How I Built My Small Business

Sophie Milliken MBE - From UNKNOWN TO UNFORGETTABLE: A Blueprint for Every Business Owner!

• Sophie Milliken MBE • Season 1 • Episode 44

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Sophie Milliken is a remarkable entrepreneur and leader with contributions that extend far beyond business. She co-founded City Ladies Networking, chairs the UK Charity Smart Works Newcastle, and serves as a Founding Ambassador for Every Child Needs a Mentor. 

Her dedication was recognized in 2023 when she was awarded an MBE by the Order of the British Empire for her services to Business and Education.

Sophie founded SRS Recruitment and Employability in 2013, successfully scaling it before selling in 2019. Now, as the Founder and CEO of Moja Group, an award-winning modern PR agency, Sophie continues to break new ground.

She is the host of the popular podcast Beyond The Bio which consistently ranks on the UK marketing podcast chart. Sophie has written two best-selling books, with a third on the way titled From Unknown to Unforgettable: How to Build a Personal Brand that Goes Beyond the Bio.


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Sophie Milliken MBE:

So it's really important to surround yourself with the people that can guide you, that can lift you up when things are going well and celebrate with you, but then also, you know, pick you up when you have those dips and those lows, so that you can get back up.

Anne McGinty:

Welcome to how I Built my Small Business. I'm Anne McIntee, your host, and today I'm honored to have Sophie Milliken on the show. Sophie is a remarkable entrepreneur and leader with contributions that extend far beyond business. She co-founded City Ladies Networking, chairs the UK charity, SmartWorks Newcastle and serves as a founding ambassador for Every Child Needs a Mentor. Her dedication was recognized in 2023 when she was awarded an MBE by the Order of the British Empire for her services to business and education. Sophie founded SRS Recruitment and Employability in 2013, successfully scaling it before selling in 2019. Now, as the founder and CEO of Moja Group, an award-winning modern PR agency, Sophie continues to break new ground.

Anne McGinty:

She's the host of the popular podcast Beyond the Bio, which consistently ranks on the UK marketing podcast chart. Sophie has written two bestselling books, with a third on the way, titled From Unknown to Unforgettable how to Build a Personal Brand that Goes Beyond the Bio. You can find a link through to her business in the episode's description. Find a link through to her business in the episode's description. I'm Ben. Please hit the follow button on your favorite streaming platform to help me reach more listeners' ears and if you don't have time to listen to full episodes but still want the key takeaways, you can subscribe to my newsletter at annemcgintycom. That's A-N-N-E-M-C-G-I-N-T-Ycom For anyone listening in. Thanks for being here today, Sophie. Welcome to the show.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Well, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you, Ann.

Anne McGinty:

So can you take us back and share why you decided to start a business?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So can you take us back and share why you decided to start a business? I think I was an accidental entrepreneur because my family are not entrepreneurial whatsoever. Every one of my family's had very normal type jobs and they've gone to school, they've gone to university. They've then got a job just super normal, like teachers, working for the NHS, hospitals and things Very, very normal. And I think, looking back, I've always been quite enterprising.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So when I was a kid, I was that kid that used to persuade the neighbors to do garage sales and to do these wacky ideas. So my favorites being a tattoo what would we call it? A parlor probably sounds a bit fancy. We used to go around, draw on our neighbor's hands, put a piece of paper over the top and charge them 50 pence to have these tattoos and they entertained us, they did. And then we had another one where we had these what we call penny chews, like mix up sweets, so where you could buy sweets for like one penny and we used to stretch them and sell them for two pence. So really silly, crazy ideas that you have when you're a kid. You know the car washing, all those sorts of things.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So I think, looking back, I was always quite enterprising, but actually when it came to setting up that first business, it was more the circumstances rather than a desire to have the business. So I worked for a huge retailer in the UK John Lewis Partnership, which is one of the biggest retailers in the UK, and I was down at the head office in London by this point. I'd moved back to Newcastle in the Northeast, which is quite a commute it's like three and a half hours which I wasn't doing every day because that would be completely crazy, but I was doing it once a week. My daughter was eight months at this point. I'm doing this crazy commute.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And then the business went through a big restructure and my role changed and it changed into quite a boring role and I have to be excited and energized by anything that I do. It's got to have some level of purpose to it and be something I can get excited about. I've never been one for having the Sunday night fears where you're in bed thinking I don't want to go to work tomorrow and the job that was on offer just wasn't exciting in any way. It was more money, which was attractive, but it just wasn't for me and I thought about what do I do next? So I looked at roles in Newcastle, where I'm based, and they were maybe a third of the salary that I was on at that point, which wasn't attractive to me at all as someone in my early thirties.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And then it was a chance conversation with this guy who was doing the same commute, who had the same role as me, but at HSBC, at the bank in Canary Wharf, and we used to have this conversation and it was just so random when I look back. We went for lunch one day and he's like well, I always fancied having my own business and I thought, well, why don't we do it together? And I look back and it was such a surreal conversation. But we did end up. You know, he quit his job, I decided not to not to take a role with John Lewis and we set this business up like 11, 12 years ago now. And I look back and I think, had I known the ups and downs that that would have, would I have done it? Yeah, probably. Actually, to be fair, I probably would have. But yeah, so bizarre when I look back and I just think how it unfolded. But I'm a big fan of saying yes to stuff, working it out later, and I think that's what happened.

Anne McGinty:

So when you say the big ups and downs that happened, can you tell us about some of those? What are you talking about? And downs?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

that happened. Can you tell us about some of those? What are you talking about? Oh, my God, so many. I mean who has a business and doesn't have the ups and downs right? And I think in some ways, actually that's what makes it fun, because even when you're in the down bit, you know it's going to come back up. It's this roller coaster of business and I think the downs have been quite crippling at times.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So you know, six months into that business bear in mind we were we always made money in that business because initially we were based at home, so we had no costs, but obviously we didn't have loads of money coming in. We got a few contracts quite early on that were that were decent, so we had some level of income from the off, but it wasn't anything like what we'd been getting paid in our corporate jobs. We had big corporate jobs before we set the business up and about six months in I got divorced, which was totally out of the bloom. My daughter was a baby Well, she was just turned two, I think at that point and I was on such a small income and that was really stressful and I guess that was more of a personal challenge, but it did impact the business or how I felt about the business, because over in the UK it's quite hard to get a mortgage when you have a self-employed income, which is what it was at the time. It's a bit easier now actually. It's a lot easier actually than it used to be, but then you used to have to be able to show your accounts for two years and we hadn't been trading for two years and I couldn't afford the mortgage because I wasn't earning enough.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So all these pressures, and I had that moment where I thought, do I give up and go and get a job where I can earn good money again and have a safe option, or do I just go all in? And I thought about it. I went and had a chat with my parents. I was fortunate that my parents could loan me a bit of money to tide me over and the decision that I made was right I'm just going to go all in with this. I actually think it's going to take two years to get the business to where it needs to be for me to have a good income. But I'm going to throw everything at it because I had nothing at that point.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

I literally had nothing. My mortgage went from. It was 650 pounds when I was married a month and it went to 1400 pounds a month because I couldn't keep the house in my name because of my circumstances. And then my dad, my poor dad, pretended to the bank that he would work till he was 75 so he could come onto the mortgage with me, but because he was so old, the term of the mortgage reduced so the payment went up and I couldn't afford that. But you just do things, you make sacrifices. I didn't go on holiday, I didn't go anywhere for like two years and I just worked. And actually I think that when you have stuff going on at home sometimes work is actually a really safe place to be and you can get absorbed in it and it's a good distraction. So I'd say that was the first big challenge that I had with that business.

Anne McGinty:

That's more personal life, but it sounds like it just oozed over into the business a bit.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Yeah, well, I think it was probably a positive, because I couldn't afford to do anything, so I just threw everything into work. It was a great distraction. I've always been very professional. None of our clients would have known what was going on. I was super professional. Actually, probably, if that happened to me now, I'd probably be more open about it, because I'm a lot more open about my circumstances than I've ever been.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

I used to hide that I'd become a single parent.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

I didn't tell people until I did my TEDx talk that I was a single parent because I felt like it was something people might judge me on.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

People might think that I couldn't do the job, that I couldn't show up, but on a practical level it did cause challenges because my ex-husband is always and continues to be, sadly quite unreliable. So I didn't have that guaranteed childcare support and she was two at this point, which is a hard age at the best of times. So when we were out trying to win business, it was really hard for me to go on these meetings. So my business partner at the time he would go and do the sales meetings and I would stay at the office and oversee the operations side of things. But what that meant was it was hard for us to win sales because he did not have the passion that I had for that business. I loved it and I was all in with how I could sell it. So then, because he was having those conversations and I wasn't there, I think that became apparent in the sales or the lack of sales, and it was only when he went that things changed.

Anne McGinty:

And when you say the sales meetings, what are you referring to? What were you selling that?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

first business that we had, SRS, was a graduate recruitment and employability consultancy.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So what that means is we would work with big companies like JP Morgan, M&S, Expedia so hopefully some brands you'll have come across too where we would design their assessment processes to hire graduates. So it's designing the process and the materials. But then the really fun bit that I absolutely loved was we used to work with universities to prepare their students to get graduate jobs. So we have this super niche model where we would hire out football stadiums around the country and we would do these mock assessment centers where the students would show up and they would go through a day where they would do like a presentation, an interview, a group exercise, and they would get assessed by recruiters who would then give them scores and marks on their performance in the way that they get with an employer, but in that safe environment of this mock sort of process. So some days we'd put maybe 500 students a day through because we could do the scale of it with these venues. So I love that bit of it. It was so fun. It's cool.

Anne McGinty:

Is this a business model that exists in the UK?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

To be honest, we were quite pioneering with that, I would say. And what was happening at that point in time was employers were doing assessment, say, and what was happening at that point in time was employers were doing assessment centers. So that was the recruitment method to hire graduates. And then there were a couple of competitors that we had at that time that were doing mock assessment centers with unis, but they were doing it on a really small scale. So when an employer does an assessment center, there's typically between eight and 12 candidates at an assessment day. And our competitors were running those for universities on that scale and we were like no, let's supersize it, because it was more efficient for the universities, because we could put so many students through.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And then what we did is we tried to work with the unis to embed it into the curriculum. So the students had to show up, so it was something they would get a mark for. So it made them have to come to have this learning experience that they then actually really enjoyed when they had it. But what it was doing was it was raising their confidence, because a lot of students who perhaps nobody in their family has been to university before. So university is a new experience for them and they come from more challenging backgrounds and they don't have the confidence that some other students have. This was just leveling the playing field for everybody so that they could have a go. They knew what to expect and it made it easy when they were doing the real thing because they had that feedback. So on the scale it was unique. And then we had a couple of competitors that tried to copy what we did, but we were like the leading provider of it for miles.

Anne McGinty:

Why do you think that that is? What do you think that it was about? Srs that made it so successful?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

We had amazing assessors, so we would have really high standards around the assessors and a very strong quality assurance process. I think it was that. But I think the thing that really did stand out was this USP around using football stadiums, because football or soccer is such a big sport in the UK, so people love these venues. So we would have a bit of a flagship one where we would hire out the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, which is the Manchester City football team stadium, so you know, like the biggest team really in the country in the Premier League. So we would hire out that stadium. Probably at that one we would have about 300 in a day, so we do 150 in the morning, 150 in the afternoon.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And then I think the thing that made it work so well is we would invite other universities that were interested in seeing this concept. We'd invite them, along with permission from the uni we were working with, to observe the day. And they would come and they'd be like, oh my God, this is amazing. They would love it, because it's such an experience being in a stadium anyway, it's so cool, and when it's a non-match day, it's really surreal being in this stadium. And they would come in and they were like, oh my God, this is amazing.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And then I would do this big intro to the students in the morning and they'd be so quiet because they were really nervous. They were so nervous about what's going to happen, what to expect, and I'd give them this big intro and send them off to the box so they'd all go into different boxes. So we would hire out like 40 or 50 boxes so they'd be all off, they'd get their agenda and off they'd go. And then after they came out, after the first exercise, you'd hear all this chatter that you hadn't heard before, because they'd started relaxing and enjoying it. They were loving the experience. So then, because we had these observers from other unis coming to see it in action, they just got the bug and they were all like we want to do it at our uni and there's a bit of a well, they're getting it, so we want to give our students it. And it just went really really well. It was clever. It was clever.

Anne McGinty:

How did you even know how to do this?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Well, because I'd had. Well, when I was at John Lewis, I was responsible for graduate recruitment for John Lewis, so I had a team that would design these things. So I'd seen it from the employer side, which, again, I think was something that was really attractive to the universities because they knew that we knew what we were doing. And then I think what actually did happen was there was a contact that I had at a university in Manchester who had come to me and said we want to run this mock assessment center for our students, but we don't just want to do a small one, we want to do a really big one. And then we did it as a trial with them, where we hide out a hotel and it was.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

It worked like it worked and they had a great experience. But behind the scenes it was so chaotic because we had all these different rooms on different levels. It was really hard, whereas when you did the football stadium it was really clear because you just had one level, it was all on the same floor and the boxes were all right next to each other. So that was a really big thing where it just worked really, really well to do it with that model.

Anne McGinty:

It does sound so clever. So then, looking back now, because you sold your business right, I did.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Yeah, that was another low point. Oh really.

Anne McGinty:

Yeah, why did you sell the business then?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So the business partner that I set the business up with, he left a couple of years in. It wasn't for him. He felt that it had a ceiling for income and that we'd hit that and it would be a nice business for one of us to run with a few associates. So it was before it really ramped up with those university jobs. We were just very different. He was great at the beginning in terms of putting processes in place, putting foundations in place. I'm like the ideas person that gets super excited about so many things. He was steady around. We need to have a process for hiring and we need to have a process for finance all the things that you have to have. But I'm less interested in those things. So we complimented each other really, really well. And then he left a few years in and then I'm like, oh my God, this is mine, what do I do? And very quickly, because I was out doing the sales at that point. I won a lot of business very quickly in the maybe six weeks after he went. So it went from having literally nothing planned for that financial year, like zero, to having, you know, a few hundred grand's worth of business in a few weeks and I was like, right, I can do this, I know I can do this. So my confidence started growing. And I was like, right, I can do this, I know I can do this.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So my confidence started growing. I started having to hire people properly rather than just having an associate pool. So we would have this big associate pool, which grew to about 50 in the end and I think I got up to seven full-time people. So it was a really lean model because we had this associate pool and I always had this fear because every year you'd have to win these contracts. And some of the contracts they were really big. You know, they were substantial because some of the unis we were working with we'd put 3,000 students through a year. So it was a lot. So they were big. You know, multi-six-figure contracts for each of the universities and we were working with quite a few of them at this point. But every year I had this paranoia like, oh, what if they don't sign? What if they don't sign? And I look back and that was, you know, I wish I had more confidence because I never lost any of them the whole time I was running that business. I never lost them, but in those first few years I had that nervousness around but what if, what if? And then also it was the fact I was a single parent and I was always a bit nervous around money. I think I probably need to do some work around money blocks or something, because I was always looking for security and always wanting to make sure I had something.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And then there was a chance conversation where a guy had seen me on LinkedIn. I was pretty well known in this industry at this point. He'd seen me on LinkedIn and he said I'd love to have a chat with you at some point. So I happened to be in Manchester a day later. We had a coffee, we we hit it off. His business was a jobs board in Manchester and we agreed to do a few events together. He liked the fact that I had this credibility and contacts. I like them because they were a young, funky Manchester company and I thought they were pretty cool. So we did some events together. That worked out really well. And then he kept talking about merging the businesses together and I was like what? That's insane. He kept coming to Newcastle all the time.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

I look back and actually I think it was all planned out. I think I was very naive and he kept saying this is what it would look like Essentially you're selling the business to us, we'll give you a load of cash, you'll have all of these shares in this business. We'll then build out this really big group and we'll take over the industry. And I was like, actually, that sounds quite fun, like that sounds cool. So I got to know him and his co-founder quite well. We did get on, but I now look back and I feel like it was all to get this end goal to get me to sell the business. So I did sell.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

It went through in 2019 and it took 18 months for the deal to go through because I had that feeling. You know the feeling you get when you know you shouldn't do something. I had that feeling and I nearly pulled out a couple of times and they persuaded me, you know, even to the point where I'd been to over to New York and I'd flown back. I was knackered and they picked me up from the airport and drove back to my house and then we got pizza and they were playing cricket with my daughter in the garden and this nice guy image and they played on that a lot and I knew, I knew deep down that it wasn't genuine. But I just got swept up in it. I got carried away by the cash. In hindsight I shouldn't have sold it to them. That was the mistake. Anyway, I did sell it.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Was this a private equity deal? Yes and no. So they had investment from private equity firms, like two. I think at that point they'd had this investment to buy up businesses. But I didn't really realize. Like I look back and I just, oh, I just cringe because I was so naive at that point. I have learned loads since then, like loads. I wouldn't have done the deal in the same way. I undersold it massively and they knew this. They did a net asset test where I got massively screwed over because we did our accounting in different ways. So things where I should have taken more advice on things I should have found advisors that really knew this kind of deal. You know it's a learn right. I always think don't regret things that you've done, take the learning from them.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And I did get some cash. You know I didn't come out of it with nothing. I wasn't penniless, but I didn't come out with as much cash as I should have done. And then, quite quickly, things changed because it wasn't far before the pandemic hit. That masked a lot of the problems, and a lot of the things that I'd been promised in the deal that I had written into a contract didn't then happen. So I just feel like, you know, I was let down, I feel like I was lied to at times and it just wasn't the environment that I wanted to be in. But the positives I did get some cash up front which I've been able to do other things with, so that has created some security in some ways. Elsewhere I met a really cool guy who was the next business that the group bought, who bizarrely, was like my arch enemy is my competitor and we bought his business and actually they got to know him and thought he's's such a great guy and we're really good friends now, so that that's been lovely. He's just, literally last week, exited as well, so that's quite interesting that he's also gone.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

But yeah, it, it. It had highs and lows to it. I don't regret selling it, I regret selling it to them, but I've done it, it's done, I've moved on from it. What can you do? Absolutely, absolutely. And do you know what? Would I still want to be in that industry now? No, it was good time to probably leave. I don't think it's healthy necessarily to always be doing the same thing for a long time.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

I think you get a bit jaded and when I was on site doing those those days, overseeing those days, like I couldn't do them all in the end anyway and that was quite fun. I enjoyed doing those and we were doing so many I couldn't be everywhere and also they're exhausting, right. They're really tiring. We were all over the country. That was hard work from a child care perspective. So you know there was some great things that happened within that business and I'm very proud of that business and we did some cool stuff with students. While I was there we helped over 30,000 students to prepare them for jobs. That's massive. So some real positives. And if I was to sell a business again which I hope to do in the next five years I would do it completely differently. So take the positives.

Anne McGinty:

I do want to pry on that just a little bit, because you were saying you've learned loads since because of this first transaction and now going into your new business. Like if you were to highlight three major takeaways that you got from that experience that will impact the way that you operate from this point forward, what would you say they would be?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

I'd say number one trust your gut instinct. That is, it's never wrong, it's always right. So I think if something doesn't feel right, then you've you've got to go with it. So that would be number one. The second thing, I think, would be not to believe things, that people tell you. Not to not believe things, but to look a bit more deeply, to look under the bonnet and see what's going on.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So, as an example, I was told that the group were doing X amount of turnover and I just believe that I mean, this is so naive and this goes back to getting the right advisors. So I just assumed they would tell me the truth, because I told them the truth about. But then, obviously, I then had to provide documents and documents and documents, because they were buying me to prove everything I said, which I was totally comfortable with because I'd been really upfront about everything, and they would verify it and everything. But I never asked them for this. So I never said you told me you're doing this amount, you show me your accounts. I just assumed that they were right because I knew they had the money to buy me. So I never said you told me you're doing this amount, you show me your accounts. I just assumed that they were right because I knew they had the money to buy me, so I just assumed everything they told me was true. I then found out later that their business was doing less than mine was, which is insane. And what would be the other thing I think it would be? If you're essentially going to business with people, it's really important to make sure that your values and your ethics match up. I think that's really really important, and a lot of the time you know you can sell a business and exit straight away you can do that but a lot of the time you're expected to do an earn out and to stay on for at least a year or maybe more.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

The things that I really struggled with was things that didn't sit right with my values. Things like being encouraged to do some things that I didn't think were appropriate, around charging a client the amount of the contract but we hadn't delivered all of that work, whereas in the past I would have just said oh well, you've spent 200 grand, the contract's 250 grand. Do you want me to charge you that and bank it and we'll use it for something else, or do you want to just pay the 200 grand, like that's fine and that that was how I would operate on a trust basis. You get it back somewhere down the line, it doesn't matter whether you get it this year or next year. And I was being told, no, you charge them the 250 grand.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And I was like, well, I'm not doing that. So so we just had this kind of rub where we were operating in different ways and I didn't feel that it was right and that was why I chose to leave. We have disagreements in business, that's normal, it's healthy. But things around ethics and how you do business and how you treat people, they have to be in line.

Anne McGinty:

As you were saying, those three items. I was thinking of instances that I know of with other friends and thinking they really could have used that advice.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

I could have used that advice. But you know, sometimes you've got to learn the hard way. You've got to go through it. That's true. You know it's like with relationships not very good at those either. You know you learn the hard way because you find the red flags. Now I could tell you all sorts of red flags in a relationship, but a lot of the time you've got to be in it and you've got to see them for yourself.

Anne McGinty:

Also very, very true. So now you've moved on from that. What made you start your new business?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So a few things. One of my clauses and restrictions was I couldn't operate in the industry for nine months. So that was a very practical thing. And, yeah, I could probably have taken the nine months off, I guess because I've always had loads of other things going on as well. You know, I chair a charity, I've written a few books, I'm doing a PhD part time, so there's all sorts of other stuff going on. But I love business and I get excited about business and I was thinking like what next, what next, what next? So I didn't want to wait nine months and go back into that and I felt really jaded with everything and I felt really flat. At the point that I came out of that business I felt really sad, I felt really let down. I felt all those sort of sad emotions.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Then I actually went and had a chat with a friend of mine. She said to me while we were chatting you know, what are you going to do next? What next? And I said to her I've just got this slightly bonkers idea and I explained this concept to her and I said one of the things that made SRS so successful was me being really well known for that industry and becoming this person that everybody thought of in that space and that actually there's a process behind that. I didn't realize when I was doing it, but when I reflected I could see that I would take some action, I would do something that would then have this snowball effect that would lead to something else. So I wrote my first book.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Off that book launch, I got offered a column in a careers magazine. I got offered two TEDx talks. I didn't even know you have to apply to do a TEDx talk, so I just said, oh yeah, I'll do that and figure it out afterwards. And then when I did that, I got offered an ambassador role for a charity. So all this sort of snowball effect. But what all of those things did was they made me even more visible in the industry.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And it was just, it wasn't a plan, it wasn't anything thought out, it was just saying yes to things that sounded fun and then figuring out how to make them happen. And I was reflecting on it and I thought you know what? There's something in this as a business, because actually when you become well-known and when people are seeing you everywhere, then when you go and have a sales meeting with them and you're trying to sell them something, it breaks the ice immediately because people feel like they know you. They feel like they know you already. We used to win lots of awards in that business and I would often go to a meeting and they'd say oh my god, I saw you on this award last week. That's so cool and it would just make things really relaxed straight away. You had the instant credibility like you've just won an award for what you're trying to sell me. So you must be.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And it just had this effect where it made sales really easy and it also generated and created more fun stuff that I could then say yes to, or it got to a point where I had to start saying no to things, but it was just so much fun. So I was telling this girl this and I said I feel like I could create a process out of that and that could be a business in itself. I don't know whether it's marketing, I don't know whether it's PR. I mean, I've since come to accept it's probably personal branding, but I hate the term personal branding because I think it's got negative connotations. But that's essentially what it is.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So now you know, fast forward two and a half years. I literally registered this business. The night that I left that business I went home, registered it at a company's house the same night. So that was quite funny. But didn't really know what the offer was that would work from day one, and just kind of figured it out those first six months, I would say. But now, you know, we're going strong, we're scaling up now. So we've just launched a publishing division. So we're working with business authors. You know people that want to write the book, whether they need help writing it, whether they've already got the book and they just want to get it published. Because we've got a podcast studio, we're doing the audio book version, so we've got some cool stuff going on, and then it's all underpinned by PR. So we are essentially a PR agency, but the PR bit comes right at the end because we're doing all the activity that creates the stories to then push out.

Anne McGinty:

So you had mentioned that you won so many awards. I wanted to ask a little bit about that. How did you win so many awards? Is this a process that you are going after?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Yeah. So I mean, it's something that we do with our clients now, in that the thing with awards is you've got to go for ones that are good, because there are so many scammy awards out there. So we actually did, in that business, have a strategy around going for awards so we would look at which ones were relevant. So there'd be business awards, there'd be industry awards, there were awards for me as a female founder. That was like the in thing at the time as well, and we would only apply for ones that we knew were credible, so not scammy in any way, and we were applying for them because we knew that people knew that they were good quality awards. But also, the thing that I think is really awesome about awards is you get the community benefits.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So there's awards in the UK called the Great British Entrepreneur Awards that are really well known for being very prestigious. You know Stephen Bartlett, dario Vizio, oh yeah, so Stephen Bartlett calls them the Grammys of business awards because that's what they are, and you know he won one a few years ago. So they're really well known. But what I really like about their awards are not only are they well thought of, but people that run that awards program put on brilliant events for the communities. They run a business festival called Ideas Fest, which is like the Glastonbury for business, and they do community events where they bring great people together, and I really valued that, because you meet people that are like us that you can have great conversations with and you would do business at these things. Without even having that as the intention, it just happens because you get on with people and you get chatting. Awards is always something that I encourage people to do, but it has to be the right ones. I just think they're really great and very sort of overlooked, I think, as a strategy.

Anne McGinty:

And so Mojo Group is kind of a PR firm. But what makes you unique?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

I think what makes us unique is we're not just PR. So PR is that last bit. So if I was to describe what we do, I would say, if you were to Google one of our clients, all that stuff that comes up on Google should be the stuff that we've helped to get into Google. So it's all the stuff that basically gets a person a Google knowledge panel. That should be the stuff we're helping them with. So it's things like how do we get them really good quality awards or do we get them to be a judge for awards? Is that a better strategy for them? Because that might be to get in the rooms with the right people. So it's awards. It's a book. A business book is just like the best business card you can ever possibly have. It's a game changer. I would say yeah, 100%. It's an absolute game changer because a lot of our clients as well want to get paid speaking gigs and that is a very competitive market at the moment because everyone wants to get paid to speak. But if you can wrap a book up in that, then you can charge more. You can parcel in the book as part of your fee. You'll then get your book into the hands of probably potential ideal clients. So the book's really cool.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

We make sure all of our clients have got a personal website that's just for their speaking, so that they're positioned as a professional speaker. We might help them with their socials. So this is why I don't like personal branding as a term, because people just think of it as social media. But we do so much more. But social media is important because we're doing all the stuff that creates the content that they can then share on social media. So we specialize in LinkedIn.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So all these sorts of things added together you know there's so many other things like we would come up with a networking strategy for them that's relevant to their industry. We would look at board roles perhaps non-executive board roles or trustee roles for them in their industry. So all these things together amplify their presence, because it's all stuff that founders know they should be doing and we all know you've got to be visible and we all have different levels of comfort with it and we know we need to do it. We might not feel comfortable with it, we might not have the time for it, because if we're scaling our businesses, we need to be going and scaling the businesses and spending the time doing that rather than this stuff. That might seem less relevant, but the reality is you've got to become well-known because that's what grows the business. It's super amplifies everything.

Anne McGinty:

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense the way that you're describing it, and when you mentioned the book, I was curious to know if you think it matters if you're self-published or if you're traditionally published or hybrid.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So this is really interesting. It's something that I've been talking to people a lot about, actually on my own podcast. So you've got three options, the exact three that you've just said there. So you've got, on one end of the scale, you've got a traditional publisher. So the advantage of a traditional publisher is oh, it's the kudos you know, I've been published by this. This publisher Isn't this amazing. So that is definitely an advantage in that sense, in that people will know the publisher, you may benefit from the marketing that that publisher does. So that's awesome as well. So that's the pros of that.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

The cons of doing a traditional publisher are you've got to be pretty well known, so you've got to have a huge audience now to get a deal with a traditional publisher, because they want you to do a lot of the marketing. So it's not impossible. Someone with a popular podcast, for example, would probably find it easier to get a publishing deal, as an example. The other cons, though, might be that it would take the publisher ages to put it out, because their process is a lot longer, so you might have to wait two years to get this book out, whereas on the other end the scale of self publishing you could publish it next week potentially. So the other thing, the final thing around traditional publishing is they would probably have a say in the content. So the book that you publish might not be exactly what you wanted to publish, because you've been influenced by them. However, whatever comes out, it will look great because you'll have had all of that professional expertise in it. So that's traditional publishing.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Other end of the scale you've got self-publishing. Advantages are total control over the content. You would retain 100% of the royalties after Amazon et cetera have taken their coat, whereas traditional you'd get a teeny amount. It's quick, it's you, it's all of your work. The downside and I've seen this a lot is if you don't outsource any element, there will 100% be mistakes. So you might have a cover that's not great. You will definitely have typos or grammatical errors. You just will, because even if you're a great writer, you will have those problems. The other thing is it's actually quite hard to get the formatting right for all of these platforms, so visually it might not look great. I think that's something to be wary of.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

On the self-publishing side, I think probably the sweet spot is this hybrid where you work with a publisher who has lots of experience in publishing business books in this context. So they do those bits that you want from the traditional publisher. They'll have a great cover. The copy edit will be really strong, so they'll tighten up your writing so that it represents you well, but it retains the essence of your content and it's still very much your book. But they'll do the proofreading, they will get the formatting perfect. So you pick up a book and it's amazing and you think, oh my God, like I'm so proud of this, I want to share it with everybody. The cons, I guess, would be that with most high bridge publishers, you would pay them to do this and they will probably take a decent chunk of your royalties as well, but they would then also have the distribution rights that perhaps a traditional publisher would have.

Anne McGinty:

Can you give us an idea of some of the lessons we can expect in your upcoming book from Unknown to Unforgettable?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Yeah, so it's linked to the podcast. So I've got a weekly podcast called Beyond the Bio, which is a really short show it's like 15, 20 minutes and it's a really small element of profile building. The book is basically like the book version of the podcast, in some kind of order with action points for each chapter. So you could pick the book up, read it. You would know what you can do to raise your profile yourself, and it comes with loads of resources that will help you. So templates of things that will help you to do it. So you know, we spoke about awards earlier. So there's a whole chapter on how do you identify awards that aren't scammy, like how do you find the great ones, what do you need to put together to submit a great award submission that's more likely to get shortlisted, how do you promote the fact that you've won this award and how do you use that as an advantage in your business. So it's kind of like what you can go and do yourself, basically.

Anne McGinty:

And I really enjoy the episodes on Beyond the Bio. I've listened to a few of them and they're really helpful. I might have to get that book. Good, I'll send you one. Given that the name of your podcast is Beyond the Bio, how would you describe yourself beyond your own bio?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

I just think I'm always curious, I'm always learning and I'm always saying yes to things and figuring it out later on, and I think that just leads to exciting experiences and fun conversations and, you know, getting to meet people. You know I reached out to you and you know it's great that we're able to speak, and I think that's what makes things fun, isn't it?

Anne McGinty:

Yeah, absolutely, and you now have started one very successful business and exited, and now it looks like Moja Group is going to follow a very similar trajectory Over the course of this time. What would you say? Some of the best ways are for someone to grow their business in a sustainable way that you have.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

That's a great question. I would have to say the profile stuff is key. I would have to. You know I've built a new business on it. I think that's massively important and maintaining it. You can't just spend loads of time doing the profile stuff and then just forget about it. You've got to keep things constant, so I think that's important.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Other things that are important are getting the team right, and I think you can do that in a way that is clever and can be lean for your business. So we now have six people in Mojo and we also now have started building out an associate pool to do key bits where we need specific expertise, and I think that that is a really clever model where you can have people on a more flexible basis that works well for them and you can have really, really great people and I think you can try people out as well which works really well, so you can build that resource. And I think the other thing is to surround yourself with really great people, so people that inspire you, people that you can learn from and people that can connect you and give you the right places to go when you need something, because with all of us, even if you're in an industry that you know really well. As your business grows, you will have new challenges with something. So it's really important to surround yourself with the people that can guide you, that can lift you up when things are going well and celebrate with you, but then also, you know, pick you up when you have those dips and those lows so that you can get back up.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Because I think being an entrepreneur, being a founder, I think a lot of it's persistence and being resilient, because we get so many knocks. I think, in a way that you don't typically in a job, because you experience it and you feel it. If you care about your business and you care about people you work with, you really feel those lows and you need to be able to bounce back because you have to. If I had a bad day today, I couldn't just go right well, I'm just going to stay in bed for the rest of the week. You just can't do that. So I think those are really important things.

Anne McGinty:

Where do you think you developed that bounce back muscle and that resilience? Because a lot of people they'll just they fall down, they'll stay down.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Yeah, and I have got friends that have done that. I've had friends that have decided to set up their own business. They've thought it looked cool or it's something that's going to give them flexibility, not realizing that they'll work every hour instead of set hours. But it's not been for them, because as soon as they have, you know, a meeting that doesn't go so well or they lose a member of staff or whatever, they just can't see beyond that and they like the safety, I guess, of a more corporate role.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

I think for me, I see it often as problem solving, so I do get impacted by things. I do take things personally when I probably shouldn't and I should probably take things less personally. But I take things personally because I care and I want things to go well for people and I want to have great working relationships with people. I see myself as a problem solver. I think that's actually the strength of a lot of people that can scale business as well is they look for different ways in. So you know you might get a no for something, but then you look for the side door and you work out how can I make this work?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

You know I spent a lot of money once on designing an online course in that first business and it was a lot of money that we didn't really have at that point and it tanked and I thought, oh my God, we've lost all this money on creating this course. But then I thought, oh well, hang on. Actually, we've created an accreditation as part of it that we can use for one of the programs that we run with the uni. I can use a lot of the content to write my first book and we've learned how to do online courses and we can parcel it in as a freebie because we created it anyway for some of these other clients. So I think it's always looking at what's the positive and how do you bounce back from things and spending time with those people that lift you up.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So a friend of mine talks about radiators and drains. So you want to spend time with the radiators that warm you up and make you feel good and fill up your energy tank. And the drains are the people where you just have to lie in a dark room after you've spent an hour with them because they just moan or they're negative and you can't have that. You've got to have the people where. I'm sure when I come off this with you, I'll probably be feeling really energized and that will stay with me for the rest of the day and I'll be ready to go, and I think that's really important and you've got to look for that and you've got to give yourself that energy all the time.

Anne McGinty:

Yeah, it can be hard to do sometimes, especially if somebody is considered a friend, but they're ultimately a pretty big drain on the energy.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

It's hard isn't it and? You can just maybe put them in a box and think about in what context you might see them, where you can maintain that friendship, but in a different way maybe.

Anne McGinty:

So I know we're wrapping up shortly here. We're almost on the hour. You had mentioned doing the two TEDx talks, so I actually did not know that you did two.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

I didn't do two. So I got offered two and I just said yes to the first one because I didn't realize what a big deal they were at all. I feel quite embarrassed saying that now because you know, now we help prepare our clients to pitch for them and to do them, and they're so competitive. You know we had a client that had to pitch against 500 people to get a slot in a local one. Like that's insane. I did not realize that and I just got offered to and I said, oh yeah, I'll do that. And now I just think, god, I was really naive with that and that was scary. That was scary experience.

Anne McGinty:

Why was it so scary? And then, what did you do to prepare?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Oh my God, I wish I'd prepared more. I hadn't realized how scary it was. I think it was scary because there's quite a long process, so because I hadn't pitched for it, I hadn't realized what a big deal it was. But then when I'm in the process, you have to have three meetings typically before you get let loose. So you're having all these planning meetings and the first thing that was scary was that I had the first meeting where I went to meet the organizer and I said, oh, I'm going to do this talk on. I can't even remember what it was. It was really boring. It was like something work related. That was boring. That I can't remember, which is why it's obviously so boring.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So I'm telling her all my ideas and I remember she threw a pen down on the table and she was like that's really boring. Thanks, gee, thanks. And she said what I would love you to do a talk on is like where does your grit come from? Where does this determination come from? Because I see that in you and I would love you to tell some of that story. And I was just like and then I started telling her some of the stuff that you see in the talk about the divorce and about some of these things. And these were things, if you remember me saying earlier, I didn't share those things at that point. I didn't. No one knew I was a single parent, no one knew that I had some of those challenges going on. I'm trying to build this business so so I'll tell her all this stuff. And she was just like, will you please do that as your talk? And I'm like, oh my God.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So I think I had that nervousness around. I'm feeling quite vulnerable with this. So that made me feel more nervous than normal. I hadn't done a huge amount of speaking at that point. I'd done some and I still get nervous now. Like, don't get me wrong, I get nervous all the time and I think there's healthy nerves for sure. But oh, I just felt so sick.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And then the guy that had been the big boss of John Lewis. He was speaking after me because he was the mayor. The mayor, I did mine in Birmingham, in the Midlands, in the UK, and he was the mayor of the Midlands at this point. That was his next job and I was on before him and I was like, oh my God, this is really scary. He was like the big boss and now I'm on this stage with him. So that was intimidating and I just felt, yeah, just really exposed.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And you know I had done some preparation because you've got to learn it off by heart. You're not meant to have sort of any notes or anything, so it's quite intense. You've got this pressure around keeping it under the 18 minutes. You've got this big timer on the on the stage that you're kind of thinking, oh my God, I can't go over. And then you're remembering all the things that you're not allowed to say, because if you cover certain things they won't upload the video. So it's just all these things in my head and then I couldn't remember what I wanted to say.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

I just got massive stage fright the night before and then I did the rehearsal the night before and I was so rubbish. My colleague Rachel had come with me and my daughter had come. She'd got a bit of time off school to come to this event. She was loving it just running around behind with all the cameramen and stuff. But Rachel ended up having my daughter in her room so I could get a proper good night's sleep. And she said when my daughter falls asleep she says you need to come back to my room and we need to practice this because you need to get it right I was like, okay, okay, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So you just kept rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing and then even on the morning, rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing in the dressing room and then when I come out, you know I think you've seen it, haven't you? So I don't think that I look mega nervous, but I'm wearing this long gold dress, which you have to watch it to understand why but I'm wearing this dress and my legs were just like jelly just shaking underneath that dress. I was so, so nervous. But actually I've been and watched TEDx talks since, because I've got quite into them now, and I see people make mistakes, I see people really suffer with nerves, and I look back and I think actually I was all right, I didn't make any mistakes, I didn't fluff any of my lines, I just kind of went with it and it was all right. And I think sometimes we're a bit hard on ourselves because we're our own worst critics.

Anne McGinty:

I did not think that you came across as being nervous. I think you did a great job, oh God.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Even now, whenever anyone asks me about it, I get transported back to that. I can remember like walking out onto stage because it was in such a big auditorium as well. It was a really fancy venue. And even now I can feel in the pit of my stomach, I can feel that sick feeling those nerves, just remembering what it was like to walk out onto the big red circle and it was scary.

Anne McGinty:

Did you just breathe? Or like, what did you do about the fear?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

I just thought you've just got to get on with it. I think most people who've spoken a bit cause you would never do a TEDx talk if you've never spoken anywhere, even in the practice before you do it, in the lead up to it, you get in some level of practice. So I think you know we're all good at hiding nerves when we need to and, like I say, I do a lot more speaking now. I actually really enjoy it. I prepare a lot more now. I think about what I want to say and how I want people to feel and things like that. But I still get nervous and, like I say, I think that's a good thing because it means you want to do a good job.

Anne McGinty:

Amazing. So, just as a final wrap up here, if you could go back and talk with yourself when you were in your early twenties just life wisdom what would you say?

Sophie Milliken MBE:

So I think I would say to myself in my early twenties to take more risks earlier on career wise, because one of the things that I did after university was I wanted to move back to Newcastle because it felt safe. London was really scary to me at that point. Being from the North London was just oh my God, london. And then when I did get forced to move to London by John Lewis, it was the best thing for my career. I trebled my salary in like a year or something. The opportunities that I had and I love London now, like I you know get me there every week at the moment because I really enjoy it, and I think I should have gone there earlier when I didn't have any ties. So I think and I would say, you should do the risky stuff and the travel when you're young, without the ties to hold you back, because that's when you can enjoy it the most and by saying yes to things you develop your confidence, your contacts, your network, everything. The other thing that I would say to my early 20 self is to think really carefully about who you decide to have children with, because I think that has a big impact on everything to do with your life. So obviously I don't regret having my daughter. She's amazing. She's like the best thing in my life. She's awesome. So you know she wouldn't exist if I hadn't have had her with my ex-husband. But the thing around the partner bit is really, really important. I think it's Sheryl Sandberg who wrote about that in Lean In, and she talks about that being the biggest business decision that you make is who you partner with in life.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And I just I think I couldn't agree more, because I look at my brothers. I've got two brothers in very normal jobs. One's a teacher, one works for the NHS and they have perfect families. I'm sure they have problems. I'm sure they do. I don't see those. I see them as being happily married. They each have two kids. They've both got a boy and a girl. You know like they tick all these perfect boxes, but what I see with them is they have very balanced relationships with their wives where they have a really great balance, where they're essentially a team and you wouldn't know who's the mom or who's the dad. There's no traditional stereotypes in that. They just get on with it and they make things work for their family, where they get time on their own to pursue their own hobbies and see their friends and do adult stuff, but they do lots of family things and it's even For me, I didn't have that and I still don't have that, obviously now, as a single parent, and I think that's really important because you want someone that is your equal at home doing the life, admin, the childcare, the housework, all of these things.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

And it's great when you get to a point where you're successful financially and you can outsource a lot of that, because that's awesome and it takes a lot of pressure off. But there's still things that you have to do in a relationship and I think you can become resentful of someone that doesn't pull their weight with things and doesn't play their part and it holds you back business wise as well, because if you're getting frustrated or you're having to do all of these things yourself, it will have an impact on you in other areas of your life. So I think I would definitely be saying something to my younger self about being more careful around who you commit to and making sure that you have that. It's important. I think as well.

Sophie Milliken MBE:

Before you have kids, you don't realize how hard it is and how much you have to do with kids and like it's such a life change. You know anyone listening that doesn't have kids yet. Oh my God, I think we become really fixated on just getting to the point of childbirth and you don't think about actually I have this person that I have to keep alive for the next however long, so you get so focused on that. But I think it's life changing Shifts the whole perspective.

Anne McGinty:

It really does Well. Sophie, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story and your insights with all of us. It was really great to have you. Thanks for having me. Today's key takeaways If you're passionate about your product or service, selling it becomes much easier.

Anne McGinty:

Believe in what you offer and others will, too. Explore new business ideas. Have you ever heard of a mock assessment center in America? This could be a game-changing idea, so consider whether you can fill a gap in the market. The quality of your team is crucial If you're offering a course for a large group. Consider standout locations like sports stadiums to make a lasting impression. Invite prospective clients to observe your services in action. It's a powerful way to showcase what you offer.

Anne McGinty:

Trust your gut. Your instincts are your best guide. If something doesn't feel right, don't ignore it. Make decisions with confidence and avoid getting swept up in the moment. When facing big decisions, especially if you're inexperienced, seek advice from those who understand the complexities. Find advisors who can help you see all angles.

Anne McGinty:

Don't regret your mistakes, but learn from them. Look for the positives, even in situations that make you cringe. Growth often comes from the toughest lessons. If you stick to the same routine for too long, you might lose your spark. So stay curious, keep evolving and avoid becoming jaded in your work.

Anne McGinty:

Don't take everything at face value in business transactions. Do your background checks and make sure the facts line up. It's essential to protect your interests when going into business with someone. Make sure your values and ethics align. A strong partnership is built on mutual respect and shared principles. If you're looking to establish yourself as an expert, consider entering reputable awards, writing a book and building a dedicated professional speaking website. Your reputation matters, so invest in it. Spend time with people who inspire you, lift you up and energize you, and stay away from those who drain your energy. Choose your company wisely. Say yes to opportunities, especially early in your career, to opportunities especially early in your career. Taking risks can expand your confidence and your network. Don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. Lastly, be very selective about who you partner with in life. Your personal life impacts your professional life, so choose relationships that support your well-being and success. That's it for today. I release episodes once a week, so come back and check it out. Have a great day.

People on this episode

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Anne McGinty

Host
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Sophie Milliken MBE

Guest