UP to 60 Sunraysia business owners gathered in Mildura last week, hoping to improve their companies.
The Business Growth Seminar is a collaboration between ANZ and University of South Australia, coming to Mildura for the first time this year.
The seminar is the first event in a three part program, aiming to help business owners assess and grow their company.
Former ANZ Regional Executive Jason Marr said the seminar, which had been running in capital cities for over 10 years had an impressive turnout.
“We have about 60 businesses in the room and they are anywhere from sole traders to having 10 to 20 employees,” he said.
“We have a portion of those who are ANZ customers and then Mildura Regional Development have partnered with us for this seminar and it has been made available for all businesses in the community.
“We wanted to make sure this was accessible to all of the local community here and we want to give something back that helps them grow their own businesses and revenue which helps the broader community for an economic perspective.”
The seminar is run by Dr Jana Matthews from the Australian Centre for business growth and includes a panel discussion, hands-on activities and networking opportunities.
Mildura Regional Development CEO Brett Millington was pleased with the number of guests, hoping the seminar would have a positive impact on the region.
“Ultimately our role is about connecting business and people for the economic prosperity of the Mildura region and within that, it’s a lot of small to medium enterprises,” he said.
“At the heart of all of it is creating jobs — it might start off as one job created by one business, but then if you have multiple businesses creating one job that then invests more money back into the community.”
Mr Millington said based on the current retail climate, the seminar would be a good opportunity to for business owners to assess their company.
“Retail globally is under pressure from the change in the way people shop and part of it is understanding your customer which is touched on in this seminar,” he said.
“It’s challenging people to think about their business, quite often business owners are so busy working in the business, they don’t actually focus on the business.”
