The Sunshine Coast is entering a new phase of rapid change and growth. For businesses throughout the Sunshine Coast region, the Regional Opportunities Briefing is your chance to find out the potential direction of the Sunshine Coast and what is planned around and across the region over the next few years so that you can identify trends, new markets and determine where your business should be headed.

The Department of Tourism, Regional Development and Industry's role is to drive economic development and make a positive difference to economic growth through a range of initiatives. The Department works across a number of functions and one important function is to deliver a broad range of business development services including extensive business information, guidance and support through the Sunshine Coast Centre.

The Sunshine Coast Centre is proudly part of the vision to achieve a vibrant, sustainable, environmentally and socially responsible Sunshine Coast economy by
* assisting business operators to improve their management skills and productivity
* identifying business, industry and export development
opportunities, and
* for specific industry needs, the Department has specialised divisions targeting development challenges and opportunities.

Keeping your eye on the ball is essential to knowing your next move in business. After the initial work of getting your business up and running, often business operators start to have new ideas and questions.

Are you actually making a profit? You want to expand, so do you have the necessary funds and resources? Have you built into your business plan the flexibility to allow you to take advantage of new opportunities? Have you planned for unexpected hurdles or reassessed your business risk lately?

So how do you keep tabs of where your business is at? Monitoring your business will introduce you to some key areas to assist you to keep track of your business performance and help you to make informed decisions.

You have invested time and money into your Business' image - Business cards, logo, letterhead etc. Have you ever invested in the most important asset- YOU? Your image tells the world who you are and where you are going. What does your image say about you? To be successful in a competitive world you need to have the edge. In this informative and innovative session learn simple techniques that could change your business overnight, including: The Perfect Match - You & Your Brand; Colour My World - The Importance Of Colour; Bringing Your Brand To Life - Simple Steps; Fake It Til You Make It - Winning First Impressions.

Business owners often lament that they ran an ad and it didn't work. Usually advertising as a tactic or perhaps the media that the ad ran in is believed to be the culprit. But in fact, the reason for a lot of failure of advertising is based on incorrect messages or offers, poor choice of media type, lack of knowledge of reach and frequency. In this session Debra will teach you the basics of advertising - reach, frequency, which media is best at various parts of the buying funnel, how to buy media, when to advertise, how advertising fits into your other marketing activity. You will leave this session with the knowledge to be able to evaluate advertising opportunities in the future.

Obviously you need money coming in, on a regular basis, to be able to pass some of it on to your suppliers. And much has been made of the importance of cash flow as a key indicator of the financial health of the business. But at the end of the day you need to make money. Some businesses, in closely monitoring their cash flow, and patting their accountant on the back for showing a loss to the tax man each year are missing the point that they are actually not making a profit. In this session, David will provide you with the tools to analyse what is really going on inside and out of your bottom line. Is it cash flow Vs profit...or cash flow + profit?

There are two types of people who seek out a professional business coach or mentor. The first is the person who is already doing very well in his/her business and wants to identify what they are doing when at their peak, so they can duplicate that at will. The second type is the person who wants to learn more and better skills to improve their performance, communication skils, interpersonal skills and personal contribution.

In this seminar, Mark will outline the contribution that a coach or mentor can make to your business and to your staff. He will highlight the difference between these two methods and will provide an overview of the Guild of Mentors, based on the Sunshine Coast, whose members are well credentialed across all levels of business from Government, to SMEs and multi-nationals.

There is more to sponsorship than just flinging $500 at the local football club once a year or providing some product to the next charity auction. It can be a powerful marketing tool that can provide an extreme competitive advantage if approached in the right way.  In this session Ailsa Page will show you how small business operators can use sponsorship just as effectively - if not better - than the major corporation. You will learn how to select the sponsorship deal that's right for you. How to put a dollar value on it and how to evaluate its success. You will also learn which sponsorship offers to accept or reject and how to value add to your sponsorship to improve your bottom line and attract customers to your business.

Women make or influence more than 80% of all consumer purchases in Australia, accounting for billions of dollars annually. Is your business doing absolutely everything it can to tap into this immense market? This seminar will help you see your brand through a woman's eyes, giving you the practical tools you need to develop products, services and marketing strategies that truly resonate with female buyers.

WWW unlocks the secret to gaining a bigger share of women's enormous buying power by revealing:

* What and how you should replace your current "visible" marketing, which merely tells women your product is "for them", with "transparent marketing" which focuses on what's actually important to the buyer.

* How women behave online, and how to take advantage of online resources to stay in touch with the women's market

* The different ways to segment the women's market, and how generational history, culture, life stages, degree of confidence with technology, and other factors influence a woman's buying mind.

* That how women buy can be even more critical than the product or service being sold.

An informative and challenging session - presented by a women who knows what she wants!

Enjoy networking with other local business owners and be informed and entertained by Debra Templar when she presents her very popular keynote address: Third Camel...Fifth Jar and other fascinating tales of Customer Service...more