This is such a great discussion, we cover all sorts of aspects of building and leading a business.

Today I speak with Nigel G Honey who is the lead trainer and the founder of something called Ability Academy and that's all about post production editing training. Nigel has spent 25 years in the industry and he's working with STV BBC RDF Channel Four Channel Five, Sky and has worked on all of the key soaps.

Nigel set up Ability as a social enterprise to help people with invisible disabilities to get into the world of film editing, but not just to be included, but also then to be paid equally. So a really strong, purpose driven business and we hear some great advice.

One of the things Nigel shares was around setting up the social enterprise in the first place, and Nigel shares one of the big mistakes that he made at the beginning and that he that he would have done differently. 

So lots of really good things whether you're interested in the film industry or not, this is a fantastic episode to listen to. So I suggest we go across and listen to the full story.

May be link this one to the strategy checklist https://strategicthinking.scoreapp.com

 

Nigel can be found here:

linkedin.com/in/nigelghoney

https://abilityacademy.co.uk/

[email protected]

 

Resources

Xero - www.xero.com

 

Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for.   If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/apply   You can get in touch with Kevin here: [email protected]   Kevin's Latest Book Is Available!    Drawing on BizSmart’s own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brentexplores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up.    More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/

So how do you link fronting a band playing to an audience of over 5,000 people with Singapore National Service, social housing in the UK and founding a tech company for social good? 

Well, today I talk with Ranjit Ghoshal, who is the CEO and founder of Million Steps and if you listen to the interview, he'll cover all of those links and explain what I'm talking about. 

He's clearly very passionate about what he does. And he lives by a phrase that his grandfather said to him when Ranjit was around about seven years old, and he's remembered that phrase all of these years and still lives by it. 

And I certainly want you to listen out for some of the mistakes that Ranjit admits he made at the start when setting up a tech company, for example, with a tech team and some of the things that he would do differently.

Many of the things that Ranjit points to are around the execution side of the business and you might like to benchmark your execution habits against our scorecard and the link for that is in the in the show notes. So let's go across and listen to Ranjit story.

https://executionhabits.scoreapp.com

 

Ranjit can be found here:

linkedin.com/in/ranjitghoshal

https://millionsteps.com/

[email protected]

 

Resources

The Tragedy of Pudd nhead Wilson by Mark Twain - https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-tragedy-of-pudd-nhead-wilson/mark-twain/9781438530123

 

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries - https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-lean-startup/eric-ries/9780670921607

 

The Leviathan by Philip Hoare - https://www.waterstones.com/book/leviathan/philip-hoare/9780007230143

 

Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for.   If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/apply   You can get in touch with Kevin here: [email protected]   Kevin's Latest Book Is Available!    Drawing on BizSmart’s own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brentexplores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up.    More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/

Hello I’m Granger Forson

WWW.Bizsmart-Gloucesterhsire.co.uk or on LinkedIn.

This time on ScaleUp Radio I speak with Paul James, the owner of CAP business Clubs

 

CAP is a Networking business that are based in around Colford, but is nationwide. Paul started CAP in 2011, when doing some marketing far a new venue, and had the idea that the fantastic room was ideal for a networking meeting. He has grown it to 5 groups now even through the Pandemic moving onto zoom.

 

What I love about Paul’s story is about how he  built Businesses before CAP, and learnt from them to bring new strengths to develop CAP even when years ago he did not like the idea of networking at all.

 

As always, we cover a lot of ground, including:

 

 - Networking brings new skills to you as a business owner.

 - Collaboration with your competition can bring great benefits.

 - Thinking you know it all is a sure way to lose a business you have built.

 

What is so interesting about this conversation with Paul is how he plans to keep building CAP for the benefit of its members so they can become successful.

 

I know that you’ll get something out of this episode.

 

Paul can be found here:

linkedin.com/in/capbusinessclubs

https://www.capbusinessclubs.co.uk/

[email protected]

 

Resources

 

Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield - https://www.waterstones.com/book/chicken-soup-for-the-soul-20th-anniversary-edition/jack-canfield/mark-victor-hansen/9781611599138

 

Yes To Life by Dr Viktor Frankl - https://www.waterstones.com/book/yes-to-life-in-spite-of-everything/viktor-e-frankl/joelle-young/9781846047251

 

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill - https://www.waterstones.com/book/think-and-grow-rich/napoleon-hill/9781785042416

 

 

Google Keep - https://www.google.com/keep/

 

  Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for.   If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/apply   You can get in touch with Kevin here: [email protected]   Kevin's Latest Book Is Available!    Drawing on BizSmart’s own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brentexplores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up.    More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/

On this episode of ScaleUp Radio, we go all the way across to the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia via Glasgow and we talked to Maia Gigiberia who is the founder of Lebarde luxury, health and beauty. 

This is a story all around creating a premium multi award winning health and beauty brand with those roots in the Caucasus Mountains and the Georgian honeybee.  And it's all about the challenges faced by Maia, in a young business trying to find its way in a really crowded marketplace. 

Maya is clearly very passionate about the business and her products and she's created beautiful luxury product. Maia has done all of the design and the packaging herself right from formulation through design and packaging. 

We talk about those struggles as to how to breakthrough into making this a scalable product. Clearly getting your positioning right and finding out what your source of competitive advantage is or how you're going to really make sustainable long term profits is really key for Maia but also for all of us. And if you'd like to level up your strategic thinking, you might like to take our strategic thinking checklist here.

https://strategicthinking.scoreapp.com/

 

Maia can be found here:

linkedin.com/in/maia-gigiberia-1a498622

https://www.lebarde.co.uk/

[email protected]

@lebarde7 on Instagram

 

Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for.   If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/apply   You can get in touch with Kevin here: [email protected]   Kevin's Latest Book Is Available!    Drawing on BizSmart’s own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brentexplores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up.    More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/

You're definitely going to want to listen to this episode of ScaleUp Radio. It's the classic story rags to riches with going bankrupt and in the middle of it, and all sorts of fantastic lessons that have been learned along the way going right up to building a £70 million a year turnover business. 

This time I interviewed Jeff Dewing who is the co-founder and Group CEO, or in fact CIO Chief Inspiration Officer as he refers to himself, of Cloud FM and it's not a radio station. It's to do with facilities management. 

This is packed full of really great lessons. So I'm not going to spoil any of the story any further. I suggest you go across and listen to him. What I will do is put a link in the show notes to a scorecard that you may want to do that is around people because a lot of what Jeff is talking about comes down to people so there we go. 

Jeff also refers to the power of peer groups. If you’d like to know more about joining a peer group, you can contact us at [email protected]

Let's go across to Jeff

 

https://levelupteam.scoreapp.com

 

Jeff can be found here:

linkedin.com/in/jeffdewing

https://www.cloudfmgroup.com/

[email protected]

jeffdewing.co.uk

https://www.youtube.com/@jeffdewing4457

 

Resources

Doing The Opposite by Jeff Dewing - https://www.waterstones.com/book/doing-the-opposite/james-wills/jeff-dewing/9798599185406

Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet - https://www.waterstones.com/book/turn-the-ship-around/l-david-marquet/stephen-r-covey/9780241250945

7 Habits of Highly Effective People - https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-7-habits-of-highly-effective-people-revised-and-updated/stephen-r-covey/9781471195204

 

Doing The Opposite: The Podcast - https://podcast.cloudfmgroup.com/podcast/

ProdCast - https://www.theprodcast.net/

Clowning Around - https://emstroud.com/podcast/

 

Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for.   If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/apply   You can get in touch with Kevin here: [email protected]   Kevin's Latest Book Is Available!    Drawing on BizSmart’s own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brentexplores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up.    More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/

 

 

Adapt and overcome was probably the theme of this discussion on ScaleUp Radio. Today I interviewed Antony Thompson, who is the co founder of Loopin.

They have a great mission, which is to provide a million managers by 2030, the ability to reduce burnout and attrition in their teams with the help of AI. 

So, no surprise Loopin itself is a tool based on AI that helps managers to manage all sorts of aspects of resilience, burnout, but essentially around high performance teams. 

This is a fascinating discussion. Both Anthony and his co-founder, Ben are ex Marines although they didn't actually serve together.  There's lots of reference to how they have taken some of those values of really looking after each other in the Marines – for example look after the person to the right and to the left of you and keeping each other accountable, but also looking after yourself. You'll hear how they've taken some this into Loopin around managing those high performance teams. 

Lots of great parts of the story including how they came within 9 days of running out of money and were down to their last £240 when investment money came in. 

So quite a roller coaster of a journey, which I think take us back to that adapt and overcome and that resilience. 

Plenty of discussion around people so you might like to take our checklist on levelling up your team. It may give you some ideas, some of the things that Antony talked about and some other things as well. You can check how you're doing against what we consider to be great aspects of building your team habits.

 

Antony can be found here:

linkedin.com/in/ant-thompson-loopin

https://www.letsloopin.com/

[email protected]

 

 

Resources

The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team by Patrick Lencioni - https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-five-dysfunctions-of-a-team/patrick-m-lencioni/9781118016701

The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy - https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-compound-effect/darren-hardy-llc/9781399805780

The One Thing by Gary Keller - https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-one-thing/gary-keller/jay-papasan/9781848549258

Meddic by Andy Whyte - https://www.waterstones.com/book/meddicc/andy-whyte/dick-dunkel/9781838239701

 

Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for.   If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/apply   You can get in touch with Kevin here: [email protected]   Kevin's Latest Book Is Available!    Drawing on BizSmart’s own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brentexplores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up.    More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/

Things on Mac - https://culturedcode.com/things/

HubSpot - https://www.hubspot.com/

Duolingo - https://www.duolingo.com/

 

 

Hello I’m Granger Forson

WWW.Bizsmart-Gloucesterhsire.co.uk or on LinkedIn.

This time on ScaleUp Radio I speak with Andy Platts, the owner of Jireh Solutions ltd.

 

Jireh Solutions is a IT managed solutions business  that are based in Tetbury. They started in 2006 as a business with the goal to bring excellence in the IT managed solutions market by moving away for Break Fix.

 

It was so interesting hearing Andy’s story about how he has developed the business growth, include the investment in it, all from referrals & networking. 

 

As always we cover a lot of ground, including:

 

 - take the leap of faith when an investor approaches you for help.

 - Aim for excellence in what you do – Who do you know only calls their IT company with an issue once every 2 years!

 - Finding the right people to employ and then train them, brings huge long term stability to your business.

 

What is so inspiring about this conversation with Andy is how he has the long term plan in developing the business and leadership team for so it can become an employee owned trust.

 

I know that you’ll get something out of this episode.

 

Andy can be found here:

linkedin.com/in/andy-platts-9b40a32

https://jirehsolutions.co.uk/

 

 

Resources

Traction by Gino Wickman - https://www.waterstones.com/book/traction/gino-wickman/9781936661831

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/

  Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for.   If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/apply   You can get in touch with Kevin here: [email protected]   Kevin's Latest Book Is Available!    Drawing on BizSmart’s own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brentexplores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up.    More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/

 

This is another episode of ScaleUp Radio that you're just going to love. Today I talk with Charlie Winton, who's the founder of OK Positive and they're in the field of mental health. 

Charlie and his team have developed a mental health app with a difference.  It is a fairly crowded marketplace with all sorts of different things going on, but there's quite a significant difference with this app. 

Charlie is quite open with the fact that he came up with the idea because he was suffering from panic attacks in the workplace. He was looking for ways to help him out and since he has been following the systems that he's developed within this app, he's not suffered a single panic attack for those five years.

We all know the knock on effect to businesses and to the whole economy is incredible when you think about the impact of mental wellness or the lack of it.

OK Positive is now only three years old, but they're already cash positive. They're looking to raise investment, but Charlie bootstrapped the business right from the very start using his own bonus money and all of his savings to get started.

There are some good stories around getting started and some lessons about who he looked for in his first hire and some of his other key hires. 

There are some great lessons about how he manages to treat and look after his employees and also how they make sure that they're keeping on track. He mentions what he calls the toothbrush conundrum and you'll have to listen to the episode for what he means by that,.

So plenty of discussion about getting a technology app off the ground, talking about the minimum viable product, and he uses another great phrase to describe how he would view his minimal viable product. 

Some fantastic things in this episode. So I suggested we go over and listen to it. If you want to think about some of the habits around execution, which Charlie talks about, you might like to take our scorecard on levelling up your execution habits.  https://kevin-ytncqq95.scoreapp.com

 

Charlie can be found here:

linkedin.com/in/charlie-winton-53a01290

https://www.okpositive.org/

[email protected]

[email protected]

 

Resources

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries - https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-lean-startup/eric-ries/9780670921607

The Lord Of The Rings by JRR Tolkien - https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-lord-of-the-rings/j-r-r-tolkien/9780008471286

 

Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for.   If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/apply   You can get in touch with Kevin here: [email protected]   Kevin's Latest Book Is Available!    Drawing on BizSmart’s own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brentexplores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up.    More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/

WhatsApp - https://web.whatsapp.com/

Teams - https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-teams

One of the things I love about doing ScaleUp Radio is the variety of guests that we have on, the variety of interests and the variety of the businesses that they look after. And this is absolutely no exception. 

Today, I talk with Alan who is the founder of LABRATS International which is all about raising awareness around nuclear testing and the effects on families and communities as a result of historical nuclear testing programmes.

Alan set LABRATS up as a community interest company, so it's around the business aspects of it. But it's a great example of how the power of a story and telling that story in the right way can get us to where we want to get to and I think that's a lesson that we can take across our businesses, whatever it is, that we're trying to do is that is that power of the story. 

You'll hear about campaign that made a big difference, and how he's managed to leverage contacts to get ito talk to the right people that he wants to talk to and his strategies and tactics around that. 

It is an absolutely fascinating story and one that I know that you're going to want to listen to. Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention that Alan suffered a major health scare only last year, and we talk about how that's changed his perspective on life as well.

A lot of Alan’s success comes from being strategic – really understanding what you are about and developing supporting approaches. You might like to check out your Strategic Thinking using our FREE checker 

https://kevin-ylfmnqor.scoreapp.com

 

Alan can be found here:

linkedin.com/in/alan-owen-mba-fbcs-citp-flpi-20776385

https://www.labrats.international/

https://www.labratsacademy.online/

 

Resources

www.nuclearvoices.org

Audible - https://www.audible.co.uk/

 

Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for.   If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/apply   You can get in touch with Kevin here: [email protected]   Kevin's Latest Book Is Available!    Drawing on BizSmart’s own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brentexplores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up.    More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/

This episode of ScaleUp Radio I talk with Mark Williams, who is the co founder of Limb Art.

During our discussion, Mark says something that you may find a little bit strange. Mark lost his leg when he was 10 and he describes that as the best day of his life, which may seem a little bit strange to many of us.

He's got a great backstory and this is a really good example in fact of how powerful a story behind the business can be. 

Mark set up the business initially almost by accident. He had made a cover for his artificial leg, people commented on it and one thing led to another and he's now selling in multiple countries and 1000s of people are wearing his covers.

It is a superb example of focus really, a niche within a niche but one that is a multi billion potential market. 

There's some great lessons on mindset in here and you can also hear how a chance encounter for Mark lead to what is now his largest single customer. 

We also get into exporting and setting up exclusive partnerships abroad. 

It really is a fascinating interview and you can't help but admire what Mark has achieved. I think this episode will be an inspiration to all of us looking to develop our own businesses and you might want to think about some of the things he says about the execution side of the business, how he makes things happen. 

If you'd like to level up on your execution, you might like to take our checklist which might give you some hints on sort of things you need to think about to really level up your execution habits.

https://kevin-ytncqq95.scoreapp.com

 

Mark can be found here:

linkedin.com/in/mark-limb-art

https://limb-art.com/

@limbartcover

 

Resources

The Great British Entrepreneur Book - https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-great-british-entrepreneurs-handbook-2016/simon-burton/9780857195135

The Great British Entrepreneur Awards - https://www.greatbritishentrepreneurawards.com/

T Cards Online - https://www.tcardsonline.co.uk/

 

Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for.   If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/apply   You can get in touch with Kevin here: [email protected]   Kevin's Latest Book Is Available!    Drawing on BizSmart’s own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brentexplores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up.    More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/