So, come on, Jen, give us some joy, happiness and positivity.

Yeah, look, it's pretty tough, isn't it, to try and find something that, you know, if there's a business owner listening that won't throw the radio at me if I say, you know, we just need to diversify our marketing or, you know, something like that.

It's tough out there in small business land and I think as much as, you know, I want to put a positive spin on our chat today, it's tough.

It's really tough and it just seems to be...

One thing after another, especially this week.

But if I'm allowed to mention a brand on today, I did notice it's been 10 years since Ford stopped manufacturing in Geelong.

And I just thought that was a good little segue into what did it feel like 10 years ago in Geelong.

like a good idea.

But, you

know, that could help, you know, your wallet and your bottom line, but also can, you know, maybe just work well as a make you feel a little bit lighter as you've gone through things like that.

Stock, if you're a business that happens to carry stock, I'm sure you did a stock take probably coming to the end of the financial year But did you actually do anything with that dead stock or with, you know, the stock that you have lying around or that box you discovered that you never knew that you had? You know, is it time to sort of spring clean that? And also, I guess, if you've got stock, looking at those shelves, you know, are they moving? Do you need to create something to make that stock move quicker? Because you've probably got a lot of stock coming in for Christmas as such, which, of course, now we're in spring, isn't that far away.

If yours says copyright 1997, as many of them still do, because that's when you set it up, probably time to have a bit of a look at it.

Absolutely.

That's such a good idea.

And, you know, especially I noticed that when I print workbooks and things like that, you know, I'm all about reusing things that I've already got in my business and I need to make sure that I don't print one that has, you know, copyright 2021 or something like that because I've grabbed the page from some other workbook that I did a while ago.

So, yeah, absolutely doing that.

And so what's, you know, what's the best kind of, of both worlds there?

Well, I guess it is understanding your messaging and understanding what it is that you want to do.

What are the goals in your business? Like, some people, some health professionals do get quite vulnerable, and they do share their own personal stories, and to a certain point, we all need to share our own personal stories.

How personal those stories are is u- up to us, right? You know, whether or not you wanna share something really quite personal is 100% up to you.

But you still have stories, as, you know, to share with other people.

So I think, first of all, you have to be comfortable.

Uh, if you're trying to build a business, I would say that you do have to sort of stick to the task kind of thing.

So what's your, what's your sort of tips for what we should be thinking about in terms of creating our own strategies or why it's so important?

Yeah, so when we're young and enthusiastic and we make decisions and think, oh, the world is our oyster, we can do this, do you think there should be a tougher criteria for people to start small businesses rather than the one we have now, which is if you think it's a good idea and someone can give you enough money, away you go?

Look, I think that if they put more restrictions around, I think there should be maybe more government-based courses that people can do and maybe local, state and federal governments need to make it a little bit more obvious where the resources are because there's certainly a lot of resources out there for a small business owner.

But I kind of push back a little bit on the four out of five businesses fail because from a marketing point of view, I just think they simply burn out because they can't market themselves well enough to get enough customers through the door or find enough customers and then for enough repeat customers.

Small businesses have a really bad habit of always chasing the next sale as opposed to actually going back to the customer's who already know, like, and trust them.

But I think there is an element of burnout rather than failure in there.

They're just like, oh, this is just, okay, I'd be better off just getting a job and using my skills there.

Whereas if you said, I'm looking for school parents between the age of 35 and 45 who live in regional towns that are bigger than 20,000 people, suddenly you've got a totally different strategy and a much more precise strategy, I suspect.

Yeah, you've definitely got some data to test and measure, right? Because at the end of the day, you know, that's what marketing is all about.

So I think there's also that advantage a lot of people overlook.

Yeah, absolutely.

That is their job.

We think that their job is to do our tax returns.

But, you know, that's only half or a third or a quarter or an eighth of their job.

The rest of it is to be up to date with legislation and know how to get the best for their clients.

That's what they pay.

So you've got to think, well, what's happened here? What do I do to get back in the space that we once owned? I suppose sometimes if you're not keeping an eye on the ball, those things could affect you.

as well

um yeah checking your bank fees getting out your bank statements and going through and checking your bank fees you know where could you have a conversation with your bank manager or your you know the teller or the person who deals with your accounts at the banks and also why you've got that bank statement out doing an audit of your subscription.

That's something we often we subscribe to these things whether it's something we're watching on TV or whether it's actually a subscription for business but sometimes we don't even realize we're continuing to pay these things and we no longer use the system that the subscription is for or In the case of other things, we could get in a bundle.

Like I know some big telcos will bundle, you know, internet, TV, telephone type of thing.

So maybe you could save some money that way as well.

include

all the things that you subscribe to.

Absolutely.

So, I mean, ultralistically then, you know, what would be your ultimate vision for regional areas in Australia?

Yeah, look, I suppose from a marketer's point of view, like brand awareness is everything.

If you can attract the people to the town, you know, and get that brand.

What makes you stand out? Why should I stop in your town? Certainly, you know, lots of towns have been bypassed by freeways and that sort of thing these days for ease of traffic and congestion and possibly even safety.

But you still need those, you know, grow your brand awareness of your own town so for me it would be you know putting more towns on the map I think the one thing that the biggest feedback that I got and the one from both customers and small business owners in buy from a bush business was I can't believe how much talent there is out there and you know for the other people it's like I've tried to get into you you know, get city people to buy my craft or to buy my art or buy my paintings for years and haven't been able to penetrate that.

And all of a sudden, you know, this group has appeared and, you know, everyone's got that mindset of wanting to support small rural and regional businesses.

But sometimes the...

Yeah.