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EP.74 Growing a Mission-Based Business From Kitchen Table to National Brand, with Sarah Hunstead
Glen Carlson
Cofounder, Dent
Growing a business from your kitchen table to a national brand is one thing. Creating it in such a way that you have the freedom to step away from the day-to-day running of it without any detriment to its success, is something else. Sarah Hunstead has achieved both.
On The Dent Podcast, we interview key people of influence in all walks of life. We delve deep to unearth how these successful people got to where they are, their trials and tribulations, as well as their successes, and what their experiences can teach us all.
On this episode we welcome Sarah Hunstead. Sarah is founding director of CPR Kids, a business that provides education programs in life-saving first aid for kids. She is also an alumnus of the KPI program and author of the popular and imaginatively titled book: A Life. A Finger. A Pea Up a Nose: CPR KIDS Essential First Aid Guide for Babies and Children.
What makes Sarah story particularly inspiring is that she has not only grown her business to a point where it now employs 23 people, but she built it in such a way that she was able to travel around Australia with her family for six months, only to come back and find it better than she left it. Now that's a sustainable business model.
So, if the idea of building a mission-based business and scaling it from a kitchen table start-up into a national brand – with the freedom to travel at will – excites you, then you're definitely in for a treat.
Here's some of the inspiring stuff we get into:
Sarah's journey from technician to manager, to a brand
The business journey of CPR Kids
Creating a business that doesn't depend on you, right from the start
Defining a purpose for the organisation, and getting everyone behind it
Changing from a service to a product mindset
The value of an advisory board, and how to put one together
The benefits of letting staff take more risks in decision making
Incentivising your team to get you out of the business
Writing her book and the reason behind its memorable title
The inspiration for the family's six-month road trip, and how they made it work
Where they went, what they did and how they did it