18 - Sustainable Success - Alex Hughes on Building a Business with Impact

Today, I'm joined by the incredible Alex Hughes - founder of Auxilium Consulting, passionate sustainability champion, and all-around operations whizz. We dive into Alex’s inspiring journey from corporate banking and trading rooms to running her own impactful consultancy. She shares her wisdom on running an efficient business, embracing CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), and finding sustainability that fits.

We also explore the tools and routines that help her stay on top of it all - from colour-coded diaries to bullet journals - and her love of networking, one-to-ones, and making human connections. Her insights on balance, boundaries, and staying aligned with your own path will resonate deeply with anyone navigating business and life side by side.

✨ Bonus: don’t miss Alex’s “homework” challenge - a powerful call to start auditing your business impact today.

Connect with Alex:

🌐 Website: www.auxiliumconsulting.co.uk

📧 Email: alex@auxiliumconsulting.co.uk

🔗 LinkedIn: Alex Hughes – Sustainable Business Solutions

🎙️ Edited with precision by podcast editing master, Mike Roberts of Making Digital Real

⏺️ Got feedback, a question, or want to be on the show? Leave me a voice message by CLICKING HERE – we might even feature it in a future episode!

✨ Subscribe, follow, and share with anyone who’s growing their business between the bells.

🔗 Connect with Rebecca on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rebeccanewenham
🌐 Learn more about Get Ahead: getaheadva.com

Transcript

Somebody told me about the bullet journal and it's basically a way of collating your to-dos, your weekly, monthly, quarterly tasks, your elements of planners, trackers, to-dos, thoughts, lists, priorities, goals, all those sorts of things in one book and then they roll over on a monthly basis so you never really miss anything. You can see what you've done and you look at and you have reflections. It's slightly complex to set up but once you've done it, it just rolls together and there is a book out there about it so I highly recommend if people are interested in that to look up the bullet journal by Ryder Carroll. 

I'm delighted today to be joined on Between the Bells by Alex Hughes, Queen of Sustainability and CSI and I knew that Alex would have some really really helpful tools to share and she's certainly done that. She's also shared a couple of really interesting books and I run a book club for my Get Ahead team so I'm definitely going to add one of the books that she mentions to that list. It's always good to have some recommendations and Alex is super conscientious, super organised as well so some of her favourite tools and routines I know you're going to find really helpful. 

So I hope you enjoy this episode of Between the Bells. Alex Hughes, welcome to Between the Bells. What a treat! Another treat for me. 

Thank you Rebecca for having me. Oh Alex, I love this. I love this opportunity to have some one-on-one time with my favourites so we've known each other a hugely long time and I feel it's been a privilege to get to know you as a friend as well as a networking colleague so can you share your story with us? Yes, I'll share my backstory real quick. 

I'll try and condense it if I can. So my life started working when I was 19. I didn't go to university until later on in life. 

I went off to Lloyd's Bank. I was there for a couple of years and then my boss said to me you really need to move on from high street banking so I luckily got a job in a bank called Chemical Bank which doesn't exist anymore. It's been taken over several times but people will know it as JPMorgan Chase.

So I was there in the back office, the front office, the trading room. So I was doing lots of trading of different currencies and then got a little bit burnt out and was poached by a company called Reuters which is now called Thomson Reuters. So I was selling the dealing equipment that I was actually using as a trader back into the dealing room so that's quite an easy transition for me. 

I did that for several years and then had two little girls and decided that opportunity to take voluntary redundancy which we were offered at Reuters back then was an offer not to be missed. So within True Alex Style, in two months I was working for a friend of a friend in furniture manufacturers as his operations manager and I stayed there for 17 years. So that's where my kind of auxilium hat starts building because yeah I've got ideas of you know how the business works, you know where the gaps are. 

I was doing everything from ordering the toilet roll to accreditations, procurement, sales, marketing, finance, you name it I did it. But got to the point where everything was really running quite easily and I thought I'm a bit bored of all this and actually it was a time just pre-online where business owners were starting to look at their businesses and how they can make things more efficient, more effective and hence I decided to set up my own business. So the company that I worked for where I was an ops manager was a latin name Opus Magnum. 

So I wanted a business that began with a, I wanted it to be a latin word and auxilium means to aid, assist and support. So that's kind of where in a very quick fire way that my business progressed and yes so I started off with auxilium when we met six, seven years ago well it's been running for eight years. I was doing a little bit of VA work starting off and then moved swiftly into operations, audits, finding the gaps and helping people to either make things more efficient, write policies or get people in like yourselves to help them with subject matter and so yeah so auxilium was born and about five years ago I felt very passionate about the fact that we should all be looking at sustainability for our small businesses. 

That's the future and we should be weaving that in. So in the last five years I have not pivoted but I have my operations side but I also have my sustainability side but the two merge and so that's where I stand today helping people with both of those. Yeah and that's what I love isn't that ability as a business owner to sort of react to what the market's asking and where you get your energy and what's enjoyable for you. 

So yeah I guess that was a real powerful shift in my business to be able to do that. I was you know very keen on looking at it for myself, looking at it for my business but not only that I thought I can't run my business if it's not sustainable so I then looked at the ways that I could do that with CSRA which is a UK accreditation body and if people are listening it's about it's a similar thing to B Corp, it's a UK based one and so I decided that it was time that I looked at that for myself before I can then start helping other people do the same thing. Lovely and that's quite that makes it logical to that then doesn't it? You understand what they're looking at, why they're struggling and the ways that they can make their business sustainable because I've done it myself. 

Yeah and I'm very aware of the girls one of yours has recently got married but you clearly had that role as a mum throughout your corporate life as well as yeah when you sit. Oh absolutely I mean if I look back now I'd actually wonder how I did it so I had nannies and rushing back in the morning leaving really early, when I was doing part-time it was dropping them off at school, going to the office, coming back, picking them up but also never really missing at that point which is really crucial and my mum always said don't don't miss these points going to assemblies, picking them up you know and going to after-school clubs and being around for them when it was really crucial so that's something that I think has made them quite resilient today and very very independent so. Good girls, love it. 

So Alex in true Between the Bells style I'd like to start with a quick five questions so could you share and I imagine knowing you you've probably got 101 favourite tools to share but what would a favourite tool or daily routine be for you? I'm a bit of a LinkedIn guru and I use Canva a lot and I pay for Canva and I use that on regular basis that could be LinkedIn posts, it could be brochures, pamphlets, presentations, all sorts of things and that is a tool that I use on a daily basis. I didn't think I was creative but I've got used to it so that is something I use really really a lot and then obviously lots of different things on Office 365 all the tools there and one thing I really do is very very sadly I colour code my diary. That's not bad, I meant this. 

So everything to do with work is purple, everything to do with sustainability is green, home life is orange, I can't remember all the different colours but I look at my diary I know how much work I've got, how much home stuff I've got and once I started doing that it was it was just it came very simply to me how my day worked you know when it started when I finished it and I make sure that I make sure I have a start and an end to my day that's really important for me to have those delineations. Yeah yeah I'm the same and I think then I know what I'm playing with. One of the things I do do and I was going to recommend a book it's called The Bullet Journal, it's by a chap called Ryder Carroll, I think he is American.

Somebody told me about The Bullet Journal and it's basically a way of collating your to-dos, your weekly, monthly, quarterly tasks, your elements of planners, trackers, to-dos, thoughts, lists, priorities, goals, all those sorts of things in one book and then they roll over on a monthly basis so you never really miss anything you can see what you've done and you look at and you have reflections. It's slightly complex to set up but once you've done it it just rolls together and there is a book out there about it so I highly recommend if people are interested in that to look up The Bullet Journal by Ryder Carroll. It's a lovely name isn't it Ryder Carroll.

Oh no I'm going to look at that as well, brilliant because I think that's the thing is that we can spend all this time thinking we're on it and then it's so easy if something slips slightly you could then beat yourself up a little bit so I like that. I mean you can do it online but I'm a kind of paper pen person because I put a pen to paper and it connects to my brain so if you are a pen to paper person it's an ideal way of looking at it so I highly recommend it. Love that, thank you very much. 

So what about your bell ringer moment then? Well that made me laugh because I used to be a campanologist when I was a teenager so I ring church bells and the hand bells. Now I've got quite a few actually, I'm going to be very quick if I can. So you know I think it's really really important when you're a business owner and especially when you're working on your own to stay on your path and what I've always said to my girls is someone else's journey is not necessarily yours so never try and compare yourself to someone else. 

Try and stick on your path if you possibly can and you and I know this Rebecca, network your socks off. It's how I built my business, it's how you built your business, it's how people know you and all your various different guises and it's not always who's in the room. So many people have said to me oh but there's not many people here networking. 

I say it's about who's in the room and who they might know so I think people need to really remember that and I also think it's really important to explain what you do very clearly and very succinctly because you never know who's in the room and if they understand what you do they are your free marketing bridge to selling you to someone else and that's really really key to remember that and not just think well there's nobody here, I'm not going to get any business, it's not about that and also in the words of my dear friend Neil Giller, surround yourself with radiators and not drains. So critical. I had that conversation early this morning about with someone and we were saying you just know don't you the people that just take your energy and you've got no yeah they just give you the ick even and though you immediately you can have loads of conversation it flows but I find it fascinating. 

And I've got another another book it's a very thin basic book but it was one that I was recommended when I very first started networking you may have heard it I don't know it's called The Go Giver there's a series and it's by Bob Berg and John David Mann I think his name is and it's all about how much you give and I know you give an awful lot Rebecca and it's all about giving to people and eventually it comes back it's not about oh I'm giving something so I need to receive something back it's all about giving to other people and you will duly receive at some point in in bucket loads and and it was it's a really great book to read especially if you're starting out networking. Yeah because networking you know can be daunting can't it and I think it's how you set yourself up for success from from the beginning and I've certainly seen that with my franchisees and some take to it much more naturally than others but it's those sort of fundamentals isn't it but I so get your point about when people say how many of you got come in today so you know when I do my LinkedIn locals and it's like well if we had five people it's about the the quality of the conversations and unlike I always say to my teams well you never know like you say everyone's your cheerleader and you've just got to be able to explain yourself really clearly. Absolutely and I've had the best networking meetings when there's been the least amount of people because you have a more in-depth conversation and you find out something that could be just that key thing about that person that you didn't know so I think it's it's all about finding out about people getting to know them. 

Yes and then the one-to-ones and leading on from that isn't it so taking them almost down that journey and you've always been very good with your one-to-ones and actually making an effort to see people separately and I think that yeah absolutely yeah yeah no definitely definitely I do enjoy it that's it to me I get my energy from the networking and those conversations and I'm slightly nosy sash curious so that well oh yeah oh Alex that's brilliant that's two really good books there and then finally your school drop-off shout out we were smiling weren't we because I know your girls like mine are older but we've all had that school drop-off yes I've had it for many many years my both my girls went to two different schools so my drop-offs and pick-up were all in different directions sometimes on the same day so but I I'm trying to remember what what made me giggle and laugh about those times and I think they're very special times to have conversations with your children and they will tell you things that perhaps they wouldn't ordinarily tell you I remember my younger daughter always did that but one thing we did near to Christmas as we all get in the car and when the Christmas song started coming out we always played a song by Ariana Grande yeah Grande called snow in California and we both we all knew the words and we're in the car and we all sang that song up until Christmas and it it was just lovely to sort of get in the car and just sing that song and that's what we did going up to Christmas but obviously I don't have school drop-offs and pick-ups but I do try and delineate my day by that thinking okay now it's time it's for me to start the day I might have gone to the gym I might have done swim or whatever I also have a fixed lunch and then at the end of the day I try and recap so even though I don't have the school drop-off and pick-ups I try and make sure I've got a framework for the day but that was a great memory of singing together in the car oh I love that it's ritual making isn't it I think and um Jo that I've just had on the podcast as well she has a set routine when she's dropped her children in the morning she sits in a particular chair and does her journaling and I was thinking of her this morning actually I could do with building that into mine because it's very easy for me now to sort of sit on the sofa and have a coffee and then suddenly the clock's ticking so that sense of a framework is quite interesting isn't it it is I think it's really important I do think we rush that time of the day and that's really quite a nice time of the day I think the pick-up is even better because you ask them what they've done I think they're really quite important memory making points of the day even if you've got a busy day sandwiched in between and you've got the kids I think it's lovely to sort of just slow down not chuck them out the car with the backpack and the sports bag and all the rest of it just have that time with them because they will tell you things that they wouldn't ordinarily tell you so that's nice yeah oh brilliant well I can tell Alex you've enjoyed prepping for these questions because it's just again having a bit of a pause isn't it sometimes and think actually what do I do and what do I enjoy and where do I get my energy so um oh brilliant oh thanks Alex that's fabulous and I've loved the book recommendations as well so Mike and I will share those in in the show notes so you can one get reading I've got my book clubs I think I might grab one of those to book club great oh so thank you so much Alex we're going to be sharing all your um links and everything so if you want to hear more from Alex know more about sustainability and her approach then you can connect with her on those so thanks very much now we were so conscientious that Alex has just reminded me we haven't talked about the homework so this is a little add-on so Alex what's your homework that you're testing now I'm always doing my homework Rebecca well you know um as I'm so passionate about CSR corporate social responsibility and auditing impacts I really want to just say a few words on that I think people need to look at impacts of their business everybody's making impacts and I think you know just going away and spending a little bit of time looking at what are the impacts you're making collating the results the data etc and you're already doing that through testimonials and and the difference you've made with your clients and look at what others are doing you might want to look at their websites or read an impact report and basically all this information that you put together can actually be used for your own sustainability statement for your own business so just remember you're already making lots of impacts in your business but you just haven't collated them properly yet so I'd love you all to go and shine a light on your CSR impacts by simply doing a just a little quick audit and seeing what you're doing what you might plan to do and what you might do in the future so I think it's um yeah a little bit of impact CSR impact work is your homework for this thank you Alex yeah no it's really interesting so one of my team is prepping for an award entry and she had to mention that in it and so I'm afraid I went to my new best friend you know chat gpt and said can you give me some examples because it's it feels quite daunting doesn't it but it wasn't until I realised actually what we're already doing that could come under that classification absolutely yeah no brilliant thank you very much you're very welcome thanks again Rebecca