The Business Babble

One setback can make you forget everything that’s going right. In this episode of Business Babble, we explore how perspective shapes the way you handle pressure, lead your team and respond when business gets tough.

With the usual banter and honest personal stories, we discuss:

• Why one negative moment can overshadow an otherwise good day.
• How gratitude, consistency and daily habits help build resilience.
• Why honest feedback matters—even when it’s uncomfortable.
• Taking responsibility as a leader instead of looking for someone to blame.
• The difference between caring what people think and letting it control you.

We also share a simple “dot on a page” exercise that challenges how you see problems, discuss finding motivation as the days get shorter, and catch up on the Business Babble school mentorship programme.

A candid conversation about acknowledging frustration, keeping things in perspective and taking the next step forward.

If this episode gives you a fresh perspective, share it with a business owner who could use it - and follow Business Babble for more straight-talking conversations about business and the people behind it.

How do you turn a passion for dogs into a thriving family business? James Shields joins Business Babble to share how he went from a 15-year career at Lloyds Bank to running Rowan Sands Pet Hotel, a boarding kennel and cattery near Dunfermline, Scotland.

James explains how dog training started as a side business, why buying a pet hotel that had been closed for two years was difficult to finance, and what it took to make the leap from employment to running the business full time. He also talks about working alongside his wife, building trust with pet owners, and creating a calm place for the animals in their care.

With demand exceeding the pet hotel’s current capacity, the conversation turns to pricing, word of mouth, expansion, and the challenge of growing without losing the personal touch. Along the way, James shares practical thoughts on dog training, working breeds, and what owners can do to help their dogs settle.

Chapters

00:00 Meet James Shields

04:55 Turning dog training into a business

05:48 Buying and financing Rowan Sands Pet Hotel

07:49 What makes the pet hotel different

11:43 Leaving banking behind

12:20 Growing while keeping the personal touch

14:09 Training owners as well as dogs

19:15 Running a family business

20:22 Marketing, capacity and expansion

25:17 Pricing a service built on trust

37:48 James’s biggest business lesson

Find James through Rowan Sands Pet Hotel or James Shields Dog Training on social media.

Subscribe to Business Babble for more conversations with business owners about how they got started, the challenges they faced, and what they learned along the way.

#BusinessBabble #SmallBusiness #Entrepreneurship #DogTraining #PetBusiness

In this episode of Business Babble, Johnny and Mike are joined by entrepreneur, coach and author Ev Foster for an open conversation about resilience, risk, reinvention and the choices that shape our lives.

Ev shares her journey from raising four children as a single mum to building her own estate agency business, including the moment she found herself with just 4p in her bank account and had to decide whether to give up or keep going.

They explore why there’s rarely a perfect time to start a business, the myth of work-life balance, overcoming fear and overthinking, and why staying somewhere that makes you unhappy is also a choice.

Ev also explains the thinking behind Change Starts With Choice, her move into intuitive psychology coaching, and how she helps successful people create the space to quieten the noise, understand what is holding them back and make the decisions they often already know they need to make.

The conversation covers entrepreneurship, parenthood, resilience, coaching, relationships, personal growth, risk, AI, changing friendships and why waiting for the “right time” can sometimes mean waiting too long.

A funny, honest and at times emotional conversation about business, life and having the courage to make a change.

What does a holiday in Scotland look like when money is no object?

In this episode of Business Babble, Johnny, Mike and Wicus sit down with entrepreneur Vikki Bruce, whose business specialises in creating extraordinary Scottish experiences for some of the wealthiest people in the world.

Vikki takes us behind the scenes of luxury travel at a level most people never get to see. Her clients include billionaires, royalty and superyacht owners, with trips involving private estates, helicopters, butlers, chefs, whisky tastings and experiences that simply cannot be bought from a normal travel agent.

Her business was born after helping organise a Scottish trip for Prince Albert of Monaco, an experience that became the blueprint for building a completely bespoke luxury travel company.

But the conversation then moves into a very different side of Scotland's luxury economy: whisky cask investment.

Vikki explains how legitimate whisky casks can become valuable long-term assets, but also exposes some of the serious problems appearing in the booming investment market. She discusses brokers promising double-digit returns, enormous mark-ups and investors receiving impressive-looking certificates without actually having ownership of the cask transferred to them.

She also explains one of the most important checks any whisky cask investor should make: if you genuinely own the cask, the bonded warehouse should recognise you as the owner, and you should normally have control over its storage and insurance.

The conversation covers:

• What luxury travel actually means when your clients are billionaires

• Looking after superyachts visiting Scotland

• Creating experiences money normally cannot buy

• The extraordinary level of detail involved in VIP travel

• Why authenticity matters more than another five-star hotel

• Working with royalty and ultra-high-net-worth families

• Scotland's growing opportunity in luxury tourism

• How whisky cask investment really works

• The warning signs investors need to understand

• Why a certificate does not necessarily mean you own a whisky cask

• Huge mark-ups appearing in the cask brokerage market

• Why due diligence matters before investing

• Long-term investing versus chasing quick returns

• Building a business without originally knowing anything about the industry

• Balancing entrepreneurship, family and the constant search for the next opportunity

• The Bruce family's connection to Scottish history and whisky

• What Vikki ultimately wants her legacy to be

Vikki also shares the reality behind entrepreneurship. What began as an opportunity to organise one extraordinary trip became a business with staff, major responsibilities and close to £1 million a year in outgoing costs. She describes the addictive side of building something, spotting opportunities everywhere and learning almost everything the hard way.

And despite an episode filled with billionaires, castles, superyachts and valuable whisky, Vicky ends with perhaps the simplest lesson of all: money and possessions ultimately mean very little compared with the way you treat people and the legacy you leave behind.

🎙️ Business Babble brings together entrepreneurs, business owners and fascinating guests for candid conversations about business, money, success, failure and everything that happens along the way.

This is your world. Shape it or someone else will.

#BusinessBabble #VikkiBruce #Scotland #LuxuryTravel #Whisky #ScotchWhisky #WhiskyInvestment #Entrepreneurship #Business #Superyacht #ScottishBusiness #Investing #LuxuryTourism #Podcast

What would someone from 1990 think if they suddenly landed in Britain in 2026?

In this episode of Business Babble, Johnny, Wicus and Mike take on one of their most provocative conversations yet, asking whether society has genuinely progressed or whether, somewhere along the way, we have lost resilience, discipline, personal responsibility and the ability to think for ourselves.

From social media and political correctness to parenting, education, welfare and the workplace, the guys explore how dramatically attitudes have changed over the last few decades.

Have we become too afraid to offend people? Are children being prepared for the real world or protected from it? Has technology made life easier while quietly eroding valuable skills? And have businesses become frightened to properly manage people because of the consequences of saying something unpopular?

Mike reflects on the decline of traditional trade skills and argues that modern technology and AI can make it easier to stop thinking and learning for ourselves. The conversation also turns to employers, with the guys debating whether increasingly complex employment rules are making businesses more reluctant to hire and manage poor performance.

They discuss:

• Whether society has become too soft

• Personal responsibility and the importance of consequences

• Why work ethic and self-reliance still matter

• The influence of social media on public debate

• Political correctness and the fear of speaking openly

• How parenting and childhood have changed

• Whether young people are being overprotected

• The decline of traditional skills and apprenticeships

• Technology, AI and independent thinking

• Welfare, taxation and incentives to work

• Why businesses are becoming more cautious about employing people

• Respect, gratitude and valuing what you have

• Why difficult experiences can help build resilience

This is Business Babble at its most unfiltered. Not everyone will agree with every opinion, but that is exactly the point.

Can we still have difficult conversations without immediately trying to silence one another?

🎙️ Business Babble is about business, life, leadership and the conversations people are often thinking about but rarely willing to have publicly.

This is your world. Shape it or someone else will.

#BusinessBabble #Resilience #PersonalResponsibility #WorkEthic #Business #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #Parenting #Society #CommonSense #Employment #Apprenticeships #AI #UKBusiness

Is Britain broken, or have we simply lost the political leadership needed to fix it?

In this episode of Business Babble, we sit down with Scottish Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr for a candid, long-form conversation about the state of Scotland and the UK, the economy, welfare, taxation, entrepreneurship and the difficult decisions he believes politicians are avoiding.

Stephen shares his journey from more than 30 years in business to Westminster and the Scottish Parliament, before the conversation turns to some much bigger questions.

Why does it sometimes feel like working harder no longer pays? Are businesses and entrepreneurs being punished for taking risks? Has the welfare system lost sight of its original purpose? Why are ambitious young people considering leaving the UK? And have politicians become too focused on winning the next election rather than making the decisions the country actually needs?

The conversation covers:

• Why work, responsibility and contribution matter

• The growing cost of welfare and the incentives within the benefits system

• Taxation and the pressures facing Scottish businesses

• Why entrepreneurship, risk and profit should be encouraged rather than punished

• The relationship between government, business and the individual

• Immigration and the importance of contribution

• Education, skills, apprenticeships and opportunities for young people

• Energy security, food security and national security

• Why strong leadership sometimes means making unpopular decisions

• The problem with political soundbites and short-term thinking

• Stephen's belief that politicians need to explain not just what they want to change, but why

• Whether Britain can still turn things around

It is a frank discussion about politics from the perspective of business owners who are less interested in party slogans and more interested in one simple question: what actually works?

Whether you agree with Stephen Kerr's politics or not, this episode explores the ideas, frustrations and difficult choices sitting behind some of the biggest debates facing Scotland and the wider UK today.

🎙️ Business Babble brings together entrepreneurs, business leaders and guests from outside the traditional business world for honest conversations about business, leadership, money, success and the issues affecting people trying to build something.

Subscribe for more long-form conversations with people who have something worth saying.

#BusinessBabble #StephenKerr #ScottishPolitics #UKPolitics #Business #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #ScottishBusiness #Economy #Welfare #Tax #SmallBusiness #Politics #Scotland

You can be busy every day, have plenty of customers and still not be running a profitable business.

In this episode of The Business Babble Podcast, Johnny, Mike and Wicus get into the numbers, decisions and habits that separate a business that simply keeps you busy from one that actually makes money and grows.

They break down gross profit, net profit, fixed costs, variable costs and margins in simple terms, and discuss why every business owner needs to understand exactly where their money is being made and where it is disappearing.

The conversation also explores why constantly competing on price can become a race to the bottom, how to recognise customers who simply aren't worth taking on, and why understanding your true value makes it much easier to charge properly.

They also discuss:

• Why being busy does not necessarily mean being profitable

• How to know whether every job or product actually makes money

• The danger of discounting just to win a customer

• Increasing average customer order value through upselling and cross-selling

• Why small businesses should avoid competing purely on price

• Creating a customer experience people actually want to come back to

• Finding what genuinely differentiates your business

• Knowing when to say no to the wrong client

• Protecting your time as a business owner

• Delegating effectively without losing control

• Building systems and processes that allow your business to grow

• Why sales is really about communication and solving problems

• Building relationships before you need to sell

• Networking, confidence and authenticity

• Doing what you say you're going to do

• Taking responsibility when something goes wrong

• Why a genuine apology can protect a customer relationship

Whether you're starting a business, growing a small business or already managing a team, this episode is packed with practical business advice you can apply immediately.

If you're working harder than ever but wondering why the bank balance doesn't seem to reflect it, this one is worth a listen.

The Business Babble Podcast brings together real business owners for honest conversations about entrepreneurship, business growth, sales, marketing, leadership, customer service, profitability and the realities of running a business.

Subscribe for more straight-talking conversations about building and growing a successful business.

#BusinessPodcast #SmallBusiness #Entrepreneurship #BusinessGrowth #BusinessTips #Sales #Profit #PricingStrategy #CustomerExperience #Leadership

What makes someone genuinely good at networking? It is not delivering the perfect sales pitch, collecting as many business cards as possible or telling everyone in the room what you do.

In this episode, Johnny, Mike and Wicus explore why the best networking starts with curiosity, authenticity and a genuine interest in other people. They discuss how to make a memorable first impression, ask questions that lead to real conversations, explain the value you create without launching into a sales pitch and build relationships that develop into trust over time.

They also share their thoughts on what makes a great business event, why some speakers can kill the atmosphere and how a little humour, preparation and personality can help even the most nervous networker feel at home in the room.

Running a business is rarely as glamorous as it looks from the outside. In this candid episode, Johnny, Wicus and Mike discuss the pressure many business owners are feeling, from slowing sales and depleted cash reserves to inefficient processes, staffing problems and the relentless weight of responsibility.

Johnny shares the reality of returning from a two-week shutdown with wages approaching and little financial breathing room. The team explores how reviewing the right data, cutting unnecessary costs and making small, consistent improvements can help turn a struggling business around. They also look at customer experience, the value of picking up the phone, and why owners sometimes need to step back into their business with a clear 90-day plan.

But resilience has its limits. When should you keep fighting, and when is continuing only digging a deeper hole? This is an honest conversation about cash flow, persistence, difficult decisions and what it really takes to survive the highs and lows of business ownership.

In this episode of the Business Babble Podcast, we welcome back Doug Schreiber from NFU Mutual, Edinburgh and the Lothians, to explore a range of valuable benefits that many business owners may not even know are available to them.

Doug explains how businesses outside the farming industry can access NFU Scotland professional membership and take advantage of its significant collective buying power. These benefits can include substantial fuel card savings, discounts on new commercial vehicles, preferential vehicle finance rates, airport parking and ferry discounts, plus access to professional accountancy and HR advice.

We also discuss the importance of regularly reviewing business expenses, making sure your insurance genuinely protects you when it matters and why retaining existing customers is often far more profitable than constantly chasing new ones.

Doug also shares details of an exclusive 10% discount on first-year membership for Business Babble listeners.

A practical episode packed with ideas that could help your business reduce costs, strengthen customer relationships and improve its bottom line.