Claim OwnershipBig Dreams Great Teams® with Paula Maidens
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THE podcast for entrepreneurs and leaders of small growing businesses who want to grow and lead a team of high performers. We cover all things hiring, team, people and leadership development through a mix of solo and guest episodes. You'll hear highly practical information and real behind-the-scenes stories to support you to grow the business and life of your dreams.
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There’s a stage where many businesses get stuck and the reason why doesn’t get talked about enough. It’s the five person mark. And it can feel so hard that growth stops feeling worth it. For a lot of business owners in the messy middle, this is an angonising and often silent crunch point. Revenue is moving. Clients are being served. The team is good. But everything feels tight. Heavy. Like there’s no spare capacity anywhere, especially not with you. It doesn’t look broken from the...
A behind-the-scenes founder conversation on hiring, rebuilding culture, and stepping into leadership. Scaling a service-based business means growing more than just revenue — it means carrying the weight of people, culture, and the leadership decisions that come with growth. In this episode of The Big Dreams Great Teams Podcast, Paula Maidens is joined by entrepreneur Winnie Wu for an honest, behind-the-scenes conversation about what it really takes to scale people-led businesses — especially ...
When good people still need too much of you, the issue is rarely capability. It’s clarity. Most business owners don’t think they have a “bad team.” They like their people. They see potential. They know everyone’s trying. And yet, the questions keep coming. The mental load doesn’t shift. Holidays still involve Slack, texts, and “just checking” messages. This episode speaks to that uncomfortable middle ground — where the team is good, but the business still leans too heavily on the business own...
Sixteen years in, Paula’s not romanticising it. She’s naming what it actually takes to build a business that lasts — and what it costs when the business accidentally becomes another version of a corporate job. This episode is a reflection on identity upgrades, hiring decisions, and the quiet pressure business owners carry when the team, the clients, and the profit all sit on their shoulders. It’s also a reminder that growth doesn’t just ask for more ambition. It asks for better structure. Pau...
Clearer laws. Calmer leadership. Fewer second-guesses. Many business owners genuinely want to do right by their people. And yet, when it comes to psychosocial hazard laws, there’s a quiet tension sitting underneath everyday leadership decisions. Conversations get delayed. Performance issues get softened. Boundaries blur. Not because business owners don’t care — but because they’re unsure where the legal line actually sits. This episode speaks to that uncertainty directly, without fear, jargon...
This episode is about the kind of leadership pressure that doesn’t show up on a task list — the mental load that lingers even after you’ve stepped back from doing the work yourself. It explores how “perfect” quietly becomes the standard as businesses grow, often without being named. Not perfection of output, but perfection of prevention — trying to ensure nothing slips, nothing goes wrong, nothing reflects badly on what you’ve built. Paula reflects on why this pattern keeps founders over-invo...
Why generic, AI-written job ads are costing growing businesses better people — and what actually makes candidates pay attention As teams grow, hiring stops being a task and starts becoming a leverage point. Each new role carries weight — culturally, financially, and operationally. The quality of decisions made here shapes capacity, momentum, and how much pressure sits with you as the business owner. Many service-based businesses are now using AI to move faster in hiring. Drafting job ads in m...
Growth has a way of changing the work. What once felt straightforward becomes layered. Decisions carry more weight. And the advice that used to land no longer fits the reality of running a service-based business where people, process and performance are tightly intertwined. This short episode marks the return — and quiet reset — of The Big Dreams Great Teams Podcast. After a deliberate pause, the focus has sharpened. Not to add more content, but to elevate the conversation. It’s a reflection ...
In this episode of Big Dreams Great Teams, Paula Maidens is joined by messaging strategist, copywriter, and ChatGPT trainer Tahnée Sanders, founder of The Strategy Studio. Together, they explore the common frustrations that come with outsourcing marketing, particularly when the results don’t quite “sound like you.” Tahnée shares why so many small business owners end up rewriting the content they outsource, and reveals the real issue behind most marketing challenges: messaging. She explains wh...
In this solo episode of Big Dreams Great Teams, Paula Maidens shares practical hiring tips for small businesses, unpacking the five key shifts that are shaping how small business owners need to approach hiring in 2025 and what to do to make your next hire the right one. If you're a business owner planning to hire this year (or even thinking about it), this episode is your heads-up on the new realities in today’s hiring market. From the rise of AI-polished CVs to shifting salary expectations a...
In this practical and eye-opening episode of Big Dreams Great Teams, Paula Maidens dives into the hidden fears that hold many small business owners back from making their next hire. If you've ever delayed writing a job ad, second-guessed your interview process, or wondered if you're really ready to bring someone on board, this one’s for you. Paula shares real, actionable hiring tips for small businesses, pulling back the curtain on what’s really going on beneath the surface of “I’m just too b...
In this much-needed episode of Big Dreams Great Teams, Paula Maidens dives into a growing issue that’s costing business owners serious time, money and peace of mind. It is the difference between advice and opinion. Paula unpacks how well-meaning but misinformed recommendations can derail your decision-making and explains how to safeguard yourself and your business by learning to tell the difference. Drawing on her own 20+ years in HR, recruitment and business ownership, she shares practical g...
In this solo episode of Big Dreams Great Teams, Paula Maidens dives deep into one of the most pivotal elements of team performance: trust. If you’ve ever felt like your team isn’t quite stepping up, you’re constantly being pulled into decisions, or you’re stuck re-doing tasks instead of driving strategy, this episode is for you. Paula shares real-life stories from her clients (and her own consulting experience) to show how misplaced or mismanaged trust can become a massive bottleneck to your ...
In this powerful episode of Big Dreams Great Teams, Paula Maidens is joined by Shelly Horton – journalist, TV presenter, women’s health advocate, and founder of ShellShocked Media. Shelly brings her trademark humour, candour, and energy as they dive into an essential and often overlooked topic: navigating perimenopause whilst running a business and leading a team. Shelly shares her deeply personal journey through perimenopause, including the hidden challenges she faced with brain fog, anxiety...
In this solo episode of Big Dreams Great Teams, Paula Maidens walks through a simple but powerful assessment to evaluate your team's performance and how it may be helping or hindering your business growth. With over 70% of her clients expressing frustration around their team’s output, Paula unpacks the most common performance concerns and explains how to identify the exact areas where your team might be falling short and what to do about it. If you've ever found yourself wondering if it's oka...
Growing pains aren't just for growing teenagers… your business experiences them too! In this value packed episode, Paula Maidens dives into a challenge that catches many successful business owners by surprise: why your once-perfect team dynamics often struggle as you approach that exciting $1M revenue milestone. With 15+ years of hands-on experience guiding businesses through team transformations, Paula breaks down the three predictable breakdown points that emerge during growth phases....
In this essential episode of Big Dreams Great Teams, I’m interviewing Lisa Turner, founder of Accounted For You, a specialised Zero-only bookkeeping practice helping female-led businesses understand their numbers with clarity and confidence. With 20 years of experience in finance and accounting and 8 years running her own business, Lisa is passionate about making numbers feel simple. In this super practical and easy to digest episode, Lisa reveals why many business owners fe...
In this episode of Big Dreams Great Teams, Paula shares a powerful framework to transform your team meetings from energy-draining obligations into the strategic engine of your business. Discover the three specific questions that create accountability, reveal obstacles, and develop proactive thinking in your team - ultimately allowing meetings to run effectively even without you present. What You'll Learn: Why most team meetings accidentally create dependency on you as the leader and how to sh...
Are you exhausted from being the only person in your business who can solve problems? Tired of explaining the same things over and over to your team? In this powerful episode of Big Dreams Great Teams, Paula Maidens reveals why "telling" might actually be your biggest leadership blindspot. Discover the simple shift in approach that has helped Paula's clients for over 15 years cut problem-solving time in half and dramatically reduce those frustrating "why are we dealing with this again?" momen...
Here's the truth - working harder isn't the answer to scaling your business. After 14 years of helping business owners build high-performing teams, I've discovered exactly what it takes to break free from operational overwhelm and step into true strategic leadership. In this episode, I'm sharing the framework that will transform how you lead your business. In This Episode, I Share The three distinct phases every business owner goes through (and how to identify where you are)Why your excell...
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