Emajin Golf: Beyond the 19th

In this week's episode of the Emajin Podcast: Beyond the 19th we catch up with Emajin member Liam Gardener, MD at Expansion Loans. In this episode, he shares both his golfing and business journey while also sharing insights on how we can best consider funding to grow and expand our businesses.

Liam, who had a brief start in banking, spent over 16 yrs travelling the world brokering commercial flights and private jets required for major events and dealing with everyone from billionaires, famous musicians and even technicians for remote field projects.

A natural at building relationships and having a fascination to learn how businesses operated and who was behind them, Liam invested in himself and started Expansion Finance, an enterprise that is enabling businesses realise their future plans and goals. The aim is to change the approach within the sector to give the power back to the business owner, ensuring they have the information available that automates decision making ensuring they are acting fast and with confidence.

Driven by a passion to ensure business owners have the knowledge available on their current asset value, Liam offered the following tips when thinking about expanding to ensure you are empowered:

1. Be clear on your future plan - take the time to think about expansion and growth opportunities - be clear on how you articulate it and how passionate you are about it
2. Understand your capacity - gather the data to determine clearly your assets and liabilities, your credit score, the value of your business and the funding levels available to you.
3. Seek a trusted provider to test your thinking - everyone is shy when discussing finances and in today's models that human touch to know your capability, competencies, business performance and future is not always available in larger institutions, there are options available to explore and make the call with someone you trust

Interestingly, after the love of Rugby but the dislike of injuries, Liam turned to golf and after building his skills over the years hit the recent heights of winning the Emajin Invitational, although he loves connecting with others just as much as the game.

We hope you find Liam's insights very helpful. Listen in to find out his interesting response to our question who would be your dream 4 ball and what course is on your bucket list? What is your answer?

In this week's episode of the Emajin Golf podcast: Beyond the 19th we speak with Dave Levett from the Murmur Group, who shares amazing insights on advertising, branding and marketing - Dave walks us through the establishment of a marketing set up designed to take businesses to great heights for growth and revenues.

Dave left school in year 12, like many of us, without a clear plan as he headed to uni. Demonstrating talent on stage at School, Dave initially enrolled in an Acting degree, however it was the marketing subjects that turned on the lights for Dave's creativity, strategic problem solving, customer passion and focus for his future.

Initially starting in a retail marketing agency to develop critical skills, Dave progressed to large branding opportunities including Bigpond and Telstra before heading to London to lead marketing for Sky UK. On return to Australia, Dave started taking on key projects for clients, turning that momentum in the creation of the Murmur Group, an award-winning econometric agency, fusing the art and science of marketing to deliver effective, innovative and well-known campaigns.

As we all navigate the complex world of advertising, both traditional and digital forms, Dave challenges us with two critical questions:

1. Have you got your marketing setup right? - are your business objectives, aligned to your marketing objectives and campaign objectives, what data are you tracking and is it the right data.
2. Do you measure your marketing effectiveness? - traditionally we measure marketing efficiency through ROI, but we need to measure the effectiveness - what did work in the campaign, what did not work, at which point in each of the marketing platforms had impact on the key goal eg sales

In this listen you get a front row seat into insights of a leading media strategist, expert media buyer and passionate marketing data guru who shares the power of the marketing mix modelling along with great insight on building your network hemisphere of luck.

In this week's episode of the Emjain Podcast: Beyond the 19th we talk to Kane Godfrey, Managing Director of True Projects, a leading commercial fit out firm with a truly unique business model. Kane shares his journey from the NSW wine country to working on significant commercial projects as well as key life lessons on how to get to the top and stay there.

Kane's drive is inspirational, initially growing up by the sea there was never time to stop between surfing and sport, moving into the country in his late teens that energy was consumed by the 300acres of land and keeping up with his brothers. Following the need to see the world Kane finally settled into his love of creating and building.

Initially a carpenter and builder in the residential space Kane moved from building with timber to construction with steal and he transitioned into the commercial building space, starting as site manager and successfully climbing to the top role. Described as "People Luck" Kane surrounded himself with experts in the industry to learn from and also work with, shaping his skills and career.

Commercial construction and fitouts is a very competitive space that is going through alot of challenges as commercial spaces are being used and consumed very differently. Despite this Kane, along with this business partner, decided to create True Projects, a values led organisation that is true its word and commitments. We learn that Kane has been able to differentiate True Projects in the market by building partnerships with customers and suppliers, offering transparent model that provides a design and construct offereing with a fix lump sum pricing outcome, enabling the team to deliver what they promise, while also managing the risk. This model a has been successful with over 100 projects completed and 55% of the contracts nationally is repeat business.

Kane authentically shares his model for success which includes the need to right down your goals and keep checking on them, know the importance of fitness and getting out into nature, invest time to be clear on your future and surround yourself with good people. A true model for us all to succeed by.

In this weeks episode of the Emajin Podcast: Beyond the 19th our special guest is our own Allan Haugie, PGA Professional, Relationship Manager and Head of Victoria at Emajin Golf. Allan shares some great stories both on and off the course, tips for golfers of all abilities and how to master this great game of golf.

Allan first picked up the clubs at 2 years old under the watchful eyes of his proud dad. While alot of sports like soccer, cricket and anything he could get his hands on at 13 Allan had his first golf lesson and he became hooked. Practicing after school every day to improve and building skills, it was competing that became the ultimate rush. Allan sacrificed alot to travel weekends to compete at club levels, junior interstate and schoolboys events, toured America as an amateur and pursued playing career on teh Australiasian tour.

"Golf is one of the only sport that you can finish practice and be worse afterwards" - Allan shares moments in his golf career that he had the yips, Putting in his teen's, Chipping in early 20's and then and Full Swing yips - at these moments Allan learnt to regroup, go back to the old techniques that worked and break down the actions into smaller steps to practice, an approach that translates to any career when you need to pivot, strengthen and build resilience.

Allan's passion for the game has not shifted, achieving success as PGA professional, becoming accredited coach and now connecting like minded business professionals and building a modern golf community.

Everyone will enjoy listening to Allan's golf stories, including match play with a young Cameron Smith (listen for the outcome), sharing experiences of beginners who overcame the fear of being judged and the hearing the commitment Allan has for getting everyone at all levels into the game.

In this week's episode of the Emajin Golf Podcast: Beyond the 19th we catch up with, Steve Dib Managing Director of Soneta Plumbing and Civil, a family-owned business that has been operating for over 40 years. Steve shares with us the insights of leading by example to build an exemplary high performing culture and provides the practical lessons learnt in the evolution of his leadership skills.

We all know that moving into a family business does not provide favours. Steve's journey was no different, being destined to move into the family business, finding the passion for the plumbing trade, completing qualifications and starting at the bottom on the tools under the strict guidance of his passionate father.

The transitioning off the tools and moving into the leadership role became one of the hardest challenges. Learning new skills from hiring the team, understanding the different mindsets within the group, being across the end-to-end operations, ensuring the quality and high standards of delivery remain while also trying to transform the business to take on increasing complex capital projects.

Steve learnt alot in navigating the complexities of leading the organisation, pushing himself out of his comfort zone he reflects on proven elements on his success that includes :

• Know your numbers - the numbers are telling you what is happening in your business and how you and the team can respond, change and celebrate success
• Hire for mindset - using a standard framework, Steve assesses for positive mindset over skills, it is the foundation in which the skills can be developed,
• Create clarity - ensure your team have clear roles, know what they are responsible for and hold them accountable - find ways for the team to share what they are doing so you are across the quality, with the processes in place you can step away and focus on being the coach, not the player
• Seek a Coach - as a leader you need to be challenged and continuously evolving your skills to adapt to the changing environments. As a leader you are your own challenge, so you need to focus on how you are impacting others and how to remain effective

To Steve, golf provides alot of lessons for business leaders - he notes that every hurdle is a solution, your mistakes are opportunities to grow, you need to keep focused and not dwell on the tough moments but move forward actively, challenging yourself

A great listen for all leaders who can reflect on their own moments of being challenged and like Steve, have learnt that if you concentrate on your people your business will be unstoppable.

In today's world of global human talent shortage, have you thought about sourcing talent globally and creating staffing solutions, when you need it, and where you need it?

In this week's episode of the Emajin Golf podcast where we chat with Kevin van Lith, Head of Growth at Liveware.

Kevin and Liveware have are strong corporate members of the Emajin community and in this episode he shares his amazing career journey working in the travelling and tourism industry, in marketing and social media and now working at Liveware delivering great modular staffing solutions for their clients.

Kevin shares his insights on Modular Staffing as an integral corporate strategy, as well as the opportuity to build bespoke teams around the globe to support their client's endevours. This episode is a must listen for businesses of any size or scale.

In this week's episode of Emajin Podcast Beyond the 19th, we catch up with Allan Stewart, our very own COO of Emajin Golf, who shares his careeer insights on creating an effective workplace culture, the power of aligning teams to organisation goals and practical tips to create change in your organisation.

Allan has a successful track record, experienced in leading large diverse and complex team across Australia in the US and Asia. As a young person who could not wait to start work, Allan began his career in a graduate program finding the passion in leading teams, moved to Human Resources before transitioning into Business Development and then onto leading Operations.

We learn from Allan the power of Role Models who influence your way of operating, your commitment and your ambition. It is through role model influences that Allan adapted successfully to several sectors including Hospitality, FMCG, Technology, Telecommunications, Media and more recently Education.

A bias for action, Allan learnt early the benefit of aligning teams around a clear organisation plan, ensuring clear objectives around the priority tasks that would move the organisation forward and the advantage of measuring and celebrating results with the whole team.

While working across challeging environments, Allan shares the one binding element regardless of sector, being customer centric. Ensuring the customer is at the centre of the organisation systems and processes, the need for customer communications to be two way and the benefit of customer engagement to create competitive advantage.

Allan shares some great experiences and significant projects, providing examples of managing changes that enable us as leaders to reflect on how we might be role modelling behaviour, how clear are our business plans to others, how aligned are our teams and reflecting on how effective our customer systems might be.

In this episode of Emajin Beyond the 19th Pod Cast, we chat to Juan Perez and Luisa Perez, from Quest Legal who share with us their story of starting the business, intricacies of working together as a father and daughter team and provide great insights on how to protect your trademark, critical for anyone starting or building a business.

Juan, who was born in Columbia arriving in Australia when he was 2, has an established background in general commercial, corporate franchising law and intellectual property. Initially working in-house legal in banking sector and following various roles led to starting his own business Quest Legal.

Luisa was never encouraged to go into law, initially following a passion to be a doctor, completing a medical science degree, but after some sole searching all signs were set for a corporate career. Luisa then completed her legal studies and ventured to the Netherlands for a 6 month exchange that turned into a 6 years, returning to Australia to join the Quest Legal team.

Quest Legal, specialise in Intellectual Property (IP), Technology and Franchise Law, with offices based in Sydney and Perth. Quest Legal have a strong team of general commercial lawyers bonded with a commitment to support small to medium businesses, being the backbone of the country and enables the team to help alot of people nationally and internationally.

In the discussion Juan and Luisa share insights and passion into Intellectual Property - noting that the size of the business makes no difference, but we need to ask ourselves how upset would we be if someone stole our idea, business name or concept and what impact would that have on our market, brand, business performanceand significant investment we made in setting up a business.

As Business owners we need to know how to best protect our business, know what is non-registrable and what is to be registered, the rights wihtin the geographies we operate in and also aligning protection to the future business plan including franchising, expanding, partnerships or divesting and evolving the IP scope.

A must listen for SME's as Juan and Luisa take us through some real examples of IP incidents, provide tips for businesses to be think about their IP position and how they assist businesses to focus on the core activities while knowing protections are in place for the current and future operating needs.

In this episode of Emajin Podcast: Beyond the 19th we catch up with Alex Perry, Managing Director of Sharewise, who shares tips on investing, trending industries to watch out for and thoughts on the current market.

Alex, started his career in the sales side of the engineering sector, but with a burning entreprenuial desire, followed a light bulb moment into a successful cup cake business. Alex shared " Many entrepreurs are trying to create the perfect business - just get started - we started the cupcakes as a sideline initially selling at the markets, then created a one page website, moved into events, working hard to eventually open our store."

After the divestment of the family business, Alex became focused on his passion in the investment market. Initially employed in a firm, he leveraged his thinking of providing a different approach to clients and investments and once again ventured out on his own, starting Sharewise over 10 years ago.

The current investment market is complex and everyone has their own risk levels, during a period in which inflation and costs across the board have dominated. Alex shares the teams approach to scanning industries that will be in growth, reviewing strong brands that have not moved and process to explore new sectors,

Alex provides a professional insight and great lessons learnt in business, including the need for businesses to create a competitive advantage of not saying no to business and finding a way to make it happen, ensuring a diversified customer base that will provide a benefit during different economic times and ensuring you are still having fun.

In this episode of the Emajin Podcast: Beyond the 19th, we catch up with Stephanie Christopher, CEO of TEC, who provides insights into influencing others, leadership and the "Seven key skills of successful business leaders".

We begin the discussion learning that Stephanie actually started her career in a clinical profession, as a speech pathologist, working in hospitals and private practice before moving into a corporate career. The basis of clincial interviewing skills, dianosing problems and working in multi-diciplined teams applied to business, and thinking of an outcome, have a plan and influencing others translated to sales.

Gravitating to professional services marketing and sales, various roles led Stephanie to being placed as CEO of TEC over 10 years ago. It is through the various leadership roles that Stephanie learnt that is not always your title that leads change, it is your ability to influence those around you. Influencing enables you to guidie people toward the business outcomes, learning that not everyone is going to be on the same page but leading with insights and showing the value, demonstrating that you are someone who understands.

TEC has been in Australia for over 40 years , creating the space for like minded business leaders to access the power of non-competitive peer mentors, enabling business leaders to share their current issues and receive rich, diverse perspectives to assist their approach to move forward - the process enables those vunerable moments within a completely trusted, confidential and caring space with peers who want you to succeed.

Stephanie has learnt alot from the TEC community and as a result they have summarised the seven skills for successful leaders. In the discussion Stephanie outlines the skills as follows:

• Know your numbers - what are the numbers that are make or break for your business
• Inspire a shared vision - clear on where you are heading, everyone aligned on strategy and clear on their role within it
• Get the right people on the bus - know who you need, what talent is going to enable the business to succeed
• Be the Chief engagement officer - leading the culture and inspiring others to be part of it
• Create a customer-centric culture - making sure it is easy for your customer to do business with you
• Lead and let others manage - clarity of expectations, trusting the system, people doing things differently is often better
• Take care of yourself - understanding yourself and invest in those activities that you know enables you to be at your best

It is a great listen, as Stephanie effortlessly provides valuable and very practical tips for our business community from a wealth of experience, you will appreciate the insights provided and the power of sharing.