I've not done that a lot in my life and really been burned for it. There have been... especially in my early 20's. I was doing like a lot of work trades at the time, which will teach you a lot about value and self-worth, but there were a couple situations that I should have exited on my own terms before they got really ugly, and so there were times where I was experiencing intuitively, "Okay, like no. This is time to end. It's time for me to move on. This is not healthy for either party," but I did not want to listen to that.

Sarah:                   I absolutely did not want to trust this feeling that I had, and so I totally ignored it, and because I ignored it, it turned into a tower moment in my life and like left me as the Ten of Swords just absolutely miserable, and broken, and like not having any money, and losing communities, and losing people that I really valued in my life who I thought valued me.

Sarah:                   After going through just enough of those, I was really like, "Okay. The next time I have this feeling where this just isn't quite right, or this is not resonating with me, or it's time to move on," I just like have to honor that. I don't even get to second guess it because I know what happens when I do.

Brigit:                    Yeah, yeah. Those times when you didn't listen or trust your intuition, what was the overriding thought that went out? What was it that made you not listen?

Sarah:                   All negative self-talk on self-worth.

Brigit:                    Okay. Yeah.

Sarah:                   Entirely.

Brigit:                    Yeah.

Sarah:                   Yeah, or scarcity mindset like, "If I don't keep working this job, I'm never going to find one that pays this well." When I left that position, I found one that paid me three times as much.

Brigit:                    Yes.

Sarah:                   Just totally, for lack of a better word, absolutely crazy ideas that I had conjured up on my own mind of how my life was going to look like if I didn't have this terrible, miserable thing in it anymore.

Brigit:                    Yes. Yeah, and I think that's really important to pay attention to because a lot of people ask, "Well, how do I know if it's my intuition talking or if it's something else?" I often describe like intuition as coming from a place of abundance and love, and then when it's not intuition, it's more about that scarcity mindset that you're talking about and that fear, and so I think it's a good marker that if you're ever hearing yourself saying like, "I might miss out," or, "I might not have enough," or those sorts of things, it's often a sign that you're out of alignment.

Sarah:                   Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Brigit:                    How are you experiencing intuition now? You're really trusting that and you're following it. What are some of those results that you're seeing as a result of that?

Sarah:                   Yeah. It really just feels like this perpetual flow state.

Brigit:                    Hmm, yes.

Sarah:                   Like an idea comes in my mind. I think about it for a few days because really, when you're working for yourself, you're never not on the clock like you're always thinking about something, so even though I could say I worked four hours today, when I was in the garden having my "leisure time," I was probably also thinking about something I want to develop. Something will come up intuitively. It will flow by, and I latch on to that, and I think about it for a few days, and I assess whether that's a good opportunity or not based on how it feels in my body, not just based on how much money I can make off of it because I've had a lot of ideas I could have really capitalized on, but I probably would have made myself miserable throughout the process because of the amount of work I would have created for myself.

Brigit:                    Yeah.

Sarah:                   Not that I'm not afraid to do the work. I work a lot, but I want to do work that I'm passionate about. I wrote a 5,000-word blog post this week on one plant because I was really passionate about reading all of the books on my bookshelf that have excerpts about that one plant. That felt fun. Am I going to make money off of it? Not directly, but I wanted to do it. It felt like something I should do. It felt like content that needed to flow out of me into the world, and that was like definitely an intuitive feeling.

Brigit:                    Yeah.

Sarah:                   I find that when I follow these little intuitive notions that come up in my body and my mind, or I am seeing something all the time, or I hear five people talk about the same problem they're having, then I'm like, "Oh, I should talk about that," I might have an answer that you could find helpful. When I follow that, I end up delivering work that is so much more impactful and resonant, which then leads to people trusting me more, and liking my business more, and feeling like I'm showing up authentically because I am, and then they want to buy things from me, and then they want to work with me one-on-one, and then they want to send me to their mom, and their sister, and their best friend from college. It just like grows naturally.

Brigit:                    Yeah. I love that, and you don't necessarily see it in the moment either, I think. When you're hearing those intuitive nudges, you can't necessarily see the results of that, but it's like almost like this trust, this faith, this belief that if you follow it, it will unfold further down the track to the right things, but you can't always see it straight away. I think that's the way... Intuition can take so much courage, and certainly in the stories that you've shared today, I can see where you are really stepping into your courage as you listen and trust your intuition, so it's really neat.

Sarah:                   Yeah. I mean, I love that you talk about this like when you intro this podcast that your goal is to help people understand intuition as like their superpower.

Brigit:                    Yeah.

Sarah:                   It really is. It's this immense source of inner strength that's coming entirely from you. There's no outside influence on your own intuition aside from perhaps like ways you've learned to tap into that intuition or to cultivate it as a practice, which then becomes a lifestyle, but it's all coming from within you, and I love that, and so if I'm standing in integrity and in alignment with my intuition, everything that I put out into the world is going to be totally authentic to me.

Brigit:                    Yes, 100%. I love it. I love it. Thinking about the next 6 to 12 months, like what's coming up for you? What's next for you?

Sarah:                   Yeah. Now, we've finally hit our stride with Rowan and Sage, so we've got a consistent sales system going, we're continuously bringing new people in, we have like an established community of folks who really love what we do, and now at this point, I'm really actually trying to define which way I want to go. Do I want to go more towards getting our products into some stores? I'd love to do that. I think it'd be super fun, but like that comes down to spreadsheets and money, and do I want to make all of those investments? Is it going to have a return? That's where you really... You can follow your intuition and see if that's a good decision or not, but if financially it's just not, then...

Brigit:                    Yeah. It can get exhausting.

Sarah:                   Having a product... Yeah. Having a product-based business is very, very different for me, so our goal for this year is to try our hand at a couple of wholesale accounts and see how that moves, and then I am really stepping in to doing clinical practice, so I really want to work with people one-on-one for long periods of time who are struggling with chronic illnesses, who are struggling with unexplained symptoms, and also like struggling to trust themselves and to put value into their own health.

Sarah:                   That is something that I feel very called to do, and it's very much what want to do, but at the same time, I really love business stuff. I love having conversations like this where we're talking about marketing and the behind-the-scene things, and I love getting into people's businesses, and so I've been trying to figure out a way actually like in the last week or so. "How can I still do what I do as a marketer while running Rowan and Sage, and is it possible for me to bring it under the umbrella of Rowan and Sage?"

Sarah:                   I don't know. That might be doing one-on-one business mentorship with other people in my field. I'm really considering doing a mastermind session for wellness professionals on like not so fun things like how to set up your business legally so when tax time comes, you're not freaking out, and what the difference between an LLC is and an S corp, and how to pick your tools, and how to hire the right people for your team, and how to convert people from your Instagram to your email newsletter. I'm thinking about doing some of that stuff as well and bringing it under the scope of wellness, but yeah. I mean, 12 months from now, I would really like to just be spending more time in my garden and talking to people about plants and somehow making money from it.

Brigit:                    Yeah, totally possible. It's already happening. It's fabulous.

Sarah:                   Yeah. It's happening, and we get a lot of opportunities, and I would love to just do more education, and some one-on-one work, and perhaps some like group mentorship. Those are the three things that have been really coming up for me. I could launch more products all day long. I formulate things all the time. I could share any number of things I'm giving to clients in my shop, but the shop now is... It's where we started and I love it, but it's like an accessory to our business. It's not the driving force. The driving force is very much becoming getting my voice out into the world and sharing like the spiritual medicine of plants as well as the physical.

Brigit:                    Yeah, and we haven't really had an opportunity in this conversation to talk about like plant medicine. I was dying to get into that, so I'm thinking we'll have to have you back to share more in terms of your plant knowledge because I think there's a lot of value in that too. Yes, but I'm loving where our conversation has gone today. It's beautiful. The last question I have for you is, as you are stepping into these next 12 months, like what new aspect of yourself are you expressing throughout this next year?

Sarah:                   Oh, that's a really good question. I think really just in this next year, I am stepping more forward into this newfound confidence of being in this flow state of running my business and living my entire life rooted in my intuition. I've been already doing that, but now, it feels comfortable. There's not this immense sense of impostor syndrome anymore.

Brigit:                    Yeah.

Sarah:                   It's like, "Oh, I can actually do this, and I am good enough, and I know enough, and I actually know a heck of a lot that a lot of people would like to hear about." In this next year, I am just taking steps that I would have been too afraid to take before. Right? Sending proposals or trying to get opportunities for me to write for big names, trying to get my name published, trying to be featured in things that I never thought I would be featured in, and stuff that's really, really scary to do. Right? It's really, really hard to put yourself out there, but that's what I feel like I need to be doing, and instead of sitting there and freaking myself out about it, I'm just going to send that dang email.

Brigit:                    Yeah, that's I think 100% because like most people, 9 out of 10 people think, "Oh, why aren't I in that publication?" Well, it's because you never asked. That's why. I think if you ever find yourself in a position going, "Why are they getting to do that?" Then, that's shooting off that rocket of desire that you want some of that, and then you can, I think, and like...

Sarah:                   You just have to do it.

Brigit:                    That's exactly it like there's nothing to lose. Just send the email.

Sarah:                   I'll say like I'm in a place to take these risks now because I did the thing consistently for a year to build like a foundation for myself.

Brigit:                    Yeah.

Sarah:                   I'm not just willy-nilly putting myself out there and having nothing behind it. That would be really irresponsible. Now, I know some people succeed at that, but that's just like not my way of working in the world. I am very much... So I have a Virgo Moon, and I'm very into that and like very analytical, and I have 15 to-do lists on my desk right now, and I have an order of operations of the way that I'm going to do things, so I'm taking calculated risks in my business.

Brigit:                    Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah:                   This is definitely a big risk-taking year where I'm putting myself out there, and if something doesn't work out, fine. It's going to be okay. Something else will, but I wouldn't have done that a year ago. Even if I was in the mindset I'm in now of knowing that like I can and I have that value to share with the world, I still probably wouldn't have done it because it might not have been the most financially secure decision.

Brigit:                    Hmm, yeah.

Sarah:                   Now, I have... because of the work I put into my business, because I've been trusting my intuition to guide me in all of those little steps that I had to take to get to where I am today, I have the immense privilege of being able to say, "You know what? I'm not going to work today. 'Work.' I'm going to sit down and write. I'm going to do some ideation. I'm going to forecast for the next six months, and that will be my work today." Doing that is a risk for a lot of people who don't... They can't make the time to do that.

Brigit:                    Yeah, and I think this is a beautiful partnership between also intuition and logic. You're not just focusing on your intuition and where it takes you, but you're also using logic and quite a commonsense approach to how you go about building your business, which I think it's a beautiful example of that real balance between the two because I think when you get too heavy on one side or the other, too much on the intuition, you can end up too like high up in the air, not grounded, and then too far on the logic, you're out of sync. You're out of alignment. It feels like you found a really good balance between the two.

Sarah:                   Yeah. On some days, my intuition says, "Close your computer and go walk in the woods for an hour."

Brigit:                    Yes.

Sarah:                   Sometimes, it's like, "Okay. You're feeling really energized right now. You should write your whole editorial calendar for the month and just get it done." Like that's self-care.

Brigit:                    Yeah. Yes, yes. That is self-care. Even though it's a 12-hour workday, the self-care is honoring that you have this energy to persist with something and create it, so I think that's important distinction. Yeah.

Sarah:                   Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Brigit:                    Oh, fabulous. Well, Sarah, we've just ran out of time. I've so enjoyed this conversation. I love what you're creating. I can't wait to see what unfolds for you. I think you are like just on the precipice of even more success and greatness in what you're doing. It will be wonderful to watch, so thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story and your wisdom. Really, really appreciate it.

Sarah:                   Thank you.

Brigit:                    Oh, and before I wrap it up, I should ask where can people find out more about you?

Sarah:                   You can follow me over at Instagram at Rowan and Sage. That is where I am every day, so you can connect with me there. Then, our website is www.rowanandsage.com, and there, you can check out our whole herbal line for US customers and work with me one-on-one in wellness consultations. No matter where you are in the world, I can work with you. I just can't ship pictures to you if you're in Canada or Australia. We're there, and all of our other social links are there, and we've got a newsletter that I'm trying to send out biweekly, and blogs, and all kinds of stuff, so if you're in to plant medicine, or healing, or natural wellness, or you want some solid business tips from someone who's been doing it for a while, I share all of that on Rowan and Sage.

Brigit:                    Fabulous. Awesome. Well, thank you again, Sarah. Really appreciate it, and it's been great chatting with you.

Sarah:                   Thank you so much.

Brigit:                    Thank you for joining me for today's episode of the Intuitive Entrepreneur Podcast. If you love this episode, please leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. It helps to get the word out, and of course, I read every single comment. If you want to discover how to plan your next big launch using the cycles of the moon, make sure that you download my free guide, Lunar Launches. You'll find it over at brigit.me/lunar-launches. That's B-R-I-G-I-T.me/lunar-launches. Now, these are the exact strategies I've used in my business to create six-figure launches time after time, and now you can use them too. You'll find it all inside of my free guide, Lunar Launches, over at brigit.me/lunar-launches. All right. That is it for now. I cannot wait to see you next time. Bye for now.