She was not to become one of the most successful women in direct sales. She had just lost her income, had no savings and needed to find a “proper job”. Instead, Sarah backed a young founder with five skincare products – and helped shape one of the UK’s fastest-growing beauty brands, turning guts, conviction and a well-strained cup of tea into a £125m business.
Every business has a moment before it becomes what it is known for. A time when it’s still just a handful of people, a great idea, and an awful lot of faith doing the heavy lifting.
Tropic also had one of those moments.
Long before our extensive product range, hundreds of awards and millions of customers, there was a small group of women sitting in a Heathrow hotel cafe trying to figure out if this small skincare brand could become something bigger. The answer, as it turns out, was yes.
Sarah was one of them.
Before the Tropic
Sarah didn’t arrive at the Tropic fresh and looking for a hobby. He arrived with serious experience. Before direct sales came into her life, she worked in fashion and retail buying, the kind of role that sounds glamorous, and it is, until you remember that it mostly involves graft, pressure and lots of other people deciding what counts as important. He knew exactly how business works – what sells, what doesn’t, and the difference between a good idea and something that’s all noise and no legs.
She also loved skin care. He loved it right. When he moved for work, everything changed. Her husband went to the police – what he always wanted to do – and Sarah began to piece together a different life. He had seen an ad for a direct sales company and, as he tells her, “seemed like a great way to meet people. I had never sold anything in my life. The market, at that time, was my thing.”
At first, by her own admission, she was “very rubbish”, traveling a lot and learning on the job. But over time, he built a solid business. Then the whole thing fell apart. The party changed hands and folded, leaving Sarah without a safety net. “I was owed a lot of money. I was left with nothing. There were no savings to fall back on, just my husband’s modest police salary.”
Sarah was left without a clear next step, beyond the obvious: go get a decent job.
And then he met our founder and CEO, Susie Ma.
The Heathrow years
At the time, Susie had five products. This was the whole range – a small, carefully developed version of skin care that had all the promise but needed an engine. Sarah tried them on and loved them immediately. “I thought these were amazing,” he says. But what really caught her eye wasn’t just the formulas – it was the woman behind them. “The biggest impact on me was meeting someone so passionate,” he recalls. “You could tell Susie knew exactly what she wanted from Tropic, and I knew I could help. I told her, we could do that, you know, we could sell it directly to people.”
So Sarah went home to break the news to her husband. “I said to Michael, ‘You’re going to be sad, because I know I had to get a proper job … but I met this lady who is incredible.’ His response? “He gave me the greatest gift. Full support. “Just do it,” he told me, “we’ll figure it out somehow.”
After the previous direct selling business, Sarah was left without a car. Her husband scraped together what he could to buy her a small Citroën to get around – a detail Sarah still laughs about. “That car almost killed me, actually.”
Sarah will meet with our other founding Ambassadors – Carol and Gill (who sadly passed away in 2024) – in a hotel cafe at Heathrow to plan their next steps. “None of us had any money,” he recalls. “We made a cup of tea last all day – I’m surprised they didn’t throw us out!”
But what made those days so empowering was that, as Sarah puts it, “they could literally see the future.” They knew what a good direct selling business could be if the products were great, the people championed, and the person running it had the right vision and purpose.
The feeling Sarah still has about Tropic reflects that early period: it was never just a commercial opportunity. It was a joint act of conviction. “It was our passion—we had no blueprint that told us this was actually going to work. We’d be talking until three in the morning about products, about makeup, about what the brand could be. It was just so exciting.”
And that faith never left.
Sarah still talks about new Ambassadors with the same enthusiasm on the same day. Just recently, one of her team called to say she had met someone who wanted to join. Sarah’s first tip was not a training manual. It was: “Step one, jump up and down and scream and get really excited because this is your first team member.”
The first signs that it was working
For Sarah, success didn’t come overnight.
She still remembers her first sales. He had gathered a small group of people to test the products and their orders reached 250 pounds. A year later, he did the exact same event with the same group of people. This time, the set was four times more. “With the same people, I’ve done £1,000 in sales. That’s the obvious growth – and it shows how amazing the products really are. People can’t get enough of them!”
The numbers themselves may seem small at first glance, but the trajectory was huge. The business grew exactly the way good businesses grow – steadily, naturally and by word of mouth.
What does Success mean?
Sarah knows what it’s like to have nothing. She remembers Christmas when there was no money for presents, no new decorations and her anxiety to try to create something happy while mentally counting every pound. “I thought, I never, ever want this to happen again,” she says. That memory still stays with her.
That’s why when Sarah talks about success now, she doesn’t describe it in abstract terms. For her, success is the freedom to be able to book the vacation she wants without looking at the price first. It’s the comfort of knowing that bills are taken care of before they even arrive. “It’s the brilliance of treating the people I love, like my amazing daughters and granddaughter, to life-enriching experiences” – and he doesn’t have to think twice about it.
And perhaps most importantly, it’s the ability to give back.
One of Sarah’s proudest moments came when she was able to return the favor to the man who stood by her all along. She bought her husband, Michael, an Aston Martin – a car she had admired for years but never imagined she would ever own. Buying this car was her way of saying thank you. “this was awe he made it“, she thinks.
Today, Sarah has built a Tropic business worth over £125mleads a community over 5,000 Ambassadorsand sits between the top 1% of UK earners. But when he thinks about what he’s built, it’s not the numbers that come first. It’s the people.
A Tropic Original
Sarah often jokes that she is the ‘Tropical Grandma’ to the thousands in her wider group. It’s a title he wears proudly, because the meaning behind it is real. Over the years, he has learned that leadership does not come from standing tall. It comes from standing by.
“You hold people’s hands until they have the confidence to do it themselves,” he says with characteristic clarity. Sarah’s philosophy has always been simple: give people the tools, belief and encouragement to succeed – and then watch what happens.
This approach has created something much bigger than a business. It has created culture. In Sarah’s world, it doesn’t matter if someone joined last week or sits generations deep in her team, when she succeeds, she celebrates it as if it were her own success.
That’s why some of her proudest memories aren’t her milestones, but the moments when someone else unlocks their potential. Watching a team member rise to the top of the business. Seeing someone step into the spotlight for the first time and share the journey that got them there. “These moments,” he says, “never lose their magic.”
The Ripple Effect
And this is ultimately the thread that runs through Sarah’s story. Yes, he built a remarkable business. Yes, he achieved financial freedom. Yes, she’s helped shape one of the UK’s fastest growing beauty brands since its early days. But what still excites her the most is the ripple effect.
Even now, when someone calls her and says they’re thinking about joining, she feels the same rush of excitement she did in the beginning. “The whole day changes,” he says. “Even the hardest day becomes the best day.”
Because Sarah knows exactly what that moment can be. If she could talk to the version of herself that almost chose the “right job,” her advice remains the same: “Follow your dream.”
And if you still don’t know what that dream is? “It’s okay,” he says. “It doesn’t matter at what stage in life you find it. What matters is recognizing it when it arrives and having the courage to say yes.”
Because sometimes the opportunity that changes everything starts very quietly. With five products. A battered Citroën. And a cup of tea that somehow lasts all day.
“If you have a passion for something, go with passion“, he says. “Because that will bring everything else with it. I could retire tomorrow, I just don’t want to. I love it so much.”
Sarah is celebrating a milestone birthday this year, but she treats age for what it is: just a number. “It’s my big birthday this year, so I’m renting this James Bond-style villa in Croatia.” She will also mark the occasion with her Tropic family in Ibiza, living it up at a mega club because, as Sarah puts it, “Why slow down? I’m having so much fun.”
It’s hard to think of a better summary of what direct selling actually offers, at best. No shortcut. Not a fantasy. But real businesses are built on real relationships – the ones that give others the opportunity to create something of their own and watch that potential ripple outward: to confidence, income, return and to the freedom to live life to the fullest.
If Sarah’s story has inspired you, then this is your sign that there is no right age, background or starting point. You don’t need to have sold anything before. You don’t need a tightly knit plan. You just need the willingness to follow your passion.
LEARN MORE
“Tropical Glow” by Sarah
Sarah’s glow isn’t just skin deep. It’s the unmistakable energy of someone who truly enjoys what they do – and has no intention of calling it quits anytime soon.
That said, a lifelong love of skincare certainly hasn’t hurt. So if you want to take a leaf out of one of our OG beauty books, here are Sarah’s Tropic favorites.
