Behind the Scenes of HR Unboxed with Natalie Ellis

This week's episode is a discussion with Natalie Ellis of Rebox HR where you'll discover:

• How HR Unboxed Started – Natalie Ellis shares how her podcast was created by accident and why authenticity is key to its success.
• Why HR Consultants Should Listen to HR Unboxed – The podcast offers real, unfiltered HR stories, insights into tribunal cases, and workplace confessions that HR professionals can learn from.
• The Growth & Impact of HR Unboxed – With 35,000+ downloads and organic reach, the podcast has grown without PR agencies or ads—just engaging, real conversations.
• The Business Benefits of Podcasting – HR Unboxed has generated leads, built a strong personal brand, and even become a business of its own, attracting sponsorship.
• Marketing & Sales Insights – Natalie and Nick discuss how HR consultants should market in a way that fits them, rather than forcing strategies that don’t align with their strengths.

Timestamps for the Episode

00:00:00 – Introduction: Meet Natalie Ellis & HR Unboxed

00:02:15 – How HR Unboxed Started: A Happy Accident

00:04:30 – The Secret to HR Unboxed’s Success (35,000+ Downloads & Page 1 on Spotify)

00:06:45 – What HR Unboxed Covers: Confessions, Tribunals & HR Insights

00:09:00 – The Importance of Authenticity in Podcasting

00:11:20 – Why HR Consultants Should Listen to HR Unboxed

00:13:10 – The Role of LinkedIn & Social Media in Growing a Podcast

00:15:45 – Vetting Confessions: The Wildest HR Stories

00:18:00 – Why HR Unboxed Avoids Scripting & Editing

00:21:30 – How HR Unboxed is Inspiring Other Businesses to Start Podcasts

00:24:00 – The Power of Podcasting for Business Growth & Lead Generation

00:27:15 – Marketing & Sales for HR Consultants: Doing What Works for You

00:30:00 – The Unexpected Business Growth from HR Unboxed

00:33:45 – The Future of HR Unboxed: Expansion & Sponsorship Opportunities

00:36:30 – Final Thoughts & Where to Listen to HR Unboxed

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Transcript

Natalie Ellis and Nick Poninski - Transcript

Attendees

Natalie Ellis, Nick Poninski

Transcript

Nick Poninski: Welcome back to another episode of Marketing Made Easy for Consultants with me, Nick Poninski. Today we are joined by Natalie Ellis and…

Nick Poninski: I said Rebox HR. so Natalie, if you want to give us a quick introduction to who you are, what you do, give us your elevator pitch.

Natalie Ellis: …

Natalie Ellis: I started Rebox HR. So, I'm the managing director of the company and have been since 2020 when I started it essentially from my living room. and yeah, I've spent the last 20 or nearly 20 years, showing my age now a little bit there, so I started my career back in 2006 when I was working for Wallace Group. So I was there at the start towards the end of the collapse of the group. So that's where I gained a lot of my commercial awareness from.

Nick Poninski: Excellent. I like that.

Natalie Ellis: So I come from a very commercial angle rather than a kind of people function type angle. So it's just done a little bit differently I suppose.

Nick Poninski: And yeah, we've just been talking but obviously we're going to get you on next time to talk about how HR should be done in your perspective because that'll help our listeners if they're wanting some tips on how to be the best consultant they can be. Then maybe you can help them out.

Nick Poninski: But for today, we are going to talk about your podcasts cuz I keep seeing videos in my LinkedIn feed and…

Nick Poninski: I keep seeing all the likes and I keep thinking to myself, what is this? and funnily enough, because it talks about and I don't work in HR I've not paid too much attention. So, let's talk to me and anyone else who hasn't managed to listen to What is this podcast of yours with all these thousands of listeners?

Natalie Ellis: …

Natalie Ellis: Unboxed is the podcast and it was a completely accidental concept if I'm being completely honest with you. And I find that those are probably the most interesting factors whenever you're doing something. It has to be done with complete authenticity. And the podcast isn't scripted. It's It's not rehearsed. It is one of those where FA and I will just turn up at the studio in Milton Kees and we will just go right this is the subject matter and our producer Chris Greg will just ask us questions that he feels are the right ones to ask and Chris just has a natural flare and interest in the stories that we have to share on that podcast.

Nick Poninski: Yes. That's the one I saw. What?

Natalie Ellis: So it's across all of the major platforms and we do film it for the channel on YouTube as well. So that's where you're seeing all of those videos pop up, Nick. And what we do is we talk about a number of different things. So we'll know the subject matter before we go in. And the one that we've just completed filming was the HR confessions, which was when employees wrote into us. They wrote into us and they told us exactly what it is that they wanted to confess in terms of they didn't want their own people And some of them were clean enough to air. Others we unfortunately had to put to one side as you can imagine. there's a vetting process on those particular confessions.

Nick Poninski: Wow, impressive.

Natalie Ellis: So again, I turned up to the studio.  I'd emailed Chris the confessions that morning and he had them and he hadn't even had a chance to read them before we got to the studio. So all of the reactions from FA, Chris and I, they are all real. as I said, we don't edit the podcast. There's no cutting or editing involved. We want it to be completely authentic. So when we put the show out initially, FA and I had no idea how popular it was going to be.

Natalie Ellis: So, we've just hit 35,000 downloads on the platforms, which is insane. and we made page one of Spotify as well, which was quite an incredible achievement. Yet, we don't know, we're not the only marketing and things like that that we do is…

Nick Poninski: Yeah.

Natalie Ellis: what you see from FY and I on LinkedIn. we don't have a PR agency behind us. We don't have any everything we do is authentically us. And that's what we will continue to kind of bring to the show. And the next show that we're filming is in we're doing that early March. So we'll be filming the next episode and that is around initially grievances and some of the things we do talk about is what is actually going on in the world of as well. So there is a bit of everything going in at the moment and…

00:05:00

Natalie Ellis: especially with how interesting the tribunals's environment is at the moment and the types of rulings that we're seeing. So yeah, lots to talk about. We're never out of content.

Nick Poninski: No, absolutely not.

Nick Poninski: I love that. So, let's circle back one minute, though. You had to do some vetting because it's a live show, right? It goes out on the radio or something.

Natalie Ellis: So Horizon Radio that's our We call it the home of unboxed and yes so the one thing that we have in that process we keep it clean. So we don't want to I mean some of the stories that we got for the confessions episode were really graphic to the point…

Nick Poninski: Wow.

Natalie Ellis: where it made me cringe and I'm quite open-minded to be honest with you so we said, "Right, we can probably change a couple of bits here, but we won't be able to change that part that." So, yeah, some of the bits we did have to kind of vet to make sure that it was for the show because,…

Natalie Ellis: funny enough, we actually have quite a lot of young listeners as well. which is something we completely unexpected. obviously some students listen in to the show.

Nick Poninski: When you say young,…

Nick Poninski: you don't mean children, do you? You mean students.

Natalie Ellis: It's mostly HR professionals, but unexpectedly FA's daughter Nvea she is in her second year of secondary school and…

Nick Poninski: Yeah. Amazing.

Natalie Ellis: her friends all found FA's our thumbnail on Spotify and they've all of a sudden said, " Nveya, is this your mom?" So FA has now become the most popular mom at the school and they tune in every episode. they're asking when's the next episode and…

Nick Poninski: 

Natalie Ellis: they're also really interested in how we produce the podcast because it's a very kind of what I'd call a trendy thing to do. It's not something I thought I would be doing, but yeah, they said it's a very trendy thing to do, but they're genuinely interested on how all of the technology works, how we generate that content, and ultimately how we…

Nick Poninski: How intriguing. Yeah.

Natalie Ellis: then put the show out there to Spotify. I can't say or take any credit for any of it because Chris does all of that for us.  FA and I are really lucky that we just get to turn up, we talk on the microphones and do the filming and then we wait for the next month to roll around and then do it all again. So, initially we were going to do it as a trial because Chris has been badgering me to do a podcast on my own for years and I just said to him, "No, it's really not me.

Natalie Ellis: I'm quite happy going on the speaker circuit and doing all of those bits and pieces which is lovely. because you're face to face with people when you are in a studio and you're essentially talking amongst a group of but I'll call them friends because it is a friendship group. we feel quite comfortable enough to have the discussions around what is actually going on and how we produce a show to the standard that we expect. So if it became scripted or it became, can you do this or can you,…

Nick Poninski: a celebrity. No.

Natalie Ellis: it just feels a little bit too rigid and it takes away that authenticity. So when people meet FY and I in real life, some people do come to the studio and they give us a wave and things like that, it's lovely. and they say, " gosh, you're just like you are on the show in real life." So It's the effect that we have and people do think yeah we do get approached a lot for selfies and things like that. So it's quite nice to meet people but also to bring what's seen as quite a stuffy subject to most people because is very transactional. So you find that you only go there if you've got a query about your holiday pay or…

Natalie Ellis: if you've got a query about something you do you know what I mean? people only have a very short experience of HR. Whereas if you open that door and…

Nick Poninski: Yes. Yes.

Natalie Ellis: people actually see what goes on behind it, they're really interested. So that's why Chris gets so excited when we talk on the podcast about certain subjects. He's like, " tell me more about that." And he is genuinely interested, which helps. So yeah, I couldn't wish for a better team to be working with on that producing of the show. And as I said,…

00:10:00

Nick Poninski: A. Yes.

Natalie Ellis: initially it was just an idea from Chris. And within three minutes, we'd already come up with the name. we were going to call it unboxing because we wanted to keep it in line with the Rebox theme, but then It just sounds good. So we thought we're going to roll with that. And people do really engage with it. So we get lots of comments on our LinkedIn page and on the feed on YouTube and all sorts. So we're really lucky to have received the support and…

Natalie Ellis: appreciation for the show that we have.

Nick Poninski: No. Yeah,…

Nick Poninski: As I say it keeps blowing up in my LinkedIn feed. so it's dragged attention. It's really interesting. I just started listening to a podcast which talks about how to make your podcast more popular, get more downloads or whatever. and the number one rule that they have is don't bother posting little clips on social media or whatever. because generally speaking, that's not how people find podcasts, between me and you, I don't know what podcasts you listen to, but the podcasts I found, I didn't find them because I saw a clip on YouTube shorts or whatever, but here we are talking because I've seen your little clip and so that's interesting.

Nick Poninski: I guess the exceptions prove the rule, right?

Natalie Ellis: sometimes and…

Natalie Ellis: I think again it's about doing things that feel good to you because if you do something because somebody's told you on I call it Dr. Tik Tok if it tells you to do something what works for one person doesn't work for another. So the best way that FA and I come across is when people speak to us. So when Chris approached us last year and…

Nick Poninski: Really?

Natalie Ellis: said come on Nat it's time. And then he met Fay and said I don't think this should be a solo project. Fay was really against it. She really didn't want to do it. No. And I've never seen FA so nervous before. So I said, "Look, just come along. I can do the introductory episode and then we can record the second one together cuz then at that point you've seen it and we can do it." So we were going to do a pilot episode solo.

Nick Poninski: Yeah. Wasn't to say…

Natalie Ellis: And I just thought it doesn't feel right with FA just being sat there. So Chris, he didn't physically grab her because we don't do that in HR.

Nick Poninski: what happened.

Natalie Ellis: He plonked her onto the chair and said, "Right, okay. Let's test your microphone and everything else." FA was literally shaking like a leaf. But if you see the difference in the first episode dynamic because we were expecting a couple of hundred people to listen. And when Chris then said episode, I think it was by episode three, that we'd had over 10,000 downloads, we were sat there going, "Okay, that's nuts." the Christmas episode is the one that's performed the most. And in its …

Nick Poninski: Is that the secrets? The confessions.

Natalie Ellis: this was the Christmas party episode.

Nick Poninski: Okay.

Natalie Ellis: So people really enjoyed…

Nick Poninski: Yeah. Jesus.

Natalie Ellis: what actually happens and the sorts of cases that we've had to work on over the years when it comes to Christmas parties. and to put it in perspective, FA and I are still managing cases and fallouts from Christmas parties now and we're just about to hit March. So yes, that the fallout is real, but a lot of the time businesses don't take that time to protect themselves. So what we're doing is bringing R to life in a way that they can relate to.

Nick Poninski: No. Yeah.

Natalie Ellis: We're really lucky because Chris has been approached now so many times and said can you produce a show like HR unboxed but for my company which is a solicitors firm is one of them. there's an accountancy practice that want to come into the studio to watch us record so that they can then muster the courage to go out there on their own.

Nick Poninski: Yeah. Yeah.

Natalie Ellis: So we're inspiring other people that everyone's got something to share.  So, we're inspiring people to create something of their own but not be ashamed of showing a bit of personality because if you just go in there and if I sat in there in a suit in typical fashion, shall we call it, and I go, you can't do this and policy says this and policy says that, people are just going to switch off. If you've got something, I mean, the dynamic with Fay and I is quite unique. So, Fay is employed by me full-time.

Natalie Ellis: she's not a partner in the business. The business is solely So when I'm talking to people about producing them themselves, I'm like find where your dynamic sits and what works for one person doesn't work for another. So as I said, I'm in a really fortunate position where I'm able to kind of get FA to go out and do something that she initially wasn't comfortable with. It's the one thing we look forward to doing every single month. We take a day out of the business together.

00:15:00

Natalie Ellis: We'll go for a nice lunch. we'll get our Starbucks. You've probably seen that's our pre-recording ritual is we'll go to Starbucks. And it's got to a point where the staff in Starbucks now go, another one. Is it?" Yeah.

Nick Poninski: Excellent.

Natalie Ellis: So, it's really really nice. But I think people relate to us with the whole trials and tribulations of employing people and the unique situations So yeah, that's pretty much unboxed in a nutshell. Yeah.

Nick Poninski: I like it. I'm only going to deviate slightly just to bring in a little bit about mark into a marketing and sales capacity. You said what works for one person doesn't work for another. And I love that because that's applicable in your life.

Nick Poninski: And from a marketing and sales perspective, I would say from a lead genen perspective, because everyone online talks about networking or posting on LinkedIn, that method of lead genen only works if you want to do it. Whereas what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another. If you don't want to do networking or LinkedIn, you don't have to. So that is an example. and I'm only going to touch on it because today's episode is not about marketing and sales. It's more about being the best consultant you can be. But obviously, there's an element of that. But let's go back to what you were saying earlier cuz I'm going to bring in why you're doing your show in a second…

Nick Poninski: because I am curious about that. but I do want to go back earlier on when you were talking about having to vet certain confessions. You don't have to vet anything here. I drop fbombs all the time. Let's hear some of these sorted stories. Let's hear one. was it sex? Was it drugs? Was it rock and roll?

Natalie Ellis: It was a lot of sexual content.

Nick Poninski: Amazing. What?

Natalie Ellis: And I will be honest with you, During my HR career, I've caught people in the act five times. There are things that I cannot unsee and I really wish I it does. I mean, all in all of these situations, I'm trying to be helpful and I just walk in at the wrong time.

Nick Poninski: Wait, how were you trying to get all of you?

Natalie Ellis: So for years I refer to myself as the Bridget Jones of HR because if anything was going to happen it was going to happen to me. we had Christmas parties that have got out of hand where people have then decided to take the party into the reception area of the hotel that we were having the event in.  And there's all sorts of things that we come up against that we can't unsee but there's also a way of the reason that we have to vet some of them is because it would be too obvious either what the company was who the individual is but some of them were quite lighthearted.

Natalie Ellis: I mean there was one that we were dealing with that was on the episode which was surrounding some WhatsApp exchanges and Snapchat imagery. so yeah the amount of cases that and I handle that are in relation to either Snapchat gone wrong or managing directors getting pictures that they shouldn't be getting from members of staff for various reasons. it's all very complicated when you're dealing with people. So, you always have to have this kind of air about what you want to place onto the episode and what you don't. It was the first time we've done anything like that around confessions, but it's been so popular and…

Nick Poninski: Amazing. Yeah.

Natalie Ellis: people are still throwing confessions over to us. kind of like a HR agony on almost but it's really great that we've got that amount of people engaging with what we're doing because they don't want to know about the policies they want to know about what is going wrong and how we essentially have to work in the way which we work so that's what I mean by the whole vetting process I'm very aware of legal liabilities and things that we have on the podcast and I'm very aware of those sorts of things. So, I'll spill the tea.

00:20:00

Nick Poninski: After the show, once we've stopped recording, that's when you'll tell me.

Natalie Ellis: But yeah, I think that's the other thing is that people get involved with the…

Natalie Ellis: what we call spilling of tea. And that's why FA and I have the mugs in our thumbnail. That's why we're never seen without a coffee or…

Nick Poninski: Starbucks. Payback.

Natalie Ellis: a Starbucks or whatever it is. Other coffee shops are available, but it's just so happens to be opposite the studio. So otherwise, we've got to go all the way to the other side of Milton Keane Shopping Center if you want something else. yeah, so it's great. but as I said, these opportunities don't present themselves to you. When I first met Chris,…

Nick Poninski: Mhm. Wow. Yeah.

Natalie Ellis: it was my second week of trading in my business.  I'd just left my very well- paid career to go and do this on my own. And any of your listeners will go, " my gosh, I can relate." and I was sat in this a networking meeting and Chris just came up to me. He wasn't working for the radio station at that point. He was actually working for a charity. And when you just click with someone and you're like, "Now's not the right time for us to work together."

Natalie Ellis: But there is going to be a time and I'm very in tune with that gut instinct. Everything that I do in terms of either the business, the podcast, or any other opportunities that I'm currently building is that if my gut doesn't feel right, it's not the time. So when I met Chris, I knew there was a professional connection there.  So, I was sat there and I said, "I've got to work with this guy, but I'm not sure in which capacity yet, but the opportunity will present itself to me." Fast forward five years later, Chris has stood in front of me and said, "Right now, it's time." And then it just all gelled with FA being in the studio as well. So, the theme around it is it's not the show is designed to be like a cup of tea with friends. It's not there to do things.

Natalie Ellis: And we've had people email in and say, "I didn't know I couldn't do that particular thing." So, we had one chap said to us, " my girlfriend was going to go off sick because she'd been denied holiday." And we said, " yeah." And he said, "I found out about planned unauthorized absence from your podcast." And we…

Natalie Ellis: then worked a way to get a compromise with her employer. So it doesn't have to be what the things that we think that we just do on the day that everybody knows about.

Nick Poninski: Yeah. Yeah.

Natalie Ellis: We don't. So when we're talking about these subjects and really bringing these real scenarios together, people relate to it and they understand it. So it's the amount of comments we get where we're like, no, can we just talk about your episode first?" So, we went to a FA and I went to a meeting where we were met this lovely lady at a networking event and she didn't have a clue what we did, but then we did a followup and we sat down and…

Nick Poninski: She didn't know

Nick Poninski: who you were. Flipping heck.

Natalie Ellis: No,…

Natalie Ellis: it was in the side of things. She knew that we did HR.

Nick Poninski: She knew.

Natalie Ellis: She doesn't understand how fits into her company because at the moment she's thinking about employing her first p person and stuff. so she sat down with us and she goes, "Can we just talk about episode five right now?" And I was like, "Okay, we could talk about that." So we were sat in this coffee shop and people were just like, " really?" it was very interesting. because FA and I are now very quickly being known for the podcast.  But the good thing for us in terms of a marketing perspective and what you were touching on earlier, and marketing goes together like tea and biscuits. And I wrote about this years ago with a wonderful lady who was on the apprentice, And Rebecca and I met on Twitter and we've spoken for years. and I was in one of the short listing processes for the apprentice.

Natalie Ellis: So many many years ago, So it was a long time ago.

Nick Poninski: Jeez, that's a dozen years ago.

Nick Poninski: Flipping heck.

Natalie Ellis: It was a lot of years ago. and…

Nick Poninski: How old were you then? 20 or something? Flipping heck.

Natalie Ellis: So I'm just about to turn 31, so the years seem to have absolutely flown by.

Nick Poninski: Wow. We're the same age.

Nick Poninski: Tell me about it.

Natalie Ellis: And so I was speaking to Rebecca about HR and…

00:25:00

Natalie Ellis: how it fits in with her business and everything else. and she was like, is no different to marketing. She said essentially it goes together because no if you put a HR department on its own it' If you put a marketing department on its own there's nothing to market. You have to have each other and appreciate each other's differences and dynamics.  even if you're so when I worked for large corporate businesses, the last function you saw me in was I got to know the rest of that business first before I knew how to contribute to it. And that's a very different way of learning what that looks like. But a lot of the ways that I work based on what we call Danish principles is that it's a collaboration and a true collaboration.

Natalie Ellis: It's not, can you go and get that checked by finance or something like that. There's a lot more to it. the better equipped you are to be able to deliver a level of value. And it's no different in marketing because when you are going through or marketing your consultancy and things like that, I've never outsourced it, but I've had digital marketing agencies as clients that have said, "Who's doing your marketing?"  because it's really quite hitting the mark. And I said to him, actually, no one, it is FY or it just comes I sit every Sunday is my job and I sit there every Sunday afternoon in my living room and I will sit there and schedule the week's content. I do all of that and I pull it together and I see what kind of themes are going on, if there's particular cases of interest, all that stuff.

Natalie Ellis: and I'll sit there and I will work solidly that Sunday afternoon to deliver that level of content. and…

Nick Poninski: SL No.

Natalie Ellis: that's all my blogs, that's LinkedIn articles, that's everything. I do it all myself. So, when I'm sat there and I'm going, "Yeah, so I do it all myself."  And it's good because the digital marketing professionals that have spoken to me have said to me, whatever you do, do not outsource it to anyone because you are presenting it in the way that it deserves to be presented in and that cannot be replicated. So when you've got consultants as a broad term, we're all different. We're all unique.

Natalie Ellis: You can't go out there and say, " I want to be the next, I don't know, peninsula or things like that." Because their model suits them, but that model doesn't suit us and it certainly doesn't suit the clients. So, …

Nick Poninski: They got a different budget.

Natalie Ellis: the Yes,…

Nick Poninski: They've got different goals. Yeah.

Natalie Ellis: And it's about embracing what that looks like to you. realistically, I could have a team of 10 if I wanted to, but I don't because I think it would dilute really what we offer.  People like to ring through. They like to have that comfort of speaking to FA and they trust us to do the job. If I started recruiting more and more and more people, yes, the plan is to obviously recruit more people because there's only one of me that can deliver certain things. So, one of those principles there is to make sure that you've then got the right person to come in and complement you. So, we don't outsource to associates or anything like that.

Natalie Ellis: I won't do it. and the reason that we don't do it is not because we don't want to kind of share that. It's purely because our clients and trust us. And maintaining that relationship is key and is our essential part of our strategy. So without giving away too much of the secret source, essentially that's what it looks like. So, all I can say to people is to make sure that you are embracing…

Natalie Ellis: what you bring and not what you think you should bring because they're two very different things.

Nick Poninski: Yeah, I love that.

Nick Poninski: I was saying that to someone yesterday who she wanted to do lumpy mail campaign and I was like, if that's what you want to do, then let's do it. That makes sense. forget about posting on LinkedIn or…

Natalie Ellis: Yeah. No,…

Nick Poninski: Instagram or whatever. If that's not your bag, that's not your bag.

Natalie Ellis: no, you don't have to do Tik Tok dances and…

Nick Poninski: Okay.

Natalie Ellis: things like that to impress people. You can actually deliver what you deliver in your own unique way. And for us, Unboxed is like a therapy session. We're able to just download to Chris. What you see is what you get. When we're just turning up and having a blooming good time.  So, if anyone is thinking of starting a podcast or if they are concerned about doing Tik Tok dances or that they think they should be doing something, think about how you bring things or when you win a client is the best way I can explain it. When you win a client, how did you win that client? Was it through the quality of the conversation? Was it because you showed up and you were your best self on that day? Or did you try and pretend to be someone else as part of that process?

00:30:00

Natalie Ellis: If you really drill it down, you can learn so much from that reflective piece that you can then really own your craft, so to speak. And that's what you bring. So don't think you have to go out there and…

Natalie Ellis: do podcasts or dances or anything like that. You can be yourself and present yourself in a way that really demonstrates what value you can bring. And that's the whole point. There we go. Powerful stuff here, Nick.

Nick Poninski: Love it.

Nick Poninski: No, I like it. we've diverted a little bit away from our topic of your podcast, but I think it's gone in a good direction for my audience, in terms of check out Natalie's podcast. It's a great resource. You might learn a few things, you might have a good giggle, but equally, here's some of Natalie's tips about growing a business. So, yeah,…

Nick Poninski: a double bubble double whammy for the listeners. so yeah, thank you for that. I guess we've got about 5 minutes left, I think, because we were both saying before this, how we've got a hard stop. We've both got to finish.

Natalie Ellis: There you go. I mean to be honest with you I thought my bit with my business brain I'll give you the business answer was to build lead generation.

Nick Poninski: So, I guess you've kind of as answered why you're doing the show, if you can, it's to shine a light on everything that HR does because a lot of people don't know It's sharing that value, sharing that information. am I right there? Is there something else to it? Nice.

Natalie Ellis: That was the business side of it but it hasn't gone that way. it has generated leads for us and people are working with us because of the podcast, but it's become a different business on its own.

Natalie Ellis: So, it's now a registered company and everything else because we're now starting to generate different business from it. So, it's pardon.

Nick Poninski: like adverts or…

Nick Poninski: something. Adverts. People paying to be featured on your show.

Natalie Ellis: We've been approached by several companies for sponsorship which is all coming negotiations.

Nick Poninski: Coca-Cola. Yeah,…

Natalie Ellis: Sadly, not Starbucks though. We've been working on that. No, we will get our coffees paid for. That's all we want is coffees paid for. We'll be fine. so yeah, we have been spoken to by several companies and approach. So it would be the only thing that we'd really need to do.  So, we're just completing trademarking on that now. because everything I do gets trademarked for obvious reasons, but it's one of those where we have to do things we have to be open to things that we didn't think was going to happen from it. And now you saw probably the pictures from the Northampton Expo. One of the biggest parts of our stand was our podcast because what people now know us for.

Nick Poninski: I saw that.

Natalie Ellis: so it's really good. But again, just be open to what that looks like because again, it is completely unexpected. We had no idea the volume of listeners we were going to get and we haven't advertised it. It's not been pushed out to people. It is just us talking about it and the quality of the show has excelled itself.  So if you focus on the quality rather than the quantity because I know people that would just go and binge episodes and they'll record masses and they're exhausted by the end of that day and that wouldn't really work for us because we're not coming up turning up and showing up in the way that It would just sound really odd if we massproduced it. So it's 12 episodes a year. That's it. less. And that's what we're going to continue to do.

Natalie Ellis: So, we've just signed for an extra 12 months.

Nick Poninski: celebrations. Congratulations

Natalie Ellis: So, we're staying at our home of Horizon Radio, which we're very Yes. And we're also celebrating our fifth year in business this month, which has been incredible. So, we are I say because it's not Yes, I might own the business, but at the same time, it's very much a collective effort. Without Chris, we wouldn't have the show.  Without FA, we wouldn't have a show. You'd just have me harping on. so again, it's all about the dynamic. If people have listened to it, it's great. If it's their cup of tea, wonderful. But if it's not, it doesn't matter. And when people think about marketing and putting themselves out there, they're quite nervous. People will just scroll on. If you're there, they'll stop and read. If it's don't worry about them because they're not the people that matter.

00:35:00

Natalie Ellis: the people that matter are the ones that engage with you, that cheerlead you and support you. and FA and I are very lucky to be surrounded by supporters. Yes, we've received negative comments and saying, you guys are just out there to get money and to be there for the employer. they haven't obviously listened to it. They've just wanted to comment something negative.

Natalie Ellis: So, just don't pay attention to too much of that. if anyone's ever been subjected to that is sadly becoming more rife on LinkedIn which I find I just block them and move on. So there's no need that you haven't got enough time or…

Nick Poninski: Yeah. Amen to that.

Natalie Ellis: 

Natalie Ellis: energy for that. So, no, keep the positivity going.

Nick Poninski: I'm touched and honored that you've come on to the show because earlier on you were saying if someone presents an opportunity to you, you have to figure out whether or not it's worth your time. so, everyone has to do that and…

Natalie Ellis: Everybody has to do that and I think everyone has to.

Nick Poninski: I'm grateful that you've come on to my show. I'm touched.

Natalie Ellis: 

Natalie Ellis: Thank No, that's really thank you so much for having me and I'm delighted that hope some nuggets of wisdom have helped and…

Nick Poninski: No problem. My pleasure.

Natalie Ellis: yeah, more than happy to have any future conversations as well, Nick. thank you very much for having me today.

Nick Poninski: Yeah, my pleasure.

Nick Poninski: So yeah, I'm going to wrap things up now because we both have meetings to get to.

Natalie Ellis: very different people.

Nick Poninski: Yeah. All perfect. thank you for joining me today, Natalie. For those of you listening along at home, the podcast is Unboxed.

Natalie Ellis: Unboxed. Yeah. I love that.

Nick Poninski: Un I have been listening. So, go and check it out. and in the meantime, get marketing because without marketing, there's no sales and without sales there's no business. So, get marketing.