The Small & Supercharged Podcast

If you've always thought that a merchandiser was solely concerned with how to display product, think again, there's a LOT more to this role than you (or I!) might think, as Sarah Giddings, founder of The Stables Retail Consultancy shares on today's podcast. On this episode, Sarah talks about her journey from high street powerhouse Next to starting her own business, how we can all apply some big br...

Awareness days can be an incredible part of your content calendar, and a huge force for good. Some brands get on board and promote the messaging, raise money for the cause or charity, and generally do really good, positive things that help truly support the cause. And some, don't. As we emerge from October and Breast Cancer Awareness month, I have been genuinely saddened to see some brands exploit...

Childs Farm is a brand I know well, thanks to one of my children using a whole lot of it when he was small, but I didn't know all about the lady behind the brand until we chatted for this week's podcast- and what a lady she is! Joanna Jensen started her Childs Farm journey in response to her own daughter's need for something that helped her skin but also smelt nice and made bath times fun. As her...

2024 might feel close, but with over 60 days to go, there's still a lot of time to make a difference. Please don't wait for the clock to strike midnight and the New Year to begin, act now! Why do we wait when we can act? And how much progress do we miss out on when we put these dates in our heads that make us pause in the pursuit of our dreams? On today's episode, I'm sharing my views on this and...

What happens when you mix Emily Cole Illustrations with Designed for Dogs? I'll tell you what you get, the most incredible collaboration of dog beds, toys, blankets and more. And that's what we are talking about on today's podcast! The Emily Cole X Designed for Dogs range soft launched at Burghley Horse Trials and is now online, so I took the opportunity to catch up with Emily and Holly to talk ab...

Criticism can feel very personal, can't it? When people critique your performance, product or offering and tell you everything that's wrong, it can create feelings of anger, annoyance, frustration and so much else. But constructive criticism? That can be a complete game changer. It can help you identify areas of growth and development, find blind spots, develop your offering, and take your product...

Are you truly happy? I don't mean that fleeting happiness that is the result of a singular good thing and goes away quickly, I mean a deep down happiness with where you are in life. Yep- it's a deep question. On today's podcast, I talk about happiness, a feeling of being stuck, and pro active steps you can take to improve your happiness on a fundamental level- if you want to. It can be hard to get...

Multi-stream income, multi-stream marketing, posh ways of saying don't put your business eggs all in one basket. That's what today's podcast is all about. Over the last few weeks, I've been on the radio a fair amount regarding a comedian and how monetisation on one of his platforms has been turned off. Regardless of the reasons behind this, it struck me as a good reason to record a podcast about t...

'You're so lucky!', 'That was a stroke of luck!', 'You get all the luck!'... or even 'Yep, I was so lucky!'. Do any of these sound familiar? I've been doing a whole lot of interviewing and chatting over the past few weeks, and I've heard so many people say 'I've been really lucky' and statements of that ilk, that it got me thinking about luck, hard work, and why we seem to confuse the two. On this...

Louise Robertson has her own business in North Wales where she teaches first aid to people in the outdoors, works with Mountain Rescue, and facilitates a variety of outdoor pursuits... but this hasn't always been the case. In fact, Lou was incredibly unconfident at school and went through the majority of her life to date believing she was stupid and would never achieve anything. Until everything c...

Are you busy? Stressed? Stretched? In the world we live in today, most people feel these things from time to time (sometimes at the same time), but that doesn't mean you should count yourself out. What do I mean by this? I see an increasing number of posts on social media at the moment that, on the surface seem to offer support... but the undertone - in my opinion at least- encourages people to sc...

Georgia Plimbley has a significant Instagram following of 200k plus, something that grew over a short space of time as Georgia started to share more and more of her passion for working horses at liberty (without saddle or bridle) and the connection this brought. But this isn't where it started for Georgia, as today's podcast explains. Georgia has worked on films as a rider, performed tricks on hor...

Do you reflect? Reflection is a huge part of coaching and mentoring. Being able to look at situations for the highs and lows, the wins and the woes, to find the clues that give us the opportunity to develop further is really useful. It can help you highlight areas where you're an utter rockstar, which can then feed into your self awareness connected to strengths and weaknesses. It can also highlig...

Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials is an iconic event on the eventing and general equestrian calendar, but this year, it's a bit different. 2023 is the first year that Stable Events will be running Blenheim, and I took the opportunity to catch up with the event organiser, Katrina Midgley, to get all the information for you. Although Stable Events is new to Blenheim, it has an impressive po...

Over the last few weeks, we've seen a pretty dramatic rebrand that saw an iconic blue bird (and a whole language created around it) replaced with a black X. Seemingly overnight. This is a pretty unusual rebrand, and that's what inspired me to chat all about the whys and wherefores of rebranding- why you might want to, evolution, messaging, loyalty, cost... the list goes on! I hope you enjoy this o...

BETA International is the UK's trade show for equestrian and country businesses. It takes place in September, is held at Stoneleigh, and is a great place to network, see new products, and speak to the people behind the best known brands in the equestrian and country community. On this episode of the podcast, I caught up with Claire Williams, Executive Director of the British Equestrian Trade Assoc...

There aren't many people that have escaped the Barbie-mania that has swept over the Uk over the last few months, and that's far from accidental. Barbie the toy has always been a little bit of a crowd splitter, with people liking or hating the doll that was seen to symbolise a lot about women, but the film... that hit differently.  As someone who was most definitely in the 'not a fan' camp, I start...

What a treat you're in for today- pun intended! On today's podcast, I chat to Lucy Millar, the lovely lady behind Run Dog Food, which is a cold pressed dog food brand for working and pet dogs that launched at the start of the pandemic. Lucy's dedication to creating truly exceptional food for dogs is inspiring, and as you'll learn from our chat, it wasn't an easy road. Lucy talks about what cold pr...

Threads has been everywhere since it launched less than a week ago. With Meta's latest app receiving 100 million plus sign ups (which is incredible) in just a few days, I wanted to share some tips and thoughts to help you get to grips with Threads (if you'd like to!). On this episode, I explain where it fits in the social media landscape, why I like it, what's missing, and plenty more besides. I'v...

Niki Baxter of Baxter Equine Services is well known in the equestrian space for her stunning clips, perfect plaits and sharp quarter marks, but she's also had her fair share of viral content and the trolls and opinions that come with it. One of Niki's videos recently received well over 150 million views, and the comments she received provided a great opportunity to discuss whether going viral is a...

Have you every been impersonated online? A couple of weeks ago I was, and I wanted to share what I learnt, in case it ever happens to you. I also wanted to share some tips around how to spot a faux account. My impersonator (affectionately referred to as 'fake me') did a really good job. They took lots of elements from my account and bio, targeted people I knew, and bizarrely even promoted a course...

Nermina Pieters-Mekic is a singer, a songwriter, a mum, a model, a Real Housewife of Cheshire and is also the founder of new equestrian brand Equidae London. On this episode of the podcast, Nermina talks to us about how she came to this point, what makes Equidae different, her hopes for the future, and also takes us behind the scenes on the research and development side of the collection that has...

What are you values? As in, what things are important to you and influence your behaviour and thoughts? As part of my ILM Level 7 in Coaching & Mentoring, and NLP Master Practitioner and Coach certification, I've done a lot of work around values and how these can drive us. You might think you know what your values are, you might have a vague idea, or you might not really know, but I've found doing...

Emma Blundell is the Managing Director of Mount St John, a well known stud based in Yorkshire that focuses on the mares, instead of the stallions, and has changed the face of breeding in the UK and beyond. What started as a university project quickly developed into a business which saw Emma use embryo transfer to allow top class mares to compete and breed at the same time, much like well known sta...

Should you ever work for free? On this episode of the podcast, I'm going to talk about seven reason why you might want to work for free, and seven reasons why you shouldn't. This is a subject that I talk about and ponder a fair amount. Whether it's when I have been asked to give my time for free, or when it's talking to others as they work out whether or not they should.  Whatever job you do, you'...