About our founder Sarah Schulweis

Sarah Schulweis is a forward-thinking entrepreneur, small business owner, and creative consultant who specializes in helping other entrepreneurs transform their unique visions into strong businesses. She is known in the small business community for her holistic business consulting and ground-breaking interactive programs and resources including Cash Flow Cleanse, the 6-Month Business Foundations Program, and Goal Guide.

In 2013, Sarah founded Anchor & Orbit Consulting to help independent business owners find their path to sustainable growth. Sarah has partnered with hundreds of clients across a range of industries to advance their visions at any stage. From the big picture – like defining personal success, providing mindset shifts, unblocking fears, facilitating financial clarity, and directing energy, to hands-on tasks – such as formulating key hires, setting up business systems, uncovering strategic market placement, and creating sales practices. Clients describe Sarah as a guiding light, a natural community builder, and a small business innovator who connects the right people to the right resources.

Clients describe Sarah as a guiding light, a natural community builder, and a small business innovator who connects the right people to the right resources.

Using a comprehensive approach to understanding business, Sarah believes that the first step toward success for any entrepreneur is finding internal clarity about one’s values, motivation, and source of true happiness. In addition to offering one-on-one sessions, Sarah facilitates workshops that give participants an opportunity to drill down into the core of their mission and outline concrete business plans that lead to lasting growth. For example, in her 6-Month Business Foundations Program, participants take incremental steps toward personal and professional goal planning, financial analysis, market exploration, cash flow analysis, and strategy development through meticulous research, reflection, and assignments. Sarah loves when others have epiphanies, especially when their lightbulb moment leads them to a clear picture of what is needed and how to get there.

Sarah believes that the first step toward success for any entrepreneur is finding internal clarity about one’s values, motivation, and source of true happiness.

Sarah believes deeply in the economy of small business and was first drawn to the analytical and strategic side of entrepreneurship while attaining a B.A. in Communications at San Francisco State University. She fell in love with the independence, innovation, and possibilities of small business ownership while crafting her first business plan. This lead to her decision to minor in Entrepreneurship, focusing her studies on small business launch strategies, brand identities, marketing materials, and more. Through trial-and-error, while working with ceramicists, florists, graphic designers, writers, carpenters, event planners, and many others, she has discovered approaches that work, as well as patterns and traps to avoid. With an array of tools and time-tested solutions, Sarah guides business owners through obstacles, both internal and external. She recognizes that real financial and personal growth occurs during the process of overcoming challenges.

With an array of tools and time-tested solutions, Sarah guides business owners through obstacles, both internal and external.

When Sarah isn’t architecting cash flow analyses or thinking about ways to maximize a client’s growth potential, you can find her spending time in a dance class, poring over a new cookbook, or taking an early morning walk. A native of Los Angeles, Sarah currently lives in Oakland and enjoys phone calls from her family as well as unwinding in a cozy chair with a good book.

Learn more about Sarah here:

Articles

• The Creative Independent

• Freelance Wisdom

• The Glossary

Podcasts

• The Creative Agency

• Have Company

• The Process

• The Savvy Spirit

Facilitator Profile: Julia Somers

What do you do? (The brief version)

I’m an eCommerce consultant based in Los Angeles. I love helping small businesses grow their online platforms through strategic editorial direction and email marketing.

Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for people considering joining the program?

Don’t be afraid to invest the time and energy in yourself and your business! You and your business are worth the reflection, planning, attention and strategy that the program provides. If you’re really on the fence, read the testimonials, fill out the application (it’s non-binding!) and schedule the intro call with Sarah to discuss whether you’d be a good fit. Your future self with thank you.

Why were you initially drawn toward the A&O Program? (As a participant)

I first learned about Sarah and A&O through the Have Company podcast. I related so much to Sarah’s story and connected with her humor and humility right away. When I came across the Program, pretty instantly I knew that here was a course I would really benefit from.

Don’t be afraid to invest the time and energy in yourself and your business! You and your business are worth the reflection, planning, attention and strategy that the program provides.

At the time, I was running myself ragged juggling 5 different clients with no systems, boundaries or structure in place. I was unsure of what to charge for my services and of what to call myself or my business. I knew I wanted to work with small, independent businesses who were committed to making products locally and with integrity but didn’t really know my next steps or how to carve out a sustainable future for myself.

After a few emails with Sarah, I booked my intro call. She was so kind and warm of the phone and reassured me that even though I felt like I didn’t technically have a business yet, the Program would beneficial in laying out a solid foundation for when the clarity came. She was 100% right.

What are your favorite parts of the program?

Everything! Haha - really though. It’s a complete foundation for any small business or freelancer. When I took the course, the initial Discovery writing assignments, Ideal Weekly Schedule, and Cash Flow were my favorites to work through and look at - it felt so empowering to look at everything objectively with my facilitators and make a plan that felt sustainable and realistic.

I was unsure of what to charge for my services and of what to call myself or my business.

In the year since taking the course, I still regularly go back to Ideal Weekly Schedule and Cash Flow whenever I feel like I need make a pivot with a client or with pricing.

Apply Today | Visit Julia’s Website

Facilitator Profile: Devin Pope

Tell us a bit about why you facilitate this program: Because I believe in its philosophy and purpose down to the last detail! As you see on the sales page, I’m a alumni of the program and owe so much of my success and happiness in my work to what I worked through in the assignments, learned in the resources, and discussed in the one-on-one calls.

What are your favorite parts of the program? The Discovery section will always have a special place in my heart because that’s where I was able to get things out of my head and start to make sense of them. My secret favorite part of the program is that the assignments keep growing with me. There is never “done forever,” and I love that. I might get my competitive analysis done to a point that serves me well, but then a month or two later I can go back in and add to it and make new discoveries.

“My secret favorite part of the program is that the assignments keep growing with me. ”

What has most surprised you about your work as a facilitator? People’s inability to see their own wealth of knowledge. (And I know I’m like this, too.) A lot of what I do as a facilitator is looking and asking questions. I see people’s goals, and ask questions that the answers to will provide clarity and direction. The answers are alllll the participant’s and have usually been there for some time, they just needed the questions to be asked.

Apply Today | Visit Devin’s Website

Facilitator Profile: Sarah Schulweis

Tell us a bit about why you facilitate this program:

Hi! I’m Sarah! I’m the founder and author of this program. My vision for this program is truly coming to life these days. From the type of people who participate to the incredible facilitators who are making the program shift and grow as it should.

There are two big reasons why I started this program. I knew, because of the inquiries and the conversations I was having, that the support and framework I provided was necessary, but for those who were just starting (who really needed it most) they needed it to be more affordable and bite-sized.

“I love to see the light bulb turn on in someone’s mind at the exact moment when it all comes together and they have a moment of clarity.”

— Sarah

The other reason I wanted a program was to create a more sustainable and consistent income stream for my business. I knew I didn’t want to create a program that people bought and threw away, but something that was as effective as one-on-one work. *I* wanted growth and sustainability. The bonus was that I created a place to process, refine, and systemize all that I had learned about businesses, both through my education and through my real-world experience.

What are your favorite parts of the program?

This isn’t a “part” of the program, but the result of it -- I LOVE the epiphanies! I love to see the light bulb turn on in someone’s mind at the exact moment when it all comes together and they have a moment of clarity.

The real aspects of running a business, that create the most heartache, are solvable. Loneliness in your work is solved by group workshop days, systems can be created even when it feels impossible and the ambiguity about your finances and your market can be uncovered and from there, you can create a path to growth and productivity.

What has most surprised you about your work as a facilitator?

For me, this program was an experiment. So, it was less surprise and more excitement that a system and process was as effective as I wanted it to be.

Apply Today