I believe that running a business is not just about making money, though obviously, that is important.
It’s also about all the other things that are part and parcel of it – looking after yourself, your customers, the people that work for you, the other stakeholders and of course not forgetting the planet. And these are the topics that I am going to focus on.
Starting to Scale with Emmie Faust is a podcast for business owners that want to grow a business that thrives.
Things like your own mindset and looking after your own health and wellbeing. Something which often goes by the wayside.
Employing people and making sure that they are happy, challenged and being mindful of their wellbeing too.
It’s not about working people to the bone. It’s making sure that they feel supported and happy in the work that they are doing.
Bringing joy to customers and making sure that they have an amazing customer experience. Really genuinely caring about them.
Suppliers – paying them fairly and on time. Especially the freelancers and independents that are probably struggling with cashflow.
The planet – taking care of our planet and making choices that take into account the impact on the planet and others. Not just making the most ‘cost’ effective choices.
How is this podcast different from others?
This podcast is different from others as I am hoping to bring a unique perspective to running a thriving business.
I want to talk about it from a holistic point of view – not just the strategies, tactics and tips to grow profit and revenue (though for sure I am going to cover that too!).
Over the last 20 years running businesses and helping others I have realised that a lot of money and time is wasted.
Using the wrong freelancers/suppliers and agencies and engaging in activities that cost a lot of time or money but deliver nothing.
I want to change that. I want to show business owners how to measure what they are doing and how to question what they are doing so that they are not put in that position. Let’s put a stop to wasted money!
So many small businesses fail and that is partly because the founders have not run and grown a business before.
What can I share that might be unique?
I feel that I am uniquely suited to host this podcast as I have set up, scaled and sold multiple businesses.
Sometimes I wish that I hadn’t sold them and that I still had the business running, ticking over and employing people. I loved that side of the business.
However, our first media agency was working with a lot of gambling clients. Whilst we tried to branch out and win new clients from other sectors we found that difficult.
We did work with some travel/ charity/ finance clients but the sectors that we were working with did not bring me joy. I felt quite flat having to work with those kinds of clients.
We looked after our people, we looked after the planet, we made a profit, but I wasn’t happy.
It didn’t align with my values and for that reason, I am really happy that we managed to sell that business to a larger agency (who funnily enough took our staff and learnings and used that to service all their big charity clients)
So I have been there. I understand the challenges of running a business. I understand the highs and lows. We survived a recession, we survived changes to legislation -some of which had a massive impact on us.
We hired staff and we had recruiters trying to constantly poach them.
We took on placement students from Bournemouth university every year and tried to give them a fun, informative year where they learnt a lot. I think at least 3 joined us full time after university which made me really happy. It was proof that they loved being part of our team and felt that they were learning.
We built a great supportive team and many have gone on to do amazing things and I feel super proud of them.
I oversaw the finances of all our companies. We were buying media in multiple currencies and I think we had about 6 different currency accounts. I was often trading currencies to make sure that we didn’t get affected by exchange rate movements.
Our first accountants overstated our profits by a couple of hundred grand. They were big central London accountants so I would have expected better, but I identified this and quickly found a replacement who was much more on it.
There are so many stories of great things that happened and also really hard, tough times. And I know that all business owners are going through similar things.
It can be lonely being the owner and all the responsibilities that come with it. However, running a business can also bring us real joy and give us the flexibility that you don’t get working for someone else.
I feel that having a voice, through my podcast will allow me to share that with others. I hope that in doing so I can offer advice for free to anyone that wants to listen!
What will I gain from having a podcast?
From a personal perspective, one of the reasons for doing this is that I want to learn more about podcasting as its something that I love doing.
I hope that my podcast can bring joy to listeners but also make a real difference to them as business owners. And sharing what I do and what I have learnt over the last 20 years is something that makes me really happy.
I also love learning more about business growth, marketing and all the topics around it. I feel that by interviewing experts 1:1, I am getting a huge amount of even more in-depth experience and knowledge myself. This helps me to be even better in my role as a business growth consultant.
Click here to listen to Starting to Scale Podcast on your favourite podcasting platform and do let me know your feedback or leave me a review if you enjoyed listening.
