The Australian Businesswomen’s Network is pleased to announce that member Kristy-Lee Johnston of Footprint Recruitment has been recognised as the 2011 Member of the Year.

Footprint Recruitment is a specialist professional recruiter and full service HR Agency dedicated to working with Central Coast businesses and candidates. Their core focus is on the recruitment of Professional, Office Support and Technical staff, whilst also providing a full range of outsourced HR services and self guided HR products.

Kristy-Lee describes her passion as: Seeing people secure the job of their dreams, and taking the stress out of my clients days when it comes to their staffing issues.

Kristy-Lee has been an active member of the Australian Businesswomen’s Network since 2009.

Kristy-Lee was an obvious choice as member of the year. Kristy-Lee makes the most of her membership by actively pursuing opportunities available to members and also by sharing and contributing to the entire community.

In 2011, Kristy-Lee was a mentor in the MentorNet Mentoring and Training Program. She also expertly facilitated two webinars on Human Resources for small-business owners and has contributed articles and 35 blog posts to the herBusiness blog – sharing her expertise on all things HR with the wider community. Kristy-Lee will continue as a blogger this year – generously helping us all to better understand how to work well with our teams.

We congratulate Kristy-Lee and thank her for her contribution to the Australian Businesswomen’s Network community.

You can learn more about Kristy-Lee here:

• Visit her ABN member profile
• Read some of Kristy-Lee’s blog posts on the herBusiness blog
• Visit the Footprint Recruitment website

US Student tells her story of being an intern at the Australian Businesswomen’s Network

by Laura Heineman

Our 2011 Interns - Jesse Wong, Cloris Chen, Jenna Holida and Laura Heineman

G’day! My name is Laura Heineman. In the coming fall semester, I will continue with my fourth year in Marketing and Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. Currently, I am writing this blog from my home in Ogden, Iowa, USA, approximately 8,900 miles (or 14,323 km) from the wonderful city of Sydney where I lived and worked for the majority of my summer (your winter) to earn study abroad credit hours and gain internship experience through Arcadia University.

Arcadia set me up with the wonderful opportunity to work for the Australian Businesswomen’s Network (ABN). ABN, headed by the motivating entrepreneur Suzi Dafnis, has over 20,000 community members and is working each day to provide valuable information for working women (and even a few men!). Through their website, blog, podcasts, webinars, interviews, mentors and articles, ABN aims to connect, educate and empower their members and to help them achieve their dreams in the world of business.

I was one of the people working behind the scenes, helping make everything run effectively and smoothly. A lot of effort goes into continuously updating the website and making it more relatable and interesting to the ABN members.

As an intern, I was given a wide variety of tasks that I could apply my skills from university to real-life marketing situations. I performed customer relationship management by completing data entry and organising the customer/member database. I worked with social media and provided continuous and interesting tweets during online webinar sessions ranging from 30 to 1,000 participants. I also updated and posted new blog posts and executed search engine optimisation (SEO) to increase traffic to the ABN website and the herBusiness blog, making sure the online information remained fresh and interesting. Working with the blogs was my favourite part of my internship because I got to read articles and watch video interviews by experienced, successful businesswomen and pick up tips on a variety of business topics.

Being an ABN intern immersed me in a culture of women empowerment and has given me immeasurable insight into the world of business. I have soaked up mass amounts of business information just by being able to listen to these strong female leaders. ABN sets a high standard for women and businesses and I’m glad I received the opportunity to work there.

The Australian Businesswomen’s Network provides internships for business students from all over the world. Tasks vary depending on your area of interest and study. What we can guarantee is that you’ll be included in the development and delivery of great business information, you’ll learn new skills and you’ll be an important part of our family. If you’d like to be considered for an internship, call us on 1300 720 120 or email us here.

By Susan Wareham McGrath, Susan Wareham Immigration Services

In recognition of its role as the only Australian organisation dedicated to the political representation of women in business, the Australian Businesswomen’s Network (ABN) was invited to participate in this week’s national Small Business Forum, convened by Senator the Hon Nick Sherry, Australian Minister for Small Business.

The Minister addressed an audience of 80 industry representatives and advocates of small business. He briefly presented the government’s current position on issues relating to Australian SMEs, then took questions from audience members.  The ABN was represented by community leader, Suzi Dafnis.

The minister started his presentation by acknowledging that the current overall business climate is very mixed especially for small business. He said that some areas of business are very flat and subdued, especially in retail, and cited the following contributory factors:

• As we emerge from financial crisis, Australians are saving more and spending less. Some areas of retail are very flat.
• The higher Aussie dollar makes it a tougher environment especially for exporters and tourism.
• There are still financial issues overhanging from the global financial crisis that are impacting on consumer and business confidence. Certain perceptions of federal and state government   also impact confidence.

He noted that online selling was seeing a rapid uptake and that this was having an impact on many industry sectors, making less relevant the geographic base of the distribution of goods and services. The Minister strongly recommended that small businesses try and stay up to date with web-based business distribution and activities – particularly since only 3 in 10 small businesses are currently active online. He also stated that the rollout (over the next decade) of the NBN would be a significant enabler of online business activity.

In his opening address, the Minister also commented on carbon pricing, which, he said, would in most cases have an indirect impact on small business. He advised that the Small Business Support Line has taken 35,000 calls and been provided with additional funding and that a new Business Resource Kit was launched in May, as a USB flash drive that contains a wide range of resources for small business owners.

The ABN had the opportunity to ask two questions, both relating to topics  identified by our members as significant public policy issues.

SMALL BUSINESS ONLINE

Question:

Taking businesses online, the Small Business Online program, closed in June with $14 million in grants given to support small businesses. There is still an incredibly large number of businesses not online which require training on how to make the most of the online opportunities. Will there be more funding for this?

Answer:

I’ve had a lot of discussion with BECs discussing how we can increase the penetration of education. It will require more resourcing of money for education and training.

If I can make an observation – I think in the case of many small businesses, it’s a generational issue. If you didn’t go through high school with any contact with computer based technologies – and indeed also through universities, there is an education and training gap that is very tough to overcome.

We should devote a lot more money across government. Can’t give a specific answer at this point.  Upskilling in this area has to be a major focus, because for some business at least, they’ll die if they don’t adapt to this technology.

As much as I struggle with it personally at times, it’s here, it’s growing – and if we don’t adapt we won’t survive.

The New Digital Enterprise Program – for businesses and non-profit organisations will be introduced incrementally, initially in the areas where the NBN is being rolled out.  It’s a USB flash drive that contains a wide range of resources for small business owners.

Many of the BECs offer one-on-one courses and they are oversubscribed.
There is a huge thirst for knowledge and training.

When you have so many small business the pressure is on time and there is some fear about the technology. A lot of issues to overcome.

CHILDCARE

Question:

Senator, the rebate introduced in 2008 has had a significant  impact on SMEs. To small businesses owners, every staff member is an important part of the team. When women want to get back to work – and as employers its very important to have them back – Is it likely that all legitimate childcare can be subject to rebate?

I’m not an expert or responsible for childcare but based on what I know I suspect the answer is no because of the costs involved. I’d be happy to get more details from the relevant government representative.

The ABN will follow up on this issue and report back on the government’s response.

Other issues raised by the audience related to:

Access to finance

The Minister agreed that access to small business finance had become more difficult and that something needed to be done about the situation.

He also noted that reform for some businesses could relate to the personal property security reform, which will be classified as a secured asset rather than unsecured asset.

Red tape and regulations

The Minister expressed his strong support for deregulation. He said there are 27 reform agenda items currently being reviewed – a complex and diverse list. He believes that one item that will likely be approved relates to business names regulations, with proposed changes including a reduction in overall business names registration costs, due to registration in one state applying nationally.

The Minister feels that two areas of concern that may not obtain approval relate to the duties and responsibility of directors, and regulation around plastics and chemicals

Definition of small business

An audience member raised the issue of current inconsistent definitions of small business having the unintended result of some businesses being ineligible for some government programs.

The Minister indicated it would be unlikely that one definition would be put in place, as there are differing reasons why different definitions are used.

Government procurement policy and small business

The Minister agreed that it is currently difficult for small business to win government contracts due to the onerous conditions placed by government; for example, insurance and liability cover, which are often too expensive for small business

He said that there is a lot more to do in this area and that he would raise the issue via the COAG agenda, as “it would be an assignment worth doing.”

As your advocacy body, the Australian Businesswomen’s Network is currently drafting a follow up letter to the Minister, elaborating on our members’ concerns about the issues above. To ensure that we are as inclusive of members’ interests as possible, we would be interested in hearing of any other issues you’d like us to include in our submission to Senator Sherry.

Please contact Suzi Dafnis on 1300 720 120, or via suzi@abn.org.au, or include your issues as a response to this post.

MORE GREAT POSTS BY SUSAN MCGRATH:

• “Is that really what you meant to say?” How semantic saboteurs can dumb down your brand.
• Getting on board to overcome professional isolation
• Quotas on Boards. What’s the real issue?

On Day 4 of South by South West, Cat Matson (Alito) and Suzi Dafnis (Australian Businesswomen’s Network) talked about the journey so far at this year’s conference, including:

• Can companies outsource their social media?
• When does it work and when should you avoid it?
• Is social media for PR or for something deeper

This interview was held at the 2011 South by South West Interactive festival in Austin Texas. Over 19,000 people attended to hear about the latest developments in new media and technology. The event attracts people from all over the world and features inspiring speakers. This year’s speakers included Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library TV), the founders of TOMS shoes and FourSquare and authors of a number of the best selling business books.

We’ll feature some of these highlights here on the herBusiness blog over the coming weeks.

MORE FROM CAT MATSON

• Cat Matson Interviewed at SXSW
• Done. It’s time to get things finished and shipped
• Strategy. What is it, really?

By Suzi Dafnis, Australian Businesswomen’s Network

Last week I was one of over 19,000 crazies at South By South West Interactive, a five-day festival held in Austin, Texas. The five-day program is about all things media and technology.  There are tribes of people – bloggers, authors, developers, professors, tech-heads, geeks, content-creators, publishers etc…

It’s also where great minds in new technology development gather to learn, network and hear about the innovations that are taking place across industries.

This year it was great to more fellow Aussies along that before. In this interview Cat Matson of Alito tells us why she made the big trek to attend this conference and what she’d learned so far!

I managed to capture the ideas and stories of some exciting folks and will share those with you over the coming weeks.

Best wishes, Suzi

In December 2010, the Australian Businesswomen’s Network conducted its Community Survey. Here is the first snapshot of the results from the over 500 people who participated.

The survey included StartUp and Growth members, members of the ABN Community and people connected to the ABN through social media.

Community older than previously

The participants this time were older than in the 2007 survey, with the proportion of participants less than 45 decreasing from 62% to 54%.

30% were born overseas

These 30% were born in 35 different countries and now part of the ABN Community. The main countries were United Kingdom, New Zealand and United States.

43% live in a major city in New South Wales

While the services of the ABN are largely online and Member roundtables are in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, almost half of the participants (47%) live in New South Wales.

39% don’t have children

While 39% of the participants don’t have children, the Australian Census 2006 reports that 25% of 25-54 year olds don’t have children. Are we too busy working in (or on) our business to have a family of our own or will the 2011 Census show an increase in the proportion without children? The ABN plans to do more research in this area.

Of those with school aged children or younger, more than half do not have access to registered or authorised child care and more than a tenth employ a nanny.

57% are fully employed by their own business

The proportion fully employed by their own business has remained the same since 2007. However, the proportion employed by someone else and do not intend to start their own business has increased slightly, and the proportion who have an idea for a business but haven’t started it yet have decreased slightly.

Broad range of business experience

While almost half (48%) of business owners have been in business for less than 4 years, 23% have been in business for more than 10 years, showing the broad range of experience that the community can connect across.

62% use social networks for business

Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn are being used by almost two thirds of the ABN Community to connect their business with others. This is interesting in comparison to Smart Company report of an Optus survey in The 10 next social media trends (October 2010) that only 28% of small businesses used social media to promote their business while 56% had no near-term plans to start. While the comScore State of the Internet in Australia report recently released says that 82% of Australians 15 years or older visit social networking sites (although it doesn’t separate personal and business use).

By Amy Lyden

Growing up in the US in the 1970s , I clearly remember one of the most successful ad campaigns ever – Virginia Slims cigarettes.  Their slogan, “You’ve come a long way, baby” conjured feelings of women’s equal rights, freedom and emancipation.  The actual text on the ad was, “Back then, every man gave his wife at least one day a week out of the house. You’ve come a long way, baby.”  And it was true – women HAD come a long way from the days of women practically being confined to the house cooking, cleaning and raising children.  But how much progress have we made over the last decade?  Not a lot.

The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) released the results of its 2010 Census Women in Leadership earlier this month. Read the media release here.

There has been very little (hardly a change) improvement in the number of women in senior management and board roles over the past 2 years.

Following are the key findings:

Clearly, further action is needed.

Gail Kelly, CEO of Westpac and 8^th most influential woman in the world according to Forbes magazine, has committed to gender targets in her own workplace.  Ms Kelly will double women in senior management from the current 20% to 40% over the next four years.   CBA agreed to a similar commitment last month.  But is this enough?

Norway is the poster child for women on boards.  It has had a quota law in place for the past four years stipulating that all publicly traded companies must have between 33 and 50 percent women on the boards (depending on size).   Companies that don’t comply face serious fines and even dissolution.  France and Spain are enacting similar laws, minus the penalties.  Even the Fortune 500 boards in my homeland, the USA, which I’ve always believed to be ahead of Australia in terms of women on top, has an embarrassing 16 percent women.  This number hasn’t moved for years.

In Europe there are less than 10 percent of women board members; Asia is worse with only 3.6 percent in developed countries and 4.7 percent for emerging markets.

JEEZ! So, is there ANY good news?

Certainly in Australia, the Government is saying the right things.  PM Julia Gillard last week said that targets might not work for all organisations however gender balance needs to be a “dedicated focus”.  Will a “focus” be enough?  Isn’t that what we have all been trying to do?

There is one tangible initiative happening: the Government, together with the Australian Institute of Company Directors, has committed to funding 70 scholarships for women for director education courses.  There is a lot of talk in corporate Australia about the need for more women on boards, and this education will certainly help get some women skilled up.

What does Australia need to do to ensure a balance of gender in leadership and influential positions?   Quotas?  More initiatives to encourage businesses to step up?  More women?  In my opinion it will certainly take a lot more than “focus”.  I want to have a conversation with my now 2 year old daughter when she’s 18 and say, “WOW – We’re REALLY come a long way baby!!”

Post a comment and have your say.

MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY AMY LYDEN

• ABN – The Political Parties Respond to Your Concerns
• Businesswomen’s Pre-Election Poll Results Reveal Key Issues for Government to Address in the Coming Election
• Pre-Election Results Reveal the Issues Women Want Government to Act on

By Jaye Radisich,  Navigate Business

Things could be looking up for small business owners now that we have a minority Labor government, despite small business receiving close to zero attention during the Federal election campaign.

For any legislative change to happen in the next ten months, Labor must win the support of the independents in the lower house. As rural representatives, it is fair to expect that the independents would be acutely aware of how important small businesses are to local communities – so this concern may well be extrapolated to national small business issues.

But, we must remember that governing the nation involves a lot more than just legislating. Arguably, it is far more efficient to govern without legislating at all. From here on in we need to keep a keen eye on policy changes and be ready to scan the next budget line by line to identify the addition or deletion of initiatives that impact on small business. These won’t all show up under the Department with responsibility for small business either.

During the election campaign Labor contained its commitments to small business to promises that had been made earlier during the 2010 budget and the Henry Tax Review announcements. These included a reduction in the company tax rate and a depreciation bonus for small business, not due to start until 2012, and funded with revenue from the mining super profits tax. The Gillard Government has committed to a Tax Summit that will revisit the Henry Tax Review, so here’s hoping that some tax-savvy ABN members will be around the table at the Summit.

For entrepreneurs, now is definitely the time to ‘go digital,’ get NBN-ready and to pursue business ideas that are clean and green. Labor and Green policies should favour initiatives under these banners.

Over a year ago the Australian Businesswomen’s Network raised funds to support entrepreneurs in developing countries through Kiva, an organisation that provides micro-loans. Members contributed donations through a silent auction and a series of business webinars. We recently reinvested the funds that had been repaid by those who had received our original funding. Here are the stories and profiles of the latest recipients of ABN member support.

I share their stories here to demonstrate the parallel between business owners in all countries. Our circumstances may differ (immensely) but our spirit and our goals are often similar. Education, inspiration and networking and connections are the common elements to our success regardless of our location.

SAYDA MELANIA – STORE OWNER Sayda Melania is married and has a small store in her home. Her sales provide her gratification since she has a considerable number of customers and satisfactory income. With the help of her husband, she has been able to move forward with determination, hard work, and dedication. Her loan requested will be granted so that she can buy basic grains, candy, detergents, bread, and cookies. Her wish is to increase the number of customers that she serves.

HILARIA – ARTISAN WOOL PRODUCTS At 42 years old, Hilaria is the mother of two children who are already independent. She works selling artisanal products, which she distributes from her home. She is also learning about the production of these crafts in all their possible varieties so that she herself can create them and increase her profit margins. She began making woven wool products such as sweaters, hats, gloves, etc. Hoping one day to have a store, she plans to learn more about artisanal work and use the current loan to buy artisanal crafts to sell. Her biggest dream is to have and rent out her own store and a mototaxi.

LILA – BEAUTY PRODUCTS Lila, 52, is an enterprising woman who works tirelessly to accomplish her dreams. She is single and lives with her sister in her sister’s home. For 4 years she has been selling beauty products, like her sister. The way she works is that she acquires the products from a well-known cosmetics company and offers them through catalogs to her friends and neighbors. They prefer these products because of their good quality and low price. Part of the advantage she has is that she knows the products well, and can suggest to the customers which cosmetics they should choose, and in this way she earns her customer’s loyalty.

FLORA – CONVENIENCE STORE Flora Idania Chow Castillo, 31, is married with two children who study. This mother has managed a convenience store for three years. With her earnings she contributes to household costs, as her husband is a soldier and his earnings are low.Her business is located in an area where there are only two convenience stores; this means that she has many customers and has good sales. She is requesting a small loan, which will be used to buy the following basic grains and materials to keep her business going.

MARIBELOU – RETAIL STORE Maribelou Tadle, from the village of Southern Pob. Plaridel Misamis Occidental, is 38 years old and separated from her spouse. To make a living, Maribelou owns and operates a specialized retail store selling clothing and shoe products, lotion, cologne, etc. in the local community. She is requesting a loan to purchase additional products to sell and to keep her business growing.

KHALILOVA – CLOTHING STORE Khalilova Yakshikhanim is a 50-year-old woman who sells men’s clothes in a small village of Agsu city. She started her business in 2010 and her monthly profit is already 150-200 AZN. She is very successful in her business as she has very good taste in choosing men’s clothes. She is married and has six children. Yakshikhanim started her business because she went on a pension in 2009 and lost her only source of income. She believes that one day she could build her own shop.

By Amy Lyden

Thank you to those who participated in the Australian Businesswomen’s Network pre-election poll.

We have analysed the results and written to all major political parties so that we can hear how they respond to issues that are important to YOU.

Below is a list of the top issues you identified, as well as a link to a copy of the letter we have sent to the major parties.

You will see the top issues are:
•    Government support for small business including training,
•    reducing red tape and compliance issues,
•    gender imbalance on boards and
•    cost and flexibility of childcare.

There were also two running themes in the open ended questions you answered:
1.  Reduction of tax for small business – income and payroll, and
2.  Climate change – incentives offered for small business and concerns over reducing our carbon footprint.

Many of you commented that many of these issues that are important to you haven’t been addressed by any of the parties or their policies aren’t clear.

We will notify you as soon as we have heard back from the parties so that you can make a better informed choice at the polls on the 21st of August.

Link to letter sent to Political Parties

Will keep you posted…

Amy Lyden
Advocacy Ambassador

P.S. Many of you took time to provide additional comments and reasons. Thank you for your passion. We will post some of these additional thoughts in the coming days.

MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY AMY LYDEN

• Paid Parental Leave – Article: Maybe Baby: Juggling Home, Work and Family Life.
• Tony Abbott vs Craig Emerson – Live from COSBOA’s National Small Business Summit, 8 July
• Paid Parental Leave Scheme Gets the Go-Ahead