Help for Small Business

Now there is an opportunity for Small Businesses in the in the Brisbane and Gold Coast areas to participate in a comprehensive skills development coaching and mentoring pilot program. Speeding up closing the current and future skills gaps in much needed support services.

It covers many thing businesses commonly put in grant application, it is expected to sell out fast. Expression of Interest are now open for the program, and you can preregister for the program HERE by electing to pay via bank transfer at the checkout stage.

If you have a voucher to do the first 3 weeks as a free trial, enter the coupon code in the shopping cart to complete you free registration. You will not be charged automatically to continue past 3 week, and will need to pay for the program before you will be given access to continue.

How was the program developed?

The program, developed by local business networks, aims to rapidly overcome critical skills shortages hampering the post-covid recovery efforts of small and micro businesses right across the country.

This has also created career transitions into self-employment opening up flexible work arrangements that are more suited to working with smaller businesses.

However, small business competes for this talent with larger businesses who tend to be the ones who advertise positions online, and unlike small businesses have systems set up to process applications on mass.

The table below illustrates this point. The top 2 most advertised roles are essential positions for small businesses that want to grow. The numbers on the table below are just for 1 month (August, 2022).

With over 40,000 online job add going out each month, there is little wonder about if small businesses are the ones who, again, miss out.

The program aims to rapidly overcome critical skills shortages hampering the post-covid recovery efforts of small and micro businesses right across the country.

This has also created career transitions into self-employment opening up flexible work arrangements that are more suited to working with smaller businesses.

The program appeals equally to people who want to do project or contract work, as it does to people who what to fit in to a new team in any work situation.

You can learn 7 times faster than on a training course by having a go and getting experience, with confidence, knowing that you are not on your own and in a supportive business community.

This is what our program has received great interest from the business start-up community and people who want a career change.

What's in it for me?

Graduates of the program can earn digital skills badges, tapping into our mentor’s years of experience while you learn. We’ll show you how to use these skills to gain work and get experience.

The full range of transferable skills can be used for any work you have a passion for. As you get to practice these skills when and wherever suits you.

This high level of interest makes the learning more relevant for you and what you want to do.

The program appeals equally to people who want to do project or contract work, as it does to people who what to fit in to a new team in any work situation.

Each week you get the tools to build the skills you need, and show you how to use them. You also get to practice your skills during our program. Get the confidence and experience you need to get the job you want.

Week 1-3, Developing Viable options – Identifying problems, generating ideas, planning and organising workload and commitments
Week 4-8, Creating solutions – Establishing decision-making scope, applying decision-making processes, Recognising opportunities to develop and apply new ideas, Accessing, organising and presenting information, Selecting ideas for implementation
Week 9-14, Implementation Skills – Plan and implement tasks, digital technologies and systems, connect with others, apply problem-solving processes, Manage risk, and review impacts and performance measures

If you need to do work in a live business using implementation skills, you have the option to tap into our program mentor’s years of experience to save you from costly mistakes that could damage your business’ reputation.

job roles

Here are the top 4 job roles our research identified as the highest demand to help Small Businesses grow.

You may recognise the jobs as work done by virtual assistants (VAs), which is used as a short term solution to help businesses grow.

The long term solution is to employ locals with the transferable skills to do these jobs when the business can afford it.

However, the way companies do business has changed, and although COVID-19 showed more flexible work arrangements were possible, larger businesses have returned to their old ways.

General Admin job description

Marketing professionals job description

ICT Professional (Software specialist) job description

Customer Contact job description

This gives small businesses a competitive advantage in a mobile labour market, attracting talent with flexible work arrangements commonplace in small business.

If only 1 out of every 10 small business wanted to put on just 1 extra person to help grow their business, that would be 240,000 jobs that need to be filled. That’s almost more than the total number of people employed as an office admin in Australia.

No wonder Small business can’t get help. But good news for people who want flexible work as their motivation, you guys are spoiled for choice.

Who is the program for?

Does this sound like you or someone you know?

Our research to develop this program found interest from may groups of people. basically, people that are looking for a new job for variety of reasons, including interest from:

Over 55% were over 50 years old and motivated to set up a business due to current financial hardship, or do not have enough money in Super to retire so have to keep working.
School leavers looking for career options who have close connections to a small business owners (but don’t want to work for their parents)
Parent and grandparents looking to enter the workforce without employment experience, and require flexible work arrangements but do not have the digital literacy and experience to do remote work
Sufferers of family and Domestic Violence, and survivors of other forms of abuse, would tend to be technically homeless but not you having to sleep rough.
People who are interested in creating a social enterprise, or wanting to gain the skills required to volunteer to do productive work for social impact organisations.

Our research interest from may groups of people, who are looking for a new job for variety of reasons.

Not more training?!?!

No, that’s not what this program is about. Its about developing skills you already have. What would you rather double, $50 or $10? It’s obvious, right?

Workforce Australia identified (in their Local Jobs plans released in may 2022) that there was a mismatch in the skill “level” job seekers have and the skill level employers need them to be at to do productive work. So, it costs Small Businesses money to coach and mentor new job seekers to this level. Money, they don’t have.

What this means is that training makes people competent, but the skill level small business employers need is proficiency.

This program focuses using the transferrable skills you already have, how we can close the gap to what employers need. The only training you will do is program how to apply this skills in a paid workplace, working will employers who can afford to help you level up by giving you the experience you need.

To explain the difference between competent, proficient, and even expert, here are examples from the Core Skills for Work generic performance benchmarks to see what skill level you are looking for if you are a business owner.

Competency based training, if done well, can get you to level 2 on the table above. Our program introduces you to mentors to get you to level 3 and above. You can tap into their years of expertise and learn the expectations of paying customers in the real world.

The next step for graduates is to get a coach to improve your proficiency and increase your earning capacity. If you get a job, the business will coach you as part of your normal induction and onboarding into their business.

If you are starting a business, graduates can chose a coaching program from one of our mentors that suits you and you budget. kick-start your business through collaboration.

As mentors are always on the lookout for new talent, a benefit of having a coach is they know who to refer work to you that they know you do well. So basically, the sell you, for you, leveling you up to the expert level pay grade.

Why start a support business?

For us, it comes down to who will train people to help small businesses. The best people to do that, in any industry, are the businesses from that industry.

There are plenty of people that can train you if you get a job in any other industry. But in the support services industry, they have to down tools and stop helping their clients to train you.

So that’s something we can help with. It’s like helping you to help them, so they have time to send with you to teach you how to do things better.

Not like a win-win situation, more like “what can we build together”.

It’s not a competition, and you gain trust through repetition and consistency of service delivery. Look at all the other industries you can work in on the list below.

So if you are looking for an industry to work in that has variety in your day to day work, this is it.

Want to help us help Small Business?

Who are we looking for?

If you’d like to become a mentor as part of our Small Business skills development program, you can apply below.

As part of our program, this is a paid gig as members can elect to upgrade to get extra advice on how to use the skills they develop in our program to earn an income. We are not asking you to do it for free, as you don’t support small businesses by getting them to do work for free, but also as a paid professional service provider consumer guarantees are enforce.

As we will be dealing with people suffering financial hardship, who may not be able to afford your premium packages, we have to qualify that people have a genuine need for your advice to refer them to you as a trusted referral. We are happy for you to advertise your you coaching program after the course, so long as you get a positive outcome from the mentoring session as an example of how you can be of service.

The members of the program choose who to book a mentoring session based on your specific unique selling point, as in what you are best known for in the marketplace. You will be collaborating with others in your network for these mentoring session, so the more specific your expertise the more likely we can given referrals to you, and pay you.

So when you put your expertise below, think what is going to build trust in your advice skills. Don’t just say “Marketing”, say “setting up chatbots to convert leads”. Don’t just say speaker coach, say “converting blogs into speaking gigs”. Don’t just say VA work, or engaging VAs, say “starting up a VA business”… you get the idea.

If you get what we are looking for, we would love to have a chat and do a deal, and will also ask if you have other you want to work with in your business network, too.