27 September 2021
Fiordland Business Support Summit
Southland Business Chamber and the Fiordland Business Association hosted a 5-Day Business Support Summit to support businesses in the region. Over the 5-days 18 different sessions were held covering lots of business topics including marketing, financial, business planning, employment law, well-being, immigration, legal, teamwork plus many more.
DAY ONE
First up was an Afternoon Mahi Hooking your customers with Louise Evans, COIN South.
There are opportunities for businesses each and every moment a customer interacts with your brand – from the first thing they hear about you to when they toss the packaging in the bin. Louise looked at ideas to make sure each interaction is working as hard as it can.
Next was one of the marketing brains behind some of Southlands fastest growing brands, Simon Owen from The Orange Sheep. Simon shared his knowledge at our Pop Up Event Developing a new marketing strategy.
DAY TWO
Starting with a breakfast meeting, Flipping problems: Creating a positive future lead by Louise Evans, COIN South. As a team we worked on flipping today’s common business issues into ideas worth talking about.
Simon Owen from The Orange Sheep followed with Finding your competitive advantage to push growth. At this session we discussed how to develop a brand, and the role of your brand in the marketing journey.
Lastly, an Evening Mahi Teamwork with Tracey Wayte, HR South. Our guests had fun understanding our personality preferences using Myer Briggs.
DAY THREE
Janet Copeland from Copeland Ashcroft Law started the day with Workplace Law Update outlining employment law changes on the horizon including sick leave increase & minimum entitlements, immigration and accreditation changes, Privacy Act, vaccination and H&S update.
Mark Doggett from Malloch McClean followed with Getting back to business – Building resilience through COVID workshop where we discussed ways that can help your business rebuild, change and create opportunities including business/strategic planning, cost reduction/cashflow and budgeting, and your product/service mix.
Next, Gareth Davis from PR Law shared his expertise around Understanding your relationship with landlords & banks.
To end the day, we hosted a fabulous Panel Discussion with four Fiordland business owners sharing their journey of building resilience – Cameron Davies (The Fat Duck), Brad Molloy & Megan Graham (Te Anau Top 10 Holiday Park), Jane Gilder (Jane Gilder Sewing & Design) and Mark Wallace (Fiordland Outdoors Co.) with MC, Blair Evans (Malloch McClean).
Special thanks to our panel for willingly sharing your stories, our three experts – Gareth (PR Law), Mark (Malloch McClean) and Sam (liveMEwell), MC Blair Evans and lastly, to our Panel Discussion event sponsor, Malloch McClean.
DAY FOUR
We started the morning with Mark Doggett, Malloch & McClean supporting local business owners about business/strategic planning, cost reduction/cashflow and budgeting, and product/service mix.
Next, Stefan Cooper from AWF explained how the utilisation of a temporary workforce could benefit businesses as they prepare for the summer months, and re-open to international tourists.
This was followed by Dave Anderson from Westpac who joined us by Zoom to explain everything we need to know to successfully Work with your bank in Covid times.
Click here for The 7 Key Causes of Poor Cashflow.
DAY FIVE
Our last three events were designed to support Mental Health Awareness Week.
Firstly, Courtney Egerton from the Active Lifestyles team discussed Taking time out to care for your wellbeing. Courtney provided some easy tips to support people’s mental, physical and family/social wellbeing and move from feeling tired and unmotivated to energised and ready to go. And they even got in a walking meeting!
Active Southland then hosted Get Active at Ivon Wilson Park. And to end the Summit, Stella and Laura from Healthy Families offered a Wellbeing Webinar, How to identify risks to mental wellbeing and to redesign work to manage them.
During the webinar, they presented the latest Business Leaders’ Health and Safety Forum resource on Protecting Mental Wellbeing at work. This guide will help CEOs and businesses design ‘good work’ that protects employees from risks to mental wellbeing that arise in the workplace.
Thank you to all our Chamber members for supporting this initiative, and for all the local venues for hosting us
Media Articles
- Stuff.co.nz: Southland businesses support Fiordland – 26 September 2021
- Otago Daily Times: Five-day summit planned to help businesses – 24 September 2021
- Southland App: Te Anau to host business support summit – 24 September 2021
- What’s on Southland: Free Business Summit Starts Sunday in Fiordland – 24 September 2021