Episode #609 - ScaleUp Shorts - From Founder Bottleneck to Scalable Leadership
ScaleUp Radio
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio Shorts, Kevin Brent and Louise Blunt reflect on two fascinating conversations from the main ScaleUp Radio podcast. One with entrepreneur Lucy Robins, founder of Amp Wellbeing, and the other with leadership expert Mike Mair. At first glance, their worlds seem completely different. Lucy built a premium fitness equipment brand from scratch using her own savings, navigating supply chain chaos, inventory pressures, and the realities of scaling a product-based business. Mike spent years developing leaders inside major organisations before launching his own...
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Episode #608 - The Importance Of Staying Focused In A Products Marketplace - with Lucy Robins
ScaleUp Radio
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent sits down with Lucy Robins to explore how she has built a premium wellness and fitness brand from scratch with a £50,000 personal investment and a clear mission: making movement part of everyday life. Lucy shares the realities of bootstrapping a product business in today’s market, from managing long lead times and cash flow pressures to building a brand that sits comfortably between wellness interiors and fitness. With Amp Wellbeing growing rapidly across both direct-to-consumer and studio partnerships, this conversation is packed with practical...
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Episode #607: Culture Is A Reflection Of Leadership - with Mike Mair
ScaleUp Radio
What if the real reason your business isn’t scaling isn’t strategy, systems, or sales… but the way you develop your people? In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent is joined by leadership and strategic L&D expert Mike Mair to unpack one of the most overlooked drivers of sustainable growth: building engaged, high-performing teams through intentional leadership and culture development. Mike shares practical frameworks and real-world advice for SME leaders who want to create stronger cultures, develop future leaders, improve accountability, and unlock better performance across...
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Episode #606: ScaleUp Shorts - Fear, Focus & the Founder Trap - What Jacqueline Wales and Jules Herd reveal about scaling without losing control
ScaleUp Radio
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio Shorts, Kevin Brent and Louise Blunt unpack the powerful overlap between mindset and operational scale-up challenges through insights from two exceptional guests: Jacqueline Wales and Jules Herd. While Jules Herd brings practical expertise from the world of strategic communications and scaling technology businesses, Jacqueline Wales explores the deeper psychological patterns that often hold founders back. Together, their lessons reveal a critical truth: many operational bottlenecks are actually rooted in fear, control, and limiting beliefs. This episode...
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Episode #605 - Harnessing Fear Intelligence to Lead, Decide, and Scale with Confidence
- with Jacqueline Wales
ScaleUp Radio
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent is joined by expert advisor Jacqueline Wales, a leading authority on Fear Intelligence. This conversation reframes one of the most misunderstood forces in business, fear, and turns it into a practical leadership tool. Rather than trying to eliminate fear, Jacqueline explains how scaleup leaders can use it as valuable data to make better decisions, build stronger teams, and unlock growth. If you are navigating uncertainty, leading through change, or feeling stuck at a plateau, this episode offers clear frameworks and actionable insights to help you...
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Episode #604 - Founder Mistakes & Building Resilient Scale-ups - with Jules Herd
ScaleUp Radio
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent sits down with Jules Herd, founder of Five in a Boat, to unpack the real reasons scale-ups stall and what founders must do differently to grow sustainably. Jules shares hard-earned insights from working with Series A to C tech businesses, revealing why marketing often isn’t the real problem and what actually needs fixing underneath. Key Takeaway The one key thing: Growth stalls when founders try to scale without upgrading their thinking, their team, and their focus. Standout Message “Marketing doesn’t fail because marketing is...
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Episode #603 - ScaleUp Shorts - What two very different founders teach us about leadership, resilience, Al and the future of human connection in business
ScaleUp Radio
This week on ScaleUp Radio Shorts, Kevin Brent and Louise Blunt unpack two fascinating conversations with founders operating in completely different worlds — yet connected by one powerful idea: Business success still comes down to people. On one side is Bob Ferguson — city councilman, long-standing business owner, and leader of what he calls an “all-volunteer army” through his network marketing organisation in Fairfield, Iowa. On the other is Priyanka Rao — immigrant tech founder and creator of MicroInterns, an innovative platform connecting students with startups through short-term,...
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Episode #602 - Solving the Experience Paradox with Micro-Internships - with Priyanka Rao
ScaleUp Radio
Hi there and welcome back to another edition of ScaleUp Radio, the podcast brought to you by Smart90, inspired by the Entrepreneurial ScaleUp System and designed to make navigating our ScaleUp journeys that little bit easier by learning from others' experiences. I’m Kevin Brent and in today's episode I’m joined by Priyanka Rao, founder of MicroInterns. Now if you’ve ever struggled with hiring or wondered whether CVs really tell the full story anymore, this one’s for you. With AI now writing CVs and even running interviews, there’s a growing question around trust in the hiring...
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Episode #601 - Leadership Effectiveness Is A State Of Mind - with Bob Ferguson
ScaleUp Radio
Hi there and welcome back to another edition of ScaleUp Radio, the podcast brought to you by Smart90, inspired by the Entrepreneurial ScaleUp System and designed to make navigating our ScaleUp journeys that little bit easier by learning from others' experiences. I’m Kevin Brent and in today's episode I’m joined by Bob Ferguson. Bob brings a fascinating perspective on leadership - combining decades of experience in business, community building, and global networks - and at the heart of it all is one powerful idea: mental fitness. We explore why your effectiveness as a leader is shaped less...
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Episode #600 - ScaleUp Shorts - Stop explaining. Start solving!
ScaleUp Radio
This episode is created with the use of AI In this ScaleUp Radio Shorts episode, Kevin Brent and Louise Blunt unpack two recent interviews with very different leaders operating in very different sectors, yet facing strikingly similar scaling challenges. On one side, Paul Patras, a deep-tech founder translating complex AI into commercial value. On the other, Greg Baldwin, scaling a fast-growing operational business through practical, data-led leadership. This episode focuses on the practical shifts in thinking, communication, and leadership that enable businesses to move from complexity and...
info_outlineIt’s a unique business, certainly for ScaleUp Radio, in that it connects organisations and entrepreneurs with journalists, who are looking for help with a specific story or subject.
Rachel’s career trajectory is a fascinating one, including an incredibly successful franchise called Mums In Control, but it’s great to hear Rachel’s drive to help SME’s right across her career. This is undoubtedly her passion, and it’s refreshing to see that she’s managed to turn it into a successful business.
As always, there’s is a lot of ground covered in our conversation including:
- The very distinct difference between PR and Marketing, and what the power of the two is when it comes to your business
- Just because you might think that the story about your business isn’t of interest to anyone, doesn’t mean that a journalist won’t want to speak to you about it.
- Structure your business in a way that you can still survive, even if you lose your biggest client. Essentially, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
- Sales and marketing is all rooted in relationships. Talking to one person, being the only contact for a client is so powerful.
Don’t think that this episode is only for people who work in the media, or are looking to be an ‘influencer’ - there are some genuinely practical pieces of advice from Rachel in our conversation that can be used in the marketing strategy of any sized business, no matter where they are in their scale up journey.
Rachel can be found here:
linkedin.com/in/rachaeltaplin
https://mediamatchmaker.co.uk/
How To Stop Worrying And Start Living by Dale Carnegie - https://www.waterstones.com/book/how-to-stop-worrying-and-start-living/dale-carnegie/9780749307233
Street Smart Franchising by Joe Matthews, Don DeBolt and Deb Percival - https://www.waterstones.com/book/street-smart-franchising-a-must-read-before-you-buy-a-franchise/joe-mathews/don-debolt/9781599184111
The Secret by Rhonda Byrne - https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-secret/rhonda-byrne/9781847370297
The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy - https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-compound-effect/darren-hardy/9781593157241
Darren Daily -
https://darrenhardy.com/programs/
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/darrendaily-on-demand/id1449270369
https://open.spotify.com/show/6SbwYXIuLf9XEv1lZ5a6p9?si=d6db0172044543a3