Monday 2 November 2020 – Mediation Today
Eddie speaks with Vesna Cvjeticanin – Mediation Today on FM Radio 98.3 about what he’s been up to in the mediation field lately.
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Survive to Thrive – A journey to business success
Eddie speaks with Vesna Cvjeticanin – Mediation Today on FM Radio 98.3 about what he’s been up to in the mediation field lately.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Welcome to this episode of Eddie Senatore Talking Business, based on our monthly two-page newsletter. In this episode, we take a look at the current state and near future of the Australian real estate market, with special guest Harley Dale from the Housing Institute of Australia.
With the real estate market in maturity, you may be wondering whether or not real estate is a worthwhile investment for you. If you have some questions, Harley has some great insights on what the market’s like that you need to listen to right now.
Here are three big takeaways we have:
Australia had a record building boom a few years ago. That was largely in the supply of detached and semi-detached housing. These days, demand for housing has shifted to medium-rise and high-rise multi-family housing, which represent the bulk of the the new stock on the market.
Growth in this space has largely been on the eastern seaboard of Australia. Other parts of the country have not seen growth to the scale that has occurred there.
One only needs to look at how the market is reacting to current housing projects in development to see how strong demand is. For instance, there’s a large multi-family housing project in construction right now in Canberra. It won’t be completed for at least another 6 months. Despite the wait before the first tenants can get their keys, 95% of the occupancy in the building is already accounted for.
Demand like this helps explain why real estate experts continue to see strong gains in the asset value of real estates across much of the country (outside Sydney).
Harley would love to give us strong, detailed predictions about what the real estate market will be like in the next few years. Unfortunately, the federal election looming on the horizon is making it difficult. WIth a regime to be decided on by voters next year, policies could be very different or very similar to those seen today.
An opposition party has already demonstrated interest in real estate policies quite different from those supported by the current government. As we follow the polls and see where the candidates really stand as the country goes to vote, we’ll be able to have greater certainty as to what investors can expect.
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Welcome to our Talking Business podcast series on the lifecycle of a business with expert Eddie Senatore. He’s shared with us a great overview of what it’s like to run a business, from initial startup to maturity. Here we go over Phase 1: Startup.
One day, sick of working for “the man”, you set out to chase your dreams by starting your own business. You’re excited, but need to keep in mind four major challenges:
A new business has no initial credibility in the marketplace. You’ll need to work hard to get your first sales. Until that happens, you need to manage your fixed costs (office space, manufacturing, and so on).That may mean running losses for a while, taking on debt to cover costs.
You’re the founder, so of course you’re passionate and enthusiastic and happy to do the work. However, there’s lots to be done and these tasks will need to be tackled in a systematic way (e.g. managing finances, running marketing campaigns, designing products). With return on investment being small or negative in the early months, establishing these systems so you can scale effectively is critical.
You’ve delivered products and/or services to a client. They haven’t paid you yet. Your suppliers are wondering when you’re going to pay them.
Do what you can to bring some sanity into the cash flow process.
Once you’ve managed to tackle these first few items, you need to plan for the future with good reports. How much travel did you do? How many sales did you have? Where do you see the company going in one month, six months, two years?
Key takeaways:
A strong grip on these challenges from the get-go can make a big difference for the future health of your business.
A business may fail for a number of reasons. In general, external problems exacerbating internal issues can create a crisis. Eddie talks about the challenges a business will face in the initial, startup phase.
Eddie’s looked at the literature, and a lifecycle analysis is really helpful for looking at critical factors in business success. The first phase in a business lifecycle is startup: you’ve got a good business idea and want to pursue it on your own terms, so you start a business.
The next phase is survival, followed by growth, expansion, and maturity. More on those in the next episodes.
Let’s look at the problems you might face at the startup phase.
Once you’ve got enough sales to start getting some good cash flow, you need to make financial plans for the future. You’ll be reviewing all your business costs to date. You have to look over what’s been happening in the business, what’s going to happen next month, and what’s going to happen in the next six months. It’s key here to invest time in planning and investing time into crafting good, detailed reports about the health of your business.
Eddie’s sounding quite negative here, but it’s for a good reason. The downsides to a startup can be pretty horrific: you have no credibility in the marketplace and no business assets, so you’re putting your personal assets on the line to chase an entrepreneurial dream.
Highlighting the negatives lets us tackle these issues from the get-go, allowing us to pursue this passion project within our natural limitations. If you don’t have financial management expertise, then you need to get on top of your budget on a regular basis to mitigate that. Maybe you should take a short online course on budgeting to get up to speed.
As long as you’re planning and you know what your investment is, you can be prepared!
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Welcome to the next episode in our series of Eddie Senatore Talking Business, based on our monthly two-page newsletter. In this second installment, we look at how a business passes through the startup phase, and moves successfully to the next phase, survival.
Eddie goes over a number of common issues businesses will experience in this awkward stage, where they have more traction than a startup, but less stability than a company that can really double-down on growth. Survival is where things get interesting, as you’ve got more sales and the opportunity to really differentiate yourself in the marketplace early on.
After survival, you’ll be looking forward to another three phases, namely, growth, expansion, and maturity.
Although these issues can sound a bit spooky, every business faces struggles at different phases. Success relies on anticipating problems before they start, so you reduce the number of fires you have to put out!
Now that you’ve survived, join us on our third episode, where talk about the next phase, growth.
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Welcome to the next episode in our series of Eddie Senatore Talking Business, based on our monthly two-page newsletter. In this third installment, we look at how a business passes through the survival phase, and moves successfully to the next phase, growth.
You’ll be dealing with similar issues as you did in the survival phase, but now you’ll need to deal with them on a more sophisticated level. The beauty of the growth phase is that you can devote more time to management and less time to actually doing the labour yourself, but without a smart grip on the major issues, you could stop your business in its tracks.
After growth, you’ll be looking to another two phases, namely, expansion, and maturity.
What if you get into a new product line, building a different style of house to draw new customers? You’ll need more technical staff and expertise to deal with that demand. You need to get a grip on your limits.
Are these issues going to blow out your business? If you don’t deal with them in a sophisticated way, they just might.
While it’s tough to deal with these new problems, getting a grip on them means developing a sophisticated understanding of the workflow of your business. Doing well in this phase will set you up nicely for excellent growth.
Now that you’ve grown the business, join us on our fourth episode, where talk about the next phase, expansion.
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Welcome to the next episode in our series of Eddie Senatore Talking Business, based on our monthly two-page newsletter. In this fourth installment, we look at how a business passes through the growth phase, and moves successfully to expansion.
At this phase, you have to do more holistic management of the business. You’ll be stepping back a bit from the day-to-day while your team completes business tasks, so you can guide the company at this critical stage. Smart planning and good organizational processes are the keys to success here..
After expansion, you’ll be wrapping things up in the final phase, namely, maturity.
Make sure your team is ready to step outside the city limits and deal with customers further away from home.
Getting through expansion will be highly rewarding. It leads into maturity, where the business has finally “made it”, with a great structure in place and the stability to weather whatever the future holds.
Now that you’ve expanded the company, join us on our last episode, where talk about the final phase, maturity.
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Welcome to the final episode in our series of Eddie Senatore Talking Business, based on our monthly two-page newsletter. In this fifth installment, we look at how a business passes through the expansion phase, and settles into its lasting state of maturity.
At this phase, we’ve made it! We’ve survived, we’ve got our finances intact, we’ve got growth and then expanded. Now we’ve been in business for 20-to-25 years and need to look at the big picture.
You and your company will be facing existential questions as you decide where to go from here.
Congratulations on the success of your business. At this stage, the future is what you make of it. You just need to reflect on what you want and make plans accordingly.
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Eddie speaks with Gregory Mowle, a researcher at the University of Canberra, about his research into bankruptcy; changing perceptions of bankruptcy and the ways people can move forward through bankruptcy.
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