Manningham Business Network

Hello everyone and thanks again to those who were able to make it to the April Open Meeting of the Manningham Business Network this morning. It was great to see so many consistent attendees; members, regulars and new faces alike.

Bob Adams from Great Investment Properties kicked us off today with a short piece on his ideas for investing in property, which coincidently tied in well with our Guest speaking spot winner, Jamie Wu who is a mortgage broker. Next month’s Mini speaker will be Alisha Dunsford from AJD Design.

Our Key Speaker for the day was of course Winston Marsh who gave a great, no-frills, cut through presentation on building your business through effect marketing. His entertaining presentation touch on some of the classic, time tested marketing concepts, re-inforced with some of the modern takes of marketing in the new millenia.

As a small business operator myself who takes a particular interest in the new ways technology is influencing how we promote ourselves and our businesses, it was very interesting to see how old, established tchniques can still be applied effectively through new technology such as websites and online social networking. I ended up dissappointed that we couldnt have more time.

Once again we had representatives from the Council and our Sponsors, the Bendigo Bank, attend and we continue to be appreciative of their ongoing support.

We announced briefly that the upcoming Gala Dinner evening has been confirmed for the 20th of May and you should be hearing more details later today as the first of our promotional communications start to go out.

Thank you again if you came along and sorry to have missed you if you were unable to make it. We hope to see you all again next month.

Hi All and thanks to everyone who made the effort to come along last Tuesday morning for the March meeting. On the back of a long weekend it is often difficult to get up and out of bed on a cold Autumn morning, especially given the wet and chaotic weekend we suffered weather wise.

Despite the challenges, numbers were excellent with over 40 attendees for the morning, which is a testament to the speakers and the growing popularity of the group.

Bob Adams was unable to do his scheduled presentation due to technical difficulties, but our guest speaker from last month’s business card draw, Silvia Wright, gave us a great summary of her business. Bob will be back again next month for another shot at the mini speaker spot.

Our Key Speaker, Ricky Nowak, gave a solid presentation on some of the mental adjustments we all need to consider to try and leverage our businesses beyond what we are currently achieving. If you missed her session I suggest you go to her website at http://www.rickynowak.com/ to see where she is presenting at next.

The Committee would like to thank our sponsors Bendigo Community Bank for coming along for the morning session, it is great to share what it is we are trying to achieve with those who support our efforts.

Thank you again if you came along and sorry to have missed you if you were unable to make it. We hope to see you all again next month.

Well the year is off and running wth the successful completion of our first Open to the Public MBN meeting for the year! Thank you everyone who came along today and especially thank you for perservering with our new electronic ticketing system for registrations. The new system makes life significantly easier for the Committee to organise and communicate with the Manningham City Council, so it is an essential tool that we will hopefully refine with experience, but we acknowledge it wasnt all smooth sailing, so thanks again for your patience.

The morning itself was a great start to the year, with an adequate presentation from myself, then a step up with our Guest speaker, Alan Moxon of New Logic, and finally a truly excellent presentation from our Keynote speaker, Sandi Givens from Shattering Glass Ceilings, on “Critical presentation skills that create success:How to promote yourself and your business with confidence, ease and charisma!”.

Sandi’s presentation contained an absolute wealth of knowledge on how to improve your presentation and public speaking skills with practical, real life tips to use. Presented with genuine knowledge and conviction, her session was an invaluable educational opportunity that I personally found extremely compelling, valuable and one of the best to date.

If you were unucky enough to have missed out on our breakfast I strongly recommend that you take the time to review Sandi’s website at http://www.sandigivens.com.au/ and learn more.

Next month’s Keynote speaker will be Ricky Nowak of Ricky NowakLeadership on “Get more from your small business”, so stay tuned for more as we get closer to March.

The MBN group would also like to congratulate member Paul Loupetis on the birth of his new baby girl Tia! As the first babe of the family, Paul has some adjusting to do, but we wish him and his family all the best.

Thanks again everyone for their contribution today and see you next month!

Sorry for this slightly late post, but it has been a busy week. Last Tuesday saw us back in the Manningham City Council’s offices, this time up in Room 2 rather than the Council Chambers (and instead of the Doncaster Senior Centre), which was very nice. Open, bright and well laid out. Looks like we may be in that room permanently, which would be fine judging by the feedback from those who attended.

Thanks again go to our main speaker who this week was Brenda Thompson from Networking World. Brenda’s presentation ‘It’s not about ‘working the room’ was an amazingly valuable session that really covered off some great ideas about how you should be thinking differently about your business networking. Brenda advised that we become far more effective at making the right sort of contacts, without necessarily having to do any of those really cliché habits that you dont really enjoy doing anyway. If you missed the session, go to Brenda’s website to learn more, it will be worth your time – http://www.networkingworld.net.au/

A big thanks also to Gary Hegedus for his mini presentation on “Promoting your business through digital media”, a great summary of the basic do’s and don’ts of marketing digitally.

And lastly, thanks also to Russell McInnes from gardiner mcinnes real estate on some fantastic tips on what to ask a potential agent when picking who to use when selling your property. A great number of seriousl good tips, stuff I doubt most agents would be happy you asking them, but details Russell and Vicki are happy to share.

Our next meeting is on the 13th of October, check out the home page for details and register now!

Thanks again to you all and I look forward to seeing you next at the next meeting.