News & Blog Dear FBA members
The Christmas break is now a distant memory and we are in full swing for 2018 as we strive to help family businesses leverage their family business advantage and harness their competitive advantage of Family.
To deliver on our objectives, I’m excited to announce that we have just launched a 6 month online adverting campaign called www.wearefamilyowned.org.au, where we aim to reach over 1 million impressions via Google display advertising, get 50,000 views via Family Business Australia social media channels and reach over 10,000+ consumers via targeted advertising.
The advertisements feature eight different Family Owned Australian Business members who have all contributed to the campaign. We currently have around 230 Family Business members listed on the ‘wearefamilyowned’ directory.
A listing on this directory is complimentary with your membership. Very soon all Family Owned Australian Business members who are currently not using the emblem will receive a letter asking them to review their contact information on file. Once terms of licencing have been agreed, we can include your business on the directory website. In line with our goals, we encourage all members to take advantage of this marketing campaign, adding additional value to your membership and ultimately helping to promote the advantage of engaging with Family Owned Australian businesses vs your competitors.
During the course of 2017, FBA announced a new Accreditation program to ensure the family business sector had access to leading advisors with family business expertise. Having a bank of trusted Accredited Advisers experienced in the day-to-day challenges of running a family business is imperative as we aim to have 100% accredited advisor over the next 24 month.
We have ensured our Adviser Accreditation program meets cutting edge thinking and trends by partnering with leading researchers at the University of Adelaide to develop and deliver this world class program, which will enhance the knowledge and skills of our advisors so they can effectively support families in business.
Whilst it is great that we will have the very best Accredited Advisers, we needed to develop a mechanism for the family business sector to seek out and engage with them. As such, FBA also launched a new Market Place Platform www.fambizadviser.org.au designed to be an effective conduit between Family Businesses and expert advisors. We ran a trial in February asking family business members to search and interact with our advisors and that trail highlighted a number of areas where we can improve the service offering for both family business and our advisor network.
Those changes are currently being made and in the coming weeks, we will be re-launching the Market Place Platform. This will be coupled with a re-designed engagement mechanism that will open up new opportunities for family business leaders to gain a powerful advantage over their competitors.
We have also issued our advisors with new logos, so please keep a look out for the Accredited and Specialist Accredited logos.
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During the month of the April, you will also see the launch of our new website www.fambiz.com.au. This brand new look and feel site is state of the art, it will be easy to navigate and book events (fingers crossed). In conjunction with this, FBA will also be
re-purposing existing content and seeking new content that has a business and family focus to expand our content offering, thus expanding the value we can provide our members.
FBA has also recently launched our new Conference website, announcing the 2018 program. After the 2017 Conference wrapped up, we took considerable time talking with members from different sectors within FBA. From this feedback, we have developed a program that I believe to be world class. Taking a focus on Business and Family as opposed to Family Business, you will not only be inspired by the speakers, but will also have the opportunity to workshop learnings from speaker presentations, which can be applied in your own family business. The program is designed to have something for everyone (or at least the majority), big, medium or small. This exciting three day program awaits, full of inspiration and motivation to ensure you have the tools you need to build stronger families and healthier businesses.
This year’s conference will be facilitated by professional MC, Malcolm Dix from Bullshift, who will challenge your thinking and open up the opportunities for you to engage with experts and leaders in family business. Keynote presentations include leaders from Linfox, Just Jeans, Hungry Jacks, Akubra, Paspaley Pearls and Carman’s. We have put together an action-packed program, alongside truly unique social events like you’ve never seen before! This is a conference not to be missed, I encourage all our members to attend!
Another notable event coming to your State in May and June is Family Business Insights 2018 (formerly known as State Conference). As always, these events are an opportunity to hear stories and real life business solutions from prominent family businesses, share collective knowledge within the family business community, and learn how you can harness your competitive advantage as an Australian owned family business.
Keynote speakers from successful family businesses will discuss trends, opportunities and strategies which can be implemented within your own business. Find out more here (add hyperlink once loaded to peak).
For a small organisation, we run approx. 140 events a year. Our current system means that we email members to inform them about upcoming events; however I also understand that the volume of communication that we send to you can be disruptive. I want to inform you that we are looking at ways to dramatically decrease the amount of emails we send to you, whilst ensuring you are still up to date with all of our activities at FBA. Better use of text messaging and bundling the event program into monthly communication are just a number of initiatives we are looking at to improve the service offering to you.
Some 14 months ago, I made the decision to move away from anniversary to financial year membership renewal. The purpose behind this was to ensure that we can 100% focus on new member acquisition for the majority of the year, rather than every month of the year. So what does this mean to our existing members? With all of our members renewal now falling on the 30th June, we will now be sending you your membership renewal letters (and invoices) on the 9th April vs the 3rd June to allow our members ample time to renew your membership prior to the 30th June payment due date. In addition to the above, we are also looking at new membership categories including Connect Membership, Share Membership and Grow Membership. There is extensive work required to get this right, however I want to ensure that our members actually receive something once they sign up or renew their membership. Like sporting clubs who issue their members with a membership cards and access to games, our members should also receive something that is tangible and demonstrates the value of their membership. I hope to be in a position to rollout our new membership packages during the course of FY19.
From my previous CEO address in December, I informed you about the launch of FBA’s unique, world-leading, transformational program for Emerging Leaders working within Family Businesses who are committed to developing their careers and helping the business thrive.
I am pleased to inform you that with the deadline for application looming, we are near full capacity, so if anyone is still interested in participating, I urge you to review the website list here and inform FBA of you interest as soon as possible so we can reserve a place for you.
Last month, FBA hosted a development day for all of your Forum Facilitators. It was a day focused on case studies, role play and masterclasses to ensure our facilitators are abreast of current trends and activities to continue to guide the conversations within forum groups. We have over 300 forum members who come together in their groups to grow and develop as they drive their family and family business forward. If you are not in a forum group already, I encourage you to reach out to us, a forum facilitator or forum member to find out more, as these groups can be life changing in the value that they can bring to members.
For our NSW members, if you don’t know already I am pleased to inform you that Alex Peterson has been appointed as the NSW State Manager. Alex has been working for FBA for the past three years in the same capacity but in Victoria, Alex is a Sydney sider, so she is right at home and ready to assist you.
For Victorian Members, I am pleased to inform you that Ed Horwood has joined the team replacing Alex. Ed comes to FBA with a very strong background in sales, business development and event management. Ed is already challenging our thinking regarding the value that we can bring to our members and he is a welcome addition to the FBA team.
I would also like to inform you that as a result of all the hard work of the FBA team and the value that we are bringing to our members, we have seen overall growth in our membership numbers. Recently we ticked over the 2000 family business member’s mark and we are on track to push towards the 2100 members before the end of the financial year. I would like to welcome all our new members and I’m sure your journey in the FBA community will be as rewarding as those who have been with us so far.
I look forward to seeing and meeting everyone during 2018 and if you have any suggestions where we can improve our service offering, I would be delighted to take on board your feedback.
Greg Griffith
CEO
Family Business Australia
