Articles

No one goes from zero to hero after attending a trade show, but with the right preparation, US tradeshows can deliver Australian companies a slew of market opportunities. Phil Rogers explains.

As Sydney 2000 illustrated, the Olympic Games present a wonderful opportunity for the host country to channel the attending global attention into commercial momentum. But with the global economy on the slow road to recovery, will Canada be able to parlay the triumph of Vancouver's recently concluded Winter Olympics into sustained business success?

How is the media handling the digital ecosphere? Matthew da Silva discussed the view from the wall with key players in attendance at last month’s Media 2010 conference, a Sydney ideas forum sponsored by Fairfax Digital.

In the final post in this popular series, Nigel Malone shares his thoughts on creatives in a business context. “Many a client has told me the creative process is foreign to them, and they don’t really understand how ‘creative people’ do what they do. By the same token, many creatives, to their detriment, fail to understand the consumer and prefer to operate in an artistic vacuum. And if some clients pitched their wares directly to the consumer, well they’d lose interest pretty quickly.”

Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich had a profound influence on the way people approach business. However, The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons, Hill’s lesser-known 1,600+ page monstrosity published prior to Think and Grow Rich, contains a lot of useful information that can help you reach your potential. In this series, Joshua Moore covers each of these attributes in a practical way that you can apply to your life and work.

“If ever my optimism or motivation wains slightly, I try to picture it all working out in the end, just as planned. And if that doesn’t work, I just imagine how lucky I am not to have to get up each morning and do something really challenging, such as naked bungie jumping. Suddenly, seeking capital, staying motivated, etc., seems relatively simple, not to mention a lot less embarrassing.”

If there's a mistake an SME can make online, I've made it in the last five years. My ecommerce site was hacked for reasons that will soon become apparent. My blog disappeared on the very same day and I avoided joining Twitter until last Friday because, “bloody hell -- I already have enough to do!”

Luke Faccini, Director of Creativity at Sydney-based agency The Sponge, was one of the hundred plus people to attend the Venture Capital by Design seminar co-hosted by Anthill Magazine and MitchelLake in Sydney last week. He thought the insights on offer were sufficiently meaty to warrant this write-up.

Funding and cashflow are the seemingly ever elusive crucial components to running a small business. With the banks being the most obvious source to approach, business owners often find this a frustrating and generally ‘closed-door’ option. David Hechtor looks at the alternatives.

In the ninth post in this series, Nigel Malone shares the contents of another of his favourite business keynote slides, drawn from a cross-section of sources that includes some of the great business, brand and military planners of all time.

The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons, Napoleon Hill’s 1,600+ page monstrosity published prior to Think and Grow Rich, contains a lot of useful information that can help you reach your potential. Over the coming weeks, Joshua Moore will be coving these lessons in a practical way that you can apply to your life and work. The first principle in the book is known as the Master Mind.

Entrepreneurs like to fly by the seat of their pants, implementing ideas almost as quickly as they occur. However, successful companies know the critical importance of adding a sturdy layer of testing to the product development process. Pollenizer’s Mick Liubinskas explains.

Earlier this week one of my clients exposed to me that she felt like a fraud as a business consultant. She can’t be the only one. Right?! If you’ve never felt like a fraud then don’t even bother reading the rest of this article.

Are your technology suppliers and support providers advising you according to your best interests, or theirs?

I can never figure out if that Dire Straits song goes “money for nothing and your chicks for free” or “money for nothing and your cheques for free”. Let’s stick with cheques for this post, because everyone knows you don’t get chicks for free unless you play the guitar on the MTV. Plus, getting cheques for free is in context with what I want to talk about.

Anyone in sales will tell you it’s a process -- and they are dead right. But what is that process? Enter the Sales Funnel, another of my favourite slides.

When business partners launch a new company, all of their attention and energy goes into getting the new venture on its feet. However, it’s not long before questions and difficulties arise over disparate workloads, responsibilities and remuneration. Darren Bourke offers some advice on how to keep all parties walking in the same direction.

Plans by Silex Systems Limited to buy the assets of Solar Systems, the Melbourne-based solar energy company that was placed into administration last September, injects life into a cherished plan, but uncertainty persists. Government support is in the offing and, worse for engineers, the technology remains unproven at utility scale.

Doing business in Japan has often presented cultural difficulties for westerners. However, as our expat entrepreneur living in Tokyo Jon Sparks reveals in this new series, Japan might be in the shadow of the emerging markets of China and India, but is still one of the best places in Asia for entrepreneurs to operate.

There is no greater exercise in commercial branding than the Grammy Awards. So which brands were the winners and losers at this year’s Grammys?