Helena McBride & Simon Claxton guest on The Business Show 17th April 2025 Artwork

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Helena McBride & Simon Claxton guest on The Business Show 17th April 2025

April 21, 2025 • Mark Harris

On The Business Show on Marlow FM on 17th April 25 my guests were Simon Claxton of Macbeths and Helena McBride of The Space Maker.

Monkeys linked my 2 tracks - 1st was The Monkees “Last Train to Clarkesville” - hear it at https://youtu.be/zSzsyqzQNeQ?si=2vuWHezUrqAqI_wi .

Simon Claxton then spoke about Macbeths, who are in effect a number of businesses under the one brand, including insurance, financial services and employee benefits. They’re proud of there being a family feel to the business despite having grown to 70 employees.

Connect with Simon via https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-claxton-3279079/ and their website is https://www.macbeths.co.uk/ .

Helena then spoke about The Space Maker – she’s a professional organiser who helps clients do so much more than “a bit of a tidy up”! It’s not about throwing things away, it’s about being organised, and overcoming overwhelm. “Zoning and curating” are two of her keywords.

For more on Helena see https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenathespacemaker/ and https://thespacemaker.co.uk/ .

Her music choice was DVBBS and Borgeous featuring Tinie Tempah with “Tsunami” because it’s a great song and because it makes her and her boys dance around the kitchen! Hear it at https://youtu.be/Y-VwSUfPJco?si=Lzntg2ryNQsX07z-.

She chose the story at https://bmmagazine.co.uk/news/farmers-hope-for-rain-as-dry-spell-stalls-spring-crops-across-the-south/ - it’s quite a scary topic, with major business implications for farmers.

And Simon’s story was the opposite - prices going down, rather than up – see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g2eyp79y3o, but we did feel it something of a downward blip because of other influences on prices.

We then played his music – “11:59” by Blondie. Their drummer Clem Burke recently passed away so he chose this in memory of him. Hear it at https://youtu.be/QD2MKEiCh4A?si=Qa4ZJQs2f8EJHji0 .

Then was the story I found at https://www.marketingweek.com/2025-superpower-working-mums/ - working mums should be recruited because of their skills, not out of some misguided sense of obligation.

Finally, we talked about Simon's story at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4mm3kx0v2o - the buyer has some real insight and Royal Mail may well be in safe hands.

My second song on the theme of Monkeys was “Monkey Suit” by Elton John & Leon Russell - hear it at https://youtu.be/jaPgK9nJ3EE?si=fg8h3fUhEyVUbBqA

Connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/enterprisedoctor/ and join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/enterprisedoctorbusinessshow/.

My website is https://enterprisedoctor.co.uk/.

Clips of all episodes are at https://www.youtube.com/user/EnterpriseDoctor/ - please subscribe there, and within your podcast app!