Business Development Company

How well do you know keyboard shortcuts?

2011-12-02T09:23:00.001+13:00

Shortcuts or quick keys are a fast way of navigating your way around your computer. However, a recent Google survey has found that as many as 90% of computer users dont know about the Ctrl + F key. Not only that, but many people do not know about shortcuts and how to use them. Should we care?

The answer is a resounding YES! Knowledge of keyboard shortcuts and computing skills in general, are a way of creating more efficiency at work. Having the confidence and ability to use computing skills and techniques is a key way of helping you save time. Not only that, at Business Development Company we are finding that as business starts to pick up, time pressures are increasing. Within small and medium businesses, workforces that were downsized during the recession, have not yet increased again. Employers face uncertainty within the global economic environment and are not ready to feel confident that the economic recovery is here to stay. This, in turn, puts pressure on the existing workforce to work faster, smarter and harder.

So, for baby boomers who have had to learn how to use computers the hard way, we recommend some computer skills training (here at BDC, of course).

And to learn some of those keyboard shortcuts right now, click on the link below:

http://www.3news.co.nz/Easy-keyboard-shortcuts-quick-keys-guaranteed-to-save-you-time--effort/tabid/412/articleID/234904/Default.aspx

Deals, Vouchers and Coupons

2011-11-24T09:20:00.001+13:00

Along with the advent of daily deal coupon sites such as Treat Me and Grab One, there has been a backlash of opinion from some marketing commentators. They warn that to advertise your products on sale on one of these sites is to risk devaluing your brand and setting up an expectation for customers that they will only buy your products or services when they are on sale.
A recent Trendsetting Report seems to put a different spin on this theory. New generation consumers expect to receive a good deal and will seek to do business with smart, sharp businesses who embrace new technologies. Read more here Trendwatching Report

Local government is a crap place to work

2011-11-08T11:39:00.000+13:00

It's a catchy title, designed to grab your attention and read. That's the intention behind Keith Marshall's article in the October 21st 2011 issue of the National Business Review.

Keith Marshall is the Chief Executive of the Nelson City Council and he has written an article on employee engagement and leadership within the local government sector. Keith quotes a survey conducted by JRA each year which measures the level of employee engagement across all sectors in New Zealand. Staff engagement in the local government sector is typically low - just 21% compared with an overall average of 32% across all organisations. He goes on to say that this is a real concern within the sector and an issue which he believes should be addressed.

I absolutely agree with Keith's view. Employee engagement leads to improved leadership, productivity and employee satisfaction and performance. As he points out, with responsibility for key infrastructure within our community, it is certainly within our interests that City Council staff are focussed and engaged. In fact, as New Zealander's we should all be concerned that the average of employee engagement across all sectors is as low at 32%.

Keith is working hard to address these issues. A recent study indicates that employee engagement levels at Nelson City Council have increased from 21% to 39%. These levels are well above industry average and should be acknowledged.

It is ironic then, that Keith goes on to say in his article that the cause is neither sexy nor flashy. 'It makes boring press releases that no media want to publish and it most certainly isn't valued by the electorate; but it is the single most important factor in delivering what local government does.'

Well, in this aspect Keith, you were wrong. It did make front page headlines in the Nelson Mail but not for the intended reasons. http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/5909569/Council-vigorously-defends-performance-perks-for-CEO The fact is that Keith Marshall's intentions are to make local government a good place to work and for that reason I applaud him.

I do not need to know how much he is paid for his efforts. Surely, this information forms part of his employee agreement and should remain private in the same way as it does for all other Council employees. Nor am I in an ideal position to determine his overall level of performance in his role. As with other employment situations, isn't this for his employers to determine?

For a copy of Keith's article, please email julie@bdc.net.nz (With thanks to the kindness of Kenn Butler who brings me the NBR every week).

Recent Legislative Changes for Business

2011-10-05T11:33:00.000+13:00

There have been a number of key legislative changes announced recently which have an impact on businesses and trusts within New Zealand. They are: changes to gift duty, simplified reporting for SME's and a anti-money laundering code.

The abolition of gift duty will be good news to many. Previously, the liabilities of a trust could be forgiven at a rate of $27,000 per year, or $54,000 per couple, without incurring tax duty. However, from 1 October 2011, gift duty will cease. Gift duty created unnecessary compliance costs and we're glad to see it go. As New Zealanders are some of the highest users of family trusts in the world, we're pretty sure that many others will also see this as a positive move.

Another move that we're in favour of is reducing the financial reporting compliance for small and medium businesses. Under the new scheme, entities which have revenue less than $30 million or assets of less than $60 million will be required to produce targeted reports for tax purposes only. They will not be required to produce financial statements under the Companies Act. We're interested in any measures which reduce compliance costs for small businesses. The key to making it work is also ensuring that financial reporting standards are maintained and that NZ doesn't once again become the cowboys of the financial reporting world as in the 1980's and prior to the Financial Reporting Act 1993.

The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 will come into force on 30 June 2013. Money laundering is the way that criminals disguise the illegal origins of their money to avoid detection. Financial institutions can protect the identity of people providing and receiving the funds. Financial institutions and casinos will need to establish and implement their programme to comply with the Act before the 30 June 2013 deadline. What this means, is that customers of these institutions can expect more stringent identity checks in the lead up to the Act coming into force. We expect that this will be a public relations challenge for financial institutions as many of their customers wish to retain a high level of privacy about their investments.

It is election year after all and we know to expect good news from the governing party as part of their election campaign. There's no doubt that the National government have limited options given the current economic environment. However, we are supporters of 'Keynesian economics' ie increasing money flow into the economy as a way of helping us work through the current difficult environment. While these regulatory changes are positive, they will have little impact on stimulating the economy.

The Economic Impact of Rugby World Cup

2011-08-18T10:57:00.002+12:00

The Reserve Bank has just released an interesting economc analysis of what we might expect from Rugby World Cup 2011. For the full article go to:

http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research/analytical/an11_01.pdf

The Reserve Bank describes RWC 2011 as 'the tournament is a significant event for the New Zealand economy, estimating it will attract 95,000 visitors to the country, who are likely to spend a total of $700 million on local goods and services.'

This first paper in a series comes as the Reserve Bank Museum launches a special ‘Ruggernomics’ exhibition in spring, showcasing currency from rugby playing countries around the world.

The paper provides an analysis of the visitor numbers, countries and actual spend per person for the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia. Of course, a lot has changed since then. We've had a major recession, our debt per head of population has increased significantly and there has been a substantial appreciation in the NZ dollar. Put this altogether and the result is.... well, we don't really know.

What I do know, is that its good for us all to have a potential bright spot in our economy to look forward to. I have the feeling that business owners are hanging on to that. My hope is that, if you build it, they will come.

The View from Spain

2011-08-09T13:53:00.000+12:00

Blog post from Robin Whalley.

Recently, I travelled to Spain for a few weeks, basing myself in Barcelona.
On the day that I arrived there was a large demonstration of over 100,000 people protesting about the general economic environment, unemployment, the cost of living and police oppression.
Here are some interesting facts.
The unemployment rate in Spain as a whole is almost 22%, but in some regions, such as Catalonia, the rate is more like 50%.
There is no welfare state. Policemen were everywhere. There are THREE police organisations - La Guardia (Civil Guard), the National Police (La Policia) and the Municipal Police. All are armed.
The inflation rate in Spain is 3.1% but has been as high as 5.3% in July 2008.
In Jnauary 2011, house prices were forecast to fall by 24% over the ensuing 9 months.
Banks are lending up to 107% mortgages with fixed rates of interest for 3 years at 3.5%. Average house prices are slightly less than in New Zealand but with these lending policies is there any wonder they have a problem?

Building Business in NZ

2011-07-14T08:22:00.002+12:00

Every now and then, its good to get out of your comfort zone, away from the warm fire and home cooked food and find out what's going on in the world. With this in mind, I headed to Auckland last week to the Ice Ideas Conference. The Icehouse is 10 years old this year and to celebrate they held a conference, invited business leaders from NZ and overseas and gave them 6 minutes to speak. Icehouse has set a goal of helping 1000 of the 3000 high achieving, exporting businesses needed to grow NZ's economy by 2020. See http://3000.org.nz/ for more detail. They reckon we need capital, talent, networks and insight to do it and challenged the conference speakers to inspire us with their words of wisdom to get there.

Its generally acknowledged that one of the problems facing NZ business owners and managers is the triple B syndrome. In other words, we are happy when we have the boat, the bach and the BBQ. (I'm self confessed one of these). In order to be up there on the world stage we need to set our goals much higher than this. Growing and then selling successful companies, in turn can lead to capital investment in many more companies. We get on a roll, the multiplier effect kicks in and we are away laughing.

Its not just getting there that counts though. Its the way we get there. We need to do it sustainably, be environmentally conscious and hold onto those principles that make us uniquely Kiwi and ultimately, happy.

The biggest challenge is how to get there. The various speakers at the conference gave us some great one liners and metaphors. Such as, 'Be like Sir Ed, preparation was the key. He failed often, but when preparation met opportunity, he was ready' (Rob Adams). There was the metaphor of the wave - 'The cool way to surf is to be paddling when the wave comes. If the wave comes and you're not ready, you'll miss it. Equally, if you learn how to surf, but you're in a place where there are no waves, you wont get to surf'. (Peter Thiel). Our very own, Steven Joyce, MP, said 'NZ doesn't owe anything to anybody. NZ has to get out of bed in the morning and make its own luck'.

Listening to these skilled and knowledgeable people made me want to burst out of the door, hit the world and say 'here I come, baby'. But instead, I can find myself standing alone and thinking, 'OK, but what next'? David Irving, founding chairperson of the Icehouse, came to the rescue. He had some sage advice for business owners. He talked about a disconnect between political goals and language and what these mean to SME owners. We need to translate the economic targets for the country into meaningful objectives for business owners and managers. (Isn't this what every good manager does when leading staff)? We need to make the connection between revenue and expenditure on a national level so that the public understand that increased spending on education and health, for example, can only come when we earn more revenue. And lastly, he talked about improving the respect and recognition of the business community within the general public.

I would like to hear more from him.

For more information and press releases on the conference, check out some of the links below:
http://www.slideshare.net/theicehousenz
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/5258833/Invest-in-young-people-conference-told
http://socialmedianz.com/news/2011/07/07/making-innovation-happen-at-ice-ideas-conference/

Our views on the 2011 Budget

2011-05-23T09:32:00.001+12:00

Robin Whalley, Director of Business Development Company shares his views on the 2011 Budget

On Friday the 20th, the day after the 2011 budget I attended the Regional Job Summit held at NMIT.

The guest speaker, Amanda Lynn who heads the economic research organization BERL clearly stated that tourism is a low productivity sector and not one that Nelson should be focusing on for growth. See Nelson Job Summit.

She is right. We should all be extremely concerned therefore at Prime Minister John Key’s emphasis on the sector for growth and boosting wealth, it won’t. Tourism only creates $80,000 in revenue per job annually. Compare Fonterra which produces $350,000 per job annually, and Apple Computers that produces $1M per job annually. See Innovation-needed-to-boost-economy.The more tourism we do, the poorer we will get.

In order to grow the NZ economy, we need to grow innovative companies. Last year, these companies earned New Zealand around $4 Billion in exports.What we need is another 100 of these.

Nelson has more than its share. We have so many clever people in Nelson Tasman who have grown companies like Brightwater Engineers, Titan Slicer and Nelson Honey. This is where the emphasis should be. Not tourism.

The other disappointing aspect of the budget is the further tinkering with Kiwisaver.This is a complete blunder.

Australia’s Superannuation scheme has saved and invested $1.2 Trillion. That makes them less reliant on overseas capital. If Robert Muldoon hadn’t cancelled our own scheme in 1975, we would be even wealthier than the Australians.

It has taken decades (Since 1975 at least) for the public to come to trust the government. It had the formula right.

And to say the scheme is unaffordable is specious. After all, the last two tax cuts cost $2.46 Billion.

Overall the budget was disappointing in that the lack of emphasis on innovation, and removing obvious the regulatory road blocks to innovation were not addressed.

The Budget - key points

2011-05-19T16:20:00.001+12:00

Innovation through collaboration – driving innovation across the economy
Budget 2011 - key points

1. TAX & EXPENDITURE
KiwiSaver
As indicated to the public prior to the public, the Government has introduced the following changes to KiwiSaver:

• From July 2011, the Member Tax Credit will be halved from around $20 a week to $10 a week.

• From 1 April 2012, the tax free status of employer contributions to KiwiSaver and other complying superannuation funds will end. All employer contributions will be subject to Employer Superannuation Contribution Tax (ESCT) paid at the employee’s marginal tax rate.

• The minimum employee contribution rate will rise from 2% to 3% from 1 April 2013.

• The compulsory employer contribution rate will rise from 2% to 3% from 1 April 2013.

Overall, the changes to KiwiSaver are expected to generate savings for the Government of $2.5 billion over four years.

Working for Families (WFF)
The following changes have been announced by the Government:

• A slightly lower abatement threshold of $35,000, compared with the current $36,827.

• A slightly higher abatement rate of 25c in the dollar, compared to the current 20 cents in the dollar, and

• An alignment between the Family Tax Credit (FTC) payments for children aged 16 years and over and the FTC payments for those aged 13-15.

Overall, the changes to WFF will reduce its total cost from $2.8 billion in 2011/12 to $2.6 billion in 2014/15.

Student Loans
The following changes have been announced by the Government:

• Restricting student loan eligibility for those with an overdue student loan repayment obligation of $500 or more who are in default for more than one year.

• Restricting borrowing for people aged 55 and over to tuition fees only.

• Removing the entitlement for part-time full year students to borrow for course-related costs.

• Suspending inflation adjustments to the student loan repayment threshold until 1 April 2015.

• Shortening the repayment holiday for overseas based borrowers from three years to one year, and requiring borrowers to apply for the repayment holiday and provide a New Zealand based contact person before they go overseas.

Overall, the changes are expected to result in operating savings of $277 million over five years, and capital savings totaling $170 million.

2. EDUCATION & INDUSTRY TRAINING
Schools and early childhood education will receive an extra $1.4 billion in operating and capital funding out to 2014/15, with total education spending rising to $12.2 billion in 2011/12. This includes:

• $66.5 million to increase the number of Trades Academies and Service Academies, to keep 16 and 17 year olds engaged in education and training as part of the wider Youth Guarantee.

• $51.5 million for the school network upgrade project – part of the ultra-fast broadband support for schools.

• In the tertiary education space, up to 750 additional places in high performing private training establishments, $17.5 million for English courses for refugees and migrants, reallocating youth training funding for additional Youth Guarantee places, and a 2% increase in funding for all degree and post-graduate courses.

• In the social development space, there will be an increase of $55.2 million over four years to support young people into jobs and $15 million more for other employment assistance programmes.

3. INFRASTRUCTURE/NATURAL RESOURCES
Extending the Mixed Ownership Model

The Government will extend the mixed ownership model to four state-owned energy companies and reduce its majority shareholding in Air New Zealand. This would happen in a 3-5 year programme starting in 2012, with the Government retaining a majority stake in all 5 companies and kiwi investors being first in line to purchase. It is estimated that the new model will free up $5-7 billion and it says the money raised will go towards improving New Zealand's infrastructure.

Infrastructure is a big focus in this year's budget, with an extra $1.6 billion of infrastructure spending going to broadband, rail and schools.

The spending, which includes over $500 million of reprioritised capital, follows about $3 billion of new spending in infrastructure and other major capital investments in budget 2009 and 2010.

In addition to budget initiatives, the government is also spending about $12.2 billion over the next 10 years in New Zealand's state highway network and $3.8 billion through Transpower until mid 2015 to upgrade the national grid

Water and Irrigation
The Government announced pre-Budget an Irrigation Acceleration Fund of $35 million to support the development of irrigation infrastructure proposals while the Government will also consider in a future Budget investing up to $400 million of equity in water infrastructure schemes.

4. OTHER
Christchurch Earthquake Recovery

The Government is establishing a Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Fund to account for its share of the estimated recovery costs.

The fund will initially be $5.5 billion, which will cover central government’s costs.
Government contributions to NZ Superannuation Fund to resume in 2016/17

The Government proposes to resume contributions to the NZ Superannuation Fund in 2016/17, two years earlier than expected.
Regulatory Reform
The Government has highlighted its support for both the Regulatory Standards Bill and the Spending Cap (Peoples Veto) Bill, insofar giving it careful consideration after submissions have been received.

Determining price

2011-05-03T11:13:00.079+12:00

One of the challenges in setting up Tight Design is determining where to set the product price. Set the price too high and not enough customers will buy. Set it too low and it doesn't cover costs. To start the process I went about collecting information on competitor pricing. I needed to know what similar products were being sold for. Next on the 'to do list', was to determine the cost of the product. It was important to check that I included all of the costs, such as freight, GST, packaging, import duty, currency conversion, foreign currency tax and to account for the variations in currency rates. Added to these direct costs were the overheads such as marketing, along with the capital costs in setting up a website and logo. I needed to think about who my target market is and their capacity to buy. And last, but not least, I needed to think about economic factors in determing price.

The question then, is to what extent do these various factors contribute to product price. For example, if all of the overheads were allocated to product cost, then the price would be too high. And where do I want to sit in the market in relation to my competitors? Do I want to be an exclusive product and set the price higher than my competitors, or provide a good value product at a lower price? Below are some of the pricing strategies that I considered.

1. Cost plus pricing - With this method, you determine your costs and add a standard mark up percentage on the cost of the product or service. It has traditionally been a very common method of pricing. However, the key disadvantage is that cost plus pricing does not always give the best price. Both competitor and customer demand factors aren't considered within this pricing method.
2. Breakeven analysis and target profit pricing - The business tries to determine the price at which it will break even or make the target profit it is seeking. For example, if you want to achieve a 20% return on investment, this is added on to the cost of the product to determine the price. The big challenge of course, is to determine break even level at the changing levels of sales. And of course, this method also does not consider either competitors or customer demand.
3. Value based pricing - This method uses buyer's perceptions of value, not the seller's cost as the key to pricing. Pricing variables including customer needs and product position in the market are considered and in turn, this leads to product design or changing product features to satisfy customer needs. The key factor in this method is determining what will a customer is prepared to pay and getting the right combination of good product or service at a fair price.
4. Competition based pricing - Competition pricing can be set at the going rate ie the price is based largely on following competitors prices rather than on company costs or demand. Petrol prices are one example of this. Another example is a business submiting a tender based on what it thinks its competitor will price rather than on its own costs or the demand. Some businesses may take this approach to secure a contract in the knowledge that there may be benefits down stream.

There's no one right way to determine price - that much is clear. In reality, price setting is a combination of all of the above factors ie an accurate assessment of costs, the target rate of return, customers needs and perceived value, along with knowledge of competitive pricing. Broader economic factors also play a key role in determining price. Sales in retail stores are clear evidence of the need to price to meet the market because of current recessionary factors.

So, the price for Tight Design products is now set, but its clear to me that prices will need on going, regular review to measure sales and to determine whether I'm covering costs. Its also clear that I will not 'set and forget' my pricing strategy.

Impacts of the earthquake on business

2011-03-09T09:50:00.000+13:00

Whenever there is a major tragedy in New Zealand, I become acutely aware of the axom of 2 degrees of separation. As Nelsonians, we feel strongly connected to Christchurch. We have family and friends who live there, we conduct business operations there and Christchurch is our major South Island and regional centre.

In the past, I've written blogs about our business growth course and its presenter, Craig Rust. Craig and his family live in Christchurch. Fortunately, they are safe, however, some of his cafes have sustained major damage. Reading his stories about the way he and his staff all managed to survive the quake are sobering. But so are the on going stories about the loss of all of their stock, the difficulty in obtaining fresh fruit and vegetables and working long hours in very trying conditions.

My thoughts are also with the staff of Relationship Services who were located on the top floor of the CTV building. I used to work at Relationship Services and was always impressed by the strong network that existed amongst the staff. I know that they will all be feeling the loss greatly.

However, I'm also reminded about personal resilience at times like this. Resources and help from individuals, organisations and businesses are pouring in to Christchurch.Websites have been set up to help coordinate efforts and two are listed here:
http://www.recovercanterbury.co.nz/
http://www.nzbizhelp.co.nz/
(Thanks to Tony Quickfall for this info)

The Department of Labour have also produced information on their website for employers.
http://dol.govt.nz/quake/

Nelson Business Guide to the Rugby World Cup

2011-02-09T13:58:00.002+13:00

The Nelson City Council has put together a guide for businesses to make the most of opportunities provided by the Rugby World Cup. See the link here.

Nelson Business Guide to the Rugby World Cup

The guide is useful for providing dates of matches, fanzones and predictions of visitor numbers and providing a general overview. However, its missing out detail. I would like to see more focus on specific business sectors eg hospitality, tourism, retail, food and beverage sectors and the way these business clusters can make the most of the opportunties presented.

I'm also concerned that there seems to be few events or festivities organised in Nelson during the Rugby World Cup. When comparing Nelson to other regions, we seem to be lagging behind. Even Marlborough, our smaller neighbour seems to be more organised in comparison!

Overall, there seems to be a lot of talk about the business opportunities that may arise but I've yet to see much evidence of this in Nelson. While the Business Guide provides an opportunity for self promotion of some organisations, I have the impression that if you actually went to them, there would be little practical and real assistance on offer. The guide is sub-titled 'an opportunity unlike any other for Nelson businesses'. I have a feeling that many will be horribly disappointed.

I'm backing that the South Island Masters Games, to be held in Nelson from 14-23rd October, with over 30 sporting codes being represented will provide just as many opportunities. But how often have we heard about this event?

Tight Design

2011-02-07T12:25:00.002+13:00

I'm starting a new business, alongside BDC, importing tights and leggings into New Zealand. Why? Well, I love the product and I want to be able to buy them in NZ. However, I also have two expensive daughters, one of whom is heading off to university this year and facing student loan territory. She either decides to work part time; (note: this has serious consquences on her social life) or works on a business. The latter seemed like an opportunity to learn some life long, much needed business skills, hence Tight Design was born.

Tight Design will be a learning process for all of us. We have to learn how to import products into NZ, determine our business model for selling and make decisions on marketing our product. I've decided to blog about our experiences - the good and the bad, along the way in the hope that it helps other people starting out in business.

I'd like to hear your experiences and opinions too. Have you been in this situation before? What were the things that you needed to consider and how did you decide on the action chosen? What were the consequences?

The challenge of business is the constantly changing environment and markets that we are operating in. As business owners, we are constantly faced with decisions to be made. There is never one right way and there is always a number of options on the course to take. That's why I love it!

The intention of writing about Tight Design will be to learn about those business experiences.

Business Growth programme: Marketing for small businesses

2010-12-01T12:44:00.000+13:00

'Great vibrations' became the key theme for the third business growth session, focussing on marketing. The room was buzzing with ideas being generated on new products and ways to promote your business that were, shall we say, a little out of the square. I'm looking forward to seeing them in action!

The programme has really gained momentum now as people have got to know each other, their business; and develop trust. We are having to be accountable for implementing what we say we will do and that is generating sound results.

Craig challenged us with an article from NZ Business magazine, October 2010 issue, titled 'Why dont we do what we know we should' - how too much knowledge and not enough action may be stifling your business. Here's some ways to overcome it:
1. Make action notes
2. Develop resilience
3. Focus
4. Have a schedule
5. Do the most profitable activites first
6. Set goals that inspire you
7. Get a mentor.

Of course, none of that is quite as easy as it sounds. Thank goodness we have the business growth programme to keep us on track.

So Close - But Still Miles Out of Reach?

2010-11-08T15:28:00.000+13:00

Many Small Businesses Losing Out on Online Marketing Returns

As we’re told repeatedly by media and business commentators, the internet has created a level playing field for small and medium businesses, equipping them with the capability to reach out to new markets and audiences.
A professional website is your storefront to the world and the range of free or low-cost online services and tactics on offer to SMEs offers almost unlimited potential for growth, revenue and customer interaction.
So it’s ironic that this business sector sees both huge uptake, but a parallel paralysis as we head into the last months of the 2010 year. While many SMEs are rolling out their online and digital strategies, other small businesses are finding themselves coming up against a fundamental problem…they simply don’t have the time.
Time, not marketing funds, is the biggest cost of both online marketing, whether email marketing, online advertising or the hot world of social media marketing, but for many small business owners, time is a precious resource - one that’s in very short supply on a daily and weekly basis.
The learning curve to researching, creating and executing an online strategy is time-intensive. Once launched, there is the ongoing work of maintaining activity, creating fresh content, updating and upgrading; and measuring your campaign’s results.
Even finding the time to do your homework on the best strategic social media or online channels for your venture is difficult for managers or entrepreneurs, who are often bewildered by where to even start.
Should you consult the experts? The clamour of local and international suppliers and advisors promising to help guide you through the online maze is even more time-consuming and daunting to sift through. Who is telling it like it is and who is pushing their own agenda?
Once you’ve identified where you need to apply effort, outsourcing is an obvious answer, but online and digital marketing agencies and freelance contractors are often beyond SME budgets.
Small business doubled its presence on social media in 2009, with local trends following the international shift online. In the highly-measurable online world, results are positive, with 73 percent reporting their online efforts are identifying & attracting customers, 56 percent increasing target market awareness, 46 percent using online methods to engage with customers; and 78 percent generating top sales via customer reviews (Source: eMarketer.com).
Judging from attendance and interest at recent presentations and workshops I’ve given around the region, and the 2010 avalanche of media commentary on social media marketing, Nelson and NZ businesses want to take advantage of online opportunities and keep up with their competition, which may have leveraged more robust marketing budgets or internet knowledge to edge ahead.
There is a sizeable Australasian audience for NZ businesses to target, with well-over 1.5 million New Zealanders on Facebook, hot on the heels of our Australian neighbours, who are the world’s heaviest Facebook users. There are north of 350 NZ organisations and 55,000 NZ users on Twitter; and NZ membership is growing steadily on LinkedIn, the world’s largest business network with 80 million members.
Heading towards 2011, it remains a frustrating challenge that with their target audiences already online and receptive to marketing messages, many smaller businesses can’t afford to ignore the opportunity, but will continue to struggle to find the time to get started.

Guest Blogger: Teri Sawers

Teri is a seasoned online marketing communicator who works on a daily basis across web campaigns and leading social media platforms.

http://communicationsinsights.wordpress.com

Great Service - don't you just really appreciate it when you get it?

2010-11-05T15:23:00.000+13:00

OK, so I stuffed up. I booked an airline air ticket for the wrong day. And don't be too critical. If you haven't done it already, you're bound to do it one day.
The story goes that I won a travel voucher in a raffle. In order to redeem it I needed to go into the Air New Zealand Holiday Shop in Nelson to book a flight. I did that, got back to the office and realised that I'd booked the wrong day. I rang back immediately (and actually, that's the key). The staff member said "no problem. I'll just void that ticket and then issue you another one". All I had to do was go back down to the shop and collect the new ticket and pay the balance. (Of course, there were only more expensive flights available on the day I wanted to travel - Murphy's Law). The point is that the customer service that I received was friendly and helpful. Because it was so good the first time, that made it easy to call back as soon as I realised my mistake. It was much appreciated.
The tip of the day is 'you can change your flight ticket without any extra charge, as long as you do it the same day'. The friendly, helpful person at Air New Zealand tells me that the big mistake that people make is to think, oh well, I'll leave that until tomorrow. At which point, extra charges will apply.

Founder's Cafe 45's night

2010-10-21T11:32:00.001+13:00

If you are looking for a great story about engaging staff, leadership and innovation, then check out this story from Carol and John Duncan from Founders Cafe.

Carol and John run the Founders Café located in Founders Park. The café itself is in an historic wooden building giving it loads of character. The tables spread outside to a beautiful garden and the food is fantastic. It’s a great place to sit peacefully and to drink a Founder’s brew on a summer’s evening. However, one of the challenges that Founder’s face is that it is located out of the central town and in the middle of winter it can be a bit isolated from the main crowd.

What Carol and John did was to harness staff talent to help them. One of their staff came to them with the idea of a ‘45’s night’ at the cafe ie bring along your favourite 45 record to play. What the Duncan’s did next was LISTEN to this idea, then decided to go for it. They supported staff to put the idea into action.

Of course, in business we know that you can have a great idea, but the challenge is often how to market it without spending all of your profits in advertising dollars. Well, the Founder’s staff came up with their next great idea – send it out by text message. The key here is that because Carol and John credited staff with their own idea and helped to make it happen, the staff were keen to make it work. They were willing to invite their own friends to come along and make the evening a success.

And was it a success? Overwhelmingly! The story was reported in the newspaper which gave it even greater publicity at no cost. Hundreds of people attended the evening and had a great time. It was so successful that Founders want to have a repeat. A great example of what can happen when everyone is on board and pulling in the same direction.

I said that listening to Debbie Mayo-Smith was a bit like....

2010-10-18T16:14:00.000+13:00

taking an energy drink;coffee and sugar hit all in one go and it was true. Debbie delivered her iProfit course in Nelson last Friday.
I like the use of stories to deliver a message and Debbie had some great stories to illustrate ways to increase your sales and add value to your customer service. She then applied those techniques to individuals and businesses in the group giving them some immediate action points. Talk about thinking on your feet! One example was having a 'raising the dead' list of customers that you haven't seen for a while and making contact with them. Ask them specifically, 'what can we do to bring you back?' and then listen to the answers! It's important to build relationships with your customers and not 'burn your database' by overloading them with email messages. Make sure that you have new information, industry relevant tips for your customers to add value so they will keep reading your email newsletters and not hitting the 'unsubscribe' button.
I also like the cool time saving Outlook and Excel tips. I'm going to be making much greater use of my email signature function in Outlook to deliver repeat instructions or information instead of using copy and paste.
Aside from the practical information, I find Debbie a joy and a pleasure to work with. I could have listened for a lot longer.

Where's the Money?

2010-09-28T15:34:00.000+13:00

Where's the Money? - was the title of session two of our Business Growth programme being delivered by Craig Rust last week. This session focussed on reviewing our financial management. Craig challenged us to think of three ways to increase our turnover and three ways to decrease our costs.
We reviewed some of the key financial ratios which can be used to measure financial health such as the current ratio, return on investment, net profit ratio. Key performance indicators or KPI's also provide a key measure of the health of your business. KPI's can be financial measures such as gross profit, bank balance, cash flow. They also include non-financial measures such as measures of customer satisfaction, productivity, re-work, debtor days, delivery time frames and stock turn days to mention a few.
As particpants, we were challenged to come up with five non-financial and five financial KPI's for our business. The key learning moment for me was that by putting effort into determining and measuring the non-financial KPI's for your business is a key way of growing your business and the financial performance.
And, want to know where your money is hiding? It's in one of these five places-
1. Increased number of debtors.
2. Increased amount of stock.
3. Increased personal drawings.
4. Rapid loan repayment (review interest only payments for the time being).
5. New toys- the three B's- the bach, the boat and the BBQ.
We all have to come up with our budget for the next two years by the next session in November.

I'll keen to measure the before and after stories at the end of our business growth year. If we all stick to the programme and complete this homework, then I know we'll be onto a winner.

Business Planning

2010-09-24T16:14:00.001+12:00

'I need more income, therefore, I need to sell more stuff, therefore, I need a marketing plan - right?'
Actually, no.
Having a marketing plan ensures that you make good decisions about where to spend your advertising dollar. It enables you to consider your target market and how best to reach them, rather than just reacting to the latest offer that lands on your desk.
However, for a marketing plan to be effective, a good strategic and business plan are imperative for these reasons-

1. You know what the big picture is. You know why you are in business, how big you want to get or how little you want to stay.
2. You have a framework which provides a guideline for how you spend your day. You no longer REACT but start being PROACTIVE.
3. Making decisions becomes easier. You just ask 'does this fit with my plan or not?'
4. The irony is that promoting your business comes a whole lot easier because you know what you are about.
5. You know when you are successful, you can measure it.

There's probably lots more reasons and feel free to add them. However, when you next think 'I need to make more money', I challenge you to think about the wider, strategic issues, rather than just pushing the advertising button.

Spreading Risk

2010-09-14T14:25:00.002+12:00

In a survey of 3,236 of small and medium businessess in New Zealand, Capability NZ found that business revenues were dominated in influence by their local areas. See http://tinyurl.com/Capability-NZ.
They found that '69% of business owners get more than 75% of their revenue from local markets. Few business owners have a significant share of earnings from international markets. But many have some level of export. 18% of respondents indicated a business with some export revenue (i.e. >0%) but many responses were in the 1-5% range'.

These findings are hardly surprising. Given that there are over 463,000 SME's in NZ, (see http://tinyurl.com/SME-Report), the statistics are a long way from being significant or representative of the sector.

However, it seems to me that these findings are particularly relevant in light of the Christchurch earthquake. So many small and medium business owners in Christchurch were adversely affected by the earthquake and some will not recover. Some of these businessess were completely dependent on the local economy and when that became inaccessible, their businesses suffered huge losses.

Spreading risk amongst various markets - local, national and international helps sustain business for the long term and reduces dependence on a single market success and failure. There are other ways of spreading risk including having different business operations held in separate companies eg one company which owns the asset ie the building and a separate company which owns the business operation. Yet another way of spreading this risk is to have several businesses interests in different markets.

The downside of spreading risk in this way, is that you have more chance of taking the hit when it comes. Hopefully, the hit wont be as big and your business can sustain it (the recession excluded, of course)

At BDC, we have local business revenue and national contracts to sustain us. We have international business interests. We have spread our risk by doing this. Our business has been affected by the Christchurch earthquake, but in a minor way.

Our thoughts are with those who have suffered substantial business loss.

South Canterbury Finance

2010-09-06T10:08:00.001+12:00

We can wax lyrical in hind sight about what went wrong with South Canterbury Finance. What I'm more concerned about is the price of the government guarrantee scheme. I was interested to read some facts and figures from Rod Oram about the cost of the bail out.
The government has stated that it will bail out all non-equity investors to the tune of $1.8 billion. That figure alone constitutes 1.3% of New Zealand's GDP. That equates to more than the net growth of the New Zealand economy over the past three years.
The government is hoping that the net cost, after the sale of assets will be around $600 million. But the risk involved in being able to sell the assets at full value is significant.
Dont get me wrong, the cost of the government NOT bailing out the investors would likely have been much higher due to multiplier effects. But the dollars involved in this are staggering for a country which is already committed to interest payments on debt totalling $240 million per week.
We have yet to see and fully understand the ramifications of this on the fragile NZ economy.

When should you quit as a director?

2010-08-31T12:29:00.006+12:00

Guest blog by Robin Whalley, BDC director.

An important case was decided recently after the Chariman of Bridgecorp was banned from being a company director for two and a half years.

Bruce Davidson, the banned director, sought to have the ban overturned. He used the argument that to resign would 'alarm the market'.

Davidson was once the Chairman of the Auckland District Law Society.

But Justice Miller said that unsophisticated investors often relied on the personal reputations of directors and managers. By staying with the company Davidson had reassured investors that Bridgecorp was well governed despite the fact that major shareholder and managing director, Rod Petricevic, was controlling the group. 'He (Davidson) took it upon himself to comfort investors about the quality of Bridgecorp management by simply being there.' Justice Forrest Miller said Bruce Davidson should have resigned three years as he had intended, before the collapse in mid 2007.

The point here is that Davidson's ethical responsibility to the community as a whole was greater than his duty to the company. This is an important departure from the previously held legal positions in my view.

Read more about the case here http://tinyurl.com/Bridgecorp-Director

Business Growth Programme

2010-08-26T09:35:00.005+12:00

Our Business Growth Programme kicked off last week, delivered by Craig Rust.

Craig has over 15 years experience in chartered accountancy and business development. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and was named the Young Accountant of the Year in 2005. Prior to setting up his own business, Craig was a senior manager at Price Waterhouse Coopers.

What sets Craig apart is his relationship skills, along with his expertise in accounting and his 'hands on' knowledge of business.

Our first session in the business growth programme focussed on business planning. Craig has an expression - do you want a business or a job? In other words, what is the big picture here? What are your goals and aspirations, not just for business, but for life in general?

Knowing where you want to be helps to provide the context for your business. Are you wanting to provide a job for yourself or is the long term view to establish a business that can provide you with the opportunities to fulfill those long term goals?

The factors that the particpants had in common included being passionate about our businesses and working too hard in them. We came away with homework to develop a succinct mission statement and to establish a diary for ourselves which included time off!

What's invaluable to me are the sensational ideas that come from groups such as this. I have a view that business people are inherently creative people. Get a group of them together in a room and you can see the sparks fly. Its important that people have the opportunity to do this as so often, running a business is a lonely job.

The thing that's making us giggle here at Business Development Company, is the thought of Robin Whalley sitting for two whole hours in the same room at a training course. Its true that he was a reluctant contender, however, he's now a convert!

Next session is on the 16th September.

Social Media Marketing - Part 2

2010-08-24T13:36:00.004+12:00

Part 2 of the eagerly awaited Social Media Marketing course focussed on blogging, LinkedIn, You Tube and Trip Advisor. Well done to those participants who had made a start with signing up to Facebook and Twitter.

A useful tip for me was to use keywords linked to my website and business in my blog in order to improve my search engine optimatisation and website rankings. In English, this means getting found more easily in google searches.

We learnt about the social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us, diggit, reddit and stumbleupon and the international freelancing site, e lance.

Some facts about LinkedIn users - 77% have a university degree, average age of users is 43 years, 54% are male, 46% female, 32% are in middle mangement positions or higher, features highly engaged and active users. LinkedIn is the world's largest business network with over 75 million members in over 200 countries.

Oh wait, those stats just went out of date. That's how fast this thing is moving!

I found this course invaluable and from the comments we received from the participants, they obviously did too. Its very likely that we will run this again. Let me know if you are interested in attending.

There's only two certainties in life...

2010-08-17T15:46:00.009+12:00

and one of them is tax.

From 1 October, there will not only be a change in the GST rate, but also changes to PAYE. The IRD will be running a series of free courses throughout NZ.

The Nelson courses will be held on Tuesday 7 September 5.30pm to 7pm and Thursday 16 September 5.30pm to 7pm.
Booking is essential. Email advisory.nelson@ird.govt.nz to register your interest.

For courses in other centres go to http://www.ird.govt.nz/contact-us/seminars/free-tax-seminars-workshops.html.

The IRD has also produced some checklists to ensure you consider the impact of the changes within your business. The checklists are referenced here... one checklist for GST and one for employers. http://www.ird.govt.nz/changes/checklist/budget-checklist.html

The thing that gets me is that gone will be the days of dividing by nine to get the GST component. The new formula is, wait for it, multiply by 3 and divide by 23! (Alternatively you can divide by 7.666) I'm off to find my calculator.

Social Media Marketing

2010-08-13T09:21:00.005+12:00

Teri Sawers delivered the first part of our Social Media Marketing course last night. Social media is the hot topic of the moment because of the way you can reach your customers directly without spending a fortune.

The big cost is time and you can certainly waste a lot of it on the internet. Anyone with teenage children can tell you that. However, Teri is just so knowledgeable on this subject and she just amazed me with her insider tips. It struck me that the benefit of tapping in to her knowledge saved me hours of time and mistakes.

Most valuable tip? That's a toughy. Perhaps all of the different sites that you can access freely to spread your message, the tips about managing personal privacy while promoting your business, adding your LinkedIn and blog sites addresses to your business cards; and the widgets and gadgets available to add to your website.

The topic is mind blowing but it just fascinates me. The speed at which this is developing is incredible.

Funniest course moment? Reading some of the more enterprising and shall we say, entertaining tweets posted on Twitter.

Second part of the course is next week and I cant wait!

Department of Labour Business Essentials

2010-08-11T15:53:00.004+12:00

The Department of Labour has just updated its website with useful tools for businesses. For a while now, they have provide some useful information and services for businesses - templates like 'employment agreement builder' which enable you to build an employment agreement for your staff. The trouble is that quite often the resources are hard to find and negotiate your way through.

The latest updates in the website allow you to hover over four key topics ie. 'employ people', 'get the basics right', 'make a safe workplace' and 'manage staff'.

I'm finding this new type of website to be really user friendly. I dont have to spend ages reading loads of words that dont really mean much. Instead I can skim read for key topics and go straight to them. No mucking around.

Check out what I mean here http://www.dol.govt.nz/infozone/businessessentials/

Family Trusts Update

2010-08-10T11:25:00.002+12:00

We've just heard the latest news out of Treasury in relation to the government guarantee scheme and the implications for family trusts.

If a Trustee charges a fee in relation to the role of being a Trustee, in effect the Trust is not covered by the guarantee scheme if the financial institution goes belly up.

See the link here http://tinyurl.com/government-guarantee

If you want further information, then please give us a call.

Loss Attributing Qualifying Companies (LAQC's)

2010-08-04T11:44:00.006+12:00

There are significant changes to LAQC rules from the 2012 year. Robin Whalley, a director of the Business Development Company shares his views.

LAQC's are companies set up to claim losses. For example, if you have a rental property and it is in a LAQC with the purpose of it being treated like a partnership for tax loss purposes, then these changes will affect you.

Under the new rules, losses will be treated not unlike the treatment for special partnerships. Major changes include -

the income and losses will flow through to shareholders
lossses will be limited to a shareholder's economic exposure to the qualifying company liabilities and
changing shareholders and revoking qualifying status may trigger deemed disposal rules.

This means the losses may no longer be deductible. You may need to get out of your qualifying company now before the new tax rules come into effect and you're left with a tax liability.

For more information, go to this link http://tinyurl.com/LAQC-Overview and contact us for what this means to you.

Exporting to Australia

2010-07-27T13:41:00.005+12:00

One of the biggest barriers to exporting can be just getting started. Where do you go to find the connections and networks that you can trust, how do you get access to market information and distribution networks?

NZTE has formed a LinkedIn group called Focus Australia. The whole purpose is to-

Share ideas and information on the Australian market
Share contacts
Establish networks and information
Discuss common experiences
Look for possible opportunities to collaborate or to seek advice from other exporters.

The real benefit of using LinkedIn is that you can make contact directly with members of the group. You can check out their profile, see who recommended them and email them.

To join up, you have to set up a LinkedIn account- that takes some time but its fairly straight forward. Contact me if you want some help to set it up. Once that's done, you search under the groups tab for 'focus australia'. Your request to join will need approval from Megan Hurnard, from NZTE who operates the site. This is another way of having some control over whose joining.

The good thing about it is that you dont have to be exporting already. You're not making a committment at all, in fact, you can choose when you want to login to the site. Its simply a way of accessing information and making contacts.

There is another sub group of the 'focus australia' site set up with restricted entry, just for those who have already actively exporting.

Innovation as the Product of Adversity

2010-07-12T15:54:00.009+12:00

The BDC award for innovation and enterprise (OK, so there's not really an award), but if there was it would go to Yoka de Houwer and Don Grant from Tasman Bay Herbs. Yoka and Don are long standing clients of BDC. They held an open day at the end of June to show off their latest innovative project.

Don and Yoka have been producing high quality herbs for retail and supermarkets for some time now. They are the sort of people who are always striving for the best. When confronted with a major disease which severly impacted production, they came up with an innovative idea.

Instead of adding more pesticides to combat the disease, they came up with the plan of developing a self sustaining system. They now maintain fish stocks and use the bi-products from the living fish to feed the plants. The outcome is stronger plants that have a greater resistance to pests and diseases.

Its brilliant.

Check out the video here. http://tinyurl.com/TasmanBayHerbs

'Life is like a box of chocolates..

2010-07-08T14:24:00.000+12:00

...you dont know what you're getting'.

This line from the movie 'Forest Gump' is the most appropriate description that I can think of to describe the changes at BDC.

With the end of the fully funded enterprise training scheme, the owners of BDC decided to cease ownership of the company. Faced with company closure, three staff redundancies and dismantling all that we had worked so hard to build up seemed like an onerous and soul destroying task.

Fortunately, I was surrounded by good people - family being the main ones, but also business people and BDC course presenters. They weren't people who said 'poor you' or dwelt on the negative. Instead they told me to focus on the positive, look for opportunities and told me that this might be the best thing that had ever happened.

It was hard to see this at the time. I felt badly let down. The thought of looking for a job in the middle of what is still a recession in my mind, along with it being winter in a summer seasonal town didn't fill me with excitment.

However, they were all exactly right. The blokes in the next door office came to the rescue and bought the company. Here I am with the best business opportunity having just landed right at my feet.

What made the difference? Working hard - it actually does get noticed. Having integrity and good relationships. And being surrounded by people with similar values.

They are good old fashioned values that are still very applicable today. Its the way we like to do business here at BDC and we think its key to business success.