Discover how to get your equestrian or country business featured in major publications and media outlets. Practical PR tips, pitching advice, and media relations strategies for rural entrepreneurs.

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Podmas, Small Business Saturday, Your Horse Live and lots more!

Podmas, Small Business Saturday, Your Horse Live and lots more!If a podcast could be a newsletter, this would be it!

Podmas, Small Business Saturday, Your Horse Live and lots more!

As we start Podmas next week (eek!), I wanted to share a bit about that with you, and when I started chatting about that and how it all works and why, I then wanted to share some other bits with you too!

These include:

Small Business Saturday– this BRILLIANT campaign, created by Small Business Britain which is run by the fabulous Michelle Ovens, helps to promote small businesses and how incredible they are to the wider world. Falling just after Black Friday, Small Business Saturday encourages us all to take to the streets- or shop online- and support our favourite small businesses. On the run up to the event, Small Business Saturday also offers lots of support for businesses through webinars and one to one mentoring opportunities. Not only am I one of the very lucky #SBS100 for 2022, I’m also giving a webinar and providing mentoring sessions as part of the campaign. I’m really delighted to be involved.

Your Horse Live– I’m heading over to Your Horse Live for a few different reasons, but one of them is that I’ve been invited to speak on the stage each day and I am genuinely so excited for this. Each day, I’ll be interviewing some brilliant influencers to talk about what it takes to be an influencer, the highs and lows along the journey, and we’ll be answering questions from the audience too. It’s going to be brilliant. In addition to this, I’ll also be helping the BETA team at the event as they have a stand there to help promote their work and the trade, and Dr Diane Fisher will be hosting a live Rider Clinic on the stage each day too! Exciting stuff!

 

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6 things you can do to get ready for Christmas RIGHT NOW

 

6 things you can do for Christmas RIGHT NOWChristmas really is coming. We’re probably just days away from hearing Mariah or Slade on the radio… and yet some brands are very badly prepared for Christmas. But don’t worry, I’m here to help!

6 things you can do to get ready for Christmas RIGHT NOW

Christmas is a big time of year for many retailers with profit made over the next few months carrying them over into Winter, and yet, there’s the tenancy to be a bit last minute about it all, isn’t there?

On this episode of the podcast I share six things you can do right now to help your business grow and thrive during the festive season. I hope you find it useful… it’s a good one!

Some of these are time consuming, some not so much, but all are free at an entry level, so there’s no excuse not to get cracking!

  1. Make a plan. Whether you like to make plans on paper or the computer, make a plan. I’m a fan on planning with pen and paper, but you do you! You can use a smart and snazzy planner, or you can head over to Google and print off a month to view. Think of the key dates for you. Things like Black Friday, last order dates, last postage dates, write them all down. This will then help you to see what you’re aiming for and when and it can help you to plan your content to let people know what’s happening and when too. If you’re a brand ambassador, reach out to your brands. If you want to be a good brand ambassador (and who wants to be any other type, right?), make sure you reach out to the brands you work with and ask them what they’re up to and how you can help them achieve their goals.
  2. Get the dates.  If you’re working with magazines and websites, reach out to them and find out when their deadline are. And please, please, comply with the guidelines any magazine or website details. If someone asks for 50 words, supply them with 50 words. There are NO prizes for sending 1000 words. Actually, quite the opposite, you probably won’t be picked…
  3. Strategic gifting. Think who you may like to gift products to on the run up to Christmas. These might be influencers or even customers. However, do the work now. Make sure you’ve identified who you might like to work with, do the research, then reach out and start to get people ‘booked’ in so you can start to formulate a plan.
  4. Grow your mailing list. If you haven’t got a mailing list- NOW IS THE TIME TO START. If you have a mailing list, then put some time into building this and really thinking about the value that you can offer to people, to help incentivise more sign ups. Also plan when you’ll be emailing your people, and what you’ll be contacting them about.
  5. Collateral. Start working on your images, videos. graphics and the other marketing collateral that you can create ahead of time. This means that when things get really busy on the run up to the big day, you’ll have all your imagery ready to go, which will be SO useful for you. Trust me on this.
  6. Your own content. Make sure you’ve spent some time on your own content. Your own blogs, gift guides, etc etc. It’s important we take part in the guides of others, but it’s also vital we make our own content too.

Are you ready?

Small & Supercharged Mastermind

 

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5 reasons to invest in yourself

 

5 reasons to invest in yourself

The media is full of negative news- there’s no denying that- but even with all that’s going on, today, I want to urge you to not skimp on investing in yourself. More than that, I want to encourage you to invest in yourself more than ever. Don’t worry- I haven’t completely lost my mind, there are LOADS of ways you can invest in yourself for free, and there are loads of them in this podcast!

5 reasons to invest in yourself

 

With everything going on in the world at the moment, you may have decided to cut any learning budget in a bid to save money. I’m not here to say you must spend money on your growth and development if there’s nothing left in your budget- but what I will say is stopping all forms of training and investment in your personal growth is never a good idea.

The good thing is, you don’t have to spend a fortune on training- really, as with a lot of things in life, you can generally invest time or money (and maybe even both!) to broaden your horizons. From super high ticket courses through to free podcasts, audiobooks, video trainings, books, webinars- the list is nearly endless and there is plenty out there to suit any budget. I promise.

Why should you invest in yourself now?

  1. If you’re not learning, you’re going backwards. If you’re not trying to grow, develop and upskill, you’re losing ground if your competitors are committed to learning. Just because you’ve stopped, it doesn’t mean everyone else has. You don’t want to be lapped by taking your foot off the pedal when it comes to growth, training and personal development.
  2. You’re not alone. If you work for yourself, particularly if you work from home on your own, it can be really lonely. But the thing is, what you’re experiencing won’t be unique to you- you’re not alone. If you invest your time and/or your money in a community full of likeminded people, you will reap the rewards, feel more supported, be able to find shortcuts and expedite your growth.
  3. It can save you time. If you learn from others and their experiences and mistakes, you’ll likely save yourself a huge amount of time. The investment needed for this benefit is time. If you opt for a group like Mastermind, it’s money too, but if you go for a free group, it’s time. You can also get involved with free online trainings, books and lots of other methods to help progress your learning and save yourself a lot of time.
  4. Community and connectors creates opportunity. Connecting with people, whether in real life or through groups, can lead to huge opportunities. It’s a side benefit of why you should invest in yourself- time or money- because just one connection can make an introduction that can change the trajectory of your business, maybe even your life!
  5. It can help your business to grow in challenging times. We all need inspiration to help us grow, but particularly when times are tough, it can be harder to ‘dig deep’ and find these. That’s why investing in yourself is key. Investing in your education can help encourage different thoughts, new ideas and connections. And these are vital to surviving and even thriving when times are tough.

 

Small & Supercharged Mastermind

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Is it all doom and gloom? (Spoiler alert… I don’t think so)

The news has been full of doom and gloom of late- from the challenging costs of diesel and petrol alongside rising costs of food and more of now, to increased pressure, price rises and even scarcity of fuel, food and lots more to come. But is it all doom and gloom? No… I don’t think it is.

Is it all doom and gloom? (Spoiler alert… I don’t think so)

The news has been full of doom and gloom of late- from the challenging costs of diesel and petrol alongside rising costs of food and more of now, to increased pressure, price rises and even scarcity of fuel, food and lots more to come. But is it all doom and gloom? No… I don’t think it is.

I’m not here to tell you that things aren’t going to change, but hopefully this podcast will provide you with some steps you can take to help your business over the next few months. I also look at the evidence around how some businesses grow and thrive during recessions- so while sweeping generalisations about doom and gloom are dramatic and create good headlines, the evidence doesn’t support this… and it’s worth having a look at that too.

I hope you find this one useful… I think you will.

Small & Supercharged Mastermind

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Safety and equestrian standards with Claire Williams, Executive Director of BETA

Claire Williams BETA

The second Summer of Safety podcast with the British Equestrian Trade Association is here, and today we’re chatting all about safety (obviously!), standards, fitting and lots more too.

Safety and equestrian standards with Claire Williams, Executive Director of BETA

On this episode, I caught up with Claire Williams, Executive Director of BETA, to chat all about the standards that apply to riding hats and body protectors. We also chat about the importance of a good fit and why buying online can make hat and body protector fitting a challenge.

To find out more about the British Equestrian Trade Association, see the website here, or find them on Facebook and Instagram.

Small & Supercharged Mastermind

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How to ask for testimonials

How to ask for testimonials

We all know that testimonials, reviews and endorsements are important to what we do – whether we’re a product based business, a service provider, or an influencer… but how do you ask for testimonials? Or more precisely, how do you ask for testimonials without feeling really uncomfortable? This podcast should help.


How to ask for testimonials

I know that asking people for endorsements or testimonials can feel really icky. Asking people to tell you to your face how amazing you are is never going to be easy, is it? But the thing is, we need to reframe this. Because that’s not exactly what we’re asking for.

It’s important to think about what we gain- as consumers or interested parties- from testimonials. It’s that extra information. It’s more than simply what a product or service does. It can both repel and attract people. But that’s what we want. We want testimonials to give people extra information to make informed decisions. It’s not arrogant or self centred to do this- it’s very much part of how everything works. It’s word of mouth in the written form. And that’s pretty important.

I do understand that it does feel weird asking for testimonials, but by rethinking it all, seeing the opportunities that present themselves to you and then capitalising on these in line with this, it’ll really help.

And, if you fancy a challenge today… why not try and get one testimonial? Just one. Reach out to someone you’ve worked with – it could be a customer, a brand, an influencer- anyone who’s worked with you- and explain that you’re working on your testimonials section and would love a few words from them.  Good luck!

Small & Supercharged Mastermind

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Are press releases dead?

are press releases dead

Are press releases dead? It’s a question I get asked a fair amount, and while the short answer is no, the longer answer is more a ‘no… as long as…’. And the long answer is what you’ll get on this episode of the Small & Supercharged Podcast!

Are press releases dead?

The world has changed from the days of being able to write a press release, send it out, and then feel happy that you’d done big things in helping get your amazing new product out there. Now, you have the option to do a whole lot more with that press release… and that means it can be used for so much more than was originally intended.

The thing is, the way press releases used to work still has value, but with a few extra steps, press releases can be incredibly valuable to you if you repurpose well!⁠

On this episode of the podcast, I explore why the humble press release is very much- in my opinion- alive and kicking, and how to make it (and the process of building your press list, etc) work really well for you.

Small & Supercharged Mastermind

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From fur pom poms to full on Foxy with Foxy Equestrian founder Sophie Sacco

sophie sacco foxy equestrian

Foxy Equestrian started life thanks to a fur pom pom that the founder, Sophie Sacco, created at her dining room table! And how the brand has grown since then! With many tradestands under her belt and an ever growing collection of beautiful products available, Sophie shares all about how her brand came to be.

From fur pom poms to full on Foxy with Foxy Equestrian founder Sophie Sacco


Having a passion for horses her whole life, working with horses was an obvious step, but creating a whole brand… maybe not! From a humble pom pom created from an old fur coat to a full collection of bespoke base layers, hat silks, riding leggings and more, Sophie talks us through the whole business, her love of challenges and desire to create really exceptional unique products for her customers. She also talks about how you do Badminton and Windsor with a broken leg and ailing lorry… it’s definitely a good listen!

To find out more about Foxy Equestrian and the extensive collection of apparel, see the website here.

In addition, make sure you follow Sophie and Foxy Equestrian on Instagram and Facebook. Through these channels, you can get a lot of inspiration around just what’s possible with bespoke base layers and hat silks. And spoiler alert, the possibilities really are endless!

Small & Supercharged Mastermind

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5 ways to collaborate with brands (whoever you are!)

5 ways to collaborate with brands

Hands up if you love a collaboration 🙋‍♀️ but do you sometimes struggle to think of how to collaborate with brands you love?
Want five fab ways to collaborate with brands? Your wish is my command…

5 ways to collaborate with brands (whoever you are!)


Collaborations are a great way to promote your brand and grow your audience, and there are LOADS of ways that you can collaborate with brands, whether you are one or if you’re an influencer.

In this episode of the podcast, I chat through five ways to collaborate with brands, to ensure everyone benefits and you achieve your goal for the collaboration- whatever that is.

Collaborations don’t have to be highly complex, in fact, the simplest ones can often be the most effective. It’s really important that you put the time and effort in to make sure you find the right people to collaborate with- those who share your core values, have audiences likely to be interested in what you do, and want to collaborate with you (and put the work in!). Collaborating with people who don’t share your beliefs, have wildly different audiences and have no real interest in working with you as a partnership won’t ever deliver the value you want…

Enjoy the podcast- whether you’re an influencer or a brand looking to collaborate with others brands, I think it’s packed with value to help you on your way to a great collaboration.

Small & Supercharged Mastermind

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Should you join a membership group to help your business?

Are you part of a membership group? Have you considered joining one? This is the podcast for you!

Should you join a membership group to help your business?

As you’ll probably know, I run the Small & Supercharged Mastermind group- which is a membership designed for small business owners with equestrian, rural or country connections- but what makes a membership (any membership) worth joining?

In this episode of the podcast, I talk about what to look for in membership groups to make sure they’re going to deliver what you need. I also talk about how to assess the training offered and who the group is being led by.

Memberships can provide more than education- they can also provide community, opportunities and so much more. So if you’re thinking of joining a membership or you’re interested to learn more about what you could gain, or you just want to know more about how they work, this is for you!

Membership groups have continued to grow in popularity over recent years, and it’s easy to see why. In addition to getting valuable training, the right memberships can also provide members with supportive communities and the possibility of business (and maybe even life) enhancing connections too.

But not all memberships are created equal. Having run the Small & Supercharged Membership group for a few years now, and seen many others in action, I have packed this episode with tips to help you find the right membership group for you- that is, if you’re interested in them at all.

And, of course, if you’d like to find out more about the Small & Supercharged Mastermind group, you can do that here 

Small & Supercharged Mastermind

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