Burn It Down and Build It Better: Sarah Noel Block on Confidence, Clients, and Control
When Sarah Noel Block says she is a “f***ing badass,” it is not bravado. It is the voice of a woman who has rebuilt her business more than once, walked away from bad clients without hesitation, and learned to treat confidence as both a strategy and a safeguard.
On this episode of Badass Women in Business, Aggie and Cristy sat down with Sarah, founder of Tiny Marketing, to unpack what it really means to scale without burnout. The conversation covered everything from testing new offers to pricing with authority, managing boundaries, and knowing when to light a match and start again.
At the heart of it all was one clear theme: building a business that serves your life, not the other way around.
From Layoff to Launch
Sarah’s entrepreneurial story began in 2008 when she was laid off from her corporate marketing job. Rather than panic, she made a promise to herself that she would never again rely on one company for her livelihood.
That decision set off what she calls her “distributed income” era: ten years of freelancing, testing, and experimenting. She edited dissertations, wrote articles, and designed websites. Each project taught her something new about what she enjoyed, what she excelled at, and where she added the most value.
Like many women balancing ambition and practicality, Sarah hesitated to make the leap to full-time entrepreneurship. She admits, “I was a huge baby and terrified to start it on my own.” It was not until 2020, with her kids home in virtual school and her employer demanding a return to the office, that she finally committed.
“I planned it six months in advance so I could reverse engineer it,” she said. “I made sure everything was in place before I launched.”
That intentionality has become the backbone of her brand. Tiny Marketing is not about flashy growth or overextension. It is about sustainable systems that work for solo entrepreneurs and small teams.
Testing Before Building
One of Sarah’s biggest lessons, and one she teaches her clients, is that you do not need to have everything figured out before you start.
She sees too many entrepreneurs paralyzed by overthinking. “They overthink what their offer should be,” she said. “Just test a bunch of things out. Look at your history as an employee. What were you really good at? Test those.”
Sarah runs what she calls “pop-up offers” to gauge interest and test market response before committing to a full rollout.
Her process is simple:
Gauge Interest. She teases the concept on social media or in niche online communities to see if people care about the problem she is solving.
Start a Waitlist. If the response is positive, she gathers a small list of interested prospects.
Run a Short, Defined Offer. She delivers the offer in a small, clearly scoped container. It brings in cash quickly and validates the idea before investing more time or money.
This approach is lean, fast, and flexible. It also allows her to walk away easily. “If I hate delivering it, I can finish that small container and move on,” she said.
For Sarah, these experiments are not just about testing products. They are about testing alignment. “You are finding out who you like working with and what transformations come easily. That is where the real business clarity comes from.”
Gateway Offers: The Bridge Between Interest and Investment
Much of Sarah’s success comes from a signature concept she calls the Gateway Offer, a short-term engagement designed to bridge the gap between a curious lead and a long-term client.
The Gateway Offer unfolds in three parts:
Interview the Client Team. Sarah starts with in-depth interviews with everyone involved in the decision-making process. This gives her a 360-degree view of their challenges, previous attempts, and frustrations.
Deliver a Documented Strategy. She creates a written strategy using the client’s own language to describe pain points and link them to her recommended solutions.
Hold a Review Session. The client receives the plan, comes with questions, and often realizes they want Sarah to implement it. That is where the transition to high-ticket work begins.
It is smart, fast, and strategic. The Gateway Offer gives Sarah market research, client clarity, and proof of value all at once. “By the end, you know exactly what your core offer should be because you start to see patterns,” she said.
Aggie and Cristy called it what it is: a masterclass in value-based selling.
Knowing When to Jump
Every entrepreneur faces a crossroads between the safety of a paycheck and the uncertainty of independence. Sarah does not romanticize that moment.
She was still the breadwinner when she left corporate. “I was scared,” she admitted. “That is why I took six months to reverse engineer myself into a position where I could leave confidently.”
For her, the leap was less about impulsive courage and more about calculated freedom. She recommends that anyone considering entrepreneurship take an honest look at their life circumstances first.
“What do you want your life to look like?” she asked. “If corporate fits your lifestyle, stay. But if you want more control, flexibility, or freedom for your family, plan for it. Build a runway.”
That measured approach reflects a maturity often missing from startup culture. Sarah proves that intentionality is just as powerful as bravery.
Scaling, Burning, and Rebuilding
Once Tiny Marketing took off, Sarah faced a new challenge: scaling.
She grew quickly, hiring a seven-person team and running what looked like a small agency. But soon, cracks began to show. She became a bottleneck, approving everything herself to maintain quality.
“When I did not approve things, they were not at the level I wanted,” she said. “So I became the bottleneck.”
The result was predictable: burnout.
So she did what many entrepreneurs are afraid to do. She burned it down.
“I changed my model completely,” she said. “I went from a big team to an intensive model, working with one client at a time.”
That shift was both a relief and a revelation. She found that intensives were her most profitable period. Fewer clients, less chaos, more focus.
But even that model had limits. Constantly selling intensives became exhausting. So she evolved again, returning to a smaller team with larger retainers and tighter focus.
“This is now my most profitable year,” she said. “A lean team and higher retainers. It works beautifully.”
The story illustrates a truth that resonates deeply with women founders: success is not a straight line. It is a cycle of building, burning, and rebuilding with more clarity each time.
The Confidence to Charge What You Are Worth
Early in her journey, Sarah struggled with pricing. Like many new entrepreneurs, she undervalued her work and accepted difficult clients out of fear.
“I perceived myself as less than,” she said. “Even though I had fifteen years of experience as a head of marketing, I did not feel confident as an entrepreneur.”
That lack of confidence attracted clients who mirrored her uncertainty. “They had the money to pay more, but they were cheap and hard to work for,” she said. “They treated me like a vendor instead of a partner.”
Her turning point came when she raised her prices and saw an immediate shift in how she was treated.
“Now my clients tell me straight up, ‘We are here because we want access to your brain,’” she said. “That is the difference between being a service provider and a strategic partner.”
Aggie noted that this shift changes everything about how a business operates. Higher-value clients respect boundaries, trust expertise, and bring long-term stability.
As Sarah put it simply, “I do not care if I lose twenty thousand dollars. If you are not aligned, I am not working with you.”
Boundaries Are a Business System
One of Sarah’s greatest strengths is her ability to set boundaries and keep them. From the start, she built her business with systems that protect her time.
“I had really thick boundaries from the beginning,” she said. “That is not normal for most entrepreneurs.”
Her boundaries include:
Defined communication times. She pauses her inbox using Boomerang and only checks it three times a day.
No Friday meetings. She protects her deep work and personal time at the end of the week.
Clear expectations in onboarding. Every client knows what to expect, when to expect it, and how to communicate.
She includes her schedule and communication policy in her email signature so there is never confusion.
“It is not about doing more,” she said. “It is about protecting your energy, because that protects your output.”
This structure allows her to operate from abundance, not scarcity. When clients violate boundaries, she walks away easily. “I just did that last week,” she said. “It was not even a hard decision.”
Aggie and Cristy agreed that setting boundaries early is a key indicator of business maturity. It shifts the dynamic from reaction to control, from exhaustion to intentionality.
Building Confidence Through Data
Confidence, for Sarah, is not a personality trait. It is a skill built through proof.
At first, she doubted herself even when her clients succeeded. “I used to think I was just getting lucky,” she said.
But as success became consistent, her perspective changed. “Now I know what I am doing. My clients get results over and over again. I have the data.”
She encourages entrepreneurs to use data to validate their impact. “Go back through your offboarding notes and client feedback,” she said. “If you are not sure what your strengths are, run that data through AI and ask it to identify common themes. You will see what people consistently value about your work.”
Confidence, in other words, is built on evidence. It is earned through reflection, feedback, and repetition.
The Freedom to Walk Away
At the end of the episode, Aggie asked Sarah what being a badass in business means to her.
Her answer was simple: “It means being able to walk away from whatever I want and knowing I will be fine.”
That level of self-trust is what every entrepreneur strives for: the ability to make decisions from strength rather than fear.
“I know if I have to let a client go, I will get another one,” she said. “I did not always have that, but I do now.”
It is a mindset that takes time to build. It comes from clarity about your value, discipline in your systems, and courage to protect what you have built.
Building a Business That Works for You
Sarah’s story is not about overnight success. It is about designing a business that serves your goals, supports your life, and evolves with you.
She has scaled up and scaled down, experimented and pivoted, failed and rebuilt. Each iteration has made her more intentional, more confident, and more in control.
For women entrepreneurs navigating growth and balance, her lessons are practical and empowering:
Test before you invest.
Charge what you are worth.
Protect your time like a CEO.
Treat confidence as a skill.
Build systems that support your future self.
Sarah Noel Block did not just burn it down. She built it better.
Connect with Sarah Noel Block
Website: sarahnoelblock.com
Media Page: sarahnoelblock.com/media-page
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarahnoelblock
Tiny Marketing Club: sarahnoelblock.com/tiny-marketing-club
Listen to the full conversation
Burn It Down and Build It Better: Sarah Noel Block on Confidence, Clients, and Control
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms.
