Her Biz July 2022 Winner
Striding her way to victory: owner of SureStride Elisha Willett wins £500 to launch through Her Biz programme
Helping to build confidence, ability and improve fitness, Elisha aims to give a unique and progressive approach to coaching with SureStride, her equestrian rider-based tuition programme.
July’s Her Biz winner, Elisha Willett, owner of SureStride
Elisha won £500 towards her start-up costs for SureStride after taking part in the NatWest funded Her Biz workshop programme and submitting her winning business plan to the Her Biz competition, which is open to all ladies taking part.
The Her Biz programme, which is delivered by Let’s Do Business Group and supported by NatWest Bank, aims to increase entrepreneurship, and break down the barriers between women and business by supporting more people to follow their career aspirations. Delivered virtually over Zoom by our two expert business coaches Lisa and Helena, the programme has been a long running success since it started three years ago.
A change of pace
With a background in sales and sales training after working for an award winning B2B sales training company, Elisha always found herself cantering back to her passion for horses and helping people. Her experience of riding since she was just 18 months old had led her to coaching and working directly with clients to find their own discoveries, help them to build their strength & ability for long lasting results, and overall seeing an improvement after every session.
“Being a qualified Enlightened Equestrian Teacher, I strongly believe that everyone is different, everyone learns differently, and everyone has different physical abilities. This is something I feel separates me as a coach from a traditional instructor in equestrianism.”
A period of illness after giving birth to her youngest daughter meant that Elisha wasn’t able to ride as much due to her muscle structure wasting and weight ballooning, causing her balance to be all over the place. However, after creating the programme, she was able to get her riding position back to where it should be and lost 5 stone over two years, proving that the methods in the programme are both sustainable and effective.
Finding her feet
The process of starting up a business can be very scary and as Elisha describes “it feels like trying to do a dot-to-dot without any numbers”. Whilst she had an idea about what she wanted her end goal to be like, the trial-and-error method of direction and process she was following became very time consuming and success limiting.
After taking her time to thoroughly research starting a business, and the routes she could follow to receive support, Elisha made sure to consider issues such as whether any of the available programmes were open to regional, nationwide, or even international audiences as this would limit relevant advice. That’s when she stumbled across the Her Biz programme delivered by Let’s Do Business Group.
“Accessing training online can be more convenient and less daunting than attending a course in person. With most online courses however, you may find that the coach is unable to factor in local trends, requirements & opportunities due to covering a nationwide audience.”
Following on from each session, the unnumbered dot-to-dot from before of creating a business plan for SureStride slowly turned into a masterpiece, with each substantial resource provided by Lisa and Helena allowing Elisha to have a clear route with a starting point, and a real feeling of ‘let’s go get it!’
Because of the wealth of knowledge relevant to a vast array of industries, Lisa and Helena are able to supply each participant with their combined experience in professionally advising a plethora of different types of start-ups. The relevant and successful training and guidance to each individual allows for each Her Biz session to be interesting, engaging and motivating for everyone, and this was certainly the case for Elisha.
Across the finish line
As a result of the essential support provided by Her Biz, Elisha has been able to create a business plan with short and long term goals for the next few years, understand her customer profile to grow her client base, and consider any weaknesses to futureproof her business, allowing her to truly feel confident that she is culminating a business of a lifetimes work.
We wish Elisha and SureStride the best of luck for the future!