Mid Market Matters

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Amreeta Abbot interview

CEO and Founder of Appellon Sue Jauncey joins this week’s episode. Not only did Sue grow her company from a small boutique consulting business to a global organisation, but she also has a fascinating career history, working as a forensic Psychologist across the Australian Prison system. Sue gained a deep understanding of human behaviour, and her 25-year experience measuring behavioural and performance outputs has earned her great recognition. Sue has worked with global institutes such as the Royal Australian Navy, Northern Territory Health and The National Health Service, England. She is passionate about supporting individuals who want to live better, healthier, wiser lives and organisations who seek to promote collective achievement, connection and performance innovation.Sue reflects on the ongoing rise in stress and anxiety in the workforce we have witnessed over the past 20 years. Promoting the need to address this increase as mental health becomes a more prominent topic, especially with the effects of COVID-19 - which has accelerated this discussion. With so many working from home, we are going to see a welcomed hybrid model of the way we work together – however Sue stresses the importance of understanding the science around what constitutes a healthy, productive workforce.

CEO and Strategy Director for Taurus Marketing Sharon Williams joins this week’s episode. As Founder of one of Australia’s longest established integrated Marketing and PR agencies, Sharon’s experience and knowledge is an unbeatable combination. Sharon works with smart clients across all industries, from entrepreneurs, SMEs, to ASX-listed corporations. She has delivered award-winning solutions for over 1000 brands, across 6 continents, over an impressive 25 years. Her solutions are based on her unique, proven methodology, which she named The Taurus Bullseye. Renowned for her unparalleled levels of personalised service and a practical ‘No Bull’ approach that tells you exactly how it is and her international view of marketing in the UK, Hong Kong and Australia, Sharon’s purpose is sharing her experience to fast-track others.Sharon emphasises the need for communication, stressing the need to critique and elevate communication to target markets: brands with the most reputable, loudest voices are consistently the ones that cut through. Not only is there a need to increase communication, but with the impact of Covid-19, Sharon highlights empathy as a new brand currency. This is especially relevant to mid-market businesses - demonstrating empathy confirms you are genuine, giving your business an edge, not just to staff, but also to clients. If increasing communication isn’t an option for you, then she recommends upping the experience that your clients have with your company, and ensuring you show empathy as you do so. You can find more about Sharon here, or on her Linked In.

Joining the podcast from Babraham in the UK, freelance writer and author Jan Cavelle joins this week’s instalment. As an author, Jan specifically focusses on avoiding the growth pitfalls, something she writes about from personal experience. Jan originally started writing concerning the realities and truths of running a business as an entrepreneur back in 2008. Since then, she has written articles for countless publications, spreading her wisdom, knowledge and latest trends all things entrepreneurial.Jan strives to help entrepreneurs scale their businesses, providing advice from what she has learned from experts, and her own successes and difficulties. Her first book, Scale For Success, can be pre-ordered here, and more of her articles can be found on her website. For Jan, strategy is a hugely important issue. She has found many people focus too much on growth.Jan advocates that if you try to grow without strategy, you have none of the frameworks in place to sustain that growth, most importantly the people. With all her research for her book, Jan found people to be the most common denominator. You don’t have to just plan ahead, you have to find the right people to have in place ahead of the growth, and this order is essential for sustained growth.

Corey Rosen is the Founder and Director of The National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) in Oakland, California. Established in 1981, Corey has spent the past 40 years immersed in employee ownership, passionate about creating a thriving environment and supporting the community. Prior to founding the NCEO, Corey worked in The US Senate as a staff aid. This is where he was immediately drawn to employee ownership after seeing a testimony, sold on the idea of creating an economic system both more fair and accessible.Corey’s vision was a work environment more inclusive, respectful and participating – all of which an ESOP involves. Particularly appealing to Corey was how employee ownership takes the best elements of capitalism; its incentive structure, ability to innovate, grow and be entrepreneurial – but links these foundations to a social objective of broadened ownership and participation for people who are otherwise largely excluded.The NCEO is a non-profit information, membership and research organisation, with the simple goal of providing objective and reliable information about ESOPs at the lowest practical cost. This is achieved through webinars, published papers and books, seminars and conferences. More details about the NCEO can be found here.

Self-described “Business Purpose Guide” Phil Preston joins this week’s instalment to converse the need for purpose and direction for all businesses, regardless of size. Formally a Senior Credit Manager where he oversaw billions of dollars of investments, Phil became frustrated with poor corporate behaviours and symbolic acts of charity. In 2007, he redirected himself away from corporate investment and towards social and environmental challenge, and has been successfully running his business since. Using his expertise in applying purpose to boost business performance and social impact, he strives to grow companies’ enthusiasm for change. He guides SMEs through to multi-national corporations in the purpose, shared value and collaboration fields, also helping non-for-profits with business development and partnerships.Over the past 13 years, Phil has worked with hundreds of clients across many sectors and industries. He focuses on purpose based challenges, even developing a TED style talk titled ‘Why Philanthropy is for Dinosaurs’, which introduces individuals to the power of purpose in a user friendly way. His book, Connecting Profit with Purpose, also revolves on this topic. Phil emphasises the necessity for every business, no matter the size, to understand what their purpose is, more so now than ever. This projects enduring success, not just short term. For Phil, if you constantly focus and adapt to what society really needs, this not only allows stabilization but will also allow continuous growth for your business.

Alex Lee is Co-founder and Managing Partner of financial advice firm Thornton + Lee, acting as an experienced financial advisor. He specialises working with clients who need assistance with their personal finance strategy, mainly those seeking a strategic partner that offers highly personal service built on a meaningful long-term relationship. Originating from an accounting background, Alex describes his career path to financial advisor as accidental. His grad program involved placement in financial services, and this exposure to the financial environment was when the future and planning ahead aspect of his role gained his attention.Alex also has extensive experience with Employee Share Plans, primarily the tax sector. He sustains that the key to ESOPs is education, making sure his clients are fully aware of all the consequences and options involved. Alex references in regard to ESOPs, knowing the tax consequences is essential to allow appropriate planning and management of cash flow. Once this understanding is clear, he works through options with his clients; may this be holding the ESOP in your own name, transferring to a partner’s name, or to another structure so it is more tax effective in the future. His clients are made aware of the importance of these decisions up front, as a tax structure that you can control and have flexibility with is crucial. Moreover, most employees don’t have necessary financial taxation knowledge to make such decisions without good advice, which is what makes Alex’s role so vital.

CEO of boutique productivity consultancy Building 20, Dr Luke Hurst joins this week’s instalment. Building 20 delivers custom training and culture change services, working with teams to accomplish difficult tasks faster and amplifying their attention. Luke initially got into productivity working on his PhD. He found that by gamifying the process using the Pomodoro Technique, his progress accelerated dramatically. This was the origin for Building 20, with Luke identifying a need for training dedicated to productivity in the workspace, particularly with SMEs.In May, Building 20 surveyed 423 Australian office workers on how they adjusted to working remotely during the pandemic, as well as how the COVID-19 experience altered preferences and expectations about remote work going forward. Luke advocates that getting the hybrid model right between working at the office and working from home can be a real competitive advantage. This allows businesses to improve employee value proposition, as employees want an environment which is supportive of working not only time wise, but also location wise.Luke identifies his career path as a random walk. He holds a PhD in Economics, was previously Director at strategy consulting firm Nous Group, and a Research Fellow at both Melbourne University and The Australian National University. He has published widely in leading business and academic publications, including the Australian Financial Review, Nikkei Asian Review and SMH/The Age. Building 20’s study on the effectiveness of working from home is available here.

CEO and Founder of Resilience In, Susie Mogg joins this week’s episode. Susie’s passion lies in building and studying resilience, with specific focus on how it can be developed and improved. She has worked with thousands of children, parents, employees and workplaces. Susie is of the opinion that resilience is the number one skill needed by everyone – this is especially relevant in today’s climate of Covid-19. Her vision is to teach people to thrive, especially in tough circumstances and environments. She strongly believes building resilience is not just about bouncing back, but about taking the opportunity to respond to challenges in such a way that we grow, develop and realise our full potential.Her initial business goal was to focus on children, building resilience through 1-1 coaching and workshops, enabling them to respond to challenges with confidence. Susie took the opportunity to expand to involve strengthening parents’ resilience with the similar training, and further branched out to schools, and eventually workplaces to achieve ongoing sustained levels of performance.Before founding Resilience In, Susie gained over 20 years’ experience in People and Culture roles in large corporate organisations in both Sydney and London. Her background is impressive, working in management for global companies such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young and Suncorp Group.

Scott Iriks is the Director and CEO of Easi, one of the leading and most experienced salary packaging and novated lease providers to some of Australia’s largest Government and private employers. For mid-market business owners, salary packaging is specifically important in terms of what can be done to help your employees package their salary more effectively. More importantly, Scott promotes salary packaging as an essential for employee retention and giving your employees the opportunity to maximise what you pay them.When pitching salary packaging to small business owners, Scott provides the process as a means to give your employees a pay rise, without incurring any additional costs for the business. Essentially, salary packaging focuses on reducing the amount of tax you pay, by reducing your taxable income. Most commonly packaged is a car, offering the biggest benefit. Yet, the list of what can be salary packaged is extensive, including laptops, airport membership, superannuation, professional subscriptions, living away from home allowance, financial advice, self-education expenses and even groceries.Scott is dedicated to the financial services industry. He accelerates knowledge, commitment and innovation in his role at Easi, which takes pride in delivering exceptional value for both the employer and the employee. He is an Australian Credit License holder and also runs a consumer asset finance company that is contracted with major insurance providers to provide replacement vehicles and finance to cash settled customers.

Director of Five Feathers Consulting, Nancy Peat, joins this week’s episode to discuss her work as a conflict mediator. In this role, she assists clients when they face communication issues that are having a negative impact on the business with no resolution. Her position is to provide logical, unbiased facilitation to create productive conversation to resolve issues in a financially effective and efficient way. Before mediation, Nancy’s main background was in financial services. She has more than 30 years working in management training, consultative advice, and accounting firms. She also worked in insurance and financial planning, dealing with businesses on unplanned successions. After a career transition, Nancy decided on mediation, as she had effectively been practicing it for years. She obtained her national accreditation in Mediation (NMAS) and started her business Five Feathers Consulting shortly after.

Behaviour specialist Bri Williams from People Patterns joins this week's episode to discuss behaviour change. Bri’s reputation has gained her the title of “The Behaviour Explainer”, as she specialises in working with clients to maximise interaction using behavioural economics. People Patterns is one of Australia’s first consultancies to apply behavioural economics to everyday business and personal effectiveness. Primarily, Bri identifies how to get people to do what you want them to do. This not only helps overcome resistance, but also makes business less frustrating and projects better results. Her expertise lies in the knowledge of making or breaking habits, influencing internal stakeholders and investors and delivering better conversion from sales and marketing activities. With an extensive background in finance, accounting, HR and product management, Bri has recognised a through line in all of these fields: psychology. However usually, this dimension is overlooked. She claims that at the core of every challenge we face in business is changing someone’s behaviour from what they are currently doing, to what you want them to do. This lens brings human resistance to the fore so you can easily identify the issue, and how you are going to address it. Bri’s experience lies in the best and most efficient way to accomplish this.

Joining the podcast from Michigan, engineer turned sales expert and CEO of the Re-Wired Group Bob Moesta introduces the topic of demand side sales. Consistently, he has found the number one issue professionals face is sales, despite this being at the cornerstone of every business. What's more, most professionals find the selling process extremely uncomfortable. Bob insists helping people find the fit between your product and your service is key to sales, in addition to the notion of serving people, rather than selling people. This understanding of why we buy to improve sales skills is discussed in depth in his book, Demand Side Sales. Bob has helped launch more than 3,500 new products, services and businesses across nearly every industry including defence, automotive, and financial services. He is a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Entrepreneurship, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and The Harvard Business School. His book is an Amazon #1 seller in the Small Business Sales & Selling category and a sequel is in the pipeline proposing to spotlight the practical side of sales, articulating from a marketing and customer success perspective.

After 30 years’ experience across professional services fields of engineering, urban development, ecology, mining, planning, surveying and landscape architecture, Roger Collins-Woolcock is an expert in his field of business development and organic growth. Over the past three decades, he has taken on many roles, from founder to business owner, organically growing businesses in both regional towns and capital cities across Australia. In this episode, Roger discusses the significance of client relationships, and the continuum between price and relationships in business. He claims if you’re not growing your business, you’re not creating opportunity for your people, and if you don’t provide opportunity, they will find it elsewhere, with other companies. For Roger, this growth that creates opportunity is the key, and this is the domain in which most of his work resides.

Michael Gorton is one of the Founders of TelaDoc, the world’s leading telemedicine company which has gone on to save thousands of lives during the Coronavirus pandemic. He discusses the demand for Teladoc in 2020 compared to the countless challenges and adversity they faced when starting out in 2002. Michael also converses his work as the CEO of Back to Space, a transmedia company designed to encourage future generations to develop an interest in engineering, science and space. He is a 13-time Serial Entrepreneur, and from this experience recalls the key to being successful with your business is planning, people and persistence. Michael has several decades of experience building companies in the music, telecom, energy and healthcare industries. Not only a successful entrepreneur, with his start-ups creating more than $3.4 billion in wealth, he is also a best-selling author, a 3rd degree black belt in karate and has completed a bicycle adventure across the US of about 5,000 miles.

In this episode, Brad Giles discusses his work as a leadership coach and his passion for growing mid-market businesses. His interest has led him to uncover the crucial differences between a good CEO and a great CEO. Brad goes through the five results that define a great leader, which include having a higher percentage of top performers, higher retention, higher productivity, and consistent growth and results. Brad also advocates the importance of getting a professional, high quality business coach to own the strategic planning process. This is vital for business growth, as it allows a different, highly experienced set of eyes on the business which will push the business as a catalyst for growth.

In this episode, host Craig West is joined by Michel Clifton, who has 20 years of experience in trade and defence appointments across North Asia, primarily in Greater China and Japan. Michael shares his intelligence dealing with Asia, trade, export and finance. Phillip Volk, key partner in Succession Plus in Victoria also joins the discussion. For business owners seeking to improve relations with China and the Greater Asian economy, Michael advocates the key is to engage with a boarder network, may this be Chambers of Commerce, banks, lawyers or peak organisations. He recites there is rich experience, knowledge and endless sources of support out there, and businesses need to be more prepared to extend their hand in search of it. Michael has worked directly with the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade), is fluent in both Chinese and Japanese, is the president of the Australia China Business Council in NSW and the Principal of MJC Asia Consulting.

Michael Masterson, Managing Director for EverEdge Australia and New Zealand, speaks about the importance of valuing the intangible assets of your business. In this episode, he recounts how to identify and build value into these assets, underlining the key issue being that intangible assets are often ignored because you can’t see them. He advises that you can’t value what you don’t know or understand, so works in identifying and leveraging these assets to build a competitive edge. Michael promotes that you need to identify the strategic value of your intangible assets by not only considering what they are worth to you, but what they are worth to someone else.

What impacts your business impacts you! Mark Napper, Business Adviser with over 25 years of experience in senior management roles, describes himself as a business alchemist. Mark understands that business owners and their businesses are heavily intertwined. Owners often become enslaved to their business instead of having their business serve them. Mark strives to change this by focusing on positively transforming and impacting his clients’ lives when transforming their businesses. Mark does this through acting as a fresh pair of eyes to his clients who provides stimulus and guidance when old strategies no longer work or when experiencing unfamiliar circumstances. He also delves deep into what business owners aim to extract from their business and works with them towards achieving this goal; he tailors his clients’ business vision to fit this personal vision. In turn, this helps move businesses from a stagnant phase to a continuous growth phase. In this episode, Mark also shares the key ingredients for a sustainable business recipe. His number one tip for business owners is to look into the future – answer questions such as what you want to accomplish, where you want to be and look at what’s coming.

It doesn’t matter what you sell, it’s all about understanding the psychology of your customers!Darren Moffatt, Director of WebBuzz, speaks on growth marketing. Darren has an impressive history of being the youngest bank manager. However, after the GFC, he found that marketing was his calling. In this episode, Darren addresses the most common questions asked by mid-market business owners: growth, attracting more customers and growth marketing of businesses. As soon as a business’ branding and marketing fails to resonate with customers, sales will decline, and revenue will drop. Therefore, branding and marketing must constantly be refreshed to meet the market’s needs.

Andrew Bowcher, Partner at RSM Australia, discusses the very important topic of business survival in the current climate. Andrew specialises in business recovery, structuring and asset protection, cash flows, governance issue and debt-related pressures. It is particularly important to have a business recovery plan in the current climate. In this episode, Andrew shares four steps to a post-COVID business recovery plan and shares how he can assist in deciding how your business should move forward.

Jon Michail, Founder and Group CEO of Image Group International, speaks on the importance of personal branding. Jon’s 30 years of experience in business consultancy has consolidated his knowledge of the immense impacts personal branding can have on your business. In an era where institutions can be perceived as untrustworthy, personal branding has never been more important. Positioning yourself in the marketplace correctly can maximise your personal and business value and amplify your profits.

Nicholas Sweeney, Division Director and Co-head of Macquarie Bank Middle Market, helps mid-market businesses create meaningful change and grow. Macquarie Bank Middle Market provides their clients with deep industry knowledge and simultaneously builds long-term trust and relationship with them. Organic growth in this sector, particularly in the current climate, is hard to come-by; Nicholas shares how Macquarie Bank Middle Market enables sustainable growth for mid-market businesses in any economic climate. Moreover, private and family-owned business contribute up to 1/3 of the national GDP and employ three million Australians, highlighting the importance of helping this sector grow viably.

James Slattery, Executive Director at Slattery Auctions and Valuations, shares the importance of not leaving assets to depreciate once they become redundant or start malfunctioning. Slattery Auctions and Valuations does not only focus on rapidly selling goods, they also value and provide strategies for realising assets. Selling unneeded assets is better done sooner rather than later to preserve its value and maximise its ability to add value to a business. James is also a board member of the Association of Machinery and Equipment Appraisers, solidifying his expertise in the field of valuing and auctioning assets.

Paul Jansz, National Network Manager and Professional Partner at C2 Capital, shares his secret to running a successful business. Jansz’ vast experience in accounting and professional services firms has reinforced the importance of prioritising clients. C2 Capital has run focus groups and trials which prove that understanding clients’ wants and values are critical to maintaining a long-term client base. To further make clients feel valued, C2 Capital offer their high-end clients exclusive high-end service offerings which often provide desired above-average returns. Get in touch with Jansz through paul.jansz.c2capital.com and find out more about C2 Capital at www.C2capital.com.

Peter Stanhope’s strong drive to be self-employed led him to address a gap in the market by co-finding GigSuper, a super fund which caters exclusively to self-employed people. In this episode, Stanhope shares shocking research findings including that self-employed people typically retire with 50% less in their super fund than employees. GigSuper educates self-employed people on the benefits of regularly contributing to their super fund, including its immense tax-saving perks. GigSuper prides itself in making it easy and convenient for self-employed people to invest in their retirement by understanding the fluctuating nature of self-employed people’s incomes. Find out more about GigSuper at www.gigsuper.com.au.

Michael Lane is an Australian entrepreneur and Director of Success Resources – the world’s largest provider of educational events featuring world-class speakers. Aside from his passion about education, Michael is also an expert in the touring business and a master at relationship building. He has been organising events for 17 years which equates to connecting over 12 million people globally with the greatest business and personal development educators and leaders of our time.

Angela Vithoulkas is a multi award winning entrepreneur, business owner, politician and small business advocate. Her hands on business experience spans over thirty years in hospitality having bought and sold dozens of businesses and employed hundreds of people. She is the executive producer and host of SME TV & Podcasts - a brand new YouTube Channel dedicated to educating, inspiring and advocating for all business owners. Angela is also a twice elected City of Sydney Councillor and Founder of The Small Business Political Party, she wears many hats like most SMEs.

Brooke Berry, Financial Adviser at Agilis Accountants, is dedicated to helping clients feel empowered and in control of their financial life. In this episode, she shares her work on providing growth strategies and helping business owners manage their funds and protect their assets, and how business owners can overcome the fear of letting go of their business and feel in control of navigating retirement.

“Trena Blair is an expert in expanding business from Australia into the US, with New York as their market entry point.” (Forbes, 2018).Trena Blair, Founder and CEO of FD Global Connections, is a highly accomplished global businesswoman and professional speaker. In this episode, she discusses the opportunities for global expansion and the common mistakes companies make as they scale globally. Trena has spent considerable time preparing Australian businesses to launch into the USA and believes that to be able to expand successfully, businesses must understand who their customers are in those markets and make sure they have the right leadership structures, systems, policies, and processes in place.

Alan Rich has operated his own business strategy and mentoring business with a great number of clients in financial services since 2003. This experience led to the creation of Clarion Group, whose business model is to buy into, and closely manage for growth, financial services businesses throughout Australia. In this session, Alan talks about Clarion’s Hub & Spoke growth model that focuses on buying into financial services firms, creating workable and successful client referral programs, growing those businesses, and obtaining significant value uplift for the business owners.

Thomas Dudley, a passionate advocate for employee-owned businesses, shares how he creates national recognition for employee ownership and supports the businesses that implement it through Certified EO, a certification program in the United States for employee-owned companies he co-founded in September 2017. In this episode, Thomas also shares why business owners should start thinking about their succession in the early stages of their business and explore the use of employee share ownership as part of this strategy.

David Reid and Darrin Drew, Directors of Business 360, give advice on creating an effective workforce restructuring plan to help business owners cope with the ‘new normal’, and share what businesses should watch out for as they consider restructuring either due to diminished economic circumstances, or alternatively opportunity driven through good business planning.

Darryl Bates-Brownsword, Co-Founder of Succession Plus UK, sits down with Craig West to share his journey from being an engineer to ending up in the consulting space through his passion to help business owners get the most from their life’s work and successfully exit their business on their terms. Darryl also discusses the importance of having your own IP to improve your business' value, and how it can help you engage your clients and give you the opportunity to understand their issues better than they do.

Michael Haynes, Director of Listen Innovate Grow, worked with companies in Australia, Brazil and Canada before becoming a B2B specialist. In this episode, he shares what the modern B2B looks like and how important it is to implement innovation and best practices to improve customer experience and drive business recovery post-COVID-19.

Natasha Hawker, Director of Employee Matters, joins Craig West to share her views on the future of work post-COVID-19, why she thinks Jobkeeper is a ‘game-changing’ opportunity that many businesses are missing out on, and how business owners can take advantage of the current ‘downtime’ to improve their business systems, efficiencies and value.

From doing forensic services to working in the Interpol in Lyon France to building his own international aid agency, Hands Across the Water, Peter Baines has had a remarkable journey doing humanitarian work and organising not for profit programs to support the needy, especially children. In this session, Peter shares his life experiences and the lessons he’s learned, how SMEs can start supporting a charity to enable business growth, and how a ‘Crisis Clock’ approach can help business leaders get through tough times.

For Michael Lane, business should be fun and fast. In this session, Michael, Director of Success Resources, the world’s largest provider of educational events, gives his best advice on how to be successful in business and shares how strategic partnerships could work well even in a COVID economy, and why every business owner should dilute their equity in their business to succeed.

Craig’s motto is “Know first, Be first , Profit first” and in this session he explains why the lack of understanding of future trends has become the number reason that strategic plans fail, and shows how industries will be transformed by the fourth industrial revolution and what opportunities this presents for the middle market.

Tom Matthews, Partner at Pemba Capital, discusses with host Craig West the different types of transaction structures available to businesses when contemplating a liquidity event and how the Pemba ‘two-payday structure’ can help achieve the 3 key objectives of business owners: the dollars, legacy, and ensuring the SME owners’ people are looked after.

Host Craig West speaks to Empathic Consulting Director, Daniel Murray, about the significant role leaders have to play in times of crisis, how to see the opportunities that lie in difficult times, and how empathy becomes an important element in ensuring that the team stays motivated and committed to the business in the midst of any disruption.

Thomas Stewart, Director of the National Center for Mid-Market at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business, shares the data on the impact of COVID-19 on middle market companies and the study on business transitions, the learnings from this study and what business owners should do ensure a successful transition.

People are finding it difficult to find the flights they want as finding points seat is like fishing, the seats are changing all the time but they are always there. In this episode, Steve Hui, also known as “The Points Whisperer” and founder of iFLYflat, shares some tips on how to earn and spend your frequent flyer points wisely, and how to turn your credit card and airline points into business class flights!

Franky Fiumara, a third generation nephew in his family’s supermarket and winery businesses, shares with host Craig West how their businesses have grown and remained successful over the last 60 years despite stiff market competition.

Host Craig West talks to Tim Ryan, Director at Ilume, about developmental coaching and Radical Candor - a communication and management model for the middle market that helps business owners develop their ability to Challenge Directly and Care Personally at the same time.

It is a very competitive business environment and competitive intelligence provides a unique edge. Find out what your competitors are doing, what the market is doing, what your customers are doing and what you should be doing and why.

Making business easier by offering multiple payments systems, make sure your customers can pay you quickly, easily, securely and importantly the way they want to pay. Cash flow is king - getting paid is a very important part of cash flow - use technology to help.

Llew has been an accountant for 28 years. He owns LG Accounting Solutions, a mid-market firm in Perth that focuses on business client and especially the mid-market. Culture, efficiency, innovation and having the right conversations with clients are all key aspects of his success.

Philip owns and operates several businesses - financial planning, coaching and BPO - his 20 years of experience with financial planning firms provides some interesting insights into the industry, its recent challenges and the best strategies for success going forward.

Danielle provides entrepreneurial coaching to staff and students at UNSW and manages UNSW's involvement in the Innovation Alliance and Techconnect and is passionate about demonstrating the value of sharing academic research and University resources with SME's - including several unique funding programs.