The Soap Box Podcast

Come and rage against the online business machine with me. (Slightly rich coming from someone who runs an online business and works with a lot of online business owners, but bear with me.) 

In this episode, I’m talking to Ruth Tsui, a strategic thinking partner and implementation coach for solo service providers who want to remain a delightfully small company of one, without having to go it all alone. Her soapbox is online business bullsh*ttery. That covers everything from guru playbooks built for seven-figure businesses and handed to people who just want to do the school run, to the weekly announcement on Threads that email, or social, or something else is dead. 

Ruth talks about how she got to this soapbox, including the advice she paid for and lasted three weeks following. She also talks about how to work out which advice, expertise and support will actually help you build a business you want to run. We get into her research on group programmes, where 68% of participants said they didn’t get the support they needed. And she introduces the F*ck It Friday Club, her free lunch club for solo founders in Winchester and Waterloo (you pay for your own lunch). 

And yes, there’s a tangent where I rant about solo business owners being expected to produce as much content as a global conglomerate. You’ve been warned. 

Find Ruth here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruth-tsui/

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Most of us, if we think about course accessibility at all, think captions and alt text. Pop them in, tick the box, move on. Except most of the course platforms Catrina reviewed don't even give you somewhere to put the alt text. And a PDF exported from Canva can get read out by a screen reader in whatever order you happened to drop things onto the page. 

In this episode, I'm talking to Dr Catrina Mitchum, a recovering academic and learning designer who helps businesses create courses like they give a shit about client outcomes. Her soapbox is accessibility. It goes back to her undergrad days, when she read textbooks onto cassette tape for a blind professor so he could decide which ones to use with his class. 

We get into how many US adults have a disability, and what that means for who can actually use your course. Catrina shares the small first steps that make a real difference when you're short on time or capacity, and where AI genuinely helps (and where it's still a junior designer at best). We also talk about why gamification can't rescue a course with shaky foundations, and how to invite feedback without drowning in it. 

Guest resources: 

• Catrina's fortnightly newsletter, with research-based steps for building the course you actually want: https://www.cmlearningdesign.com/cut-the-crap
• Catrina's 16-platform course accessibility review on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@coursecreatorplaybook 
• Catrina on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@cmlearningdesign
• Catrina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catrina-mitchum-learning-design/

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What do you say when someone asks what you do, and the honest answer has four parts?

This week's episode is a solo one, adapted from a live workshop I ran in September. It's for anyone who's been handed the "I help X do Y so they can Z" sentence and felt the best bits of their work fall off the edges as they filled it in. When I asked a room of ten business owners whether their thirty-second answer did their work justice, not one of them said yes.

So instead of that formula, I walk you through four questions from the Regenerative Story Map that make room for work that's shared, slow, or doesn't have a tidy before and after. Grab a notebook, because you can answer them as you listen.

In this episode:

• Why the "I help X do Y" sentence makes you chop bits off your work, and why everyone in values-led business ends up sounding the same
• Where that sentence comes from (a hero, a guide and a dragon-shaped problem), and why it's the wrong map for community-led work
• The four questions: what your people are leaving behind, what helps in the middle, what's different because they're not doing it alone, and what starts to change
• How one client went from a sentence that wasn't landing to one that made her say "I feel hope"
• What to do with yours once you've got it (you're allowed to keep talking)

Mentioned in this episode

• The Regenerative Story Map (free)
• Why the Hero's Journey is the wrong model for your brand story

Sell Without Selling Your Soul

If you've spent years squeezing your work into sales templates that don't fit it, or been told the way to sell is to find your reader's pain point and press on it, this is the alternative. Sell Without Selling Your Soul is a four-month group programme where you build a complete sales funnel for one offer you already sell: the messaging, the content that brings the right people in, a freebie and its opt-in page, the emails that follow, and the sales page. There's room in it for everything you actually do, and it's designed to sell without making anyone feel worse first.

We start on 28 September, it's £250 a month for four months, and doors close at midnight UK time on Friday 25 September.

Find out more and join

Connect with Peta O'Brien-Day

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Copywriting & Brand Messaging Services

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 There's a story that we tell ourselves about who gets to do good in the world. So, charities, nonprofits, the third sector, they're framed as the moral ones, so the people who care. But that means that business is often cast as something that you tolerate at best and mistrust at worst. It's necessary, like we've gotta make money and keep the world spinning, but it's a little bit suspect.

They're always out for profit and not really caring about people. That's the idea. And look, I understand where the story comes from. I spent 15 years working in the voluntary sector. I've seen firsthand the good that charities can do, especially when people are in crisis, and they need support now, not in 10 years' time.

In this episode, I'm talking to Tim Delaney, a business consultant, whose work history has spanned international development and small business ownership.

We get into the idea that charity and business aren't opposites, and that treating them as such can actually limit long-term impact in communities, both close to you and far away. We talk about what happens when communities are seen just as recipients of help, rather than a place where people want to build livelihoods, about jobs, dignity, agency, and the kinds of impact that don't make headlines, but change lives all the same.

Find Tim on threads

Find Tim on Instagram

Listen to Tim's podcast, Power of Biz, here: 

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/business-buying-for-financial-independence/id1823816760
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kBagDg0jmHwOmPJggAnGH?si=tJbpjTI1SYmEXUAa6z52xQ 

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If social media is pay-to-play, and your website is a slow burn, where are people meant to build genuine community now?

That question sits right in the middle of this episode with Sally Burns, founder of The Portal, a platform trying to fix two things at once: the way online learning works, and the way creators find each other without shouting into the algorithm void.

We get into interactive learning, course overwhelm, cross-pollination between creators, and why “community” isn’t a Facebook group with a few emojis and a weekly prompt.

Find Sally on LinkedIn

Explore The Portal Collective

Follow The Portal on Instagram

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 Networking doesn’t have to feel like business speed dating. 

In the latest episode of the Soapbox podcast, I’m chatting with Emma Ahlert, founder of Elsie – a networking space for people working in female and sexual health that actually feels good to be in. 

We talk about:
 • Making friends before making sales
 • Why some rooms feel instantly wrong (AI + golf, anyone?)
 • Online communities that don’t drain your soul
 • And building something ethically, without fear-based messaging 

If networking has ever made you want to fake a phone call and leave early, this episode might change how you think about it. 

Find Emma  on LinkedIn here

And on Instagram here

Found out about Elsie here

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Running your own business requires more than good ideas and solid strategy.

It asks for energy, emotional regulation, focus, and the ability to make decisions when things feel uncertain. When those start to wobble, everything else gets heavier too - marketing, consistency, confidence.

This episode explores health through a longevity lens. How strength, sleep, and taking care of your body support the kind of work entrepreneurs are doing every day, especially over the long term.

I’m joined by Laura Caddy, an online fitness coach who works with professional women over 35, to talk about building routines that fit real life and support both mental and physical wellbeing.

If you’ve been telling yourself you’ll get to this once things calm down, this conversation might land.

Find Laura on Instagram

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Today on the Soap Box, I’m talking to Jacki Hayes, a systems geek for creative service businesses and someone who’s quietly building a very different kind of company. Jacki helps creative service providers stop duct-taping their systems together and build businesses that actually work, with more ease, clarity and flexibility.

In our conversation, Jacki makes a simple, slightly spicy point, the kind I like. Running a business is political, not party political, but human political. The way we pay people, the policies we set, who we hire and how we hire them all send a message about the world we’re trying to build.

Jacki shares the story of how a single job ad – one that offered a real living wage, proper time off and care-led policies that most founders are told are “impossible”, especially at the early stages – completely shifted what success looked like for her. And how that moment went on to shape the way she now helps others build their businesses in a totally different way.

All that advice about maximising profit, reducing payroll and the whole “hire the cheapest VA you can find” vibe is the complete antithesis of the businesses Jacki helps people create. She lays out why that model doesn’t sit right with her and how you can build business systems that genuinely match your ethics. This is very much her real talk approach to values-aligned business, the kind she also explores on her podcast Here’s What I Learned.

If you’ve ever wondered how to grow without losing your values, or how to let your values help you grow, this one is going to land. Jacki’s a joy, so I’d invite you to grab a notebook for this one and listen to Jacki get on her soapbox.

Jacki's Links:

Jacki's upcoming shop, "The Toolshed", a pay-what-you-choose shop filled with tools she's actually used to run her own business. In addition to being full of accessibly-priced tools you’ll actually use, 25% of what comes in (revenue not profit) is donated to organisations supporting Black reparations, Indigenous communities, LGBTQ+ rights, and reproductive justice.

Jacki's website: www.jackihayes.co

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Today on The Soap Box, I’m talking to Louis Watkins, the founder of Clear for Men, a skincare brand designed to do more than clean your face — it’s a daily reminder to take five minutes for yourself. It sounds simple, but Louis is genuinely an inspiration (and I don’t say that lightly).

Louis is on a mission to normalise mental health conversations among men. He’s a huge advocate for men’s mental health, and after personally struggling with his own challenges around 2020, he became determined to break the stigma that so often keeps men silent out of fear of being judged. His flagship product, the Take Five® Facial Cleanser, is intentionally designed to be that physical cue each morning — a simple pause to reflect and care for your mental and physical wellbeing.

His story is incredible. His vision is powerful. His passion, enthusiasm, and empathy are all off the charts. And since launching Clear for Men, Louis has raised hundreds of pounds for mental health charities, sparked hundreds of meaningful conversations, and helped hundreds of men simply take five.

In this episode, we talk about the journey he’s been on, the courage it takes to speak openly about men’s mental health, and the surprising ways a business can hold multiple purposes at once. Louis is a brilliant example of how you can measure impact in more than one way, how your KPIs can be human as well as financial, and how the path to building something meaningful is anything but linear.

So sit back, get ready to be inspired whether you’re sipping your coffee or folding your laundry, and listen to Louis get on his soapbox.

Louis' Links:

Buy Take Five® Invigorating Facial Cleanser at clearformen.co.uk

Carefully formulated to deeply boost hydration and support the skin's natural barrier, Louis' Take Five® cleanser also serves as a daily reminder for men to "Take Five" for themselves. 15% of profits are donated to CALM and Mind.

Instagram: @weareclear_ / @louiswxtkins
Tiktok: @weareclear_ / @louiswxtkins
LinkedIn: Clear For Men / Louis Watkins

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Thoughts on where I'm falling short, why that's ok, and what to do instead. 

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