About Sally
I teach small business owners the planning skills they were never shown.
I've been planning projects since long before I had a business or a website, or any idea that I'd end up helping other do the same.
People come to me when they've signed up to Asana but it hasn't helped,
because nobody taught them what to put into it.
Where this started
It started while I was still at school, learning stage management and technical theatre, including a couple of years at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. From there it was live events, festivals, music touring and corporate events. Over twenty years of it, in one guise or another, working alongside the actual creative talent, artists, performers, directors, without ever being the talent myself (apart from a bad cornish accent!)
Nobody sat me down and taught me project management as a subject. I learned it because the show had to go on, whether or not everything had gone to plan to get there.
And occasionally it didn't. I've had an artist jump straight out of a black cab and onto a stage with minutes to spare. I've had a performers stuck on a flying track above fifteen thousand people, and the only reason that ended calmly was because everyone on the team already knew exactly what to do if it happened. I've had an assistant not wake up on time in Paris, because nobody had thought to flag the time difference, back when phones didn't update themselves automatically.
None of it was ever really about the crisis itself. It was about whether the plan underneath it could hold.
What this taught me
For years I assumed that was just the divide - you can plan or not plan.
I don't think that any more. It's a skill, not a personality trait. It can be taught, to almost anyone, the same way event project management was taught to me.
Why I do this now
Over the years, I've worked for plenty of businesses, and watched capable business owners look at their own year ahead and see nothing but chaos. Not because they're disorganised, because nobody ever taught them how to take their idea and turn it into a plan.
That's the actual reason my business exists. Not because I think I'm brilliant at everything! Because I've now seen both sides of it - the arena floor, where a plan has to hold under real pressure, and the office, where an idea just sits on a to-do list because nobody ever showed the person whose list it is how to break it down.
How I work
Just one way. Too many options is just another way to get stuck, so I teach one clear way through.
I teach you to run the next project yourself, not needing to hire someone every time.
No jargon. If it wouldn't make sense said out loud to a friend, it doesn't belong
I'm a ADHD Practitioner and Certified Business Strategist, and I'm currently working towards a Level 3 Award in Education and Training. Knowing how to do something and knowing how to teach it well are two different skills. I didn't want to assume I had the second just because I've got the first.
The rest of the trust has to be earned in how I actually show up. I'm not a natural in front of a camera. I still hit record, because that's exactly what I ask you to do with the thing on your list - stop waiting to feel ready, and just get started. If I'm not willing to do the boring, slightly uncomfortable bit myself, I've got no business teaching you to do yours.
I want you to look at your to-do list differently, pause before you write something vague on it, and know what you're actually looking at, before it has the chance to sit there for a year.
Done properly, this gives you back your time, not just progress.
If that's where you are right now, you don't need another pep talk. Start with The Breakdown. It's free, it takes five minutes, and it'll tell you whether what's stuck on your list is actually a project.
©️ 2026 Sally Machin | All right reserved
