Economic Development Update from The Business Hive

There’s a huge amount of thinking going on around how we create and maintain successful economies (district-wide, regionally, nationally and globally). As businesses, our access to people, skills and resources is challenging and it’s likely to be that way for a while. At The Business Hive, we try to support local and part of doing that is to help make sure you know the latest lay of the land. Read on for an update around the key local initiatives you’ll want to know about.

WDC Economic Development Strategy

The Waitaki District Council has launched its Draft Economic Development Strategy consultation and it’s an exciting opportunity to look up from our individual businesses and see how we can start to solve some of our issues in the Waitaki. We were pleased to host our CEO Alex Parmley and Mel Jones to speak to it at Business South’s BA5 this week. While there is some pushback from the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust, feedback on the night and since has been overwhelmingly positive - seeing this as a potential step change for our district. We don’t have all the answers yet, but it’s a good start.

Otago Regional Workforce Plan

Alex and I went to Queenstown for the launch of the Otago Regional Workforce Plan a couple of weeks ago and had the opportunity to see and hear for ourselves how Central Otago is suffering from a major skills shortage - most obviously in hospitality (‘staff wanted’ signs on most hospo doors) - but less obviously, across sectors. We’re all struggling with the same issues - including the problem of satisfying the needs of partners and children when recruiting from other regions.

The Otago Regional Workforce Plan highlights four initial industries that need some new thinking;

1. Construction

2. Accommodation & Food Services

3. Healthcare & Social Assistance

4. Food & Fibre

The plan is well worth a read but in short, we need to be considering how we coordinate as a region, transform the way we educate. as well as train on the job to build local capability, and deliver a quality of life that people can aspire to. These mirror our mission at The Business Hive and we’re pleased to see region-wide recognition for these goals.

Hiring News

Speaking of recognition, last week, we caught up with Rebecca Finlay (Business South) and our recruitment partner - Dean Delaney from Platinum Recruitment to chew the fat (literally delicious bacon-y fat as we all had lunch at Badger & Mackerel).

The impact of the skills shortage in everyday recruitment is massive. Tough decisions are being forced - higher onboarding salaries for less capability have become a rude reality. At least one company has made the decision to pay all their existing staff at new market rates to protect the skills they need. Onboarding the new person at a higher rate than existing staff is problematic of course, and more so nowadays for sure.

Where once upon a time, staff didn’t discuss their salaries at work, now it’s commonplace especially amongst younger generations. Accompanying that is increasing scrutiny on gendered and ethnic pay gaps (last month on Women, last week on Pasifika, etc…) where pay transparency is actively being encouraged.

With this skills shortage, we have to be thinking about how we can keep our skilled people for longer. Stats NZ tells us that nationally we can expect to reach a population of one million people aged 65+ by 2028 - that is just six years away! And, we already know that we're ahead of the curve here in the Waitaki. Older workers also want flexibility so again, terms and conditions matter.

These are difficult waters to navigate for the small business owner, so what can you offer when you can’t compete on salary? This is exactly what we collectively need to figure out and why the Regional Workforce Plan is so important.

Immigration and Training Solutions

The word on the street is that we need to further widen our boarders and let immigrants in. The global situation makes that just (if not more) as competitive. We can’t import all the skills we need, we have to grow them and grow them quickly. On the job training is essential. Hiring for potential and growing our own people is vital. Talking with one local coffee shop owner, they reflected that they’d trained up the last key employees and make sure their pay and conditions are ahead of the pack. It’s not all about the money, it is all about the relationship.

Creating and maintaining that relationship takes leadership and a 21st century mindset around the way we communicate with our teams. Amanda Fleming’s Essence of Facilitation workshop is coming up in the middle of August - a transformative two-day programme that really heightened my skills (and I’m an experienced facilitator!). If you or your people are feeling a bit wobbly on how to facilitate the results you need and have those difficult conversations, this is a master class. Seriously, it’s life changing.

Working Together & Getting Involved

The Stronger Waitaki Economic Development Working Group, of which I am chair, meets next at 4pm on Wednesday 24th August at The Business Hive. This two-monthly meeting is open to all and a great opportunity to discuss local economic needs and initiatives. Let me know if you want to attend and we’ll get you on the meeting list.

Resources;

Essence of Facilitation Workshop

WDC Draft Economic Development Strategy

Otago Regional Workforce Plan

Immigration Skill Shortage List

We can get through as a community

Our local economy needs you.

While Auckland (arguably) is at or near peak Omicron, we’re just getting under way.
Xero’s small business index for January 2022 fell below 97 points, after three months in a row above the 100s. Remembering that 100 on the index represents average performance, this signals an economic step change.

The downturn is largely due to slowing small business sales. Unsurprisingly hospitality and accommodation suffered the most (year-on-year growth rates slowing by 2.2% and 4.2% respectively) but even agriculture, forestry and fishing slowed (down 1.4%), and job growth was down 1.9%. This latest data doesn’t reveal the impact of January 23’s Red light as yet.

Overseas after their respective outbreaks of Omicron, Australia’s index fell to 86 and the UK’s to 85.

New Zealand’s economy has held better than most. As our Business South navigator, Rebecca Finlay, wrote last week, right now the biggest impediment to business and the local economy is lack of staff. We’re seeing that in Wellington this week as staff isolate and services struggle; supermarkets, primary healthcare, ferries, recycling, transport and restaurants.

Restaurant Association president Mike Egan said the Wellington community had rallied by getting healthy staff to plug staffing gaps in other restaurants. Surely that’s the kind of thing we can do here in the Waitaki.

At it’s most useful, rallying means knowing where we can help and understanding what resources are required. So Waitaki, getting connected has never been more important than now.

That means ask businesses how they are doing.

Ask businesses what you can best do to help.

Jump online to your groups town and country — ask questions, show your support.
If you can’t spend more money with them, can you review them to encourage others to spend there?

Do you know someone reliable who needs casual work? Can you connect them to a relevant business where usual staff are isolating?

Could you dust off some skills and offer to do a shift somewhere to help out? Could you volunteer somewhere to take the pressure off?

At The Business Hive, we’re in the business of connecting people — so call or come in.

We’re also home to Business South who are here to support all businesses, not just members, so talk to Rebecca Finlay (who’s doing a phenomenal job).

How we get through the next few weeks is the whole community’s business.

Ask yourself the question, ‘‘what can I do?’’

Negotiating the way in this Vuca world

It’s 2022, and more than a year since we bought a little old building in Oamaru.

You know the one.

Thames St, next to Poshtel.

The outside looks a bit like a bee hive (now) — boxy, yellow with black stripes. Handy that, because we are The Business Hive — and our logo sits at the very top.

Design-wise, that’s the inspired visual concept by local design company Design Federation.

Execution-wise, you’re seeing the consummate skills of Ace Painters and MJ Ireland Signs.

Why am I telling you this? It’s because the very image of our building illustrates a cornerstone of our business values — that smart, collective efforts outclass simple intention (in this case, paint the building).

We’re heading into a year where expert business predictions are a truly mixed bag. The whole world is facing increased volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (it’s termed a Vuca world).

We don’t have the immigrant labour force we’ve relied on.

We have ongoing supply chain disruptions.

We know that Millennials and Gen Z (adults under 38) are increasingly seeking purposeful work and flexibility (which could be underpinning the great resignation).

Here in the Waitaki, work is more concentrated in a few industries than in other parts of the country.

Our 2020 HHI (Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, where an index of zero represents economic activity evenly spread across all industries) was 144.2 compared with 47.5 nationally.

This matters because the more a region’s economic activity is limited by industry types, the more vulnerable it is to adverse effects (eg commodity price, scarcity or labour force issues).

This year will bring unprecedented opportunities to solve problems in both big and small businesses — and we do that best through smart, collective efforts.

That means understanding what the challenges are and making connections that will help us find the solutions.

The building that is The Business Hive is a striking visual reminder in the heart of our town — an example of businesses working together for something greater than the sum of its parts.

That’s our reason for being — to help businesses make those connections that will drive local economic growth.

It’s why we’ll be working with the Oamaru Business Collective and Business South, local businesses and those newly appearing with ambitious business ideas.

It’s about supporting a thriving business community for the benefit of us all.

We’re in it together, Waitaki.

Welcome 2022. This is the year to get involved.

Source: https://www.oamarumail.co.nz/opinion/negotiating-the-way-in-this-vuca-world/

Time to get on with it in new normal

Well, last Monday’s announcement seems to have put the kibosh on a South Island with different-from-North-Island rules.

Air New Zealand announced that no jabs means no flying internationally, maybe not at all.

The Government announced no jabs means no entry to New Zealand for non-citizens starting November 1.

Vaccine passports are up for discussion.

Alert Level 3 has multiple settings.

It’s getting more “nuanced”, which means more to get our heads around – and we’ve been told more changes are coming.

Bottom line – restrictions here for a while.

Vaccinations are the new “elimination”.

Outside is safer than inside (because, transmission).

Masks are staying.

Yep, we kinda knew that too – it’s what’s been happening everywhere else.

So let’s get on with it.

In these parts, we’re problem solvers. Sure, there’s some bitching and whining (hey, even in the Waitaki we have a vocal few of that kind), but mostly we dust ourselves off and stump up with solutions.

Delta Level 2 means restrictions. Delta Level 1 likely will as well.

Masks.

Masks suck but people get used to them. Alex reminds me that he’s worn many masks, in many jobs, in all weathers, inside and outside. He’s a living example of well-adjusted mask-wearing from a pre-Covid world.

It snaps me back to the days of no seatbelts, habitual drink-driving and no helmets on skis – all things we learned about, got used to or got over.

We can do this.

Vaccinations.

Yep, I’ve got the jab twice.

I had cancer for a bit, made my treatment choices and am more than five years clear, but it still breaks my heart every time someone is diagnosed.

I know they could survive relatively unscathed, like me. I also know they might not. I know that fear. I don’t want it for anyone.

Covid could be far more common than cancer (which is one in every three) and more impactful.

Nuff said.

Outside.

Summer is coming. Where we live, it’s traditionally dry. Let’s use our natural advantages. Council’s waived the fees for street furniture. The weather is on our side. We have amazing outside spaces! Let’s get busy on it.

Yellow is the new black and Covid is the new normal.

We’ve got masks, vaccinations and outdoors up our sleeves. I’d love to hear your ideas.

Source: https://www.oamarumail.co.nz/opinion/time-to-get-on-with-it-in-new-normal/

Facing our fears, working together

Alex and I popped down to The Business Hive this week, masked and dangerous, armed with the now familiar Covid-yellow insulation tape and (coincidentally) Covid-yellow tape measure (1m rule).

This time feels same but different.

Cleaning, yep. Measuring, yep. Rearranging furniture, yep.

Wondering if we’re doing it right? This time, not so much.

Worried about contagion in our building? This time, not at all.

No business owner wants to get Covid or worse, be responsible for its spread.

We all know that testing, wastewater testing and contact tracing is key.

We’ve learned how transmission can happen and how best to prevent it.

We know we don’t have Covid in the South Island right now. That doesn’t mean we should flout the rules, but we can let go of some of those last-time-we-got-the-tape-out fears.

The fears that we can’t so easily bypass are equally familiar.

Fears about how to meet 100% of outgoings with a fraction of earnings, fears about the mounting costs of compliance, and the biggest fear of all – what if an employer can’t look after their staff?

Every employer I’ve spoken with in the past few weeks has been focused on their team.

Some are doing OK, but others are choosing to put wages ahead of bills, hoping the proverbial tape holds over these (hopefully) short-term financial cracks.

Business owners know their people, they know those families, responsibilities and lives. They share in their teams’ joys and care about their disappointments.

The mere thought of letting down any of their people – it’s what makes for sleepless nights.

That’s why we must support local businesses – they are the bedrock of our community.

It’s why everyone (council, commercial and community) must work together so no families fall through that Covid-shaped hole.

I’m pleased to say collaboration is exactly what I am seeing.

Diverse groups are sharing information and working hard to help.

From penguin posters of solidarity (thanks to local graphic artist Scott Wilson) to multi-agency discussions, problems are being considered and solutions tested.

This place has rich history of great ideas, mobilising voices and putting in the hard work. We can live up to that legacy with open minds and listening ears.

If you need help, ask. If you can help, do. Bring your ideas to the table, get involved and let’s all do our part in what we know needs to be done.

Source: https://www.oamarumail.co.nz/opinion/facing-our-fears-working-together/

Cautious sense of relief, optimism from businesses

A quick nosey through business reports and predictions tells me that New Zealand small businesses are doing pretty well in the global shape of things.

Xero’s new Small Business Index showed the small business sector was performing better than average for the second month in a row across all four measures – sales, jobs, wages and the time it takes to be paid.

Looking more closely at the numbers, it’s good news, but we’re not there yet.

Small-business sales increased by 14.3% compared with last year, but we have to remember that we went into lockdown in the last week of March 2020.

Jobs numbers increased 3.7% year on the year, with the exception of hospitality which experienced a 7.8% decrease.

Small-business wages (average hourly earnings) were up 3.2% year on the year but the 2019 average monthly increase was 3.8%.

Time to be paid has decreased to 21.2 days which is good for small-business cashflow, but more than double the 10 days prompt payment goal that the Government self-imposed in June 2020 and widely recommended.

In chatting with local business owners, I’m hearing a sense of cautious relief and optimism. Many businesses have been doing at least as well as their owners had hoped and, in some cases, better than ever.

A key element locally is that those who are doing online sales are seeing uptake across the board. So, yes, we are shopping online as well as buying local, but some of our local small businesses are taking advantage of that trend by selling into other local, national and international markets.

At The Business Hive, we’re seeing a steady increase in the number of businesses getting in touch for contacts and connections – including newcomer businesses.

We’re seeing outstanding collaboration between traditionally competitive business, including in our own building project.

We’ve also noticed an increase in partnered-business promotions, where local businesses are working together to cross promote their products and/or services.

Right now, local businesses are also being asked for their input for the Waitaki District Council’s long-term, destination management and spatial plans. Make time to look ahead – your input now could help shore up many longer term benefits for our region.

Keep being engaged.

Follow the Oamaru Business Collective if you haven’t already.

Winter is coming and opportunities will keep coming too. Let’s get on and make the most of them.

• Cara Tipping Smith is a director of The Business Hive and the Oamaru Business Collective chairwoman.

Source: https://www.oamarumail.co.nz/opinion/cautious-sense-of-relief-optimism-from-businesses/

What now for local businesses? Savvy marketing is key.

Lockdown hurt. It hurt our pocket and I’m pretty sure it hurt yours too.

Pre-lockdown, it looked like we’d be able to trade online if not in store so some retail and manufacturing businesses were forced into investing into an online solution super-fast. Others who were already online managed to sell goods to be delivered after lockdown but for many non-essential products and services - the sales just stopped.

Now we’re out, we’re all aware that businesses are struggling near to home (Queenstown and Central Lakes, Invercargill and Southland are the obvious ones). We’re pretty well insulated here in the Waitaki - last week’s Oamaru Mail showed us that there are plenty of jobs around.

Still, the wage subsidy runs out in September and our whole country might be looking very different around then. So what now for local businesses? Especially our small ones? Well, now’s the time to pull together and get our marketing savvy on.

Before I moved to Oamaru, a partner and I started a business to teach business owners the marketing essentials they really need to know. Her health and my move meant we gave it up for a time. Right now though, I’m going to dust it off and deliver it locally and here’s why.

1. Nobody ever makes a second best decision

   A wise man once told me that you never make a second best decision. He said, “unless you’re clinically insane, you will never think to yourself, there’s my best decision so I think I’ll do something else. Every decision you have ever made was the best available option for you, as far as you knew, at the time”.

   The basic message is that if we want to make ‘best’ decisions, the one thing we can do is work harder to understand all our available options.

   Nobody knows it all but when you don’t know what you don’t know - you can’t be confident that your choice is the best one for you. Fact. That means it’s worth your time to get your head around modern marketing so you have the information you need to be confident that any marketing investment you make is actually, your best decision.
   

2. Small business here is not small business everywhere

   I’ve worked in Auckland, Wellington & Oamaru, London, Cardiff and Bristol, even Buenos Aires and no two places operate the same way. My clients in 25+ years of copywriting have had markets all over the world - they all operate differently when it comes to marketing and selling the ‘goods’.

   Marketing companies come to New Zealand from the US or the UK tell our business owners that they have a marketing solution for them. But small business in the US means fewer than 500 employees. In the UK, it means fewer than 50 employees. In New Zealand it means fewer than 20 employees and for most small businesses (90%) that really means one to five people in their whole team.

   What works in one place doesn’t necessarily work in another. There are some absolute truths when it comes to marketing but you won’t find them with the latest pushy upsell.

3. The whole world and every economy has changed

   Have you ever marketed your business in a global pandemic before? Do people want the same things? Do they want things for the same reasons?

   We are all in brand new, uncharted territory. Uncharted territory is an exciting place to be if you’re part of a trusted group. It’s a pretty shitty place to be on your own though.

   In 25+ years, I’ve learned a lot about marketing in all sorts of places with all kinds of products and services and I’ve taught a lot, from individual tutoring to lecturing at Polytech. I could tell you the absolute truths I mentioned above but I think our time will be better spent applying them to your real business in our real new world.

Last year, Forbes* produced an article stating that “there have been a number of studies going back nearly one century that point out the advantages of maintaining or even increasing ad budgets during a weaker economy. Those advertisers that maintained or grew their ad spending increased sales and market share during the recession and afterwards.”

So now really is the most important time to get your head around modern marketing - what will and won’t work for your business in today’s business climate.

To that end, The Business Hive is launching a Marketing Bootcamp starting Monday, 20th July. It’s a 10-week programme of doing. That means bite-sized but essential cornerstones of modern marketing and an opportunity to implement them in your business during the following week.

Together, we’re going to build a business community that has confidence around marketing and can tell great marketing opportunities from the latest snake oil while getting the results we want and need.

Important Information

• The programme costs $450 plus GST for the whole 10 weeks.

• Late starters will only be accepted with the agreement of the whole group.

• The maximum capacity is 12 because every participant is welcome to bring one teenager for FREE. It doesn't have to be your own teenager, any teenager you think could benefit from this learning experience can buddy up with you at no extra cost! 

To register and pay online click here. If you would like to register and pay by invoice please email us.

*Forbes convenes and curates the most influential leaders and entrepreneurs who are driving change, transforming business and making a significant impact on the world.

Busy? Take a minute to think

June has rocked around as it always does and “busy” is the new “weather” of chats.

How are you? So busy. Can’t believe it’s June already .

In the crush of the busy-blues myself, I went procrastination Googling to see if business owners are busier than anyone else.

Turns out we’re not. But I did find a thing called entrepreneur insomnia.

It’s exactly like insomnia, but made special by putting the word “entrepreneur” in front.

I did find some smug little sayings, “busy is as busy does”, “if you want something done – give it to a busy person”.

“Busy is as busy does”. Thanks, Google, we know we make our own busy.

But whether everyone’s busy is equal or some people’s busy is more equal than others has to be a matter of perspective (obviously not your own though – just ask any project or volunteer co-ordinator).

I’m convinced the “give it to a busy person” saying is only said by reprobates or masochists. Real busy people forget stuff and sometimes forget what they were supposed to do.

Super-efficient, busier-than-other-busy-people – maybe you’re the exceptions.

For the rest of us, the fear of forgetting is real and, come to think of it, most likely responsible for that “entrepreneurial” (or any other kind of) insomnia.

I did find time management advice including strangely animal-focused gems such as “beware the elephants on the horizon” and “how to eat two frogs”.

Those elephants? Apparently, they sneak up on you, like your mother’s 80th birthday that you had all year to organise .. a year ago.

The frogs? Eat the biggest, ugliest first. That way the second will be less awful.

Yes. That’s real advice.

While procrastination Googling might be fun (be honest busy people, you do it, too), I was looking for something simpler and more concrete.

The dictionary says “busy” means one of two things: having a great deal to do, or excessively detailed or decorated.

Hmmm, that sounds a lot like my kind of busy.

So, the wisdom I’m taking is this. “Do less, do less fussing”.

As business owners we’re in charge. Things will crop up, surprises will happen but we choose what we add to our plates (frogs and elephants included).

I wouldn’t give up my day job for a second.

That doesn’t mean I can’t tweak it. Likely so can you.

Why not do that?

Enjoy June.

★ Cara Tipping Smith is the director of The Business Hive.

Source: https://www.oamarumail.co.nz/opinion/busy-take-a-minute-to-think/