Tag: Australia

It's Sunday and I have been madly working away since 6am. That I suppose is the life of an entrepreneur.

Of late, it's been crazy. My 'to do list' seems endless and there really isn't enough hours in the day. On top of that, I only recently realized that I am not utilizing my time effectively enough and need to make some changes - except I feel like I need to catch up before making changes. It is 'the chicken and the egg' scenario all over again.

People can look at Sundays in a number of ways; For me, I look at the day as the first day of the week, as in Australia it is a Monday. I am of course sitting in my hotel room in Atlanta.

I sat at my desk yesterday and I felt relieved. Something had been lifted. In Australia, we have end of financial year that keeps people like myself busy over the months of July and August, and then by the time September comes around, I always feel like I am playing catch up. Fortunately, I don't need to do this for another few months again when the US end of financial year occurs.

Business is going great. We have an phenomenal team, one of the best we have had possibly over the entire history of the business. What makes this team so great is that they are 'team workers', people that share ideas, collaborate and try to get the best out of each other. Rather than working and taking full responsibility for a client, they take it as a team effort to ensure our clients happiness.

When I started Marketing Eye more than 9 years ago, I had a vision to be the world's best small business marketing firm. I dreamt that I would open offices all over the world that would sell marketing services backed by sophisticated technology platforms, media and education, to businesses that had revenues of $1 million to $200 million.

Primarily, the companies that would be ideal clients were one's that were entrepreneur-led, like me, and who had a dream to significantly grow their businesses and mostly be industry game-changers - although the latter wasn't exactly necessary.

In the early days, we had hurdles. The first was our own mind-set of being use to working with funded startups or medium to large corporations and shifting the way we interacted, engaged and nurtured our clients to success to cater for burgeoning SMB market.

It took time. More time than I ever imagined. 

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It wasn't until more than 5 years later that things took real shape and my original business plan came into play. There wasn't an obstacle that I didn't face and no amount of hours in the office seemed to help get Marketing Eye to the level that it needed to be to fulfil our business plan.

Then, somehow it became easier, and I had more time up my sleeve to get back to doing the things I should have done in the start and that is "working on the business, not in the business".

This is where my life became very exciting and every single time I achieved one more piece of my business plan, I had a real sense of accomplishment. Suddenly everything became easier and there was enough money in the coffers to do what we needed to do. No more watching cashflow to the level that we needed to do in the early stages, and more investment placed in areas of the business where it needed it most.

We had a lot of changes that we needed to do in the business. I had made a lot of mistakes particularly in the recruitment stakes and had senior management who were not well-suited to marketing, let alone a senior management position, that were steering the ship.

Hard decisions needed to be made and I was making them - with confidence.

Now it's a different story. I can safely say we are well on our way to realising our business goals and achieving everything that I set out to achieve in that very first business plan. 

We are smarter, faster and better than any of our competitors, and on top of that, we do everything in-house with no outsourcing and have our own proprietary technology to back it up. Then of course, we have a company magazine which is really taking shape, and I love the fact that we are able to give our clients a voice.

Expanding to the US market has been very hard both personally and professionally. I have lost the last few years on planes, living in hotels and putting myself out there in very uncomfortable situations.

One of the big changes for Marketing Eye right now is to forget that we are a small business, and to act global. If you want to be global, you have to behave like a global company. That means business structures, management structures, planning sessions, meetings, reporting and so on.

The knowledge that you need to have to expand globally is exhausting. I still cannot get my head around all the different tax laws and government regulations of the US, preferring to hire it in rather than invest the time in expanding my knowledge in this area. Somehow I took for granted the fact that in Australia I seem to know more about tax and business structures than some of the outsourced companies I employ. Likewise, with law, it feels like I am telling the lawyers what to put in contracts and they are just taking orders. Both of which may mean that there needs to be a change, but nevertheless, this is how I feel.

Finding the right partners in overseas markets is imperative, but remember, the partner you have today may not be the same as the one that takes you to where you want to go. Make sure you learn as much as possible and give them every opportunity to be successful in what they do, powering your company to the next level.

Get across foreign exchange because currency can make or break you - and you just have to ask Billabong about that one.

Marketing in the US is different to Australia. It is far more aggressive, technology savvy and immediate, whereas in Australia, it is more relaxed.

This journey continues to be exciting, but it is important that if you are a global startup, beware that you don't act like one. Fake it until you make it and treat your company like an entrepreneurial corporation that is fast tracking global expansion.

If I could have a dollar for every time I didn't trust my gut instinct, I would be a very rich woman.

Like most entrepreneurs, I have failed more times than I have succeeded and every single time I have failed I have thought back to how I could have done things differently. 9 times out of 10, it was because I didn't trust my gut instinct.

Trusting in yourself and your intuition is important, but if you are anything like me, you second guess what you think you should do and find reasons as to why you should do something a different way. It's not too indifferent from taking a risk. We are all reluctant to take risks but sometimes there is this thing inside us that tells us that we must do it - even though there a thousand reasons why we shouldn't.

"Same bed, but it feels a bit bigger now" is the lyrics in the famous Bruno Mars song "When I was your man".  An apt description of Marketing Eye's business expansion into the US market. It's the same company, but its a bit bigger now. 

What started out as a step to expand the international footprint of our brand, has taken on a whole new dimension. Australian and America have long been tied and now more so than ever. The ebbs of the economy has led to an opportunity for Australian companies that are geared for expansion to leverage the strength of the Australian dollar, and affordable set up costs in the US market without breaking the bank. The downside, is US dollars are not worth as much, as the dollar loses its grip on parity.

Ever sat down with a group of friends from another country and felt like the odd one out? Not because you dress particularly strangely, nor due to the fact that they eat a whole different menu than what you are use to (think peanut butter and jelly sandwiches - ughhh!), but because your accent and basic language is lost in translation and you are not sure whether to keep quiet to avoid embarrassment or to power through in hope of perhaps teaching your friends a thing or two about being Australian or English or whatever you may be.

I really don’t have too much to say about Prince William other than the fact he looks like a lovely chap, someone that perhaps I could head to the pub with on a Saturday, down a few pints and then head home.

As I said, it’s been a big week at Marketing Eye! Marketing Eye Brisbane has developed this new website for telecommunications gun, Donna Gresham. DMG Communications now have a new brand, new identity and new website.

Every three months, I make a trip out to rural Australia (Charters Towers) to meet with  a number of clients.