Harborough Hustle Podcast

Martin [00:00:00]:
Hello. I’m your podcast host, Martin Robson. Welcome to the Harborough Hustle, where today I’ll be chatting with Nicola Moss from Moss Social. After the show, you can check us out on marketharboroughbiznetwork.co.uk/podcast. You can find a transcript of today’s podcast, all the links that I mentioned, posts you can share on social media to spread the word, and everything you need to know if you’d like to find out more about our lovely sponsors and all the guests that are featured on Harborough Hustle. Before we dive in, let’s hear from today’s lovely sponsor.

Gill [00:00:37]:
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Martin [00:01:02]:
Welcome to this episode of Harborough Hustle, where I am delighted to be chatting with Nicola Moss from Moss Social. And listeners, if you have anything that you want to know about LinkedIn and how to make it more effective for you, then stay tuned to this episode because we’re going to cover it. Hello, Nicola.

Nicola [00:01:24]:
Hello, Martin. How are you?

Martin [00:01:26]:
I’m very well. Thank you. I think we’re both enjoying a little bit of heat for a change. So

Nicola [00:01:31]:
Yeah. Makes a change, doesn’t it, for us in the UK?

Martin [00:01:35]:
Absolutely. And we can tell if anybody, you know, from our worldwide audience hasn’t gathered that we’re in the UK yet, we’re starting off by talking about the weather.

Nicola [00:01:44]:
It’s what we do, isn’t it?

Martin [00:01:46]:
Absolutely. What better thing to do than that and a cup of tea? So let’s talk about something slightly more interesting, I e, you. And and just kick off by telling us a little bit about yourself, what you do and what you like to do when you’re not doing what you do.

Nicola [00:02:03]:
Okay. My name’s Nicola Moss. I set up my small business Moss Social almost 4 years ago, it’d be 4 years in September, to try and help small businesses with their social media marketing. And I’ve kind of evolved over over that time, as you do, because we all kind of, have to change, change up, don’t we, in a in this rapidly moving, market. And, yes. So I’ve lived in Harbour for, oh, about 30 years. Brought my, 3 boys up and went through the schools and the various sports clubs, so that took up a lot of that time. And, but yes, now I live in Melton Mowbray.

Nicola [00:02:45]:
So a little bit outside of your catchment, but, as you know, I love coming along to the Market Harbor Business Network and, I’m seeing all my friends there.

Martin [00:02:54]:
Yeah. I know. It’s great that you’ve you’ve kept in touch. And then, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, we’re we’re trying to, like, find out a little bit more, about people we know and and local businesses and and Milton Mowbray certainly within the the catchment area. So, yeah, maybe one of the questions that people wanna know is why did you leave?

Nicola [00:03:16]:
Well, I think it was just time for a change, you know. You kind of get very set in your ways and I thought I’m too young to be set in my ways. And, it was a good opportunity to, find another lovely place because, Melton’s very similar to Harborough in that it’s a market town. But I found a nice spot next to the Melton Country Park where I can walk my dog every day, without having to go in the car and drive somewhere. Not that I did before, but, you know, it it’s nice to change things up a little bit.

Martin [00:03:46]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And and it would be very remiss of me based on past audience interaction not to ask the name and breed of your dog.

Nicola [00:03:56]:
Oh, Jack, and he’s a cockapoo, a very mad one. So if he starts barking in this, I won’t be surprised.

Martin [00:04:03]:
He won’t be the first.

Nicola [00:04:05]:
No. I’m sure not.

Martin [00:04:07]:
There we go. You’re right about changing stuff up though. And and, I mean, in your, business role, like you say, you’ve done social media generally, but I think I’m right in saying you’re you’re kind of focusing in on LinkedIn nowadays?

Nicola [00:04:19]:
Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I was consistently keeping up with all the different changes on various platforms. I kind of had 4. So I I would do social media marketing for clients, and that would invariably include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And the changes were coming through so rapidly. It was just becoming untenable to think about training people on lots of different platforms.

Nicola [00:04:49]:
So, I focused in on LinkedIn. I did actually start focusing on, Instagram. I did a few, paid courses on that, which was brilliant, but they just went through a phase that every day Adam Mosseri was bringing out a new, oh, we’ve changed this. We’ve changed that, and we’ve changed this. And you think, oh my goodness me. All of my training is almost obsolete by the time we’ve you know, a couple of weeks have gone by. And, I found that really frustrating. And although, you know, I do appreciate that you have to keep up to, you know, stay agile, it was just a little bit overwhelming.

Nicola [00:05:28]:
And they very much turned into, you know, you need to be placing ads. And I’ve always been very much focused on organic marketing because I think it’s very difficult for small businesses to actually come up with an ads budget as such. And they’ve usually got in their early days a bit more time than money. So spend that time learning how to use a platform and using it well. And, you know, there’s a, a well cited stat that LinkedIn in terms of business to business, lead generation is 277% more effective than Facebook. So, yes, if you wanna place ads on Facebook, that’s a brilliant place to do it. But you are kind of interrupting the flow of people who are maybe looking at what their friends and family are doing. Whereas on LinkedIn, people are there to do business.

Nicola [00:06:21]:
They’re there to make connections. They’re there to find out something new, learn about something. So it’s an ideal place if you have a a b to b business, to create leads and generate leads for your, for your own business.

Martin [00:06:37]:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. You used a word that I thought you were going to use because, I mean, obviously I’m in a digital marketing realm as well. Yeah. And that word’s overwhelm, because not only, you know, for you trying to keep on top of 4, out of the various other social media networks that exist is is overwhelming. But of course, that’s what I’m sure you find because I do, businesses go well, we’re overwhelmed as well. We’re supposed to use a core and do this and then, oh my goodness. So, I think for them it makes sense to to focus.

Martin [00:07:11]:
And the other thing you mentioned was for for b to b, so business to business.

Nicola [00:07:16]:
Yeah.

Martin [00:07:16]:
So do you tend to say to to clients, like, do you know where your ideal audience is?

Nicola [00:07:22]:
Oh, definitely. Definitely. And even if you don’t necessarily know where they are at the start, you can think about who that audience is and then think about where they’re hanging out. And, you know, I had, a client consultation not that long ago. And realistically, although we were looking at LinkedIn and her profile and how she could, change things up, realistically, her market wasn’t really on LinkedIn. Her customer wasn’t on LinkedIn. They were actually physical because she was in the, construction industry in terms of small construction companies, you know, a, a husband and wife team. And, you know, maybe their idea their answer is to go down and and have a stand at Travis Perkins or something with some coffee and and bacon baps and and chat to them as they come in there rather than trying to thrash your way through, you know, I’ve gotta do all this on LinkedIn if it’s not even the right platform for you.

Nicola [00:08:26]:
So, yeah, it’s really important to think about, you know, who you’re wanting to reach, who you want to help, and, you know, where they are, where they’re hanging out. And it’s not always, right in front of you. It just needs sometimes it just needs a conversation to figure out where is the best place to find them.

Martin [00:08:45]:
Yeah. Music music to my ears. I’m sure to, to businesses as well that you get to talk to because, once they realize they don’t have to be doing everything every day all the time. Mhmm. Because that tends to lead to paralysis, doesn’t it? Analysis paralysis as they call it. You end up doing nothing. So

Nicola [00:09:02]:
Absolutely. I mean, definitely try to only stick to one platform, which can be difficult. I mean, I I find even for myself, you know, maybe I need to think about reaching people who are on Instagram and Facebook to say, come on over here and join us on LinkedIn. Whereas LinkedIn is where I feel more comfortable. It feels more authentic. You know, sometimes you can find you’re overwhelmed on Instagram with all these people, you know, beautiful, lovely people doing wonderful things and having amazing experiences, and you think, okay.

Martin [00:09:40]:
Yes. Yes. So I mean, you talked about, going for about 4 years now. Mhmm. So so what were you doing beforehand and and perhaps more importantly, what made you start what you’re doing now?

Nicola [00:09:55]:
Okay. Well, I suppose, post children because pre children, I was in an accountancy role, which doesn’t really count anymore. I, worked for various, venues. So I started out at Kelmarsh Hall, just down the road from, Harbour. Mhmm. And then moved over to Rockingham Castle where I spent 11 amazing years, really in events. But, of course, we had to market those events. And we were a very small team, so we did a bit of everything.

Nicola [00:10:26]:
So we were doing events in terms of weddings and conferences, but also public events. So the house and gardens would be open, and we’d have things like vikings and jousting and all these kind of fun things that families would like to come along to. And I gosh. I remember we used to go to these tourism forums that were held quarterly, and we’d been told, you know, you need to get on to Facebook. You need to get on to Facebook. And, my boss and I, neither of us were keen on Facebook at all. Where am I going back to? Gosh. That must have been around about 2,009 maybe.

Nicola [00:11:04]:
And, anyway, we went to this this one one time, and the the lady speaker actually whacked her finger at me and said, if you don’t get on Facebook, you’re gonna be left behind. Because, you know, for all the businesses that were on Facebook, if you then weren’t, then it was like, oh, are they are they closed? What’s going on? Are they not you know, it was like you became invisible almost, which was a bit of a shock. So I was dragged kicking and screaming into it because my boss basically looked at me and said, well, that’ll be you then because he wasn’t prepared to do it. So I kind of threw myself into it. And, actually, I was very fortunate that people were coming to Rockingham Castle to have a nice time generally, you know, so we had nice engagement. It was all about having fun days out, what they needed to know, And it was a good way, good entry into social media. And really from there on in, I kind of kept that in in my roles because I could see the importance of sharing what we were doing with the outside world and encouraging them to want to come. So, you know, oh, do you want to have your wedding here? Do you want to come for your day? Do you want to have your big party here or Christmas event or whatever it was? Social media was so brilliant to do that and share all those wonderful pictures.

Nicola [00:12:28]:
And of course, it’s a very beautiful place, so lots of picture opportunities. And in fact, I had looked the other day and I noticed that on their Google My Business page, which I know we’re not really talking about today, which I set up back in the day. The pictures on there are the ones that I took because they haven’t put anything else on there since then. They’ve obviously not realized the importance of Google My Business or Google Business Profile as it is now known, of course. Okay. But, yes. And then I think after so I flitted around to a couple of venues after Rockingham. And then, I had a job with Federation of Small Businesses Mhmm.

Nicola [00:13:09]:
Which was quite interesting because it gave me a lot of insight into what business owners needed, what they were looking for, what they wanted help with. And we held a lot of sort of business support events. And one of the major ones that we had was actually on Facebook for businesses. And I thought, you know, I could help people with this. This is something that I could do. You know, I’d always wanted to. I wasn’t brave enough early on. I just didn’t have the nerve to say, no.

Nicola [00:13:41]:
I’m gonna leave a salary and go and and work for myself. But I used to network quite a lot in those kind of sales roles. And, I’ve met some amazing people just like all the people at MarketHarbor Business Network who have taken that leap of faith, who have thought, do you know what? I love what I do, but I don’t like all of the stuff that goes with it. Because when you’re in the corporate space, there’s always a lot of stuff that goes with it, whether it’s, you know, weird personnel challenges or, you know, oh, you’ve gotta do this and why have we gotta report on this because it’s not actually adding anything to the bottom line. And all of these processes and it was quite interesting because I was listening to Mel about processes, how, you know, we we think that when we set up our own business, we can leave all of that stuff behind. And then you realize that would be good to have a few processes in place, really, wouldn’t it? Because that’s what we need. But, you know, I I took the leap in, September 2020, and a number of my colleagues were saying, you’re mad. What are you doing that for? You’ve got a job that’s paying you, and the world’s crazy.

Nicola [00:14:57]:
But I did have another another little push, and that was that my, son and daughter-in-law who live in Switzerland had my first granddaughter in the October. And I wanted to be able to go and visit and a 9 to 5 in the UK because we didn’t do all of that leaping around the world back then. It came shortly after, but not then. A 9 to 5 wasn’t gonna work, if I wanted to go and visit them. So, I thought, right, this is the this is the push I need to, get on out there and do something for myself and try and help some small businesses along the way.

Martin [00:15:38]:
Fantastic. Yeah. No. I think, you know, there’s there’s a lot of familiar elements in there for for people listening, you know, that that the leap of faith bit, the change from, salaried to, you know, being the the person who’s not only doing what you want to yeah.

Nicola [00:15:53]:
Am I gonna get any money?

Martin [00:15:57]:
No. That’s it. Am I gonna get some and and and also I mean we don’t I think most of us don’t realize quite how much you have to do that’s not about what you’re doing. It’s about sales and it’s about systems and it’s about things like that. So yeah. And for anyone listening who hasn’t been following the the the podcast since the beginning, very dear, but very welcome. Check back, Mel Wright, process improvement is what, Nicola was just giving a shout out there too. And, some great tips there that that can help you.

Martin [00:16:31]:
So, yes. And and you mentioned work life balance as well in terms of being able to go and see your, your grandchild, you know, when you wanted to. And that’s the other thing that people either nail or generally don’t quite get right because there’s it’s not as easy as it sounds, is it?

Nicola [00:16:49]:
I think what ends up happening is you end up just doing loads of work while you’re out of the country as well. As long as you’ve got your laptop, you can get to get to what you need. Laptop and Wi Fi, what else do you need?

Martin [00:17:01]:
Yeah. Well, I I mean, I personally started this business when I was living in Colombia. So same thing. Lap lap a couple of Wi Fi, and and away I went. So so, yes, it it can be done.

Nicola [00:17:13]:
The real digital nomad.

Martin [00:17:16]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve I’ve nomading a little less at the moment, but, we’ll see where that continues to be the case. Anyway, enough about these. So is is there anything you think people particularly don’t think about enough when they’re starting to talk about, okay, how can I get help with LinkedIn particularly?

Nicola [00:17:38]:
Yeah. I think, you know, I’ve I’ve worked with a few different types of clients, and it’s almost like they want to just, hey, you are. Do it. But I think what you have to remember with any marketing, and it’s not just about LinkedIn, it’s any marketing. Marketing is about bringing the leads into your business. It’s about messaging. It’s about turning what you want to say into something that aligns with, with their customers or with your customers. So, you know, if you all of your business, often particularly with a small business, it’s often all in your head.

Nicola [00:18:15]:
So you have to get some of that out. So you can’t just say, here you are, just get on with it. You do need to have that bit of, you know, sharing of knowledge, sharing of images. Images are one of the most important things and it’s really hard to get hold of images. Let me tell you, after working for the same client for almost 4 years, I’ve virtually given up and I find my own, but it’s, you know, it’s kind of that really, really does help. But information, you need to be able to share what it is you want to achieve, who you want to be working with. But actually, can you actually accommodate? Do you have the capacity in your working week to accommodate leads coming into your business? Is it just about brand awareness so that you’re keeping your name out there, or do you want to generate leads for future business? You know, a lot of people are thinking, oh, well, I’ve got plenty of business at the moment, and then maybe need to think about having a a pipeline of leads. So have they actually got the capacity to, you know, if if leads come in, say, through LinkedIn and somebody wants to message that person, you know, are you in a position to respond to those messages? Are you looking out for any messages? You know, if they want to arrange a meeting with you, can you put something in your diary, will you arrange that? Because with the best will in the world, I can’t do diary management as well.

Nicola [00:19:43]:
But it’s it’s having that understanding that it’s not you can’t hand everything off. You can hand off the content creation. You can hand off the scheduling. All of that kind of stuff can be done by somebody else, but you will need to respond because you’re the one who’s got everything up here. You’ve got all the knowledge about your business. You know, someone might want to an ask a a technical question on in a comment thread below. Can your marketer answer those technical questions for you? Probably not, because you’re the one who’s got the answers. But also, if you don’t respond to those people, you’re not building relationships.

Nicola [00:20:26]:
It’s kind of, well, it’s going on out there and something’s happening online and I don’t really need to know about that. But actually you want the leads. So you want to be able to be speaking and having conversations with those people so that you can start building that that know, like, and trust, which is why I love training because then people, they really understand the process, but also they understand what’s required. So even if they don’t wanna work with me long term, if they have an understanding of what what is required, they can make sure they ask the right questions from the marketer that they’re choosing so that they know exactly, you know, how the process will work. But, you know, there’s so much learning in all of this, isn’t there? There’s everything is changing so rapidly that we’re all having to be quite agile in the way we, have our our working practices and try and try and change things up to make them more effective. And maybe something that was working a couple of years ago doesn’t work anymore. It might even be 6 months ago doesn’t work anymore. So it’s kind of understanding, you know, how all the puzzle pieces fit together, to make the most of of of any marketing spend that you’ve got really.

Martin [00:21:44]:
Yeah. No. I think some really good points there about, you know, understanding before you talk about, you know, taking a specific person on or using a a particular technical solution to help you is is understanding, you know, how you work and and those kind of process things things again. And, for me, you know, I have people who are watching as opposed to listening will know I’ve been smiling quite a lot because, you know, you’re talking about, the speed of change etcetera. And and of course, I mean, AI artificial intelligence, something I’m particularly interested in and and that’s changing faster than anything, that we’ve seen in our lifetimes anyway. And we’ll help with lots of things that you said, but only if you’ve got those basics about how your business works sorted out in the first place for which you need a human being. So Yeah. Anyway

Nicola [00:22:36]:
I hope we need a human being for a little while longer anyway.

Martin [00:22:41]:
Yes. Let’s hope so. That that’s a whole another topic that could turn this into a very long, podcast. But but let’s let’s move away from that then. Is there anything that you wish that you’d known before you started your business or or in the very early days of your business?

Nicola [00:23:00]:
In my business. Well, I I was quite lucky in that I, I had a view at the beginning of 2020 that I was planning to leave. So I invested in a an online business program, which really stood me in good stead because it kind of fitted the puzzle pieces together for me, you know, in terms of if you have your website here and then you want to be driving traffic to the website from your social media channels and your email list and about growing your list so you can speak to people and thinking about who your ideal client was. So that was super, super helpful. There are there are things that that people say to you that you listen to maybe a bit too much, and they may not even mean much by it. But I don’t know whether it’s particularly a female thing rather than a male thing, but we often take on nonsense. We take on the negatives rather than the positives. So that trying to drown out negative voices and and be kind to yourself actually because we are our own worst critics.

Nicola [00:24:17]:
I I think that goes for most people. Yeah. And, you know, have have more faith in yourself. I think that is key.

Martin [00:24:26]:
That’s a really good point. I mean, we we often hear the phrase imposter syndrome where people are like, well, why why are people going to buy from me or use me or, you know, do I know enough and and all those sorts of things. And of course, particularly if you are a solopreneur, you know, you don’t have that work colleague on tap, you know, just gotta bounce ideas off it. It’s one of the reasons why business networks are so helpful. You know, you can actually get Exactly. To some other people and find that even if they’re doing a different industry, they’re actually facing the same sort of issues that that you are and that can be even without answers, you know, it can make you feel better. Yeah. I’m not actually the only person in the world, you know, going through this at the moment.

Martin [00:25:03]:
So yeah, some very some very good points there. I mean, related to that, is is there any particular person that, that you admire? And and if so, why is that?

Nicola [00:25:13]:
Well, thinking back to, when I was at Rockingham, I was so lucky that I started working with this. My my boss was the most enthusiastic man I’d ever met. I mean, off the scale, every morning, he’d come bouncing in. It was a new day and excitements and lots of things. But he we didn’t get on straight away. I’ll but over the 11 years, we had a really good working relationship. He was very much the big picture person, and I was very much the detail and and made it happen. And it it was that enthusiasm really rubbed off.

Nicola [00:25:53]:
And he was the one who introduced me to networking and basically said, you know, go out there and and and meet people. And we would also if we ever went to networking together, we would also split. We’d go our separate ways in the room. And I still today see so many people at networking, not MHBN actually, but one I went to yesterday. And they were there in pairs and they stood together and they chatted together. And you think, why are you doing that then? Because you can chat with them anytime. Here you are. Here’s a room full of interesting people to go and talk to, and then you go back and compare notes with all the the people you’d met.

Nicola [00:26:34]:
And, but he gave me lots of he enabled me to grow. He really gave me, lots of responsibility, and that I’m really grateful for. I haven’t met anyone quite as enthusiastic as that since. But yeah. So it was good. It was a good opportunity. Yeah.

Martin [00:26:59]:
Yeah. Fantastic. That’s that’s great to know. It’s interesting about, you know, they they go into networking groups in in pairs, for example. I think it’s it’s sort of analogous to one of the things I used to do was teach English to, foreign students. And sometimes, you know, they went, well we wanna come to England. And I’m like, well don’t go to London. Go somewhere, you know, where you’re gonna stay with the family who don’t speak your language.

Martin [00:27:26]:
If you really want to be effective and you could tell, you know, quite often people like, I I wanna go with my friend. We’ll both go to England and we both wanna live in the same place. And and, you know, it’s much harder

Nicola [00:27:38]:
to get I feel nervous.

Martin [00:27:39]:
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, you and if you step out of your comfort zone, which isn’t always an easy thing to do, but if you can, yeah, then generally you get better results. So, anything left you still wanna learn?

Nicola [00:27:52]:
Oh, gosh. Always learning. Every day is a school day. Do you know I’ve been volunteering as an enterprise adviser for a few years now, and one of the first things that I had to do was go and speak in front of a group of year nines who so about, about 200 ish kids in the room. Yeah. Big auditorium. And I thought I need to get some engagement in here. So I had loads of questions lined up to, to ask them, and we did, like, the red and green cards.

Nicola [00:28:23]:
You know, do you remember on, was it ready steady cook? Or you fired or not fired or whatever. So, I gave them these different color cards to try and get them involved. And, one of the questions I asked was, who thinks they’re not gonna have to learn anything once they leave school? And, honestly, half of them at least had the green cards up.

Martin [00:28:46]:
Mhmm.

Nicola [00:28:46]:
And I thought, because I remember people saying that at school. Oh, I can’t wait to leave. Then I won’t have to learn anything else.

Martin [00:28:53]:
Were were those were those the future politicians?

Nicola [00:28:57]:
Well,

Martin [00:28:59]:
I didn’t say that. I’ll let it let it out.

Nicola [00:29:01]:
Just it’s fascinating how differently we look at learning when we’re in an enforced learning environment as opposed to your choosing to learn something. Because, you know, as you get older, there are so many things that you think, oh, god. I wish I’d known about that years ago, and wouldn’t that have been helpful? And so, yeah, I mean, I I’m a big podcast fan. I do.

Martin [00:29:26]:
Okay.

Nicola [00:29:27]:
Yes.

Martin [00:29:27]:
There you go. That’s that’s a really good one I can recommend.

Nicola [00:29:34]:
I’ve been listening. I’ve been listening.

Martin [00:29:35]:
That’s what we like to hear. Listen and share. So all good. Okay. No. Some good points there. Let’s let’s, come to confession time then and talk about perhaps, you know, your your biggest mistake in business. Did you learn anything from it?

Nicola [00:29:54]:
I think my biggest mistake has been letting people get under my skin when because I I’ve never been one to just I’ve never been a yes person. So, if I think that there is something that could be improved, I will say, and sometimes people don’t like that, I have learned. They would rather do things the way they do it because it’s the way they’ve chosen to do it than choose an easier route because somebody else has said it. So learning perhaps when to keep your mouth shut or when and when to speak up has been quite an interesting thing because I’ve I’ve said things that have upset people, and then it’s not exactly improved my chances of progression. And I think that’s why I like working for myself because I just think, well, I’ll and I and and the weird thing is you actually have lots of bosses when you’re when you work for yourself because you’ve got lots of different clients. But often, you, you know, you you do have a reasonable amount of choice of who you work with. And it’s nice to work with people who you can have a laugh with, you can be honest with. You know, there’s no agenda.

Nicola [00:31:21]:
And I think that that has been a an issue for me, I think, along the way that I seem to have landed in businesses, really since leaving since leaving Rockingham that everyone has an agenda. And I don’t understand that. I go to work to do the best job I can and go home and then try and relax a bit. And then, you know, I’ll come and do it all again. And maybe that’s a good reason to break out and and do go your own way because you’re not necessarily doing the same thing day in, day out. You are changing things up and you have the power to change things up because you can make your own decisions and think, actually I don’t wanna do that anymore. I want to do something else completely different.

Martin [00:32:06]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean I I recognize several elements myself in in what you were saying there. You know, when you go to a new place, as an employee, sometimes as a consultant and go. So so why do you do it this way? You know, may well be the best way. Just you wanna understand. And and basically the answer is because that’s how we did it yesterday. Yeah.

Martin [00:32:29]:
You know, and if you take a time machine back to yesterday and ask the same question, you get exactly the same answer. And then you’re like, well, okay. Perhaps we could think about there might be a better way of doing it. Could be easier, could be more efficient, you know, could could increase all sorts of bits and pieces. And like you say, some people are open to that and some people just just aren’t. And it’s incredibly frustrating when you can see that, you know, you could be doing things, in in a a more efficient for me, it’s it’s kind of efficiency. That’s the thing, you know. It’s Yeah.

Martin [00:33:00]:
But there we go. Alright. Let’s flip it around. What about your proudest business moment, Nicola?

Nicola [00:33:06]:
Well, last year, I applied to, have a business event during the Leicester Business Festival. And I was over the moon when they accepted me because I I thought, well, little old me, are they going to accept me? Because they have criteria around the event, and it’s gotta be helping, other businesses grow and etcetera, etcetera. So I put on a, LinkedIn over lunch event. So I’ve, booked this place at, it was Gresham Works. I’ve got a lovely room there that I’d been to before for for an event, which has got glass all the way around it. So it still feels quite light. You know, some conference rooms are really just a box.

Martin [00:33:47]:
Mhmm.

Nicola [00:33:48]:
And, had some brilliant catering. So we we had people over lunch. It it was just it was so much fun. I didn’t really expect it to sell out, but it sold out and then I had to increase the numbers. And then I thought, you know what it’s like with these free events, people drop out. Yeah. They didn’t. And it was like, oh, so it was a little bit of a tight squeeze in the end because a few more people came than I really expected.

Nicola [00:34:19]:
But it was so much fun. I loved delivering. I love that kind of, sort of teaching experience if you like, but there was a lot of enthusiasm. And, you know, it’s always the same when you have a group of people together that other people strike up ideas and they share ideas and or they take what you say and then flip it to what it could work how it could work for them, but potentially also how it could work for the person they’re sitting next to. And it you know, hearing the conversations, the buzz, and, oh, it was just amazing. And I came out of there flying high thinking I absolutely love this. If I could do that every day, I would be a very happy person. It’s seeing people light up and seeing them think, oh, okay.

Nicola [00:35:07]:
I could do that. Could I? And going away with that, you know, being keen to go out and use LinkedIn and make it work for their business and, and help them grow their business and get more leads in. That’s, that’s what I love doing. Yeah.

Martin [00:35:20]:
Yeah. I know.

Nicola [00:35:21]:
That’s I just know it, I reckon.

Martin [00:35:22]:
That’s fantastic. I mean, time and time again you find it’s it’s people making other people happy, relieved, empowered, any of those sorts of things, you know, and and you’ve had a part of that. That’s what, I think for most of us, you know, gives us that that greatest pleasure. So fantastic.

Nicola [00:35:42]:
You you hit the nail on the head there with the word empowered because people then go away feeling I can do this.

Martin [00:35:48]:
Yeah.

Nicola [00:35:48]:
I can’t do this, you know. It’s not as hard as I thought it was gonna be and yes, it’s it’s just waiting for me to, you know, take it all on.

Martin [00:35:56]:
Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. So again, dear listeners, you’ve just heard how to make Nicola very happy and so why wouldn’t you? So, please do contact her. We’ll have all the show notes at the end of it, to see if you can do that. I’m gonna throw a slight curve ball at you now, Nicola. So, on another well known podcast, they get a guest to raise a question for a future guest.

Nicola [00:36:23]:
I know what that that podcast is because that’s one of my favorite podcasts.

Martin [00:36:27]:
There we go. Yes. We we can give him a shout out. He needs it, you know. Stephen Bartlett. I haven’t seen it. I’ve I’ve probably pushed his numbers up there by 1. Hang on.

Martin [00:36:37]:
Oh, no. That’s not him on the phone. No. I thought it was. Anyway, the question is from a certain Rupert Tutton.

Nicola [00:36:44]:
Yeah. Okay.

Martin [00:36:45]:
You know? Rupert would like to know, who’s the first person that comes to mind when you think about success?

Nicola [00:36:55]:
Well, I suppose we’ve just been talking about him there, haven’t we? Steven Bartlett, what an incredibly successful young man. How successful has he been so young? And it kind of, it’s strange. I had a conversation earlier today with, a a business adviser actually, to do with a grant application. And we were talking about the volunteering program that you very kindly took part in not very long ago and how these young people have so many fresh ideas. Yet a lot of us don’t want to employ a young person because we think, oh, they’re gonna be a pain in the neck. They are amazing. If they’re given the right inspiration, they can fly. And, you know, maybe in the school system or the playground or the teams that they’re in or at home, you know, it’s it’s every day.

Nicola [00:37:57]:
It’s every day, isn’t it? But when they’re given an opportunity in a different space, seeing them fly I mean, you know, I was watching you showing various of them how to do this, that, and the other on a website, and they were so excited about it. And, you know, they ran with it. I was so impressed. So I think, yes, seeing somebody like Steven Bartlett go, you know, and and encourage so many young people to really grab life and and run with it is is really quite inspiring.

Martin [00:38:33]:
Great answer. Great answer. Yeah. So, as we just draw to a close then, just a couple more for you. Anything left on the on the bucket list as they call it?

Nicola [00:38:46]:
Well, I’ve been thinking about, something new in that agile moment, and, I would really love the voluntary program that, that we put together. I would really love to turn that into a business somehow. That’s that’s I felt that we impacted so many people, not just the students, but also the businesses who came along to the networking. And for anybody listening, they’re probably thinking, what else are you talking about? So, this was sort of a long standing event, if you want to call it that, that I really wanted to get underway. So I was working with Welland Park Academy, and I wanted to offer a workplace experience that small businesses could help with because as micro businesses, most of us work from home, and therefore, there are safeguarding issues. And you you can’t have a young person with you for a week. It just it wouldn’t work. But collaboratively together, we can offer that.

Nicola [00:39:54]:
And I was very fortunate in that I had conversations with Harbour District Council, and they gifted us the space at the Innovation Center, upstairs. I’m sure many of your listeners would have been up there. And, we were able to use that space for the week, with the intention of helping students with their communication skills. And we did communication through, telephone calls, face to face meetings, emails, website, leaflets. You know, there was lots going on. And the students actually put together a networking event on the Thursday. And we went round to businesses in the innovation center and actually knocked on their doors. This was prearranged.

Nicola [00:40:38]:
We weren’t interrupting their workflow. They knew we were coming at what time. And the students had a chance to ask them about their business, about the kind of careers required in their business, and then say, well, would you like to come to our cake and careers event on, Thursday? And, you know, it was brilliant. They organized. They delegated. I even said to, a couple of the girls, could you do one of those sort of scrolling presentations on the screen? So it’s just there in the background while everyone’s chatting away. Oh, yes. We’ll do that.

Nicola [00:41:16]:
No. They didn’t do that. They took it a step further and did a full presentation. These 2 young ladies, 15 year olds, to a room of people they didn’t know, a room of business people, and they were brilliant. And the confidence that it that came out from them was just fantastic, very inspiring, and, I would love to deliver it for more places, more schools. So, that’s ticking away in the back of my mind is how I can make that happen.

Martin [00:41:48]:
That sounds fantastic. I mean, like you say, I was involved for just a small part of it, but,

Nicola [00:41:52]:
there’s a part of it, actually. Thank you.

Martin [00:41:57]:
But but the idea of, you know, obviously with work experience weeks, you know, you’re a student, you you go to one particular workplace, often one way a parent, works, you know, you follow them around for a week and then, you know, that’s over. And sometimes that’s a great experience and sometimes isn’t. But but to be able to get a a group of students to have a whole variety of experiences with a variety of employers, you know, you could see how the the potential for that and in fact that potential was realized. Could be so much more. So yeah. Hopefully, like you say, we’ll we’ll find a way for making that happen on a a more regular basis. Very positive note to end on, of course, talking about that. So if people do want to find out more about that or about you or about LinkedIn, any of those sort of stuff, how do we get a hold of you, Nicola?

Nicola [00:42:46]:
Well, on LinkedIn, obviously. I’m there, Nicola Moss. I haven’t got any numbers or anything, so it’s quite easy to find me. My business is also there, a company page, Moss Social. And I think we’ve got a free download that we can, have in the show notes, which helps you optimize your LinkedIn profile. So it’s just a little bit of a checklist. So, go wild with that.

Martin [00:43:10]:
Perfect. Love it. I’m gonna, bung in just a a second one just on the back of that actually. I have a a question for myself which is, obviously I I use LinkedIn to promote this particular podcast, to promote your episode. All the episodes are different because obviously they’re different, businesses. And none of them are what I actually do, you know, digital marketing websites, AI, that sort of stuff. So by putting that on on my LinkedIn profile as well as what I actually do on my LinkedIn profile, am I harming algorithms or things?

Nicola [00:43:45]:
I suppose the main thing is to make sure it goes on the Market Harborough Business Network business page, and then you could comment below as your own LinkedIn personal profile, or you could share it with, a few words, a repost with your thoughts. Don’t do just a repost because that that can harm the algorithm. It can harm the reach of your future posts. So it’s always good to add a bit of, context. But I wouldn’t share them necessary on your own, personal profile because, yeah, it could look like, oh, maybe maybe it’s a a podcast host, which that might be something that you do want to develop, of course. So but if you’re looking for, you know, website clients, then you’re probably best just commenting underneath because when you comment, your audience well, a certain number of them will see your comments. It’ll say so, Martin has commented on on this, which is pretty much as good as a repost. So, yeah.

Martin [00:44:49]:
Brilliant. There we go, listeners. Bonus tip, from the huge number of tips that that Nicola has. And as she just said, she’s very kindly offered to put a a checklist, on the show notes as well. So do make sure to to check out the the show notes, where not only we have that and the links, but, we’ll also have a a blog post written all about Nicola, which, hopefully you will enjoy. We’ll see. Yeah. Like, comment, all those sort of things.

Martin [00:45:20]:
And and Nicola, it’s been fantastic. Thank you very much.

Nicola [00:45:23]:
Thank you.

Martin [00:45:24]:
Enjoy the rest of your day.

Nicola [00:45:26]:
Thank you very much. Really enjoyed it. Thanks, Martin.

Martin [00:45:30]:
Bye.

Nicola [00:45:31]:
Bye.