Sian Gabbidon: 'People think I'm just sat on a beach enjoying life'

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guest is Sian Gabbidon, entrepreneur, TV personality and winner of The Apprentice 2018.

We discuss her favourite task on the show and social media's depiction of entrepreneurs.

This episode was brought to you in partnership with UPS.

You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on starting your own business. 

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Sian Gabbidon podcast transcript

Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan.

Today we have Sian Gabbidon – entrepreneur, TV personality and The Apprentice winner in 2018.

With a keen interest in fashion as a teenager, Sian did a fashion design with marketing and production degree at the University of Huddersfield. She went on to create her swimwear brand, Sian Marie, two years before appearing on The Apprentice. But with a global pandemic affecting sun-seeking holidays, Sian quickly had to pivot to loungewear, reporting a loss of £47,000 from the brand.

She’s since bounced back, partnering with George at ASDA to launch her loungewear range at the beginning of November 2021.

We’ll be talking about growing your brand on Instagram and handling a business while ill with Covid-19.

Anna: Hi, Sian.

Sian: Hello, how you doing?

Anna: I'm very well, thank you. How are you?

Sian: Yeah, not bad.

You started out posting your designs on Instagram after you graduated from university. At the time of recording, you've grown that following from almost 120,000 on your personal account, and almost 70,000 on your Sian Marie loungewear account. I'm sure our listeners would love to know – how do you engage with your audience and build your brand on Instagram?

Sian: It's a lot more difficult nowadays than it was back when I first set up. Nowadays with Instagram, you have algorithms and all kinds of things going on that can help or not help.

But for me, it was quite organic, especially back before The Apprentice on my business page. We just ended up getting quite a lot of stylists, and even celebrities and people following us because we have designs that others didn't really have. So, we just really organically grew that following and got more and more support. Then obviously pivoting into lounge, it's almost like a new audience has came about now as well.

When I was first using Instagram, back in the day, when I first set the brand up, it wasn't as monetised as it is now. You weren't really paying to get seen, you were seen automatically. Everyone that follows you will see your posts, whereas nowadays because you have to pay for posts, especially as a business, it's a lot harder to reach the audiences. You just have to spend a bit more money now. Whereas back then it was a free for all and everyone just saw everything that you posted.

I imagine stylists were probably looking through Instagram at the time to try and find businesses like yourselves.

Sian: Definitely. I think stylists use places like Instagram for new talent. It’s perfect f