Hosted by Lauren Roberts, today’s podcast welcomes Sally Holland, partner at PPS Chartered Accountancy as she discusses all things accountancy and PR.

Sally joins Lauren to share with PR Not BS listeners the ins and outs of running an accountancy firm in their town of Swindon, Wiltshire. Plus, she dispels the myths and fables around what people think accountants to and shares the reality.

“People often think it’s this grey-haired old man telling them what to do with their business. It’s not that!” says Sally.

Lauren kicks off her chat with Sally by diving into her journey to becoming a partner at PPS and what it means to have worked for an organisation for 25 years.

Sally shares with Lauren how her business has changed in the last 25 years and how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the accountancy firm. She discusses the integration of hybrid working and their unique business-focused mindset. She also discusses how working with owner-managed businesses means creating important and personable connections with clients.

“Often owner-managed businesses work alone,” she says. “[By visiting businesses] it gives them someone to bounce ideas off of.”

Community is at the heart of everything PPS does, Sally discusses how supporting local charities is essential to their ethos and shares the ins and outs of their tri-annual ‘PPS Charity Breakfasts’ which highlights networking, speakers and a local charity which deserves a spotlight.

When it comes to networking, Sally is a professional! Being the president of the BNI White Horse, she has been facilitating networking and business connections in her local area for years. Sally speaks candidly about the nerve-wrecking experience of starting networking and her journey to becoming president of a networking event.

As many business owners know, particularly women, the work-life balance between family and work can be challenging. Lauren and Sally speak about motherhood and how Sally approaches this and how she balances work, parenthood, and her own wellbeing.

Sally talks about her involvement in the world of PR, and how she honestly doesn’t know much about it. She shares how through PR professional support, she’s been able to take steps she wouldn’t have known to take and are hopefully taking leaps in the right direction to sharing PPS with more people. 

Sally discusses what the future holds for her and PPS Chartered Accountancy and reaching more clients across the South West and the UK. She also shares that their next charity breakfast is coming up this June 2026.

As Sally dispels the rumours around accountancy, listeners can expect to hear the reality of being an accountant, not the BS!

Tune in now to hear all the details.

To contact Sally at PPS Chartered Accountants, visit their website: https://www.ppsacc.co.uk/

To get in touch with Fiona and the Scott Media team, visit www.scottmedia.uk

Join our free Facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/prtribe 

Hosted by Fiona Scott, today’s podcast welcomes Sean Harper, co-founder of Just For Fun Holiday Club which provides childcare services through their clubs across the Swindon, Wiltshire area.

Sean joins Fiona to share with PR Not BS listeners on the ins and outs of running a holiday club business and shines a light on how he fell into becoming a business owner.

Fiona kicks off her chat with Sean by asking about Just For Fun and his experience of co-founding a business for 9 years.

“Year on year we’ve just got bigger and, hopefully, better,” Sean said.

Sean begins his conversation with Fiona by talking about his career history and experience working in the education and childcare sector and how Just For Fun emerged as a business venture in his late 20s/early 30s. Sean looks fondly back at the first ever Just For Fun holiday club.

“I always say that summer was the best summer since we started because we were naïve to what was to come. It was easy and free flowing.”

Knowing their first club was a success, Just For Fun ventured into wrap-around care and more holiday clubs at multiple sites across Swindon. Sean chats about the day-to-day life of managing a holiday club and how Swindon’s Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme has changed how he approaches inclusion at his clubs. 

Sean delves into how his passion for working with children and young people developed over time, discussing how his upbringing and personality informed his choice to enter into this field.

“Being a role model felt like a natural step for me and I moved into education at 20 or 21.”

Sean speaks about always working in this sector and having a full-time job alongside his business. He speaks candidly about his realisation that running both was having a detrimental impact on his life. Therefore, Sean details leaving his job to focus on Just For Fun full time, but he felt stuck.

“There was no clear direction [for the business] for how to market and who we needed to reach out to,” he said. “We just got through every month but we didn’t really know what we were doing and we reached out to you.”

After noticing where he needed help, Sean contacted Scott Media for support and advice. Sean shares the importance of PR and being active on social media. He also speaks about how his focus on PR has fuelled him to keep developing.

“It enabled me to look at people to connect with I had never thought of. I always thought it would be parents, but I didn’t think to reach out to companies,” he said “PR opened my eyes to opportunities of where we could take the business and expand relationships.”

Sean comments on how he thrives on ‘the chase’ in business, as he’s got a hunger to develop which pushes him forward. 

“I am not a good businessman! The decisions I make are more emotionally led than financially led.”

“I think you absolutely are,” said Fiona. “Good businesspeople always know that they have something to learn, once you think you’ve become perfect, that’s the day you stop.”

Sean discusses what the future holds for him and his business. That his next steps towards merchandising and commitment to PR will be his focus.

“If you see someone with your logo on, you’re not just a quick one or two year business, you’ve been around for a while and seeing kids with a t-shirt, jumper, or bottle - they’ve bought into our brand.”

Whilst Sean divulges how he doesn’t know what the future holds, listeners can expect to her the reality of running a holiday club, not the BS!

Tune in now to hear all the details.

To contact Just For Fun, visit their website: www.justforfunholidayclub.co.uk

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/justforfunholidayclub.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justforfunholidayclub.com

To get in touch with Fiona and the Scott Media team, visit www.scottmedia.uk

Join our free Facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/prtribe 

Hosted by Lauren Roberts, today’s podcast welcomes Rachel Bedgood, founder of CBS, trusted screening experts who help organisations stay compliant and reduce risks through screening processes.

Rachel joins Lauren to share with PR Not BS listeners the ins and outs of running a background screening business and shines a light on this, often presumed boring, industry.

Lauren kicks off her chat with Rachel by asking her about the journey to become a business owner and the story behind how background screening came into her life.

“It was luck more than judgement,” said Rachel. “My partner said at the time that it’s a myth that working for someone else provides job security.”

Rachel shares how her business came from her paying £50 a week for a little office in her village in the South Wales Valleys, to becoming a successful UK and international business in Mountain Ash.

Listeners will get to hear from Rachel about the range of businesses she works with and how the appetite for background screening has expanded over the past two decades CBS has been operating. She guides Lauren through the details of how and why businesses across the UK are raving about CBS’s services.

Rachel shares how the background screening landscape has changed since she started and how her business has taken on challenges and changes with gusto. From the slower and paper-based systems of the 2000s to the faster and digital world of now. Rachel discusses the pivotal role of technology in her business.

Rachel also delves into the emotional complexities her business encounters on a daily basis and how there is a lot of shame, hiding, and embarrassment around background screening checks. She speaks about her experience of working with people to reduce stigma and provide support when it comes to sensitive information.

Rachel discusses the importance of her staff and how the impact her industry has on people’s lives is never lost on her or her employees.

“There are people behind our service who really care,” she said. “In our DBS department, there are people who know that the faster they process a document, a foster carer will be able to take a child into their home.”

Rachel dives into what 2026 is going to look like for CBS and reflects on the employment expansions in the past year and the upcoming months, commenting: “Oh, we’re very ambitious!”

She also chats about her ethos of ‘giving back’ and the charitable focus of her staff and herself by sharing the details of her charity events and the impact it has on her outlook as a business owner and the people in her local area.

“Businesses that are doing well should be giving back!”

As always with PR Not BS, Lauren asks the important question of why visibility is important to Rachel and CBS.

“Our industry is so white collar and lots don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “They err on the side of caution as if it’s a subject that shouldn’t be discussed in a promotional context.”

“We want to talk about CBS. One, because we think we’re brilliant and our customer service is brilliant and two because we love what we do and our teams are brilliant.”

Tune in now to get all the details of Rachel’s professional journey and see the reality of building a background checks company, not the BS!

To contact Rachel Bedgood at CBS, visit: https://cbscreening.co.uk/

To get in touch with Lauren and the Scott Media team, visit www.scottmedia.uk

Join our free Facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/prtribe 

Hosted by Fiona Scott, today’s podcast welcomes Kevin Griffiths, co-director of The Care Show.

Having met Kevin 7 to 8 years ago, Fiona found he was enthusiastic about business, networking and food. Fiona then introduced him to her VA, Hannah and now, together, Kevin and Hannah run The Care Show.

The event is Swindon’s Health & Social Care Expo where care industry professionals, suppliers, and service providers gather to share their insights and expertise bringing information and knowledge to businesses and members of the public.

“The Care Show is about helping people who provide care, need care, want care and are interested in it, no matter what part of the business world you hold,” Kevin said.

Kevin dives into the journey of stepping into this new role of co-director of The Care Show with Hannah, and what this new business venture means for himself and the local community.

He shares the past success and future hopes for The Care Show and how they’re stepping into networking and charity events. Kevin shares their ethos of giving back and how the focus is accessibility.

“Care is a very loose term and it covers a plethora of things,” he says. “It’s not just dumping an old person in a care home because that’s the first thing that comes to people’s minds.”

Kevin discusses the need for a collation of information around care and it not being on the internet and how having one place that a person can come to and ask about care options is essential.

The Care Show’s expo attracts businesses which specialise in a variety of care aspects for example: care homes, mental health, fostering, adoption, self-care, wills and probate, financial services, nutrition, and youth support.

Fiona shares how she underestimated the wide range of businesses which could attend The Care Show. Kevin and Hannah are both systematically underestimated and in January 2026 they successfully pull their first show together and did it extremely well.

Kevin reflects on his personal relationship with care provision both for himself and family members, sharing how different care is now than it was decades ago. He reflects on how people need to take responsibility to protect themselves and plan their future.

“If you haven’t got the plans in place you will have, what they used to call in the old days, ‘a pauper’s funeral’, because you aren’t going to get anything from the state,” he said. “We need to make a difference now.”

He speaks about people’s reluctance to ask for advice around care and how if he can bring one person who is worried or embarrassed of coming to the expo, and they get to ask questions, they have done what they set out to do.

The pair talk about the future of social care in this current political climate and how care isn’t discussed and undervalued in society. Kevin discusses how The Care Show aims to change that narrative and takes care and those who provide care more seriously and sets to bring care into people’s lives and makes it more successful and cohesive to support them as early as possible.

“Sometimes you have to stop and say, ‘hang on, why is this happening?’… and step outside of the bubble and see things with a new pair of eyes. That’s when you can come to the care show and ask people for advice,” he said.

Kevin concludes by chatting about how the conversations at The Care Show bring peace of mind to many and businesses are not there to gain clients but ease their worries.

The Care Show’s next event is on Saturday 10th October 2026, 9:30am to 2pm at DoubleTree by Hilton in Swindon.

To contact The Care Show, visit www.thecareshow.co.uk

To get in touch with Fiona visit www.scottmedia.uk

Join our free Facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/prtribe

Hosted by Lauren Roberts, today’s podcast welcomes Ashlea Fisher, founder of iRecruit4.

Recruitment business based in Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, iRecruit4 supplies businesses with their recruitment needs all across the M4 corridor servicing Basingstoke, Andover, Swindon, all the way down to Bath and Bristol. Specialising in the blue collar industry and temp contracts, Ashlea dives listeners into the world of recruitment.

Firstly, Ashlea shares her journey into the industry. From starting as a fledgling recruitment officer provided with no training to a thriving, successful and envied recruitment manager.

Commenting on how recruitment is such a diverse industry, where you work with a variety of people and you get to work with all types of people in the business, from business owners all the way to the factory workers.

Ashlea tells all about the trials of tribulations of working for other companies, sharing the people who’ve inspired her along the way. She also delves into the circumstances which led her to start up her own business. Going from strength to strength as she climbed the corporate ladder of recruitment, Ashlea found herself in a situation where she had to start her own business and has thrived ever since. Particularly crediting Megan, her ‘right arm’, for supporting her from the very start. 

“It was a case of now or never,” said Ashlea. “[I said to her] I’m just going to jump into my own business.”

Ashlea discusses her personal and professional growth whilst starting IRecruit4 and the heavy job of supporting people into employment. Divulging how the ethos of her business centres around putting people first as she highlights the importance of building relationships with businesses caveating that whilst iRecruit4’s fees are higher; they provide loyalty and quality to clients.

“A lot of these people are living paycheck to paycheck Lauren,” she says. “These are people’s livelihoods.”

Ashlea touches on her need to work within a community and how her active decision to engage with charities has been a priority from the start. She shares her goal to collaborate with her community, calling iRecruit4’s charity work “We Share Because We Care” where a percentage of their invoice value goes to a charity of the client’s choice. She stresses how this initiative is about working together to support those in need.

In her conversation with Lauren, Ashlea expresses the role and importance of PR in her business. Sharing how she doesn’t have the relationships in the local area and getting to know people and their community stories makes a massive difference, how going to networking events and sharing your stories and your business is essential, especially when you don’t have the longevity in the area. People feel like they know you when you walk through the door.

“One of the things we’ve learnt in recruitment is that ‘people buy from people’ and it’s important to let our personalities shine and you want to be trusted and working on your PR is great for that,” she said.

Ashlea also plunges into the world of AI in recruitment and how it’s impacting the sector along with iRecruit4’s responses to try and put people first. Supporting clients through interview and CV skills.

“You have to be very careful in our industry because our industry is very people focused and what you don’t want is to lose that personal touch,” she said.

To contact Ashlea Fisher, visit IRecruit4’s website: www.irecruit4.co.uk or email her [email protected] 

To get in touch with Lauren and the Scott Media team, visit www.scottmedia.uk

Join our free Facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/prtribe

My guest today is Rod Hebden, and you’re in for a real journey of discovery! In our conversation we cover everything from science, art, creativity and surprisingly, politics.

Rod runs his own business Consulting New Elements and as part of that he runs the Festival Tomorrow and has also set up the Swindon Culture Collective.  

The Swindon Culture Collective is a two year project set up to support arts and the cultural sector in Swindon. It’s not about setting up something completely new, but more about pulling together the organisations and people who are already in Swindon. The collective will be just that – it’s about helping the different people and groups to collaborate, communicate and coordinate what they’re doing in a far better way.

We talk about how Swindon sometimes has a perception as being somewhere ‘ordinary’ whereas in fact it’s a place where we have a lot of things going on but often people, including Swindonians don’t know about them. You may be surprised when you hear about all of the nationally significant things that are based in Swindon.

Rod has a passion for bringing together science and art. He did a science degree, an engineering PhD, a master’s degree in science communication  and then worked in museums where he was doing education in science. But as he says, he was working in a museum – the arts and cultural sector and this is where his interest in the interaction between science and arts grew. As you’ll hear, he is adamant that both arts and science are creative - unlike what you are often told in school. 

He believes that children need to be exposed to arts and sciences to become interested in them and at present without access to higher education, Swindon young people are not always exposed to those opportunities, which is why he is working with the Festival Tomorrow and the Swindon Culture collective.

To contact Rod:

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickhebden/

LinkedIn Swindon Culture Collective:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/swindon-culture-collective/posts/?feedView=all

Website: https://www.festivaloftomorrow.com/

If you would like to contact me, you can visit www.Scottmedia.uk or join my free Facebook group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/prtribe

Hosted by Lauren Roberts, today’s podcast welcomes Anita Jaynes, founder of The Business Exchange magazines which distributes its two editions, Swindon and Wiltshire and Bath and Somerset.

Anita joins Lauren to catch up PR Not BS listeners on her business since her last appearance in 2021. 

Five years on Anita shares how her businesses have developed over half a decade and kicks off this episode by sharing about the expansion of her online magazine, networking events and the introduction of The Business Exchange Awards.

Anita shares how the media landscape has changed in the last 5 years and how content marketing is king and stresses the importance of having your business move through the times to stay profitable and relevant. Anita exemplifies this with her introduction of The Business Exchange VIP membership and how the subscription changed the game for the magazine, enabling her to tell the stories which are integral to the business community. 

Anita discusses her growth and journey of starting The Business Exchange Show and Magazines and her focus of supporting SMEs in the region. She talks about what it takes to create two quarterly magazines and how she juggles the world of everyday life with this mammoth job.

“I don’t think people realise how labour intensive a media business is,” said Anita. “You’re only as good as your last magazine.”

2026 marks 13 years of ‘The Business Exchange: Swindon and Wiltshire’ and 10 years of ‘The Business Exchange: Bath and Somerset’.

Anita dives into her relationship with the charity sector in the South West and shares South West has a vast wealth of charities and has heard how businesses are struggling to connect with the sector in an affordable way. Therefore, she created free and cheap events to do just that. What started off as listening, became a thriving annual event which draws over 700 people to the region.

She shares her tips for business leaders and how her successful media business lies with her attention to detail, by listening and looking after people and their stories, something Anita believes has somewhat been lost.

“We’re Bath, Somerset, Swindon, and Wiltshire’s only dedicated business to business magazine and online outlet,” she said. “It’s sad.”

Her goal is to bring eyes to these counties and bring them together. To bring sustainable business and collaboration within the South West, particularly with the vastness of Wiltshire and its many small businesses. 

Anita discusses how the relationship with the media has changed through time and how the personal, not the artificial, wins out for businesses who want coverage.

In their third year, The Business Exchange Awards for Bath, Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire are launching on 13th April 2026. Ready for businesses across these regions to be in the running for this award which puts community and collaboration first. 

Tune in now to get all the details of Anita’s professional media journey and see the reality of building a magazine company, not the BS!

To contact Anita Jaynes at The Business Exchange:

Email: [email protected]

To get in touch with Lauren and the Scott Media team, visit www.scottmedia.uk

Join our free Facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/prtribe 

Fiona’s guest today is Tamsin Welton, the new homes sales manager McFarlane Sales and Lettings.

In this episode of ‘PR not BS’ podcast Tamsin dives into her journey to becoming an estate agent and how being a good estate agent is not about the numbers.

Fiona first met Tamsin when she joined a local networking group, Professional Connections of Wiltshire, a couple years ago. 

After becoming a networking friend and colleague, Fiona invited Tamsin onto the podcast to discuss the ins and outs of being an estate agent and what it means to Tamsin. As well as the role PR and networking plays in her role and industry.

Tamsin started working in the estate agent sector over 30 years ago and started working for new home sites in Swindon, working with apartment blocks and new developments. Tamsin travelled to North Devon to Westward Ho, working at the county’s beautiful coastline. She then moved to South Africa and worked on selling homes in the region and was involved in the selling and designing of homes before travelling back to the UK and settling back in Swindon.

After moving back to Swindon Tamsin worked freelance for two years before becoming employed with an estate agency before landing her current position at McFarlane Sales and Lettings, Swindon’s local independent estate agents, where she is thriving.

Tamsin dives into the reasons she returned to being an employed estate agent and the hands-on and personal way McFarlane approaches their work. In her extensive experience of different estate agencies, this one is an outlier in how they treat their agents and clients.

“You are a person, not a number,” Tamsin says.

Tamsin shares her experiences of working at a poor estate agency in the past and gives insights into how some estate agencies work to create ‘productive’ environments at the expense of employees and clients. 

Her work at McFarlane couldn’t be more different and it’s about spending time with clients and not being chastised for investing in them and guiding people through a complicated process of owning or renting a home. Tamsin shares a personal experience about how being a good estate agent and going the extra mile brings new returns.

Tamsin dives into the world of networking and it pays off in the long term. She shares how investing in long term relationships and processes is something estate agents are used to. One referral can pay for the whole year's networking. Estate agents and business professionals should and are in it for the long game.

Tamsin discusses McFarlane’s interaction with many aspects of PR, including their apprenticeship scheme and charity work with Race for Life and Macmillan Coffee Mornings. 

“It seems like a company prepared to give back and prepared to talk about it and it inspires others to do the same,” said Fiona.

Tune in now to get all the details of Tamsin’s professional journey and get the reality of PR. With no BS!

To contact Tamsin at McFarlane.

Website: mcfarlaneproperty.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mcfarlaneproperty

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mcfarlanes 

If you would like to contact me, you can visit www.scottmedia.uk or join my free Facebook group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/prtribe

Lauren’s guest today is Dave Southby, the founder and managing director of Southby & Co Financial Planning. 

Now in his fifth year of business having started in business alone, there are now a team of six. The team includes another financial advisor and an office manager, and having already moved offices to accommodate the team, they are now on the hunt for a larger home for the business as the team has grown yet again.

Since being joined by a team, Dave rebranded the business which reflects that it isn’t just him, so now the business is known as Southby & Co Financial Planning. He talks about how life has changed since the expansion.

Dave explains that the job of a  financial advisor involves far more than most people imagine the role to include. He also dismisses the false belief that you have to be wealthy to work with a financial advisor.

Working and living in the area where he grew up, giving back to the community is something that is very important to Dave.  The business has already won two business awards – the Positive Business Award at The Business Exchange Awards and the St James’s Place Responsible Business of Year Award. To be able to support local projects, and local charities is a huge passion of his. 

Networking has always been something that Dave finds an important part of growing his business which is also part of his PR strategy. Now that he has a team around him, it means he has the luxury of sending other team members to events, so he can work on other things.

This year he aims to enter more awards, hopefully find a new office - the forever home for Southby & Co, and there are also new partnerships and ideas coming up – including something he’s keeping close to his chest for now!

To contact Dave:

Website: https://www.southbyfp.co.uk/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southby.dave/

If you would like to contact me, you can visit www.Scottmedia.uk  or join my free Facebook group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/prtribe

My guest today is someone I hadn’t met until this podcast: Matthew Stafford who like me is an entrepreneur.

Matthew is the founder of a business called 9 Others, which is a global network of entrepreneurs. Along with his co-founder, Katie Lewis, they started the business in 2011 and what began small has grown into quite a large network. At the time, he and Katie were working for a government backed project to help entrepreneurial companies to raise investment, and as you’ll hear, the ‘dining’ idea came out of that.

The premise of 9 Others is a dinner which he hosts, along with 10 guests, so it is literally, him and 9 Others. Basically they invite founders of companies, entrepreneurs, people working in startups  - to come to dinner. The format is that each person shares a challenge they’ve come up against, and then for a short time the rest of the group try to help out with ideas and questions. Matthew explains how this works, and that it’s based on Chatham House rules – what’s shared around the table is confidential and there is no hierarchy. 

He also talks about his love of What 3 Words, explaining the concept and how that business came about, plus how Chris Sheldrick, one of the founders came to a few of the 9 Other dinners when they started.

Matthew also shares how the entrepreneurs around the table are selected and invited; with the main aim of having people who will contribute. However, as you’ll hear they are not selected by how much they’re earning or by particular business sectors.

9 Others dinners have run in 50 cities around the world, so to hear more about this fascinating idea, listen in.

To contact Matthew:

Website: https://9others.com/

Email: [email protected]

If you would like to contact me, you can visit my site: www.Scottmedia.uk or join my free Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/prtribe