About Zahra
Business CoacH
My name is Zahra Efan. I am the creator of the feminine business model. My passion lies in helping female service providers such as coaches, healers and holistic practitioners market their businesses and make really good money doing it.
Zahra – My Story
Having lived in three different continents provided me with the sensitivity to learn about different cultures as well as learn to market to the needs of individuals from a diverse background.
Having lived through very difficult circumstances, feeling that as a woman I couldn’t express my voice as it wasn’t safe, put me on the path to help others find their voice.
After migrating to Canada from the UK in 1994, I landed my first marketing job. Being the no. 1 salesperson in my work as a marketing manager at a previous position allowed my company to become no. 1 in the whole district under my management.
I learnt most of my sales training from a masculine perspective. There was something in me itching to teach sales from a feminine perspective, but I equated being a woman to being weak because of my life experiences. I did put an armor of strength to protect myself, but that wasn’t authentic me.
It was when I owned my strength and power as a woman, I was comfortable in expressing what it means to create a business like a woman.
When I finally made a decision and surrendered to my natural gifts, I realized women are the leaders of relationships, and marketing is all about relationships.
I learnt that my independence was at times a trauma response that protected me from getting hurt. In order to create a lasting success. I needed to embrace inter-dependence, and create supportive relationships to support me.
Once I let others support me and collaborated with others, my business started to flourish with ease.
My professional accomplishments include co-authoring two Amazon best-selling books, one of them published alongside famous Canadian singer Jann Arden and Bif Naked. I write an award-winning newsletter monthly. I have also been published alongside Debbie Ford in a magazine and have written many magazine articles both off and online.
I have spoken on TV about the principles of abundance, and have been interviewed on several radio shows and 60+ on and offline summits about marketing, including one with famous book series Guerrilla Marketing. I am also a keynote speaker. Some of my talks include speaking on Vancouver Top Entrepreneurs and Business Goddess Festival.
I have worked with many high-profile clients, helping them market their healing and coaching businesses. An example would be a doctor who wanted to promote a holistic way of doing medicine. Another service professional I have worked with is a lawyer wanting to promote her Feng Shui business. I have also worked with many energy workers, healers, and coaches.
I am also a Certified Coach, specifically a Money Breakthrough Method Coach who continues to train in different modalities needed for the growth of my clients, including the ‘Wealth Through Workshop.’ I am always learning the best ways to serve my clients. Training with Debbie Ford in ‘shadow work’ helps me support my clients with getting out of their shadows of lack and step into abundance.
“Zahra took my idea and helped me turn it into a profitable company in less than four months!”
Why I do what I do:
I grew up in a family that was many things, but two of these things were: ‘wealthy’ and ‘dysfunctional.’ In my mind, wealth became associated with that dysfunction. This was reinforced daily by seeing the ways rich and powerful people abused their status. I had a very negative relationship with money and wealthy people.
I didn’t like them. They hurt and controlled others. They misused money. In my mind, money was bad. Power was bad. People with money and power were very bad indeed.
And so, in reaction to that, the only people I surrounded myself with were people who were broke. I felt safe around people who were not wealthy.
This was the catch-22 I’d been in for years.
I was an entrepreneur who needed money. I needed to network and make connections with people in greater positions of wealth and power than me. But I hated them.
Then, one day, it happened: I was hurt by someone I really trusted who didn’t have money. Wow.
This blew my mind.
I realized money has little to do with someone’s character. Being poor doesn’t make people good. Being rich doesn’t make them bad.
I began to see there were some wealthy people who had the power to do good by helping others. I began to find examples of wealthy people who did good things with their money (even if it was only in the media at first). Suddenly, I needed to re-evaluate my relationship with money from scratch.
Here is the truth: I ran away from making money because if rich people were bad that would mean I would be bad. But now…that was all up in the air. I decided to build a successful business.
I decided I wanted to make a good living.
I decided I wasn’t ‘bad’ for wanting to do that.
Suddenly, it was all clear to me. I needed to question my beliefs around money and wealthy people. I needed to stop judging wealth and power if my business was ever going to work. I needed to stop sabotaging my success.
Looking back now, I feel this economic and spiritual crisis prepared me to teach what I learnt during that very critical period in my life. Little did I know my future life was being built from the rubble.
I find women business owners hold themselves back due to the influence of patriarchy on us. We always think ‘we don’t have enough,’ ‘we don’t know enough,’ and ‘we are not enough.’
Having healed my own money wounds, I now help women internationally to create successful businesses, in my yearly programs, and living in a one-and-a half-a-million-dollar home. Money and a nice house in itself don’t mean as much; what matters in creating all of this is the turnaround I experienced in my living circumstances and how it is possible for other women to do that no matter what the circumstances may be.
Helping women make money to me means helping them step into their power, express their voices, and create great value while changing the world at the same time. It is my mission to help women create greater wealth by sharing their gifts and making a difference.