This week on ScaleUp Radio we hear from two founders whose journeys couldn’t be more different, yet both offer powerful lessons for business owners.

On one side, Tom Hill, founder of Collina MEP, who took a bold leap from corporate life to build a boutique mechanical and electrical consultancy rooted in trust and long-term client relationships.
On the other, Sarah Turner, founder of Little Beau Sheep, who turned redundancy and creativity into a flourishing craft-based brand that champions British wool and has captured the imagination of customers worldwide.

Their stories challenge us to ask: does scaling come from decisive strategic leaps, or from organic growth and resourceful problem-solving?

Meet the Guests

Tom Hill – The Calculated Risk-Taker

• Left a senior regional director role to start his own consultancy almost overnight.
• Built Collina MEP as a boutique alternative to big firms, where every client feels their project matters most.
• Learned the hard way about over-promising, describing his first two years as “lonely and tiring.”
• Broke free from the founder’s trap by hiring permanent staff, which he calls “the best decision I ever made.”
• Obsessed with culture, recruiting for personality and fit before skills to ensure a close-knit, approachable team.

Sarah Turner – The Creative Industry Ambassador

• Discovered felting after redundancy and turned a personal solution into Little Beau Sheep.
• First Etsy sale led to her post office staff becoming her first customer base.
• Defines her brand around provenance, proudly using 100% British wool to support farmers.
• Scaling turning point came when a BBC Countryfile feature left her swamped, leading to outsourcing fulfilment.
• Now a Freeman of the City of London, she has literally driven sheep across London Bridge to promote her industry.
• Her long-term ambition is to make a tangible impact on the price of British wool for UK farmers.

Key Lessons for Entrepreneurs

• Find Your Niche – Both founders thrived by creating a premium brand identity that avoided competing on price.
• Delegate to Grow – Tom built a team, Sarah outsourced fulfilment. Different routes, same outcome: freeing the founder.
• Culture is Everything – Tom proves people and personality drive service-based success.
• Champion a Cause – Sarah shows how aligning business with passion can build loyalty and influence an entire industry.

Leaps vs. Organic Growth – The Big Difference

Tom’s journey is a story of calculated risk, structure, and culture, creating a consultancy that competes with giants by feeling boutique and personal.
Sarah’s is one of creative discovery, resilience, and industry advocacy, proving that passion and purpose can turn a craft into a brand with real impact.

This echoes findings from the BizSmart ScaleUp Challenge Report:

• 43% of ScaleUp businesses doubled turnover within three years, but only by moving beyond founder dependency.
• 31.6% headcount growth among SmartBoard® members shows the importance of building teams and systems to support scale.

Final Thoughts

Scaling a business is not about choosing between a leap or organic growth. It is about knowing when to take decisive action, when to let go, and how to build something bigger than yourself.

Listen and Learn More

🎧 Listen to the full interviews on ScaleUp Radio:
https://directory.libsyn.com/shows/view/id/scaleupradio

📅 Book a call with Kevin Brent to discuss your scaling journey:
https://c.bizsmart.co.uk/widget/bookings/kb-30

In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent sits down with Sarah Turner, the founder of Little Beau Sheep – a business that’s giving British wool a brand-new lease of life.

Sarah shares how she transitioned from corporate life into crafting sheep-inspired laundry and body care products, all enriched with lanolin and made from 100% British wool. What started as a creative hobby after becoming a mum quickly turned into a growing business with both consumer and trade success.

Now based in Ilkley in the old International Wool Secretariat building, Sarah and her small team are on a mission to not only scale their operations, but also raise awareness of wool’s incredible versatility and help bring greater value to UK sheep farmers.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode
How a handmade craft project turned into a thriving retail and wholesale brand
The challenges of scaling a purpose-driven, product-based business
Creative PR and marketing strategies that punch above their weight
The untapped potential of British wool in modern life
The balancing act between business growth and personal satisfaction

Make sure you don’t miss any future episodes by subscribing to ScaleUp Radio wherever you like to listen to your podcasts.

For now, continue listening for the full story from Sarah.

Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for.

If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here:

https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/kevin

You can get in touch with Kevin & Granger here:

kevin@biz-smart.co.uk

grangerf@biz-smart.co.uk

Kevin's Latest Book Is Available!

Drawing on BizSmart’s own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brent explores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up.

More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/

Sarah can be found here:

https://www.littlebeausheep.com/

https://www.facebook.com/littlebeausheep/

https://www.instagram.com/littlebeausheep/

hello@littlebeausheep.com

Resources:

The Diary of a CEO podcast - https://stevenbartlett.com/doac/

Audible - https://www.audible.co.uk/

Xero - https://www.xero.com/uk/login/

HubSpot - https://www.hubspot.com/