Steve Slisar has been training people how to use computers since 1994, opened a training centre in 1999 in Dee Why and by 2005 had 3 training centres and created over 35 individual courses that include Screen videos with audio commentary, training workbooks for those who prefer to read to learn, and exercise files that are used with the tasks in the workbooks so you get practical experience in the software you are trying to learn. Now the creator of 5 of the most popular online MYOB training courses in Australia.
If it was it sounds like you want to start your own business and if that is the case you’ll be thrilled to learn about the EzyStartUp Course! I’ve been harping on about tools to help people start their own business and I’m excited to that:
We’ve combined the five small Business StartUp Course subjects with all of our software courses (MYOB, Xero, Excel, Word, PowerPoint) and templates to go out and start earning money as an independent consultant
There’s no longer any excuses because all you have to do now is follow the steps and use the tools. If there is any training you need to use the software, it’s included. If you get stuck and need to speak to someone we’ve got a team of mentors who are willing to help you in your quest.
This Business StartUp Course is aimed at helping people who have existing skills to operate their own business as a contractor to perform work and charge for their time or for achieving milestones for their clients. Typical professions include:
Bookkeepers
Content Writers
Photographers
Website designers
Graphic Designers
Fitness instructors
Safety Consultants
HR Consultants
Training and Support consultants
Virtual Assistants
You’ll also be happy to know that we’ve already started back after the festive season holidays so come and learn something new to achieve your personal and business goals in 2016.
Remember that students who enrol into the Business StartUp Course will have a mentor that they can speak to if they need help or inspiration during the course and while starting their business and you can receive course finance with interest free repayments for 6 months.
Tenders help building and contractor companies win new clients
The sales stages for wining new business in the building and construction industry can be a lengthy process that starts with specification and design. An architect will create a design from meetings with clients and gradually this design will turn into a multi-million dollar building that functions perfectly but how does the builder find the right team and resources? By tendering out the work.
Is tendering a sales, marketing or procurement process?
I was speaking with Mat, the Managing Director of UltraFlow Siphonics for our Small Business Marketing and Small Business Sales Courses and he mentioned to me that they could literally be doing tenders every hour of every day. He mentioned that there are many different tendering portals where small (or larger) businesses can register and tender for the work that is available and that the key to a successful tender strategy is to narrow down the tenders you go for to one where your business is suited.
When a retailer sells a widget in a shop, that widget is clearly defined and the buying process is often quick and even impulsive but larger works use the tender process to clearly define what they are looking for and try to flush out as many bidders as possible. When the bidders are identified the goal for the organisation offering the tender is to get the best possible result at the cheapest possible price – weighing every aspect of the tender of course.
Go for tenders that meet the sweet spot criteria for your companies capabilities so you can perform them efficiently and profitably
Strong Microsoft Word skills are important
It is important to have excellent Microsoft Word skills if you are a tender writer because tender documents are long and often very detailed. Sometimes the tender documents are provided by the offerer and it’s important to be able to move around the tender document swiftly. Our Microsoft Word course includes every skill level from Beginners to Advanced so unlike some training companies which make you choose between one course or another we include everything.
Common Microsoft Word tools used in long and detailed documents are
Styles (covered in our Microsoft Word Advanced Course) – enable you to format areas of text quickly and keep that formatting consistent through the document. Much like the headings on our website pages and in our workbooks.
Table of Contents (Advanced Word Course) – enables you to quickly insert a table of contents based on heading styles that can automatically update the pages.
Document Map – enables you to quickly navigate long documents using heading styles
Sections and Breaks – ensure that main headings are on new pages and enable you to have selected pages print in landscape rather than portrait.
Australian Government resources for tendering
Here are some sites that have information about the tendering process to win government work:
If you have experience writing tender documents for companies to win business we’d like to hear from you to get your perspective. I’m currently working on interviews with successful business owners for our small business courses and if you are Sydney-based there is an opportunity to contribute to our course and build your online profile at the same time. If you fit the description send an email to support@ezylearn.com.au (you MUST be Australian based and ideally from Sydney).
Having your own website enables you to build a credible online profile (that lasts a long time) and the power to clearly understand visitor traffic analytics. This is important because your goal with a content marketing strategy is to provide useful information that your website visitors are looking for and just like real property there are risks that strangers want to get inside and cause damage.
Just like real property these risks are mitigated by good site management services and you can learn about some of the hacker risks below.
Anyone can attempt to hack your site
Hackers are found all over the world from developed countries to countries where their people earn less than a dollar per hour so in some circumstances the time it takes to hack a site is irrelevant and the rewards are significant. Those rewards can be for:
financial gain,
the challenge of it,
recognition, or even
out of boredom
This means that every business, regardless of size or industry, is susceptible to a hacker attack.
Hacker attack types
Remember that hackers can sometimes spend a lot of time planning an attack, but all you see are the end results over night so it is important to be vigilant at all times. Hackers can affect your business is different ways and there has been a lot of publicity about these attacks this year. These are some of the goals for hackers:
Stealing your customers’ data
Stealing your private business data (like internal communications)
Serving malicious software
Deleting or disabling your site
Gaining control of your website or computer
Directing traffic away from your website
How your website is vulnerable
Most websites of small businesses are managed using a content management system like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal etc and these systems have the capabilities of creating user accounts (including the administrator) and enabling users to create content like comments on blog posts. They also include the capability of using themes, plugins and other programs that connect to the main content marketing system and give it more functionality. It’s when these aspects of a small business website are not kept up to date, managed for hacker activity and originally configured to minimalise the chance of attack, that you can get unstuck.
Why to choose 123ezy for content marketing for real estate agent websites
We’re combining with content marketing writers and our team of experts to make content marketing available to individual real estate agents to help them build a profile and credibility online. I’ve been working with online services even before EzyLearn started teaching people about “how to send and receive an email” and “how to navigate around a website and use a search engine” at our Dee Why training centre since 1999 and I’m looking forward to helping other sales and marketing focussed people do the same.
We operate an online training business that relies on our websites being up and running ALL of the time – if there are issues we need to be able to redirect website visitors to an alternative site for continuity and we are constantly monitoring our website visitors, vulnerabilities and remedies.
Even with the latest themes and plugins and fancy graphics and animations, just having a website is not enough these days. Real estate agents (and most other professionals) need a system that collects prospect information AND sends automated marketing messages to them, while allowing them to opt out at any time and that is just the start of the content marketing we’re offering to real estate agents. Want to see our ARMS working? Register Here.
Following his $1 billion innovation announcement in December, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull received quite a grilling on the ABC program 7.30, hosted by Leigh Sales, who brought up one of the most widely criticised initiatives of the Abbott-Turnbull Coalition government: the NBN.
Although the government’s innovation statement was generally met with praise, especially for its $200 million commitment to funding the CSIRO (which, under the previous Abbott-led government, had its funding cut by $111 million), as well as a number of other measures that will make it easier for scientific research to be commercialised and encourage more children to learn coding and other computer sciences at school, there was criticism that no mention was made of the NBN.Continue reading Will The Ideas Boom be NBN-Paced?
Australian Federal Government Wants Business Innovation
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org
In December, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, unveiled a new $1.1b Innovation Plan, developed to encourage more Aussies to start their own businesses, specifically ones in the areas of science and technology and which are, well, “innovative”. With the announcement coming just a few weeks before Christmas, it seemed perfectly timed to give Australia’s would-be entrepreneurs the holidays to think about their plans innovation plans for 2016.
But with all this talk about scientific and technological innovation, you could be forgiven for thinking that only Australia’s Next Google can take advantage of the many new initiatives introduced by the government. So let’s be clear: this is fantastic news for anyone thinking of starting their own business, whether they’re bookkeeping or content marketing businesses. Just the very act of starting a business is, itself, an act of innovation – because more businesses means more employment opportunities for more Australians.
There is more opportunity to start anew after going broke
As I’ve mentioned in the past, the climate at the moment is incredibly favourable toward anyone looking to start their own business, and these new measures just make it even more so. That’s because some of the big changes come in the form of changes to our bankruptcy laws, which have always been notoriously punitive, and have tended to discourage businesses to take risks or entrepreneurs to try again, if at first they did not succeed.
That’s going to change. From 2017, the bankruptcy period will be reduced from three years to one, and businesses will also be allowed to continue trading while insolvent, as long as the business appoints a restructuring advisor to work on a turnaround plan, a measure not dissimilar to one within America’s Chapter 11 laws.
Grow and expand your business with equity investments from angels
One of the more exciting new measures to be announced, however, is one that will help more start-ups find funding from investors. To be introduced in 2016, the government will now provide a 20 percent tax offset worth up to $200,000 for investors in start-up businesses, plus a 10-year exemption from capital gains tax if they hold shares in the company for three years.
Want to learn more about business valuations and preparing your business for sale? Information is included in our Small Business Finance Courses with in depth interviews with Tony Arena from BCI Business Brokers. Read about the Valuations and Raising Equity Funding Course.
Get started with the Start-Up Academy
If you’re subscribed to this blog, then you’re probably familiar with our latest partnership with the StartUp Academy, which aims to help people to start their own home-based business easily and successfully, through proven business opportunities and plenty of guidance for prosperity.
There are currently a number of business opportunities, across a range of different industries, that you can register your interest in at the StartUp Academy website. Each opportunity allows you the freedom to operate as an independent contractor from your home, regardless of where in Australia you are located.
Get the FREE guide to becoming an independent contractor
If you’re interested in becoming an independent contractor in 2016, whether it’s with the StartUp Academy or with a business idea of your own, why not use the summer break to study up on what it takes to become a successful independent contractor by downloading our free guide off the StartUp Academy website, and make 2016 an innovative one!
Real Estate Agents Want to Get Discovered Online By Property Vendors Ready to Sell Their Property
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you’ll notice the slant towards accounting, bookkeeping and the frenzied competition between the software companies that provide software for this purpose. However, we also teach students how to use WordPress so they can take advantage of the massive benefits of content marketing.
We’ve also changed the layout of this blog using a responsive theme in WordPress. This enables the blog to be read easily no matter what device you are using (computer, tablet or phone), or at what orientation (portrait or landscape). I am also involved in an exciting new project that enables real estate agents to build credibility online using the tools we use at EzyLearn.
Real Estate Agent Websites
Real estate agents can build a credible online profile by creating a website and use content marketing to help people who are interested in selling their property and it might be a good time to do that in the heated Sydney and Melbourne property markets!
Derek Farmer is a successful real estate agent in Cammeray (in Sydney’s Lower North Shore) and he has created a series of educational videos that demystify the process of selling a property. His video topics include:
Tips for Buyers on Auction Day
Tips for Sellers on Auction Day
Nothing is Happening After Months on the Market
How to Handle an Offer
How to Handle Feedback
Commission – How Much Should You Pay
Preparation – How Much Should You Do
Marketing – How Much Should You Pay
What I love about this project is Derek is part of a new breed of real estate agent who is open and transparent with information and he has gone to the trouble of creating these videos because it also give him an opportunity to reveal himself to potential sellers. He’s effectively pitching himself to thousands of potential property sellers with information they’re looking for and he’s taking the opportunity to enable them to get to know him – electronically.
Content marketing involves video, images and text
Content marketing involves the use of relevant content that people find useful and if you do a good job at it potential customers will connect with you to learn more and stay connected until they are ready to use your services. If you’d like to learn more about the importance of having a website and keeping it updated regularly watch the video interview I had with Michael Griffiths, the referral marketing guru.
Good content marketing keeps people at your website longer and even takes them to other parts of your website and all of this visitor information is tracked by search engines like Google, who then improve your rankings in organic search results. It means that when you spend time and money on good content marketing you gradually build a credible online brand with a reputation that lasts a long time. It’s a long term strategy taken by committed people who want to be in business for the long term.
[button link=”http://derekfarmer.com.au/property-training-tips/derek-farmer-newsletter/training-video-gallery/” newwindow=”yes”] Take a Look at the Videos Now[/button]
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Xero was a market leader, but what do accountants think of it now?
When Xero was launched a few years ago, one of its selling points was that, compared with other accounting software – in particular, MYOB – Xero was incredibly easy to use, and it was also cloud-based, which meant you could access your accounts from any computer, any device, anywhere, anytime. This helped Xero to get a major foothold in the marketplace here in Australia, where MYOB had always reigned supreme.
But it wasn’t long before we started getting requests from bookkeepers and accountants for a Xero training course, in addition to our already existing MYOB training courses. It turned out that, as more businesses (tradies, for example) started using Xero because of its cloud functionality, their bookkeepers and accountants were finding that they needed training in some of Xero’s features and functions, despite Xero being billed as the easy alternative to MYOB.
Perhaps Xero isn’t that intuitive to use without a training course?
Since introducing our Xero training course, we’ve also noticed a significant upswing in enrolments, especially from bookkeepers, with many noting that the bank reconciliations and adjustments features in Xero are difficult to navigate. This got us wondering as to whether Xero really is that easy to use compared with MYOB, or whether it there might be an easier alternative out there, especially for small businesses managing all of their own accounts.
QuickBooks wants to be the small biz accounting software of choice
Since QuickBooks re-emerged in Australia, with full backing from their US-based parent company, Intuit, they’ve been cornering the small business market, with their inexpensive pricing plans and now by announcing a partnership deal with PayPal (paypal want you to be paid quicker) that enables a two-way flow of data between both QuickBooks and PayPal.
The QuickBooks-PayPal deal follows a similar union between Saasu and Westpac, which promises Saasu and Westpac customers with direct bank feeds to provide business owners with real-time insights into their cashflow. As one of the Big Four banks – and, quite often, the preferred bank for most Australian businesses – the union is hoped to give Saasu a leg up into the increasingly competitive cloud-accounting market, which saw the shuttering of the Australian-owned Reach Accounting earlier this year.
QuickBooks is well-placed to topple Xero
At more than half the price of Xero’s ‘standard’ plan (the starter plan at $25 per month is the most limited ‘starter’ plan I’ve seen), QuickBooks’s starter plan is already appealing to the money conscious small business owner; the PayPal deal only strengthens that.
Ever since PayPal spun off from eBay earlier this year, it’s been announcing new services that specifically target small business owners primarily doing business online – first by introducing inexpensive invoicing, card readers, and now by integrating with QuickBooks. As PayPal is the only online payment service operating in Australia, the two companies are now exceptionally placed to take the Australian small business market.
Perhaps losing the small business market isn’t a primary concern for Xero, which seems to be aligning itself to take the MYOB medium-sized business market, anyway. Regardless, QuickBooks is definitely a force to be reckoned with (forgive the pun) in the Australian cloud accounting space.
We’re in the process of developing a QuickBooks training course, so if you’d like to register your interest to receive alerts and announcements about its progression, you can do so at our website. Alternatively, if you’re looking for training courses in either Xero or MYOB, you can enrol in either course online today and do your course over the Christmas and holiday season when you might have some time to do one while you reflect on your goals for 2016.
There is a co-working / shared / serviced office business with casual day care rates
If you’re a mum looking to return to work and you live in Sydney, childcare costs are probably one of the biggest hurdles you’ll have to overcome – that is, in addition to flexible workplaces, transport, and affordability, of course! But it’s not just mums returning to work for an employer that have trouble accessing childcare, it’s also mums who work from home.
Being self-employed comes with abundant distractions as it is – being in close proximity to the fridge, the TV, an overflowing laundry basket – but with small children around competing for your attention all the time, it becomes even harder to get any work done.
Then there’s the issue of trying to make a business call without the other person hearing your kids in the background, or of finding childminding for a couple of hours while you have a business meeting. As difficult as it is for mothers to return to a structured work environment, it’s also equally difficult to work in an unstructured one. As it happens, this is an experience shared by many other women, particularly now that there are more women starting their own businesses after having children.
WOTSO, the co-workspace with a wabbit
With the startup culture in Australia thriving, co-workspaces have grown in popularity. Once the favourite haunt of hip, young, creatives in urban city centres, like Sydney’s Ultimo, Chippendale or Darlinghurst, co-workspaces soon began to expand into the suburbs – there are several located on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, while a few more have popped up in the western suburbs.
Among those workspaces, are WOTSO Workspaces, a group of flexible workspaces located throughout Sydney, Canberra and the Gold Coast.But it’s in their Neutral Bay workspace, located on Sydney’s North Shore, that WOTSO came up with a rather simple, yet ingenious, service to offer their tenants: a creche service they called WOTSO Wabbits.
The WOTSO Wabbits service came about after a couple of WOTSO employees became mums themselves and wanted to return to work, but couldn’t find any reliable childcare for the hours they needed it. And so the WOTSO Wabbits service was born, which began at the Neutral Bay site as a trial but was so popular that it’s now being rolled out to the group’s North Strathfield, Pyrmont and Gold Coast locations.
Childminding by the hour for working parents
For self-employed parents (or parents who telework), the biggest drawcard is that you only need to book and pay for the WOTSO Wabbits service as you need it. If you only need it for three hours, you don’t have to pay for a full day like you do at a childcare centre; you’re also not locked into childminding on any specific day or days each week. This detail shouldn’t be overlooked as being insignificant.
Most self-employed mums only work part time hours so they still have the time to be with their kids, and childcare can’t be claimed as a business expense. There seems little sense in paying for day-long childcare every week, when you only really need it for a few hours – or may only need it occasionally.
Besides, childcare is in short supply as it is. If there were more services available for parents who only need childminding for their children for a few hours, each week that would free up childcare for the parents who have full time jobs to go back to, but who are having difficulties accessing childcare when and where they need it.
Now’s the time to start a home-based business
Business Opportunities for Ordinary People
I know I’ve said this before, but I’m yet to find any evidence to the contrary: there has never been a better time to start your own business. With the number of government incentives currently available, the greater opportunities to work from home, and a general culture that’s more nurturing and conducive to entrepreneurship, there really aren’t any good reasons why, if you’ve got the talent, drive, and desire to start your own business, you shouldn’t be doing it now – unless, of course, you’d like to continue duking it out for a job in the ever-decreasing pool of permanent employment.
If you’d like to start your own home-based business, EzyLearn has recently started the StartUp Academy, which has a number of business opportunities, across an array of industries and professions, who can give you the training and coaching you need to make your business a success. Alternatively, to read more about starting a business, subscribe to our blog, or visit our website for a list of training courses that can help you with the various aspects of operating a small business.
Fewer families today can prosper on a single income, but even if they can, there are even fewer mums who want to completely disconnect from the working world. The benefits of being employed and contributing to the corporate world extend beyond the financial; working provides a person with a sense of accomplishment, by keeping them stimulated and engaged in something they enjoy. Unfortunately, there are many barriers, both financial and practical, that prevent many women returning to work after having children.
The high cost of daycare
For most families, childcare is the biggest hurdle to overcome. In this country, childcare is in relatively short supply and that makes it costly. Even in a major city like Sydney, it’s difficult to secure a space at a childcare centre at the location, cost, quality and with the hours most families require; it’s even more difficult in regional areas.
The issue reached such a crisis point that in 2013 the Productivity Commission launched an inquiry into Australia’s childcare problem, and its findings were stark. According to the Commission, there were 165,000 Australian parents who can’t work or can’t work enough because of access to childcare, while 26% of children under the age of 12 are cared for by grandparents. The Productivity Commission recommended that the Government invest $246 million (in addition to the $7 billion it already spends in funding to the early childhood sector) to fund a nanny subsidy pilot scheme, which will begin in January 2016.
The pilot, which will involve about 4,000 nannies and up to 10,000 children, will assist households with a combined income of below $250,000 to employ a registered nanny to care for their children, the cost of which will be eligible for a rebate similar to the childcare rebate. It’s a good start, but there are still a bundle of other issues working mothers face.
Flexible workplaces
Workplaces that aren’t flexible with their working hours or arrangements are the next biggest hurdle most working mums (and dads) face. Australia’s industrial relations laws require all Australian workplaces to allow new parents – whether they’re mums or dads – to request a more flexible working arrangement, however there’s no requirement for workplaces to agree to those requests. Employers that can’t or won’t offer some flexibility in the working arrangements of parents, often force new parents to extend their maternity leave until childcare becomes available, or to leave that job altogether.
Even if childcare is available when parents need it and for the hours they require, without a flexible working environment, it still doesn’t make it any easier for parents to keep working full time after they have children. Kids get sick, especially very young children, and even when they’re school-age, they have ten weeks of school holidays every year, when a full time employee is only entitled to a maximum of four.
Turning up to an office at 8.30am, Monday through Friday, and until late in the evening is virtually impossible when you have young children, as most parents already know. But the corporate world has been very slow to recognise and respond to this fact. There is hope yet, however. As technology and cloud computing has made it easier and more cost-efficient for businesses to allow their employees to work remotely from home – or at co-working spaces, like the NSW Government’s Smart Work Hubs – there is greater opportunity for parents to continue working, after they have children.
Transport, travel costs and parking
Here we come to one more stumbling block for working mums, and it’s possibly the most overlooked. Even if all the stars align in your family’s favour and you can secure childcare for the days and hours you need, and are fortunate enough to have an employer who can be flexible with your working arrangement, you still need to be able to drop off and pick up your kids from childcare, which is difficult for parents who work in the CBD and usually take public transport to work. Most mums and dads take it in turns, which means both parents need to have a reasonably flexible workplace; a lot of families, however, rely on outside help – friends and grandparents – to pick their kids up when they can’t.
The rise of the “mumpreneur”
It’s little wonder, then, that more and more mums are becoming entrepreneurial by starting their own home-based businesses. I see a lot of mums take our training courses, either to learn a new skill in an area where employment is more flexible – such as bookkeeping – or because they’re starting their own business and they’re brushing up on their already existing skill sets. In fact, if it weren’t for mums looking for the skills to facilitate a career change, there mightn’t be an EzyLearn.
How EzyLearn came to be…
It was two mums based in Sydney who, under the EasyLearn name, began offering training courses to mums wanting to re-enter the workforce. I was also in the training business, using the name EzyLearn. When those mums decided to sell EasyLearn, I bought their business and continued their tradition of helping mums up-skill for work.
So if you’re a mum (or a dad!) and you’d like to start working from home, we’d gladly like to help you on your way. We have a number of training courses that can provide you with the skills you need to start a home-based bookkeeping business (our MYOB training courses) or content marketing (our blogging for business course). We’ve also partnered with WorkFace, which helps people to start their own home-based business and who have business opportunities available across a range of industries and professions. Or, for more tips, advice and news about starting your own business, subscribe to our blog.
Business Networking Strategies – the Elevator Pitch
For a lot of people, when they start a new business, they take a training course. It might be in an area relevant to their industry or profession, it might be a general training course, like our small business StartUp course, or it might be training in particular software, like our MYOB or Xero training courses. The best way to practice an elevator pitch is to practice all the time.
Training is incredibly important, but it’s no substitute for real-life interaction with other business owners, with whom you can gain valuable insights and perspectives on owning and operating a new business in the real world. This is what makes attending regular networking groups and events an important undertaking for any small business owner – old or new.
I recently wrote a blog post on what you should do at a networking event, but there was one point that we didn’t cover in great detail because I felt that it required a blog post of its own, as it’s crucial to your success as a networker: the elevator pitch.
Honing your elevator pitch
Perhaps you’ve heard of the term elevator pitch before. It’s most often used to describe a business or organisation’s mission statement; the name reflects the idea that you should be able to explain what your business does in the time it takes to ride an elevator. When you write a business plan, in it you need to include an executive summary, which explains what your business does or will do; it’s also your elevator pitch.
But your elevator pitch needs to do more than just explain what your business does. It also needs to encourage people to want to do business with you – or at least, continue listening to what you have to say. If you’ve completed our small business marketing course, then you’d have already practiced writing and honing an elevator pitch for your business when you wrote the executive summary of your business plan.
Be interesting, but above all, be compelling
Remember the goal of a business plan is to entice someone to invest in your business or idea, but the plan itself can run for many pages, detailing strategies and tactics for ensuring your business’s overall success. Most banks and financiers don’t have time to read every single business plan that lands on their desk, so they turn to the executive summary to see if the venture seems like a good fit for them.
It goes without saying, then, that your executive summary needs to be compelling, as does your elevator pitch. If you’ve written a business plan for your business, this is a good place to start when developing the elevator pitch you plan to use at a networking group or event. Be personable, though, and keep it conversational. Remember that the person on the receiving end of your elevator pitch is unlikely to be reading it; they’re listening to you deliver it instead, so you need to be comfortable giving your elevator pitch, while also seeming authentic.
Key elements of an elevator pitch
In crafting your elevator pitch, it’s crucial to include the following key elements:
Hook people with a good opening line that makes them want to hear more
Tell people what you do, not what you are
Repeat key information, such as your business name or main product or service
Be interesting and authentic
Use plain language when you’re describing a problem your product or service solves
Think about your end goal and ensure your elevator pitch services to achieve it
Finish your pitch by asking the other person what they do.
You should know have a good understanding of what to do at a networking event or group; now it’s just time to find a group to try out your new skills. Try meet-up.com or your local chamber of commerce to find groups near you. Make sure to RSVP if you are going to attend, and then stick to it. If something comes up, let the organiser know, so they don’t hold the meeting up waiting for you.
Networking Event Tasks: Step 1 – Let people like you
Once you start networking it becomes easier and more natural.
Whether you’re starting a new business or hoping to expand your existing one, networking can be your life support. Successful networking helps you to find and connect with like-minded individuals, with whom you can share your experiences as a new (or established) business owner, and gain valuable insights on the ways you can grow and develop your own business.
I’ve written about networking before, because I think it’s something every business owner should engage in regularly to complement their current marketing strategies. Networking with other business owners not only gives you access to a great brains trust to provide you with tips and advice, but it’s also a great opportunity to use referral marketing to grow your business.
What is networking exactly?
Many people think networking events and groups are places people go to sell their products or services to other attendees, but that’s not actually what a networking group or event are about at all.
[quote]The true definition of networking is ‘the process of interacting with others to exchange information and develop professional or social contacts’.[/quote]
That being said, as a business owner, you should always look for new or potential business opportunities in everything you do. This is how you can help to grow and expand your business. But, where discussing your business might not always be appropriate in typical social settings, at a networking group it’s more than welcome; it’s encouraged.
Networking is a balancing act of meeting people and being social, while also looking for opportunities that will help take your business to the next level. To achieve this balance and make meaningful connections with other business owners that will prove beneficial to your business requires planning beforehand.
How can networking help your business?
If you run a home-based business, it’s not uncommon to find that you can go entire days and weeks without interacting with another person on a professional level. This lack of interaction is not only isolating, but it can prove detrimental to your productivity and the continued growth of your business.
Your business needs new, fresh ideas and perspectives to thrive, and networking groups and events can help to connect you with people who can provide you with those ideas. They also give you the opportunity to do the same for other business owners, which is what makes the arrangement so mutually beneficial.
Take the following real-life example, for instance:
A home-based bookkeeper was looking for advice about her website and how she could increase her search engine rankings and traffic to her website. She’d previously enlisted the help of SEO experts and web developers and funnelled a lot of money into her website, but she felt it still wasn’t performing well – it wasn’t mobile, for instance, and she felt the copy could read better. The bookkeeper decided to go to a networking group of small business owners who were meeting to discuss online marketing, in the hope that someone might have some advice for her or could refer someone who could help. There she met another small business owner, who operated a content marketing agency and who advised her on how to increase her web presence by blogging, creating shareable content, and optimising her Google My Business page; the agency also had an in-house web designer and developer. The bookkeeper was so impressed with the content marketing advice she received, particularly the tips on Google My Business, that she hired the content marketing agency to manage all of her content marketing, including updating her website so it was mobile; they, in turn, referred a number of fairly big clients to the bookkeeper.
Five ways to succeed at networking
The key takeaway from the above example was that the bookkeeper went to a particular networking group with a goal in mind: to solve her online marketing issues. She was seeking qualified advice from other business owners who could empathise with her situation and perhaps recommend a course of action or someone qualified to help. She received both. At the networking group, she met a person who was willing to give her advice that she could implement at herself. Because she’d received useful advice before that worked, she felt safe in her decision to trust the agency to manage all of her content marketing.
So what are the five main things you can do to ensure the next networking group or event you attend is successful? Well, it starts with goal setting.
Network with a purpose:
Like our bookkeeper in the example above, you need to determine what your needs are and why you’re going to a networking group or event, in the first place. If it’s to find advice on how to improve your web presence, select networking groups with a focus on operating a business in the online world; if it’s merely to share the experience of operating a small business with other business owners in your local community, choose one in your area with that focus.
Research:
Now that you’ve established your networking goals, it’s time to find the networking group or event that will deliver them. Check out the attendees and members of some networking events or groups to see which ones are most suited to your business and your networking goals. Once you’ve identified some people you think are worth pursuing at a glance, research them online. Check our their LinkedIn profile, website and other social media. This’ll not only help you to further refine your list of people to connect with at each networking group, but it’ll also help you to find some common interests to discuss with them when you do meet.
Brainstorm some questions:
Before you attend any networking event, think of some questions that you’d like to ask the group or any individual member. It may seem like a waste of time, but it will help to ensure that, even if the other attendees are unprepared, at least you’re going to come away one step closer to reach the goals you set out for your business in the first place. Having targeted questions also helps to show the other attendees that you’re interested and engaged, rather than just there to kill time.
Establish your presence:
Show the group that you’re somebody worth knowing and that your contribution to the group is as valuable as everyone else’s. It’s worthwhile remembering that some groups only allow one member from one profession only, to ensure there’s meaningful business opportunities for everyone attending, so you need to show that you’re worthwhile keeping around on a regular basis. Listen, be attentive, show you’re there to help other’s problem-solve just as you are there to problem-solve for yourself. Always be willing to share and contribute ideas, but know when to back off so as not to be the guy who hogs the conversation and makes the group all about him.
Establish connections and follow-up:
Don’t just hand out and collect business cards willy-nilly. Your goal should be to establish a real connection with people that you’d like to add to your professional network of contacts and, in turn, be that person to them too. Exchange business cards, email addresses or other contact information and try to make a plan to meet-up outside of the networking group. After each event or meet-up, follow-up with each person you’ve exchanged details with. It’s probably taking to too far to call, unless you’ve made an arrangement to meet already, but otherwise sending an email or connecting on social media like LinkedIn is a good place to start.
Follow these five steps each time you attend a networking group or event, and you’re unlikely to go wrong. If you’d like to read more about networking and how you can make it work for your business, continue reading our blog. Otherwise, it’s time to get out there!
Get Your Free Microsoft Word Training Workbook Now
We’ve been hard at work on our Microsoft Word courses in readiness for the launch of our 2016 Microsoft Word courses and I’m happy to let you know that we are offering the first of our Microsoft Word Course Workbooks to you for free. It’s the 201 Course workbook and it includes exercise files that explain all of the different types of tools available in Microsoft Word.
The image in this blog is of one of the exercise files we’ve created that has loads of different Word formatting, including:
Font formatting (colour, size)
Paragraph Formatting (alignment, spacing)
Heading Styles
Headers and Footers
Images and Graphics
Tabs
Background shading formatting
Inserting hyperlinks
much more..
Sales Letters, Proposals and more
The “Content Marketing for Real Estate Agents” exercise file included with the free Microsoft Word workbook is one of dozens of files we include in our MS Word Courses and as a Microsoft Word student you’ll also get access to new training content we’re including Sales Letters and Proposals.
The exercises in all of our courses and the object for every course is to use software for practical purposes in every business. The Sales Letters and Proposals exercise files we’re working on combine software skills with marketing strategies we go through in our Small Business Marketing Course. Not only will you learn strategies to grow your business by increase your customer base and enhancing your product service offering, you get to create your own marketing materials using Microsoft Word.
Microsoft Word Training Course is Being Nurtured With New Content
I recently wrote about the content in our Microsoft Word Training Courses and because its a couple years old we’ve been offering the Microsoft Word Courses as a FREE BONUS to anyone who enrolled in our Excel or MYOB courses (with certificate options). If you’re a regular reader (subscribe here) or an EzyLearn student you’d also know that we offer either 12 month or lifetime access to courses and that includes access to brand new content.
[highlight]We’re in the process of create brand new content for Microsoft Word, including training on the creation of great sales letters, resumes and tender proposals.[/highlight]
I’m happy to share with you that we’ve been working on our Word course feverishly for the last 3 months (and there is still a couple months of work to go) to make sure that we have training on the most recent version – Microsoft Word 365 (the clould-based Microsoft Word program that you can purchase on an annual subscription that costs less than the previous versions). The new Word course content is now also aimed at helping you create documents to make sales (for businesses) or find work (for job seekers).
If you’ve always wanted to improve your skills using this popular program and write documents faster, make them look more professional or take advantage of tools like Mail Merge then you’ll get some great value out of this course. We’ll be going through some exercises to help you create
A great sales letter to highlight the call-to-action for your direct marketing campaigns as well as
A resume for the job you’re looking for (and a focussed cover letter).
Proposals and tender documents to win new business for your company
Sales Letters, Resume’s, Cover Letters and Proposals
[highlight]Can you see what they all have in common? They are all marketing focussed.[/highlight]
Each of these documents are used by people EVERY day to show how professional, smart, committed and capable they are. Most companies need to write sales letters and proposals to try to win new business and maintain or increase their annual revenue. Job seekers create resumes and cover letters to convince employers that they are the best person to choose for a job vacancy.
In creating this updated Microsoft Word Course content we’ll also be working on some real life examples of creating marketing materials as part of the Small Business Marketing Courses AND our Career Academy that aims to prepare students to confidently search and apply for job vacancies.
Sales Letters for Bookkeepers and Website Designers
Bookkeepers and website designers need new clients all the time, sometimes because they just don’t have enough work but sometimes because the nature of their work is project driven so it’s [highlight]important to always be spending some time in the sales department[/highlight] (even if you are a one person band). Some people do this with content marketing, or Pay-per-click advertising on Google or Facebook, while others actively seek to meet new people and give them a reason to engage their services.
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e’ll be working on sales letters as part of a direct marketing effort to reach potential clients and give them a [highlight]reason to act on the sales letter using a special offer and a call to action[/highlight].
You can create sales letters for your marketing campaigns using beginners skills in Microsoft Word, but when you develop the Intermediate or advanced skills you’ll find a dramatic difference in the quality of your documents.
Special Prices & BONUS Courses are for a LIMITED TIME ONLY
Are you planning on doing a Microsoft Word Course in the new year? Why not enrol now and save at least $50?
After we’ve completed all the new course content and support exercise files we’ll be bringing the Microsoft Word Course prices inline with our other course prices, so when you enrol now you can get the Word course free if you enrol into Excel or MYOB (Certification option) or you can enrol directly into Microsoft Word and get the current discounted price. Enrol now and you’ll get the benefit of the new Word course material when it’s published but you’ll get it at today’s price.
DETERMINING YOUR PRICES, and whether you’re selling yourself too cheap, is a critical element in the success of your business, and in your own success as well.
Now that you are more Internet savvy will you change careers from bookkeeping?
A report by the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary (thank you to whoever shortened it subsequently) in 2012 attempted to identify the links between education and jobs. The report created for the NATIONAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING RESEARCH PROGRAM (NCVER) had 4 key findings and this was the first one:
[quote]Some fields of education have tight links to the workplace (for example, nursing), while others have a much weaker relationship with specific jobs, such as in finance and agriculture.[/quote]
I was reviewing the courses we offer and the most popular are our:
MYOB Courses (has been our biggest seller since 2008),
Xero Courses (which have had a MASSIVE uptick in enrolments this year) and
Microsoft Excel (doing very well now that we tell people about it).
As you can see our most popular courses are financially based ones and most of the students are aiming to either change careers or start their own bookkeeping business so they can work more flexible hours. If we look at the research paper and understand that our students (and most bookkeepers) are working in a variety of different business sectors it makes sense that they’ll be exposed to many different and new skills, particularly as businesses adopt the use of more software and in particular Internet based software – ie. the Cloud.
Is marketing a better career choice than bookkeeping?
If I look at what I spend most of my time doing it’s marketing, and I have to admit I prefer that work to bookkeeping, but you might also find that it’s not unusual for financial types to broaden the type of work they do.
Page 22 of this report, under the heading Trajectories and motivations, the report uncovered:
[quote]Students’ reasons for wanting to undertake further study are related to the reasons why they embarked on study in the first place. While getting a job was at the centre, this was interwoven with their priorities, values and circumstances more broadly. One nursing student reflected the views of other students saying, ‘This is my area. In five years time I will be a nurse. In ten years time a nurse. I will be a nurse until I retire’. Students undertaking accounting and finance programs saw their field in broad terms which included management and other aspects of the finance industry, but also included related areas such as marketing.[/quote]
I recently wrote about bookkeepers offering marketing advice to their clients and my discovery of this report re-confirmed that this is possible on a professional level!
Is Content Marketing the best type of marketing for small businesses like real estate agents?
I have to admit something at this point. My team and I are working on a project offering content marketing solutions for real estate agents and our showcase real estate agent sells homes in Sydney’s Lower North Shore. If you search for him you’ll get to the website that we’ve just assembled and you’ll experience the significant changes it will go through over the coming weeks as he finishes his round of educational videos for people who are looking to buy or sell a property. Go on, give it a quick search – his name is Derek Farmer.
With the importance of content marketing / online marketing / digital marketing it’s no wonder that this profession has great growth potential and just like bookkeeping it is work that can be completed on a contract basis and better still from your own home!
Here are some posts I recently wrote about WordPress and Content Marketing:
I’ve teamed up with a some writers and editors and other marketing types to create our Content Marketing services (and course – which is currently in development) and if you are interested in being kept in the loop you can register at our content marketing course page for free – follow the links.
[quote]Work with me to put your content marketing strategy together[/quote]
Better still I’m one of the mentors for the Marketing training course at the Australian Small Business Centre (whose small business management courses are delivered via our LMS – Learning Management System) so if you enrol into that course (and choose the mentor option) you’ll be able to work with me to put your content marketing strategy together.
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Xero is a great bookkeeping program for tradies who are on the go and using their phones (or a tablet) all the time. From receipts scanning to creating quotes and invoices, receiving payments and keeping track of project costs.
bookkeepercourse.com.au/produ…
Was one of your New Years resolutions to:
The sales stages for wining new business in the building and construction industry can be a lengthy process that starts with specification and design. An architect will create a design from meetings with clients and gradually this design will turn into a multi-million dollar building that functions perfectly but how does the builder find the right team and resources? By tendering out the work.
I was speaking with Mat, the Managing Director of UltraFlow Siphonics for our Small Business Marketing and Small Business Sales Courses and he mentioned to me that they could literally be doing tenders every hour of every day. He mentioned that there are many different tendering portals where small (or larger) businesses can register and tender for the work that is available and that the key to a successful tender strategy is to narrow down the tenders you go for to one where your business is suited.
Following his $1 billion innovation announcement in December, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull received quite a grilling on the ABC program 7.30, hosted by Leigh Sales, who brought up one of the most widely criticised initiatives of the Abbott-Turnbull Coalition government: the NBN. 
Fewer families today can prosper on a single income, but even if they can, there are even fewer mums who want to completely disconnect from the working world. The benefits of being employed and contributing to the corporate world extend beyond the financial; working provides a person with a sense of accomplishment, by keeping them stimulated and engaged in something they enjoy. Unfortunately, there are many barriers, both financial and practical, that prevent many women returning to work after having children. 
