Local Business Marketing | #GetChatty
Hi I’m Arthur and I’m a marketer in Melbourne. I consult small businesses, local businesses, organisation, artists and creative professionals about their marketing strategies (social media, digital and events). During late 2020, I started this new series to help encouraging Melbournians & Sydney-siders to support their small to medium operations, at this stage I’m offering this project to businesses located in Windsor, Prahran, South Yarra, South Melbourne and Greater Melbourne, (also greater Sydney where I love and lived most of my life). This is a self-volunteering project and there will be no cost for businesses that’d like to take part, if you’re interested to take part please reach out to me here or DM me via my social media!
Hi Chatty Curator here and thanks for dropping by. In this video I’m talking to Tessa who’s piloting an initiative called Business Matters. This is a new program that would deliver business training for participants of Arabic speaking community and for carers and people with lived experience of disability. This program is delivered in partnership of Amaze and AMES Australia, take a look.
Chatty: Tessa, we got a really interesting project coming up for the disability space isn’t it. Can you tell me more about that.
Tessa: Uh yes, so we have a new project called Business Matters, um and it’s a partnership with AMES and another organisation called Amaze and Amaze they’re a speciality organisation that focus on autism and so the project is it’s um to work with people from the Arabic speaking community who have a lived experience of disability, so that’s somebody who has disability themselves or is a carer for somebody with a disability and we are trying to focus on the autistic community Tessa: but the project is designed to help people who want to start their own business or to be self-employed.
Chatty: and just a little note that is because it’s such a new and fresh concept so we’re starting somewhere and there will be hopefully that when it, when it works out that we might be looking into expanding to different areas or different cultural groups isn’t it?
Tessa: yeah, so this is a 3 year project so the first year will be the pilot project so I imagine we will have lots of different learnings that will come out of the first year and hopefully we’ll be able to expand into future communities or on other communities in the future. So I think it’s important that we discuss some of the cultural barriers to setting up your own business or challenges so Arthur I know you’ve been working on your own business have you faced any challenges or barriers?
Chatty: Oh gosh yes, actually it’s interesting so I started my own 10 years ago back in Sydney and it’s, I think in terms of cultural that there’s a bit of.. I wouldn’t go as far as stigma but sometimes that there might be a little bit of a stereotype or there might be a different level of expectation.
Tessa: I think I know the communities that we work with, so people with a lived experience of disability from a whole community can face many different barriers both within their community itself but also within the wider Australian community. So this can be stigma or taboo or their disability or just cultural understandings of how to run a business in Australia. Arthur I know that establishing relationships and networks is vital for a business’s success can you tell us a little bit about how you’ve managed this and maybe some of the challenges you’ve faced?
Chatty: Well, look I think for me that in the past years that when running my own business is very important to not to hesitate to say hi and reach out and be there. Let people know that you are there but of course at the same time make sure that you have, for example, a website ready or content on your social media to explain who you are. Look we are, this video is recorded in 2020, we’re in the first recession in 3 decades and I think that kind of thing, networking and having that relationship with your clients or other businesses is very important. One key thing is I network with a lot of other business or individual that have nothing to do with what I’m doing or like you know maybe they don’t even need marketing help but there’s still no harm to reach out and simply be friend be friendly and get, let people know who you are and what: you do because you never know maybe someone they know may need your help so that’s that’s one of the interesting things yeah.
Tessa: Yeah exactly, so this project also will help establish some networks and business relationships for the participants so they will receive mentoring from somebody who’s already has established a successful business so they can sort of leverage off their networks but also the trainers will also be people who are in the business world or running their own successful business so they should be able to establish their own networks and build relationships through the project.
Chatty: Yeah, so I think the key thing is you know don’t, don’t be afraid to connect I think that’s important.
Tessa: So we know people with a disability and people from a CALD (English as 2nd language) community have much higher rates of self-employment than the rest of the wider Australian community and often that is because they, within the workforce, they are not getting the recognition of their skills and experience so therefore they start their own business so that they can be self-employed.
Chatty: So they call their own to call their own shots simply which is great.
Tessa: Exactly, exactly.
Chatty: And there will be like different ways that this project will teach these individuals how they can take the first step, isn’t it?”
Tessa: Yeah, so it will be around building, I guess, on the skills that they already have and so helping to see where they might be able to fit their market and get their business help with marketing help with getting access to information around tax and ABN. So it will really cover all of the information that somebody would need to know about starting their own business or further developing a business they’ve already started. How to set up your business so how to set up getting access so that you can pay tax, get a ABN, register your business name all of those red tape things. But probably I think what the biggest barrier people have for starting their own business would be access to, to funds. So both grants and additional startup fees, so it will give them access to some, not through us, but through other organisations and that we can link them in with so some financial supports for the startup fees.
Chatty: Well look, the thing is this is there’s no sugar-coating that this starting one’s own business is not an easy path but if you have someone with you and you know having a mentor or having a group behind you or even, even different classmates that, or different participants in the same group, that actually it’s already like a mini support safety net for yourself and we’re not gonna lie, this is this not gonna be an easy journey but, yeah but uh I hope that this will be a successful project for you Tessa.
Tessa: Great! Thank you Arthur.
Chatty: Would you like to add on that?”
“Tessa: Yes, if anybody has any questions about the project or knows of any participants who would like to come on board you can email me on [email protected]
Chatty: Wonderful, thank you so much for your time.
Tessa: Thank you.”
So don’t forget to check out the four part series with the link below and my best wishes to Tessa. Now should this program be successful there will be more opportunities can be expanded to other communities so please consider liking
or sharing this content because someone you know might actually know someone who can be benefited by this program.
If you are / know of any Melbourne based businesses, artists or organisations that may interested to take part, please make sure to read this post then request a meeting with me!
TeamArt2Public #SupportLocalBusiness #smallbusiness #WithMe
