Starting the Conversation

The podcast is celebrating today - thanks to your support Starting The Conversaton has reached 100K downloads, just before its 4th birthday! 4 years and 172 episodes in, this podcast has taught me a huge amount about effective marketing and in this episode I'm sharing the top 4. So tune in to hear my experience, advice and encouragement for your content marketing! ______ Join the waitlist for Stra...

After 2.5 years my teammate and first employee Emily is moving on to pastures new, so I thought it was a fitting farewell for us to record a final episode together and take a trip down memory lane.  I was intrigued to ask Emily about her experience being a part of my business and get her take on how the business has shifted and evolved.  So for one last time, join us for a rambling chat and a laug...

Huckletree Alpha Accelerator - https://www.huckletree.com/education/alpha Website - https://www.huckletree.com Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/huckletree/ The Big Red Box - https://www.thebigredbox.co _____ Happy new year! 2022, here we are! Before we kick off the new year, I just want to take a moment to reflect on 2021 and the Small Bizmas Party I hosted with my brilliant small business pa...

Welcome to the final day of 5 Days of Reflection!  Now we're so much more aware and in touch with what 2021 held, in today's final instalment we can start to think about what we want to carry with us in 2022, and what we want to leave in 2021.  To do this I'll take you through a Stop, Start and Continue framework and this is where reflection is so beneficial because we can use the previous season...

Welcome to the penultimate day of 5 Days of Reflection.  Today we're going to be taking the challenges we identified yesterday and using them to bridge the gap between the past season, and the new season we're stepping into.  So we're reflecting on what 2021 has taught us, and we're going to start with you as a person, a business owner, and we're going to be zooming out further and further to capt...

Here we are at Day 3, the halfway point already, and it's time to reflect on the more challenging stuff 2021 has held.  Today I'll walk you through how to look back at what has felt challenging and not so good in the last 12 months. It's key for us to reflect on the challenges as well as the wins, so we can take the learnings and the purpose from what's not felt so great.  So we're going to face t...

Welcome to day 2 of 5 Days of Reflection. Each day we will be building on the reflection from the day before so if you've not listened to day 1, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to that before we dive into day 2.   Today we're going to take 10 mins to look back on the last 12 months to identify what action, or what decisions have had the most impact on your business so we can learn what has...

Hello and welcome to 5 Days of Reflection!  5 Days of Reflection is here to help you round off the year and reflect on everything 2021 has held. I'll be showing up every day this week for just 10 - 15 mins to help you acknowledge and celebrate everything you have achieved in the last 12 months.  I know as business owners it's so easy to move on to the next thing without taking time to stop, but I...

If you follow me on Instagram you'll be very aware by now that my second business, on paper , launched last week! It's been roughly 6 weeks since I decided to launch a product-based business and it's been quite the journey, let me tell you, so today on the podcast I wanted to let you into what that's looked like, the highs and the lows.  My teammate Emily is joining me to ask me some questions abo...

This week I have a VERY special guest, Catrina Benham, AKA my Mum. You might remember my Dad has joined me on the podcast so it was only right to invite my mum as well, and I really wanted to ask her about her experience of working as a female leader in a male-dominated environment.  So join us for this conversation about leading as yourself, leaning into your strengths and knowing the value you b...

Today I'm chatting with Harriet, furniture maker, owner of Sully the sausage dog and founder of The Cornish Rae.  After her husband suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2018 Harriet started working with furniture as a form of therapy and it's grown into her full-time job from there.  In this episode, Harriet shares some of the challenges she's faced in turning a hobby into a business and why it's...

It's been a long couple of years for us business owners, the elf-employed if you will! Sorry, I couldn't resist!  We're SO proud of everything you've achieved and with that in mind, we've decided to throw a party for small business owners who want a chance to relax and unwind with the people who well and truly GET it. So join me, Alice Benham, along with the brilliant Rachel Waring & Ellie Kime my...

A few months ago I shared 3 of the top challenges I was facing in growing and scaling my service-based business, and it really resonated with a lot of you!   We're surrounded by everyone's highlights reel and I know I love it when I hear people speak openly about the less shiny side of running a business, I think it's really important to share the challenges as well as all the good stuff.  So in t...

Today I'd want to talk to you about 3 of the most common mistakes I see people make in their marketing strategy.  Now, I'm not here to shame anyone, and these are all mistakes that I've made myself. This doesn't make us bad business owners, we just need to normalise making mistakes and know how to move forward.  Marketing strategy is like building an eco-system, so in this episode, I want to encou...

It's been a heavy few weeks on the podcast so this week I wanted to have some fun! After 2.5 years of making this podcast, I was intrigued to listen to some old episodes and see how my opinions, my outlook and my voice has changed.  Join me and my teammate, Emily, as we listen back to some snippets of past episodes to see if I still stand by my advice and take a look at how far the business and po...

The idea of having a sustainable business, a sustainable online presence and sustainable marketing is becoming a more mainstream conversation and I am so here for it!  A few weeks ago we all got a taste of what life and business would be like without a number of digital platforms, highlighting the need for a more sustainable strategy. So today I want to walk you through 4 elements that make sustai...

In this second episode on the topic of trolling or being bullied online, I wanted to share and discuss 5 things that helped me and continue to help me with what I experienced.  My hope for this episode is that if you've experienced bullying yourself that this can bring you some extra support or comfort and if not, to give you a few tips to keep in your toolkit if this does ever arise.  I'd love to...

Do not panic, it's not Monday morning, I have in fact swapped to uploading new episodes on a Tuesday and I'm here with not one, but two new podcast episodes for you today.  It's a big topic we're tackling this week, so I wanted to bring you double the helping to firstly share my experience with you and secondly to offer some advice and encouragement if you're going through a similar thing.  So thi...

My latest launch had the lowest uptake since I started offering group programmes back in 2019, and for the first time ever, I didn't get a single sign up on the first day - BUT it was the best I've ever felt launching a programme. Join me and my teammate Emily to discuss how we approached this launch, what we've learnt from taking a new approach and why prioritising impact over sales is so key.  S...

Well, hello!   After nearly 5 weeks off, I'm back! So I thought it only right to bring you a bonus podcast episode so we can have a catch-up and share some of my highs and lows of stepping away from my business in August.   Coming back to the business this week feels like an opportunity to press reset and I'm looking forward to getting back into a routine, with lots of exciting things coming up! ...

As business owners, it's easy to fall into the trap of seeing busyness as a measure of success, but being busy doesn't always mean you're being productive.  Joining me today is Sarah Boyle - A positive productivity mentor to chat all about how to do the focused work that moves you forward, not just filling the hours.  As Sarah so wisely shares in this episode, productivity is a skill we can learn...

It's been a while since my teammate Emily and I did a BTS episode, so for the final episode of this season we wanted to have a quick sit down to have a chat about how we're both feeling coming out of lockdown, and how this looks when you run a business.  In the last 18 months, we've thrown ourselves into work but now as we look to our "new normal" we want to establish some new habits to put work b...

Confidence is so key when you run a business because as we know, you can have all your plans and strategies in place but if you don't have the confidence to consistently implement it, you don't get very far.   My guest today is Kira Matthews, AKA Kira The Bold, an incredible coach who helps creatives build unshakable confidence. In this episode, we sit down to chat about all things confidence, how...

You know I'm all about sharing the challenges in running a business, especially as we're in a space that glorifies the shiny stuff and the highlights reel, but there is always so much behind the scenes that you don't see.   I typically share challenges in hindsight, for many reasons, but today I wanted to give you a look at some of the challenges I'm working through in my business right now.  I wa...

In today's episode, I am sitting down with someone who I've wanted to get on the podcast forever - and that is the brilliant Emma from BeauTie who I'm sure you're familiar with as our resident scrunchie cult leader.  Emma is an amazing business owner and a walking example of how success doesn't come to any business overnight, and how challenges and failures can actually be an opportunity to change...