Business Live: for curious entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs

Leon Smith is Chief Customer Officer at educational publisher Twinkl. The Sheffield-based firm employs over a thousand people and has produced specialist resources to support schools and educators in welcoming pupils arriving from overseas for many years.

Now, in response to growing demand, the EdTech giant has launched a curated collection of these (and new) resources, many of which are free to access, to provide guidance on how educators can support and welcome students whose first language is not English. There are also packs to help parents and educators explain current affairs and  upsetting news stories to children and young people.

Leon, a former teacher, tells me more about the range of resources and the impact they are designed to have. Plus she updates us on recent developments at Twinkl – and what her role as chief customer officer involves. We delve into user experience and marketing too.

Also in this episode: details of three fantastic grant funding opportunities:

• £50,000 grants and mentoring, coaching and business support in the Women in Innovation Awards. Deadline 13 October.
• Grants of up to £10,000 through the South Yorkshire Health and Wellbeing Mayoral Community Fund – but be quick, the closing date is 9am on Monday 13 September. Details.
• Innovate UK's Healthy ageing challenge – more about this on the UKRI website; closing date 17 November 2021.

And some events: a couple of years ago I visited the Megatron, part of a network of underground river tunnels and Victorian storm drains beneath Sheffield City Centre. This watery cavern is an engineering marvel. Public tours have resumed so grab your chance. Plus the free People Communities Together festival.

Timings:

• 0:00 - 16:39 Leon Smith, Twinkl.
• 16:39 New research demonstrates managers are focusing more on output than hours worked – and this improves recruitment and retention.  It's from the Working Families Benchmark Report.
• 19:30 Grants and funding: Innovate UK Women in Innovation Awards | South Yorkshire Health and Wellbeing Mayoral Community Fund | Innovate UK's Healthy ageing challenge.
• 24:41 How to visit the Megatron in Sheffield on the 12, 19 or 26 September | People Communities Together Festival

When shoemaker Hewlett & Co started working with Amanda Perry, the Louth-based firm made around £2,000 per month in online sales. "We knew there was something there and quite quickly took them to £150,000 months," says Amanda, founder of digital marketing agency Soup and the E-com Growth Hub.

It's a remarkable tale in an episode crammed with them – Amanda says many businesses have increased sales by a factor of 25 through working with her team, and Soup itself has grown dramatically too.

Soup specialises in results-driven performance marketing for e-commerce brands. The E-com Growth Hub is a community and learning platform for small product business owners. Both are getting dramatic results for clients and members.

"Rollercoaster" is overused in the business world, but Amanda's journey is certainly that. From indie-retail expansion to bankruptcy, baking to e-commerce and now making a big mark in growth marketing – her story is one of bounce-backability.

Amanda is frank and open in this interview about the impact of liquidating her cupcake business, Fancie, and becoming personally bankrupt back in 2014. It hurt a lot of people and she's tried hard to right a lot of wrongs, she tells me. And of course it led her to dark times – she hit absolute rock-bottom.

But she fought back and rediscovered her purpose. And in this episode (number 346!) she covers what she learned from the experience, her wilderness years, a turning point and how she came to set up Soup. This is powerful, hard-won stuff, so take note so you can avoid what Amanda describes.

Amanda gives us plenty of implementable tips too. Listen for advice about social media, influencer, SMS and email marketing, why you need to think about customer acquisition cost and customer lifetime value, and lots more. It's a corker of an episode – or should I say, a rollercoaster!

Links: SOUP | The E-com Growth Hub | Amanda's website

Sport connects people in unique ways. How can intangible things like memories and shared experiences of sport be collected and harnessed? How can places, memorabilia and artefacts be preserved and looked after? And how does that benefit all of us?

Dr. Justine Reilly set up Sporting Heritage CIC, a Yorkshire based organisation on a mission to look after, protect and celebrate the diverse sporting heritage across the UK's four nations.

Sometimes bigger sports, which are more often in the public domain, overshadow other and grassroots sports, and Sporting Heritage is for all sports. It helps tell stories that haven't been told, and engages with schools, museums, community groups, businesses and sports groups to share our sporting heritage.

Justine has a background in museums, culture, archeology and as a television producer. She is determined to ensure sporting heritage is diverse and inclusive. Sporting Heritage has launched the neurodiverse museum to ensure there's representation and accessibility for neurodivergent people across the museum sector.

The organisation's annual National Sporting Heritage Day, in September, will be its biggest yet and is backed by well-known ambassadors. Justine gives a preview, and covers her organisation's grants programme and the biggest challenges in getting this now-thriving social enterprise out of the starting blocks. 

Also in the show today: business, social enterprise and freelance funding and events.

Timings:

• 0-35:30 Interview with Dr. Justine Reilly, Sporting Heritage CIC
• 35:30 The Community Ownership Fund, and the Freelance Fund for arts and culture workers in Sheffield
• 38:20 Enterprise Nation's August bootcamp about exporting and international trade with with Amazon and the Department for International Trade (free, registration required)
• 39:22 Wrapping up and an event reminder

Seven out of ten workplace diversity and inclusion programmes fail. They don't achieve meaningful change. A partner in an international accounting firm has even said "after every single unconscious bias training that has ever been done, nothing’s ever improved."

So I was fascinated to talk with Shana Gujral in this episode. She's had direct experience of diversity and inclusion programmes which don't have any effect. Shana is determined to change this and her business, Lila, is "revolutionising" diversity and inclusion.

An online platform powered by behavioural science and gamification, Lila is worlds apart from tickbox exercises. It uses bite-sized, implementable chunks of activity, backed by experts and supported with nudge theory, so participants can not only learn, but they can implement actions. Businesses and employees can build inclusive cultures "where everyone can feel seen and heard."

Shana is a serial impact entrepreneur and diversity and inclusion consultant who has also worked in global FMCG businesses. She also tells me about pivots, lessons from a side-hustle and a previous business, and the rocket-fuel effect of incubator and accelerator programmes (see links below).

Timings:

• 0 - 34:33 interview with Shana Gujral, Lila. 
• Accelerators: Shana mentions the Centre for Entrepreneurs' NEF+ programme, Bethnal Green Ventures, Antler and Founders Factory.
• 34:33 Event: Sheffield Social Enterprise Network's 11 August Networking event
• 36:29 New software training programme from EyUp Skills and iO Academy. The £11,000 programme offers fully-funded bursaries through the Diversitche Fund to people under-represented in tech. Details.
• 38:43 The Star Small Business Awards
• 39:24 Grants from The UK Space Agency's Space Technology Programme.

Natterhub is an educational social media platform which prepares primary school children to thrive online.

A gated, "sandbox" environment which includes more than 300 interactive lessons, it develops media literacy and is used in more than 4000 schools.

How did Caroline Allams and co-founder Manjit Sareen take Natterhub from idea to Minimum Viable Product in April 2020? And how did they scale up rapidly: Natterhub is now enjoyed by teachers and pupils in more than 60 countries around the world?

Caroline explains. This interview covers the power of understanding your strengths and weaknesses and working with a complementary co-founder, building a culture where you and your team can ask questions, and why it's crucial to really prioritise what matters to your audience in your Minimum Viable Product.

There's lots, too, on why media literacy matters and how Natterhub develops this, plus some shocking-but-not-shocking research results from polling of over 15,000 pupils across 2,500 schools, exploring their online habits and how they feel about the internet and social media. 

• Natterhub's website.
• Natterhub has been supported with investment from TwinklHive, a business accelerator created by the online educational publisher Twinkl in 2019.
• Also mentioned on the show: the Young Innovators Awards from Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, details.  And this (free, registration required) Inclusivity and the Psychology of Othering event from Inova Consulting on 23 July aimed at businesses, entrepreneurs and organisations interested in inclusivity.

Julie Brown makes a living in her dream career. The contemporary artist trained at Huddersfield University two decades ago and has returned to her full-time art practice after working as an illustrator and designer.

Julia is part of a new, major group exhibition at The Sculpture Lounge in the Holme Valley where she is a resident studio holder.

In the interview (0-34:00) we discuss:

• Julia's work, how she expresses our relationship with place, and a new body of work about wind turbines
• How to get your name out there as an artist
• It's easier to market yourself when you're passionate about what you do
• Choosing an agent who will support you and how to avoid some scams and trapdoors common in the art world
• Tips and advice about submitting your work to exhibitions and awards
• Getting representation at galleries
• How a safety net can turn into a cage, but there's never the "perfect" time to follow your passion.
• Why "every decision you make needs to relate to where you want to go."
• Check out Julia's website here and The Sculpture Lounge.

Also in the show:

• 34:00 Funding opportunities i) the Young Innovators Awards from Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, details. ii) the Fiserv UK 2021 Back2Business Grant: £10,000 grants available, details. 
• 37:58 Forthcoming events: webinars about selling online, sustainability and SMEs and more from the Business  & IP Centre Sheffield. Plus Cliffhanger – Sheffield's "inner city event celebrating outdoor adventure," the British Bouldering Championships, and Sheffield Adventure Film Festival.
• 39:35 If you run an online businesses selling to consumers living within the EU, you need to know about changes to E-commerce VAT. 
• 41:09 Interesting new research about renewable energy, income inequality and energy poverty
• 42:39 A couple of new books: Lucy Kellaway on education and teaching and Michael Pollan on coffee
• 44:16 And I've been reading the new issue of Positive News magazine.

Drink beer, make the world better! This is no corporate greenwash. You can grab a delicious ale and make a direct contribution to fixing the food system and addressing the climate emergency. Consumer power creates change.

The food system is the biggest contributor to climate change and biodiversity loss, yet we waste a third of everything we produce. Nearly half of bread is never eaten.

Toast Ale uses surplus fresh bread from the bakery industry to brew its beer. Co-founder and chief operating officer Louisa Ziane explains how its beer, available from supermarkets, in restaurants and online, creates environmental and social impacts which go way beyond saving millions of slices of bread from waste.

She tells me how Toast measures and is cutting its carbon footprint, explains how it secured investment to support its growth (getting listed in supermarkets needs a lot of up-front capital) and describes how its purpose is locked into the heart of the business.

Toast is a brewery which truly does what it says on the can. I found this conversation fascinating. Also in the show today: funding for social enterprise, electric vehicles and more. Timings:

• 0 - 40:56 Louisa Ziane interview, including:
• 6:25 What being a certified B Corp means and why collaboration and open-sourcing is key to Toast's impact.
• 10:50 Toast has measured its carbon footprint for the past three years and this year its calculations were certified. Louisa explains how it is reducing its emissions and where to start when it comes to measuring your carbon footprint accurately.
• 17:40 Offsetting isn't a solution alone.
• 21:00 Why Toast is working with Soil Heroes and Feedback.
• 25:35  Equity for Good: Toast's investors have pledged that any net capital gains they get if they sell their shares in the future will be reinvested into organisations with environmental missions.
• 29:33 What were the biggest challenges in launching and growing Toast?
• 35:40 Other amazing businesses and breweries Louisa admires – pop some of these in your pantry!
  
  Also covered on this episode:
• Free trials of electric vans for businesses, social enterprises and other organisations in Sheffield. Details here.
• Funding: for social enterprises operating in the environment sector, check out the Enterprise Development Programme here.
• £150,000 (and up) grants from the The National Lottery Community Fund's Growing Great Ideas programme.
• New ShAFF (Sheffield Adventure Film Festival) outdoor screen showing Adventure Bites films, free, in Sheffield City Centre.
• Millions of people in Britain have poor or low numeracy skills. New research from social enterprise Plain Numbers about how to boost comprehension of bills and financial information.

Photo of Louisa Ziane by Joanne Warren Moore. Check out other episodes of Business Live here.

Where to go and what to do as lockdown restrictions lift? The pub, a restaurant, to the cinema? How about a locked-room where you and your team-mates must escape a horrifying, demonic or magical scenario? Yes please!

Hannah Duraid founded The Great Escape in 2015, Sheffield's first escape room experience, and was last on this show in May 2016. Since then Hannah and her team have taken on a new site in Sheffield and opened in Leeds, developed a further game with the Royal Armouries Museum and won multiple awards.

Over 300,000 players have been through their doors, and since The Great Escape reopened in May people are flocking back, looking to be locked-up once more. But also to choose their own immersive and cinematic adventure, as Hannah tells us.

Hannah is about to launch an exciting new game too, and during lockdown she came up with a fantastic and very different idea – The Unspoken Playing Card Experience – which stimulates deep insights and discussion. She describes why she created theses cards and people's reaction to them in this episode too.

The interview also covers the power of mentors – Hannah has always sought the advice and insights of other business leaders and mentors during her entrepreneurship journey, and has worked with different mentors at different stages. She tells me how she has found mentors and the components for effective mentorship.

Plus some books which Hannah found transformative and why: The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma and Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles.

Timings:

• 0 - 3:15 introduction
• 3:15 -47:15 Hannah Duraid
• 47:15 Coming soon: ShAFF – Sheffield Adventure Film Festival (watch the trailer here) and the Children's Media Conference 2021

How can you get people to leave positive reviews on online review sites? How do you deal with controversial comments on social media? And what are the biggest factors behind "checkout abandonment" on small business websites?

Harvey Morton is a website, digital and social media expert. He works with small businesses through to larger brands such as Santander and some Universities. And he solves their website, digital and social media issues, all with a focus on gaining customers.

He's also a former winner of the National Young Freelancer of the Year Award. Timely that I interviewed him on National Freelancers' Day.

Since Harvey was last on Business Live he's appeared on national and regional radio, in numerous newspapers and other media, and has launched his own well-reviewed podcast. These have all had tangible benefits to his business. Harvey kindly describes how some PR tips I gave him have unlocked a huge range of media opportunities, which I was thrilled to hear.

Also in the show: a funding opportunity, an interactive game in Sheffield, and some recommendations. Timings:

• 0-3:17 Introduction and updates
• 3:17-49:16 Interview with Harvey Morton. National Freelancers Day, how his business has evolved, why social media engagement is important, fixing issues which prevent customers from buying, preventing overwhelm (more tips from Harvey here), addressing controversial topics on social media, using online review sites, starting his own Social Sanctuary podcast, getting interviews and coverage in the media, and shocking findings from his own research. Find Harvey online here and on twitter.
• 49:16 Tech Nation's Net Zero programme – grant or investment funding to help businesses to scale and meet zero emissions targets
• 50:10 The UK Social Enterprise Awards (deadline 2 July)
• 50:28 The Beat the Street Game in Sheffield
• 51:09 I've been reading: this article in Pioneers Post magazine about Amsterdam-based social enterprise Plastic Whale's successful Online Company Cleanups – great idea
• 51:27 I've been listening to: Heidi Fisher's interview with Chris Roberts of the North Wales Dragons, a social enterprise and community football team which raises money  for charities all over the UK and beyond (I edit and produce Heidi's podcast)
• 52:05 I've been watching Netflix's On Becoming a God in Central Florida, a compelling drama about a horrifying multi-level marketing pyramid scheme
• 52:21 And I've been drinking delicious Dark Woods Coffee and Toast Ale (beer which makes the world better)

So many businesses boast about a positive culture without their actions following through. But Jenx Limited (trading as Jiraffe) has clearly invested in enabling and building a supportive culture for its people and customers – and the business is thriving, as director Holly Jenkins describes.

Jiraffe makes specialist postural support equipment and Holly was last on the show in early 2020 as the pandemic and lockdown struck. At the time she told me about an initiative to ensure vulnerable children and adults in society still had access to vital seating, standing, sleeping, and mobility support equipment. How many people benefited?

Holly gives us the details and covers how Jiraffe adapted through 2020 to support its customers and staff, why the firm is recruiting for 8 new roles, where the growth in the business has come from, and everything Jiraffe has been doing to maintain and build its positive company culture.

Also on the show (episode #338): how to enter the UK Social Enterprise Awards; how to access (for free) a range of fantastic business research and intelligence tools at the Business and IP Centre Sheffield.

Timings and links:

• 0-3:09 Introduction
• 3:09 Interview with Holly Jenkins, Jiraffe
• 28:19 Details of the UK Social Enterprise Awards 2021
• 31:34 How to book a visit to the Business & IP Centre Sheffield to get free access to business research databases