I abandoned the confines of the office on Thursday to spend a day at The Brew’s Central Coast Business Collaborations Forums, hosted at Mingara.
I took away something of value from each of the workshops I attend, not to mention the various keynote presentations and opportunity to mingle with non-accountants. 
Glenn Dobson from the Kona Group provided both an entertaining and practical workshop on customer communication. I’m thrilled I chose Glenn’s workshop as I was in a position where I had to rely on what I had learned the very next day… with great success! Many thanks to Glenn for pointing out that the quality of our conversations is influenced by the quality of our questions. What would normally have been a quick 2 minute exchange became a productive, enjoyable discussion of 45 minutes that resulted in additional business and several good leads.
Debra Templar from The Templar Group was an absolute delight and fullfilled my need for lots of info in minimum time. The first of Debra’s workshops I made my way into was all about ‘branding’. It’s so simple and yet I had never thought of branding as ‘pre-selling’ before… or given much though to brand ‘personality’. Duh! Later in the day I made the most of Debra’s expertise by taking her next worskshop on local area marketing. Now, if you are anything like me, you’ve read all the books, you know it all in theory, you can even speak the lingo… but do you really know it AND put it into practice? I’ll admit that I’m more a ‘knowing’ and less ‘doing’ kind of gal when it comes to marketing. Debra was able to cut through the babble and get right to the key points - I came away with a clear immediate focus (and a big reminder that I need to work on that ‘elevator speech’…. my effort was embarrassing).
I’m not a sporting fan and was not sure what to expect from Steven Bradbury’s keynote speech. As it turned out, I was moved, amused and inspired by Steven’s story. His rise to success is not a tale of luck but one of hard work, determination, more hard work and the courage to keep fighting to reach his goals. Steven’s story is rich but the message is simple… keep showing up each day and doing the best that you can. Of course, I took the opportunity for a photo (thank goodness for camera phones) and purchased a signed copy of Steven’s inspirational book, Last Man Standing.
I have everything published by Brian Tracy and Zig Ziglar, so it’s no surprise I thoroughly enjoyed Tony Gattari’s (The Achiever’s Group) presentation – see, Tony, you do appeal to some ‘owls’. . Tony is a charismatic and entertaining speaker with a wealth of valuable insights to share. Tony spent time describing various personalities and how to deal with them. He pegged my type to a tee… it was almost spooky! What it also did was highlight to me one of my greatest weaknesses… what Tony called ‘paralysis by analysis due to an unattainable need for perfection. So, I took some insight into myself away from Tony’s speech along with an abundance of practical tips and tricks for working with other personality types. I purchased Tony’s book, Marketing Success, while at the conference and from I have read so far, it’s probably one of the first truly practical books for small business I’ve seen in a long time (and I should add, I consume at least one business book a week).
Okay, so you’ve missed the Central Coast event now (you’ll know for next year) but you’re not too late for the Sydney Small Business Expo. You can book online at The Brew.
Article by Christie Lewis
Christie is Practice Manager at Alan Lewis Accountants . Besides accounting, her passion is for all things small business (and blogging, of course). You can contact Christie directly at christie@lewistaxation.com.au.
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Hi Christie you also appeal to me also ,glad you enjoyed the session and book
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