In this episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast, the wonderful Sophie Milliken, MBE, the founder and CEO of Moja, is chatting about the importance of getting noticed through awards and writing books. Something that makes many people uncomfortable, we discuss why winning awards matter and the common mistakes to watch out for when you are nominated for an award. Sophie also talks about how writing a book can help boost your business’s visibility. Plus, we share tips on how to tell if an award is legit or a scam, and how to make your submissions stand out. If you’re a course creator, coach, or membership owner looking to grow your brand, this episode is full of useful advice and strategies.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- The Power of Awards – Winning awards can significantly boost your business’s visibility, but it’s important to submit thoughtfully and avoid common mistakes like submitting for the wrong categories or ignoring the submission guidelines.
- Writing a Book for Business Growth – Writing a book can be an excellent way to increase your visibility and credibility, positioning you as an expert in your field while attracting new opportunities.
- Spotting Legitimate Awards – Not all awards are created equal. It’s crucial to be able to differentiate between genuine awards that will add value to your business and those that are simply out to make money off unsuspecting participants.
If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Sophie Milliken on Instagram or LinkedIn
Connect with Teresa on Website, The Club, Sign up to Teresa’s email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
Teresa: Have you ever thought about going for an award or been put up for award and didn’t get it? Do you wonder whether it’s worth the effort because sometimes we have to go to a fair bit of effort in terms of putting a submission in and convincing them why we need to get it? Or maybe you don’t even think about going for them in the first place because you’re thinking I’m not good enough to win an award.
In today’s episode, we are talking about the importance of getting visible and specifically around awards and winning them, how to know whether they’re worth it, how to know what you should look out for when you’re putting together an award submission, and And some of the common mistakes that people make.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast.
I’m your host, Theresa Heath, wearing as always. And I just want to thank you so much for spending the time with me and listening to this episode of the podcast. It really does genuinely mean the world to me. Obviously I sit and record it on my own when I do solos and things. And sometimes you can feel really disjointed from the people listening.
So I just want to say a big, massive, thank you. I really appreciate you being here on today’s episode. I am talking about. One of my favorite areas, or one of my key [00:02:00] areas that I talk about, we’re talking about visibility and how to become visible. You, if you’ve listened to this podcast before, we’ll know that this is a big thing that I teach.
It’s a big thing that I talk about because if we’re not visible, if people can’t see us and they don’t know that we exist. exist, then they’re never going to be able to buy from us and becoming the go to expert is really important in terms of growing an online business. And that’s exactly what we talk to today’s guest about.
Although we do talk about it in a slightly different way. Today I’m interviewing Sophie Milliken. Sophie is an MBE. I mean, that’s like so impressive. And the founder and CEO of Moja. I think I’ve said that right. It’s M O J A. She worked with entrepreneurs and senior executives to amplify their personal profiles and become the authority in their industry.
As I’ve said, this is very much in my wheelhouse, which makes this a great conversation. She’s a multi award winning businesswoman [00:03:00] and a proud mom. She also enjoys supporting the North East region where she lives in the UK. and is a co founder of City Ladies Networking, a networking group for women in business running a monthly breakfast events in Newcastle, London, and Paris.
Very fancy. So, Sophie came on to talk about visibility and we kind of ended up going down to like roots or two rabbit holes, which I’m super glad that we did because these are two things that we’ve not really talked about before. And the two areas of visibility that I don’t talk a lot about because these aren’t my zone of genius, but they are for Sophie is we talked about award winning, which yes, I won some awards, but I wouldn’t say that I’m an expert in award winning things.
And we talk about writing a book and how these two things can be huge for your visibility and help you show up as the go to expert. So when it comes to [00:04:00] awards, we talk about are they worth going for? How do you know if you are good enough to go for an award? What should you look out for? And what are some of the common mistakes that people make when applying for awards?
And then from the book point of view, we talk about what it takes to actually write a book. She’s written three. We talk about how long it will take and what it will do for your business and for your visibility when you have a book. So this is a really nice rounded conversation about two areas that Sophie is really, really smart in and gives some really good insight to both of those things, whether you’re looking to go for awards or write a book, I still think you’re going to find this a really interesting conversation in terms of getting visible and how important it is for your business.
So without further ado, here is Sophie. Sophie, welcome to the podcast.
Sophie: Thanks for having me on.
Teresa: My pleasure. I’m excited about today’s conversation because we’re talking about something that always makes me cringe when I say it. [00:05:00] When someone says about my business and I say I’m a personal brand, it always makes me feel like, like my ego is all on show there.
Like, yeah, I’m a personal brand. Like it just feels horrible. However, Well, we’re going to get into this about why we need one and what it is. And that’s the thing, but let’s start with what do you describe a personal brand as?
Sophie: So I have this love hate relationship with the term personal branding because it’s just bandied about all the time now and people are always going on.
You’ve got to have a personal brand and you see all these personal branding coaches pop up all over social media and it’s just become a bit of a thing. So I think what people, a lot of people think is is just doing a banging LinkedIn post or an Instagram post that does really well, and you get loads of likes on it, and that’s kind of what people associate with personal branding.
For me, the social media part of it is actually the very last bit, because A [00:06:00] social media post doesn’t really last for very long, whereas all the other stuff that I think underpins someone’s personal brand will be around forever. So I often say to people, you know, Google one of my clients, for example, and all the stuff that pops up should be stuff that we’ve helped to put there.
And it might be things like an award win. It might be that they’ve spoken at an event or Or they have a new book out, or they’ve got a podcast, or they’ve been on someone’s show, or they’ve been on TV. So all those different things that will raise someone’s profile, make them more visible, which they can then talk about on social media.
Teresa: Yeah. And in my experience, this becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy in this fact of you have to, and I think this is where people get the mistake or make the mistake. They think it just happens. They think that I wake up one day and just get an award or wake up one day and get invited on a podcast.
That is not the case. What they haven’t seen behind the background is all the work that’s going into it. But the more you [00:07:00] do, the more you put out, the more people invite you to do things. Is that your experience?
Sophie: 100%. It’s like a snowball effect. And the way I got into this as a business is quite interesting because I had my first business was a graduate recruitment and employability consultancy.
So we used to design assessment materials for big employers like JP Morgan, Marks and Spencers. And then we did some really cool stuff with the universities to prepare students to get graduate jobs. So it was super niche. And when that business really took off and started doing really well and scaling up massively was when I was doing all of these activities.
However, there was no plan. It wasn’t intentional. It was a mistake. So what happened was actually that I Uh, had a co founder who was a bit more shy and retiring than I am. And he was afraid of the limelight, I suppose. Whereas I, I could see that by being more visible, it created opportunities. I just didn’t really [00:08:00] realize that there should be a strategy behind it.
So one of the things that I did when he exited, exited the business was to have awards as part of my marketing strategy. And they were good quality awards, which have fantastic communities. So they weren’t scammy ones, which I warn people against. They were good.
Teresa: This is a whole question I’m about to ask, but let’s go on.
Sophie: It is. It is. And, and what happened with that is we start getting shortlisted for stuff. And then there was it, there was this one year where I literally won everything that was going. It was got to the point where it was a bit embarrassing, if I’m honest, but it all paid off. And to be fair, we, we had in that the business was flying.
It was really successful. All these things were happening. But then what happened is I was saying yes to more things and it was this snowball effect. So my first book came out and I did a couple of book launches. I got offered two TEDx talks off back of this book launch. I’d never even watched a TEDx talk at this point.
Didn’t really know what one was, thought I did, said yes to the first one. Then figured out how I was [00:09:00] going to do it. And literally it was the most scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But then off the back of that, I got offered a column in a magazine and I got, you know, all these things that happen and you’ll have experienced this.
You know, when you do one of these things, five more opportunities pop up. So this was, you know, it just made my profile really high. And then what the beauty of it was, because there’s a bit of a, so what question to this, like, why are we doing this? And what happened was. I was then rocking up to sales meetings with prospects and they felt like they knew me because they’d seen me at various things and they’d seen that I was sharing I’m at this thing on LinkedIn or whatever and it just made the conversations really natural and really easy because they felt like they knew me already when they didn’t.
So it made sales really easy and it created more fun opportunities. So then fast forward a few years and I sold that business and stayed on And then decided I wanted to leave and I couldn’t operate in my old industry anymore because I had 5, 000 [00:10:00] restrictions as to what I couldn’t do for a period of time.
And I was chatting to a friend and said, she said to me, what are you going to do now? And I said, I’ve got this idea. Don’t really know what it is or what to call it, but I feel like there’s a process in all the stuff that I did to raise my profile. And I feel like I can do that for the founders. And that was how my current business Mojo was born.
It was just this random idea and it is now growing into, into a full offer. So that’s the, the long version of that story. But I think it’s, it’s interesting, isn’t it?
Teresa: And it’s super helpful to understand the difference this can do for someone’s business, because sometimes it does feel a little bit frivolous and, or.
On some of these things, which I have to say is like most marketing that I talk about, you’re not going to necessarily see the results on day one or minute one. You, this is like, I liken it cause I’m a big gardener. I grow my vegetables. My audience know this. I’m obsessed. But anyway, this is like planting a seed.
You know, I have to plant the [00:11:00] seed. I have to love it. I have to water it. I have to make sure it’s warm. It has enough light. I have to nurture it in those early days, even though it’s doing nothing. All in the hope that at some point it will bring me tomatoes. And if I do it properly and I keep putting that time and effort in, then it will reward me having the summer.
But what happens in so much marketing and in things like this is we go, yeah, I didn’t say anything. Like we’re waiting for the instant result. There’s no instant results. So we just assume it’s not done anything. Okay. I want to talk about the awards thing because it’s very interesting to me. So I have won a couple of awards.
I have won a most professional female speaker, which quite honestly gobsmacked me because I was like, of all the things I’ve been told most professional, I’m not sure was one of them, but I want a female speaker award, international female speaker award. And then just literally last week, I won role model of the year for digital women, which
Sophie: congratulations.
Teresa: Thank you. And it feels like a really [00:12:00] lovely award to win because like being told you’re a role model is kind of amazing for my ego. It loves it. So those awards, very honestly, uh, the digital women awards, I was nominated by other people, but in order to actually put yourself in for the award, they contact you and say, you’ve been nominated for these awards.
And it was actually about four or five awards. And then I just went for two that I thought were the most, you know, kind of like a chance of winning, not even chance of winning, but ones that mattered to me. Like some of the others, it’s like, actually, they don’t matter to me and what I do. And then I had to submit a whole thing as to why I think I would be a good person for that award.
And the other award was just a submission. So I submitted my thing and it feels sometimes like, is this a bit. Like, and obviously with lots of awards you have to pay to go to the event and all this sort of thing and, and some awards you just have to outright pay to be part of them. How do we know whether it’s worth doing Incredible and how do we know [00:13:00] when it’s literally just a, a kind of tick in a box.
Sophie: A money making scam or a tick in a box. Yeah. So I have a few things that I would advise people to look out for. So I think awards should be part of everybody’s strategy. I think there’s an award for everybody at any stage in their business, whatever industry they’re in. But there are a lot of scammy ones.
So if I was advising someone to put a strategy together, I would advise them to look for the whole year, to look at what’s going on across the whole year. So they’re not having any panics around, Ooh, there’s a deadline tomorrow, I’m just going to put this thing together so that they can really think through it.
And also I would say, don’t apply for everything. Choose specific ones that you know are more likely to, to deliver some kind of benefits because the reality is if you are writing your own award entries, it takes ages. It’s like doing a really good quality job application. You can’t just do this scattergun thing where you put loads out and hope that one of them sticks.
You’ve got to spend the time [00:14:00] if you’re doing it yourself. And this is why a lot of people pay us to write their award entries because there’s actually a skill to it. And sometimes it’s quite hard to step out from your business and look into it. and come up with the stories and the stats and the evidence that a judge is expected to see.
But if I was, if someone, if you said to me, Oh, there’s these awards here and I’m not sure whether I should apply for them. I would say, well, go and have a look and see who the judges are. Are they credible people in your industry that you either know, or you can see that they have a credible bio, for example.
I’d have a look at who the previous winners are. And again, same thing. Do you know who they are? Are you impressed by them? Can you see why they would have won? I’d be looking at things like, are they expecting you to pay to enter? Now, there’s a bit of a caveat on this because some industries that is just the norm and it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re scammy.
So you might need to delve into that one a bit deeper. There’s other things that I really don’t like about awards where Wandswear, it’s a popularity [00:15:00] contest and they expect you to go and get people to vote for you, for example. So I tend to steer clear of
Teresa: Because who’s got the biggest audience? That’s who wins.
Sophie: Yeah, it’s just weird.
Teresa: It’s a numbers game. Yeah.
Sophie: Yeah, I find that bit strange. Or Wandswear, you have to be at the awards ceremony to have a chance of winning because yes, you should want to go, but it shouldn’t be a requirement to even be considered. So there’s a few things within there that I think will will help you see if it’s a bit of a scam.
The other thing is that people should absolutely steer clear of ones where you get an email and I get these three or four times a week saying, Hey, you’ve won. And it’s always something really obscure, like most innovative PR woman in the Northeast in 2024. And you only have to pay 1, 500 and we will send you the trophy and put you in a random magazine.
And people fall for these scams. You know, I see people on socials every week going, Hey, I won this. And I’m like, no, you didn’t. I know how this works. And then you’re losing any [00:16:00] credibility because people know that that’s the score. And I think the other thing that’s really, really important to think about with awards is what are you going to do with it?
Because yes, it’s lush to go to an award ceremony and get pissed up with your mates. And we’ve all done that and that’s fun. And you should do that if you’ve been shortlisted or you win, amazing. But actually. Where I’ve found the benefit is with awards is actually the community aspect. So a great example is the Great British Entrepreneur Awards.
Stephen Bartlett calls them the Grammys of business. And he’s right because you get the who’s who of people in business that are at those awards. You don’t pay to enter. You don’t have to turn up to the ceremony. But you should, because there’s 1, 500 people in a room who are brilliant entrepreneurs that you will want to hang out with and you will have brilliant conversations with.
Now, every time I’ve been to an event of theirs and I won, um, Northeastern Entrepreneur of the Year in 2020, I think, so I get invited to some cool stuff. And I’m now a judge for the awards, which again is another way of getting into awards in a, in a different way. But every [00:17:00] time I go to one of their events, I always get talking to someone amazing, which leads to either a piece of work or a collaboration.
And that’s never my intention when I go, but I am now more strategic around, right, who is here? Who do I want to chat to and see where it goes? And I think that’s where the magic happens. And I could say now very confidently that my return on investment in terms of going to these dinners and things is really high.
Teresa: It’s So one, I’ve never heard of that, uh, Great British Business Entrepreneur Awards. I’ve just written it down. So my experience, and I’ve had experience of both being a judge and obviously going up for awards and seeing other people’s awards. And there’s a couple of comments. There’s one thing that I want to ask you.
So my first, observation is that obviously I know a lot of people’s businesses and know behind the scenes in a lot of people’s businesses. And I saw the other day and I’m not laughing and I sound horrible and mean, and I don’t mean to be. [00:18:00] I saw the other day, someone being up for an award. And they haven’t really got a business and I’m like, how the hell have you been shortlisted for an award?
And this is not the awards I’ve just mentioned. These are other words. In fact, I can’t even remember what the award was, but I literally was like, you don’t really have a business and I know you’ve not made any money in it. And I know it’s not just about the money, but like, it’s not an actual business. So then that made me think, God, this whole thing is absolute BS.
Like. Honestly, what a farce. Why would I even bother? Right? So that is one observation. The other observation which I had is I was once a judge for an awards. And again, I won’t say who it was. And, and this, this kind of leads into my question, right? My brief from the awards people were look at the award submission and base it on the submission.
Right? So The submissions came in [00:19:00] and I can’t even say what I was judging because otherwise, well, it’s obviously all in the marketing world. But anyway, so it came in and I had to, I had like five people to look at, or maybe even more than that. And no, it was probably about five. So they’d already been shortlisted.
And I had about five people to look at and I was reading their submissions and because I’m nosy. I went and started looking at these people online and I looked at their site and I looked at what they’d written and I’d looked at like all this other stuff. And then I came back to the submissions and I was like, okay, that’s cool.
But based on the submissions, this person is the best, right? So I had to do my feedback to the awards place and I was like, okay. And I had to get on a call with them and they were all down in London. I didn’t want to go to London for the day just to go, this is who I pick. So I stayed at home, called in and I was like, okay, so.
I’ve been through and this is the person I want to win the award and this is why. And they went, Oh, but what, what, what about so and so? And I was like, yeah, she’s awesome. I said, she’s great. [00:20:00] Warder’s submission was terrible. Like didn’t do a great submission. I looked, I looked at her stuff and I agree, she is great.
But I thought you asked me to do it on the submission and they have not done a very good submission. And they were like, Oh yeah, but you know, they like, but look at this on a social and look at, and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But can we come back to, you asked me to judge this on the submission and the submission was not as good as this other person’s submission.
Anyway, that awards decided that they really did want to give this other person something as well. And because I had, I insisted that, you know, actually, no, this isn’t fair. They ended up giving two awards. Wanted the person they wanted and wanted, and I was like, what an absolute farce, right? So that kind of comes to my question of, does it, and how, there’s like a million questions around this, but basically to do with the submission itself.
So Yeah. Is it that the submission is the most important thing? Is it that there’s a way to write the [00:21:00] submission? Is it because some people could win awards? So again, I was at another awards ceremony. It wasn’t anything to do with me or my industry. I was speaking at their day event and it was going into an awards thing.
It was a specialist industry thing that I have nothing to do with. And there was a really big company there that sweeped up all the awards because they had a submissions writer. And you had these smaller companies or these smaller one man bands who are brilliant at what they do. They just didn’t write submissions for a living.
So let’s talk around. I’ve literally done loads of stuff on there. If you just
Sophie: make that makes total sense. And I think if you are asked to judge an entry based on the criteria, that’s absolutely what you should do. And actually even going and looking at someone’s social media or website or whatever, That’s still only a picture that they’ve painted anyway.
So is all of that stuff true? And is it just that someone’s better with their personal brand and be more visible? And I think in that example you gave, it sounds like they probably knew this other woman and they liked her and [00:22:00] therefore. Did they feel the same in every other category? Probably not. So is that fair?
So I think that’s, that’s an interesting observation with that scenario. And then I think in terms of the award writing stuff, I’d say now as a judge, you probably get, at least half that are written by a professional. And you can tell. Yeah, I’d say so. And you know, we offer an awards writing service as part of what we do, and we have a lot of people using that service because the reality is, it’s a time saver is one because it takes them ages to put them together.
Teresa: And it’s a skill.
Sophie: It is a skill. And if, you know, someone listening wants to explore awards, which I absolutely think you should do, there’s a really good chapter in my new book about award writing, if you want to learn how to do it yourself. And I think we’ve got some templates in there that will help with, with some bits of award writing as well.
So there is a skill. And I think when you’re in the business and you’re writing it, sometimes there’s that nervousness around. Blown your own trumpet too much and put it out there, which an external person will do more [00:23:00] effectively. So I think that’s one challenge. I think as well, when people are doing it themselves, sometimes common mistakes I would say is that they don’t apply for the right category.
So they think they’re a certain category and they apply for the wrong one. or they answer the question with a story they want to tell rather than what’s being asked and what the criteria might be. And then really common things I see are people not using the full word count because if you’ve got 500 words and you use 100, you’re never going to be given enough detail to the criteria.
Teresa: There’s a reason they’ve given it to you.
Sophie: 100 percent they’re giving you a steer there as to how much detail that they want to see. And then it’s things like, you know, there’s basic stuff around proofreading, making sure you’ve copied and pasted the right answer with the right question. You wouldn’t believe how many times I say the wrong question in there or the same question twice, but it’s stats, it’s evidence and it’s storytelling.
I want to read an entry. That is so personal to that person that we couldn’t just swap the name out and put someone else in. It’s got to have the personality. And we’re not talking [00:24:00] X factor sob stories here. We’re talking about what’s the purpose for the business and what challenges might you have faced and what are the results?
What’s the impact? What are you doing for clients? What are, what are your sales like? All these different things. And there is a skill to it.
Teresa: And I think you’re right. It’s so much harder for us to be in our business and see that because we would go, what challenges do I have? What challenges do I have?
Flipping hell, like, you know, all you would need to do is have a conversation with me and then go, Oh, there’s one, there’s another, there’s another, whereas we wouldn’t necessarily recognize that. The same with the, what we do, the story, like it’s that sort of thing. I do think though, The stats everyone could probably get better at.
Like I’m working with, I’ve worked with lots of different groups of people, but in one of the group calls I’m doing at the moment, someone’s going through a launch and I flipping love her, right? She’s amazing. Cause we get on the launch and I go hit me. And she’s like, sign up to this, this many, this, this minute, this clicks here.
And I’m like, yes, this is, it makes my world like, [00:25:00] and funnily enough, I’m actually, as I, as we record this, I’m like, Which is probably some time before it comes out live, but I’m actually putting together a whole load of research around webinars and lists, sign up rates, and then turn up rates and then purchase rates.
Because I find that so many people in my industry. Have a really unrealistic view of what they should expect from a webinar. And then a devastated when the truth is numbers wise, they’re bang on, like percentage wise, they’re right. They just have a really small list. So, yeah, so I think, sorry, I digressed there to a different place.
But, but yeah, I think the stats thing, I think the stories, things, I think the challenge thing, having someone else help you. pull that out is really, really useful. And like you said, it’s not just about the award over my left shoulder on my thing is an award, the speaker woman awards, and I’m praying I get the role model award because I didn’t actually go, I did buy my ticket.
I was meant to be going. And unfortunately, I’ve just been very tired and very busy. So I didn’t, which was a shame, but hopefully they’ll send me the award. They have, [00:26:00] they said they will, but yeah, it’s not just about the award sat behind me on a screen because you can’t really see it because it’s glass, but it’s about the fact of, Oh, I’m going to this.
Oh, here’s some content around me winning this thing. Oh, here’s like, it’s that whole thing, isn’t it? Okay. What else do I want to know about awards? Let me just think, let me just think. Is there anything else? Like, what if you think you’re just not good enough or don’t have enough experience or don’t have the results to even go for an award?
Sophie: I mean, loads of people think that, and especially women, and we have this imposter syndrome and, and we always have that, you know, am I ready and this person’s better and all that stuff. And it goes back to what I said before around everyone. It has an award that’s relevant to them at the point that they’re at.
So if someone’s starting out in business, there’s, there’s national startup awards, which is run by the same people that do the great British entrepreneur awards and your business has to be three or below. So, you know, you’re then competing with people that have businesses of a similar age. So there’s always things, you know, there’s rising star categories [00:27:00] within, within other awards.
So I think there’s always something for someone. And I think. If you feel that you haven’t got powerful enough stats, then I would say maybe think about entering an award with a client who might’ve had some fantastic results that you’ve helped deliver. And actually there’s something really nice around entering an award with a client because you’re building your relationship with them even more.
They’re nurturing that they will love it. They will love any kind of recognition. You put the spotlight on them, but then you created a brilliant case study opportunity as well. So there’s, there’s always different ways to look at awards, or it might be that You do feel too new and you’re just not ready.
Go and put yourself forward for a judge because you will have expertise in something and by being a judge, you’ll get to see the variety of entries that comes through on what good looks like, or just reach out to an awards organiser and say, I’d love to have a chat with you about where I am at in my business and which category you think might.
be relevant for me or if I’m ready and be honest with me. And most awards [00:28:00] organizers, if you catch them at the right time of year, would probably be willing to have a conversation like that.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s a really good idea. Um, just, I don’t know what’s wrong with my brain this morning and I am going to leave this in, but my brain keeps turning itself off.
Like I’m obviously very tired or something, but I was going to say something else then. And it literally just went, no, it’s gone. Okay. Let’s move on to the next bit. It will come back. You know that, don’t you? It’ll just jump back in my brain. I want to talk about the book thing. Now I have had people on talking about books and talking about writing books before, not loads, but I’ve had like one or two people on.
However, I want to talk about it from a visibility point of view. Because when you talk to way through the things that can make you visible getting on podcast speaking awards, obviously the podcast and the speaking stuff I can talk about a fair bit, but the book thing, the awards. That’s a lot more effort.
But the book thing is like, are you having a laugh? Like write an [00:29:00] entire book to get more visible? What the hell, man? Talk to me about that.
Sophie: Have you written a book? Have you done a book?
Teresa: So I have written a chapter in a book. So I was part of a multi author book and I wrote a chapter, which actually was not that big a deal, but it was just my story about entrepreneurship and starting my business as a single mom and all that jazz.
And then obviously it was managed by the people who did the book and the publishers. And it went to number one in Amazon, which is quite easy to do by the way. But like, you know, in case people are like, Oh, wow, no, I discovered it’s super easy. You just have to get the right category and all that jazz, but I’m not taking that away.
Like I will still use. best selling author in my title of stuff. So yeah, what, like,
Sophie: I think it does and it’s not, it really isn’t. So I’ve written three. Written three books.
Teresa: Such a show off.
Sophie: I am. And we now have a publishing division of the business. So we are helping other people to do this. Writing my first [00:30:00] book was the best thing that I ever did in, in, in life.
I think, I mean, maybe that’s bold, but for business, because it is literally the best business card that you will ever have. And I can look back from that book as, and I said, Earlier in our conversation, I got offered those two TEDx talks off the back of that first book. What having a book does is gives you instant credibility because a typical business book, which is what a book that you or I would write, is between 30 and 40, 000 words.
And to know enough, To put down 30 to 40, 000 words in your subject means that you are an expert. You’re not just going to write that amount of fluff. It’s got to have something into it. So as soon as you have a book, what I think that then does is one, you can launch the heck out of it and, and pick up all sorts of things from that.
And I did a launch for my third book only a couple of weeks ago, and it was the best launch I’ve ever done. And it did really, really well.
Teresa: And it looked, and I am [00:31:00] getting proper book envy from people because I’ve watched a few people do book launches and I’m like, I want a book launch.
Sophie: Well, there you go. And having a book launch is so special because it is amazing to be stood there with your own book that you have written and be able to leverage that. But yeah, have an amazing book launch. But then it’s those. Longer term benefits. So it’s things like the opportunities that get offered off the back of that.
It’s strengthening the relationships with the people that come to your launch events. It’s having that in your bio, because as you know, you get booked to speak at lots of events, most people, a lot of people that speak at events, big events, have a book. It’s helpful for podcasts because if you want to get on bigger and bigger shows.
You tend to have a book and that’s something that, you know, we look at Diary of the CEO, the biggest business podcast in the country. Everyone that goes on that show, even the celebrities now have a book, but all the experts definitely have books. So it’s all of these different opportunities. And I think for people that are [00:32:00] looking to enhance their speaking career, a book is brilliant because you can, you know, I was speaking at a dinner and after dinner thing last week and I parceled my book into.
into that fee to say, well, you know, my new book’s out. It’s 14. 99, but I’ll give you everyone a copy for seven quid. And we, we added that on and it got my book out there more as well. So there were just so many opportunities that it will bring. But back to your point, people go, Oh my God, a book. That’s really scary.
Teresa: It’s a lot of words. In one place.
Sophie: It’s a lot of words, but the theory is that if you plan it out well, which is something that you know, we we do with people, is you can then write a thousand words per hour. Now, I’ve just said an ideal book, 30 to 40,000 words, haven’t written three. I think the sweet spot is around 36, 30 7,000 because I think any less, it feels a bit flimsy anymore.
It gets quite expensive to print, and it takes ages to do the edit and stuff. So if you think about it like that, you can write one. quite quickly. The bit that takes the time, which [00:33:00] is why people like to do this with us, is the copy edit, the proofread, getting the covers right, recording, an audible version, you know, you want to have all of these things in place.
Cause I think if you’re going to do a book and I had a really interesting conversation recently with someone on my podcast, who’s had six books and he did all of his with a hybrid publisher. And then his last one, he self published thinking, well, I know it now because I’ve done five. And he said it was such a mistake because He said there was loads, and I’ve actually got that copy of that book that he was talking about and I picked it up after our call and I was like, Oh my God, he’s so right.
There was loads of typos in it. There was loads of errors. Yeah, it was quite bad. And he said one of the dads at his kid’s school had gone through it with a red pen and handed it to him in the playground. So totally mortified. And I think the reality is, if you’re, if you publish your own, your own book, and a lot of people do do that, then as a minimum, you’d want a proofreader.
But I think there’s a, a lot of benefit in, in doing it properly and invest in a bit of cash. It doesn’t have to cost loads and hopefully you’re going to make that [00:34:00] back anyway. But I think this is representing you. So you want it to look really professional and there’s all sorts of things that you discover when you get into publishing around.
The, the different covers, because you’ve got to have a different cover for each format and the bleed of the spine is really important for your paper book. And all these things around doing the audio version, because I didn’t realize how many people listen to audio books because I don’t consume audio books. So when I now look at my stats from my new book, which has an audio version, because I’ve got a podcast studio, so why would I not record the audio version? That is the most popular format.
Teresa: Wow. I just, it just doesn’t excite me to write a book. Like when I think about, and I have no actual idea why I would write in a book, which is hilarious given that I’ve got a degree in marketing and spent 20 years in it. Like it’s kind of like, wouldn’t even know where to start.
Sophie: I think you would do, I would do, I mean, my third book is basically the book version of my podcast. And I [00:35:00] think you have such interesting topics on your podcast and interesting experts that come in and talk about various things. I think for you, I think a book version of your show.
Would be good because you’d then have loads of content to go back on and think about, well, which episodes resonated with people? What topics did people like? And then if I, if I were advising you, I’d be saying, right, you know, get a note pad or a load of cards out, write all these topics down from various shows and then have them spread out on the table and work out, right, well, what naturally fits together and could this create a section?
And I think it would come together, but if you’re not excited about doing it, Is there any point because you’ve got to get excited
Teresa: and I love the idea of it, obviously, but it’s funny because obviously I had my other podcast losing part of me and I could write that book in a heartbeat. I’m sure I could. I mean, it’s funny. I don’t know whether I could go back now and well, I could take my podcast for sure. Cause that is basically. of like [00:36:00] an audio book almost, but that wouldn’t do anything for my business. That is a personal project. And although that might be very cathartic to write, it’s not gonna necessarily do much my business, but it’s funny, you know, it’s, we were just talking, I was like, I fricking love webinars.
I love talking about webinars. I love the stats of webinars. I love seeing, cause people don’t know how to do webinars and I teach on it. And like, and then I thought how it feels so stupid to write a book about webinars. Like
Sophie: I say, that’d be great. I’d go and go and have a look on, on Amazon after this and see if there’s any books on web. Yeah. Because sometimes having a niche is, is perfect because there will be so many people that listen to this show that needs that information and would benefit from that information. And to be able to write a whole book on that is very impressive and there’s all sorts you could put in there with case studies that would add a bit of interest to it. So,
Teresa: yeah. I mean, it doesn’t sound very sexy, does it? But [00:37:00] like, well, yeah, I want it to be sexy.
Sophie: I’ll make the party sexy. Have a sexy party.
Teresa: The party would be sexy. You’re right. Like, honestly, I was watching Hannah Isted as well, and she did a, uh, launch for her book ages ago. And like, I was just like, I want that. That’s amazing.
Sophie: It’s so fun. So
Teresa: how long did it take you? take you to write a book?
Sophie: So the first one took me three weeks because I was working with a hybrid publisher who, there was a specific date that I wanted that book to come out on and they said, well you’ve only got three weeks to get us the draft manuscript and I’m like, oh right, okay.
So that was three weeks and I had a lot of the content already. The second one took about five months because it was during COVID. I was interviewing some women to include their stories in. The second one’s called the Ambition Accelerator and I had quite a few prominent business women that I wanted to interview.
So I had to kind of fit in with their [00:38:00] schedules and then get loads of stuff signed off and whatnot. So that took longer. And then this third one, do you know what, I can’t even remember how long this one took me. Again, I had quite a bit of the content already, but it was just pulling it into some kind of order.
But I reckon that probably took me about three weeks as well, three or four weeks.
Teresa: That seems wild to me that you’d create a book in that short of distance.
Sophie: And it’s really good. I was like, I’m really proud of that, that last book. Like, it’s amazing. Like Sarah Davies from Dragon’s Den, she wrote my foreword.
And she did this post on LinkedIn and on Instagram saying it is the best personal branding toolkit. And I was just like, yeah, it’s really good.
Teresa: That is amazing. How did you get her to write that?
Sophie: So I know her. So in the Northeast, it’s quite close knit, like we all kind of know each other and I had met her.
Here’s a great story. I met her at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards years ago and we were sat near each other and I think she just got married. [00:39:00] done the very, her, her season of Dragon’s Den. She’d just done it, but I’d already met her at something a couple of years before, so I didn’t feel like fangirling her.
And we had a chat, and actually that was when my first book had come out, and she said, Oh, you must send me it. And I’d sent her it, and she’d done a nice post then, and we just kind of stayed in touch. And then when I did the second book, she was one of the women that I reached out to and said, Will you be in it?
And she said, Yes. And then sort of fast forward, you know, we kind of see each other at various things. And then I asked her to be the ambassador of the charity that I chair because my board wanted an ambassador and they chose her. And I was like, brilliant, at least she’ll, she’ll reply whether she says yeah, and then she did say yes.
And then we’ve been working together with that. But here’s a funny thing. She saw how well my launch went the other week, and she’s asked me to help her launch her next book that comes out in January because she was so impressed with how we did it and, and my sort of network in the Northeast and how, how we might help. for her to put on her launch party for her next book. So it’s funny how things go. Yeah. But I definitely got a lot of sales from, from her doing some [00:40:00] promo for me. It was, you know, the peak day we sold over 400 books on the peak day that she did that pose just in one day, which is amazing.
Teresa: That’s so cool, man. That’s so, so cool. Like, that’s awesome. Sophie, you have given us so much to think about and like, Yeah. I know that someone might be listening to this and thinking, oh man, these are massive strategies. Like these are big ass things, but I’m going to bet that those big strategies have made the biggest difference.
Sophie: I think so. And I think it’s, you can’t do everything all at once. So it’s breaking down what is it that you want to focus on right now and doing something, because it’s so easy to just say, everything’s massive. I’m going to put it all off forever. But if you just start chipping away at little things, so it might be, right, this year I want to focus on speaking.
So it might be some basic things like, Are my bios fit for sending out to an event organizer? Have I got something on my website that makes it clear I’m a [00:41:00] professional speaker? So there’s just these little things. And I think it goes back to what I said earlier around this snowball effect. If you do a couple of things and things will just naturally happen.
But I think, you know, you’ve just got to take that first step and things, things will happen. And that’s, that is why I genuinely, why I wrote that book. So the book breaks all of these. ideas that we’ve spoken about, awards, networking, speaking, books, all of these things down and gives people little tasks or challenges to do.
Take, I’ve had these take action points so that people can go away and actually do something with it rather than just consume the content.
Teresa: That’s so good. And I think that is the thing, isn’t it? Like, One, you’ve got to actually do something like you can’t just go, Oh, this’ll be nice. And then the other thing I’ve really taken from this is that networking is that, and that is how I have made a lot of the connections that I have made.
I used to travel to the States a lot. I used to go to events in the States, which is how I got a lot of American friends and in that [00:42:00] world. And, and I think there is nothing that you can replace an in person thing for like as much as the online thing is awesome. And I am very much in the online world. that in person thing in terms of building those relationships. And like you said, the fact that Sarah Davis, you met at that awards thing, you had conversations with her, it was a slower thing. You weren’t immediately thinking, right, what can I use it for? And then, and, and she offered to look at the book, like that’s massive.
And now you’re going to get some business from it, which is amazing. So, so good. So this has been really, really inspiring and enlightening. Also, by the way, you’re MBE, aren’t you? I am. Yeah. I mean, why is that not on your zoom name? Like I would literally have a badge.
Sophie: I’ve got it. I’ve got it on my, do you know what? It’s funny talking about a badge because I literally just did a LinkedIn post this morning, talking about the fact that I was at an event last night with the department for business and trade. And it was the first time I’ve ever worn my medal. And [00:43:00] I’ve, been putting it off, I suppose, bit of imposter syndrome for a while now.
And someone at another event a couple of weeks ago said, who, who’s also got an MBE, who was wearing the pin versions. You can buy these smaller versions because the real thing, bloomin massive. And she came up to me in the toilets and said, why are you not wearing your medal? And I said, Oh, I’ve never worn it.
I feel a bit weird. a bit awkward. And she challenged me to start, to start wearing it. So I ordered the pin and I wore that to a black tie event a few weeks later, and it felt a bit uncomfortable, but it was okay. Cause my hair covered it really. And then I was invited to this event last night at the department of business trade at Lancaster house, which is amazing, very fancy building in central London.
And it said on the invitation, so it was an honors recipient’s reception with all, all linked to business. And I thought, well, if I can’t wear it there,
Teresa: where else are you going to wear it?
Sophie: Still, still didn’t wear it. It was in my bag. And then I met someone in the queue who had his in her bag and we decided, right, we’re going to put them on.
And then I’ve got this picture of me beaming away on LinkedIn with, with this [00:44:00] medal on and I, yeah, I, I should wear it more often and I’m challenging myself to do that.
Teresa: Honestly, I’d be like, Hi, I’m Sophie MBE.
Sophie: I’ve got it on my email signature, so I do use it. And people ask me about it a lot. It’s generated a lot of conversation.
Teresa: That’s massive.
Sophie: Yeah, it is quite cool to be fair.
Teresa: That is so cool. So cool. Sophie, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast. I really, really enjoyed this conversation. Genuinely enjoyed it. And where can people come and find you?
Sophie: So I hang out mostly on LinkedIn and also Instagram. So you can find me really easily because no one else has my surname.
Teresa: Brilliant. Awesome. Thank you so much, Sophie. It’s been a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
