indie business club

This episode was recorded in front of a live studio audience at You Are The Media’s Creator Day 2026. Huge thanks to FOUNDRY for hosting us - check out their coworking spaces in London and across the South coast (Eastbourne, Poole, Walthamstow, Hove, Wandsworth and Bromley) right here . I’m joined by a coupla LinkedIn legend Dave Harland and Lea Turner. Accidentally done two Lea episodes in a row...

This episode is about the pros and cons of being (in my case, very mildly ) famous in your industry I’m joined by LinkedIn legend, founder of The HoLT, and all-round wonderful human Lea Turner. Lea knows a thing or two about being famous - she’s built a following of over 208k followers across LinkedIn, Instagram and Threads. In the episode we talk about… - how Lea built her huge following - what’s...

How to use a newsletter to grow your business💌 This time, I’m joined by Molly Scanlan to discuss how to grow your business using the ancient (okay, at least decades-old) art of writing newsletters. Like this one. But do as I say, not as I do. We talked about… - why you should start (or resurrect) your newsletter in 2026 - how a newsletter isn’t the same thing as email marketing - examples of news...

I blagged a mini strategy session from the wonderful Charelle Griffith 👌 In episode 34, Charelle talked us through how to do our annual plan. I then asked her for a little bonus chat at the end about how she thinks I should grow this podcast. Her first question absolutely stumped me. Why do I want to grow this podcast? Errrrr… 🤷‍♀️ In brief - to build my profile, help as many people as I can, ho...

Make 2026 the year you promote the absolute heck out of yourself 👌 This time, I’m joined by Gus Bhandal to talk about ways you can build up some good old fashioned hysteria for your personal brand and your business. Gus is a LinkedIn expert. I have an unhealthy relationship with LinkedIn. So of course we gave the platform some air time :) But we also talked about… how speaking at events has grown...

Create a plan to make 2026 your best year in business yet 👌 Producer Ant says this might be his favourite episode so far. But is he just hyping me up since it’s my first episode of the post-Ben era? 🤔 Have a listen and let me know what you think. My first guest co-host is Charelle Griffith, a business growth strategist, award-winning Chartered Marketer, event speaker and The Annual Planning Quee...

This is the last episode I recorded with Ben before he left the podcast . If you didn’t want to do your CPD homework you just had to say so, Ben 😏 This will be the last indie business club episode for a little while. I’m going to take some time off to plan out how to move forward with it. But whatever the format ends up being, I’ll definitely have… indie business insights guest co-hosts and my so...

When we covered the topic before (in episode 14 Handbags and Gladrags ), we set ourselves the goal of becoming an award-winning podcast. And if you want to be award-winning, you have to actually enter awards. Even Oscar winners have to be put before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences “for your consideration” . So we stuck in our application. Indie business club got shortlisted in the...

Ben and I are on our way to Manchester today for CopyCon 🤩 I spoke at the event last year and the year before that, our Copy Or Die pal Dave Harland spoke. Dave’s meeting us there and this time, we're looking forward to a totally talk-responsibility-free CopyCon with lots of learning, loadsa laughs, and hopefully a sizeable karaoke sesh. We do love giving an event talk, though. Last week we spoke...

This episode is called All These Things That I’ve Done and it’s all about how to put together a portfolio to show off what you can do. We look at… creative ways to give a good account of yourself why it’s best to get something out there, even if it’s just “for now” the importance of making your portfolio as “you” as you can Make sure you subscribe to the channel to get your bell poked when the You...

This episode is called Moving Pictures and it’s all about using video to market yourself and your business. We look at… why some people would rather poo in their hands and clap than record themselves reasons you might want to consider choosing videos over doing the above how to get over yourself and get started I’m currently editing the video version of this episode, which will go on YouTube by th...

Want to trick people into buying from you? Then read on! Jokes, that’s deeply unethical, please don’t do that. Today’s pod episode is a bit special. Firstly, it’s episode 30 (toot toot 🎺) and secondly, we’ve got a guest! He’s the host of the UK’s #1 marketing podcast and he’s also probably the UK’s #1 “marketer who could trick you into buying something from him” (but he won’t coz he’s a nice guy)...

This episode is brought to you by Copy Or Die , the copywriting agency we work at, which Ben co-founded with Dave Harland. If you say you listen to the podcast we’ll probably give you I dunno, 0.05% off or something. Subscribe now Hi, Mel here, Today’s episode is all about starting a podcast. In our first attempt at recording our last episode (on starting something new), we rambled on and on about...

This episode is brought to you in partnership with Nikki Pilkington - SEO expert, copywriter, legend, and friend of the show. You can get 20% off Nikki’s full SEO course and on-page SEO toolkit with our code IBC20 . Learn more at nonwankyseo.com Today’s episode is all about starting something new . It’s called Roll With It (we promise we aren’t just jumping on the Oasis bandwagon…) In the episode,...

Hi, Mel here, Today’s episode is all about audio branding. And so, we’ve brought in the expert! Of course, it’s sound guy (and sound guy) our producer and theme composer Ant Henderson *insert big cheering noises here - it’s what he’d want* Subscribe now We talk about why audio branding works how to insert a little audio magic into your business our favourite jingles (maybe we mentioned yours?) tho...

Today’s episode is all about outsourcing. Are you an outsourcer? Or an outsourceee? Or both? Did I just make up those words? At least one of them. Either way, to keep it easy we’re using “outsourcing” to cover any projects that are done by someone who’s not on the payroll. We discuss the pros and cons, what to watch out for if you’re outsourcing, how to be a good outsourceee (we should use more tr...

Today’s episode is all about testimonials. But just before we get into it… we’re incredibly excited about this 👇 We’re doing a Marketing Meetup webinar with Michelle L P Boland all about how to grow your marketing freelance / consultancy business in 2025. Doing a TMM webinar is major #Goals so please help us make it a success by coming along ! 😄 We’ll talk all about how we’ve each built our busi...

This earlier-than-expected episode is called Let’s Go Surfing* and it’s a LIVE Q&A episode recorded at FOUNDRY Poole as part of Creator Day 2025. Extra special thanks to Mark Masters at You Are The Media for organising the space and inviting us to record our first live episode *TV announcement voice* recorded in front of a live studio audience. Thank you to the team at FOUNDRY as well for taking s...

This episode is called Separated by Motorways and it's all about working with your friends. We’re at Creator Day today. So the YouTube video will be up in the next week or so. Here we are at last year’s event, which was only the second time we’d met in person. This photo was taken at FOUNDRY, where we’re recording a live podcast Q&A episode tomorrow morning. Let us know your indie business/freelan...

Episode 22 is called Bloc Party and it's all about celebrating your wins as a freelancer, founder, or indie business owner. Subscribe n Are you good at celebrating wins? Lots of freelancers, founders and indie business owners are rubbish at it. You hit a goal, you tick it off, you move on. Rinse, repeat. But if you don’t stop to enjoy the wins (however small) it can make everything feel like an en...

Episode 21 is called Got Your Money and it's all about pricing work as a freelancer, founder, or indie business owner. If you enjoy the show, you can chip in on our production costs with a £3 contribution at ko-fi.com/indiebusinessclub please and thank you 💖 Pricing was the first topic we ever covered way back in episode one, released 27th June 2024. No need to listen to that one. Our sound quali...

Episode 20 (TWENTY! 🥳) is called Joy Division and it's all about work-life balance. If you enjoy the show, you can chip in on our production costs at ko-fi.com/indiebusinessclub please and thank you 💖 We first discussed the topic way back on our LinkedIn lives (we should bring those back). At the time, I had a lot going on and found the subject quite triggering. On the show, we discuss: whether...

Episode 19 of indie business club podcast is coming at you faster than usual. We recorded a second episode on conferences, called Daytripper, so we could include feedback we got from LinkedIn. If you missed our first conferences episode, The Day We Caught The Train is here . If you enjoy the show, you can chip in on our production costs at ko-fi.com/indiebusinessclub please and thank you 💖 Voicen...

Episode 18 of indie business club podcast is called The Day We Caught The Train and it’s all about going to conferences, networking, and events as an indie business owner. In it, we cover: the CPD benefits of attending industry conferences the other reasons it’s well worth going how to decide which events to attend If you enjoy the show, you can chip in on our production costs at ko-fi.com/indiebu...

Episode 17 of indie business club podcast is called Hanging On The Telephone and it’s all about professional ghosting. In it, we cover: reasons why prospective clients might ghost you ways to try and prevent it happening what to do if you do get ghosted and if you’re ghosted on payment, this blog from FreeAgent might be useful If you enjoy the show, you can chip in on our production costs at ko-fi...