Commerce Ballarat News Bulletin 11 February - 17 February
Quote of the Week
"If the web is indeed a place, it is starting to look less like a library, and more like a river." Peter Da Vanzo
Upcoming Events
505 Club
Date: 23 February 2012
Non Members: $16.50
Members: Free
Details: Finding Futures, 30 Doveton Street North
5.30pm - 7.30pm
An evening of networking and fostering relationships to grow your business.
Members and Non-Members: REGISTER HERE
InfoComm Breakfast
Date: 29 February 2012
Members: $18.50
Non Members: $25.00
Details: The Ballarat Golf Club
7.15am - 8.45am
An update from our Councillors and new Mayor Cr Mark Harris. Be involved and informed! This is a rare opportunity to hear the facts directly from our elected representatives.
Members and Non-Members: REGISTER HERE
Ambrose Golf Day
Midlands Golf Course
Friday 2 March 2012
$330 (includes Golf, BBQ and drinks on course)
N.B Teams can only be hosted by Commerce members
Novelty holes and raffle to benefit CAFS, an excellent opportunity to support an organisation that gives so much to the community.
Time is running out to book limited teams left, so bring along clients or staff to a fun filled day, wine tasting by France in a Bottle who will give participants a chance to win 6 months of Champagne.
Members: REGISTER HERE
Commerce Ballarat AGM
Date: 15 March 2012
Members: Free
Non Members: TBA
Details: Commerce Ballarat notice of AGM
Venue: The Ansonia
6pm - 7pm
rsvp@commerceballarat.com.au
Drinks and savouries provided
EOI now open and close Wednesday 29 February 2012, for more information please contact Jodie@commerceballarat.com.au
Members and Non-Members: REGISTER HERE
InfoComm Breakfast (Exciting New Event)
Date: 28 March (TBC)
Members: $18.50
Non Members: $25.00
Details: TBC
7.15am - 8.45am
Are you doing business online?
Commerce Ballarat and The University of Ballarat Technology Park are thrilled to bring Paul Greenberg founder of Deals Direct to Ballarat to speak at this breakfast about the what, how and why of being in the new space. Details are still to be confirmed but a workshop will be held after for those who would benefit from a more intensive session with Paul
Bookings will be taken from February 24. To hear Paul Greenberg
speak about the NBN please click on the link
Items of Interest
November Public Holiday
Businesses are encouraged to send a letter or email in support of Commerce Ballarat’s stance to ask Council to reassess the Ballarat Show Day Public Holiday. 67% of businesses voted to have this public holiday changed, it is now up to you to support CB in its fight. Email Jodie@commerceballarat.com.au
or write to Commerce Ballarat 27 Doveton St Nth Ballarat.
New Appointment
Bendigo Business Council have appointed a new Executive Officer, Patrick Falconer. Patrick comes from an extensive sales, marketing and business background and will be an outstanding manager and leader of the Business Council.
Worried about the IT challenges that your small business is facing?
If you are interested in sharing your views, The Council of Small Business of Australia (COSBOA), together with IT Infrastructure solutions company EMC, is hosting a series of roundtable sessions in February and March 2012 to discuss with small businesses and industry experts how small business owners can stay on the front foot of technology trends to stay competitive in today’s ever-changing business environment. Register now for the 2012 COSBOA and EMC Roundtable Series for SMBs.
The Australian Retailer of the Year Awards 2012
Do you know a retailer that goes out of its way to provide excellent customer service? Do you know where to receive service with a smile? BRW and AMP Capital Shopping Centres want you to vote for Australia's Best Customer Experience at the 2012 Australian Retailer of the Year Awards.
You may vote for any retailer operating in Australia with at least one store or a current online operation. Finalists and winners will be featured in a special edition of BRW on-sale Thursday 17 May 2012. Voting is free and you may vote as many times as you like. To vote simply click here.
VOTING CLOSES WEDNESDAY 7 MARCH 2012.
Articles
AUSTRALIA'S top book keeper today asked the nation, Why are you so gloomy.
Source news.com 17 February 2012
The national economy has "an incredibly bright future," Secretary of the Treasury Martin Parkinson told a Senate estimates committee today.
Australians had "a lot to be optimistic about", but there was an overwhelmingly negative sense dominating the view of the economy, "as if we live in Greece". We are enduring "the boom with gloom," Dr Parkinson said.
It was an upbeat projection of the economic fate of Australia at a time when job losses in airlines, the finance sector and manufacturing are painting dismal forecasts by some observers. And it clashed with the Opposition's claim that the introduction of carbon pricing from July would cost jobs and close down companies. "If you look at business and consumer confidence they are surprisingly low given the set of circumstances confronting Australia," said Dr Parkinson. "I'm not in any way attempting to downplay the fact there are parts of Australian business that face very serious challenges in terms of transforming to gain advantage from the opportunities open to us. "But I do think the whole mind set is overdone. It's almost as if most Australians think we live in Greece. We don't. We actually have an incredibly bright future ahead of us. "Yes there are challenges, but there are always challenges. The opportunities we have in front of us are of a sort we've never seen before." Under questioning, Dr Parkinson said his personal thinking was "somewhat surprising that there isn't, in a sense, more focus at the national level, at the opportunities open to us". "But there is an overwhelming negative sense about much of the national discussion and debate... Yes we have a multi-speed economy at the moment and there are some parts that face significant challenges but Australians have a lot to be optimistic about." Dr Parkinson said governments here and overseas had to decide on a trade-off of new wealth and the need to improve the nation's health, welfare and environment.
"The classic question raised in China is: Do we wait to get rich before we address these challenges, or do we do them as we try and get rich," he said. "And it's a question that every country faces."
Seven tips for marketing in the 21st century
Source My Business 15 February 2012
Consumers are developing resistances to many marketing techniques. Alex Pirouz of RIDC Advisory brings us Siimon Reynolds’ seven potent new ways to make your marketing cut through the clutter. Marketing is dead, long live new marketing. Medical Scientists all over the world are in a frantic race every year to develop new more powerful antibiotics to beat the latest mutated bacterial infections creeping into populations globally.
Due to our overuse of this past miracle of medicine, bacteria are ever increasingly becoming resistant - through genetic mutation, to the most powerful antibiotics doctors have in their medical arsenal. There is a real fear creeping into medicine that soon antibiotics will no longer be effective to stave off these 'super bugs’ (already in existence in most hospitals) and we once again will see people dying from simple bacterial infections taking us back 100 years in medical thinking.
So what has this to do with Marketing? Everything. This powerful analogy allows us as marketers to compare this dilemma to what is going on in modern business.
Marketing practice has been over used and abused -much like antibiotics- that consumers much like the bacteria in our analogy -are becoming increasingly resistant and less responsive to ordinary and unskilled marketing efforts. Like the race medical scientists find themselves in so as marketers we are also in a race to keep one step ahead of consumers and produce marketing campaigns and programs that are cost effective and work. Unfortunately for many including most SME’s with small budgets, limited marketing experience and up to date knowledge and skill, this race is all but lost. The internet has made this effort all the more complex, costly and confusing and the rate of change has increase 100 fold. Like medicine, marketing concepts that worked 6 months ago or even 6 weeks ago fade fast.
What’s the answer?
The answer to this consumer evolution is that we need to get back to basics; much like the answer for science is the use of fewer antibiotics and not more.
According to Siimon Reynolds, co founder of the Photon Group, a start-up marketing company he built into a $500-million dollar organisation and later became the 15th largest marketing-services company in the world, there are seven key ways to ensure your marketing is more effective:
1. Spend more time on Product development.
Developing a product that is not only good but also superior. Steve Jobs showed us how with the Apple iPhone and iPad. These products were so innovative that they not only revolutionised Apple as a company but changed the way people behave forever. Follow this example. Start with your product and ask yourself does this product sell itself it’s so good? If not then it’s time to go back to the drawing board. Poor products are the number one reason businesses find marketing them so difficult. Sounds obvious but look around and 99% of companies fail in this arena.
2. Make innovation your core strategy.
Basic, I know but do you do this? You cannot afford to miss this. Apple knows within months that their competition will be copying their product innovations, so they innovate fast and have the Apple iPhone 5,6, and 7 well underway by the time they have launched the Apple iPhone 4. If Apple knows this and they are a multi-billion dollar company then there is a reason for it and you should too.
3. Always, always answer the basic consumer question...Why Should I buy from you?
Consumers don’t care about you, your company, your dream or your profits or lack of them. They are about what you can do for them to make their lives better, easier or richer in some way. So answer this question why should they buy from you? And if your answer is’ better quality’ or 'better service’, you are in serious trouble. The world does not need just another doctor. The world needs a doctor who can cure cancer, treat Alzheimer’s and reverse strokes. Not a doctor who offers only better service but offers no answers or nothing special at all. The world does not need another lawyer or plumber. It needs a lawyer who will guarantee to win your case, or a plumber who arrives on time or you don’t pay. Get the picture? Read more...
Australian Bureau of Statistics
5671.0 Lending Finance, Australia, Dec 2011
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/5671.0?OpenDocument
9314.0 Sales of New Motor Vehicles, Australia, Jan 2012
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/9314.0?OpenDocument
6202.0 Australia's unemployment rate decreased 0.1 percentage points to 5.1 per cent in January 2012 (Media Release), Jan 2012
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/MediaRealesesByCatalogue/46DFE12FCDB783D9CA256B740082AA6C?OpenDocument
6202.0 Labour Force, Australia, Jan 2012
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6202.0?OpenDocument
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