Sara Leadbetter is a Business Advisor who has specialized in Sales and Marketing training and business advice for businesses around Australia and New Zealand. Focusing on the tourism industry, as a tourist in New Zealand for over 8 years, she has a unique perspective on what the consumer is looking for, combined with the business experience to make it happen.

Born in England, she had her first business experience aged 18 completing odd jobs during her University holidays. After completing a letterbox drop in her local neighbourhood, within a week she had more work than she could cope with and had to employ the services of her younger brother. For a small fee, of course. The experience of being her own boss, and earning in direct relation to the work completed, ensured she would never be happy as an employee.

After graduating from the University of Teesside as a Chemical Engineer, she joined the distribution arm of the then British Steel. Fortunately, she had the presence of mind to realize that Engineering wasn't the right path to follow and she quickly moved into sales and marketing. Her first sales training course, a week long residential course, was to set the tone for the rest of her career. Within a short space of time she was assisting the facilitator to get every opportunity to learn the selling and training skills necessary to eventually run her own courses. The role plays as the course ‘buyer' also gave her invaluable insights into some of the psychology behind why people actually buy. Additional education was to start an MBA at the University of Brunel before career moves into Retail Management with the supermarket chain ALDI and then Boots the Chemist added people management and the ability to use her training skills to bring out the best in her teams. But she was never meant to be an employee...

After moving to New Zealand in 2001 for lifestyle change, she spent the first year travelling as a tourist and enjoying all that the country had to offer. After this freedom, it was always on the cards that Sara would find the lure of self employment too strong and in 2004, she finally decided to use her 20 years experience of making money for corporate businesses to help smaller businesses as a Business Advisor. And that is where the story really starts...

Many of the businesses she worked with were run by Business Owners who had very little business skills or experience. As so eloquently explained by Michael Gerber in the E-Myth, they were practical people, with a passion and skill for ‘doing' their product or service, but almost no skills in the financial, people or marketing areas of their business. In order to get paid, it was important to get quick runs on the board with the business Owner and this usually entailed improving the cash flow (normally by improving the credit management system) and by changing their sales and marketing systems. And so her skills and passion were highlighted. A client asked her to present a sales workshop at their Regional Conferences, this was so successful and the feedback so good that it allowed her to refocus her business to concentrate on her sales and marketing skills and her passion for tourism.

After working with several clients in the tourism industry, she had the opportunity to buy into a tourism business specialising in mountain biking and has since become a part owner in Discovery Tours. Through Discovery Tours, she has membership of the Tourism Industry Association of New Zealand and a thorough understanding of the Qualmark system, Green Globe and DOC concessions. This combination of being a tourist for over 8 years, knowing how to make money in business and running her own tourism industry give her a unique understanding of what works and what doesn't and makes for a very powerful Tourism Business Advisor.

Sara moved to New Zealand for the outdoor lifestyle and this has allowed her to follow her dreams of living near a beach, surfing and snowboarding in the same day, owning a mountain biking business, touring the country on her motorbike and, since becoming a New Zealand Citizen, playing ice hockey for the Ice Fernz against Australia in Sydney. These activities also see her constantly travelling New Zealand and Australia and experiencing the best and worst that the tourism industry has to offer.

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