HBBN December 06 meeting
The recent Ballina HBBN (Home Based Business Network) meeting for December was another success with those attending keen to learn more about Marketing their home based businesses.
We were fortunate to have a number of qualified speakers from within the marketing field, including Jane Laverty the Economic Development Officer of Ballina Shire Council the HBBN leader, to present some interesting and insightful strategies and everyone joined in an open discussion about the various options available. We also discussed a number of test cases such as Rebecca Hannaford of Pretty Puppies and Sue Hogden of All About Home Loans.
Rebecca explained that she didn’t really understand what the term ‘marketing strategies’ meant, as did others, and so began a group discussion providing various insightful and useful options from the group. Rebecca agreed that she was in the process of aligning herself with other pet care and animal services within the community to strengthen her network and was looking to providing regular newsletters with pet care information, tips and advice from these services to her clients.
All About Home Loans was used as an example of a local home based business that provided a home loan brokerage service. Sue explained that All About Home Loans marketed their business within the nothern rivers community yet found it hard for the general public to understand exactly what they did and the services they offered without going into lengthy explanations in their marketing material. Sue also added that Don and herself found it difficult to break people’s perception of what brokers do and that they in fact offered a better, more comparitive service once people got over the mindset of only seeking loans from ‘their own’ bank. Sue was given a great testimonial by Sarah Rutten of Paw Power (a HBBN member) who told the group how much she thought of Don for phoning her to advise her of a $2000 saving available to her. Sue agreed that by using testimonials from people such as Sarah and letting their clients explain how they had been helped by All About Home Loans was a positive marketing strategy for their business. Another interesting strategy was to present information nights where Don and Sue could explain how the lending and financial system operated and to invite questions in a forum to better inform the community.
The group also offered a range of topics that they would like to work on in 2007 such as;
- The general perception/image of a home based business
- The advantages of a home based business
- Time management, time quality, saving clients time
- Cross marketing a business
- Tax savings and Super
- Networking
- Technology and Communication
The next HBBN meeting will be on 7th February from 10am to 12noon at a venue to be decided.
I would highly recommend these meetings to any home based business in the Ballina Shire as a way of meeting some very interesting local business people with similar challenges who spend one morning a month working on their business as a nice break from constantly working in their business.
if you would like to attend or require more information please Email Jane Laverty or phone her on 6686 1419.
