We help business owners like you to setup, establish and grow great businesses.
Most of Australia's businesses are small and medium businesses. They drive economic growth, provide employment and meet the needs of Australians every day, yet they often don't get the guidance or support they want. This is why we provide small and medium businesses with the sort of full service and integrated consulting that large businesses take for granted. This means we can help you address challenges in most areas of your business and we provide training every step of the way so you never become dependent on us or other service providers! We do this in an affordable and flexible way to give businesses every opportunity to succeed and grow.
WHAT WE CAN HELP YOU WITH
Business and Marketing Plans
Many small businesses start with no formal or written plans at all. Some say that failing to plan is planning to fail and we agree. Without solid plans you don't know where your business is going or how to get there. We will work with you to produce custom business and marketing plans to help you to clearly identify and reach your goals. We will also help you plan and build a brand, including a website that will draw potential clients in.
Websites and Social Media
If you have a business, you need a website supported by relevant social media. Your website doesn't have to be a work of art, but it does have to work for you. We can help you create a website that builds your brand's credibility and forms an important step in your sales funnel without taxing your marketing budget to breaking point. And if you already have an existing website we can work with you to optimise it so it does what you want it to do while providing Website Error Testing and Proofreading.
Business Growth
No matter how small you start, eventually you are going to need your business to grow if it is going to be sustainable and if it is going to reach its full potential. In order to help your business to grow, we will work with you to create:
Sales Strategies
Personalised Sales Training and Coaching
End to End Sales Processes
Quality Management Systems
Advertising campaigns and sales funnels that will result in sales
Pre-Launch Consulting
If you are about to launch your own small business, you have a whole world of possibilities in front of you. We will work with you to help you assess the viability of your business idea and will then guide you each step of the way to help you take your idea and turn it into a successful small business. We might even be able to help you apply for a Government Grant!
Research
No matter how well you plan, starting a new business and keeping ahead of the competition involves regularly exploring uncharted waters. Research is one of the best tools that small business owners have at their disposal to constantly know the position of their business and the safest direction to head. Some of the research tools that we help small business owners to master include:
Market Research
Mystery Shopping
Voice Of The Customer (VOC)
Customer Experience Testing
Focus Groups
Product Testing
Soft Product and Service Launches
Business Processes
A successful business is a collection of processes that work, which are then carried out by staff over and over again to achieve predicable and desirable results. Each stage in a repeatable process is a stepping stone on a path to repeatable success. That means that you need a process for everything you do in your business and the more important the activity, the better the process needs to be. If you already have processes, we can help you to regularly review and improve these to keep up with your growing business and its evolving needs. If you are just starting out, we can help you get the right processes in place right from day one.
This can include implementing:
· A Total Quality Management System (TQM)
· Lean and/or 6 Sigma methodologies
· The ISO 9001:20015 framework
· Something completely unique for your specific business
Project Management
As your business starts to grow, you will probably find that you need to make a major change at some point to capitalise on your success. Perhaps you will need to move to a new location with more space or upgrade your IT capabilities. As you get more confident, you might also decide you want to try something new in your business. What this means is that sooner or later you will be faced with managing a project in your business. The reality is that most projects don't go well and when you think about it that is not surprising because most small business owners are not seasoned project managers and don't have the time to go away and learn how to manage a project in their business before they have to lead one. We can help you to assess if the project you are considering will really add value to your business. If it will, we can help you to plan and manage all of the elements so that everything comes together like clockwork which will save you time, money and stress.
Building and Leading Your Team
If you want to grow your business, or even just take a break from time to time, at some point you are going to need to hire some help. This poses all sorts of questions such as: who do you hire, where do you find them, in what capacity do you hire them (full time, part time, contractor), how much do you pay them, how do you turn a collection of people into a high performing team and how do you lead them? It's important to have good answers to all of these questions and quite a few more because while your business is a collection of processes, your team are the business! When you are ready to hire your first team member, we can help you figure out what questions you should be asking yourself and help you to find answers to these questions.
Risk
Businesses face risk before they even find their very first customer. As a business grows, risks increase and become more complex. Some of these risks can lead to inconvenience, some can lead to financial loss and some can bring an entire business down overnight. The problem is, the closer you are to the business, the harder it is to see some of these risks. We can help you identify, record and assess your risks. Where possible we will help you mitigate these risks and for enduring risks we will work with you to develop contingency and continuity of business plans.
Big Data for Small Business
Just because you are a small business, a medium business or a not for profit doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from advances in data collection and analysis. We can help you identify:
l The data you need to collect
l How you can collect it
l How you can analysis it
l How you can interpret it
l What questions your existing data can answer
l How data can drive your organisation and help you develop competitive advantages
Business Pr-Purchase Consulting
A great alternative to starting a business from scratch is buying an established business. In some industries it can actually be far more cost effective to buy a business that already has the equipment and fit-out in place. There can also be other benefits to buying an established business; particularly immediate income, brand recognition and an established customer base. However, there are also many traps to fall into and things to consider when buying an established business. Much like a preexisting house or a used car, you might be buying a bargain or you might be helping someone offload a problem!
We can help you figure out what information you need to assess and what questions you need to ask to tip the odds of buying a successful business in your favour. And once you have found the right business to buy, we can help you source financing and manage the takeover to give you the best possible change of success.
Fraud/Theft Detection & Prevention
Employee fraud and theft is a difficult and often very emotive issue for business owners to face. However, it can’t be ignored because current estimates are that fraud and theft costs Australian businesses billions of dollars every single year. What is more shocking is that approximately 70% of these losses are caused by current and former staff. Some estimates even suggest that 55% of stock shrinkage is caused by employee theft! We can give you peace of mind by helping you learn to identify the signs of fraud specific to your business and to put in place strategies to prevent future fraud and theft.
Not For Profit Organisations
We have a particular focus on providing low cost and affordable consulting to not-for-profit organisations. We understand the challenges faced by not-for-profits because we create and run not-for-profit organisations ourselves!