Ideas from recent meetings

Below are ideas generated during recent Talk Business discussions.

Every person who attends brings a different perspective, experience, or insight. By sharing ideas, challenges, successes, and lessons learned, we all benefit.

Not every idea will be right for every business, but hearing different viewpoints means more options in your toolbox when you need them.

What is Personal Brand really?

Today was a rainbow tutu kind of day🌈 ✨

Intuitively I knew that - I was going to talk to the awesome Christchurch-based team at Grant Thornton New Zealand Ltd about one of my favourite topics: Personal Brand.

What makes you happy in business?

What makes you happy in your business?

That’s the question we asked at our last Talk Business session, and it caught some people off guard.

Tax: Sacrifice or Success?

I want to pay more tax — do you?

Sounds mad, I know. But what if paying more tax wasn’t about sacrifice… but about success?

Why money is the measure

“Money is a measure of how many people you've helped” That’s a tough sell in the age of Musk and Trump — where some billionaires are, let’s say, controversial. But at its core, the idea still holds: people generally only pay when they receive something of value.

Should I shut my business

Should I Shut My Business?

Business owners make decisions all the time—but sometimes the real decision isn’t what to do or what to change, it’s whether to quit.

Outsource more to upscale more

There’s only ONE of you… but there could be more!

No matter how hard you work, you can only ever do the work of one person.

In a small business, you might be the boss, the receptionist, the admin clerk, the cleaner, the plumber, the painter, the courier — the everything. There’s only so much you can do, and only so many hours in a day. There’s a limit to what you can do, and a limit to what you should be doing.

You can’t scale you, but you can scale who works with you. Outsourcing — and no, I don’t mean offshore manufacturing or a call centre — is about letting others do the things you don’t need to be doing, aren’t good at doing, or go mad trying to do.

We outsource every day, often without realising it. I do lots of things, but I don’t fix my car (that’s the mechanic), I don’t collate my accounts (my accountant does that), I don’t deliver parcels (the courier), and I don’t make my stock (I leave that to artisans). And my car, my accounts and my customers are all the better for it.

But how many other things could I be paying someone else to do? I still do my own website (you can tell), my graphic design, social media, packing, posting, cleaning — and even coaching (yes, I talk to myself). But all of those things — and more — could be outsourced. For what benefit?

I’m always working late because I have no time.

Maybe I’m afraid of losing control, of lowering my standards, or of dealing with people who don’t deliver.

Maybe I feel like I should know how to do it all.

Maybe I don’t think I earn enough to outsource — without stopping to think how much more I could make with that extra time.

But here’s the thing: outsourcing allows someone who’s better skilled, more experienced, and probably more interested to take on the job. I become the customer. The burden (or the opportunity to shine) shifts to them. We spend less time working in our business, and more time working on it — spotting opportunities, helping more people, and yes, making more money. Win-win!

Outsourcing doesn’t have to be expensive. And we don’t have to do everything ourselves. Maybe it’s time to think about what you could outsource — and what you’d do with that freed-up time. How would your business benefit from greater focus and better strategy?

Here’s a suggestion: - Look at how you spend your time each week. - What tasks are you doing? - Do they really need you? - Would you work for someone else doing that job? - How much would it cost to outsource it — and is that more or less than what your time is worth?

If you want your business to be bigger and better…

Maybe it’s you that’s limiting how big and how much better it gets.

Introducing yourself at networking events

When introducing yourself in a networking setting, it's tempting to list what you do or the tools you use. These are features. But what really grabs attention and creates connection is talking about benefits.

Why don't we just make those changes?

Are you intentional? A group of business enthusiasts were asked what small change would make a big impact and why haven't you done it?