Meet Hank and Sharyn Yuloff, Your Small Business Coach’s
Q: What inspired or led you to your current career?
Hank: It started when I was in college working for my college newspaper. I was selling advertising and then I was the ad manager. I came to realize that these folks who had put their life savings into a business were trusting a 20 something-year-old kid who didn’t even have his degree yet help them build their business and get people through their doors. I realized I was pretty good at it. After that I started working for a direct mail company and a couple of newspapers. My audience was small business owners. From the selling of advertising I ended up working for a promotional products company. What set me apart there was that I was offering marketing help while selling them things with their logos, knowing that eventually it was going to lead toward coaching them and working in that way. I wound up with a client who needed human resources help, so I reached across the marital bed and said, “Hey Babe…”
Sharyn: I joined about 12 years ago and brought in my HR and back-office systems to be able to support our small business clients in addition to Hank’s marketing and sales background.
Hank: We started the business knowing that clients would come here. We had 20 or 30 different clients come to Sedona. We’d work with them a couple of days here and continue all our processes with them when they went home. Their business would get to pay for a vacation in Sedona for a few days, and they would get training while here.
Q: How long have you lived in Sedona and what brought you here?
Sharyn: It’s been six and a half years.
Hank: We came because when my mom passed away, my dad had all sorts of timeshare weeks and gave us the book. And we’re looking through pretty red rocks while here. We ended up visiting seven times in six years before moving here. I think it was the fourth or fifth trip when we started realizing we could come here and go to a coffee shop, do our work in the morning and look around in the afternoon. We could do our work right here instead of living in LA.
Q: Living here in Sedona, do you do a lot of remote work?
A: We do virtual. Because of COVID we now had clients in the US, France, Canada and the UK. We were leaving Sedona every month anyway. We were speaking on someone’s stage talking about marketing and business around the country. We were gathering clients from everywhere, and then with COVID now we’re just doing it in our studio.
Q: Who is the most interesting person you’ve met here in Sedona?
Hank & Sharyn: There’s this real estate agent, Jonelle Klein. She’s insanely amazing, absolutely the most giving, wonderful, thoughtful, and brilliant woman. The first name that came to me besides Jonelle was Sandy Moriety or Teri Ruiz. When we met her she was working for the Sedona Chamber in Membership. She later worked for the Sedona Library, and now she’s doing some other things.
Q: Is there anyone (dead or alive) with whom would you love to have dinner? Why?
Sharyn: Hank’s mom.
Hank: I’m gonna go with Rachel Maddow because she’s my nightly civics lesson.
Q: What one piece of advice were you given that changed your life?
Sharyn: I can only go with what the first thing that came to mind, which is something my mom gave me and my two siblings, namely a button not to question authority. And then she ruined the day because we all questioned HER authority! ha-ha.
Hank: I have been very fortunate to have had a lot of business mentors over the years. I will go with one bit of advice that allowed us greater focus on our business. As the business evolved, we had a promotional product business that was morphing into coaching and we had started writing books. We got the idea of having a publishing company for first-time authors that would then lead to seminars around the country for them. In a session at a mastermind group we spoke to a comedian who said, ”I appreciate that you’re an entrepreneur. I applaud it, but just because you have an idea for a business doesn’t mean you’re the one who has to create it.” And within a week we had pared down what we were doing and focused on our coaching, and our business took off wonderfully from that point. So focus, focus!
Q: When a friend comes to visit you in Sedona, where do you take them? What do you do with them?
We take them to Red Rock Café and the Hideaway House. We also take them to our balcony for sunset. If they want an easy hike, they hike up our stairs to the balcony if they want something more complicated then Devil’s Bridge.
Q: How would your closest friend describe you?
Hank to Sharyn: She’s giving, and gives of herself freely.
Sharyn to Hank: Heartfelt.
Q: What advice would you give to a crowd of people?
A: When marketing your business, be consistent in what you’re doing.
Q: What is something interesting that most people don’t know about you?
Hank: Decorated the Rose Parade for 17 years. A dozen trophies, Sweepstakes three times.
Sharyn: My first reading and written language was Hebrew.
Q: What three words come to mind when you think of the word “home”?
Sharyn: Tessie, Mookie, and Pesky.
Hank: Sanctuary, Breathtaking and Comfortable.
