The beauty of mentorship: having someone focused on your growth

The EO Mentorship Program runs for 12 months where mentors and mentees have regular monthly catch-ups, which usually last for only an hour or more. But for mentees like Jeni Clift, Owner and Co-founder of Otto, those regular conversations with her mentor, Anthony Closter, Director at Urban Land Developments, were precious to her. 

Jeni Clift enjoys being a mentee as it provides her with the opportunity to learn from someone who is focused on her growth.

“For me, I think the real value is in taking a couple of hours out every month and sitting down with somebody who is completely focused on me,” Jeni remarked.  “I didn’t always have specific questions or know what I needed coming to our meetings but Anthony was great at picking up on something in my month’s update and leading the conversation,” she said. Jeni understood how important it is to have someone focused on her entrepreneurial journey because she, too, has been coaching other business owners and executives as an EOS Implementor.

“I’m usually the mentor. But, yeah, I decided to throw my name in the hat to become a mentee and to be on the other side of the table for a change, to be learning from somebody else and having somebody available to reach out to when I had questions or just didn't quite know what to do,” she explained.

As a mentor, Anthony Closter appreciates that the program has given him the structure to actually help and provide some mentorship.

Anthony admits that the prospect of mentoring someone who’s been doing it herself is quite intimidating. “I was a little bit intimidated by the prospect of trying to help or mentor somebody who generally mentors other people. We first caught up with the training with Carlo and it was a little bit daunting at the time because obviously, as Jeni’s already mentioned, she trains people so she's a business/life coach in her business life.”

Although it was their first time to meet during the Mentorship Program training day, they instantly bonded well as a mentor and a mentee because they share a few common things. Jeni calls it “intimacy” (instant intimacy through EO’s confidentiality) – a term that is often used in EO – because Anthony is an ex-EOer himself. 

It is for this same reason that Anthony agreed to become a mentor for this program. “I was a member of EO from 2006 to probably 2016 – for about 10 years. I got a lot out of EO and loved it and loved the way they went about it and the benefits of being a member. So, when I was asked by James Murray to be a mentor, I thought I’d jump at the opportunity and, hopefully, get to meet some more people and also give a little bit back to EO for everything that I took out of it over the 10 years.”

Apart from that, they also share other commonalities, which is why Jeni found it easy to have that trust with Anthony as her mentor. “Anthony's background appealed to me. He is regional-based, I’m in Geelong, but I’d lived in country Victoria for 20 years. He'd had some big businesses, such as in hospitality, with lots of staff. I wanted to learn from his experience managing lots of staff, as we were growing towards a bigger business,” Jeni shared.

Jeni appreciates that she could reach out to someone when she’s got concerns with her business. She recalls, “I’ve just been through some “stuff” in one of my businesses and just rang Anthony and said, ‘Hey, have you got a minute?’ He said to me at the end of the call, “Ring me every week”. I did that until things started to settle down. Having somebody that you know is on your side, that you can reach out to, knowing that those conversations are confidential and just having somebody that can give you a whole different perspective, is valuable. He's bought and sold different businesses and exited businesses so I trusted his insight.”

She adds, “It’s having somebody on your side where there's no expectation of anything in return. There are some people when you ring them and you know that they're going to expect something in return. I know that I can ring Anthony, ask him a question, he'll give me an answer and I know that he's on my side.”

Another thing Jeni values in mentorship is learning new insights from Anthony. “I don't know anything about hospitality or land development, but some of his experiences have really triggered ideas in me that I can go and put into action,” she explained. Anthony’s knowledge about connections and tapping into what he’s done before to expand his network helped Jeni to think of various ways to grow her consulting business, the EOS business, which is still in startup mode.

But it’s not just Jeni who’s learning from their regular catch-ups. Anthony has also picked a lot of ideas from Jeni as well, especially with her work on EOS. Other than business learnings, they also get to talk about life and family. For Anthony, the beauty of the EO Mentorship Program is it's being structured. “This is the first proper structured mentor process that I’ve been through and so far, it's been really good. It's a great experience. I love catching up monthly and talking about things that we’re going through. Sometimes, there are specific issues we've got to talk about and sometimes, it's just a general chit chat about what's going on in our lives.”

He added, “It has been something that has given us some structure to actually help and provide some mentorship. Hopefully, Jeni is finding that she's getting something out of it because it is a really difficult time that Jeni's in a startup and it's really hard to start a business when you've been locked down for 240 days or whatever has been. It's really tough, so I think all credit to Jeni for doing what she's doing and forging through with her business.”

Anthony has imparted encouraging words that still ring in Jeni’s mind. She recalls, “A few things that Anthony said to me through the course of our conversation that I’ve now got in the back of my mind that keeps popping up to remind me, which is to stay positive and to just keep an eye on my business and make sure that that’s still okay.”

This is what makes Jeni appreciate her mentorship journey even more, which is having a mentor who looks after her welfare as an entrepreneur. “When do you get having somebody sitting there for two hours and they're just completely for you in that time frame? But to me, that's the biggest value – the thought process that I go into before our meeting and then all I take out of that meeting to put into action over the next couple of weeks.”

Like Jeni, many EO Melbourne members are also reaping the benefits of the Mentorship Program. Recognising its value to the members, another intake is about to take place this March 2022. EO Melbourne members who are interested to be part of the program are welcome to apply at https://www.eomelbourne.org/mentorship. 

The importance of innovation in business

Competition is getting fiercer, technology is advancing faster, and market preferences are leaning towards newer products and services. For enterprises to have a continuous upward curve in their performance and remain relevant to the changing times, they need to look for ways to constantly innovate themselves and consistently improve their business.

Entrepreneurs see the importance of innovation to keep their businesses going. They’re always on the lookout for ideas that will improve their product offerings, better their services, widen their reach and be ahead of other players in the industry.

Here are a few examples of how entrepreneurs implement novel ideas in their businesses and how such ideas impact their organisations.

Online Marketplace and Customer Education Sessions

“We have recently launched a number of innovations, one of the standouts would be our new online Marketplace. We understand that our partners prefer to engage with us in various methods,” said Nick Clift, Co-founder at Otto and Founder of DWM Solutions. 

“Through feedback from our partners, we identified that there was a great opportunity to create a Marketplace where they could have a customised portal specific to their businesses that would provide standardised solutions which ensure they are always procuring items aligned to their business requirements,” he added.

As a company that is humanising technology, Nick and his team makes sure that they are able to help their clients with all the technical things that help their business grow. “The second (innovation) is our regular Customer Education Sessions where our team run a 45-min session for clients on various subject, e.g., Cyber Security best practices, data management, Office 365 tips and tricks. These sessions add value to our clients and the feedback has been very positive,” he explained.

Creative Leadership Team and Research & Development

Innovation is what drives the business of Nitasha Badhwar, Founder and CEO of Immersify and Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Sunpower Renewables. “Being heavily R&D-driven, innovation is naturally a core business value for us and a continuous reality. Innovation for us is more than just implementing new technology, solution, or process. It is our culture and one of our cornerstones – something that we come back to in good and bad times,” she remarked.

“We have learnt that a creative leadership team tends to be the ultimate driving force of innovation within an organisation, and we are lucky to have one. Our core team realises that with innovation there is no place for complacency. Therefore, we had to set up an innovation-friendly environment with systems and processes that support the initiative, creativity and R&D. One of the best things we did was to appoint a Product Manager to coordinate between different teams and prepare a business case to prioritise and justify adoption and creation of certain innovations over others, all measurable through keys metrics like ROI,” Nitasha expounded.

She added, “This helped us realise that we need to implement new technologies for faster and smoother product development resulting in the recent purchase of a new 3D printer that has helped improve R&D timelines by over 30%.”

Apart from this, Nitasha and her team continue to do hands-on research to know how else they can innovate their products and services. According to her, “Another key practice that we follow regularly is providing an immersive on the ground experience in different countries to our staff where they learn how to implement in real-time prudent and creative strategies to problem solve and overcome stumbling blocks. This is further strengthened by coming back to the R&D facilities, using state of the art equipment and working with other innovative minds to create a long term, paradigm-shifting solution. This two-step immersive training has created many a brainchild in our company, including our Cleo solar generator.”

Furthermore, Nitasha shared, “This model is famously termed as ‘Jugaad’ (Hindi term roughly translates as overcoming harsh constraints by improvising an effective solution using limited resources), a concept taught at Harvard Business School and has been a great learning experience for all of us.”

Micro innovations and experimenting and piloting new ways

John Bevitt, Managing Director at Honeycomb Strategy, admitted that “We’re big fans of ‘micro innovations’ or the little things that can help to make our jobs easier or add more value to the clients.” 

True enough, innovations do not necessarily have to be big as they can also be done in small actions but can result in a huge impact on one’s business. John shared, “In the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, he talks about how a performance coach for the British cycling team used a strategy called the “aggregation of marginal gains” to turn the team around and win the Tour de France, essentially by making a 1% margin for improvement in everything they did that added up to remarkable improvement.”

With this, what John does in his business is that “We encourage something similar, always looking for opportunities for improvement. Every team WIP starts with a short ‘tips and tricks’ session where the team can share shortcuts and hacks that they’ve found to be really useful. We’ve actually built this philosophy into our systems and processes as well – we’ve defined our processes as the ‘current best way we think we can do something.’ This gives the team permission to experiment and pilot new ways of doing things, and if it’s better, we change the process.”

Innovation: a road to the future

Most of what we have and use today are products of innovation, and they can change 5 or more years down the road. This shows that we are constantly developing and always finding opportunities for improvement. It is a path towards a more progressive future, not only for your business but also for the communities and societies you serve. Take a deep look into your business and see the areas where you can innovate, introduce new ideas, and become a changemaker.

The value of training in organisational development

How do you nurture your organisation’s human resources? Every member of your team is valuable on how to bring your business forward and achieve its goals. But as you take in new challenges, aim for greater heights and expand your horizons, how do you equip your people to ensure that you can all move towards the same direction and at the same speed?

When you want to grow your company and develop your organization, it is also necessary that you upskill the people within your team so that they’d be able to perform better and increase their productivity. What kind of training do you provide to your team that contribute to your business growth? Entrepreneurs share their experience on how they value training and how this has benefited their people and their organisation.

Areas where they can excel

Having some expertise in a particular skill, field or area is beneficial to individual team members as well as to the entire team because it facilitates growth in your organisation and establishes authority within your industry. Honing your people to be great at something can boost their morale as well as your customers’ confidence in your business.

Understanding the benefit of this to his business, Karl Simity, Managing Director of Canopy, supports the growth of his staff by equipping them through proper training. “Training for our team is a key focus, both in-house and external. If our team isn’t growing, the business won’t either. We encourage and coach our staff to look for areas where they want to excel in or areas where they could improve and then we build specific training plans for them,” he stated.

“Right now, we are running an executive training with our leadership team. Our design team is doing further technical training and our consultants are doing some external sales training. An investment in our team is an investment in our future,” Karl added. 

Learning resource and follow-up sessions

Building a learning resource for your team can be a huge help in ensuring continuous growth and development within your organisation. This is what Nick Clift, Co-founder at Otto and Founder of DWM Solutions, had in mind when they established the Otto Academy.

According to Nick, they have “Leadership Training, Personal Coaching, Individual development plans for all staff.  We have recently launched our online Otto Academy, this is a great learning resource that enables our staff to develop both role-specific skills and various other business/soft skills.”

But it doesn’t stop there. As in most learning processes, having follow-throughs are essential to ensure that there is regular progress and growth. “We run monthly and quarterly team meetings, where from time to time, we bring a Subject Matter Expert to run a session for the team. This often leads to follow-up sessions to hone a particular skill or technical knowledge,” Nick explained.

Team development plans

“Personal growth and development is a massive focus at Honeycomb and we begin building team development plans as soon as someone joins the team,” John Bevitt, Managing Director at Honeycomb Strategy, shared.

It is often advantageous to create learning opportunities for your staff and team development plans early on. Sometimes, learning opportunities don’t always come knocking at your doorstep, so it is better to proactively search for them and then work on plans that will ensure the growth and development of your team. 

John expounded on this, “Rather than just looking at training that helps employees to perform better in their role, we look at learning opportunities that help make all of us (including leadership) become better, more authentic and well-rounded humans. We’ve learned from experience that you do your best work when you’re being your most authentic self. This makes working on Dev Plans really interesting and really diverse – sure, we definitely have on-the-job training and such, but I’ve also got team members who have added ‘learning to weld’ or ‘get my pilot’s licence’ to their dev plans.”

Learning can be done not just on skills development but also in honing the mindset of individuals. John further explained, “As researchers and consultants who need to understand behavioural psychology and consumer behaviour as part of our role, a big element of our team development plans is also around understanding our own psychology, why we respond on how we do, and how our underlying beliefs, values and motivations contributes to this. This also helps to build empathy and emotional intelligence, which makes it easier to understand consumer behaviour, but also connect with clients. We often bring in subject matter experts to help with this and even had half our team attend a virtual Tony Robbins conference recently!”

Cross-education

Having additional knowledge outside of one’s field of expertise can also be helpful to your organisation. It widens your staff’s set skills and enables them to support each other and work better as a team.

Nitasha Badhwar, Founder and CEO of Immersify and Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Sunpower Renewables, illustrated how they do this in their business. “Our endeavour is to upskill our team members regularly. We have multiple internal departments, and for them to work better as a team, we found that it is important, every so often, for our staff to spend time in different departments to get a better understanding of other areas of the business. This cross-education has been crucial to our success, so far. We have implemented buddy days where they shadow a team member in a different department to learn about their job.”

This provides better coordination among departments and individuals. She added, “Learning and understanding each other’s roles and responsibilities, daily pressures, and deliverables creates a healthy and respectful working environment. In turn, this has created a much better workflow and has deepened the bonding between interdepartmental team members. This has the added benefit of making social and family days a lot more interactive and fun.”

Education and growth do not stop when we step out of the confines of the classroom. Learning continues in workplaces and it is necessary to develop your organisation and your business. There is a proverb that says “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link”, which is why it is critical to look after your people and ensure that they not only grasp the tasks or work assigned to them but also master what they do, be the best at it and expand their knowledge and set skills.

Corporate values and nurturing them in your business

Corporate values are important in every organisation because they provide a strong foundation for decision-making, team building, customer relations and driving your business forward. It is your company’s compass that directs you which way to go and the backbone on how to run your business successfully.

Every organisation has their respective corporate values, depending on the preference of the owners or board of directors or the purpose of the business for operating. Nurturing your corporate values strengthens your team and enables you to achieve your mission and goals. Here are some corporate values that entrepreneurs have in their businesses and how they ensure that these values are upheld in their organisations.

Integrity and accountability

Integrity is defined as “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness,” while accountability is “the fact or condition of being accountable; responsibility.”

For Nitasha Badhwar, Founder and CEO of Immersify and Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Sunpower Renewables, “Integrity and accountability are the most important values for us. In an organisation that values innovation, having integrity in what you believe in, what can be seen through to completion, and where time and resources need to be prioritised, is a crucial success factor.”

These two values are also often found in other organisations as they build trust within the team and from customers and third-party partners. Nitasha added, “We strongly believe that integrity in the workplace promotes an open and positive working environment that helps in developing happy, resilient, and successful teams with a strong moral, ethical and fair code of conduct.”

Diversity

John Bevitt, Managing Director at Honeycomb Strategy, revealed one of their core values that resonate well with their team. “Of our three core values, I think one of the most powerful ones is ‘Celebrate our Superpowers’. I love this one as it helps to celebrate our diversity – no matter the role or level of seniority, everyone has a ‘superpower’ that helps make them unique from everyone else. It’s the one thing that, if focused on, trained and nurtured, makes everything else easier or unnecessary,” he stated.

It’s not a common corporate value, but it is something that can stick to everyone’s mind. John further explained, “Every team member has an idea of what their superpower is and we create a development plan homing in on it and using it to help achieve their personal objectives, share learnings with the team and create an environment focused on strengths, not on weaknesses. Having clarity on these superpowers and knowing how these can be combined across the team creates a multiplier effect and is what has helped to take our business to the next level.”

Drive for results

With the end of sight, Canopy Managing Director Karl Simity shared that “Canopy was founded with the vision to create inspiring workplaces that encourage and enrich the lives of workplace inhabitants to build and grow successful organisations.”

Corporate values are often anchored on the vision of the business and its owner. A corporate value aims to help achieve this vision. Karl cited an example, “One of our values is to ‘Drive for outcomes’, and this value is something I see all our employees live by in their day-to-day activities. What helps us create these inspiring workplaces is the drive our people have to make it happen, to always push for success, and their persistence over resistance to solve problems.”

People first

Businesses are made for people, with the aim of providing solutions to concerns and challenges affecting our society. Corporate values are also people-centric because they are to be lived out by people for the people that the business serves, whether they are internal or external stakeholders.

This is why for Nick Clift, Co-founder at Otto and Founder of DWM Solutions, people are significant pillars of their corporate values. He expounded, “At Otto, our key corporate value would have to be People First. We are redefining the industry and Humanising Technology. Otto, as a brand, represents the humans behind the technology — the human hands that make the tech work. Essentially, we are a human-led, tech company, so I guess you could say that technically, we are anti-tech.”

If you look through other companies, businesses and organisations, you will find varying corporate values, yet these values define who they are as an institution. Values put a soul to your brand, especially on how you and your people act and conduct business accordingly.

What are your corporate values and why have you chosen them as your values? How do you ensure that your people live up to them? We’d like to hear your thoughts.

Essential items in an entrepreneur’s business scorecard

What is a scorecard? It’s a tool or report that monitors the status or success of a project. In business, a scorecard allows teams to set their goals and rate their performance vis-à-vis what they have set for themselves. Every organisation may have different scorecards, depending on their targets, focus and key performance indicators.    

For entrepreneurs, what are the most essential items in their business scorecard? EO Melbourne members share with us the important things they put in their scorecards and why they keep track of them.

• Net cash flow – According to Rahul Kale, Director at Sunpower Renewables, one of the three most essential items on their scorecard their Net Cash flow position (current and forecast). “This can make or break your company. You can be profitable in the long run, but if your net cash flow position is negative or has the potential to be in the red then you are in serious trouble. For me, this is the most important metric to monitor,” Rahul explained.

• Cash at bank – For Jeni Clift, Director/General Manager of DWM Solutions, “no cash = no more business. We need to know the cash position every week,” she stated, which is why they need to put Cash at Bank in their scorecard.

• Total dollar amount quoted - Anthony Lam, Managing Director of Punchy Digital Media, remarked that knowing the “total dollar amount quoted gives us an indicator of our future work and pipeline.”

• Headcount, revenue and net profit – Appscore Co-Founder & Managing Director Alex Louey shared that they have various scorecards in the various levels of their organisation. “At the company level, the most important ones are pretty boring – headcount, revenue and net profit. We use the headcount as a measure because our target is to be 300 persons in 24 months,” he expounded.

• Performance measures – “At the team level, we use a dashboard to measure performance and predict outcomes. We normally have 2 leading indicators and 2 lagging indicators, i.e., for the sales team, each salesperson is to have a rolling $3M new business qualified pipeline for a $1M new business target. On the other hand, our recruitment team’s measure is on the number of interviews as a leading indicator and the number of contracts signed, targeted at 3 per week,” Alex added.

• Customer and employee satisfaction – This is another item on Rahul’s scorecard. “This is not a regular metric as we update this semi-annually, but we have found this to be a great metric to monitor and shape our strategy. This gives us an external perspective of what our employees and customers are thinking of us and our products and it helps us improve, innovate, and get better.”

• Days when projects are open – This is found in Anthony’s scorecard because for him and his team, “the average number of days that projects have been open gives us an idea of our current production pipeline.”

• Total projects open – In addition to the number of days that their projects are open, Anthony also looks at their “Total number of projects open, which gives us an idea of our capacity.”

• R&D and Non-R&D costs – These costs are important to Rahul because according to him, “We are all about innovation, and understanding the R&D spending is an important gauge on how we innovate and evolve our product offering.”

Depending on your industry and type of business, you may have different things on your business scorecard. Also, within your organisation, each level, department, unit or team member may have different scorecards based on their deliverables. Also, this tool helps in improving one’s performance, growth and development, whether as a group or as an individual.  

Share with us in the comments section below what you have in your scorecards and why they are important to your business.

Managing the daily influx of emails – is it possible?

Going through the daily messages is one of the constant concerns of busy entrepreneurs and business owners. Jeni Clift, Director/General Manager of DWM Solutions and a Professional EOS Implementer admitted that she needs help when it comes to managing and organising the daily influx of emails she receives.

“Unfortunately, I use my inbox as a repository of emails. I am open to seeing how others do this as it is not an effective method,”

But not all is lost, here are a few tips we put together from some of our EO members that may help you get ahead of the game.

Schedule reading your emails

According to Arosh Fernando, Founder and Director of WooHah Productions, “The biggest time killer in our world right now is email, especially when you’re getting cc’d in everything and the inbox is filling up fast if you don’t check it. Fellow EO Member Dean Cherny had a great idea which I adopted – checking emails at given times of the day. So I do this at 10 am and 2 pm, for 30 minutes to an hour, depending on whatever your business needs are at the moment. This helps me manage time around and, as a CEO, get to tick off the real objectives like my long term goals to grow the business. As I have learnt in EO many times over, it’s not about what we start doing but it’s what we STOP doing that is important to enable us to focus our time and energy on the big goals.”

Scheduling reading and responding to your emails is a brilliant idea that can be a big help, as long as it suits your work schedule and lifestyle as well as the requirements of your business. You can calendar going through your messages at certain times of the day and make sure you have the discipline to carry it through.

File and have separate inboxes

Another helpful tip is to file your messages in folders so that it’s easier for you to check them. You might need to allocate some time to do the preliminary work, such as creating folders and segregating messages, so that the succeeding ones that arrive in your inbox get filtered easily.  

Anthony Lam, Managing Director of Punchy Digital Media, shared, “I have separate inboxes and tackle each one at separate times. I have one for clients, prospects, and teams. I try to set a timer and tackle each inbox one at a time.”

On the other hand, Appscore Co-Founder & Managing Director Alex Louey tries to undertake the challenge of sorting through his emails through their levels of priority. “My inbox is a disaster, and I wish I could tell you that it is well-sorted and filed. The only ones that I focus on that are a must-do are customer-related ones. They get top priority and my full attention. The rest get attended to in terms of the priority of my task list that I run throughout the day or week. I can’t respond to everyone that tries to contact me so I don’t,” he professed.

Work on “zero” emails

Having “0 emails on inbox” is one of the policies that Damian Blumenkranc, co-Founder of Creativa, Attento and Just Click Videos and CEO of Sunset Sleepers, personally follows. “I use a very simple decision tree to tackle them as they come:

1 - Can I respond to this quickly on the fly? If yes, then I just respond to it and archive it;

2 - If no: Is this something I will read/look into on spare time? Then I move it to my ‘read later’ folder that I can read on the train or when I finish work;

3 - Is this something I need to work on for more than a few minutes to respond to it? I set a time on the calendar to work on it and even copy the link of the email or the content of the email as a reference, then I can archive it as I will be working on it when the time comes;

4 - For those emails that we want to keep as a reference for something but really have no need to reply, I move them to an 'important info’ folder and those that I want to use as a reminder to follow up later I also put on the calendar or I snooze them for later.”

Automate it

In this era when technology has created so many breakthroughs in fast-tracking everything we do, one can get a little help by automating their emails. It is one of the things that Nathan Chan, CEO & Publisher of Foundr Magazine, does to lessen the workload brought about by daily emails. “I have automation rules,” he declared. “Also, “I view my inbox as everyone else's to-do list and treat that accordingly.”

Depending on the email software or platform you use, various email automation tools can make things easier for you, sometimes sending automated replies, based on the rules you create. You can consult with an IT professional or explore how you can make this work for you and your business.

Hire an assistant

But apart from automating his emails, Nathan also gets a little help from his staff. “I have an incredible EA (executive assistant),” he added. If the tasks are too many and going through your daily emails can often become a burden to you, don’t hesitate to delegate to your team or have someone help you with it so that you can attend more on other important matters.

If you’ve been in this situation before – getting overwhelmed with the number of emails you receive and you’ve surpassed it, share with us how you have overcome it as it may also be helpful to those who are currently stuck in this predicament.

Using LinkedIn to promote your business

LinkedIn is a social media platform that has been used by individuals, companies, and organisations to connect, network, and promote their products, services, causes, and brands. Entrepreneurs have also recognised the value of LinkedIn to their business, and EO Members share with us how they utilise LinkedIn to promote their brands and organisations and take advantage of the platform’s network.

Create brand awareness

As more and more professionals connect on LinkedIn, it becomes an effective venue to push for brand recognition. Although most users tend to use it for business purposes, it doesn’t mean one cannot get creative and playful on this platform. Let your brand’s personality shine and inject a bit of fun to make your posts stand out.

“I use LinkedIn for business to create brand awareness and get known in my field. It is mostly for PR purposes. To be honest, I treat it more like Facebook and do not take it too seriously as some of the comments I leave are more for fun than serious engagement. LinkedIn can be a bit dry sometimes, so why not spice it up,” quipped Alex Louey, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Appscore.

Attract new prospects

Raising awareness for your brand can help generate prospective customers and new clients for you. If you use LinkedIn well by regularly expanding your network and posting quality content, you will be able to attract a potential market for your business.

“We use our LinkedIn to re-purpose awesome content that will help us attract new prospects to our community and world that, in turn, will hopefully see our brand as a source to learn from,” said Nathan Chan, CEO and Publisher of Foundr Magazine.

Promote one’s products and services

While you’re at it, go beyond your regular posts. Talk about your products and services so that readers become more familiar with what you do and what you can offer. Your content doesn’t have to be a hard sell as you can subtly present your offerings that can pique the interest of your readers. 

“We use it to post and share videos that we have produced for our clients. It's a great way to showcase what we do on a mass scale. And every month, we always win new clients that say they found us through the videos that we share,” Anthony Lam, Managing Director of Punchy Digital Media, claimed.

Tell a story

LinkedIn is a platform for professionals, but remember that they are also individuals whom you can inspire and motivate. The users can also relate to your experiences, so use the platform to reach out to them through your stories.

“LinkedIn has been my go-to marketing platform to tell an authentic story without spamming people’s inboxes. During COVID, when we had no budget for marketing but still needed to tell the story to the world, we used LinkedIn to showcase and as a case study of what we were doing. The result from this was a 75% increase in new customers. Being able to connect with people at a one-on-one level was important to me. Few important things on LinkedIn -- personal profiles and personal articles get better traction than company updates,” Arosh Fernando, Founder and Director of WooHah Productions, shared.

Build credibility and authority

There is power in your LinkedIn profile and posts. Whatever you put out there can make or break your image. Make LinkedIn work for your advantage by sharing things that can build your portfolio. Share your wins, give and ask for recommendations, engage with people in your network, update your profile, and be consistent in your messaging.

“I use LinkedIn in building credibility and as a way of being seen. I try and post an article weekly that is in alignment with how I want to be recognised, which is as an authority on People,” remarked Jeni Clift, Director/General Manager of DWM Solutions and a Professional EOS Implementer.

If you have some great experiences on how LinkedIn has helped you in your business, share them with us through the comments section below.

Check out the EO Melbourne LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/eo-melbourne.

How to become an impactful public speaker

Every entrepreneur has a good story to tell. But, how do you tell a story and make a difference? How do you deal with stage fright? How do you make sure that you create an impact every time you come in front of the audience? Some of our EO Melbourne members share how they overcome this fear and make sure that their story and learnings reach their audience effectively.

We’ve got help from Appscore Co-Founder and Managing Director Alex Louey; Punchy Digital Media Managing Director Anthony Lam; WooHah Productions Founder and Director Arosh Fernando; DWM Solutions Director/General Manager and Professional EOS Implementer Jeni Clift; and Foundr Magazine CEO and Publisher Nathan Chan, who shared with us their learnings on how to become an impactful public speaker.

Preparation

“Public Speaking is something I enjoy doing, although I still get nervous after 20 years. But I know this is a good thing as preparation is key to a flawless presentation in any public speaking event,” Arosh Fernando pointed out.

This is why many public speakers always say this, “Practice, practice, practice,” which Anthony Lam also reiterated. “The first proper public speaking event I did was the Digital Marketing Summit 3 years ago. I practised the presentation until I knew it by heart. I had 4 weeks to learn and I practised 2-3 times throughout the day. But having done it once, I think it would be pretty easy to do it again, going forward,” Anthony enthused.

Proper preparation also includes putting together the right materials needed for the presentation. “Make sure your slides don't have too much text,” Nathan Chan stated, to which Jeni Clift added, “Just a handful of slides – not death by PowerPoint.”

Connecting with the audience

Being able to resonate with your audience is an important factor in a powerful presentation. “Really make sure that you understand the audience you are speaking to,” Nathan remarked. That entails “Talking TO the audience and not to the lectern or the screen behind you,” as Jeni advised.

In order to keep your audience focused on your message, “Keep still and stay in control of your hands. It is so distracting for people to be pacing the stage or waving their hands around as that will probably make you lose your audience,” Jeni added.

It also helps that you acknowledge your audience every now and then during your presentation. “My biggest tip for public speaking is to pump up your audience by telling them how amazing they are,” Alex Louey said.

On the other hand, Anthony shared an interesting insight. “Lower the bar. I always try to share very advanced tips, which I find they confuse the audience at times. It's always better to lower the bar on how ‘amazing’ the content needs to be and keep it simple. More times than not, what I find as ‘common knowledge’ is what the audience will relate to and find most interesting,” he stated.

Delivery and presentation proper

Once you have prepared well and connected with your audience, be mindful of the delivery of your messages. Arosh’s tip is to break it into segments. “Have an intro or icebreaker, make your content interesting like ‘5 Things I Love Doing When Public Speaking’, and highlight the value and summary. This helps the content to stick because sticky content is what people remember. Keeping it short and sharp will make it impactful rather than long drawn out speeches,” he shared.

For Alex, it is also important that you “slow down your speaking by pausing so you don’t sound rushed.”

Moreover, a good story can make the audience relate to you and remember what you are trying to convey. “I love to use a story to articulate what I need to get across,” Arosh said. This is echoed by Nathan, “Tell as many stories as you can. They are what people remember the most. Lastly, be vulnerable.”

These are simple yet very helpful tips for those who may soon be facing a group of people to speak about their business or a particular topic. If you have additional tips on public speaking that you’d want to share, please feel free to drop them in our comment section below.

Ways to motivate your staff at work: 5 tips from EO Melbourne Members

One of the factors of a successful business is having a strong and dedicated team that keeps the organisation running like a well-oiled machine. However, no matter how passionate, hardworking and talented your people are, they still experience exhaustion, burnout, boredom, frustration, disappointment and all other things that may slow down or hinder your progress.

Your workforce is an important asset of your business. It is just fitting that you look after their welfare and keep them motivated at work to inspire them to do their best, perform well and hit their targets. EO Melbourne members share various ways on how to encourage your team members and inspire them to keep going.

Communicate your vision and plans

Having a shared vision and goal, such as where you want to bring the business and how you want to get there, is essential in leading a team. Apart from being transparent when it comes to your objectives and plans for your enterprise, there are also advantages when you present to them how they can grow and develop within your organisation because it helps them to visualise and understand that when your business advances, it also has a positive ripple effect on them.

A helpful tip from John Liston, Director at Liston Newton Advisory is “I try to communicate clearly the vision of the business and where we are going together. The vision of the business is that we grow in size, and there are more opportunities for career growth, development and personal wealth for all those involved. The price of admission to be on that journey is that all staff own their numbers and hit their targets.” 

Give affirmation

Sometimes, all it takes is a little push or a few words of encouragement to bring out the best in them. Trusting in your team’s capabilities enables them to prove themselves worthy of such trust and empowers them to come up with strategies and plans that will help them achieve their targets. Affirming their good works also emboldens them to always put their best foot forward in everything they do. That is why Carlo Santoro, Founder of RetailCare, makes sure that he is “standing alongside the team at all times and giving them deep confidence in their skills and ability.”

Conduct regular huddles

Constant interaction and communication is key to a stronger team. And even when some of your staff may be working from home or in remote locations, find time to have regular contact and huddles to discuss various updates, concerns and other aspects of their job and areas that may also be affecting their work. Take this also as an opportunity to talk about light matters that can make your regular meetings more interesting and fun.

As an example, Punchy Digital Media Managing Director Anthony Lam shared, “One of my favourite things that we do is we start our Friday weekly huddle with a communication starter and go around the team. These can range from light-hearted to some very deep questions that let us learn more about each other.”

Jason Ellenport and his team at Edison Partners also do something similar to what Anthony imparted. “During the lockdown, we ran regular short 30-minute daily WIP sessions to ensure the team was on the same page. This was supplemented by a ‘Friday drinks’ session to maintain informal team interaction and culture,” Jason conveyed.

Have some fun activities with the staff

Organise some fun activities and interesting initiatives for you and your team outside of your regular meetings. You can do team building sessions or have monthly or quarterly get-togethers or arrange for small put a hobby corner at your workplace. There are many things you can do and you can even tap on your staff to take the initiative on this. Sometimes, it’s good to see the various sides of your team members where they are not confined to stiff and structured environments.

Professional EOS Implementer and the Director/General Manager of DWM Solutions Jeni Clift shares a brilliant idea on how to inject enjoyment in the workplace. “I am an eDISC Practitioner and run some activities around the different behaviour styles to give people a greater understanding of how different people behave. One of these is set in a pretend café and is always different and fun.”

Reward them for a job well done

Having a reward system is one of the methods business owners implement in organisations because it’s a key motivation as well as a form of recognition to those who do their job well and even beyond expectations. Some rewards may come in the form of incentives, awards, promotions or gifts. It’s also important that you understand the kind of remunerations that will appeal to your team. There may be those who appreciate getting material gifts while others may prefer having a one-of-a-kind experience.

One example is going on trips like how Nathan Chan, CEO and Publisher of Foundr Magazine, and his team has done. “We did an all-expenses-paid trip with our team to Thailand for hitting our annual revenue goal targets. It was an incredible shared experience and brought the team closer together.”

There are various ways to encourage your staff to perform well and achieve their goals and targets. Please share with us your experience on how you have done it in your organisation through the comment section below. We’d love to hear your story as it may also inspire others to do the same.

EO Melbourne Members who were recognised in 2020 for their outstanding achievements

The year 2020 is perhaps one of the most challenging times due to the current global crisis that everyone is experiencing. Yet, amidst the sullenness that the pandemic may have brought upon us, some shine bright, inspiring and encouraging us to keep on and face the difficulties with optimism and determination.

Among them are entrepreneurs and companies that have been recognised by various institutions and organisations in their respective industries for the hard work and brilliance they have shown through their businesses.

2020 SmartCompany Resilience Awards

Since its inception in 2007, SmartCompany has been paying tribute to the fastest-growing SMEs in the country through its Smart50 Awards. While it took a break in 2019 and was bound to come back this year, present circumstances have stirred it to change tracks and recognise companies that have exhibited the knack for problem-solving, flexibility and rebounding from disappointments. Thus, the first-ever SmartCompany Resilience Awards was conceived.

There are four categories: Adaptation, Community, People and Agility. Five businesses were shortlisted per category and one of them was announced as the winners by a panel of judges. Work Health Australia, founded and owned by Dr James L Murray, bagged the top position in the People category “for its focus on keeping its team connected and productive during Victoria’s multiple lockdowns.”

Other shortlisted businesses by EO Melbourne Members are Arosh Fernando’s Woohah Productions and Mark Calabro’s HungryHungry under the Adaptation category.

TEMI’s 2020 Australasian Mobile Workforce Awards

The Employee Mobility Institute (TEMI) introduced the Australasian Mobile Workforce Awards in 2019 to give merit to those who excel in the talent mobility industry, ranging from talent management to HR, employee engagement, remuneration, taxation, relocation, mobility, immigration, diversity and inclusion, corporate travel or housing, and other disciplines related to this field.

The Award Program acknowledged individuals, teams and initiatives in the industry at a local and regional level. Twelve awardees were honoured in this program; three winners each for the Leadership Excellence Awards, Business Advancement Award, and Employee Engagement Awards; and one awardee each for the Employee Mobility Champion of the year: Highly Commended Award, 2020 GMP1 Outstanding Achievement Award, and 2020 GMP1 Highly Commended Award.

Jamie Lingham, Global Immigration Lead of Absolute Immigration, is hailed as one of the Employee Engagement Awards Winners. “Receiving The Employee Mobility Institute’s award for Wellbeing Initiative of the Year for 2020 was a huge honour, especially given the impact COVID has had on the mobility and immigration industry. With passenger arrivals to Australia down by 99%, our objective was to keep the team engaged and employed while retaining the investment and corporate memory of the business. We know that the investment made in employee wellbeing will pay dividends into 2021 and beyond!” he said.

ARN Women in ICT Awards 2020

The Women in ICT Awards (WIICTA) was launched in 2012 to honour the accomplishments of female innovators and leaders who have played notable roles in the local ICT industry.

This year, over 110 individuals were included in the final shortlist in the following categories: Entrepreneur, Rising Star, Shining Star, Community, Technical and Achievement. Under the Shining Star – Partner category, Jeni Clift of DWM Solutions is among the finalists. The Shining Star awards are candidates that have eight or more years of experience in the ICT industry and have significant feats in a flourishing profession, as shown through milestones and successful projects.

“I was thrilled to be recognised within my industry as a Finalist in the category SHINING STAR – PARTNER of ARN’s Women In ICT Awards. I am familiar with the calibre of women who work in this industry and am honoured to be included amongst leaders who are making a difference!” Jeni expressed.

Ragtrader’s The Power 30

Every year, Ragtrader, a publication that comes up with news, features, analysis and opinion on Australia’s clothing, footwear and accessories sector, celebrates people in the industry that have innovated and created a remarkable impact in eCommerce, retail and design.

This year, among the influential fashion traders that made it to the Power 30 list is Lee Munro of Munro Footwear Group. Its productive partnership with suppliers, especially with the challenges that 2020 has brought, has helped them overcome obstacles in inventory.

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Congratulations to all business leaders who have been recognised this year and cheers to all entrepreneurs that have braved the proverbial storms and painstakingly led their teams through the crisis. You all deserved a pat on the back for all your efforts to navigate through the current situation.

Online training: how to conduct it effectively

To adapt to the present challenges, events like meetings, seminars, conferences and training sessions move from the physical space to online platforms with the use of technology. There are pros and cons to this scenario -- it allows everyone the opportunity to take part of these virtual sessions regardless of location, but poses some limitations on what can be done and cannot be done.

“We conduct our online training by first having our systems and processes documented.”

Anthony Lam

Managing Director, Punchy Digital Media

As one of Australia's leading animated explainer video production agency, Punchy Digital Media has been serving several big names in various industries through their teams across major cities in the country. Training their people is essential in getting the work done successfully.

Documentation and proper systems and processes are essential. Other than that, Anthony cites other points that make online training done effectively in their organization. “We have someone on our team create a flow chart which is colour coordinated and outline a certain workflow. We use a tool called Lucidchart which is very easy to create and edit flow charts and share online. We then create an additional flow chart which outlines every single task this particular person has to do.”

“Finally, we use screen recording tools, such as Loom.com, to talk through a certain process and explain how and why we are doing certain tasks. We record and store these videos for ongoing training. 

I've found this approach to be very visual and easy to follow and gives team members a reference to go back to. As the business owner, I find I am the worst person at documenting anything! Luckily, we have team members who are great at this so I delegate the task out. This is ideally someone who is very process-driven and has great attention to details,” said Anthony.

But how do they keep their training engaging and effective? “We always start with a communication starters/ice breakers,” Anthony shared. He also mentioned these following pointers: 

• Use Lots of screen sharing

• Make it visual and fun by using lots of videos

• Communication is mostly non-verbal so we turn our camera on for that sense of connection

• Ask for permission to record your training sessions, so you can send them a copy of the video

• Keep the sessions short

“What I have learned is to set the guidelines and expectations upfront very clearly.”

Jeni Clift

Professional EOS Implementer and Director/General Manager, DWM Solutions

Jeni is a Professional EOS Implementer and a transformational coach specialising in business, leadership and personal development who give other entrepreneurs the skills and systems for ongoing success. As such, training is part of her routine.

“I normally run full-day sessions of face-to-face training. Of course, in recent months, I have had to learn how to deliver these sessions virtually. As the training is focused on business strategy, planning and review, it can be quite difficult to keep people engaged whilst in the room. The thought of having to do this virtually was daunting, to say the least,” Jeni remarked.

Moreover, shifting towards the online space is not only the only concern Jeni has to deal with when it comes to training people. “I work with leadership teams, so I have everything from highly visionary people, some of whom are very busy and may have very short attention spans, to those wanting to go into all the details and analyse all the data, such as engineers and accountants, to name a few, as well as everything in between. Thus, keeping the sessions interesting for so many different personalities keeps me on my toes.”

Training different kinds of people in various settings have brought so many learnings to Jeni. “What I have learned is to set the guidelines and expectations upfront very clearly.  The camera should be on. Let everyone know that they can stand up if they need to, but to keep the camera on.  All distractions off, such as notifications of emails or messages on Teams or Slack. Phones must be silent, turned off or on flight mode and face down. Watch for distractions and call them out. Ask if we need to take a break so people can take a 5 to 10-minute walk around the house or outside for some fresh air and then get everyone back on track.”

Jeni also cited a few tips to keep the online training sessions more engaging:

• Do some short activities. “I watch closely when people start to flag, then we take a break or have some exercises or activities to get people up and active for a few minutes. Sometimes I let them run around their house on a ‘treasure hunt’. The great thing about entrepreneurs is that they are very competitive? You’d be surprised at what you can get people to bring back to their desk.”

• Ensure attendees have plenty of water. “I always have insulated water bottles to make sure I have a supply of cold water. I advise my participants to have water ready as well.”

• Allow everyone to participate. “I have found with online sessions, it is easy for the noisier people to dominate the sessions, and the quiet ones to either not speak up or they just don’t get heard. Make sure you set an ‘order’ for the participants in the session and as you go through the day, follow the same order and constantly check in with everyone.”

• Ask for feedback from everyone at the end of the session. “I always ask ‘what worked well and what didn’t work’. I am constantly learning from this feedback on how to do things better. You start to understand the different personalities and how to manage the sessions to suit as many people as possible.”

• Make the most of online/virtual training. “I also tend to not make such a big deal of online/virtual training.  I believe it will be our only way of doing things for a while and we are now used to working and training this way. The more of an issue I make it, the more it is an issue -- it is what we have and we will make the most of it.”

• Put the fun in learning. “Make it as fun and interesting as you can. My cat often jumps up on to my desk, so I just introduce him. I was hosting a fireside chat session for our clients and my two dogs came and sat with me. I have met so many animals and babies, sung happy birthday to people’s kids. None of this would have happened without our current online sessions!”

Share your tips

What new insights have you learned from the tips and experiences mentioned above? If you have additional tips to share, feel free to leave your comments below.