Confused to Focused
The Founding Business Lab
Cut through the noise, get clear on what actually matters and turn your ideas into focused action — without another business coach telling you what you should be doing.
6 weeks · Wednesday evenings · Maximum 5 business owners
When everything feels important, how do you decide what actually is?
You're not short of ideas. That's part of the problem.
You know there are dozens of things you could be doing in your business. And depending on which podcast you listen to, course you take or expert you follow, there are probably another dozen things you should be doing too.
Before long, everything feels important. You're busy, you're thinking about the business constantly, but you're not always sure whether the things taking your time and energy are the things that will actually move it forward.
You have more ideas than you have time to implement
You're constantly questioning which thing deserves your attention first
You start something, then another opportunity or idea pulls you in a different direction
Momentum feels hard to build because you're constantly starting, stopping or changing direction
You're consuming plenty of advice but finding it harder to decide what applies to your business
You're doing a lot, but don't feel you're making the progress you should be
You don't need another programme to sit on the shelf.
You probably already know enough about business to fill one.
Confused to Focused is a Lab because we're going to do something with what we uncover.
We'll step out of the weeds, get brutally honest about what's really happening in your business, challenge the things you've been assuming are true and decide what actually deserves your attention.
Then we test it.
The six weeks deliberately alternate between Strategy Labs and Working Labs, because clarity without action just creates another notebook full of good intentions; and we all have shelves full of those!
Confused to Focused is different.
Find the real bottleneck — not just the loudest problem. Look honestly at what's working, what isn't, where you're getting stuck and whether you're spending your energy solving the right bloody thing.
Say the stuff you don't normally say out loud. The idea you're secretly bored of. The offer you know isn't working. The thing you're avoiding. The “everyone says I should…” you don't actually want. This is a small, safe room for radical honesty, challenge and useful feedback.
Make a decision — then put it to work. We're not spending six weeks endlessly discussing possibilities. You'll choose what deserves your focus, turn it into something you can actually do or test, and use the Working Labs to make progress while we're together.
Bring the evidence back into the room. What happened? What worked? What didn't? What surprised you? We use what you've learned to adjust, iterate, stop, continue or make the next decision.
LESS LEARNING. MORE DOING. BETTER DECISIONS.
What changes when the noise gets quieter?
Know what deserves your attention
Stop treating everything as equally important.
Get clear on what matters now, what can wait, and what you're choosing not to do.
Trust in your own decisions
Build the confidence to assess ideas, opportunities and advice against your goals rather than automatically following what somebody else says you should do.
Actually move things forward
Turn decisions into action, build momentum and start generating real evidence about what works for your business instead of endlessly thinking, tweaking and second-guessing.
The goal isn't for you to leave needing me to tell you what to do next.
It's for you to leave clearer on the business you're building, more confident in how you make decisions and better equipped to cut through the noise the next time things get messy because they will.
Maximum 5 business owners · Wednesday evenings ·
6-week core experience
What actually happens inside the Lab?
1. Three Strategy Labs
90-minute facilitated working sessions, every other Wednesday evening.
I'll bring the best of my performance consultancy experience into the room. Simple tools, useful questions and different ways of looking at what's happening in your business. You bring your business, a notebook and a willingness to think.
Each Lab will help us:
Step back and see things differently- what's working, what isn't, what you've learned and what you're actually trying to build.
Get underneath the noise using practical exercises and good conversation to uncover what might really need your attention.
Decide what happens next, leave with something specific to focus on, change or test before we meet again.
No complicated frameworks. No homework for homework's sake. We'll do the thinking together in the room.
2. Three Working Labs
90-minute co-working sessions on the Wednesdays in between.
Because deciding what to do and actually bloody doing it are two different things.
Arrive with the thing you committed to moving forward
Get protected time to actually work on it
Ask for help, feedback or another pair of eyes when you get stuck
Leave having made tangible progress not with another list of things to do
3. The space between the Labs
A private WhatsApp group for the six of us throughout the experience because business doesn't conveniently wait until Wednesday evening to get confusing.
Share the wins, wobbles, questions and “I've just realised…” moments
Bounce ideas off people who actually know what you're working towards
Get support and accountability as you test things in the real world
Bring what you're learning back into the next Lab
PLUS: This is a founding Lab.
I've kept two additional Wednesday evenings available. If we discover as we go that the group would benefit from extra implementation or review time, I'll add them at no additional cost.
We're testing, learning and iterating the Lab while you're testing, learning and iterating your business.
MEET SARAH
THE PERFORMANCE CONSULTANT BEHIND THE LAB
My superpower has always been finding the simple in the complex.
Give me a messy problem, too many moving parts or something that isn't working quite as it should, and my brain immediately wants to understand why.
I'm Sarah Shard, a Certified Performance Consultant. For more than 15 years, I've worked in change and performance environments where my job has been to ask the questions other people don't, challenge assumptions and business cases, understand the experience from the customer and user's perspective, and map what's happening end-to-end to find the gaps, friction and opportunities hiding underneath the noise.
That’s how my performance consultant brain works.
We don't start with the solution. We get curious about the problem.
Because the obvious problem isn't always the real one and fixing the wrong thing brilliantly still leaves you with the same bloody problem.
I've used that thinking to challenge complex change, improve customer and colleague experiences, shape solutions and help turn complicated problems into practical action.
This Lab brings those worlds together.
I'm not going to pretend I know your business better than you do, and I'm definitely not going to hand you my formula for how you should run it.
Instead, I'm bringing my brain, my experience and my performance consultancy toolkit into the room.
We'll ask better questions. Find the gaps. Challenge what you think you know. Look at what's happening from different angles. Work out what actually matters.
And then we'll do something about it.
The Investment
PAY IN FULL
£297
(This Founding Cohort only!)
Or with a PAYMENT PLAN
£148.50 x 2 Monthly Payments
Frequently Asked Questions
Absolutely. You might already be running a business, or you might have an idea you're trying to turn into one.
If you're at the beginning, we'll help you question your assumptions and build stronger foundations. If you're established, we'll step back, find the gaps and work out what deserves your attention next.
You don't need to have everything figured out. You just need something you're ready to think about, test and move forward.
Not in the traditional sense. I'm not going to teach you my formula for building a business or tell you exactly what you should do.
I'll bring my performance consultancy experience, tools and questions to help you look at your business differently, find the gaps, challenge assumptions and make better decisions about what happens next.
Perfect. You don't need to arrive with a diagnosis. In fact, one of the principles behind the Lab is that what we think is the problem isn't always the real problem.
We'll work together to get underneath the noise before jumping to solutions.
They're deliberately not another training session but a co-working session. You'll arrive knowing what you want to move forward and spend the session actually working on it. I'll be there, as will the rest of the group, so you can ask questions, get feedback or borrow another brain if you hit a wall.
The aim is to give you time that you can block out of your day, to get with likeminded people and get working on your business. Your focus time with friends!
As much or as little as makes sense for you. This isn't a course with modules, homework or a list of things you need to complete.
The Labs are there to support you while you work on your business. If we introduce a tool or explore an idea, you decide whether you want to take it further and how much time you give it.
My goal is to help you become more self-led — and that includes deciding how you use your own time.
It simply means you’ll be one of the first people to experience the Lab.
You’ll get the full six-week experience at a special founding price, and in return I’ll ask for your honest feedback about what worked, what was useful and what could make it even better.
And because this is a Lab, I’ll be doing exactly what I’m encouraging you to do — test, learn and improve as we go.
Because I want everyone in the room to matter.
Five is big enough to bring different businesses, experiences and perspectives into the conversation, but small enough that nobody gets lost in the crowd.
You’ll have space to talk about what’s really happening in your business, get thoughtful feedback and contribute to other people’s thinking too.
This is a Lab, not an audience. Everyone gets to take part.
The Lab is designed as a live, interactive experience, so I'd encourage you to join as many sessions as you can.
For this founding cohort, all sessions will take place on Wednesday evenings.
If you occasionally need to miss one, life happens! I'll share the key notes, tools and anything you need to pick up afterwards. I won't routinely record sessions because the value comes from being in the room and I want everyone to feel comfortable being open and honest.
If Wednesdays generally don't work for you, get in touch. A future cohort may run on a different day, or if you'd prefer to work together privately, we can talk about my 1:1 Accelerator instead.