Success through Remote Leadership & Building a Thriving Team

Show Notes & Resources
Sarah Hawley is a serial entrepreneur who has founded eight companies since 2009. Hawley’s most recent endeavor is Growmotely, the world’s first platform to connect conscious companies with skilled professionals into long term remote roles. Some of the topics covered during this episode are navigating entrepreneurship, knowing when to cut your losses, and trusting yourself. Tune in here.

Chapter Summaries:
0:41 - Introducing Sarah Hawley
1:44 - Stepping Up
4:30 - Building & Scaling Three Businesses
8:03 - Starting Growmotely
11:26 - What is Growmotely
14:21 - Recognizing Women Entrepreneurs
17:06 - Lessons Learned
21:18 - Big Wins & Successes

Key Takeaways:

• I've always been the kind of person who needs to know why something is the way it is, what's the entire picture.
• And most people were telling me, you can't do that, people won't take you seriously, financial planning has to be done in an office. And I just, I mean, that's part of my personality if anyone ever tells me I can't do something, I think, well, I'll just go and do it and show you.
• Sometimes it's best to just cut and run. There's no shame in that. I think some people just hang in there too long. They pour too much time and energy into it and they lose the opportunity even to be able to start another business. 
• I put that in there as a bit of an homage to all of the women who have juggled and continue to juggle being a mom and being an entrepreneur or a professional, whatever it is that you do and that it is work, but we also get to be both.
• I trusted myself and we increased our revenue. That was the year that we doubled our revenue by putting that strategy in place. And our people were super happy.

Resource Links:

• Connect with Sarah
  • Website  |   LinkedIn  |   Instagram
• Book
  • Conscious Leadership: A Journey from Ego to Heart
• About Growmotely
  • Website   |   LinkedIn    |   Instagram
• League of Extraordinary Wo

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people with real useful advicefor people with big dreams.
I understand big dreams.
I turned an investment of$200and a lot of great advice from
some really successful peopleinto my big dream proforma.

(00:31):
That today is a half billiondollar company.
Well, hello and welcome.
I am very excited and interestedin talking to our guest today.
She is a serial entrepreneur andan investor in startups.

(00:53):
She has founded eight companiesand three of which have had
exits in the multimillion dollarrange.
She is now the CEO and founderof a company called Growmotely.
Uh, that's the world's firstplatform to help companies
engage remote professionals allaround the world into long term

(01:15):
remote roles.
Welcome Sarah Hawley, Sarah,thanks for joining us.

Sarah Hawley (01:20):
Thanks for having me, Greg.
It's great to be here.

Greg Muzzillo (01:23):
Yeah.
Great to have you all right.
Let's start at the beginningbecause I think everybody
already knows by now you're fromAustralia.
So let's start, let'sstart at the beginning.
Tell us about your growing upyears just briefly.
And what was it that led you toa love for business and also led
you to the United States ofAmerica?

Sarah Hawley (01:42):
It's a big question, but I will go as, as
quick as I can on that.
I think it's very interesting tolook back, and observe one's
childhood from, you know, theplace where we are at, where we
find ourselves right now.
But I did actually always havelike little businesses.
I was always obsessed withcreating stalls out the front of

(02:03):
my house and we would eithermake things, or sometimes I
would just steal the groceriesoutta the fridge and sell them
on the street.
Like I was doing all sorts ofthings.
And what ended up happening wasI started working with my dad in
our family business, when I was19 off and on for a bunch of
years, um, I was studying it.
I was traveling a lot andwhenever I was in Australia, I

(02:25):
would go do admin work or whathave you in the business.
And then I got really curiousabout the business and what do
we actually do here?
And I would, I'm a veryinnately, curious person.
I've always been the kind ofperson who needs to know why
something is the way it is.
Um, what's the entire picturehere?
Why are we even doing thesethings?
So, you know, I'd ask all thesequestions to my dad.

(02:46):
And he was explaining to mefinancial planning, which is
what the business was.
And then he would explain to mebusiness and how the whole
business operated and how wemade money and all of that kind
of thing.
And, you know, very quickly Ifell in love with both aspects.
I fell in love with financialplanning and that was where my
career started.
I loved the ability to use kindof creativity and problem

(03:07):
solving, which were two of mystrengths.
And I think that's really whatyou're doing, with financial
planning and, and the fact thatI was helping people to create
the lives that they wanted.
but at the same time, I wasfalling in love with business.
And, um, at one point I wasabout 25.
Um, my dad became really unwellwith a thing called river fever,

(03:28):
which is a mosquito born virus.
And it sort of took him out forabout 18 months.
Um, and I just naturally steppedinto running the business to
paying the bills and doing thebookkeeping and, you know, the
operations and these otherelements of the business that I
hadn't yet been been doing.
And I remember when he came backafter the year and a half off,

(03:49):
he was like, wow, this isamazing.
Like there's no mail here for methat the bills have been paid.
Like everything's pretty muchbeen taken care of.
Um, and that was a bigconfidence booster, obviously
for me to hear that from my dad.
But that period of my lifereally showed me like, wow, I
have what it takes to run abusiness.
Like I could do this and Iactually love it.
Like, I love it more thanfinancial planning.

(04:10):
I love the business element andaspect.
And once again, it also iscreativity and problem solving.

Greg Muzzillo (04:16):
Tell us just briefly, what did some of those
businesses do, especially thesuccessful ones that you exited
for multimillions each and thenwhat led you to founding
Growmotely?

Sarah Hawley (04:30):
Yeah, they were all financial planning
businesses.
Oh.
So I built and scaled threefinancial planning businesses.
One was a kind of traditionalprivate wealth management firm
for retirees pre-retirees, highnet worth, mainly focused around
managing their investmentportfolios and things.
The other was an insurance,brokerage, life insurance and
such.
And then the third one wasAustralia's first millennial

(04:53):
focused financial advisory firms.
That one, I was very passionateabout figuring out how to give
really good quality advice tohigh performing high achieving
millennials.
So all of those businesses arekind of built and scaled and
sold, and then there's otherbusinesses that are still
running like the league ofextraordinary women, which is a
community for femaleentrepreneurs.
I'm no longer active in thatbusiness, but I'm still a

(05:15):
shareholder.
Um, I had some, I wrote a bookactually back in 2013 called Get
Rich Slow.
I created an online program, um,for, that was kind of to do with
the, I created, turned the bookinto a course, essentially.
So that was a little businessthat ended up merging into
wealth, enhances the millennialfinancial planning business.

(05:35):
We had a, an online accountingcompany called we love numbers
that we started.
Um, when there's a software outthere called zero people might
be familiar with it.
Um, it's a bookkeepingaccounting software and we
created a business around thatto deliver online, bookkeeping
solutions to businesses, thatcompany we actually decided to

(05:56):
fail.
Um, so we grew really quicklydidn't have the strategy, right.
We were suffering, found aburnout myself and my ex-husband
who was a partner with me inthat business.
So that was one of our kind of,we decided to close that
business down.
We didn't have the energy tostick with it and get it right.
Um, and then, so just to kind ofwrap up and come to where we are

(06:19):
now in 2014, after being inbusiness for five ish years, at
that point, I was feeling likeI'm not living the life that I
thought I would live as anentrepreneur.
I'm not as free as I wanted tobe.
I was finding myself, going intomy office really early in the
morning, staying till reallylate at night, working really
long days, really, really busy,and also dealing with a lot of

(06:43):
stuff that wasn't really to dowith my business.
It was to do with like people inthe office and manage, making
sure the office is runningsmoothly.
And I, I was missing travel, atthe velocity that I would have
liked to travel.
I also wanted to move to theU.S.
And so I decided at that pointto turn all of my companies
remote, which in 2014 in servicebusinesses like professional

(07:07):
services, like financialplanning, that was very unusual.
And most people obviously weretelling me, you can't do that.
Like people won't take youseriously.
Um, financial planning has to bedone in an office.
And I just, I mean, that's partof my personality is if anyone
ever tells me I can't dosomething, I think, well, I'll
just go and do it and show you

Greg Muzzillo (07:26):
well, watch me go.

Sarah Hawley (07:27):
Yeah.
So that, that was just the fuelI needed.
I think.

Greg Muzzillo (07:31):
So, by the way, you shared really a very
important lesson for allentrepreneurs, and that is
sometimes it's best to just cutand run.
There's no shame in that.
I think some people just hang inthere too long thinking there's
shame in it or thinking theydon't have another idea or
thinking they gotta make a go ofthis one and they pour too much
money into it.
They pour too much time andenergy into it.

(07:53):
And sometimes they lose theopportunity even be able to
start another business.
So that was a great lesson thatyou share, uh, sorry for
interrupting, but so get us to,uh, you got to the United
States, get us to how youfounded and where the idea for
Growmotely came from

Sarah Hawley (08:11):
2014.
Um, turned all the companiesremote.
And I moved to Sydney, which isI'm from Melbourne in Australia.
And I was like, well, instead ofmoving to the U.S, I'll move an
hour flight away and just seehow it goes, like starting to be
remote, but like not being toofar away exactly where my core
team was.
Um, and at the same time, Istarted opening up to hiring
people in different parts of theworld, not just in Australia, I

(08:33):
hired my financial controller.
She happened to be in thePhilippines.
She was unbelievable.
And I was like, well, this isreally fun and exciting.
Like, I can hire peopleanywhere.
They don't have to just be in mysame city now, but I didn't know
how to do that.
I was, I mean, I knew how to,but it was hard.
It was complicated.
I didn't have a lot of time.
How do I find all these people?
So, as I said earlier starting abusiness out of a problem that

(08:58):
you have, I founded a companycalled Grow My Team, which was a
remote recruitment company.
And it was a side project.
I founded it with four, threeother founders.
There was four of us and we allused it to do the recruitment
for our own businesses, theglobal recruitment.
And we never really grew thecompany.
We kind of just let it sit theredoing its thing.
And we had some clients, but weweren't massively pushing it.

(09:20):
We had a general manager inthere.
Um, but that was really whatopened me up to the world of
remote work.
So fast forward a couple ofyears later, 2016, I finally
moved to the U.S.
Everything's amazing.
Life's just getting better andbetter for me and for my team,
because we all have this freedomnow to live and create our days.
However we want them.
The company actually grew a lotin that time.

(09:41):
So all the people that said youwouldn't be able to do it.
We, we really, um, doubled ourrevenue in 2016, for example, I
remember so we were having somereally great growth moments
there as well.
Um, and then by 2018, I, I hadseparated from my husband who I
ran a lot of my businesses with,um, in 2017 and I was starting

(10:05):
to get a bit burnt out offinancial planning.
It became a very heavilyregulated compliance, focused
industry.
And I was finding, it felt likewe were spending 80% of the
energy of our business doingcompliance and 20% doing what we
loved, which was helping people.
And that was just starting tokind of be a bit of a buzz kill
for me.
And I felt like maybe it wastime for something else.

(10:26):
So I sold out of all of thefinancial planning companies.
I think I'd already sold one atthat time sold the second one in
2016, and then the final one in2018 and did a bit of soul
searching from that point oflike, what do I wanna be next to
what I wanna do next?
And to be totally transparent, Ihad a breakdown at that time

(10:47):
because it was very intense tolet go of, you know, my identity
17 years in finance, the successthat I'd had was wonderful, but
I had stories and doubt comingup at that time of like, maybe
it was just a fluke or maybe Ican only be successful in
financial planning.
Like if I wanna try, try and dosomething different, what if I'm

(11:07):
not able to do it.
So it was a really challengingtime and it was about three,
three or four months, I think.
So it wasn't really that long inthe end, but I think for those
of us who are entrepreneurs, it,it's hard to sit still and it's
hard to just do nothing for sure.
Um, and so January, 2019, Idecided to buy out all of the

(11:30):
partners in the in Grow My Team,the remote staffing company, and
go into that because the remotework had given me so much, I
felt so passionate about it.
And I thought there's a hugeopportunity.
And the next 10 years or sopeople are gonna open up to
remote work a lot more.
Obviously I had no idea COVIDwas coming, but I intuitively
just felt as though, you know,the world's gotta be moving in

(11:50):
this direction.

Greg Muzzillo (11:51):
What great timing to be empowering, uh, remote
workers in remote roles.
Tell us a little bit more abouthow Growmotely does that.
What, what is the functionalityof Growmotely?

Sarah Hawley (12:03):
well, Growmotely is a community and a platform
that allows any company anywherein the world to hire any
individual anywhere in theworld.
So it's really just opening upthe world of work, um, truly
into a global marketplace, aglobal place.
Um, but unlike a freelancermarketplace, which has existed
for the last 10 years, this isfor permanent ongoing roles

(12:27):
where you're joining a team andbeing part of a company.
And as a company where you'rehiring and building, your team,
your core team that are gonna bewith you on the journey.
So, and we handle contracts andpayroll and all of that.

Greg Muzzillo (12:39):
Got it, got it, got it.
So for an organization thatwants to have employees in
another country, primarily withall of the complications that
might come with it and all thecompliance issues, tax issues,
and more at the end of the day,you help find those people,
bring them on board to theorganization, that contracts

(13:00):
you, but you handle all thoseheadaches that the company wants
to avoid.
Is that a fair way to say it?
Yeah,

Sarah Hawley (13:05):
Exactly.
Yeah.
And then on top of that, we havekind of a community behind the
scenes where everybody gets tonetwork and socialize together.
And we do a lot of ongoingtraining and development and,
opportunities for people's teammembers to grow and evolve as
people and as professionals.
Um, we're really focused onhelping the small to medium

(13:27):
business clients.
So the customers that wouldn'tnecessarily have enough scope to
have a whole entire HR peopledevelopment department.
So we really through technologyand some services, we deliver
all of that for a small tomedium business.
That's remote and global.

Greg Muzzillo (13:43):
One of the things I really loved when I was doing
some research on LinkedIn andthere's, there's a lot of
entries for, from this date tothis date, you did this.
And from this date to this date,you did that.
One of the things I loved themost was on March the 20, 2021.
Um, you became co-creatorof baby Luca.

Sarah Hawley (14:06):
Yeah, my boy

Greg Muzzillo (14:08):
.
I love that.
I love it because it's all, it'sall a part of who we are, um,
especially for women to be momsand CEOs, and entrepreneurs.
Alright.

Sarah Hawley (14:20):
And I put that in there as a bit of an knowledge
to all of the women who havejuggled and continued to juggle
being a mom, and being anentrepreneur or a professional,
whatever it is that you do and,and that it is work, but we also
get to be both, you know, and Ithink that's amazing.
Like I don't wanna give up beinga founder and a CEO and hats off

(14:40):
if somebody does, but all of itshould be recognized.
And same thing goes for, fordads as well.
But yeah, I just really wantedto, um, bit of a shout out to
all the women out there who aredoing it all.

Greg Muzzillo (14:54):
I think so, especially because I talked to a
lady entrepreneur, woman,entrepreneur, not that long ago,
who actually had written a bookto, and she said, you know, for
fathers that start their ownbusiness for dads, who were
raised in a more traditionalkind of home dads sometimes feel
like they're twice the dad, thattheir father was because they

(15:15):
run their own business, they canbe available for the children,
et cetera.
whereas she said, mom sometimesfeel like half the mom, because
they're not home or present allthe time for the kids, for the
children.
And that's too bad because, uh,a mom should also feel like, I
think twice the mom, becausethey're giving great, uh,

(15:37):
experience, um, an example totheir children.

Sarah Hawley (15:41):
Yeah.
I read a really amazing articleabout a month or so after Luca
was born.
And I was definitely in thatphase.
And I think it's, it's part ofour physiology and our biology,
where all I cared about was him.
And I was like, who even caresabout this company doesn't even
matter.
Like, here's my life.
He's so amazing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and that's the hormones andeverything that kicks in to make
sure we keep them alive whenthey're so, so dependent on us.

(16:04):
Absolutely.
Um, but I read this beautifularticle that talked about the
way many parents, as soon asthey have a child, they give up
on their own dreams and theysay, okay, I'm gonna put
everything into my kid.
I wanna help my kid or my kidsbe the best and everything they
can be.
But really the example we'reshowing them is sacrificing self
for others and giving up onthings and not realizing that in

(16:27):
all of that sacrifice, that'scoming from this amazing place.
We're actually modelingsomething that we don't want
them to become.
Right, right.
For us to, for us to actuallystep into our fullest potential.
And our most expanded state isactually the model we want to
create for our children.
And that really resonated withme because I am an entrepreneur,
a CEO, and a founder through andthrough.

(16:48):
I love it.
It fills me up.
It gives me so much.
And I wanna show my son anexample of me being everything I
can be doesn't mean he needs tobe an entrepreneur.
He'll be whatever he wants tobe, but I want him to watch his
mom and dad reach their fullestpotential as an example for him.

Greg Muzzillo (17:06):
Of course.
All right.
So you have founded and investedin many businesses.
Um, you're currently running awell funded, almost$2 million
already in seed rounds ofinvestment, in a business that's
getting ready and is alreadyscaling, share with us one or
two of the biggest mistakes youmade and what lessons you

(17:29):
learned from them.
And then we'll ask you the samething about a couple of the
really great things that you didand the lessons you learned from
them.

Sarah Hawley (17:36):
yeah.
I mean, I think it's interestingto try and distill it down to
two mistakes.
I feel like being anentrepreneur sort of like
constant,

Greg Muzzillo (17:45):
Oh, we don't have all

Sarah Hawley (17:46):
Day you every day.
Yeah,

Greg Muzzillo (17:47):
I agree.

Sarah Hawley (17:48):
I mean, I think I just wrote a book
Conscious Leadership and ittracks my journey as a leader.
And I think if I could sum thatup the mistakes or the challenge
that I've found and experiencein being a leader in my first
five years was rather thangetting to know myself and who I

(18:09):
really was and how I could showup for my team in my most
authentic integral self.
I was reading all these booksand doing what everybody else
told me to do.
Um, and that was a mistake, youknow, not trusting myself and
who I am and the way that Iinteract and relate and make
connections.
I was, you know, I'd read onebook that said, don't ever hire

(18:30):
a friend don't ever be friendswith anyone you work with.
So I'd be like, oh my God, okay.
I gotta do that.
Next thing you know, I readsomething the total opposite and
I'm trying to do the oppositething.
And I was, I was very much likegetting this information from
the outside.
And I had a really rough time,like the first five years trying
to be a leader was very hard.
I found it very, um, I tookthings very personally.

(18:51):
Uh, so, you know, wheneversomebody would quit or something
would not work out with someoneon my team, I would take that
very personally.
Um, and I found it reallydifficult.
It would always be confronting.
I'd be emotional.
And I think the more that I didmy own work on myself as an
individual and started to get toknow myself and trust myself and

(19:12):
my style, things just reallyopened up and became, you know,
in such a more expansive way.
It's kind of a bigger summary,but like, that was a big, big
learning for me.

Greg Muzzillo (19:24):
I love it.
And it's a valuable lesson,trust your gut.

Sarah Hawley (19:30):
And just learn to filter that advice.
Like you can go and receiveadvice.
It's amazing, but it might notbe right for you.
So just that's, that's it aswell, trusting your gut on the
things that come in and thingsthat people might give you.
That's brilliant advice forsomebody else, but it may not be
brilliant for you and that'sokay.

Greg Muzzillo (19:48):
And probably in the early phase, you can relate
to this.
I know Sarah and I can do, wealways look for affirmation.
Yeah.
That's a great idea.
Right?
We all want somebody and cuz wehave an idea.
We think it's probably right.
But we ask people, what do youthink?
What do you think?
What do you think?
And first of all, we're askingthe wrong people who have don't
necessarily even have a cluewhat we're talking about.

(20:09):
So they don't even understandthe problem or the opportunity.
Number two, there are somepeople I think that are
intimidated by successful peopleand don't necessarily wanna see
their neighbor, their friend, ortheir family member be wildly
successful and pull in thedriveway someday in a rolls
royce.
Right.
um, I just think sometimespeople unwittingly, right

(20:29):
unconsciously kind of maybe givethe wrong advice because they
themselves are challenged and wecould talk all day about the
things we did did wrong, orcould have done better or the
challenges that we faced becausethat's what our world is full of
as entrepreneurs is overcomingthose, no matter what, having
the grit and the tenacity toovercome those things, we all

(20:51):
have, I say a very expensive MBA, um, in business, through all
of the mistakes that we made.
In fact, I know you have amaster's degree in
entrepreneurial, master's fromMIT, which is impressive in and
of itself.
Um, so anyhow, all right, let'stalk about a few of the big
wins, a few of the big successesand what lessons as we start

(21:13):
wrapping up our time together.
Do you wanna share with ourlisteners?

Sarah Hawley (21:17):
Well, interestingly, you know, my big
wins are almost the flip of thebig losses it's been when I've
really listened and trusted myintuition and my gut knowing
even when it hasn't always madesense.
Um, so one of them has beenGrowmotely, you know, I just
told the story very quicklyabout how it all came about, but
you know, part of that story wasI bought out three founders from

(21:38):
that, um, original company, thecompany was in debt.
It wasn't growing, it made zerosense for me to buy that company
and take it.
They just, you know, we did thedeal we did and I took it on and
it made no sense at the time,but there was something in me
just saying, this is it, this isthe thing.
There's something here.
And I don't know what it is andI don't need to know.
Um, and it's led me to where Iam now, which is working on a

(22:00):
multi-billion dollaropportunity.
And I'm gonna list this companyon the stock exchange and reach
my fullest potential as aentrepreneur.
If I hadn't trusted myself tomake that weird decision, I did
back at the start of 2019.
I wouldn't be where I am rightnow.
So, you know, and I had anothersituation like that in about
2016 or 17, it was with thefinancial planning company.

(22:22):
We'd been stuck for a while.
We weren't really growing.
And all of a sudden I thought,what do young financial planners
want?
They want something similar towhat I want.
They want freedom.
They want flexibility.
And they wanna feel a little bitentrepreneurial, but at the same
time feel supported.
And it just dawned on me one dayand I came up with a new way of
paying them.
That was very different to theway financial planners were paid

(22:45):
in the Australian market at thetime, which is where my company
was based.
You know, in the Australianmarket at the time they were
paid pretty hefty basedsalaries, 150 ish thousand with
these bonuses based on what theydid.
Um, but I thought, I wonder ifpeople would work for a revenue
share like a fee share modelinstead.
So zero base, we completelysplit the fees.

(23:08):
Um, we provide all of thebackend support and they can
literally do whatever they want.
They can build as big or asmaller client book as they
want.
And that was the decision and itwent against everything and
everybody was like, that's sodumb.
You can't do that.
No one will work for you forthat.
And I trusted myself and weincreased our revenue.
That was the year that wedoubled our revenue, um, by

(23:29):
putting that strategy in place.
And our people were super happy.
They loved it because I wasintuitively, right.
So for me, it's been, when Ifeel that strong conviction,
even if I don't have all of the,you know, puzzle pieces in place
in my mind, but intuitively inmy heart and soul, I feel like,
oh, this is, there's somethinghere I've learned to really

(23:50):
trust that.
And don't worry about whatanybody else says and how much
it doesn't make sense.
It doesn't need to make sense tothem.

Greg Muzzillo (23:58):
Although you've shown the ability to also cut
your losses and stop themistakes.
Right?
So I, I have loved our timetogether and I have no doubt
you're gonna be wildlysuccessful.
And I'm gonna tell you what yousaid that convinced me.
You said, I am going to be onthe stock exchange.
You didn't say, I'm gonna tryyou.
Didn't say, I hope to, you saidwith conviction, I didn't hear a

(24:21):
shred of doubt in your voice.
I am going to, and I think manytimes that's what really
separates wildly successfulpeople from people who use words
like, well, I'm gonna try, well,try has failure built right into
it.
And uh, I hope I can, hasfailure built right into it, but

(24:42):
I am going to, I love it.
I have no doubt you're going to.
And Sarah Hawley, it's been awonderful time being with you.