extrapreneur

NFP Governance Principle 1 - Purpose, Vision & Strategy

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:10:46 GMT

As an NFP, is your board focused on these principles?

Principle 1 - Purpose, Vision and Strategy

The Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) published the updated Not For Profit (NFP) Governance Principles in April 2024. As an NFP, is your board focused on these principles, or at the very least, are you using them as guidelines for your organisational governance?

A quick reminder that Not for Profit only means that profit/surplus revenue is NOT distributed to “shareholders” as dividends. Rather surpluses are reinvested in providing support to the community through the products, services and facilities that the NFP delivers to their community. Being an NFP does not mean you do not make a profit. You must be profitable to survive and support your community, just like any for profit business.

Principle 1 – Purpose

In order to ensure the sustainability of your organisation, it is the specific responsibility of the senior leadership team – i.e. the Board of Directors and the senior executive(s) – to define the organisation’s Purpose, Vision and Strategy, defining the direction the organisation will follow to fulfil its reason for being. Many NFPs have a single purpose – providing support for a specific form of disadvantage – or they may have two or three objects defined in their constitution – providing accommodation, health care services and education.

Many NFPs are also registered charities, who are able to raise funds from supporters with a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) Status, providing tax breaks to those who donate funds to them. Other NFPs can be registered with the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission (ACNC) and the organisation itself can be eligible for tax breaks, under a specific set of rules.

Tax status is not the key here, rather the purpose the organisation exists to fulfil and the organisation needs to be very clear what they are trying to achieve and provide to others. Chambers of Commerce are NFPs that provide networking and support opportunities to businesses in the community, with connection to other business owners and educational support on better business practices. Registered clubs are NFPs that often provide multiple benefits to their community including but not limited to sporting facilities and funding, food, drink and entertainment, accommodation, health facilities and retail offerings.

Once the Purpose is well established, as part of the strategic guidance of the leadership group, Vision, Mission and Values are usually defined and promoted for the organisation to share with the community.

Principle 1 – Vision

The Vision is a succinct statement of the organisation’s Purpose for people to learn and understand. The Mission is usually a supporting statement or paragraph which expands on how the Vision is going to be achieved.

Principle 1 – Strategy

The final, critical and often undervalued part is the Strategy that the organisation will execute to achieve its Purpose and Vision. The responsibility for developing the Strategy is with the Board of Directors with the assistance and input of the senior executive and his or her team of upper management executives (depending on the size of the organisation. Some argue that the senior executives should develop the Strategy and present it for ratification to the Board, however the key role and responsibility for Directors on any Board is the Strategic Direction of the organisation. The executive management and staff provide essential input through research, provision of data and operational expertise, to facilitate the Directors’ decision making process in creating a Strategic Plan.

Once the Strategic Plan/Strategy is approved by the Board, it is passed to the Executive Management and staff to execute in the operation of the organisation. During implementation, the Board must monitor the achievement of the Strategic Objectives on a regular basis, to ensure the organisation is operating true to purpose.

Strategic Oversight

AICD Principle 1 asks how the organisation’s Purpose, Vision and Strategy are communicated to the stakeholders, how often the Board reviews these and how the progress of achievement is reported to the Board?

To demonstrate effective due diligence in these endeavours by a Board, I advocate the following –

The selective release of Strategic Objectives to the stakeholders, ensuring commercially sensitive information is kept confidential until such time as it is appropriate to share. Often ‘top line’ information is all that is required to keep the stakeholders informed (some organisations release a Plan on a Page);
The Board should conduct an annual review of the plan to keep the document ‘live’ at all times, updating with the removal of the objective(s) achieved each year and new objectives added to the horizon (three to five years out). It is also important to keep a long term horizon in sight, in the range of ten to twenty five years, depending on the longevity of the organisation.
Reporting to the Board by the Executive team should be provided in the Board Papers, with the frequency requested by the Board. This could mean reporting at each Board meeting, if there are only four meetings per year or every third or fourth meeting if the Board meets monthly (or at a higher frequency).

Directors exercising effective due diligence understand that the Strategic Plan is a living document that will need tweaking and adjusting as the operational environment changes, objectives are achieved or potentially delayed, due to the changing environment.

One key area od Directors Due Diligence in that of Risk Management. It is the Board’s responsibility to establish the organisation’s risk profile – including Risk Appetite, Risk Capacity and Risk Tolerance – so that risk assessments of key strategic objectives are done within defined and consistent parameters. Risk assessments ideally review the Best Case, the Worst Case and the Most Likely Case scenarios so that there is limited chance of unexplored surprises occurring to impact on the implementation of the strategies.

Directors of NFPs, needing assistance with Strategic Planning or who would like to improve their Due Diligence, can do so with Extrapreneur Services, through Strategic Planning Facilitation or at a Due Diligence Masterclass.

Contact Ron Browne ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au 0414 633 423

Business as Usual or Disruption?

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 09:40:59 GMT

Where are you with your strategic planning? BAU or Disrupting your own business?

Where are you with your strategic planning? Is your plan focussing on BAU Business as Usual or are you looking for ways to disrupt your own business model to drive the business to the next level?

I have recently facilitated a strategic planning session for a club and one of the directors pulled out the old line “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Translation – BAU. I am a huge fan of continuous improvement that says “If it ain’t broke, how can we do it better?” Translation – can we disrupt our own business model to make it work better.

Disruption is one of those phrases that takes many forms. I believe initially it was ascribed to ‘ digital disruption ’ – where technology enabled old ways of doing things to be streamlined, fast-tracked and simplified, making somethings previously inaccessible – accessible.

In the 2020s anyone under the age of 40 will probably answer most work related questions with ‘there’s an app for that’. Tradies, professionals, organisations have been able to adapt technology to improve, speed up and reduce cost (including reducing head count) of their jobs in a way that wasn’t possible, till the internet, mobile phones, tablets and improved software enabled the ‘disruption.’

Once we all become more comfortable with digital disruption, including many sceptics realising that resistance was futile, we all learned to adopt and adapt to the ‘new way of doing things.’ Whilst some of the technology is fraught with security issues, defence for these are continually being strengthened, we will never go back to hand written passbooks for bank accounts, in the foreseeable future.

In hospitality, we have disrupted our businesses with QR Code ordering, digital membership programs (in lieu of a physical card) and adopting ‘Tap and Go’ payment technologies which has dramatically reduced our volumes of cash handling. Some elements of our business are yet to be completely replaced with technological options (but understand that vending machines and robots already exist that could supply and service on premise patrons), so we still currently rely on human product and service delivery.

Other forms of disruption

How else can I disrupt my business model, I hear you ask. Disruption can take the form of operational, product or service disruption – doing or offering something out of the norm.

Operational disruption can include changing processes that streamline workflows – think slushie machines with premixed cocktails, no technology just a modified process. Automatic spirit nip dispensers were initially also a non-digital disruption to the old nip measure pouring process, although electronic ones have since taken over.

In the kitchen a major disruption years ago was the sous vide (partly pre-cooked food products) process which accelerates meal prep times when patrons order meals that traditionally took a long time to cook.

The microwave oven was also a revelation over 40 years ago allowing paid cooking or reheating of food (which I grant you was a form of new technology).

Product disruption can be modification of products to a new and unexpected form that can even create a new market niche or larger segment. Great examples of this include energy drinks (Red Bull, Monster and the like), Mid-Strength beers (now the largest segment in Australia) and the zero alcohol beers, wines and spirits – who would have ever imagined a non-alcoholic version of our favourite tipples?

Zero alcohol drinks are now a very fast growing segment and, in a contradictory disruption, we have the introduction of alcohol to drinks traditionally sold as non-alcoholic soft drinks – think Hard Rated and its imitators.

Service disruption can take the form of unexpected additional service offerings that exceed the customer’s expectation. I remember years ago when clubs and pubs put free cheese and crackers on the bar, for Friday Happy Hour and now some clubs offer things like valet car wash, private lounges for VIP gamers and additional services for members through the Loyalty Rewards programs. These may or may not be linked to member gaming, but involve members using their Membership cards with every transaction – entering the building, purchasing food, purchasing drinks, gaming, wagering or getting involved with special events (like Melbourne Cup Luncheon etc.).

One of the most recent trends disrupting business, brought back to the industry from overseas study tours, has been Competitive Socialisation . Non-traditional entertainment options to engage the 18 to 39 age demographics with fun, sports related activities where individuals can compete against each other, whilst enjoying our hospitality in a friendly and inclusive environment.

Other services clubs could offer harks back to the more open and friendly community-minded days, where the club handyman goes to an aged member’s house to assist with some maintenance jobs, providing assistance with shopping for decreased mobility clients and donating excess food products to organisations like OzHarvest.

The key thrust here of course, is doing something out of the ordinary , something that is NOT part of business as usual. Many disruptions do eventually graduate to being part of BAU, but then you should be working on your next disruption by then.

For more information on this topic, contact Ron Browne, Managing Consultant at Extrapreneur Services ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au 0 414 633 423

Compliance…did I hear you groan?

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:03:03 GMT

I don’t know of any industry now that isn’t bogged down with excessive compliance.

I don’t know of any industry now that isn’t bogged down with excessive compliance. And Hospitality is no exception. Clubs, pubs and restaurants have an incredible amount of legislation, standards and industry requirements we all need to comply with to be able to trade unfettered and without being fined.

This is a topic I write about on a recurring basis as it is one of the key areas that changes and in many respects get harder and harder to manage. I worked in the Agricultural Chemicals industry for about 20 years and it is very highly regulated, due in no small part to the dangerous nature of poisonous, flammable, corrosive and explosive products. Legislation around how to store, transport and handle these dangerous goods places heavy responsibility on manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and the end user – farmers and graziers. All in the name of personal and environmental harm minimisation. Sound familiar?

It is worth looking back on my Compliance article in December 2021, to see that not a lot has changed, but that additional imposts now exist. If you are a club or pub with gaming and wagering and in-house food, you have the full range of compliance issues:

Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) under the Liquor Act
Responsible Conduct/Service of Gaming (RCG/RSG) under the Gaming Machines Act
Advanced RCG for Responsible Gambling Officers (venues with 21 or more electronic gaming machines [EGMs])
Licensee/Advanced Licensee pending the risk level of your establishment
Wagering compliance for TAB and Keno
Permits for fundraising raffles/lotteries (whose value exceeds $5,000)
Director Mandatory Training (in NSW) for roles and responsibilities and financial literacy
Responsible Gambling Board Oversight (RGBO)
Anti-Money Laundering / Counter Terrorism Financing Board Oversight AML/CTF
Gaming Plan of Management (GPOM) if you have any poker machines
Food Safety Supervisor (FSS) certified staff for food preparation
Work, Health and Safety policy and procedure (including Bullying and Harassment Prevention)
Anti-Discrimination Policy which extends now to diversity, equity and inclusion

For restaurants, just exclude the gaming and wagering issues, but if you are licensed, include the RSA aspects as well as the Food regulations. Large organisations, like large clubs and pub groups, generally have a Compliance Manager to oversee compliance and ensure the entity has everything in place. It is the smaller organisations, clubs, pubs and restaurants, that may operate with 20 or less staff (including the owner in the case of pubs and restaurants) that have limited resources to meet this compliance.

How best to address this challenge?

It is almost impossible for one head to wear so many different hats, and smart people know what they don’t know , and go to get help from those who do know what they need.

All the above issues relate to a combination of State and Commonwealth based legislation and part of your compliance is ensuring that your organisation’s constitution is aligned with the legislation. Small restaurant and pub owners may well say “Constitution, what constitution?” however as a sole trader or partnership, the legislation is the same, so whilst you may not have a Constitution, the legislative compliance means you really need to have all the right certifications, policies and procedures in place.

Apart from apps out there that help with your compliance, the best due diligence is to work with a consultant that is fully across all the legislation, policies, plans and procedures you require, to ensure you do not overlook any essential bits of legislation, that may result in costly fines.

At Extrapreneur Services we offer Governance Audits – from a desktop review for smaller organisations at minimal cost, to full blown, onsite audits of larger organisations with a complete review of all policies, plans and procedures. It may well be that your solutions lie with a readily available app, but more usually, if you don’t know what you need to comply, your organisation may be vulnerable and exposed to having breaches identified and then fines imposed.

We are also planning to deliver Governance Due Diligence Masterclasses around the state, at multiple locations, to assist directors, owners and managers of organisations of all sizes, to understand where their compliance may need attention.

If you would like to arrange a Governance Audit, or would like to host a Governance Due Diligence Masterclass at your venue, contact Ron Browne, Managing Consultant, ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au or 0414 633 423 .

How well are we really doing on Harm minimisation?

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 10:47:46 GMT

Harm minimisation in its various forms is tough to talk about

Just like, sex, religion and politics – the taboo discussion topics at a dinner party or barbeque, harm minimisation in its various forms is tough to talk about. One area of harm minimisation – alcohol abuse – has been addressed reasonably effectively over the past 40 years or so, with Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) training and certification for hospitality staff and Random Breath Tests (RBT) policing those who drink and drive.

We’re not perfect but many a life has been saved with frontline application of the RSA principles and RBT making people think twice about getting behind the wheel after a few bevvies too many. People still do the wrong thing and the consequences are dire – road deaths, domestic and family violence and financial challenges. However, slow progress towards the target, is still progress.

The other huge area of harm minimisation is gambling. This is a whole other level of challenge due to the omnipresence of opportunities and channels to gamble through. The conservatives (like me) probably gamble regularly on Lotto or Scratchies, which are not seen as “bad or risky” gambling, whilst other folks enjoy a regular flutter at the races, in the TAB or on their phone betting apps. Some folk play poker and other card games for real money, even professionally, but it is usually the amateurs who suffer harm, through poor decision making.

The big nasty is poker machines (electronic gaming machines EGMs) which are demonised through their perceived massive effect on individuals with a problem relationship with gambling. We’ll look at some Government statistics on this in a minute.

I just need to establish some parameters here –

x The opinions in this article are entirely mine and should not be associated with any entity I am connected to

x I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist or any form of qualified counsellor

x I am making observations on facts I have researched and reached my own conclusions on

x I am happy for you to disagree with me and we can still be friends

x Gambling, in all its forms, is mostly legal entertainment in most jurisdictions.

S tatistics from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)

The Government conducts research periodically into many things and the AIHW does so into gambling. The introductory paragraphs of the Gambling page of the AIHW website offers the following insight:

Gambling

Gambling encompasses a range of activities where people stake money on an uncertain outcome to win money (Sathanapally et al. 2024). There are many different types of gambling, including lotteries, scratchies, pokies, betting, and casino games. While gambling is often promoted as a recreational or entertainment activity, it can negatively impact the health and wellbeing of individuals, families and the broader community (Hilbrecht et al. 2020; Latvala et al.2019; Wardle et al. 2024).

The potential health, social and economic harms associated with gambling are a major public policy issue in Australia, and include:

x financial and mental distress

x emotional and psychological costs

x relationship and family impacts

x productivity loss and work impacts (Abbott 2020; Latvala et al. 2019; Sathanapally et al. 2024).

The 2024 Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey , funded by the Federal Government and conducted by the University of Melbourne found in 2022 –

These statistics show that whilst Australia has the reputation of being the largest gamblers per capita in the world (they say we’ll bet on two flies walking up a wall), other than Lotto and lottery type games, the proportion of people who gamble is really pretty low. And my theory (unproven) is that many of the people would be reported in more than one category , so simply adding up the percentages would be a fallacious proposition to calculate how many people actually gamble (nearly 60 percent of males and 40 percent of females would be the cumulative percentages).

Risky gambling is where the harm minimisation issue lies, where people seem to have little or no control on their approach to gambling, in whatever form that takes.

The HILDA Survey provides the following statistical insight –

Gambling at risky levels

Measuring problem gambling

The 2024 HILDA report estimated that the prevalence of risky gambling varies by level of severity and is much higher among men than women. Between 2018 and 2022, there was an increase in the proportion of Australians reporting any gambling problem. Looking at the prevalence for the 3 gambling severity types:

x low-risk gambling was 3.7% in 2018, compared with 4.9% in 2022

x moderate-risk gambling was 2.5% in 2018 and 3.1% in 2022

x high-risk gambling was 1.1% in 2018 and 1.8% in 2022 (Wilkins et al. 2024).

In 2022:

x 3.3% of women reported low-risk gambling compared with 6.7% of men

x 1.2% (157,000) of women reported high-risk gambling compared with 2.4% (310,000) of men.

This was an increase from 0.6% and 1.6% in 2018, respectively (Wilkins et al. 2024).

This is where the emotion enters the argument. We can confidently say only 1.8 percent of the adult population engages in High-risk gambling – the sort that can end up in losing life savings, the family home, superannuation savings, marriages and breaking up families. BUT , and it is a big BUT, if it is your father, brother, aunt, cousin, best friend or a close work colleague, it jumps to 100 percent of your population (so to speak). The statistical numbers may be small (467,000 individuals in a population of 26 million or so) but when it is someone you know, the impact is very real and all encompassing.

Further from the AIHW Gambling page –

Risky gambling, health and wellbeing

Being an at-risk gambler is associated with lower overall life satisfaction, decreased mental health, high alcohol consumption and financial stress.

Women who are risky gamblers are more likely (than women who are non-gamblers or non-problem gamblers) to experience lower life satisfaction and more likely to be heavy drinkers. Men who are risky gamblers are more likely to experience mental health issues and more likely to experience financial stress (Wilkins et al. 2024).

Gambling harms and its impact on others

The National Telephone Survey of the 2019 Interactive Gambling Study estimated that 6.0% of Australian adults reported being harmed by someone else’s gambling (Hing et al. 2021). Those most commonly affected were:

x family members (including spouses/partners, other relatives, siblings, former spouse/partners)

x friends

x work colleagues.

The most common harms experienced due to another person’s gambling were feeling angry, distressed or hopeless about their gambling, and experiencing greater tension and conflict in their relationships. Reduction of available spending money or savings, loss of sleep and less enjoyment from time spent with people they care about were also commonly reported (Hing et al. 2021).

Are we doing enough?

Here is where I am conflicted . Working in hospitality for 50 years, we have become practised at saying ‘You’ve had enough to drink, go home’. But how are we doing with ‘You seem to have been gambling for quite a while, perhaps you should take a break or go home’. I also have heard many stories where patrons, approached from a well intentioned point of view regarding welfare , have ‘blown up’ about being questioned on their gambling behaviour.

We must all have Responsible Conduct of Gaming (RCG) training and certification, including Advanced RCG in NSW, and as reporting entities under Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) legislation, we all need to have AML/CTF Staff Awareness or Board Oversight training, which compels us (sensibly) to Know Your Customer (KYC). This should mitigate any embarrassing situation like the blow ups, but not 100 percent of the time.

Part of my internal conflict is that the media and some politicians insinuate that anyone who touches a poker machine, or has a flutter on the horses or other sports, is a gambling addict. The previously quoted statistics put a lie to that assertion. However, I personally don’t believe that Loyalty Programs (in the gaming context) are doing us any favours in minimising harm.

If there were no Loyalty Programs, then the inducement of additional player benefits for longer or larger play would be removed and players might potentially be less inclined to increase their gambling. Whilst in NSW you cannot advertise gaming machines externally to venues, nor on any media channel, wagering advertising seems to be completely unfettered and potentially targeting the under age individuals in our society. And that is a topic for another day.

If you have an opinion, or suggestions on ways to sensibly improve our harm minimisation approaches, I would love to hear from you, to help reduce any potential harm our legal forms of entertainment might create. Contact Ron Browne, Managing Consultant, Extrapreneur Services ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au or 0414 633 423 .

Extra AML/CTF Vigilance required

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 12:00:45 GMT

Got poker machines, Keno or a TAB?

Then you need to increase your vigilance of anti-money laundering and counter terrorism finance activity.

The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Act 2024 (the Amendment Act) passed the Parliament on 29 November 2024 and most of the changes will commence on1 July 2026. However, many of the amendments impacting clubs and pubs with gaming machines and wagering services will commence on 31 March 2026 . The Amendment Act is introducing new designated services (Tranche Two Entities), impacting other industries including real estate professionals, dealers in precious metals and precious stones and professional service providers such as lawyers, conveyancers, accountants, trust and company service providers.

Contrary to popular belief, the 2022 NSW Crimes Commission Report into Money Laundering in Pubs and Clubs stated:

Finding 5

Using EGMs to clean large quantities of dirty money is high risk and inefficient.

Accordingly, while it is occurring, it is not widespread.

Project Islington Report Page 32

There was recognition that some people were gambling by spending proceeds of crime, or in fact, indulging in criminal activities to fund their gambling, but this too is not laundering but just gambling.

In venues across the country, there are no doubt small businesses, operating with cash, who may use ‘gaming wins’ to avoid paying tax, so laundering on a small scale may be a fact of life.

Changes to AML/CTF Programs

The Department of Home Affairs provides the following guidance -

The revised AML/CTF program obligation includes:

an overarching risk assessment to consider the money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation financing risks the reporting entity may reasonably face
proportionate risk mitigation measures to respond to the risk assessment
a new simplified reporting group concept to allow reporting entities to manage and mitigate common risks more efficiently
the roles and responsibilities of a reporting entity’s governing body and AML/CTF compliance officer
simplified obligations for Australian companies operating overseas through a foreign branch or subsidiary of an Australian reporting entity.

For clubs, pubs and entities operating gambling and gaming machines, the other areas of focus include:

more detailed risk assessments to identify potential opportunities for money laundering and terrorism financing
increased levels of Customer Due Diligence (CDD)
the exemption threshold for undertaking CDD will be lowered from “less than $10,000 to less than $5,000” (aligning with legislated maximum cash payouts in NSW and the international Financial Action Task Force [FATF] threshold)
changes to the ‘Tipping Off’ offence intended to prevent the disclosure of information where it would, or could, reasonably prejudice an investigation

Generally, AUSTRAC has also gained addition information gathering powers including –

a new examination power, to enable AUSTRAC to obtain relevant information needed to make enforcement decisions and obtain evidence to be used in AML/CTF court proceedings
a new notice to produce power, to allow AUSTRAC to request information or documents and support the AUSTRAC CEO to carry out FIU functions under the AML/CTF Act
a new ‘authorisation to produce’ to ensure that co-operative entities are not exposed to undue legal risk by virtue of voluntary cooperation with AUSTRAC, including through the Fintel Alliance

Impact on clubs and pubs

Whilst the amendments are relatively minor, the intent from AUSTRAC is clear. Greater due diligence is required for all reporting entities offering designated services. If you have any number of gaming machines and / or offer wagering services you need to -

Enrol with AUSTRAC.
Develop and maintain an AML/CTF program tailored to their business.
Conduct initial customer due diligence.
Conduct ongoing customer due diligence.
Report certain transactions and suspicious activities.
Make and keep records.

Recent press coverage of investigations into the club sector have raised the level of attention required by all clubs and pubs to ensure –

You have a compliant AML/CTF program, audited at least every two (2) years
You conduct thorough risk assessments on a regular basis
Ensure all staff involved are fully trained in AML/CTF Awareness, as well as directors doing their AML/CTF Oversight training
Ensure thorough and ongoing customer due diligence
Effective monitoring and reporting of suspicious matter transactions, focusing on the reduced threshold of $5,000

As with many of the legislative protections we must comply with, to minimise harm and prevent money laundering and terrorism financing, the diligent application of the existing requirements and these enhanced reforms are essential for your organisation. Do what you need to do and you can safely continue to provide your services, knowing your compliance is your protection from potential investigations and penalties under the AML/CTF legislation.

Whilst AUSTRAC does not endorse consultants per se, there are specialist organisations who can assist you to meet your compliance in this area, helping you to interpret and contextualise the AUSTRAC templates (for programs) and meet all legislative requirements.

For more information or assistance to address concerns with your AML/CTF program, contact Ron Browne ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au 0414 633 423

Dealing with the competition

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 04:40:45 GMT

I often ask client clubs “what business are you in?”

Dealing with the competition

I often ask client clubs “what business are you in?” Their response is inevitably the club industry, so my next question is “who is your competition?” Again, the usual response is other clubs and pubs.

This is a myopic view of the business they are in. If you are a club, pub or restaurant, you are in hospitality and depending on the breadth of products and services you offer, you can be competing with businesses outside of plain hospitality.

Direct competition

If you provide food and beverage products and services then you are in direct competition with any other food and beverage outlet, from fast food takeaways to hatted chef restaurants, and everything in between. Local shopping centre food courts are major competitors, as they realised that if you feed them, then the customers stay longer and shop more.

Home delivery, through Uber Eats, DoorDash and the like are also major competitors although the delivery fees are starting top become prohibitive, creating a rethink amongst some patrons. You can order any style of cuisine and have it delivered to your door, without having to leave the comfort of your own home.

How do you compete with such a huge range of competitive offerings? You need to take a long hard look at what patrons ‘experience’ in your venue. They need a really compelling reason to come out - day or night – to visit your venue for an experience they cannot experience at home, or at your other competitive venues.

You have to be able to hit the right combination of so many factors:

X Ambience – you have to feel like their preferred alternate lounge room or dining room, so warm and welcoming, and comfortable – like an old, well-worn pair of slippers.

X Quality – your product needs to be something that they salivate over, when they think about eating or drinking at ‘your place’. Top quality food ingredients combined into a delicious meal and the best tasting beer, great selection of wines and even the right, enticing spirits/cocktails to make each visit memorable. And if it is a special occasion or event, you have to blow them away with the quality you deliver.

X Service – your service needs to be outstanding. This is wholly and solely reliant on your people. Hire staff with a great attitude, train them to have the best skills and instil in them the joy of delivering outstanding service to every patron. I was at a wedding reception only last week where the staff were a cut above – delivering the three course meal with a four plate carry (rare to see these days) and ever attentive to (responsibly) topping up drinks. Attentive without being obtrusive, and responsive to patrons’ requests.

X Value for Money – your offering must provide patrons with the sense of value for money. If you have higher prices than your competitors, you must provide a significantly better product. Expensive isn’t a sin, provided the quality and service combine to deliver a value for money offering – matching the patron’s expectation. And cheap doesn’t need to equate to inferior quality or shoddy service. If you know what you are doing with your purchasing, if you have a chef who understands portion costs (my favourite soap box topic) and a team who don’t kill you with slow and inefficient service, requiring a top heavy roster, you can still make money and deliver to the customer’s expectation with a lower priced/bargain offering.

X Communication – rapport with your customers is critical! I believe that if you ‘do hospitality right’ you have fun at work. Engage with the patrons in a worm, friendly and professional manner, but have fun at the same time. Ensure you do not step over the line with your humour (we live in a woke world, so boundaries have changed significantly in my 50 years in the industry) but good natured humour, especially with regular clients, is a great way to maintain the rapport and ambience necessary to bring people back. If there is a problem, let patrons know straight away – be upfront and they will be far more forgiving than if you don’t keep them appraised. Always invite patrons back as they leave – do not ignore them as they walk out the door.

All these factors combine to create loyal customers, who will come back time and again to a tried and trusted venue, meeting their expectations for a good time. Remember, as part of your strategic planning, you need to ensure you have accurately defined who your key target customer(s) is/are, because you cannot be everything to everyone.

Indirect Competition

Many clubs and pubs (not restaurants so much) offer alternative products and services to the traditional hospitality ones, like accommodation, fitness centres, cinemas, hairdressers, car washes, office space, service stations, shopping centres and other offerings. Whilst anyone offering these products or services will be direct competitors to that, they are indirect competition to your main game.

You still need to address the impact their offering can have in affecting your visitation and revenue. Does your competitive carwash offer food drink and entertainment? Obviously, having a shopping centre or service station collocated with your club or pub, can provide additional visitation to the club, but it can also provide indirect competition, by having patrons eat in the food court or grab a quick take away snack at the servo.

Providing bundled products and/or services can be a potential solution to combat this sort of indirect competition. Great examples exist where clubs with accommodation offer club membership, and the associated discount benefits, to patrons who stay in their motel or cabins. Fitness centres can also be stand alone or part of the club membership and this can enhance the attractiveness of your venue over others.

Personal services, like hairdresser, health or beauty spa or even travel agent, can also be a great draw card to your venue, which bring patrons to the venue for reasons ither than food, drink and entertainment, but then they may stay and indulge as they are there anyway.

The use of product or service bundles can also be a very powerful tool to attract additional visitation and defend against the competition. Meal and show deals, car wash discounts for members, or free coffee with a car wash are all the sorts of defensive strategies that can be implemented, with a varied club or pub offer. Restaurants generally are less affected by these situations but a parking discount deal can be a great benefit, if you can negotiate it with a local parking provider.

Finally, an important competitive strategy for me has always been to focus on what you do, not what the competition does , but monitor their activities. Asses the level of threat they pose to your business and then decide what defensive actions you might need to take to limit their impact on you. Key strategies here are – Ignore (insignificant threat), Match or imitate (medium threat) if you can provide a similar product or service and Challenge (major threat) by doing something that will disrupt their business, before they disrupt yours.

For assistance in assessing and responding to your competition, Ron Browne, Managing Consultant can come and provide his input and perspective, built on 50 years’ experience. Contact Ron ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au or 0414 633 423.

Is your product mix still fit for purpose?

Sun, 17 Aug 2025 03:34:51 GMT

When did you last review your product mix?

When did you last review your product mix? If it was a couple of years ago, it may well be time to review again. Whilst some organisations are good at monitoring sales of product by volume and value on a regular basis, many clubs, pubs and restaurants “set and forget” their product mix for months, even years at a time.

Tastes change all the time and to keep relevant to your customers and local market, you need to ensure you are monitoring and managing the changing tastes. I am old enough to remember when all beers were ‘full strength’ and we almost laughed (and choked) when some ‘low alcohol’ beers were first introduced in the 1980s – Vale Tooheys 2.2 and Swan Special light.

Fast forward to the 2020s and the Mid-Strength and Low-Strength beers hold about 25% of the total volume of the beer market. Add in the search for healthier Low-Carb options and the combined Mid-Strength/Low-Carb beers and the stats say around 30% of beer drinkers are looking for this option. ( PW Consulting Dec 2024 )

Now add in Zero Alcohol Beer and you have one of the fastest growing segments in the market in Australia, growing by 9.3% in 2023-24 against a nearly flat growth regular beer market.

According to a Wine Australia Article in February 2025, globally over the five years to 2023 no-alcohol wines have grown 13 percent per annum and low alcohol wines grew 21 percent per annum. Whilst still a relatively small segment, the interesting point is this level of growth in a market that declined three percent overall over the same five year period.

Food – the number one driver into clubs and pubs, and restaurants obviously – tastes are changing too. Taste Magazine , in March this year, reviewed the most popular cuisines for people to cook at home and also their popular choices for eating out. Summarised in the table below are the trends for 2025:

Review and Refresh

So, all this begs the question – when did you last review and refresh your product offering? Included in the review, amongst other issues, has to be:

x Demographic change – has your market changed significantly on age, gender, ethnicity, religion and food or drink preferences?

x Competition change – have new outlets for food opened up recently and been wildly successful with their offering e.g. Zeus Greek Street Food some years ago – or has someone has reinvented a classic e.g. Grilled and the humble hamburger.

x Dietary trends – over the past couple of decades vegetarian, and particularly Vegan requirements, have really created a presence in the market, not to forget dairy and gluten intolerances that are daily challenges for chefs in their kitchens.

And if you have a point of sale (POS) system, and you are not regularly extracting top 20 and bottom 20 products, you are missing some of the key benefits of the POS. If food and beverage products are stagnant or declining in sales, you need to ask Why and What should we do about that? If promotion has been lacking for any particular products, a small reminder promo may revitalise an old favourite and if not, at least you will reduce stock levels that can facilitate product deletion.

If you introduce a new product or product line, monitoring the sales by volume and value can be a great indicator of uptake, and match to your customer’s tastes. Be aware that venues differ and a wildly popular product in a competitor’s venue may not translate into wild popularity in your venue. But you have to try and see the results to keep up to date with those trends and changing tastes.

Set some sensible parameters around trial periods of new products, to give them a fair chance to take off or crash. Ensure your staff are all informed of the program behind product revitalisation or launch, so they know what they need to push. Internal marketing communications (video screens, till screens and the like) need to support the product push and of course, so too does your website and social media communications.

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Directors’ Oversight and Contingent Liabilities

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 06:12:02 GMT

Directors have a key role in the oversight of the business operations.

Directors have a key role in the oversight of the business operations. Whilst there is a distinct delineation between strategic and operational input to the business, oversight of the organisation from both the governance and operational perspectives are part of that remit.

Should a board fall short in these areas, contingent liability will generally come home to roost on the Board table. As those who know me well will attest, my mantra is “ due diligence in everything you do ”, which should ensure you do not miss issues that can come back and bite you. Remember, the buck stops with directors and officers as the ‘effective owners’ of any business.

A quick recap of the areas of oversight for directors of For Profit and For Purpose organisations, will yield identical responsibilities in the following areas:

X Financial issues especially solvency;

X Strategic issues especially the path forward;

X Human resource issues including succession, learning and development, managing leave liabilities and now psychosocial issues;

X Risk management issues including but not limited to crises, reputation, environmental and physical risks;

X Work Health and Safety (WH&S) issues especially guarding against potential hazards to health and safety, including physical (injury or death) and mental harms (bullying and harassment, discrimination, workplace violence etc.);

X Compliance especially ensuring the organisation is complying with all the legislation affecting the industry the organisation is playing in;

X Cybersecurity which is rapidly becoming a key area of focus with boards needing to ensure the organisation has in place all the appropriate mechanisms to protect data, minimise the chance of data breaches and ensure privacy of any client data, whilst navigating the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance the organisation’s operations.

Who is responsible when it goes bad?

One of the key aspects of board membership when things go bad, is that a director must have been in a position to influence the situation in question. For example, if you join a board who has made a bad decision 12 months prior, you may be in the position of wearing the contingent liability of that decision today. Your defence, if it really goes pear shaped, is that ‘you were not on the board at the time that decision was taken and therefore had no opportunity for input or influence’.

Conversely, if you have stepped down from a board, after a poor decision was taken, and you had input and influence on the decision, you can be held liable for the consequences (contingent liability), even after you have left the board.

An example I came across recently was a manager who claimed years of unpaid leave when he retired. The incumbent board was held liable and paid out the (not insignificant amount) when the reality was that the previous boards presiding over that manager, should have monitored and managed his leave and insisted he take leave regularly, to keep his entitlements to a manageable amount. That organisation had the funds and paid out the manager, but for many small organisations the amount involved would have put the organisation into insolvency! The previous directors should have been brought to task and would have been liable. Also, there was no evidence either way – whether the manager had taken leave or not – due to the fact that as the senior executive of the organisation, it was also his responsibility to manage all leave entitlements, including his own, as part of his delegated authority from the board.

When it comes to WH&S, Risk Management, Compliance and Cybersecurity, my mantra again is due diligence by the board . The directors and officers are responsible for ensuring that management have in place all policies and procedures required to ensure the organisation is compliant with all legislation and standards applicable to the industry the organisation operates in.

This does not mean the directors have to write the policies and procedures, just ensure that they are all in place. It is incumbent on the management and staff to create, source, adapt and implement all those policies and procedures that are essential for compliant operations.

WH&S penalties for failure to implement or maintain appropriate safety measures, with or without death or injury, range from $140,000 to $3 million per director/officer and from $700,000 to $15 million for the organisation . So, a worst case scenario, of death through corporate negligence, for a company with a board of nine directors and say three key executives, could cost a total of $30 million for the individuals and $15 million for the corporation. That is $45 million plus potential disqualification from being able to be a director for up to 20 years, through a lack of due diligence. The cost of compliance is MUCH lower than $45 million!

Conversely, a western Sydney manufacturing company had a death through a crane toppling onto an employee in their factory, about 20 years ago. This company had all their WH&S policies and procedures in place, records showing the ongoing refresher training of their staff, the maintenance records of the equipment, including the crane that fell. Workcover investigators found no negligence on behalf of the directors, officers and the organisation, and that what had occurred was truly an accident , albeit a tragic one. No fines were levied and no impact was had to the Workers Compensation or insurance premiums of that company and it continued to trade, safely.

Key Takeaway

In all legislation relating to business, directors and officers are ultimately liable for organisational wrongdoing. Whilst limited liability structures protect to an extent – when no identifiable negligence is involved - it is still directors and officers who are fined when negligence is proved . To avoid losing your hard-earned assets, if you apply due diligence to all your governance responsibilities , you should not run foul of the law.

The best strategy for ensuring you exercise appropriate oversight of your organisation and do not create contingent liabilities, is to be educated appropriately in governance and stay up to date on all changes to legislation or standards relating to your industry.

Two industries I have been involved in over my career, happen to be two of the most regulated and legislated industries – Agricultural Chemicals and Hospitality. Directors in these industries need ideally to be educated in governance through the Company Directors’ Course (run by the Australian Institute of Company Directors AICD), The Governance Institute of Australia’s programs, The Institute of Community Directors courses or university or registered training organisations who deliver governance subjects on their scope.

Additionally, they need to be up to date on any and all legislation relating to their industry, with the following examples for those two industries including:

Agricultural Chemicals – Corporations Act, legislation and standards for the safe storage, transport and handling of dangerous goods; chemical application certification and standards and emergency procedures.

Hospitality – legislation including Corporations Act, Registered Clubs Act (NSW only), Liquor Acts, Gaming Machines Acts, WH&S Acts, Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing Act (AML/CTF), Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA), Responsible Conduct of Gaming (RCG or RSG) including harm minimisation programs and guidelines.

Of course, every industry has it’s legislative and standard controls – Construction, Transport, Manufacturing, Finance, Law, Education, Health and Allied Industries, Retail to name but a few. If you are a director of any organisation in any industry, it is incumbent upon you to be across all of these issues, to ensure you apply due diligence to your oversight and mitigate the risk of any contingent liabilities, due to a lack of diligence or your duty of care.

For assistance with a Governance Audit, to review or benchmark your corporate oversight, contact Ron Browne, Managing Consultant 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au .

How current is your constitution?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Sat, 28 Jun 2025 07:52:37 GMT

When did you last review your constitution?

Most For Purpose organisations have morphed from incorporated associations into proprietary companies. As a result, they should have updated their Articles of Association into a Constitution. The club industry is a highly regulated (especially in NSW) and legislation changes with monotonous regularity.

To ensure your constitution is current, the best option is to review it whenever the legislation changes, or at least every year. Legal counsel should be keeping on top of the legislation for you, and certainly ClubsNSW as the peak industry body, constantly monitors and communicates changes to legislation to its members.

If you haven’t reviewed your constitution in the last five (5) years it will probably need a refresh. Your constitution needs to be fit for purpose and, as we discussed in my January-February communication, needs to be reviewed to match the latest make up of club members. You should also review the Objects of the club as these may have changed over time, with the societal changes and diminishing numbers of “playing” members in some sports clubs, and service men and women in the RSL and Legion clubs.

When you have reviewed your constitution, it should be -

x compliant with all the latest legislative changes

x reflect the objects of the club

x stipulate the election cycle the club uses or would like to use

x stipulate the number of board meetings being held each year

x address the retention or removal of the Five Kilometre Rule for membership

x address the retention or removal of membership fees

x review the membership categories and the rights of each category

x set out how disciplinary matters are handled

We will talk about the detail shortly, however you also need to understand that to actually change your constitution requires a Special Resolution at a general meeting. Only members with full voting rights for Special Resolutions can vote on these, whereas usually all members can vote on ordinary resolutions.

Restrictions on change

Any Special Resolution requires at least seventy-five (75) percent of members, attending the meeting and eligible to vote, to approve the resolution for it to pass. Often this can mean a situation where a very small number of members have the power to make significant changes to the constitution, especially when clubs have a small number required for a quorum at a general meeting.

Example

Your club has 10,000 members, a mix of ‘core’ members and social members, and the quorum for a general meeting is fifty (50) members. At your meeting 50 financial members attend, so a quorum is established, however for a special resolution there are only 20 members attending with full voting rights. The vote is put and so long as 15 members approve the resolution, it will be carried. 15 members have now legally changed the constitution, which affects all 10,000 members.

I constantly advocate to client clubs that any special resolutions, particularly those relating to constitutional change, must be socialised well in advance of the vote . In fact, my mantra is to advise the membership at this year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) that you will be voting on key special resolutions at the next AGM. This will give you a full 12 months to communicate the resolutions, the reasons for the proposed change, and the opportunity to hold information sessions for members to attend and discuss the implications of, and any concerns they have about, the resolutions.

It is also advisable to separate critical resolutions as stand alone, in order to allow each resolution to stand or fail on its on merit. Aggregating resolutions is fraught, as when one contentious resolution is voted down, the whole lot of combined resolutions must fail.

Key constitutional points to consider

Let’s have a brief look at the points I mentioned earlier. Your constitution should –

x be compliant with all the latest legislative changes

o review the Registered Clubs Act, the Corporations Act, your state gaming and liquor legislation, anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) Act;

x reflect the objects of the club

o ensure you are clear on what you do, who you support and how you are able to make that happen. Avoid being overly prescriptive as this may end up restricting what you can do to deliver on your objects;

x stipulate the election cycle the club uses or would like to use

o Clubs use Annual (every year), Biennial (once every two years) or Triennial election cycles (election every year for one third of the board where directors are elected for a three year term) which are stipulated in the constitution. How the board elections are run should also be clearly spelled out;

x stipulate the number of board meetings being held each year

o The legislation mandating monthly meetings has been repealed so clubs now only need to meet at least quarterly to comply, however it is up to the individual clubs to decide on board meeting frequency;

x address the retention or removal of the Five Kilometre Rule for membership

o long an issue of contention in the community, some clubs may choose to retain this requirement, whilst others may choose to remove it;

x address the retention or removal of membership fees

o the mandated minimum annual fee of $2.00 has also been removed, so again it is up to clubs to decide and note in their constitution, the requirement for membership fees;

x review the membership categories and the rights of each category

o the constitution defines each category of membership and these should be reviewed with an eye on the registered Clubs Act guidelines relating to the minimum percentage of overall membership that a category must meet to be a legally viable membership category;

x set out how disciplinary matters are handled

o your constitution should address the Disciplinary procedure that must be followed to ensure procedural fairness, when handling citations for inappropriate behaviour of members and can define appropriate penalties (although these are usually the domain of By Laws).

Ideally when you review your constitution, you will talk to your legal counsel for final legal oversight and ratification. As a word of caution, it is definitely advisable to use an experienced club industry legal firm, like Pigott Stinson, Thomson Geer, Elite Legal or others, who are fully versed in the club industry legislation, rather than a local solicitor who is not across the nuances of our specialist industry.

For further assistance with an initial review of your constitution, contact Ron Browne, Managing Consultant 0414 633 423 ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Planning for the future

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 06:10:07 GMT

If only we had a crystal ball

If only we had a crystal ball to predict the future with crystal clarity. But then we would all be Lottery millionaires. Back down here on earth, the reality is we need to ‘plan for the future’ with the best information available to us at the time. We cannot control the future, so the best we can do is plan for what we want our future to be, and try to allow for various contingencies that may arise.

One of my favourite mantras is “There are no problems, only opportunities”. I am an eternal optimist and so always see the upside of situations and work with the approach that optimists see a solution for every problem, whilst pessimists see a problem for every opportunity.

For me the best planning team is made up of optimists and pessimists (or devil’s advocates as I call them) so that the (sometimes) high flying optimists get a touch of reality to ground them from the devil’s advocates.

Is Strategic Planning still relevant?

There are so many opinions out there globally on strategic planning –

X How far ahead should you plan - 3 years, 5 years or even 25 years?

X Who should be involved in planning – the board, management or both?

X Should you use an outside facilitator?

x What should the final plan look like – a Plan on a page or more detailed?

x Is a SWOT analysis really useful or not?

In the modern business world, things evolve at such a rapid rate, how do you plan for the constant evolution of the business environment? How do you account for the local and global impact of AI (Artificial Intelligence), Digital Technology generally, the commensurate Cybersecurity risk, managing resources (Human, Financial and Physical), managing constantly rising costs and the inherent challenge to profitability and therefore, business sustainability?

I believe we still need to do strategic planning in any business. With the registered club industry, there can be resistance to change, and this can lead to serious consequences for those clubs that do not respond to the changes in their communities.

I also believe that a SWOT Analysis still has relevance, but it is only one element of the analyses you need to do to plan effectively. When I facilitate a Strategic Planning session for a club or other Not for Profit (NFP) organisations, I add in a few other elements. I am not going to go into detail on this analysis, but you can work some of it out for yourself (although there is a twist in the acronyms) –

x What is working and What is not?

x What is G.O.O.D for the Business?

x What is B.A.D for the Business?

You also need to consider the three key resources (mentioned above) required now, in the mid-term future and the longer term future.

Strategic Plan vs. Master Plan

Many businesses (clubs in particular) often confuse a Strategic Plan with a Master Plan (for their premises). In my planning world, a Strategic Plan focuses on what the business needs to do to deliver profit, growth and respond to the customers needs.

A Master Plan on the other hand is purely a plan for the development of the physical resource(s) like the club house and facilities, or a factory, plant and equipment, that is part of allowing a strategic plan to deliver on the business goals.

For most organisations, I advocate that the Strategic Plan will deliver the cashflow, profit and accrue the financial resources to underpin the eventual implementation of the physical Master Plan. Many renovations, expansions or upgrading of plant and equipment (including the technology needed to run businesses these days) represent a major capital investment – often in the tens of millions of dollars, so implementing an effective Strategic Plan to deliver the financial resources to fund the physical resources is a critical path.

Crisis Preparedness Planning

I harp on this theme incessantly too – if you are planning for success, you must also plan for disaster! As I said in the opening, we cannot control the future, and the best laid plans can run foul of unexpected challenges, as we are seeing yet again in the mid north of NSW, now experiencing record breaking flooding completely destroying businesses.

Insurance is only one strategy to handle contingencies – crisis management and business continuity planning is essential to maximise the chance of the business surviving a catastrophe like flood, fire, malicious digital attack and other challenges to the business.

I also go back to the old saying from Benjamin Franklin “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” . When it comes to planning the future, you really do need to look at both the positives and potential negatives, to be fully planned and prepared. Plan for the best and prepare for the worst and you have all bases covered. I have worked with clubs that have had the worst happen – club fire – and with no contingency planned by the board and senior management, they struggled to recover.

Identifying things like alternate temporary premises, or alternate food options, so the club can continue to trade, can be the crucial difference for the club surviving the worst.

If you are looking to create or review a Strategic Plan, or Master Plan, contact Ron Browne, Managing Consultant ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au 0414 633 423.

Do you really know what your Customers want?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 23:16:50 GMT

When was the last time you asked your customers what they actually want?

We all think we “know” our customers, so we think we know what they want. We make decisions on their behalf about the products, services and facilities they want. But are we really that psychic that we can read their minds and get it 100 percent right? Maybe not…

My favourite definition of marketing is “Finding out what your customers’ wants/needs are and then providing it for them.” If you have what people want, in all its combinations, they will literally beat a path to your door. So, marketing can also be described as “having what you know you can get rid of,” whereas selling is “getting rid of what you’ve got.” And you customers may not actually want what you have.

How do I find out what they want?

There are a number of ways to find this out but put simply “You need to ask your customers.” This can be done formally or informally, at little or no cost, or through spending some serious coin for professional market research.

In this world full of modern technology, there are a raft of possibilities for doing the research starting with a simple hard copy questionnaire, through online survey tools (like Survey Monkey) right up to engaging a professional market research company like Ipsos, Roy Morgan or AMR who can provide either proprietary or syndicated research options.

I like to keep things simple and cost effective, so with a little thought (and professional guidance) you can draft a simple Customer Survey to use within your business and to circulate to your potential audience.

By asking a series of simple questions, you can glean a lot of information from your existing and potential customers (e.g. members of registered clubs, regular patrons of clubs, pubs and restaurants) or customers and community stakeholders of any For Profit and For Purpose (Not For Profit) organisations.

What do I need to do?

First up, work out what you want to know from your audience – ask about their preferences for food, drinks, entertainment, other products and services and maybe reasons that would enhance the chance of potential customers to actually do business with you. Then ask them

x what do you like that we should keep doing?

x what don’t you like that we should stop doing?

x what would you like us to do / offer that we aren’t doing / offering now?

x What would encourage you to do business with us?

Maybe even enquire as to the suitability of your location, your trading hours, parking availability and other elements, which could be acting as an impediment to them doing business with you.

Once you have established what you want to know, work out the actual questions you are going to ask and the type of answers you want – single line, multiple choice, Likert rating scale, Yes / No or paragraph answers to open ended questions.

Then you can draft your survey / questionnaire in electronic format (Survey Monkey or similar) or in ‘hard copy’ format in a printed form, either in Word or Excel. The benefit of using the electronic format with Survey Monkey is that their system collects and collates all the answers for you and provides different forms of analysis. So, you don’t have to be a trained market researcher to get useful data out of your survey.

Using the hard copy approach is possibly a necessity depending on the demographics you are surveying. Older generations like the Builders and some early Baby Boomers are not as tech savvy as the younger Gen X and Millennials, so you may need to do a combination of both to cover all your potential audience.

Don’t try and ask too many questions as that can impact on your response rate. A quick and easy survey, which should take no more than five to seven (5 – 7) minutes will usually get a good response from people who are generally time poor in the 21 ^st century.

What sort of response should you expect?

On average, survey responses can be as low as five (5) percent and as high as fifty (50) percent for highly engaged audiences. From my experience, depending on the sample size (how many you ask to do the survey) you can expect five to twenty-five (5 – 25) percent response rate and you can usually glean meaningful results from that sort of response rate.

Be patient too. Some people take one or two reminders to complete the survey and again, the applications like Survey Monkey have template emails and reminder emails that you can send to prompt a response from the busy people. They also have template Thank You emails that go out to the respondents who complete the survey.

It can be beneficial to prompt a greater response level to offer a ‘reward’ of some sort for completion of your survey. Hard copy surveys, dropped into the Survey Collection Box, can go in a draw for a random prize – a meal voucher, a gift or a discount coupon – that will hopefully incentivate a greater number of responses.

Similar rewards can be offered in an online survey for completion, with electronic delivery of the prize / reward, so ensure you capture the name and an email address of all respondents, as part of your survey information.

Be prepared for some frivolous or vexatious responses – often those with an axe to grind will take the opportunity to have a go at the company through the survey, but obviously you can deal with that information accordingly.

Once you have the responses, you can collate them and take the information provided to then review your product, service and facilities offerings. It can be a great tool to add to the preparation for a strategic planning session, so that you have current feedback from your customers and potential customers, to inform the future planning.

You may be able to incorporate the suggestions into your business, however it is highly unlikely that all the suggestions will be actionable. Use the information to adjust the business offering that works within the parameters of improving your business, without over-burdening the business. Remember you can only please all of the people some of the time , so try not to be everything to everybody! .

A well-executed customer survey will be a powerful tool to really let you know what your customers think , to help you to better meet their needs. For more information, or assistance in surveying your customers, contact Ron Browne 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Artificial Intelligence - Friend or Foe?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 04:15:14 GMT

I am just keen to start a conversation about the progress of modern technology

I am not a computer technical boffin, so I am not pretending in this article to be an AI expert. I am just keen to start a conversation about the progress of modern technology and try to get more of a handle on the benefits and drawbacks of this incredible new field.

As a Baby Boomer, I have lived through the exponential acceleration of technology , including the first personal computers, the birth of the internet, adoption of email, records becoming CDs, DVDs and now MPG and video files and the birth and explosion of social media. The rate of change is barely comprehensible and yet we as directors, managers and staff of 21 ^st century businesses, need to fearlessly navigate the management of technology – with it’s inherent benefits and inherent risks.

I remember as a kid growing up, I didn’t need any passwords – no wait, just the one to get into the tree cubby house (“Knock knock – Who is it? – It’s me, Brownie. What’s the password? Elvis Presley. Ok, you can come in”)

Nowadays, with all our technology, we need a gazillion passwords, which we are supposed to change every six weeks and now need to be so complex and lengthy (12 plus alphanumeric passwords with special ch@racters), that you need a Password Manager to keep track of them.

And then ChatGPT arrived, closely followed by CoPilot and a bunch of other similar programs. According to an expert article by IBM, Artificial Intelligence started around the 1950s, followed by Machine Learning in the 1980s, Deep Learning in the 2010s and finally Generative AI in the 2020s. To get a better handle on the timeline and developmental stages resulting in what we are now calling AI, read this article from IBM.

A Google search (no doubt aided by AI) on the pros and cons of AI, yielded the following bullet points which I offer for your consideration:

Pros of AI:

Increased Efficiency and Productivity:

AI can automate repetitive tasks, freeing up human workers for more creative and strategic work, and leading to faster and more efficient processes.

Better Decision-Making:

AI algorithms can analyse vast amounts of data to identify patterns and make predictions, leading to more informed and data-driven decisions.

Reduced Human Error:

AI systems can perform tasks with greater accuracy and precision than humans, reducing the risk of errors and improving overall reliability.

Personalized Experiences:

AI can tailor products, services, and experiences to individual needs and preferences, leading to greater customer satisfaction.

Innovation and New Discoveries:

AI can help researchers and scientists explore new ideas and make breakthroughs in various fields.

Improved Diagnosis and Treatment:

In healthcare, AI can assist in diagnosing diseases, developing personalized treatment plans, and improving patient outcomes.

Cons of AI:

Job Displacement:

As AI systems become more sophisticated, they may automate jobs that were previously done by humans, leading to potential job losses and economic disruption.

Ethical Concerns:

AI systems can perpetuate biases present in the data they are trained on, leading to unfair or discriminatory outcomes.

Data Privacy and Security:

AI systems require large amounts of data to function effectively, which raises concerns about data privacy and security.

Lack of Creativity and Emotional Intelligence:

AI systems are not capable of true creativity or emotional intelligence, which can limit their ability to solve complex problems and interact with humans effectively.

Dependency on Technology:

Over-reliance on AI can lead to a decline in human skills and critical thinking abilities.

High Costs:

Developing and implementing AI systems can be expensive, requiring significant investment in hardware, software, and expertise.

Need for Constant Maintenance and Updates:

AI systems require ongoing maintenance and updates to ensure their continued performance and accuracy.

AI Simplified

A beautiful explanation given to a professional development day of directors I am on boards with went like this:

Imagine all the information out there on the Internet of Things (IoT) are all Lego blocks (every type and size). You want to build a house with a front door, two storeys, eight windows and a garage, so you ask ChatGPT or CoPilot (Or whomever) to find the best design for a house as described above.

Your AI will search the IoT, in the blink of an eye, and deliver you between five and ten alternate designs that match your criteria. You have saved an enormous amount of time and energy in gathering your options together and now need only choose between the suggested options, for the one that best suits your needs.

Pro: Time saved, comprehensive and extensive search and multiple solutions.

Con: What if I have a patented Lego house design, and I happen to have mentioned it on the internet, and now it has been ‘copied’ as one of the AI suggested designs?

How do we protect proprietary rights in this high tech world? Now my main fields of focus are Governance, strategy, marketing, risk and operational management in hospitality, associations and for purpose (not-for-profit) organisations. All areas where there are rarely any patents, but might include trademarks, and so I need to be wary when searching the internet to stay current with developing trends in those areas.

Indeed, in this environment, I may use AI to assist in developing a proprietary system, product or service that I then wish to secure as my intellectual property(IP), which I might wish to charge clients to use. How do I protect my IP against unsolicited use by AI, when someone who could become a client is searching for information on my type of products or services?

I spoke recently to a PhD Medical Science student about AI and the 20 something fellow has none of my Boomer inhibitions around AI, and offered a logical suggested solution. Any critical IP should be stored on databanks NOT connected to the internet. Another computer that is connected to the internet is then given the relevant information to release on the internet, from the secure databank’s AI protocol. The AI acts as ‘gatekeeper’ for the sensitive information.

Now I have no idea of the mechanics of this solution, but the sheer simplicity of it blew me away! As a company director faced with the challenges inherent to effective governance of AI, Cybersecurity and the use of these technologies for improved company performance, to deliver enhanced outcomes for our customer, we need to be inviting this millennial Generation and Generation Alpha onto our boards to provide this unfettered thinking to the new challenges facing us.

I accept that this article has not provided any simple, nor unequivocal solutions to the question ' AI – Friend or Foe' , however, as I said at the outset, I want to open up the discussion so that all of us, at all levels in business, spend an appropriate amount of time and effort exploring the answer. If I have raised your awareness of the benefits and risks of AI today, then I feel I have achieved my desired outcome.

For assistance in your organisation’s review of AI, contact Ron Browne , Managing Partner, Extrapreneur Services at ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au 0414 633 423.

The Membership Challenge

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 05:50:41 GMT

Many clubs are suffering challenges with their membership

Many clubs are suffering challenges with their membership, and one issue may potentially blind-side the club and it’s constitution. Many clubs are struggling to find new members in the younger generations, but more importantly many clubs no longer have the critical mass of the ‘core members’ required to continue to hold control of the club and it’s future.

I have often mentioned the evolution of clubs from virtually 100 percent membership of core members – golfers, bowlers, footballers and returned servicemen and women – to clubs with mostly social members and a diminishing number of core members. For example, one large RSL club now has over 50,000 members and less than 300 Sub-Branch members and many bowling clubs, only have a handful of fully financial playing bowlers.

Yet many a club is still governed by a constitution the keeps the control of the club in the hands of the core members. This is fine given the history of the club is it was formed to promote the objects suited to that group – welfare of returned servicemen and women, or promote bowls, golf, football, tennis or sailing. However, as time has passed, all the successful clubs have grown through adjusting their focus to meet the needs of their local community. In most instances, sadly, those clubs that have focussed on the core function, to the point of ignoring the wider community needs, have been the ones who eventually need to amalgamate with a larger partner to survive, or indeed have liquidated and closed.

This is often a tragedy for the community who rely on the club to be the focal point for socialising, entertaining and exercising, and in turn providing support to the local community groups. The reality is the clubs that thrive are the ones who focus on providing what their community wants, but still enshrines the core objects of supporting the ‘Core Function’ of the club.

The Membership Conundrum

What happens when your core membership category, the one which founded the club and its objects falls to a virtual minority share of membership? The Registered Clubs Act 1976 provides the answer here in Clause 30 Section 9(a) and advises that a class or classes of membership must comprise or be no less than 25 percent of the full membership . This means, if your constitution says only Sub-Branch members, or full playing Bowling members can stand for the board, unless that class of member constitutes at least 25 percent of the club membership, then that rule is effectively null and void.

Similarly, if the constitution says only this specific membership class can vote on changing the constitution, it no longer applies if your membership class is no longer at least 25 percent of the membership.

Every year your annual report lists the total membership and often, in the case of bowling, golf, RSL and Tennis clubs, the core membership category will be identified specifically, so you will know if that core group still comprises at least 25 percent or more of your membership.

OMG I hear you scream – that is no longer the case for our club, so what are the implications going forward?

Unless you have already addressed this situation in your constitution, all fully financial members of the club are now able to stand for election to the board, or vote on constitutional change, provided they meet any other criteria stipulated in your constitution e.g. length of membership limits (must be a member for at least one (1), two (2) or three [3] years). Additionally, in reality where this may have occurred, directors appointed to the club, who sit on the board and may not be core members or social members of three years standing, can vote too.

The 25 percent rule I can only surmise, was written to ensure a very small percentage of members in any class could not control (read take over) the operations and focus of the club. Some sporting clubs are no longer made up mainly of players, but may still retain the tax exemptions due to their ongoing funding and support of community based sporting teams, who are now the focus of the club’s objects.

Membership Review

Is now the time to review your membership composition and then your constitution? The reality today is many core member groups no longer have the control of the club they thought they had, just by token of diminished size of their membership category.

Even without reviewing the constitution of your club, because the legislation (i.e. the Registered Clubs Act 1976) takes priority over your constitution, you can open up the voting on boards and constitutional change (if needed) to the greater percentage of your club members.

Membership classes without voting rights may get those rights by default , if the class or classes with voting rights no longer constitute the required 25 percent. All clubs will need to keep an eye on their membership numbers if they choose to remove the necessity for membership, previously mandated for people living within five (5) kilometres of the club. Now that this rule and the need to charge for membership have been scrapped, there is still a compelling case to make for membership of the club, to access the member discounts on offer.

In the face of years of ongoing argument about mandatory memberships for clubs, many pubs introduced ‘Member Club’ style membership to offer member discounts, benefits and special events, tying regular patrons into their pub, psychologically.

What range of membership categories does your club offer and what benefits do those categories offer? Another part of the ongoing membership challenge is attracting and retaining members, especially those between 18 and 40 years of age. Many of that age bracket ‘socialise’ over the internet via gaming, Instagram, Tik-Tok and various forms of Facetime video calls. Face to face gatherings are often an unknown, until those younger groups reach the point of becoming a family, where the dynamic changes significantly and personal interactions becomes a much higher priority. There is a strong trend for the younger demographics to frequent ‘experience’ based venues, like racetracks or fun venues that offer socially competitive activities, like Axe Throwing, Mini Golf or even cooking classes.

How are you planning to manage and grow your membership? For more information or assistance in navigating the membership challenge, contact Ron Browne , Managing Partner 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Teamwork makes the Dream Work

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 00:02:40 GMT

How to build a great team

Staff are our most valuable resource and if the team is great - so is the business.

What makes a great team? Right people in the right roles, with the right skills to deliver what the clients need. And cross skilling and upskilling all add to the strength of the team. The club I am running at the moment has constant staffing challenges due to lack of skills, availabilities, holidays and ill health, so the best way to bolster the team is through training and development. Unfortunately, I won’t be there long enough to implement a formal structured training plan, but I did get the kitchen staff trained with the requisite Food Safety Supervisor certificates that were needed.

Challenges also arise when you hire new staff who claim to have the skill on their resume and patently don’t when the rubber hits the road. In a perfect world you take the time to train these people to do the job the way you want it done. That is not always possible, so you may need to move those ineffective staff on.

When it comes to staff I have a couple of mantras:

X Hire for Attitude and train for skills

If you have staff with the right attitude, you can train them to do anything. The right attitude is difficult to define but you’ll know when you see it – keen, energetic, want to learn more and do more, willing to take on any challenge and usually also show a fair bit of initiative.

X Do the job the way you would want it done if you owned the business

You will never go wrong if you do the job the way you would want it done if you owned the business. That approach means you set the bar high and hold yourself accountable to the right standard, and ensure you deliver to that standard.

If you apply these mantras to the selection and development of staff, you will build a great team. And it is also important to lead by example – role modelling is critical to developing a high performing team. Remember also that the standard you walk past is the standard you accept – so be sure to show your team that you pick up rubbish, clear tables and collect glasses as needed.

Other issues that frustrate me include staff who do not understand the concept of appropriate speed in their tasks. When it is quiet, you can move slowly and deliberately in delivering service, but when it is busy, you have got to shift gears from first gear to second gear and so on till you reach overdrive for really busy shifts.

The number of staff a team requires is directly proportional to the skill, attitude and speed of delivery of the members. Two well trained, fast working staff with a get it done attitude, can easily cope with a bar six deep with customers. Two plodders, working at snail pace will be overwhelmed and customers will suffer frustration at the slow service from your bar.

In the restaurant/bistro scenario the same applies. Minimum skill standard is the three plate carry, constantly sweeping gaze and circulating to ensure prompt and professional service. Again, when it is quiet, you can move slowly, but when it gets busier, then you need to move faster. And every trip should be a two way trip – run food out, bring empty plates back.

Focus on a section is also important in the restaurant situation. You need to be watching your tables so when they finish their entrée, you clear and call their mains away. You don’t want to rush people, but when it is busy, if you don’t do this in a timely manner, then the kitchen will fall behind and wait times will increase to unacceptable levels – never a good outcome for customers.

Good teams have good supervisors – those who mentor their team, providing skill training, and advice on the best ways to achieve great service generally. Accuracy in order taking, prompt service and continual vigilance to customer’s needs are the secrets to success.

A ‘Dream Team’ is hard to come by - you have to invest in them to develop the skills, to add to the attitude, to create a highly skilled, self – directing team.

For assistance with your team, contact Ron Browne on 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au .

Are you practising Due Diligence?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 07:09:33 GMT

Act in Good Faith, Best Interests and for Proper Purpose

Are you practicing Due Diligence?

Directors and officers of companies – For Profit and For Purpose (not-for-profit) – are all compelled to always act in the best interests of the company. Under the Corporations Act 2001, Section 1.5.5 relating to Company Directors and Company Secretaries, clause 5.3 addresses the Duties and Liabilities of directors. For me, the salient points for today’s discussion are:

X Act in good faith

X Act in the best interests of the company

X Act honestly

X Exercise care and diligence

Furthermore Section 180 - Care and Diligence – civil obligation only, states -

A director or other officer of a corporation must exercise their powers and discharge their duties with the degree of care and diligence that a reasonable person would exercise if they:

(a) were a director or officer of a corporation in the corporation's circumstances; and

(b) occupied the office held by, and had the same responsibilities within the corporation as, the director or officer.

Diligence is defined in most dictionaries as “ working carefully and with a lot of effort ” to ensure the desired outcomes of any project are achieved. In the boardroom context, I believe it advocates thorough examination of any project or issue, canvassing additional expert advice, and ensuring all positives and negatives have been explored, before making any decision.

In club board rooms over the years, I have observed misguided diligence. Let me give you an example.

The club board spends around three hours arguing with the manager about a proposed 20 cent per schooner price increase, yet the same board took five minutes to sign off on a $500,000 club extension project. My understanding was that there was no formal tender for this project, just a persuasive salesperson who was able to convince the board they would do a great job, at a great price and then they closed the deal with a handshake, and very scant contract paperwork.

Another club board signed off on a joint venture development of their golf course without fully understanding the details of the contract and continued to trade the club the way they always had – at a loss – for much of the early development project period. The developer had signed documents to provide supporting finance to the club, to allow them to continue trading even after their own reserves were exhausted.

The bottom line, the club ended up spending more than the profit they we due from the joint venture project so subsequently, the developer took possession of the club’s property. The club got a nice shiny new clubhouse out of the deal, and a few hundred new residences on site, which would help future trade, but they didn’t own anything and were in debt.

What could have helped this club, and any club contemplating a joint venture in the future, is to do proper due diligence on the project before signing off. The board thought they knew what they were doing and negotiated what they thought was a great deal for their club and members, but they had insufficient knowledge, skills and experience to lock it in tightly and understand their obligations to the deal.

Regardless of the proposed project, strategy or operation, when care and diligence is exercised the parties to the project understand the limits of the project e.g. the timeframe to completion, the cost to all parties, the potential pitfalls (contingencies), the consequences if any pitfalls occur, the potential rectifications and costs if it does need to be done (hopefully within the contingency budget).

Governance Oversight Due Diligence

The examples above relate to construction and development projects and highlight the pressing need for care and diligence to ensure the projects are delivered as budgeted and as scheduled. The other key area of care and diligence required by boards is in the key area of governance oversight. Here due diligence is a many faceted beast , covering but not limited to –

X Ensuring all policies and procedures are in place

X Work Health & Safety (WHS) including Psychosocial areas

X Strategic Planning

X Financial Viability

X Succession Planning

X Environmental Policy

X Gaming Management

X Risk and Crisis Management

X Harm Minimisation

X Stakeholder Relations

X Reference checking staff pre employment (inc. Police Checks)

X Anti Money Laundering/Counter Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF)

X Cybersecurity

X Marketing and Communications

X Procurement

X Reputation and Image

X Compliance Registers

X Code of Conduct

Oh no, I hear you cry. I don’t know how to do all that! I am just a volunteer and want to help my club by being on the board, but I didn’t realise there was so much responsibility and work involved. HELP!

Here are 3 Tips to ensure great Due Diligence

1. Get expert advice.

There is a little secret that I will share with you now, that will put your minds at ease.

If I don’t know something, or how to do something,

I ask a Subject Matter Expert for advice and guidance.

The smart people are those who know what they don’t know and seek help and advice from those who do. None of us are Google – we don’t have every answer to every question – not even Barry Jones did, for those old enough to remember him.

The greatest exercise of Due Diligence is to ask for advice and guidance from those who know what is required , for any situation. I constantly advocate to directors for example – It is your responsibility to ensure the organisation has all the policies and procedures in place that it requires to comply with all legislation the organisation is governed by. But you do not need to write them!

For legal compliance, consult with your legal counsel. For Financial compliance, consult with your accounting firm and auditor. For Gaming compliance consult with ClubSAFE, BetSafe or Liquor and Gaming. For Work Health & Safety including prevention of Bullying and Harassment, Workplace Violence and other Psychosocial risks, consult with a Human Resources (HR) consultant. For Cybersecurity, consult with an Information Technology (IT) company or consultant. And so the list goes on and on.

2. Recruit for diverse skills on the board .

Many of your potential directors have skills in specific areas – law, finance, real estate, marketing, logistics, human resources, construction etc. In the club industry you can appoint directors to your board for a specific skillset and experience, without them being elected by the members, to add that expertise to the board.

This allows the board as a whole to benefit from their expertise, to ensure you exercise appropriate due diligence in that specific area. They can lead a sub-committee, for example, a director with accounting skills can lead the Audit and Finance Committee of the board. This should ensure care and diligence born of industry knowledge is leading the rest of the board to execute their due diligence in the financial area.

Once the Audit and Finance Committee have done their work, they should review their work with the organisation’s accountant and or auditor, to ensure they have been comprehensive in their due diligence, before they present to the board. The same process can apply for WHS, AML/CTF and so on, to ensure all areas are properly addressed.

3. Set a Review Program for Board meetings.

Many organisations only have four or six board meetings a year, and now the club industry is no longer required by law to hold monthly meetings, many have reduced to six per year. In order to ensure everything requiring due diligence and care is addressed, set a schedule to review a different area of Governance oversight at each board meeting.

Finance and Audit reports probably occur at every board meeting as your fiduciary duties require directors to have their finger on the financial pulse of the organisation at all times . Other areas may have little or no attention paid to them during the year unless included on the agenda from time to time. Once all areas of oversight have been identified, policies and procedures put in place, then review of the status of each area should be done at least annually, for the lower importance issues, and potentially quarterly for the more critical areas of concern.

The dual benefit of setting this sort of regime in place is that your governance oversight will step up to a higher level and if challenged by any authority, you will have board meeting minutes providing an audit trail of your due diligence throughout the year.

For more information contact Ron Browne Managing Consultant 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Community Support – Clubs and pubs lend a helping hand

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 23:47:17 GMT

Support for the community by clubs and pubs is truly a great example of a symbiotic relationship.

Australia’s culture has been said to revolve around getting together for a drink and a feed with family and friends. This is the culture that drives communities to their clubs and pubs when home is not the chosen alternative to entertain.

I have stolen the well known line from Gettysburg Address about the American Government and amended it to describe (in particular) community clubs as Of the Community, By the Community and for the Community. Pubs too are important members of their communities, but as privately owned entities, can’t really be included in that description. Registered clubs are owned by the community, if ownership can really be ascribed to any party.

Support for the Community

Support for the community by clubs and pubs is truly a great example of a symbiotic relationship. Both parties rely on the other to survive, benefit and prosper. Simply put, when the community supports a club or pub, that organisation prospers and is then often (not always) in a position to return that support to the community.

The support mostly takes two forms – financial and non-financial (or in-kind) support. Registered clubs in NSW have a support structure, legislated through Sections 16, 17 and 17A of the Gaming Machine Tax Act 2001, commonly known as ClubGRANTS .

The ClubGRANTS scheme provides a tax relief opportunity to clubs to the amount of 2.25% of their gaming tax liability, in exchange for donating monies to that amount to community entities (organisations and individuals) that request support through the ClubGRANTS Online application platform. In this way, profits from the community enjoying recreational entertainment are returned to those in need in the community.

“The ClubGRANTS scheme was initially designed to ensure that larger registered clubs across NSW contributed to the provision of front-line services and to provide better outcomes for disadvantaged groups in their local communities. In 2022–23, the industry again contributed vastly greater funds than obligated. The overall figure of $121 million is $50 million greater than the “ClubGRANTS liability” that is legislated under the Gaming Machines Tax Act 2001.” (Extract from ClubGRANTS 2023 Contribution Report)

Many clubs, as noted in the Contribution Report above, donate above and beyond their legislated amounts, to provide support to many local sporting teams, charities and community support organisations, to ensure those organisations can continue to operate.

Pubs, whilst privately owned, recognise the need and also donate monies to their local organisations, without any legislative compulsion. Reputational benefit is a key part of the symbiotic relationship that pubs rely on to generate their profits, allowing them to donate.

“Member hotels donate more than $25 million per year to charitable, community and sporting organisations in NSW – supporting 19,000 groups – and contribute a further $20 million per year to charitable organisations “in kind”.”

(Extract from Who We Are on the AHANSW Website)

In-Kind Support

Clubs and pubs also provide a large amount of non-financial or In-Kind support to organisations in their communities. This can take the form of providing facilities for those organisations to hold meetings, training, entertainment and social events or sporting fixtures at no cost.

Community service organisations like Rotary, Apex, Lions, Probus, Zonta and the like meet regularly in clubs and pubs in their community, without charge for the meeting room or auditorium they use. This in-kind donation should of course be documented and accounted for in the club or pubs accounts, as this donation is an effective forfeiture of revenue, to the benefit of the organisation involved.

Other groups such as health and fitness organisations, mental health groups, domestic violence prevention and victims support groups, will also benefit of the donation of in-kind use of meeting rooms and event space.

Use of bowling greens, football fields, tennis and squash courts, basketball stadiums and swimming pools can also be provided at reduced or no cost, again providing non-financial benefit to the teams participating.

Clubs and pubs will also provide catering to groups when special events are held, at a subsidised cost or donated at no cost, depending on the circumstance of the event. Any form of cost reduction to groups who are raising funds for example translates into an In-Kind donation with a monetary value to the group being supported.

Savings can be as little as $150 room hire fee not charged or as much as $25 per head in catering supplied at no charge. For 100 meals that is the equivalent of a $2,500 donation to the cause.

Acquittal Reports

One key aspect in this day and age should be the requirement to provide a report to the club or pub donating cash or in-kind funds, on how the donated funds have been acquitted, by the community entity that benefits from that donation.

This provides a dual purpose benefit. The recipient organisation gets to showcase what they are doing in the community, validating the cash or in-kind support that they receive from the club or pub supporting them. For the donor entity, they can satisfy both their members or patrons and the accounting obligations to the Australian Tax Office (ATO) that they are actually providing genuine benefit to the community for their donations.

For accurate guidance on what clubs and pubs can claim as tax deductible donations (outside of the ClubGRANTS scheme) go to the ATO Website page on Gifts and Contributions .

There is no doubt that communities rely heavily on their local clubs and pubs to support those in need, but the community need to understand that they need to support their club or pub by visiting regularly and spending their money to provide that symbiotic support.

For more information on Community Support strategies contact Ron Browne , Managing Consultant, ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au 0414 633 423.

Amalgamation – Green Flag or White Flag?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 06:26:04 GMT

Four years after COVID hit, are we seeing the same aftermath as four years post GFC? Alan Kohler, the ABC’s Finance guru raised the question in the first year post the 2020 COVID pandemic, somewhat predicting that the most post COVID insolvencies might come four years later. The bulk of post 2008 GFC insolvencies occurred in 2012 and here we are in 2024 with insolvencies on the rise.

Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) data supports this projected outcome with a 36.2% increase in External administrations (7,742 companies) for the period 1 July 2023 – 31 March 2024, compared to the previous corresponding period. Of these, accommodation and food service industries accounted for 15.2% (1,174 businesses). Some of these have been clubs and many clubs have waved the White Flag, looking to amalgamate with other club to save their local failing operation, thereby avoiding being counted in these stats.

In NSW, under the Registered Clubs Act 1976, amalgamations can occur between clubs with similar objects and initially preferring clubs within a 50 km radius of the amalgamating child club. Not all amalgamations are for a white flag club to survive. Many amalgamations have occurred between a really strong, large club and a smaller less powerful club, looking to grow business for both the amalgamating parent club and the child club.

Amalgamation options – Growth or Survival

As indicated above, the first thought that most people have when they hear the word amalgamation is – another one bites the dust . Another small struggling club has raised the white flag to have a large, stronger club step in and under-gird their operations, yet in the past few years, due to ongoing industry consolidation, many amalgamations have been initiated by a large, financially viable club, looking for growth opportunities outside it’s immediate area of operation.

Growth

One strategic growth option for strong, financially viable clubs is to amalgamate with a smaller club that operates in a different area to it. In a Green Flag amalgamation, the Expression of Interest (EOI) is offered by a strong club looking to join forces with a smaller club to grow their organisational size. This extends the parent club’s area of operation and grows the marketplace in which it operates, providing access to more members, patrons and the associated cashflow. The nett result for the parent club is an accumulation of a larger asset base and revenue stream, that allows it to provide even greater support to its community.

Remember that clubs are formed by communities to provide products, services and facilities to serve the needs of their communities. Whilst not effectively shareholders, members own their clubs and expect the club to meet their needs for food, beverages, entertainment and relaxation. The larger the club, the greater the cashflow, and when managed profitably and sustainably, that club returns the support of the members and community with enhanced and increased products, services and facilities.

A strong and profitable club can reach market saturation in their local community, which can limit its ability to grow further, to provide wider community support. An amalgamation is a very effective way to grow the revenues and reach of a club, similar to corporate mergers and acquisitions, when a company wishes to expand it’s operations and generate more revenue and profit.

Of course, unlike corporate for profit entities, where surplus income (profit) is often distributed to the owners/shareholders by way of dividend, not-for-profit entities like registered clubs, reinvest this surplus income in the community – through charitable donations to those in need, improved or additional facilities (sporting or social) to meet community need or the purchase of diversified businesses offering ‘non-core’ products or services to the club’s community.

Growth through amalgamation often allows smaller communities to gain the benefit of the larger parent club community’s financial strength to really revitalise the smaller club. The small club may be financially viable but limited in its ability to truly grow and provide those enhanced services to their community. Supported by the parent club, the child club can stretch it’s wings and really fly with the additional financial support, the benefit of the parent club expertise, often improved systems and operational procedures and access to training that can really lift the performance of the staff, where they may not have been able to access that previously.

Overall, the outcome of a Growth strategy amalgamation is invariably improved performance, and in turn community benefit, for all the clubs in the group. Legislation does limit the total number of clubs in an amalgamated group to ten (10), as in the past, some groups became too big, unwieldy and through eventual loss of control, imploded and some clubs were lost.

Survival

Sadly, despite an often long term viable history, clubs can run into difficulty and find themselves in a position where, in order to survive and continue to service their community, they need to raise the white flag for help. Good corporate governance is a key here, where the well educated directors can see the writing on the wall and take steps to avert disaster. Signs that things are not going well are usually many and easily identifiable for any board that truly has its finger on the pulse of the club.

When accurate information is provided to the board at their (usually) monthly board meetings, the trend of revenue and / or profit decline can be tracked. Liquidity ratios (debt to equity), the calculated EBITDARD (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortisation, rent and donations) along with cash on hand and projected cashflows, can add up to provide a clear picture of a club’s decline in viability. When a club starts to regularly eat into cash reserves, driving a decline in members’ equity, then the alarm bells should start to ring .

Directors and managers should also be talking regularly to the club’s accounting firm and discussing likely timeframes for making a call, to avoid the club running into a position of insolvency (where the club is not able to pay it’s debts, as and when they fall due). When all tactical options have been implemented and the business is still not turning around, the bravest directors know that they need to ask for help and do. Rather than trying to avoid losing the club on my watch , which is often how amalgamations are perceived, smart directors understand that an amalgamation will more usually result in the salvation of the community’s asset(s) and ensure ongoing viability.

It is important to note that the earlier you recognise the signs and start the process, the better the likely outcome. Whilst you still have some cash, assets and members equity, you have something to offer the amalgamating partner, and so will be a more attractive option for them to consider. Once you are on your knees, with no cash, large debt and reduced member equity and maybe minimal viable assets, you become a far less attractive option for an amalgamation.

There are also legislated conditions around the length of time an amalgamating parent club must maintain the child club assets and operations, before they can be sold or terminated. However, the later you leave it to start the process, the closer to insolvency your club is, the shorter the timeframe the parent club has, and the bigger the investment will be, to turn things around.

Amalgamation Process

Whilst the amalgamation process in detail is a topic for another day, it is important to note that the Registered Clubs Act and Regulations provide specific guidance on how amalgamations should proceed. Briefly, when a club is seeking an amalgamation, either for growth or survival the procedure is:

x The club issues an Expression of Interest (EOI) for an amalgamation partner

x EOI’s are received and considered

x For the club(s) that you wish to consider, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is agreed, to allow both/all parties to conduct confidential due diligence (MOU’s can be signed with more than one party, to allow the amalgamating club to select the most beneficial partner)

x Once the due diligence is completed, offers are made and the boards of the clubs make their decision as to who they wish to amalgamate with

x The successful partner clubs then inform their members of the intention to amalgamate and, with at least 21 days’ notice, convene a general meeting for the members to vote on accepting the offer and proceeding to amalgamation

x Provided both club’s members approve the amalgamation, the amalgamation can proceed, however if either club’s members vote against the amalgamation, the amalgamation fails

Two important notes to remember in either the growth or survival amalgamation process –

1. Just because you receive an EOI and proceed to an MOU to conduct your due diligence, does not compel you to amalgamate with that partner

2. The process, even if conducted with speed and great cooperation, will take a minimum of six (6) months and can drag out up to eighteen (18) months, so the earlier you start the process the better.

In summary, amalgamations should always be considered as an opportunity when doing your SWOT analysis during your strategic planning, either as a growth or survival strategy, depending on your club’s situation. They should not be feared and often they should be welcomed as a great way to ensure the long term survival and viability of your club – big or small.

For more information or assistance with strategic planning or amalgamation reviews, contact Ron Browne Managing Consultant ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au or 0414 633 423 .

Harnessing Social Media for Effective Marketing

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 01:25:53 GMT

In today's digital age, social media has become an indispensable tool

In today's digital age, social media has become an indispensable tool for businesses and organizations, including registered clubs and pubs in New South Wales. For these organisations, which often rely on community engagement and events to thrive, leveraging social media effectively can drive membership growth, increase event attendance, and enhance overall visibility.

I am no expert on Social media, but a little research has helped me to understand the impact of social media on your marketing efforts. I was advised on a social media course a few years ago, that the main focus of social media platforms is to ‘drive people to your website’ , which should be your number 1 online marketing tool. This article explores how clubs and pubs can harness the power of social media for successful marketing.

Understanding the Social Media Landscape

Social media platforms offer a diverse range of features and audiences. Key platforms include:

x Facebook - Ideal for creating events, sharing updates, and engaging with a broad audience.

x Instagram - Perfect for visually showcasing events, daily activities, and club culture.

x Twitter - Useful for real-time updates and engaging in conversations.

x LinkedIn - Great for networking with professionals and promoting business-related content.

x TikTok - Offers opportunities for creative, viral content that can reach younger demographics.

Understanding the unique strengths of each platform helps in tailoring content and strategies to meet specific goals.

Creating a Social Media Strategy

1. Define Objectives: What do you want to achieve with your social media presence? Objectives could range from increasing membership, promoting events, or enhancing community engagement.

2. Know Your Audience: Identify who your members and potential members are. Tailor content to their interests and preferences. For example, younger members might engage more with Instagram and TikTok, while older members might prefer Facebook.

3. Create Compelling Content: High-quality, engaging content is crucial. Use a mix of images, videos, and text to keep your audience interested. Share behind-the-scenes looks, member stories, and updates about upcoming events. Where possible, make the content interactive with a click for Call to Action or Click to go to the appropriate page of your website.

4. Consistency is Key: Regular posting keeps your club top-of-mind for your audience. Develop a content calendar to plan and schedule posts, ensuring a steady stream of content.

5. Engage with Your Audience: Social media is a two-way street. Respond to comments, messages, and mentions to build a strong community and foster relationships with your members. You need to monitor the input you get from your audience and ensure there is nothing detrimental being posted.

6. Utilize Paid Advertising: Social media platforms offer targeted advertising options that can help you reach specific demographics. For instance, Facebook ads can be customized to target users based on location, interests, and behaviours, making it easier to reach potential new members in NSW.

Promoting Events and Activities

Events are often a focal point for registered clubs and pubs. Social media can amplify event promotion in several ways:

Create Event Pages: Use platforms like Facebook to create event pages where members and potential attendees can RSVP, share the event, and stay updated. Online ticketing apps can be useful here to manage the audience response and track numbers, to assist with catering and the like.

Share Engaging Content: Post teasers, countdowns, and behind-the-scenes content leading up to the event to generate excitement and anticipation.

Leverage User-Generated Content: Encourage attendees to share their own photos and experiences from the event. This not only provides authentic content but also extends your reach as followers share posts with their own networks. Again, be sure you have someone administering the content.

Measuring Success

To determine the effectiveness of your social media efforts, the key outcome you are looking for is actually increased traffic to your venue and potentially increased membership (for clubs). The start point is to track key metrics such as:

Engagement Rates: Likes, shares, comments, and other forms of interaction with your content.

Reach and Impressions: How many people are seeing your content and how often.

Follower Growth: The increase in followers over time.

Event Attendance and Membership Growth: Monitor any correlations between social media activity and increases in event attendance or membership numbers.

Remember, lots of clicks and likes often do not translate into increased foot traffic and revenue, so be sure to set the key performance indicator(s) (KPIs) you want to achieve and then monitor and adjust as needed.

Adapting and Evolving

Social media trends and algorithms change frequently. Stay updated on new features and trends to keep your strategy fresh and effective. Regularly review your analytics to understand what works best and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Marketing for clubs and pubs in NSW requires a blend of creativity and strategy and you need to monitor the outcomes continuously and tweak or adjust the program to improve the results.

Here are five key tips to effectively use social media and marketing to attract and engage customers:

1. Leverage Local Influencers and Partnerships:

Collaborate with local influencers and businesses to expand your reach. Partner with influencers who resonate with your target audience or team up with nearby businesses for cross-promotions. This not only increases your visibility but also builds a sense of community.

2. Engage with Visual Content:

Use high-quality images and videos to showcase your venue’s atmosphere, special events, and unique offerings. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok are highly visual and can help attract attention. Share behind-the-scenes content, live performances, and customer testimonials to build a connection with your audience.

3. Promote Events and Special Offers:

Regularly update your social media profiles with information about upcoming events, special promotions, and themed nights. Create eye-catching graphics and use event-focused hashtags to reach a broader audience. Engaging posts about these events can drive ticket sales and increase foot traffic.

4. Utilize Targeted Advertising:

Use targeted advertising to reach potential customers based on their location, interests, and demographics. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer robust advertising tools that can help you target specific age groups, interests, and geographic locations relevant to your business.

5. Encourage User-Generated Content and Reviews:

Invite customers to share their experiences and tag your venue in their posts. Repost user-generated content to your own social media accounts to build credibility and engage with your audience. Encourage satisfied patrons to leave positive reviews on platforms like Google and Yelp, as good reviews can greatly influence potential customers.

Incorporating these tips into your social media strategy can help you create a vibrant online presence and attract more visitors to your club or pub.

For clubs and pubs in NSW, social media is more than just a communication tool - it's a powerful marketing platform that can enhance visibility, engage members, and drive growth. By developing a clear strategy, creating engaging content, and actively engaging with your audience, your club or pub can effectively harness the power of social media to achieve its goals. Embrace these digital tools and watch your venue's presence and influence expand within the community.

For more information contact Ron Browne , Managing Consultant 0414 633 423 ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Crisis Readiness – Are you prepared?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 12:56:05 GMT

Never let a good crisis go to waste...

Only yesterday the global internet outage hit airlines, banks, department stores, supermarkets and small business operators alike. The common theme in the news was “no-one has (non-digital) back-up systems in place…” meaning that all the businesses were hugely disrupted. Many could not trade as they couldn’t get booking systems and databases up, or payment methods in place (like cash) to replace EFTPOS payment methods.

I was in my sailing club Friday night and pulled out cash to pay for a beer, only to be told “We don’t take cash here anymore”. After I got over my shock, and then next morning heard the news of the global web outage, I wonder would I have had free beer the night before, if their bank or EFTPOS comms had gone down?

I think I, and many others, have credited the late, great Winston Churchill before in this same context, as having said – Never let a good crisis go to waste. It is academic if he actually said it, but the sentiment is sound. It is well established that we probably learn more from our mistakes that from our successes, so if you don’t learn by battling through a crisis, that could be considered a waste.

The Oxford dictionary defines Crisis as a time of intense difficulty or danger. We have experienced many crises int the recent past – 2020 COVID pandemic, 2008 Great Financial Crisis (better known as the GFC) and the current ‘cost of living’ Crisis.

Many clubs, pubs and restaurants are currently in crisis in the sense of the cost squeeze – rising cost of goods, rising wages (which was long overdue) and downward pressure on prices by the consumer. This is creating an incessant squeeze on margins and many businesses can no longer sustain a viable level of trade and so close their doors. To address this type of crisis, businesses must pretty ruthlessly assess their suppliers (input costs), their staffing levels, cost of utilities and rent (overhead costs) and determine if their customers will continue to support them with prices increased to cover all of the above?

Crisis Management and Planning

The other form of crisis management and planning is all the other types of ‘business crisis’ that can befall any organisation, including but not limited to:

x Environmental – Fire, flood, drought, earthquake, building collapse, explosion

x Financial – cashflow, loss of reserves, operating loss, interest rate changes

x Governance – legislative compliance, conflicts of interest, inducements

x Human Resources – loss of key personnel, bullying & harassment, theft, fraud

x Operational – plant and equipment failure, inappropriate technology

x Reputational – poor risk management, poor culture, AML/CTF issues

x Digital/Cybersecurity – ransomware, malware, phishing, data breach

How prepared is your organisation for any one, or several of these crises, to occur. Are you prepared to respond rapidly and in a n effective manner to minimise the damage these types of crises can inflict on your organisation?

Take this quick quiz:

1. Does your organisation have a Strategic Plan?

2. Has your organisation done a Risk Assessment?

3. Does your organisation have a Crisis Management Plan in place?

If you answered No to any of the above questions, you are at risk of being seriously unprepared to deal with any type of crisis that may hit your organisation.

As a yachtie (I sail on racing yachts) I was recently reminded of one of the best examples of crisis management which arose after the fateful and fatal 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. Till that year, anyone, experienced sailor or not, could join a crew and sail the 628 nautical miles (approximately 1,170 km) from Sydney to Hobart. When conditions are calm, anyone can sail a yacht, but when the excrement hits the fan, that is when the lack of experience can prove critical (if not fatal).

Six sailors died that year and fifty five others were rescued. As a result of that critical race, the Australian Yachting Federation introduced safety rules that have since saved many more lives and effectively prepare sailors for the worst eventualities offshore. The Australian Safety & Sea Survival Course was developed after the 1998 race and you cannot compete in the Sydney Hobart Yacht race without a current certificate, it must be refreshed every five years.

In business, we have many potentially fatal crises that can afflict an organisation and, like the 1998 Hobart yachts and sailors, most organisations are unprepared to respond to a crisis.

How to best prepare for a crisis

Smart organisations, those that answer yes to a Strategic Plan and maybe a Risk Assessment, may not have taken the next important step and created a Crisis Management Plan, to address and plan the response to the risks identified in their assessment.

The board and management of any organisation should take the time to plan for the future benefit of the organisation, and in particular, identify the risks the organisation may face. Scenario planning is a great tool here, to workshop what could happen and how the organisation should respond.

Then a comprehensive Crisis Management plan can be created to identify the risks, plan the response to those risks, including the allocation of responsibilities for implementing the responses.

Extrapreneur Services can provide a Crisis Management Planning Service, to create a plan specifically for your organisation, working with your key executives (and board if they wish) to create a document and implementation plan to prepare your organisation to better respond to any crisis.

Many organisations are familiar with the military quote of the ‘5 Ps’ – Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance – (Ok those who know, know I left out the 4 ^th P of 6 Ps) but the point is made that planning for a crisis, means you will be better prepared to handle the crisis if and when it should eventuate and impact your organisation.

For more information on a Crisis Management Plan for your organisation, contact Ron Browne , Managing Consultant ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au 0414 633 423

Director Skills and Training

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 12:03:59 GMT

Does your board have a well balanced mix of directors and governance skills?

If not, how do you go about improving that situation?

Identify the skills available

First step is the Director Diversity Matrix – to see what skills you currently have amongst your directors and what skills may be lacking. The matrix is a self-assessment tool, rating each director’s competence level in the skills that are relevant to your board. The rating works on a simple scale of 1 – 3 as follows:

1 is the score for no or very low level skills,

2 is for medium level skills and

3 is for high or advanced level skills.

Some basic skills are the start point – Legal, Financial, Strategic, Human Resources and Marketing – whilst the more complex skills in today’s governance climate include Cyber (including Cyber Security), Environment and Social (ESG) as well as Risk and Crisis Management. The latest area of director skill requirement is now in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) arena, where both opportunities and threats exist to the management of your organisation.

The matrix can be contextualised to your specific organisation and/or industry to ensure you cover the skills required by your board to safely and proactively navigate the governance requirements of the 21 ^st century.

The matrix collates the data individually for each director and collectively for the whole board, so professional development programs can be tailored for each director or your board as a whole. Where there are deficiencies, training is the first option and recruitment is the second option, where adding a new director to your board with the skills you seek, can fast track the board’s capabilities.

Notably, the matrix can also be useful in ensuring sufficient diversity is maintained on boards, with respect to gender, age, ethnic and cultural background as well as industry experience. The more diverse and skilled your board, the more likely the discussions at board level will be well informed and well balanced, generally leading to improved outcomes for the organisation.

Training

There are many avenues to source the appropriate training for your directors, including but not limited to the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), Institute of Community Directors Australia (ICDA), various registered training organisations (RTO) with governance subjects on their scope (including TAFE) and some industry associations, like ClubsNSW for industry-specific directors training.

The club industry in NSW is unique in its Government mandated training for directors, to ensure a basic minimum level of governance skill is attained by anyone joining a club board. The focus is on directors basic skills in oversight of their club’s operations and financial literacy. The mandatory training must be completed within 12 months of joining a club board, unless prior learning (e.g. being a graduate of the AICD Company Directors Course) has already been undertaken. A Certificate IV or Diploma in Governance can also be attained through an appropriate RTO.

Training for directors, like many professions, should also be continuous to ensure they stay at the forefront of global governance standards and keep up with the everchanging requirements for sound oversight and development of their organisations. The AICD offers a Director Professional Development (DPD) program that tracks and recognises the directors that continue to learn and stay at the forefront of the latest changes or additions to governance skills.

The club industry, like a few others, also encourages club directors to attend industry seminars, meetings and conferences, giving them a prime opportunity to network with their peers, cross fertilise with ideas (especially strategic planning ideas) and effectively benchmark their performance against their peer entities.

Board Performance Review

Integral to maintaining a good level of skill, boards should undertake a Performance Review, ideally annually, to ensure they are performing at the optimal level. Performance Reviews are available from organisations like the AICD, Industry associations and industry governance consultants, who can provide impartial external review of director performance.

Like the skills matrix, assessment is usually done individually and collectively, with results shared confidentially with individual results, and communally for the collective board result. These reviews are not intended as ‘witch hunts’ – the perception is often that they are a tool to remove ‘underperforming directors’. To the contrary, they are most effective when applied as intended – to identify the areas where skills can be improved to lift the individual and collective performances of your board.

Reviews should be first conducted when a board is ‘settled’ – if a reshuffle of directors has occurred, then about 12 months down the track would be an appropriate timeframe to review the performance. Then depending on the desire of the board, annual reviews can be conducted to ensure the board is continuing to develop and govern effectively, or at a longer period if there is little or no churn of directors. When major change occurs, then again, a review is appropriate about 12 months later when all new directors have settled into their roles.

Refresher training for directors is also a great strategy, again seen often in the club industry, where existing directors attend a governance refresher session every two or three years to keep their responsibilities top of mind. This is stipulated in the constitutions of some clubs to ensure the board directors continue to perform at their peak.

For more information about the Diversity Matrix, Training options (including refresher training) and Board Performance Reviews, contact Ron Browne 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au .

Director elections

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Tue, 21 May 2024 12:33:34 GMT

Annual General Meetings (AGM) for calendar year clubs has prompted me to think about Director elections.

It’s too late for those calendar year clubs, but most clubs run the July to June Financial year, and so their AGMs are due on or before the end of November (no later than five months post the end of their financial year). Depending on your election cycle, this process is either held every year (for annual and triennial cycle clubs) or once every two years (for Biennial cycle clubs).

What then is the process to hold elections for your club? How do you get elected to the board of a registered club if you are keen to step up and contribute to the governance of your club?

The process is actually the same, regardless of the election cycle your club adheres to. Your constitution will outline the parameters of your election process, which you will need to follow and in brief includes:

x Nominations

x Display of Candidate Information

x Voting for the Election

x Announcement of Results

When your club is providing notice of your AGM, if there is an election to be held, then this is usually advised with the Notice of Meeting. Nominations can open before the Notice of AGM is issued to members, so then a notice to advise members of the election and the nomination timings, may be distributed earlier. There is a fairly comprehensive process, the detail of which I have included in a link at the end of this article. In essence, the key points (as outlined above) are:

Nominations

When an election is due, your constitution will advise the period allowed for nominations to be received by the Secretary Manager or the Returning Officer. Usually around four to six weeks before the club AGM is due to be held, nominations will be opened and will close at least 2 weeks prior to the AGM.

Candidate skills and experience should be advised when announcing the opening of nominations, to try to get nominations from those members who can add value to the board. The use of a Diversity (Skills) Matrix, to identify the skills already on the board amongst the current directors, will also assist in framing the skills that would be desirable in any new nominees.

Nominations must be made on the approved club nomination form (I have a template should you need one) which will identify who is nominating, who the nominee is and that the nominee is prepared to accept the nomination. Generally, nominations need to be made by two (2) financial ordinary members and many constitutions will specify how long you need to be a club member before you are eligible to be nominated.

If your club is on the Annual Election cycle, then your members vote for the board by position e.g. President and Vice President and then the rest of the board of ordinary directors (Note: the role of treasurer is now no longer relevant as all directors are equally responsible for the financial well being of the club).

In the Biennial Cycle elections, members generally still vote by position, with a seniority ‘waterfall’ approach. This is where a person can be nominated for President, Vice President and regular Director and depending on which position they are voted into, they can cascade down from the top option to the second option and if they miss that, then the third option. In other words, if they miss out on the senior position, they are still eligible for the next position by seniority.

With the Triennial Cycle elections, the members vote only to elect directors to the board and then the board decide amongst themselves who will hold the executive positions (President and Vice President or Chair and Deputy Chair).

Nominees may withdraw their nomination, provided it is done prior to the close of nominations. Otherwise, once nominated and nominations have closed, a nominee must go through the process, and then if they had wanted to withdraw, they can step down immediately after the AGM.

Display of Candidate Information

Once nominations have closed and the suitable candidates decided, the returning officer will review the number of nominations received. Where the number of nominees is less than or equal to the number of vacancies then most clubs declare the nominees elected to the positions. If there are more nominees than vacancies, then an election must be held. The Returning Officer will then arrange for a ballot to be drawn to set the order of nominees on the voting form. This is done by random selection and is completed with at least one or two other board or club members present to observe the process.

Once the ballot has been finalised, the candidates’ information (profiles) should be displayed at the club (excluding personal information such as home address, email and phone number), on a nominated notice board, so members can get an idea of who to vote for. This information must be displayed in a uniform manner and should be created by the Secretary Manager or Returning Officer to a consistent format and length. The information presented must not favour any particular candidate.

Distribution of ‘How to Vote” information is discouraged and each club’s constitution will usually contain guidance on this. Distribution of this material should not be on club letterhead, nor is it desirable to allow distribution on club premises, although this is subject to the club’s constitution and By Laws.

Voting for the Election

Most clubs favour voting on the day at the AGM. This can be time consuming and unnecessarily extend the duration of the AGM. Many clubs open voting during the week of the AGM, allowing members to vote early and to allow those who may not be able to attend the AGM but want to vote, to have their say in the election.

The ballot box must be secure and the ‘electoral role’ (i.e. the membership database) must be up to date – usually closed off two (2) weeks before the AGM. Ballot papers should be handed only to the members eligible to vote and confirmed as current financial or life members, by the club Secretary or Returning Officer. Their ballot paper should then be placed in the sealed ballot box and the fact that they have voted, recorded.

Some clubs also allow postal voting and this needs separate management to ensure votes are received at or before the AGM and can then be counted. Ballot papers are then handed out to members as they register for the AGM and should vote on the spot, and place the ballot paper into the Ballot Box, to allow counting by the Returning Officer and the scrutineers.

Once the voting is closed, determined either by your constitution or the board of the day, the ballot box is taken away by the Returning Officer and (usually two) scrutineers to count, whilst the rest of the AGM is in progress. Votes incorrectly cast (informal votes) are recorded but not counted, as the total number of votes should also be recorded.

Announcement of Results

Once the count is complete, the Returning Officer will announce the result at the AGM. First however, the relevant positions must be declared vacant, whether all the board (as for annual and biennial elections) or a section of the board, roughly one third each year (as for triennial elections).

Once the positions in consideration are vacant then the announcement of the election result can be made. Positions are announced in order of seniority (when the positions are voted for) or in any order in the case of triennial elections, where everyone is the same level of seniority, until the first board meeting post the AGM, when Executive positions should be determined (when a change is required).

If after the election process has run, there is not a quorum established for the board, then the directors on the board must work quickly and diligently to appoint the required number of directors to achieve a quorum. Without a quorum, you really don’t have a board, and certainly not one that can make any specific decisions. But that is a topic for another day.

If you need more information, I have attached the complete guide for Director elections here. If you need assistance in running the election, or additional guidance for your club director election, contact Managing Consultant Ron Browne ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au 0414 633 423 .

Prepping for your AGM

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Sat, 20 Apr 2024 06:45:27 GMT

You must hold an AGM every year

All clubs and corporations that operate under the Corporations Act 2001 must hold an Annual General Meeting (AGM) in each calendar year. The AGM must be held no later than 5 months after the end of the corporation’s financial year – May for a December year end or November for a June year end. If your constitution provides other guidance, e.g. holding it earlier, then you must comply with your constitution, providing it is not contrary to the Corporations Act.

Normally in the club industry, where 95 percent of clubs are companies limited by guarantee under the Corporations Act, the AGM may include the following agenda items:

X Consideration of the Annual financial report, the directors’ report and auditor’s report;

X The appointment of the auditor, if there is a vacancy;

X Fixing the Auditor’s remuneration;

X Consideration of and voting on any Ordinary and/or Special resolutions;

X Consideration of any general business;

X The election of directors (when required pending election cycle).

There are some points that need to be included as part of the specific information required by the Corporations Act:

Annual Financial Report

This must be provided to all members, who notify the organisation that they wish to receive a copy, by the earlier of 21 days before the next AGM, or before the end of 4 months after the end of the financial year . The financial report will consist of –

X The Profit and Loss (Statement of Financial Performance);

X Balance Sheet (Statement of Financial Position);

X Statement of cash flows;

X Explanatory notes to the statements;

X The directors declaration about the statements and notes – including the directors’ opinion as to the solvency of the organisation and its compliance with accounting standards and representing a true and fair view of the company’s financial performance.

Directors’ Report

This report should focus on the governance aspects of strategy over operations according to Section 300B of the Act. As such it should include –

X A description of the short and long term objectives of the organisation

X Set out the strategy to achieve those objectives

X State the organisations principal activities for the year

X State how those activities assisted in achieving the objectives

X State how the organisation measures its performance (including any key performance indicators

Also included in the directors’ report must be –

X The name and period of service of each director of the company at any time in that financial year

X Each director’s qualifications, experience and special responsibilities (e.g. sub-committee roles)

X The number of board meetings held and the number attended by each director eligible to attend

X For registered clubs, reporting on the status of each director in regard to the mandatory director governance training – trained, exempt or if untrained and not exempt, why the training hasn’t been completed.

Auditor’s Report

The Auditor’s Report is a review of the financial report of the organisation and they must report if it is compliant with the current accounting standards and whether it represents a true and fair view of the financial status of the company.

The auditor is required to identify and address any irregularities in the financial report and include information that in their opinions material to the financial standing of the organisation.

Resolutions

Once the financial aspects are covered off, there is usually consideration and voting on any resolutions listed in the notice of meeting. Ordinary resolutions, like approving covering the costs of the directors’ refreshments and costs to attend industry events – educational and networking, require only 50 percent plus one person voting for the resolution for it to be carried. Special resolutions require 75 percent plus one to pass of those attending the meeting eligible to vote.

Critically you need to send out the resolutions and the explanatory notes with the notice of meeting, so members have time to read, digest and understand the resolution(s) they are voting on. For ordinary organisations, voting can be straight forward, however in the club industry there can be angst when significant change is being proposed. For major change special resolutions, it is best to flag them at your current AGM that it will be tabled and voted on at the next AGM.

General Business

In order to avoid AGMs dragging on unnecessarily, it is advisable to have members notify the company secretary (or secretary manager in clubs)of any General Business they would like considered at the AGM. This allows the board and management to prepare their response to these flagged items. On the day, questions and/or comments can be called for from the floor, however this should be closely managed to avoid the meeting getting out of hand.

Questions can be taken from the floor on the day, but there is no requirement under legislation that those questions must be answered on the spot. If you can answer them, then by all means go ahead and answer the question. If on the other hand you do not know the answer, you can take the question on notice, and offer to respond to the member within a reasonable time frame. It is also good to share the outcome of the question with all members, once you have the answer, after the meeting.

Board Elections

Often the last business of the AGM is the election process, where any/all directors required to retire, step down and the election is held. Depending on the organisation’s election cycle, there will be a vote required, as follows –

X Annual Elections (every year) – the whole board steps down and all nominated people stand for election;

X Biennial Elections (every second year) – where again the whole board step down and the nominees stand for election;

X Triennial Elections (every year) – where the board is split into three groups and one group retire every year and stand for election to become directors for the next 3 year term.

Final reminders

For your AGM to be successful you must ensure you have the minimum number of members attending to achieve the quorum stated in your constitution. This can be a challenge if you have a club that people perceive to be well run. “Why would I need to go to the AGM? The club is running well, so I’ll give it a miss”.

Complacency can work against the club and make it difficult to hit your quorum. If you do not reach a quorum within a half hour, you can adjourn the meeting to the same time and place, just one week later.

If you require any assistance in ensuring you are well prepared for your upcoming AGM, or assistance to ensure smooth running of the AGM (as chair or as a consultant on the sideline) contact Ron Browne ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au 0414 633 423

Critical Issues in 2024

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 11:44:56 GMT

There are two critical issues that have hit home for me in 2024

No matter what your business - club, pub, restaurant or other business – whether for profit or for purpose (not for profit), there are two critical issues that have been brought starkly home to me in the first three (3) months of 2024.

The first is Time Management and the second, Cyber Security . If you remember I wrote about time management for my February 2023 newsletter and as the universe would have it, I have fallen foul of not adhering to my own time management principles.

Whilst I do a ‘To Do’ list at least weekly and run my week (under my current contract) with a default diary – Clear Pokies, Banking and do the beer lines on Mondays, check rosters by Friday and place stock orders on Friday (preferably but sometime on Sunday) – the best laid plans can fall victim to external time pressures.

As I discussed last year, there are only 168 hours in every week. I am on the Board of a company with 5 subsidiaries, on the board of a charitable Foundation and also I am a Rotarian. In my Rotary life I was going to be the District Governor for my district for the 2024 – 25 Rotary year, but time and work pressures overran that ambitious ploy.

Your reach a point where there are not enough hours left in the day or week to do everything. Clients are my first priority, family second and then Rotary is in third place, as my way to give back to the community. And of course, don’t forget your own health is critical in this too.

When you think you’re the Time Management guru, you get carried away and say “sure, I can do that”….until you can’t. Managing conflicting priorities is as much an art as it is a science, but as a famous character once said “a man’s (person’s) gotta know his (their) limitations” .

So when you run out of capacity, you have to learn to say No . That is even after you’ve learnt to say “When do you need that by?” It is critical to learn to work smarter, not harder and use that default diary to allocate ‘me time’ – to go sailing, swimming, play golf or tennis – and have some social and recreational time with family and friends too.

The second critical issue is one so often overlooked by many, until it hits you – Cyber Security . As a society we have become both reliant and complacent about everything we now do with technology. And many of us scoff at the cyber security issue – really a 13 character password with upper case, lower case, numbers and a special character???

Do yourselves a favour and watch Michael McIntyre’s dissertation on Passwords . Whilst very funny it is scarily accurate and drives home the issue around the lack of security we often allow for our critical information.

Passwords are but one element of cyber security and businesses in particular have much confidential information that needs to be protected from bad actors hacking your system for financial gain, malicious data dissemination or just to cause reputational damage to your organisation. Even the simple addition of two factor authentication (2FA) can significantly improve your security.

The basics are there for all to implement –

X Password requirements

X Firewall and Anti-virus and Anti Malware Measures

X Email Security Measures

X Sensitive Data Security

X Handling Technology (equipment)

X Social Media and Internet Access Rules

X Incident Response Preparedness

X Continuous improvement

I can provide your organisation with a Cybersecurity Policy and Plan, if you don’t have one and of course, you can also utilise the Australian Signals Directorate’s guidance on Cyber Security Principles . Their four key activities are:

X Govern

X Protect

X Detect

X Respond

When you are involved in a cybercrime, the value of your back up data is immeasurable, as you can often quickly and professionally restore the data to continue your operations with minimal interruption.

Ask yourself these questions:

X Do we have internal or external Information Technology (IT) capability?

X Do we have built in redundancy (back up of information and equipment)

X How secure is our critical data?

X What are our privacy and security obligations if we are holding customers’ information in our database?

X What might a bad actor wish to access in a cyber attack?

X How can we better protect our data?

X How would we respond in the event of a cyber attack on our organisation?

X Who in our organisation is the Cyber Security champion/manager?

No matter how big or small your organisation, we are all so reliant on technology and data to conduct business as usual, we must raise our level of awareness of a possible cyber threat or even a simple malfunction of the technology – both software and hardware.

For some organisations, compliance with the International Standard ISO/IEC 27002 Information Security Management System could be essential for doing business in the future, in cyber based industries. For other companies investing in a copy of the standard, to inform your cybersecurity policy and procedure, could be a small but significant investment.

For more information on Time management or Cyber Security contact Ron Browne , Managing Consultant 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au .

Policies, Procedures and Checklists

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 01:03:09 GMT

Has your club, pub or restaurant got all your policies, procedures and checklists in place?

Have you ever wondered why McDonalds, Dominos and KFC are such successful, global businesses? Often they are staffed by 15 – 19 year olds and yet everything runs efficiently. It’s called a system and everyone is trained in the system, so anyone can cover any station. The system is documented, so if in doubt, there is usually a checklist for the employee to refer to, ensuring they get it right.

Has your club, pub or restaurant got all your policies, procedures and checklists in place? If not, you might be thinking “Is this why we always have stuff ups and confusion amongst the employees?” Probably yes. One of my favourite cliché extensions is this – “Knowledge is Power, but the true power of knowledge is in sharing it.”

By this I mean, when you train all your staff to do all possible jobs and provide them with simple checklists to ensure they get it right, you have shared the knowledge required to gain maximum efficiency in your team.

Policies

Have you got a Staff Policy? – the handbook that lets all the staff know what is expected of them in the workplace? Great if you do! And do the staff sign the last page and give it to you to acknowledge they have read and understood the policy? This should be filed in their personnel file, and this is the audit trail of managing staff performance, with the acknowledged consequence of not adhering to the policy standards.

If you don’t have a policy, talk to me to provide a template policy to contextualise to your business. Then ensure every employee has been given one as soon as possible, for existing employees, and provide one at employment commencement for any new employees.

What should be included in the policy? There are so many other policies to include like Work Health and Safety, Social Media, Drug and Alcohol, Gaming and Wagering whilst at work, Bullying and Harassment Prevention and others, pending your particular business model.

Have you got a Privacy Policy? - this is of particular importance for clubs, and some pubs, where membership information has particular standards to be observed. Do you have a Cybersecurity Policy to support your privacy policy? And where are you on disclosing information about employees to an external enquirer? Very few organisations have caught up to this particular situation, as employees suffering at the hands of, or potentially escaping from abusive or violent partners, need your protection from random external enquiries. It is a difficult area so talk to the specialists to work out what your policy should be and then implement it through training.

Procedures

Most franchise businesses will have Standard Operating Procedures documented, so that anyone can step in and do any part of the job – flipping burgers, frying fries, making pizzas, taking orders or wrapping and delivering to the customers. I would include in your food outlet procedure things like portion sizes, recipes and cooking processes, to ensure consistent delivery of each meal, drink or dessert, regardless of who is cooking.

Similarly, procedures for waitstaff on how they perform their duties – taking orders, running food to tables (where applicable), clearing tables etc. – and bar staff – how they pour a beer, mix spirits or make a lemon, lime and bitters (don’t get me started) – will ensure consistency in your venue.

Opening and closing procedures, shift change procedures are all critical to the smooth operation of your business, and where you have sporting and other facilities, there are procedures to managing bowling greens, golf courses, tennis courts, caravan parks and motels, so document it all, or talk to me about some templates to save you reinventing the wheel.

Procedures ensure consistent delivery of operations and they spawn checklists – a critical training and performance management tool – that can and should be used to ensure the procedures are followed to the Tee!

Checklists

Every area of your operation can use a checklist. In clubs and pubs, you need as checklist for opening procedures for the bar and gaming areas and if you have a bistro or restaurant, the set up and opening procedures too. Then shift change and closing checklists.

Checklists to cover off how cash is handled, tills are rung off and reconciled. The management of gaming and wagering operations can also be facilitated by a good checklist. Making sure that every aspect is covered to remind key employees of the things they need to make sure are done, and advise and guide new employees, or casuals, what needs to be done.

Even the administration operations can use a good checklist – daily, weekly and monthly checklists – to ensure things are done at the right time from a governance and management perspective.

Restaurant management can also benefit from a good series of checklists, to ensure consistency in preparation, presentation and delivery. Service standards can be enhanced by the use of checklists that spell out the best way to interact with the clients. There is a reason, for example, that pilots go through a checklist on every flight, before they depart, to ensure everything is ready to do what needs to be done during the flight operation.

Another critical checklist is the “Par stock level” check list. Whether you run a club, pub or restaurant, you need to know what your par stock levels are – the stock you need to run your operation every week. And (being a little OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder- myself) I love a good ‘Planogram,’ that diagram that shows you where every item should be when in stock. And interestingly, it will tell anyone what is missing when it is completely out of stock.

Of course, computer inventory in larger organisations will automatically manage this and reorder stock when the pre-set ‘low stock level’ is reached, allowing for average delivery times, to ensure no stock out situations. Where computer inventory is in play, you can check the ‘stock turn’ of all your products, ingredients and finished sale items, to know what to keep and what to dispense with and replace.

Make no mistake though, even in large operations with computer inventory control, it is still worth having a planogram for every storeroom, cupboard, fridge and freezer, to help with stocktakes and re-stocking operations.

For more information or assistance with developing and implementing policies, procedures and checklists for your operation, contact Ron Browne, Managing Consultant ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au or 0414 633 423 .

Thank You!

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Sat, 16 Dec 2023 03:27:55 GMT

Thank You!

Two simple words that people often forget to employ. At this holiday time of year, it is important to recognise and thank your customers and most importantly, your staff, for their loyalty, patronage and service for the preceding year. What is the best way to do that?

Many clubs and pubs hold community/customer focused party celebrations, where the food and drinks are paid for by the venue. If you manage this correctly, your customers will love you even more. It need only be a couple of hours long, and properly managed, walking finger food around and dispensing responsibly served alcohol to a time limit, you will definitely engender feelings of love and warmth with your customers.

Depending on your customer demographics you may need to cater for children as well – jumping castle, face painting and maybe Santa Claus – to ensure your family customer feel the whole family is included. Consider also your cultural demographics and celebrate the cultural and religious festivals that those differing cultures offer, to ensure you are inclusive of all cultures and religions patronising your venue.

Depending on your relationship, you may also want to celebrate your supplier contacts – the sales rep or the account manager in head office, and either create a similar but separate function, or include them in the generic party.

The most important people to fete are your staff. If only this once per year, you shout them a meal and a few drinks, in someone else’s premises , and say a hearty Thank You for your efforts for the year. I am a firm believer in recognising all staff, from the cleaners through admin people and, of course, your front of house (FOH) staff, who operate at the coal face every day.

The investment to the business may seem significant, depending on your staff numbers, but imagine $25 per head for food and say $35 per head (equal to 5 schooners) for drink, for a total of $60 per person? If you have 30 staff, that is only $1,800.00 for the year, to say thanks to the people who bring the money in!

When you invest in people – customers and staff – they respond with greater support and a stronger bond.

As a sole trader, I utilise Christmas gifts as my way of saying thanks to my loyal clients – wine, an umbrella or something similar of use – to strengthen the relationship. Business is all about connections – within your business, with your stakeholders and your clientele. Just say Thank You in the most appropriate way you can.

Wishing all my clients, suppliers, family and friends a very safe and Merry Christmas

and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. See you in 2024!

Who’s up next?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 06:19:27 GMT

Most organisations forget to look at succession planning for a variety of reasons

Most organisations forget to look at succession planning for a variety of reasons, including things are ok as they are, no one is planning to quit (that we know of) and the CEO isn’t going anywhere. How can you be sure of some of those statements, unless succession planning is on the agenda for the board and on the To Do list of the CEO?

For any organisation with a team of senior managers, or a company with a board, succession planning is something you absolutely have to consider and discuss on a regular basis. At least every six (6) months the management and the board should review - which directors are thinking of stepping down? Which director’s tenure is almost up? What skills are we missing on the board that we might find with a new director? Who is going to take over from the CEO if he/she decides to move or retire?

I advocate three key aspects of succession planning that should be monitored on a regular basis – Diversity, Equity and Tenure . Let’s have a quick dive into each one of these.

Diversity

Have you ever done a Diversity Matrix for your board or management team? The diversity we are seeking here in particular relates to skills, education, gender and age in your team. What skills are currently available amongst the directors on the board – legal, financial, strategy, risk, human resources, logistics, marketing etc.? The more diverse the skill set of your board, the better the analysis of projects, tasks and information, which will lead to better decisions.

Conduct a Diversity Matrix review, to identify the range of skills, experience and knowledge the directors currently represent on the board. Identify any gaps that need addressing and then decide if training is required, or if recruiting the next director(s) for the missing skills, education or experience, is the better option.

The senior management team, that work closely with the business owner or CEO, are also better served if there is diversity of skill sets and opinions. We do not want a team of sycophants, who echo the boss’s thoughts and don’t challenge, where a challenge may be beneficial.

A similar Diversity Matrix can be applied to the management team, and below, to identify the best talent to develop and nurture for future senior management roles (career path planning). This will assist in identifying a potential successor to the CEO/manager’s role, when they decide to move on.

Equity

In this context, equity is about considering succession aspects that cover age, gender, ability, ethnicity and culture , to ensure your board and management team reflect the demographics of your community. Equity contributes to the diversity we seek by bringing to the table the diverse views of young, middle aged and older participants; different views of both genders (and any gender fluid people); the critical input of those with varying levels of ability – mental and physical challenges that might include cerebral palsy, mobility (those in a wheelchair or challenged by missing limbs etc.), hearing or vision impairment – people of different ethnic origins and those with differing cultural or religious backgrounds.

The important point to understand here is that the mix of management or your board, should reflect the mix within your community . That said, if your community is a homogenous one, with little or no ethnic or cultural diversity, then you need to focus on the other areas of diversity. In some areas, demographics have swung in a dramatic fashion away from white Anglo-Saxon populations to a dominance of a specific ethnic group or cultural group. This must be embraced in your business as best you can. Remembering that succession is not a popularity contest, rather a forum for identifying the best qualified individual(s) for the role(s) available, whether on your board, or as an integral part of the management team.

Tenure

This is probably one of the most controversial aspects of succession planning, especially where it relates to directors and their term of service for a board. In NSW clubs, I have previously mentioned a delightful director (who has since gone to the big boardroom in the sky), who was a foundation director of his club and served for well over 50 years – continuously. A few years ago, globally there was a push to limit director terms of service to around nine (9) to ten (10) years on any particular board (calculated from three terms of service on a board under the Triennial Election Cycle).

Many companies updated their constitutions and churned through some of their longstanding directors, to make way for fresh faces and reduce the tenure to the desirable 9 years. Sadly, in some circumstances the corporate history and knowledge left with the directors, much to the detriment of the replacement board and the company operations.

My personal philosophy has changed a little over the past few years. Tenure should be driven by contribution . I don’t care how young or old a director is, nor how long they have been on a board. So long as they actively contribute in discussions and decision making, rather than sitting passively waiting to go get a drink and a meal, I have no qualms about them being on a board for an extended period.

I am on some boards where a couple of director colleagues have been on the boards for some time, but they are active contributors, always asking great questions and looking at how we can do things better. They may eventually reach a point where they feel they can no longer contribute effectively and step down, and they would be supported in that decision.

A good way to manage this type of succession, is for director(s) to identify their own replacement and work with the Chair, CEO and other directors to manage the smooth transition of succession.

Similarly for CEOs, tenure in the top job has been known to create stale, jaded individuals who have lost the drive to tackle the challenges and can be comfortable just ticking the boxes to grab their pay check. Even with KPIs to drive performance, a CEO can have a great team around them, delivering the goods, but they are not working hard to drive the organisation to maximise potential anymore. So, the conversation needs to be had regularly with the CEO around their possible end date and the succession plan that is in place.

Options include mentoring an internal successor for the role, or starting a search for an external candidate, who may bring fresh perspective and a different skill set to the table, as well as the vigour the incumbent CEO/Manager may have lost.

A key point here is that your organisation needs to put into place a policy and procedure to ensure you commence succession planning, before you need to replace a CEO or director as a result of a sudden departure . For Boards, it should be an agenda item at least twice per annum, and the same frequency of enquiry with the CEO. And with succession planning in place, you should be able to develop a strong pipeline of future directors who will add diversity, expertise and energy to your board and contribute for a good term of engagement. You might also turn up your next CEO, well before you need one.

For assistance with a Diversity Matrix or succession planning for your board or CEO, contact Ron Browne , Managing Consultant ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au or 0414 633 423 .

Performance management or harassment?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 03:57:00 GMT

So, when is it harassment and when is it performance management?

I often hear of staff who feel they are being harassed by their management. This could be a CEO and the board they report to, or a duty manager and their CEO. So, when is it harassment and when is it performance management?

My up front disclaimer is that I am not a human resources (HR) specialist, but I have managed staff in corporate roles, as well as clubs and pubs and have seen both sides of this coin. When you delve into the detail, the most regular outcome I find is that the level of scrutiny has changed and this is what is causing the angst. A new board, or a new manager, or even a renewed focus on performance, which has been implemented yet poorly managed is often the reason for the trouble.

What is Performance Management?

Done properly, this process is consultative and well communicated, with input from both parties – manager and subordinate. The discussions must include reference to, and potentially an update of, the job description (JD) and then the mutual agreement of key performance indicators (KPIs) , that provide the measurement tool for the individual.

The KPIs should be realistic and achievable, with potentially a little ‘stretch,’ to encourage growth and development in the role. In fact, where possible, the discussions and plan should include career path planning (where logical advancement opportunities exist) so the employee can see where they might end up. This is less relevant for a CEO or senior manager, who may have nowhere else to go in the organisation, so discussions should truly focus on “how can the job be done better?”

Both parties should then sign off on the agreed JD and KPIs and should also sign off on the review cycle – i.e. when are the reviews to occur. Many organisations work on only an annual review, whilst other (well managed) organisations will use a six-monthly review process. This is my preference and it works like this –

X At the Annual Salary review discussion, you update the JD and agree the KPIs for the coming year;

X At the Six-Monthly review , you check to see how the employee is progressing against the KPIs, discuss if any parameters have changed, which may materially impact the achievement of the KPIs, and make any necessary adjustments to them. If needed, you might also identify some training, mentoring or assistance if the employee has had any challenges and not progressing at the level you both might hope;

X At the subsequent Annual Salary review discussion, assess the achievement of the KPIs, review the remuneration commensurate with performance, then again review and update the JD and agree the KPIs for the coming year.

This is really not a complex process and when it is executed in an open, honest and collaborative manner, leads to employees feeling safe, comfortable and valued in their role. Where performance has lagged, again handled sensitively and providing the necessary support for the employee, discussions will lead to the employee understanding where the issues may lie and feel supported in addressing them, rather than threatened with potential job insecurity.

Having said that, it is important to know that sometimes you may have the wrong person in the role , and that frank and fearless conversation may need to be had and the individual redeployed (where possible).

What is Harassment?

In this context, harassment is where the process outlined above is not done and the senior party constantly harasses the subordinate with unexpected or unreasonable demands , with a view to pressuring the subordinate to ‘lift their game.’

In some situations I have observed, the subordinate employee’s performance may be up to expectations, however for reasons known only to the aggressor, the pressure is being applied to the subordinate in order to change how they operate, or sometimes (the hidden agenda), to pressure them to resign.

Harassment is usually done in public to cause maximum embarrassment to the targeted individual and not in private, which would be the professional and sensitive way to manage perceived under-performance.

The pressure is often subtle, but continuous, even if only infrequently, as in the case of a CEO encountering the challenges only at the board meeting, or a manager harassing a subordinate at the weekly (or monthly) team meeting. The worst case is continuous attacks on a daily basis, or whenever the employee is at work and can manifest as snide remarks, subtle innuendos relating to a lack of ability to perform a certain task, or blatant accusations of non-performance.

Regardless of your position in the organisation, you should not have to put up with this sort of treatment. If your organisation is large enough to have an HR Department, then you should report the situation to them, and work with the HR specialists in addressing the harassment. In smaller organisations, it can be challenging to raise these sorts of issues, especially if the perpetrator is the CEO, who would be the most logical person to address your complaint to. You may have to contact the company’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP) consultant to address the issues, if they have one in place, of perhaps a relevant union or industrial relation (IR) body.

In the final wash up, there are numerous HR Specialists available through which to address concerns of any harassment, however your organisation should have an appropriate Staff Policy in place, which provides guidance on how to address Bullying and Harassment in the workplace. The better organisations have all this and a formal and appropriate Performance Management process in place, which should be embraced by all, to work towards personal and organisational development.

For further information on this topic, with a potential referral to an HR or IR specialist, contact Ron Browne, Managing Consultant on 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Conflicts of interest – perceived or real?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 22:55:04 GMT

That’s not a conflict of interest…but does it pass the ‘sniff test’?

Most people don’t truly understand a conflict of interest and therefore can inadvertently fall afoul of doing something that isn’t quite right. Here is the layman’s definition of what is a Conflict of Interest.

Conflict of interest

A conflict of interest is where an employee or director has private interests that could improperly influence, or be seen to influence, their decisions or actions in the performance of their duties.

Conflicts may be actual, potential or perceived:

Actual conflict of interest: there is a real conflict between a director’s or an employee’s duties and private interests.
Potential conflict of interest: a director or an employee has private interests that could conflict with their duties. This refers to circumstances where it is foreseeable that a conflict may arise in future and steps should be taken now to mitigate that future risk.
Perceived conflict of interest: the public or a third party could form the view that an employee’s private interests could improperly influence their decisions or actions, now or in the future.

So what is a Private Interest, that may influence a person to act in a conflicting manner?

Private interest

A private interest means anything that can influence an employee or director. Private interests include direct interests , such as an employee’s or director’s own personal, family, professional or business interests. They also include indirect interests , such as the personal, family, professional or business interests of individuals or groups with whom the employee is, or was recently, closely associated.

Private interests may be pecuniary (i.e. financial), which includes any actual, potential or perceived financial gain or loss. They may also be non-pecuniary , which includes any tendency toward favour or prejudice resulting from personal or family relationships, such as friendships, enemies or sporting, cultural or social activities.

Consensual personal relationships

Consensual personal relationships include consensual sexual, intimate and/or romantic relationships between adults of any sex or gender identity. Relationships of this kind may be on a casual, periodic or regular basis and may or may not constitute a primary relationship. Being in such a relationship can also be perceived as a conflict of interest, especially when relating to the organisation or workplace.

Let’s have a quick look at some examples to try and clarify the situation, which we will discuss later.

Actual conflict of Interest

A business manager is related to someone who runs a company providing products or services to that manager’s business e.g. the manager’s brother runs a cleaning company that cleans the manager’s business premises. And the manager is a share holder of the brother’s business. This constitutes an actual and direct conflict of interest as there is a direct personal link and a pecuniary/financial benefit to the manager.

Potential Conflict of Interest

Using the same example for simplicity, a business manager is looking for a new supplier of a product or service and his brother’s company, of which he is a shareholder , want to tender for the contract. There is no conflict established yet, but depending on how the tender process is handled, there may be an actual conflict of interest created during the selection process and or the relationship if the brother’s company wins the contract.

Perceived Conflict of Interest

The business manager is looking for a new supplier of a product or service and his brother’s company, of which he is a not shareholder, want to tender for the contract. There is no conflict established yet, but depending on how the tender process is handled, there may be a perceived conflict of interest created, during the selection process and or the relationship, if the brother’s company wins the contract.

Consensual Personal Relationships

Personal relationships, in the conflict of interest context, can range from a family member being a fellow employee of an organisation to a manager entering into a relationship with another employee or a director of a company. These relationships can be perceived as conflicts of interest and potentially impacting the professional execution of relevant roles and responsibilities, especially where one party is privy to confidential information that the other would not normally have access to.

How to deal with Conflicts of Interest

This is a very complex situation, as each conflict can be significantly different from all others, so you must review and respond to each individual conflict separately . That said, some basic processes can assist in minimising the issue before they become a problem.

The three key steps are Identify, Declare and Manage any conflicts or relationships. Most organisations should have a Register of Conflicts predominantly focussed on the board of directors. This document will record any conflicts that are ongoing to allow easy management. This will include all declared conflicts that are continuous in nature – for example a director has a family member (partner, child or sibling) working for the organisation in an employed role. This conflict will have had to be approved by the board prior to the employment commencing and be recorded in the Register.

Identify

When a conflict – actual, potential of perceived – arises, it is incumbent on the individual to identify it, assess it and then declare it.

Declare

Once you believe there is a conflict you must declare it to your organisation Board, and or management, within 21 days of identifying the conflict . This should then be discussed and decided and recorded in the minutes of the meeting you have declared the conflict. If appropriate, add the conflict to the Register of Conflicts as well.

If it is an employee, they must advise management of their conflict. This must also be discussed, and action decided by the management and if necessary, advised to the Board as well. If the conflict is ongoing, then it should also be recorded in the Register of Conflicts, whereas, if it is a ‘one off’, then a note on the employee’s personnel file should suffice.

Manage

Once conflicts are declared the management and or Board must decide how that conflict is to be managed. Options include:

X An individual being made to ‘step out’ of any discussion and decisions relating to the conflict. This should be recorded in meeting minutes for audit purposes

X Where material personal or financial interest is involved, the person may be asked to divest themselves of the interest (a key one here for clubs is a director or manager of a club having a financial interest in, or even hold a licence for, a hotel i.e. a pub)

X In extraordinary cases, especially with consensual relationships, companies have been know to require one party to cease employment with the organisation to remove the conflict

X In the case of a husband and wife (or partners) both being on a board, part of managing any potential or perceived conflict is to ensure those two individuals are not able to sign off together on payments, contracts or any material items. This is easily managed by ensuring a non-related party is a co-signatory with only one of the related parties

As you can see, conflicts of interest are a complex area to manage and many a legal opinion of ‘no material conflict’ has not allayed public ‘perceived’ conflicts. My mantra, especially for directors of boards is ‘If in doubt, step out’ . This requires you to identify and declare the conflict with a conservative view, and then simply manage the conflict by ensuring no input where the conflict exists and noting this in the minutes of any relevant meeting.

Note: The information presented here is provided from a professional governance perspective and should not be considered legal advice. If legal advice is required, please contact your organisation’s legal counsel, if there is any doubt as to the clarity of the conflict.

For more information or governance refresher training relating to conflicts of interest, confidentiality, roles and responsibilities of directors and managers, contact Ron Browne , Managing Consultant ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au or 0414 633 423

Marketing vs. promotion…

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 04:10:35 GMT

Should I focus on marketing or promotion?

Should I focus on marketing or promotion? What will drive in the most customers? Well let’s start by clarifying that promotion(s) is a function of marketing. Marketing actually encompasses product and service development, product manufacture and distribution (where applicable), service delivery, advertising, sales, promotions and social media communications.

In hospitality, most products or services require the customer to attend our premises to consume the product or service, so a key issue in promotion, is driving visitation to our venues. What are the keys to driving visitation? (If I knew the definitive answer here, I could retire a wealthy man).

In order to design effective marketing, including effective promotions, we need to consider -

x Who – are you trying to attract/communicate with?

x What – are you trying to say and achieve?

x When - do you want to make this happen?

x Where – do you want them to come to?

x Why – should they deal with you and not a competitor?

x How – can we facilitate the ‘communication?

Let’s look briefly at all of these points.

WHO

Part of the essential first step of marketing, and the associated promotion, is knowing ‘who your customer is’ . In a club, pub or restaurant, the target audience is club members, regular patrons (of all three venues), passing trade and specific visitors. In a club, the demographics can include an age range of 18 to 80 plus, low income and high income individuals or groups, males, females, families, singles and business clients. So, the marketing (advertising and promotion) will need to be tailored to each significant segment of your audience.

Your point of sale (POS) data should be able to provide valuable insight into who your most profitable customers are, who are the most frequent visitors, who are the foodies, the drinkers, the ones coming in for gaming, wagering or other forms of entertainment and the individuals or groups involved in any sporting activity your venue provides (mainly clubs of course).

With clubs and pubs, the rewards programs, that may be linked to overall spend or gaming activity, will provide further insight into which type of member/patron is most regular and profitable to the club. Whilst we work to reduce reliance on gaming profits, we should be looking at how best to manage the key profit centres of the venue, and this includes targeted communications to those specific client segments.

In a restaurant, your sales data will provide guidance as to the type of food and beverage that is most attractive to your clientele and identifying who the key segment(s) is (are) and then looking for more similar people, will be the key to Who. Depending on your circumstances, this may be individuals, families or other types of groups – like business diners if you’re located in the CBD (of your city or town).

WHAT

What is your message? What are you trying to say? Other than advising people of a product, service or specific promotion, does your message have a ‘Call to Action’? Your message needs to invite all your target segments to visit the club, pub or restaurant, as that is what you need to generate revenue. In limited circumstances, you can generate turnover without the customers attending the premises (online raffles especially during COVID worked well) and home delivery of food.

In most situations you actually want people to come into your venue, so there are multiple opportunities to upsell them, and generate revenue from food and beverages (for all three) and gaming and wagering in clubs and pubs. So, your message (read offer) has to be compelling, in offering something the customers cannot necessarily get at home.

WHEN

Here is where your message needs a ‘Call to Action’. We want patrons to visit us regularly, so there may be words like ‘Today…’, or ‘Now’ or ‘time’s running out…’. This should entice regular and more immediate visitation. You can of course forward plan your customers’ visits by providing a program of events, or offers, for future dates, ensuring ongoing visitation, further down the track.

Here you will be advising ‘Upcoming Events’ or ‘Next month’s Specials’ or known calendar events like Valentine’s Day, Mothers’ and Fathers’ Days, State of Origin, Easter, Melbourne Cup and Grand Finals, like the Women’s World Cup Grand Final on Sunday 20 August 2023 (Go the Matildas!!).

I am a fan (as you will know from my previous newsletter on Marketing) of a rolling 12 month calendar of events/promotions, so you know what is coming up and can plan the comms around it to ensure you give people a reason to visit all the time.

Have you checked your database to see the frequency of visitation (especially in clubs with a member database)? Some people com daily, or a couple of times a week or just once or twice per year, but it is important to know what the average frequency is. And if your data has it, the average spend per visit.

WHERE

Ok, this might be an obvious one – your venue. But for larger establishments (especially clubs with multiple venues and facilities) you may want people to visit a particular venue (golf club or services club), or part of the venue – dining, sporting, entertainment (live shows etc.) or special degustation type events – which entail inviting them to a particular part of the club, pub or restaurant venue.

Some clubs are actually set up to have certain areas for different demographics – e.g. The Junction at Moama Bowling Club and Lady Banks at Bankstown Sports Club, or the Fernery at the Mosman Club. And of course, if you have a specific event space, like the Coliseum at West HQ, that is a specific part of your venue you are inviting attendance to (albeit with a lower frequency of visit).

Our sporting clubs of course may have promotions relating to the sporting facilities, so the golf course or specific tournament, bowls competition, football matches or sailing regattas are all part of the location mix. The Where will often mix with the When and this will help make a compelling offer to visit the club , for one off BIG events, or regular weekly or monthly events that should drive visitation.

WHY

This is where the secret sauce is required – Why should they come to your venue and do business with you and not your competitor down the road? Herein lies the challenge to differentiate yourself from the other offers out there.

Selling the WHY is critical for the millennials – they will engage with you if they understand Why you do what you do. Older generations are looking for the ambience in venue and the knowledge that you support the community effectively. In my opinion, this will go back to two key factors:

x Your Core Objectives – supporting the core function of your club and your ability to serve your community;

x Your Venue ‘Feel’ – is your venue a welcoming, inclusive, diverse and friendly environment to be in? Will people understand that part of your why is because you and your staff love to serve and assist people in any way you can?

For clubs, a critical part of communication the Why is letting the members, patrons and community know who you support. This is telling everyone Why you’re in business – to generate profits to give back to the community and provide the sort of assistance that the Government struggles to provide from our taxes.

For pubs, other than owner’s goals, there is a community connection, often on a lower scale than clubs, but they all endeavour to also provide a sanctuary where people feel comfortable to come and relax, enjoy themselves and be entertained.

With restaurants, the why is all about a taste sensation for the customer. Sensory explosions that make the diner go “Oh WOW”, with every mouthful, and so the chef/restaurateur gains pleasure from witnessing the sensation of culinary satisfaction that the customer enjoys.

Now that is never the why for Maccas or fast food chains, but the true restaurateurs, for whom food is life, are definitely driven by the why of imparting that level of gourmet pleasure to the patrons.

HOW

Finally, we come to the ‘How’. How do we best market and promote to our members, patrons and community? Your market segmentation will guide the communication channels (for advertising or marketing) you need to utilise to reach your various target segments.

Older members/customers/patrons usually prefer hard copy communications like a printed newsletter, flyers on specific events, ads in the local newspaper and maybe the odd radio advertisement.

Baby Boomer generation will happily take emails and are getting used to messaging options like phone apps, WhatsApp or SMS marketing and obviously will respond to internal advertising on in-house TV screens.

From Gen X onwards, and particularly the Millennials, you absolutely need to communicate via smartphone apps. If it can’t be done on a phone, then they are just not interested. QR codes are also very powerful with that generation and even Boomers and Gen X are catching up on those and their convenience for transferring information.

Promotions can be handy in providing specific products, services or events to entice additional visitation by all your potential clients. Promotions can include sampling of food or beverages, trial usage of venue facilities (like the gym or pool or squash courts) and of course the key calendar events we listed earlier, especially Mothers’ Day, Valentine’s Day and Melbourne Cup Day.

Large clubs and pubs, and restaurants or restaurant groups, will no doubt have dedicated staff, or departments, to manage their marketing and promotions. Micro and small clubs, individual pubs and restaurants will rely on the chief executive, or owner or manager, to drive the marketing and promotions. Some will outsource these functions to expert consultants, when they understand that they don’t necessarily have the knowledge or skill set to drive this part of the business.

In summary, promotion is a component of marketing, the overall driver of strategies to drive visitation into any venue. Importantly, marketing that works in increasing visitation and revenue is an investment , whereas marketing that is unsuccessful is an expense . This makes your marketing, and associated promotions decisions, critically important and should be measured for results.

For more information or a review of your marketing and promotions, contact Ron Browne , Managing Consultant 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Post-COVID Staff Challenge

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 23:56:56 GMT

Help! We need staff!

This is an almost universal cry I hear from clubs, pubs and restaurants wherever I go right now. Importantly, I hear the desperation for the staff to be good quality – trained and keen – to enhance the customer service experience in venues. Where did everyone go?

The peak of COVID has well and truly passed, but we still are waiting for the international students and the working holiday makers to come back in force and plug the gaps. Whilst the number of international students is up 20 percent on this time last year, we still have not reached the pre-pandemic levels.

Government changes introduced this year (including new minimum pay rates for all workers) address the potential exploitation of working holiday makers and international students. The lift in the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (TSMIT) to A$70,000 per annum as a minimum , will apply to chefs and cooks brought in from overseas to help alleviate the shortage in our kitchens. That may not seem much by comparison to local chefs, who will often demand $100,000 or more, it nonetheless puts upward pressure on costs to run your food outlets.

That minimum threshold equates to $35.45 per hour gross for those in the kitchen with the skills. This is also in line with the basic minimum wage increase from 1 July 2023 to $23.23 per hour (which equates to just shy of $46,000 per annum) for cleaners, bar and food staff with even the bare minimum of skills. Casuals will be entitled to a minimum of $29.04 per hour (with the inclusion of their 25 percent casual loading) which will earn them a pro-rata income of $57,383 per annum (for full time work).

I have absolutely no problem with these wage levels , as many of our lowest paid workers are the hardest workers and will often work more than one job to make ends meet. The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) reports this year that one in eight (1 in 8) people in Australia are living in poverty and the working poor include 34 percent of sole parent households living in poverty.

Poverty is defined currently by ACOSS as earning less than 50 percent of the minimum wage – or $489 per week for a single person and $1,027 for a couple with two children.

Now I am not an economist, but when inflation is running at 6.8 percent and catch-up wage increases run at 5.75 percent , we are on a hiding to greater inflation. Wage growth, whilst warranted and needed, inevitably puts upward pressure on cost of both goods and services, which then drives prices up to compensate and maintain profit margins. Add the low unemployment rate of 3.6 percent and high participation rate of 66.9 percent (we have 14,011,800 people employed of a potential worker population of 20,944,394), the war for talent will also inevitably add upward wage pressure on employers.

Finding and retaining quality staff

If you can find quality staff, the battle is to keep them. Given that the labour market is not dissimilar to the eighties, when you could literally walk out of a job today and into a new one tomorrow, people will start to ask for bonuses and benefits to stay with an employer.

I have seen many inexperienced workers in hospitality over the past six (6) months, who patently have not been well trained, if they got any training at all. And I still hear employers bemoaning the cost of training staff , with the inherent risk that they walk away to a higher paid position, once they are better trained.

Over 40 years in the workforce has demonstrated the value to me of investing in the right staff. The secret to maximising your situation comes down to the following key points for me:

x Hire for attitude and train for skills – a person with a positive, enthusiastic attitude can be trained to do just about anything

x Invest in training on an ongoing basis – continual training of your staff shows that you value them as part of your team, which will strengthen the bonds of loyalty, whilst improving their performance at the same time

x Make it worthwhile for your staff to stay - with beneficial pay and conditions.

Richard Branson famously said –

This has been my adopted mantra for many years now.

Your frontline

Your staff, particularly in hospitality, are the window to your business philosophy and success. Well trained staff, with a positive, professional and friendly attitude, executing their roles promptly and efficiently will cause customers (members and all patrons in clubs) to keep coming back.

Interestingly, most people don’t consciously register good service when they receive it, but they absolutely register bad service when they are on the receiving end. Rude, slow, sloppy and unprofessional staff can kill your business, especially in hospitality , so they need to be replaced – by training or terminating – with the best quality staff you can access.

Whilst it can be a challenge in the large metropolitan areas to find good staff, it can be seriously challenging in small regional towns and remote communities. This is where the value of finding the best, training and retaining them, really pays off.

Simple Hospitality 101 tasks like:

x Pulling a beer properly

x Smiling and engaging in polite conversation with patrons

x Being able to do a three (3) plate carry when running food

x Clearing a table efficiently by proper stacking of plates

x Collecting glasses and checking for lipstick before washing them

x Wiping down tables and other surfaces between customers (including EGMs)

x Keeping fridges full

x Keeping eyes up (not bar blind) and looking round the venue regularly

x Practising Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) diligently

The combination and culmination of these simple techniques will provide the minimum expected level of service and enjoyment to your customers. As the frontline interface with your customers, the right staff can make a huge difference to the success of your venue.

A final point is that being short-staffed, with good staff, is better than hanging onto bad staff, because you are short of staff. Bad staff are like poison in your business. If you can’t fix bad staff, through training and guidance, you are much better off getting rid of them (properly performance managed) than hanging onto them to fill the roster.

For more information or a review of your staff and organisational structure, contact Ron Browne to assist 0414 633 423 ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

The Demarcation Dilemma

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 00:52:47 GMT

Do you know where the line is between Governance and Management?

Do you know where the line is between Governance and Management? Board rooms across many industries, including the club industry, are filled with business owners and C Suite executives. There is a huge challenge for these men and women to remain at arm’s length with regard to management of the organisations they are charged with overseeing.

All through my governance training years, the challenge is to provide directors with the skills to oversee the operations of their organisation, without inviting them to get involved in the operations. The Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) have a great line – ‘Directors direct and Managers manage’ – which is a simple delineation, but many struggle to embrace the ethos.

What should Directors do?

Directors are charged, either by ownership, election or appointment to a board, to oversee the successful operation of their organisation, be it for profit, for purpose (a not-for-profit) or an incorporated association. In order to do this, directors need to have a sound knowledge of many (not all) aspects of the organisation’s operations. This means business owners and executive managers usually bring with them a raft of skills and experience in running an organisation, and so should understand what a successful operation looks like.

The primary focus for directors should be strategic not operational. They should focus on strategic direction, identifying opportunities for growth, potential threats to success, managing risk and setting key performance indicators (KPIs), or targets, for management and staff to achieve.

Highly respected AICD facilitator and governance expert Julie Garland McLellan also has a great quote for directors to guide their efforts – ‘Noses in and hands out’ . By this Julie means directors should know everything a board can reasonably be expected to know about their organisation’s operations, but they must stay at arm’s length and not actually get involved in the day to day operations. Globally the trend has been away from Managing Directors, more towards Chief Executive Officers (CEO), to provide a clearer distinction between the role of the executive management and the board.

In some industries and organisation, like clubs in New South Wales, the CEO still fulfils the function of the company secretary, but is an executive member of the board, only in that capacity. All other directors (in clubs) are elected by their member peers to oversee the operations of the club.

This is best achieved when the board delegates the authority to manage the operations of the organisation to the CEO . The CEO can then delegate various portions of the operational delivery to his management team and staff. Together, they operate the organisation (in our case - club) whilst attempting to achieve the targets/KPIs set by the board.

The directors have therefore provided the direction to the management team and should then step back and let them do their thing. The board must monitor the results (this is the financial, legal, risk and reputational oversight) and ensure they provide the appropriate resources (budgeted funds, equipment and personnel) the team need to achieve those targets.

It is essential that the board are constantly aware of the financial well being of the organisation (and avoid trading insolvent), whilst monitoring and managing the risks – human, physical, cyber and environmental – to ensure the organisation is compliant, moral and ethical in all its dealings.

Directors must ensure all requisite policies and procedures are in place for the organisation, to be compliant with any and all legislation relevant to their operations. The responsibility for creating and implementing them however, lies with management.

Directors should also be looking at opportunities to grow the business through the many strategic options available to them –

X growth through identifying additional products or services the customers may desire,

X growth through acquisition of other similar organisations (or amalgamations in club speak) or

X growth through diversification into other allied revenue opportunities (like accommodation, aged care, day care, gymnasiums, medical facilities or retail options like supermarkets, petrol stations or car washes).

The best strategic direction is informed by finding out what the community needs and then seeing how the club can provide that product or service.

Active directors – those who are always looking for opportunities to grow the business, get involved in discussions and decisions and understand that they must apply themselves in good faith, in the best interests of the organisation and for a proper purpose - are a blessing for any organisation. Directors who do not attend meetings regularly, do not contribute in discussions at meetings and add little or no value to the board, should consider stepping aside and let others, who wish to make a solid contribution, have the opportunity to join the board.

What should Managers do?

Once the Board has delegated the responsibility of delivering the day to day operations of the organisation to the management team, they get on with running the business. The KPIs are set and the team work to deliver the daily, monthly, quarterly and annual results that the board and all stakeholders expect.

From the strategic perspective, the CEO and management team usually provide the research, data and technical input to the strategic planning process, applying their intimate operational knowledge of the industry they operate in. Their focus is on the minutiae – the how to do, what to do and when to do – to deliver the short and long term objectives that have been delegated to them by the directors.

Directors will have considered the three key resources – financial, physical and human – required to operate the business, but it is the management and staff who actually utilise these resources daily to achieve the goals.

Human resources are the largest resource the managers need to utilise, monitor and manage, to allow all staff to reach their full potential and maximise their input to the operations. Depending on the size of the organisation, this can require specialist staff to oversee all aspects of sound human resource and industrial relations management. Similarly, an organisation may require specialist staff for specific areas like finances, marketing, information technology, gaming and wagering (in clubs and pubs), food and beverage, general operations and facilities maintenance.

Managers are responsible for ensuring all policies and procedures, required to ensure operations are compliant with all legislation and best practices, are in place. Management must source these and ensure not only their existence, but they must train staff in the appropriate application of these and ensure any records of compliance are maintained and updated regularly (at least annually). To this point, all staff in clubs must have their mandatory certifications – Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) and Responsible conduct of Gaming (RCG) and any other things like Food Safety Supervisor Certificate (FSS) – to ensure they are all aware of their obligations in these areas.

Managers are also responsible for the management and maintenance of the physical resources of the organisation – buildings, plant, equipment, machinery, playing fields (football, bowling greens, squash courts etc.) and entertainment equipment – to enable the organisation to meet the community’s needs.

Most importantly, managers must manage the day to day financials of the organisation, ensuring they are watching turnover, managing costs and working towards maximising profits for the long term sustainability of the organisation. KPIs set here will include gross profit margins, net profit margins, wages ratios, debt to equity ratios and in clubs, the industry measure of EBITDARD (Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation, Amortisation, Rent and Donations).

Great managers know from day to day how trade has been, what the turnover was, where the exceptions occurred and what the month to date (MTD) profit and loss picture is. And every month they check the Balance Sheet to ensure that equity is not being negatively impacted.

In summary – Directors provide the direction, guidance and oversee the operations of the organisation, whilst managers do the ‘heavy lifting’ of running the business every day, whilst working to meet the targets set by the board. Managers should also understand that the oversight by an educated and effective board is a great asset to them and should not feel threatened by the questions the board ask. When these two groups work together as a cohesive, functional collective, in an open, honest and trusting relationship , the organisation will really fly.

Should your board or management be interested in a Governance or Operational Audit, Ron Browne can provide either or both to benchmark where your organisation is today. Contact Ron at 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Constitutions Rule!

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Fri, 26 May 2023 02:39:26 GMT

When did you last review your club’s constitution?

When did you last review your club’s constitution? Pubs and restaurants don’t have to worry about a constitution, as they are usually run without a board of directors and members (who might need a set of rules to follow). Clubs, on the other hand, all have a constitution (company limited by guarantee) or Articles of Association (cooperatives or incorporated associations). These are the rules by which the club will operate.

Legislative change is the best driver of constitutional review, and there has been considerable movement in the Registered Clubs Act (RCA) in the past couple of years, precipitating a need to review your constitution, especially if you have not done so within the past five (5) years.

Some of the recent changes (in the past few years) include –

x No requirement to charge a minimum of $2.00 per member as membership fees;

x Removal of the obligation to hold a board meeting every month;

x The ability to appoint directors to the board who do not meet the club’s usual constitutional guidelines for election or appointment to the board.

We’ll look at each of those separately, however another issue is that of the attention to diversity – in all its forms. For example, is it time to adapt our constitutions to address gender fluidity, disability and sexual preferences e.g. LGBTIQA+' which is an evolving acronym that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning, asexual. Many other terms (such as non-binary and pansexual) are used by people to describe their experiences of their gender, sexuality and physiological sex characteristics.

What of membership categories? I often find it interesting that some constitutions recognise fully financial members as Associates, but often omit to have a ‘Full Member’ category. To me, an associate is not a full member, and as such would enjoy less benefits and access to the facilities of the club and be restricted in interaction with the board and potential to be a director.

Life Members are also another category that enjoys full membership benefits with the added benefit of being non-membership fee paying. Then there are the sporting membership categories especially in golf and bowls clubs. Member categories can be an issue when, for example ‘3 day members’ have different fees and access to ‘7 day members’ on a golf course. When did you last review your membership categories?

Let’s now revisit the legislative changes we noted earlier.

Changes to the legislation

x No requirement to charge a minimum of $2.00 per member as membership fees – this requirement was removed from the RCA in 2021 so that it is now up to clubs to decide if they need to charge a membership fee. Many clubs have just chosen to continue to charge the membership fee to add ‘perceived value’ to the membership of the club. Where the fees charged are specified in the constitution, it would require a special resolution to remove or amend the fees charged. Normally this would be in the By Laws of a club and as such at the discretion of the board and management to adjust or amend the membership fee.

x Removal of the obligation to hold a board meeting every month – The RCA previously mandated a board meeting be held every calendar month, with the day and time open to suit the directors, and for them to prescribe the day and time each month. It is now only mandatory to hold a board meeting a minimum of four (4) times per year. Most clubs have chosen to continue with the monthly frequency and would require a special resolution voted on by the members to change this requirement in their constitutions (75 percent plus 1 to pass).

x Th e ability to appoint directors to the board who do not meet the club’s usual constitutional guidelines for election or appointment to the board – since 2017, clubs have had the flexibility to appoint up to two (2) directors to the board, under the maximum cap of 9 Directors. This is to allow certain skills to be brought to the board room where existing members may not have those skills. The ability to appoint these directors overrides the club constitution’s standard election criteria for directors including years of membership and category of membership (e.g. must be a bowler or golfer or sub-branch member) that can be elected to the board.

These appointed directors can only be appointed for a maximum term of three (3) years, after which they need to stand for election if they wish to remain on the board. All of this, however, needs to be included in your constitution in order to be compliant with the legislation.

Once you have reviewed your constitution, ensure you have it reviewed and ratified by your legal counsel (e.g. Pigott Stinson, Thomson Geer or Elite Legal to name a few) before you socialise the changes with your members.

You may need to hold some member information sessions to inform the members of the changes required, allowing them the opportunity to discuss, challenge and digest the explanations as to why these changes are required. Once you have done this the changes need to be voted on by members at a General Meeting, with a quorum of members present who are eligible to vote (Full Members, Associates and Life Members) and voting. The pass percentage is 75 percent plus one to pass a special resolution.

On that point, whilst it may take longer to vote for, split each resolution into individual resolutions , to facilitate the approval process. If all changes are lumped into one resolution, if members really object to one change, the whole block of changes may get voted down. By offering individual resolutions for each change, then if the members conscientiously object to a single change, it can be voted down without negatively impacting the other changes required.

As always, I am not a lawyer, but do advocate a regular review of your constitution and then work with your preferred legal counsel to ensure you have met all the legislative requirements with which to align your constitution.

For more information contact Ron Browne ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au 0414 633 423 for a confidential discussion about the health of your constitution.

Cashflow is King...

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Wed, 19 Apr 2023 02:43:55 GMT

Now is the right time to be completing budgets.

For most organisations, the financial year starts 1 July, so now is the right time to be completing budgets. Where cash was once king, cashflow is the mantra as it is all about cashless trading for most people these days. ANZ Bank has already announced it’s plans to withdraw (pun intended) its ATMs as they no longer wish to be in the cash handling business.

Most people under 50 rarely use cash for their transactions preferring card, phone (card app) or even a wrist watch device to pay in store.

Nearly 40 percent of payments in 2019 were made online with many of these made on mobile devices (phones and tablets with an app). So managing your cash flow is an essential part of managing your business.

In clubs and pubs, a large percentage of payment are also now made by EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point Of Sale) with the Reserve Bank's Consumer Payments Survey (CPS) showed that the share of total retail payments made in cash fell from 69 per cent in 2007 to 27 per cent in 2019 (Caddy, Delaney and Fisher 2020).

Budgets

Budgets are best guess projections of both income and expenditure and in my experience, it is pretty easy to be accurate with expenditure, but much harder to predict income. With the odd exception, the occasional extraordinary expenses, plotting your budget for wages/salaries, fuel, power, water and supplies can be fairly simple. Monthly variances must be calculated – like peak sales in holiday periods for destination type businesses (coastal locations in particular or the ski fields with their peak in winter) or drops in revenue with inland businesses when people leave town for other locations over Christmas and Easter, for example.

Budgets give you a plan to base purchasing, promotional and staffing decisions, so that you aim to maximise the operating profit of your business. They also afford you the ability to (try to) ensure you have the right amount of funds available when you need them – for payments of suppliers, staff and repayments of loans etc..

Budgets should be developed around historical data, market conditions and economic changes that may impact on the organisations revenues, like interest rates, unemployment status and supply costs.

The budget should be created by management and presented to the board for approval , before the start of the next financial year. Once approved the management will have confidence to know that they can operate the business within the bounds of the approved expenditure, with the resulting income monitored against the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) set by the board.

Capital Expenditure

Capex (the standard abbreviation of capital expenditure) is something that many businesses do not necessarily budget for and then find they need to fund. Most capex is around high value items that may be required to allow the business to operate or to increase its ability to generate revenue – for example extensions to premises, replacement of major infrastructure, plant (like refrigeration or air conditioning systems) or equipment (like poker machines in clubs and pubs).

Where cashflow is strong and capital reserves have been built up, then budgeting for the investment of capital on these sorts of items is a simple matter of scheduling, when the necessary expenditure needs to occur. Where a business is struggling and has low or no reserves, capex might need to be funded from cashflow or through a loan facility.

Interestingly, in the club industry, many clubs believe they need to make major capex investments in one go, when scheduling them over a period of months or years can take cashflow pressures off the organisation. Where possible, capex investments should focus on revenue generating investment first and nice to have investments last .

In most cases, new carpet and furniture will not really generate additional revenue, where upgraded kitchen, bars and gaming rooms can definitely generate more income.

Accruals

One item overlooked by many businesses are accruals for essential equipment to be replaced over time. A classic in clubs and pubs is HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) systems. These have limited lifespans, usually around 10 – 15 years, after which efficiency drops dramatically and maintenance costs rise proportionately. Businesses, where possible, should be accruing the funds to replace these items over the serviceable life of the plant. If funds identified as Depreciation costs can be accrued then once the capital item is effectively written off, the reserves should be available to fund the replacement.

Easy in theory but harder in practice, however I would advocate that a discussion with your accountant, to see how this might be set up for your business, would be a valuable exercise. My disclaimer comes in around now….

I am not an accountant and my comments are born only on my professional business experience, so PLEASE talk to your accountant or financial adviser for professional advice in all matters relating to budgeting, capital expenditure and accruals.

Across the state, you can use your local accountant, however the hospitality industry is well served by many companies that are industry experts such as PKF, Russell Corporate Advisory and Pitcher Partners amongst others.

For more information contact Ron Browne, Managing Consultant 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

It's Strategic Planning time

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 10:57:51 GMT

Just over three months to the start of the new financial year ...

Just over three months to the start of the new financial year is a great time to review or create your strategic plan. If you already have a plan, you are probably reviewing progress each quarter, to see if your operational delivery is aligned to and achieving your strategic goals. If you do not have a plan yet, now is the right time to create your first strategic plan, to re-focus the business.

Over the past few decades I have created, delivered and facilitated strategic plans that focus and re-energise businesses to achieve key objectives to grow and sustain the business. When facilitating, I have many favourite catch phrases that encapsulate the process and projected outcome:

x If you don’t know where you are going, you are arguably already there

x If you don’t know where you are going, all roads lead there (Cheshire Cat)

x The benefit of the plan is in the planning

x Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result (Albert Einstein)

A strategic plan is your roadmap to future success because at it’s simplest form, strategic planning is a ‘Gap Analysis’ process:

Who should drive strategic planning?

There is some argument about this in organisations with a board of directors, where some believe, as I do, the directors have the responsibility to drive the strategic planning and vision of the organisation. They are ably assisted by the senior management in this process as it is the management who usually have the access to the relevant data required to execute the planning.

Others believe the management should do the strategic planning and just have the board ratify or approve the plan. That to me is not the correct process and is usually the situation for companies with either a sole director or organisation not set up with a committee or board of directors.

‘Directors direct and managers manage’ is the mantra from the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) and depending on the size of the organisation, directors will be more or less involved in the preparatory process done before a strategic planning session. But the planning should then be directed by the board with the valuable input of senior management.

In small clubs I have worked with, there is a board of say seven (7)directors and the Secretary Manager, whereas in larger clubs, it is usually a board of seven (7) directors, the Chief Executive Officer and the senior executive team. This may include Chief Operations Manager, Chief Financial Manager, Marketing Manager, Food and Beverage Manager, Human Resources Manager and perhaps a Facilities Manager (with golf, bowling or football clubs), depending on the size of the club.

Preparation facilitates good planning

Before we gather for a day or two of planning, there is homework to be done by both directors and management. In order for everyone to be on the same page in the ‘Where are we now’ phase, we do the internal and external reviews which include:

Internal - a SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats), Financial review (usually previous Financial Year and year to date results), and Membership data.

External - a competitive review of businesses that offer competing products and services, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data for your local suburb or region and trends that may impact your business.

Then everyone needs to think about and list to bring for discussion, the ‘Where do we want to go’ phase which will include both operational and strategic objectives of how we envision the club/business in the future. This should include short, medium and long-term objectives – the plan will usually run a three (3) to five (5) year purview, but long term is really out about 25 years. In club land, it can really be a long game you have to play, with the groundwork being laid today for a future outcome in 10 to 20 years.

A colleague Simon Walshaw (Grace Curve Consulting) coined a phrase – “We want our clubs to be here for our grandchildren’s grandchildren” and I love that approach, as many clubs have been around for 50, 75 and 100 years, so the plan should aim to continue that legacy.

The Facilitation

When the team get together for the day or two of planning, I work to provide guided discovery for the organisation, working on discussing what can and can’t be achieved depending on the three (3) key resources the organisation has available – Human, Financial and Physical resources.

The benefit I offer includes over 45 years of industry experience in hospitality, as well as experience from retail, vocational education and training and environment industries. Working across many industries provides me with insight to assist in looking into opportunities, systems and procedures that can enhance the delivery of the strategic plan.

We workshop the standard areas of Vision (Purpose), Mission and Values and discuss all the homework to get the full picture of where the organisation is at, what it is capable of achieving in the short, medium and longer term, and then working through a process to identify the key objectives, prioritising them and then putting timeframes on them.

By understanding the organisation’s capabilities, with respect to their human, financial and physical resources, we can set a prioritised plan, with SMART objectives (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Framed) that are then populated into the actual plan.

The Outcome

When the session is finished, there are two optional outcomes –

1. You take away the information created, with a template plan to draft the plan yourselves (usually delegated to the management

team), or

2. You engage me to write the initial draft plan, which then is sent to you to fil in any missing details and assist in finalising.

Once the draft is created, the board and management team involved in the process work to fine tune the plan, until the Board is satisfied with it and then endorses it as the plan for the next three to five years. I insist on a 6 week turnaround of the plan completion, so that the organisation can implement the plan as soon as the new financial year kicks in.

Of course, the strategic plan, once approved by the board, is actually then handed to the management team for them to draft their business plan for the next 12 months (financial year). Their plan and budgets are them approved by the board and the organisation continues to trade, with a view to achieving the first year’s plan objectives, with the commensurate improvement in results.

I am pleased to be able to report that virtually all my past clients have reaped benefit from the process and often excitedly report to me, within 12 to 18 months after the planning facilitation, that they have already achieved the objectives set for up to two (2) years into the plan.

Once you have a plan – a road map to success – it is fascinating how it often brings forward the results calculated for further into the future. A key point to note here is that the timeframes set for objectives are not set in concrete . If you need to push a deadline back or bring one forward, to suit the current or changed circumstances, then that is OK to do. Hence my advocating quarterly reviews, which allow you to tweak and adjust the plan as required.

For more information on strategic planning for your business, contact Ron Browne 0414 633 423 or ron@etrapreneurservices.com.au

Making Time work for you

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 05:26:16 GMT

We all only have 168 hours in every week...

Some people seem to do a lot and others, not so much. So what is it about some people and their capacity to get more done in a given amount of time?

Time management has many forms and sometimes the most efficient people don’t have a specific system , they are just innately skilled at prioritising and completing tasks. The old saying “If you want something done, give it to a busy person”, rings true mostly because busy people seem to schedule activities better and can adjust and fit in one more thing.

When running a club, pub or restaurant, time management (or interchangeably task management) is paramount to ‘getting things done’. Some people equally get stuff done and then look for what needs to be done next, whilst some people have a couple of tasks and make them fill all the available time.

I know that I am probably a fair example of the old adage – those who can’t do it, teach it – given that I used to teach Time Management as part of Certificate IV courses on Business and Frontline Management, yet often struggle to manage my priorities and get everything done when I want it done.

OK, so what tips and tricks have you got for us to improve our time/task management Ron? Let’s look at some simple suggestions to the slightly more complex ones.

Create a ‘To Do’ List

The simplest form of time/task management is to create a ‘To Do’ list for the things you need to get done. In its simplest form, you just write down the tasks that need doing - every day, or once per week or whatever frequency works for you. Some people put the most important or critical tasks at the top of the list and work their way down to the less important or critical ones.

As you complete each task, regardless of its importance, you strike it off the list and then renew the list, as per you preferred frequency. A ‘To Do’ list is a simple and effective way to work your way through the tasks and improve your efficiency. It is surprising how much more you can achieve when you have a focused task list to work to.

Default Diary

Another handy time management tool I picked up from Action Coach was a thing called a Default Diary. This is simply a template approach to key tasks that recur every week and need to be blocked out to ensure they are completed. An example is shown below –

Time Management Diary

Time Management Diaries had their peak in the nineties when everyone was wanting to increase efficiency. Most Time Management diaries are modified To Do list approaches where you formalise the task needed to be done on a prioritising basis and then further ranking them in ‘sub’ priorities for example:

This then provides a more highly focussed list of tasks in the order of importance to address. And interestingly, using this system myself for a period some years ago, I found it was really good for getting all the low priority stuff done as often, the higher priority tasks were the least enjoyable or easy to achieve.

The system relied on you re-doing your list every day, at the end of the day, so you know what you had ahead of you for the next day. For many people this is a very effective way to manage their time and task completion and did indeed increase their efficiency.

Steven Covey – Important Urgent Matrix

Steven Covey, author of worldwide bestselling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People , is credited with popularising the Urgent vs. Important Matrix, for use in time management. As per the graphic below, Steven identified four elements of managing tasks – Things could be Urgent, Things could be Non-Urgent, Things could be Important and Things could be Not Important.

The combination of these four elements into the matrix below could assist in deciding which tasks needed to be done first.

The key to this approach is deciding what is Important and managing those tasks in a structured way so they never become Urgent. Covey maintained the most efficient way to work was to focus on the Important but Not Urgent Quadrant , which then gives you time to efficiently address the tasks that provide the maximum return on time invested. Without the terrible pressure of time, when things aare important and Urgent.

Tasks that are Not Important really need to be considered carefully as to whether or not they should actually be done.

President Eisenhower was credited with a similar approach and applied action philosophies to each quadrant –

Which then looks like this -

This can save you a lot of time by consciously, and sometimes ruthlessly, getting rid of this tasks that really do not add any value to your day. The other trap to be conscious of is other people’s time frames. Other people who are really poor time managers can end up managing by deadline and put their urgency onto you, when they could have given you the task or request in a much more timely fashion.

Their urgency should not be your urgency! If you are asked to do a task for someone else, ask “When do you need that by?” That can be a simple way to manage your time, and offering you an option to say No, as it is not within your time capacity to complete the task when they need it.

Conversely, be respectful of other people’s time and ensure if you are asking someone to do something important for you, give them ample time to do it, so it does not become urgent.

Rolling 12 Month Calendar

One of my favourite strategies is to have a rolling 12 month Calendar of tasks that recur every year. This is particularly effective for managing marketing and promotions that tie in with annual calendar events like Easter, Mothers’ Day, Christmas etc. that way you know when a task/promotion needs to happen and give yourself ample time to plan and complete – 1 month, 3 months or more.

My last tip is a simple stress relief tip – set your completion deadline 3 days before something is actually due . This gives you some slippage space to ensure you complete on time. Once you commit to managing your time better, you will be surprised at how much more you actually get done in your day, week, month or year.

For more information contact Ron Browne, Managing Consultant info@extrapreneurservice.com.au or 0414 633 423

What a year 2022 proved to be!

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 23:42:33 GMT

The supply challenge for food, whilst finding and keeping staff, have been major issues

What a year 2022 proved to be! As we reach the end of the year, many organisations – especially clubs and pubs – are glad to be back in full swing. Inherent in that full swing is the challenge of finding and keeping staff, the supply challenge for food stuffs and the ongoing impact of rising energy and food costs.

We will see more consolidation in the club industry and even some pubs are closing doors now, with the Government support stopped and lost trade, not getting them back to pre-COVID trading conditions. Never more than now is the old adage “Good food, good beer and good atmosphere” more relevant to survival.

As I wrote last month, our industry is under challenge to reduce, if not remove totally, our reliance on gaming. Not an issue I hear the restaurateurs say – we never had them. All food outlets are “only as good as their last meal” so consistency, of produce supply, the quality of that produce and then the quality of the meals produced, is paramount.

Add to that the key ‘customer service’ element and with lots of inexperienced staff working for us now, we can be at risk of losing repeat trade due to the ‘product/service bundle’ not meeting the customers’ expectations.

Driving the culture of your organisation is a critical element in solving this conundrum. If your club, pub or restaurant has the right culture, it reflects in the results and the whole atmosphere of the place.

What is great culture?

You create and maintain great culture by a combination of factors, including –

X Selecting the right staff (hire for attitude and train for skills)

X Training your staff – proper inductions (this is how we do it here

X Ongoing learning and development – training for both soft and hard skills

X Gaining the team’s commitment to the organisation’s purpose

X Selling the team the vision that the customer is the ‘centre of our focus’

X Building a strong team culture where everyone knows everyone else has their back

X Recognising and rewarding when the KPIs (key performance indicators) are achieved

X Management actually “walk the talk, not just talk the talk”

When all this falls in place, an amazing thing happens. The team bounce into work every day, ready to not just meet but exceed the customer’s expectations. The customers all subconsciously feel the energy in the place, the enjoyment and happiness, the collegial conviviality that makes everyone feel welcome.

When a club, pub or restaurant achieves this level of consistent culture, the business really flies! A safe environment for all staff to hold each other accountable to the common goal of exceptional service to create an exceptional customer experience.

The cream on the cake is that staff recognition piece, which at this time of year must include a staff Christmas function, when the staff get the night off and they are treated to a meal, drinks and some entertainment as that Thank You piece. If your business cannot afford to entertain their staff just once per year, then I am willing to bet you don’t have much of a business. The Team spirit and collegial culture will definitely be under threat, if it exists at all.

Let’s hope that 2023 proves to be a successful, profitable and somewhat less challenging year for all!

For more information on building that winning team culture, contact Ron Browne 0414 633 423 or info@extrapreneurservices.com.au .

Due diligence – two critical words

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 22:39:48 GMT

Whatever you do on the board or in managing your business, due diligence will keep you on the straight and narrow.

Every area of governance and management requires attention to details and honest, open and transparent actions to ensure all is done above board.

There are a few key areas I often see a shortfall of due diligence which include –

X Manager selection

X Staff selection

X Supplier Selection

X Conflicts of interest

X Payment protocols

X Work Health and Safety Policies and procedures

Let’s quickly touch on each of these areas.

Manager Selection

Whenever I talk to the board of a club in regard to selecting their next Secretary Manager or CEO, I always advocate deep due diligence. Anyone can craft an exemplary resume, which can woo a board to progressing to an interview stage.

Then the due diligence should include a Reference Check of each candidate (get a professional to do it if you don’t know how) to ask the right questions about achievements, financial skills, governance skills (as company secretary, preparing board papers etc.), staff management or interpersonal skills. Also make sure you review the financials of the last/current club they are managing – to see which direction that club is/was heading – growing, static or declining over a 3 year period.

Make sure you select the right manager for your club, to suit the stage your club is in – growth, stable or decline – as each stage of a club’s lifecycle requires different skills sets.

Staff Selection

My personal philosophy is ‘Hire for Attitude, then Train for Skills’, as the people with the right attitude can be trained to do anything and will go the extra mile. I also advocate making a Police Check part of the standard employment application screening. This will avoid dishonest staff just rolling from club to club, and potentially repeating their behaviour to the detriment of their new employer. Any candidate who does not accept a Police Check screening, can just be thanked for their application and not progressed any further.

Part of the process is also establishing up front the standard of behaviour and performance you expect. Give the prospective or new staff member a copy of the club’s Staff Policy Manual, which should spell out the parameters of working for the club. This should include acknowledgement that staff performance will be monitored via the CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) System, especially in cash handling areas. If potential or existing staff baulk at this, it would probably be better to let them go.

Supplier Selection

Do you have a ‘ Preferred Provider ’ policy and procedure in place? The club should, at the very least, have all relevant professional insurance evidence – certificate of currency for public liability, professional indemnity (where required) and workers compensation. You can ask for evidence of qualifications where Certificates or Diplomas may be relevant, to ensure they have the qualifications to back the skill they are claiming. This information should be kept in a central file and updated annually.

Performance of suppliers needs to be tracked and any issues should be addressed straight away, to ensure service standards are always maintained. Don’t be afraid to create ‘In-house” Job cards which will put them on notice that you need to see the details of what they are billing you for.

Payment Protocols

This is another key area where both Governance and management need to ensure they “have their ducks in a row”, to avoid any unintentional (or intentional) mismanagement of funds.

Separation of duties will help ensure probity and as provide the necessary checks and balances required when handling the community’s money. One person should receive invoices, enter them into the accounts payable records and then gain approval for their payment from a senior manager.

Once the approval is made, then the authorised payer can make the payment. The final step should be a secondary person with authorising rights (preferably more senior) will ensure all the payments are then authorised, according to appropriate Grant of Authority levels.

A formal Grant of Authority is a very useful document to control the level of spend by different people within the organisation and confirms the protocol around separation of authority to make payments.

Work Health and Safety (WH&S) Policies and procedures

The last and one of the most important parts of due diligence is ensuring you have the correct WH&S policies and procedures in place. This is one of the greatest business risks, covering staff, contractors, volunteers and patrons to the club (or any business). Everyone under the WH&S Commonwealth legislation has the right to Safe Work Practices, Safe Work Equipment and a Safe Work Environment.

So apart from having the policies and procedures in place, you should ensure -

X staff are appropriately trained in those safe work practices,

X that contractors have a proper induction process to complete prior to working on the premises

X that contractors provide comprehensive evidence of their insurance covers, safe work practices and work authorisation (e.g. white card)

X when a large project is undertaken (e.g. a renovation or major equipment installation) that the daily registers for contractors are enforced and patrons are kept well clear of any works area

Whilst some may think that all these aspects of due diligence are an inconvenience and ‘not really necessary, cause we haven’t had a problem before’, I can assure you, it is far more inconvenient dealing with the consequences of a lack of due diligence.

For more assistance with a review of your organisations due diligence, contact Ron Browne 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Training or Learning and Development?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 00:02:00 GMT

Many businesses baulk at spending money on training...Why?

Many businesses baulk at spending money on training. Why? Because many people believe “If I train them up, then they leave for a better job”. Better to apply Richard Branson’s philosophy “Train people well enough so they can leave you, treat them well enough so they don’t want to”.

I have been in training for a very long time and the value in training is many fold – improving performance of your staff, improving performance of your business, staff who are trained feel more valued by their employer, trained staff require less supervision and productivity usually increases.

Hospitality (and other sectors) is currently experiencing a massive shortage of available talent – both skilled and unskilled. And when you find someone with a pulse and a willingness to join your team, they are often new to the industry or poorly trained, if at all.

People often call training ‘Learning and Development’, so what is the right descriptor and by association, the right approach? Training is one element of Learning and Development (just as advertising is only one element of marketing), so my counsel is to talk Learning and Development (L&D) with staff, colleagues and the directors on your board. If you are open to it, you really do learn something new every day.

As a lifelong learner, involved for over 30 years in training delivery I believe learning and development includes training for skills, mentoring, identifying the beneficial outcomes you seek, and importantly providing opportunities for staff to step up to new challenges in a supportive environment.

What then is the best approach to Learning and Development for your organisation? Logically after the decision to commit to improving the organisation through L&D, there is a process to follow –

X Conduct a Training Needs analysis

X Allocate a budget

X Research the best provider(s)

X Deliver the training (Learning and Development)

X Measure the outcomes

Conduct a Training Needs analysis

Step one is to identify where the areas of learning need exist. This is best done with a couple of approaches – Diversity/Skill matrix to identify the specific skills required in the organisation and a Training Needs analysis, to confirm the areas where the upskilling, education and improvement are most needed.

Remember, this is important for not just the staff, but also for the board of your organisation. The staff training may focus on operational skills and abilities, however there is enormous merit in also assessing the Governance skills and abilities of the board.

Deloitte created a very good Diversity/Skills Matrix, (which we adopted at ClubsNSW) and which I continue to advocate:

X Staff skills matrix to cover the operational areas of food and beverage, gaming, wagering, functions, administration, finance, marketing, social media and so on

X Board skills matrix to cover the governance and oversight areas of finance, legal, strategy, technology, organisational management and others

Once you are aware of the skills incumbent in your team, then you follow through with the Training Needs Analysis –

X Identify the task to be done

X Identify the skills and experience required to effectively execute the task

X Assess the gap between the available skill versus the required skill level

X Identify the training required

X Measure the outcomes

Once this is done, you will know how many of your staff require training, what specific training they need to raise their skill levels and be able to prioritise the key skills needed to be taught first.

The skills that will most beneficially impact your business - Mission critical skills – are the ones you must address first. These are skills that will materially lift the organisation’s performance and hopefully increase turnover and profit. The more proficient your team is, the greater the productivity, which should drive increased profit. Having more competent efficient staff, potentially rostered more effectively, will reduce overhead costs, thus providing the opportunity for greater profit from the same operations.

Allocate a budget

Once you know the scope of the training required – the number of staff involved, the number of training programs required and the timeframe to deliver, you can start to plot a budget.

Depending on the size of your organisation, and the total number of staff you have, you may need to stage the training due to budget constraints. I always advocate that if your budget is $10,000 for L&D that could pay for 10 staff to do a $1000 course or 50 staff to do a $200 course. And bringing a trainer in house (to your venue) rather than sending individuals out to courses, can often reduce the delivery cost as well.

If your budget doesn’t extend to investing in 100 percent of your staff each year, then again focus on the most productive training for the key areas of the business, to generate maximum return on investment. If you can upskill a third of your staff each year, then in 3 years they will all have had some training. Interestingly, once you start investing in training and developing your staff, the increased productivity will usually lead to improved profitability, which in turn increases your capacity to pay for L&D courses for staff.

Those of us old enough to remember the Training Guarantee Levy of the Hawke Government, which ran from 1990 – 1994, will understand the intent was to get companies to pay 1.5 percent of their payroll (for companies who paid more than $225,000 in payroll) on training their staff. So a company with a payroll of $500,000 was required to spend $7,500 on training their staff, whilst a company paying $1 million in payroll would need to spend $15,000.

Applying the same formula today, an organisation with a turnover of $2 million and a wages to turnover ratio of 30 percent ($600,000 payroll) would logically look to spend $9,000 which might equate to $500 per staff member if they had 18 staff. Not an unreasonable amount of money to invest in the employees and the business.

Research the best provider(s)

There are a million and one training providers out there, including TAFE NSW (Australia’s largest Registered Training Organisation [RTO]), Group Training Organisations [GTO] and non-accredited training providers. Some organisations are large enough to justify creating an in-house training organisation (Accredited or non-accredited) to provide the requisite training to their staff, at the standard they dictate and a cost that they control.

Industry specific RTOs abound for hospitality, so accredited training – from Certificate II through to Advanced Diploma level – can be delivered to those wanting a recognised qualification, in commercial cookery, hospitality management and many other areas. RTOs, GTOs and independent trainer(s) can all deliver non-accredited training, which provides the skill and knowledge but not a certified qualification. Often this is more than sufficient to achieve the upskilling for your team.

Do your research and identify the best trainer(s) or training provider(s) to deliver the quality training you want to boost your team’s skills and effectiveness. Referrals or recommendations from trusted sources are the best way to do this, as looking at online ratings for organisations can be manipulated by the provider themselves (super favourable ratings) or their opposition (super bad ratings).

Your industry association will often be able to confidently refer you to provider(s) knowing the quality of service and knowledge they can deliver. Reputations are key here, however bear in mind the following pitfalls can occur –

X Great training provider but lousy individual trainer, or

X Great individual trainer but lousy training provider

Once you have identified the best individual or organisation, book them in so you have a set time and place for your staff to learn and develop.

Deliver the training (Learning and Development)

Once you have completed the steps above, you are ready to schedule and implement the learning and development program for your team. In our industry, with casuals, permanent part-timers and full time employees, it can often be difficult to roster time to attend the training sessions. Shift work plays havoc here and staff invariably want payment for when they attend training of any sort, particularly if it is not during their normal rostered shift.

So work with the person doing the rosters to see how best to roster staff and attend the training (especially if it is being held on site), to ensure you are still covering all your shifts and busy periods. It goes without saying you should aim to schedule training for quiet trade periods – e.g. early in the week and in the morning, before the venue gets really busy. If you have a really functional, cohesive and collegiate team, then schedule anyone any time that suits. If on the other hand, you have a dysfunctional team, look at scheduling potential conflicting staff with each other, so that they understand you are all getting the same training and as a result, they may just work better together.

Measure the outcomes

Make sure you identify the desired outcomes from the training and set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for staff to demonstrate their improved skill and capacity in the workplace. Duty Managers, Supervisors and Team Leaders will all be needed to keep monitoring and providing mentoring assistance to the employees to help embed the learnings into their actual daily work performance.

Management should set a target for Return on Investment (ROI) to measure if you got some ‘bang for your bucks’! And remember to make your staff feel like an integral part of the team, so once you train them they stay with you to repay your investment in them.

For further guidance or assistance with the Learning and Development plans for your organisation, contact Ron Browne on 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Triple Whammy of Challenges

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 13:05:50 GMT

Just when you thought things were getting better...

At the start of the new financial year, we all thought things would get better, but many clubs, pubs and restaurants are facing a triple whammy of challenges:

X Rising costs to the business in food and utilities (power and gas)

X Resurgence of COVID and its impact on staffing

X Rising cost of living decreasing the spending power of our customers

Many businesses have been hit with this triple whammy of challenges and are wondering ‘What the heck can we do to stay in business and stay profitable?’ If you take the sage advice of Ms Dorye Roettger, an American musician, author and creative analyst who said ‘There are no problems, only opportunities to be creative’, then you can take this situation head on and make it work for you.

Here are some tips and thoughts on how to address this challenging situation:

Rising costs of business

Many businesses have been hit by the triple whammy of cost increases – electricity that has literally gone through the roof; food costs impacted by flood induced supply shortages, driving prices up by between 20 and 300 percent; then the much needed boost to wages of approximately five (5) percent for employees to catch up a little on the cost of living rise, driven by power, food and fuel price increases. So how can you be creative and turn these challenges into opportunities?

X If your power contract expired on 30 June, along with thousands of businesses, the new prices were so volatile (read streaking upwards) that power companies said “the market is too volatile to provide a price”. When the energy market regulator stepped in, the prices for the next 12 months for peak power had tripled and all of a sudden they could provide a price.

If you already had a contract locked in, you are somewhat protected. If you already had solar, you are somewhat protected. If you already had a long term contract and solar, you are in great shape.

If not, then locking in a contract at the best possible rate is essential, but for some the horse has bolted. If you don’t have solar, the payback calculations have swung heavily in it’s favour. Where payback may have been between three to five years at low power rates, at the current dramatically increased rates, the payback can be as fast as two years!

X The floods of earlier this year have seriously impacted production, harvest and delivery of fresh produce across the country and driven prices up significantly. Iceberg lettuce famously reached $10/head (an almost 900 percent increase) so my local Chinese restaurant pulled Sang Choy Bao from the menu! Then the price of beef is at record high levels, putting enormous pressure on catering margins.

How do you stay profitable when costs rise dramatically and you can’t pass the whole amount onto your customers? This is the perfect time to issue a new menu – winter or seasonal – and review what you offer. This is also when the portion cost spreadsheet pays for itself. You can plug in the increased costs and see what impact it has in terms of actual cost increase per portion, rather than guessing or putting a 20 percent increase on your prices across the board. Many of you will know I am a fan of reduced portion sizes, served on smaller plates to maintain the illusion of a value for money meal whilst managing the cost.

Most customers no longer want a steak or schnitty that will choke an 18 year old footballer, so a 250 gm cut will suffice, instead of the 350 gm. Add more pasta options to your menu, because pasta hasn’t gone up even though your sauce ingredients may have. But manage that to suit the cost of ingredients too. Remember, no leftovers mean no cost for containers for patrons to take them home, or reduced cost of waste removal. Aim for empty/clean plates to come back.

X The legislated wage increase of just under five (5) percent is much needed for your most valuable resource – your staff. And I am a fan of investing in staff to develop their skills to a higher level, to take them and your business from good to great! The hospitality industry has a delayed onset of October 2022 to start paying the additional wages, but some businesses have started to pay the additional wage as a sign of good faith to their workers.

Managing the most valuable resource you have – your staff – is critical to managing your variable overheads. Rostering is critical to maintaining a profitable operation – whether you are a club, pub or restaurant – and rostering to minimise staff doing overtime hours is a key element. We can never guess accurately what the day’s trade will be, but well trained staff will cope with load fluctuations and with clever rostering, ensuring good coverage of all your trading hours, you should be able to keep your wages to turnover ratio at thirty (30) percent or less.

Clubs and pubs with profitable gaming operations have a distinct advantage here over restaurants, who can tend to edge towards the forty (40) percent wages to turnover level, but this must be managed or you’ll staff yourself out of business.

Resurgence of COVID

Well, let’s face it, it never really went away – we just learned to live with it a bit. We are well vaccinated, which offers protection from major illness, but it is still spreading in the community. For hospitality businesses, where food and drinks are provided, where social interaction is usually within a closed air space over an extended period of time, transmission is highly likely.

When staff catch COVID in NSW the rules are still for a seven (7) day isolation period. If you are a close contact, there are guidelines, on what you need to do to manage your situation, on the NSW Government website COVID Management pages. What does this mean in practical terms for businesses, especially for clubs, pubs and restaurants?

If your staff member contracts COVID and confirms their infection with a Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) or Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test , they need to self-isolate for 7 days. This places pressure on the staff that are healthy and left to carry an increased workload. They must advise you so that your other staff can now monitor for symptoms and if they feel unwell, or experience COVID like symptoms, they should be encouraged to do a RAT and if a positive result occurs, confirm their diagnosis with a PCR test.

Any close contacts of staff or family members who test positive to COVID, can still attend work with a negative RAT, but should monitor for symptoms and test if any appear. The Chief Medical Officer in NSW Dr Kerry Chant is currently advising people to wear a mask in indoor spaces that are not your primary home.

Businesses can make their own decisions to re-introduce COVID management restrictions on customers, but for now, many are just running with “whatever you are comfortable with”. This means if staff or patrons wish to wear a mask on the premises, they are accommodated. Increased hygiene and other protocols – like single use paper menus, spice sachets and regular disinfecting of surfaces are eminently sensible strategies to protect staff and patrons.

This of course will add further pressure to your rostering, when staff genuinely contract COVID or Flu and cannot come to work till they finish self-isolation. Discussion with staff, who are often mostly casuals, around increasing hours for those who are healthy, to cover the shifts of those who are not, can help ease the shortage of staff in the short term. Communication is key here - staff who are well looked after normally, will most likely be quite happy to assist in covering the short fall.

Share the love around and provide the additional work to those with the capacity to take on extra shifts and monitor the fatigue factor – avoid burning out your best staff by asking too much of them physically and mentally.

Rising cost of living

Decreases in the spending power of our customers, based on the rising cost of living is literally another triple whammy situation. High fuel costs – I have a small 2.0 L vehicle and where I used to pay $60 – 70 to fill it, I now regularly pay over $100. For many people this is the true barometer of disposable discretionary spending for families. When fuel prices are high, the money left for a beer, a meal out or a punt is severely reduced.

Consumers are not immune from the rising power and gas costs either. Domestic electricity and gas prices are going through the roof, again further cutting into the discretionary spend of the average family or individual. We won’t even consider the potential impact of the rising interest rates to people’s mortgage repayments, something that has yet to bite with the borrowers who extended themselves to the full with the record low interest rates.

The final part of the equation affecting our customers is the rising cost of food. Every week many people can afford less and less food in their weekly shop, due to the ever rising food costs – meat, vegetables and all the staples like milk and bread, are all on the rise. Only today the price of potatoes was in the spotlight, due to increases in the cost of delivered spuds. All of these factors detrimentally impact our customers, such that three visits per week, may become two or even one per week.

Creative Opportunities

How do we remain profitable in the face of the triple whammy? We need to think really creatively and use a combination of the cost cutting measures discussed above, and look at how you can encourage customers to continue to patronise your venue. And the marketer in me thinks we must be able to find attractive product and service combinations that will entice visitation and discretionary spend in our businesses. Here are a couple of suggestions –

X Offer Budget Buster meal deals – create a simple low cost, high profit menu with well managed portion sizes and aim for the 66 percent gross margin result. For example, if you want to offer a $10 budget meal, make sure all your ingredients cost less than $3.30. Provide smaller portions but use smaller plates too, so it still looks generously full, and include the low cost drink or dessert value-add item

X Run some smart raffles – when people are doing it tough, run some well priced raffles with meat trays, and maybe some essentials packs, like tea, coffee, biscuits and cereals to help struggling families. Offer plenty of prizes so it takes a while to get through them, which keeps the customers in the venue longer, so they buy an extra drink or may stay for a Budget Buster meal after

X Proved Free Entertainment – low cost entertainers can provide entry fee free enjoyment and this will bring in the patrons and help them forget their worries for a while. They will drink and eat things that add to their spend whilst they are on site.

Remember, pubs and clubs done right are the second lounge room for the members and regulars guest, whilst restaurants can be the second dining room for the world weary workers – stressed by rising costs and COVID induced work overload – where you do the cooking and washing up and they can relax with a budget buster meal.

For more information, contact Ron Browne info@extrapreneurservices.com.au or 0414 633 423 .

What is your promotional plan for next year!

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 06:01:02 GMT

New financial year - new promotional plan...

What are you going to push in your club, pub or restaurant in the coming year? Seasonal menu marketing is an obvious start for food outlets like restaurants or bistros in clubs and pubs and targeted promotions around new local events as we come out of COVID restrictions are also an obvious start. What other things will you promote to increase visitation over the next year?

If we do some simple maths and get just a five (5) percent increase in visitation and a commensurate increase in spend per visit, we can increase trade nicely. If your average customer visits are once a week - 52 visits per year - and you can get that 5 percent increase, they will visit approximately 55 times (rounded up). If they spend an average $20 per visit and you can increase that by 5 percent, they will spend $21 .

Initially they were worth 52 x $20 = $1,040 per year . With the 5 percent increase in both visitation and spend, they are now worth 55 x $21 = $1,155 per year which equates to an 11 percent cumulative increase . And that will not increase your costs much, if at all, so it is $115 of additional profit!

Here are a few tips to try and achieve just those 2 increases of only 5 percent:

Cycle marketing

Different times of the year offer different opportunities to engage with your members, patrons and guests, often related to the seasons or sporting seasons (footy season for all codes i.e. AFL, NRL and Rugby through most of the year including winter, or soccer - the real football, and cricket and basketball during summer), or time of year patronage which can be especially location dependent (coastal holiday locations, ski resorts or adventure related places).

You need to work out what to promote at which point of the year to generate the additional visitation and how to better engage your customers so that you grab that extra ‘share of their wallet/purse’. Two quick examples for a 12 month period:

X Sporting venue – the cycles for a sporting venue can go like this –

o March to September – Football – NRL, AFL and Rugby

o September to March – Cricket and Soccer

o Peak events – State of Origin game in June – July, Anzac Day games for AFL and NRL, Grand finals in September – October

o Racing – horses and dogs all year round

o Golf – year round with the 4 majors as Peak Event highlights

X Destination locations – the cycles for a seaside location would be closely linked to -

o School holidays, including Easter and Christmas

o Queen’s Birthday and Labour Day long weekends

o Festivals or community events in the specific locations

o Grey nomads all year round promotions

Setting up a simple cycle marketing plan can be done in an excel spreadsheet, identifying the promotion against the time (Month(s), week(s) or day(s)), that will drive the greatest result in increasing visitation.

Rolling 12 month promotional plan

The cycle plan will best be managed with a rolling 12 month promotional plan. I have found doing this on a quarterly basis is the easiest way to go. Depending on your financial year (July – June, January – December or another period) working with quarters is simple – January quarter (Jan, Feb, Mar) April quarter (Apr, May, Jun), July quarter (Jul, Aug, Sep) and October quarter (Oct, Nov, Dec).

With the excel spreadsheet mentioned earlier, it is easy to create the rolling 12 month approach – as a quarter is completed, you cut it off the front of the sheet and paste it to the back of the sheet – see below.

I tend to highlight the periods (as above) in different colours by campaign and you can also put text in the cells that describe the actual promotion – like a specific day or week, or a particular promotion e.g. Fashions in the Field for Melbourne Cup Day.

Once you set this up, your calendar will quite literally roll round with only additions or variations to the promotions you do. Your plan will be in place to minimise your cycle marketing efforts in the future.

Media Channels

You also need to think about your media channels when looking at your marketing efforts, as the different demographics you are aiming to communicate with will prefer different channels to connect with you.

Consider the range of channels available to you and the likely target audience, like my suggested table below –

Remember printed material can be very expensive to produce and distribute, so the more you can create and communicate with electronic media, the better!

Market Message

With your cycle marketing programs, you will have different target audiences to talk to, through different channels, so the message generally will not be the same. The promotional message to entice a foodie versus a drinker or punter will be different and then there is of course the channel you use to communicate to them.

A family heading to a destination location will probably want to know there are kids play facilities, a good food outlet (or two) and good location relative to accommodation or the highlight feature they are visiting – e.g. beach, river, or sporting facility. So the message will need to be on your website and Facebook page.

A regular club member who comes in to watch the footy will want to know about promos for grand finals, State of Origin or similar peak rounds and have an attractive offer to bring them to your venue and not your competitors.

In clubs and pubs, older patrons want to know that they can sit quietly and enjoy a quiet meal or drink, without noisy children running round the place and that they can get a smaller, low priced meal that suits their budget and appetite.

These are all different messages for different target markets which will need different channels to communicate them. Once great tip is to code your promotions, so you can track which ones are working. For example –

X FMD-16/6-W – could be the code for a family meal deal on 16 June on your website

X SOO-26/6-S - could be the code for a State of Origin promotion via SMS

Then you can see how many people respond to the messages and the relevant channels, so you know you are reaching the right target audience.

If you need more information or assistance in setting up your new year promotional plan, contact Ron Browne , Managing Consultant on 0414 633 423 or ron@extraprenuerservices.com.au

Is your gaming floor working for you?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Mon, 16 May 2022 02:54:15 GMT

All clubs and pubs with electronic gaming machines (EGMs) or pokies, need to review their floor on a regular basis

All clubs and pubs with electronic gaming machines (EGMs) or pokies, need to review their floor on a regular basis to make sure they are working for them. The age of machines, placement on the floor, levels of privacy and rewards programs are all part of the review process.

So long as gaming is legal, and the core of many venues' profit, it is important to manage your gaming room to achieve its potential, whilst being cognisant of all harm minimisation strategies. As I have shared many times before, talk to your expert advisors (gaming company reps and gaming consultants) on your gaming, but there are a few basics we can all think about before we set the budget for the year. Your gaming budgets should include allowances (that you can afford) for -

X Replacing old machines (old will be different ages by venue)
X Upgrading games on existing machines
X Replacing old furniture - chairs and machine bases
X Refreshing the décor - a coat of paint or replacing carpet etc.

Old Machines
The age of replacement for machines varies venue to venue. For the larger venues with high turnover and good profits, machines might be replaced when they hit five (5) years of age. For smaller venues with lower turnover and profit, machines might be held for ten (10) or more years before they can afford to be replaced.

As a rule of thumb most successful venues aim to replace about 15 - 20 percent of their floor every year so that the whole floor is refreshed every five (5) to eight (8) years.

Really small venues, with less than 15 machines, might struggle to find the funds to replace any machines and are often caught with very old stock (20 years or older). There are strategies for working with your gaming company reps and larger clubs to assist you to refresh your floor at little or no cost. If you are in that category, call me for some assistance in connecting you to the right people.

One last point on old machines - my advice is to do away with any old machines that still use dollar coins and have old note acceptors that do not recognise the current plastic notes. You will reduce your stress and work level dramatically by just removing the coin hoppers and making a $5 note the minimum denomination to put into the machine. Alternately, if you have a ticket or card system, people can convert their coins to tickets or cards to start their play.

Upgrading Games
Often times your clients may have lost interest in your current suite of games, but the machine is still very serviceable, then consider the upgrade option. This can be a cost effect way of updating some of your floor, to improve turnover, without breaking the bank.

Look at the gaming data and talk to others in the industry, especially your gaming reps and technicians, to keep abreast of the latest in gaming, including which upgrades work and which ones don't. And remember to attend gaming expos, like the Australasian Gaming Expo from 9 to 11 August 2022 at the Sydney International Convention Centre, which is an invaluable tool for networking and picking the brains of the many experts in gaming and the related supplies.

Replacing Old Furniture
Comfort is a key consideration for gamers and tired, worn and stained chairs (the key piece of gaming furniture) is not an enticing environment for your patrons. There will be many a debate about vinyl versus cloth seat covers, and this will depend on your location (climate can drive part of your decision) and your patrons habits (spilling drinks, food or other stuff onto the chairs).

Also, some chairs look great but are actually quite uncomfortable - the base cushion is too hard, too soft, too wide or not wide enough, the back angle is too straight or too reclined. So do some research and find the right one to suit the majority of your patrons (one size/type will never fit all...).

Chairs can be bought new, second hand or can be sourced at little or no cost (just the cost of transport) from the large clubs and pubs during a refurbishment. Many really wealthy clubs and pubs will renew their décor and items like chairs are usually already written off (fully depreciated) from their books. So they will often put them on a 'trading post' type website or Facebook page to clear them. 'Pick them up and they're yours' is often the opportunity for smaller clubs and pubs on tight budgets.

Refreshing the décor
Another simple review should be the décor of your gaming area(s). Whilst most gaming areas are lit with subdued lighting and have dark(ish) carpets, many will have dividers on row ends, faux vegetation creating barriers to lines of sight and layouts conducive to creating privacy for gamers. All these are important considerations and fresh paint and clean or new carpets can create a fresh feeling for a jaded area.

Again, where profits are good and accruals have created a fund to expend on this type of upgrade, then timing your refurbishment is probably the greatest consideration you will have. For those clubs and pubs with tighter budgets, good quality carpets can be sourced from auction houses, wealthy venue refurbishments (similar to the chairs) and even the manufacturers, who may have line overruns that they want to quit at lower than usual retail price.

Some venues can use a ' working bee' approach to do the actual refresh, alternately, a club member or regular pub patron may be a tradie with the requisite skills to replace the carpet or paint the walls. Of course if you are doing the carpet (and need to move all the machines during the process) remember to review the positioning of your machines within the gaming room space.

Machines under air conditioning vents can be a challenge for occupancy (if it is too hot or too cold) and positioning under lights can be an issue with glare.

Bottom line - now is a great time to review your gaming, allocate some funds to the new financial year gaming budget and then utilise the AGE 2022 expo to inform your decisions and execute the plans over the following year.

For more information contact Ron Browne 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Financial Checks, Balances and Reporting

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 10:29:19 GMT

There is more to managing your finances than you think

April always brings year end accounts to mind for those businesses operating on a 1 July to 30 June financial year. There is more to managing your finances than ensuring you have a financial report in your Annual Report to your stakeholders.

During the year as you operate, you need to ensure checks and balances are in place to avoid mistakes and possible fraud. There have been a couple of instances in the club industry of fraud, where the right checks and balances haven’t been implemented.

Financial Safety

For me in any business, but particularly clubs and pubs, there must be checks and balances in place to ensure no inappropriate money handling can occur. Many people have the opportunity to get fingers in where they perhaps shouldn’t, so some simple measures should be implemented to avoid any of these issues occurring.

Security Cameras – These should be in the club, pub or restaurant anyway, to monitor the behaviour of patrons, but should also be identified to staff as an additional mode of monitoring their behaviour. One key position for a camera is in the manager’s office with a clear view to the safe, when both open and shut. If any existing or potential manager has an issue with this, then I suggest employing another manager.

All areas where money is handled or counted by staff should be monitored for the security of both the business and the staff member. Video footage used as evidence for or against a staff member, should be a part of the Staff Policy, which all staff should sign off on before they commence employment.

Double Checking – it is imperative to me that all cash amounts should be double counted e.g. by the manager and a staff member in any business, but in clubs and pubs, especially smaller clubs and pubs, by the employee/manager and a director.

Pokie Clearances – one person should clear and count the money from each machine and someone else should also count to confirm the amount, machine by machine and then the aggregated total

Till Floats – staff on the start of a shift should always count their till float to ensure it is correct. This is the double check from the manager’s count and ensure the till isn’t short $20 or over $20. This also assists in the end of shift tally, where knowing that the starting float was correct, means any discrepancy at shift end occurred during the shift.

Safe Floats – all businesses will have a float in the safe of additional cash to cover change in tills, payouts for pokies (in clubs and pubs) and top ups for TAB and Keno. The total amount must always equal the designated amount of all floats – e.g. 3 x $500 till floats, $5,000 pokie float, $500 TAB float, $500 Keno float, $1,200 change float and $20,000 safe float. All this should tally to $28,700 as the total amount as par level, for the start and end of the day.

Bank Payments – some banks insist on a two person authentication for payments of invoices, wages and other transactions by businesses whether with old fashioned cheques or via internet banking. This is not only good security, but also good governance. Fraud is so much easier to perpetrate when only one person is required to ‘sign off’ on a payment. And in some cases the person authorised to make the payments is also the only person who enters the invoices and pay amounts. This is absolute red flag stuff for me and must be rectified immediately.

A second person authorising can also check that payments are being made of the correct amount, to the correct supplier and that the supplier and invoice are legitimate. Indeed a second trustworthy employee must be trained and authorised to do payments, so that the prime employee can take leave – sick leave, annual leave and long service leave of any required duration, and payments can still be made.

Accounts Payable and Receivable – many clubs, pubs and restaurants will have little or no accounts receivable, unless they offer invoice payment to patrons for functions where large sums of money are involved. Accounts payable however need to be monitored and managed closely to ensure correct data entry – which can impact product pricing and profit margins – and timely payment – to ensure a good credit rating.

Cash Reserves – ‘Cash is king’ is the old adage that is very apt. Cash, in the form of cash reserves – term deposits and savings – are essential to ensure the business is solvent at all times. The test for solvency is being able to pay all debts ‘as and when they fall due’. I have mentioned in other articles that loans from banks and financial institutions will always have a clause or caveat that ‘the [institution] can call in its debt at any time’. This is an ever present risk for businesses trading poorly but can effect even the largest, strongest business, should it extend itself with a large loan and business conditions take a turn for the worse.

Another issue for business is that of long term employees with large annual and long service leave liabilities. An employee leaving a business must be paid the full amount of termination pay on the day they leave and this can often be a substantial sum. If the amount is in excess of the businesses cash reserves, then the business is technically insolvent. Arrangements with the employee for part payments are illegal and should not be discussed.

Cash reserves and a positive cashflow are also essential for the business to prove the ‘capacity to repay’ loans when looking to renovate, refurbish or expand the business in some significant way.

Reporting financial results - are different depending on the structure of your business. Quarterly Business Activity Statements (BAS) are a mandatory requirement for any business registered for Goods and Services Tax (GST). A sole trader, partnerships, incorporate associations and cooperatives need only ensure their BAS is competed quarterly and an annual Tax Return is submitted to the Australian Tax Office (ATO). There may be a requirement to submit an annual return to a state authority (like the Department of Fair Trading in NSW) however companies, registered with Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) have to submit an audited Annual Report to them.

In NSW registered clubs must report to their members on a quarterly basis with Financial Accounts – Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet reports, which must be made available to members no later than seven (7) days after adoption by the board. An Annual report, which includes a full financial report, Directors’ report and an auditor’s report must also be made available to members within four (4) months of the end of the club’s financial year and at least 21 days before the Annual General Meeting where it will be tabled.

Financial Responsibility – a final note for all organisations that are companies (public, private, not for profit and companies limited by guarantee). Your board of directors or committee are all equally liable for the financial well being of your organisation and must be constantly aware of the financial situation of the entity, especially in regard to solvency as I mentioned earlier. This applies regardless of the frequency of board meetings – monthly, every 2 months, every quarter or six monthly. It is best to keep the officers of the entity informed with monthly accounts, so that they are always aware of how the business is travelling.

Financial Advice – I am not an accountant or auditor, so this advice is general in nature and grown out of commercial experience. You must ensure you have a trustworthy and qualified accountant to help manage your business finances, taxation and superannuation commitments. And similarly a trustworthy and qualified auditor to oversee all your reporting is a must.

Whilst many businesses start off small and grow to a more significant size with the same financial management processes, it is imperative in these times to ensure you have the appropriate checks and balances in place, for all money handling processes, to safeguard the finances of the business. Ignorance of the financial situation of the business you are responsible for as an owner, manager or director is no defence in court!

For more information contact Ron Browne , Managing Consultant on 0414 633 423 or info@extrareneurservices.com.au .

Crisis Management and Business Recovery Plan…what plan?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 04:59:36 GMT

Well, if the past two years have taught us anything, it is to expect the unexpected!

Just when we thought we were over drought, bushfires, flood and COVID, we have been whacked again by extreme flooding in parts of northern NSW and the coastal regions from Sydney to the Queensland border.

When facilitating strategic planning with organisations, I always ask if they have a Crisis Management and/or Business Recovery plan in place? Most don’t and up until 2020, no-one had pandemic in their Threat section of the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis either. You can bet they all have pandemic in there now, but gee, what about the response to bushfires and flood, as key environmental threats that rear their ugly heads with monotonous regularity?

Crisis Management

What do I mean by Crisis Management and Business Recovery plan? When the excrement hits the wind generating implement, a Crisis Management plan spells out:

X What needs to be done?

X Who should do it?

X When it needs to be done by? and

X What resources we need to do it with?

Everyone needs to be aware of this plan, so that no matter what the crisis, everyone knows their role and what has to happen. Whilst the flood levels this time were extreme, such that for example the businesses in the whole main street of Lismore were inundated to ceiling level and beyond, which is virtually indefensible, under normal circumstances, crisis response or preparation would probably include:

X Ensuring you have flood damage insurance cover (where possible, feasible and affordable) and someone is responsible for

contacting the insurance company in the event of a flood

X Identifying the chain of command for decision making – the owner, the boss, the board or the manager – one must be selected as

the senior decision maker

X Moving any portable valuable to high ground (above any possible flood level)

X Barricades at doors with plastic sheeting and sandbagging to protect against inundation as much as possible

X Isolation of electrical circuits (as water and electricity really don’t play well together

X Ensuring the property is as secure as it can be to prevent possible access to looters after the fact

X A list of tasks identified that need to be done and allocating who is responsible to do those tasks

X Communications – ensure all stakeholders – staff etc. - have a contact list of phone numbers (assuming the network stays

operational) to keep in touch and coordinate activities

Whilst I am sure my list is comprehensive, it is neither complete nor prescriptive. The point here is you need a tailored crisis management plan that will allow you to be prepared for the emergency before it arrives. It is something you should discuss and review occasionally and with the Lismore flood example, a couple of years ago the flood in the main street only went to a metre or so above floor levels. Therefore preparations for that level of inundation would have been less than fully effective against this year’s 2 – 3 metres above floor level.

And fire preparedness is another strategy altogether which would logically include securing irreplaceable vital documents and valuable items in a fireproof location, instructions regarding evacuation decision making, with an over-riding instruction to follow the fire services emergency response teams advice.

Business Recovery

So with your Crisis Management plan, you now know what to do when it all goes pear shaped, but then 2 critical questions arise:

Can we continue to trade whilst we regather ourselves and repair the damage?
If the answer to Q1. above is no, how do we sustain/continue to trade as a business until we have repaired and recovered?

So your Business Recovery plan must include Business Continuity, spelling out how you will continue to trade, or how you will keep paying the bills and retain staff till the business is ‘back to normal’.

I will declare here that I am not on the payroll, nor receive any commissions or incentive payments from, any insurance company, however I am a great advocate of being appropriately insured as a business. In this context you can take out Business Continuity (or Interruption) Insurance that will cover things like payment of rent and staff wages (amongst other agreed covers) for a percentage of the usual amount and for an agreed period. This insurance will assist in retaining your premises, your staff and allow you to focus on the other issues, like repairs and refurbishment of your premises and replacement of stock, to expedite your return to business as usual, so be sure to talk to your business insurance broker today!

Your premises (building) refurbishment and stock (inventory) replenishment should be funded by your normal business building and content insurances, so once the crisis has passed, it is critically important to work to your Business Recovery plan and get back trading in some way, shape or form as quickly as possible. An important note here – if you are a tenant in someone else’s building, get a copy of their Certificate of Currency every year, to ensure they can repair the building if an emergency occurs. If you can’t get that, find new premises to rent where they can provide insurance assurance for you.

Whilst they had no plan in place at the time, when the Ardlethan Bowling Club burned down in early 2014, they had no good options in town for alternate premises till they were able to rebuild their club, so two strategies arose:

The club traded out of the greenkeepers shed for the first six months of the recovery
By December 2014, six months after the fire, they had approval for, and had completed construction of, their temporary clubhouse which is now used as club rooms for the bowlers

During that time, simultaneous planning occurred to design and build the replacement club and within two full years the new club was opened in April 2016.

Under normal circumstance, your Business Interruption/Continuity plan will have identified alternate premises to operate from in the short to medium term, until your premises are completed. Katoomba RSL traded from their amalgamated Wentworth Falls Bowling club for most of the time it took to rebuild their new club on the home site (February 2017 till August 2019).

As is always the mantra, ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail’ , and as I always say ‘the benefit of the plan is in the planning’ . So going through the planning process means you know what needs to happens if the worst should occur, but you hope and pray you never need to invoke the plan.

I encourage every club, pub and restaurant to have a Crisis Management and Business Recovery plan in place, so you do not go into a flat spin panic when things go sideways. If you need guidance and assistance, I can provide templates and facilitate planning sessions to ensure you are prepared for any foreseeable eventuality. For more information contact Ron Browne, Managing Consultant on 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Bored in the Board Room?

Mon, 21 Feb 2022 22:55:32 GMT

How does the Board of your business operate?

How does the Board of your business operate? Is yours a high functioning and effective board, or are the directors bored to death by snail’s pace discussions, lack of agenda and focus, or lack of equity and inclusion from an assertive chair or individual?

An efficient board, supporting a strong and focused manager/CEO leading a proficient management team, is a great combination. Together it usually delivers excellent results for a business, which manifests itself as positive and sustainable growth in both revenue and profits.

Frequency

How often do you need to meet? This varies from business to business and from one industry to another. Most companies make do with quarterly meetings, although some prefer greater frequency, meeting every other month (for six meetings per annum) to govern their organisation. Single director companies rarely hold formal board meetings, and often it is their accountant who meets the Corporations Act requirement for at least one Annual General Meeting per year, by doing the requisite documentation to lodge with the annual return.

Up until late 2021, the Registered Clubs Act required clubs in NSW to hold a board meeting every month (twelve per annum), however this requirement has been removed from the legislation. The new legislated minimum is four (4) meetings per year, however the number is at the discretion of each club board. You can continue with twelve per annum if that is what feels comfortable. Some boards also have additional meetings for sub-committees, which then report to the whole board.

It may be necessary to review your constitution, in case you have guidance recorded in the constitution around the number of board meetings per annum. Make any future guidance flexible e.g. ‘The board will meet quarterly (once every three (3) months) as a minimum, with the ability to hold additional meetings as required’.

Efficiency

How efficiently do your board meetings run? The keys to success for efficient board meetings rely on three (3) major components:

Board papers and agenda circulated (preferably) one (1) week prior to the meeting – to allow time for papers to be read and any questions to the manager addressed and clarified prior to the meeting,
Sticking to the agenda – which must have indicative timings for each topic – so that the meetings run no longer than 1.5 to 2 hours. Statutory reports need only be accepted as read and discussion should only be on issues by exception, so that the focus can be strategic and not overly operational,
An effective chair - who guides the board through the agenda and ensures inclusion and input from all attending. A truly effective chair will always check all participants have been asked for their say on any and all topics before final decisions are made. They also ‘drive’ the discussion to ensure no tangential discussions or worse, repetitive discussions, are curtailed and decisions taken in a timely manner.

Functionality

Are your meetings a little dysfunctional due to personality issues and lack of structure? All meetings chaired by an effective chair should be functional – achieving results, collegiate – avoiding conflict and cooperative – reaching majority consensus.

A little trick to improve the collegiality of board meetings is to draft a Board Table map, and see where directors tend to sit (obviously not a tactic for Zoom board meetings). They will generally sit with their allies, so that they create a virtual ‘voting block’ or power base from which to operate. Institute a name block for each director and let them know that you will be allocating seating for each meeting on a random basis. This should include the Chair, to lead by example, and then make sure that people sit next to different colleagues at each subsequent meeting.

This will aid in reducing conflict between different factions of the board, as they are no longer sitting in their little power blocks, and interestingly, having people sit in different positions round the board table, actually does alter their ‘perspective,’ albeit subconsciously.

Any conflict must be mediated by the Chair. As the effective Captain/Coach of your team, the Chair must ensure any conflict is defused as soon as it arises. If things get heated, call a halt to proceedings and have a five (5) minute time out – coffee or toilet break – which will allow heads to cool. Then resume the meeting with emotions in control and try to reach mutually agreeable conclusions.

Disagreements are healthy to reach suitably discussed conclusions, a little friction is healthy for robust discussions. In board meetings with a quorum present, majority decisions stand, however, once outside the board room, remember – you must all sing from the same hymn sheet. No non-board members are to be privy to how the vote went (how many for or against) as all decisions become ‘Board decisions’ and should be supported unanimously in public.

A final point here, it is OK to disagree, however if you are going to ‘die in a ditch’ over a decision and it really upsets you, you need to decide if you can live with a decision that goes against your views or values. If you can't, then the best thing to do, if you can’t change the other directors’ minds, is to step off the board.

Focus

What is the main focus in your board meetings? Operational or strategic issues? As a board, your focus must be strategic! You have delegated the responsibility of running your company to the manager/CEO so why interfere in the day to day running of the business? That’s like ‘having a dog, but doing your own barking.’

In order to ensure a strategic focus in board meetings, it is best to stick to the agenda and stay focussed on issues like succession planning, long term strategies to ensure the financial viability and sustainability of the business and areas for growth or development of the business. And this should always include attention to the financial, physical and human resources available to the organisation.

On a quarterly basis, you should be reviewing the operational delivery of the business against the strategic objectives for the immediate past term. Which leads us to the final point of a good board meeting.

Results

An effective and functional board should be focused on strategy and keeping the management accountable to the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you set for them to operate a successful business.

Targets, goals or KPIs, whichever term you use, are set by the board for the management to achieve, to ensure a viable business. All these targets or goals should be SMART goals:

X S pecific

X M easurable

X A chievable

X R ealistic

X T ime-framed

The types of KPIs to look at include, but are not limited to, total revenue, profit percentage (gross and nett profits), wages ratios, stock turn, staff churn, customer satisfaction, percentage hold (the profit after payouts from electronic gaming machines – where applicable for clubs and pubs) and financial goals (like equity or cash reserves) that will ensure the business is going to survive and prosper.

A well run board with efficient, functional, focused and results oriented meetings, held at appropriate intervals for your business, will go a long way toward providing your management with the certainty, consistency, support and resources they need to deliver on your strategic goals. That in turn will deliver you, the board, a successful and prosperous business.

For more information or training on effective board meetings for your governing body, contact Ron Browne ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au or 0414 633 423

Where have all the workers gone?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Fri, 14 Jan 2022 01:16:22 GMT

COVID has decimated the workforce of hospitality, tourism and travel industries

Source: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/job-vacancies-australia/nov-2021#industry

COVID has decimated the workforce of hospitality, tourism and travel industries like nothing before in most of our lifetimes. Add the perfect storm conditions of -

X no foreign travellers filling casual roles

X reduced foreign students on our shores needing part time work

X shutdowns driving workers to more ‘stable’ industries

X COVID infections now rampant and closing businesses through lack of healthy staff

And you have the recipe for disaster! Don’t get me wrong, Health Care and Social Workers are in the same if not greater crisis at the moment, but our industries (referred to as Accommodation and Food Services in the ABS table above) are the second worst off in terms of available workers.

Add to this that our industries have experienced the highest proportion of businesses reporting vacancies in November 2021 – 30.9 percent , and you know that as a sector, we are really struggling!

Total employees in the sector were at 928,800 at peak in February 2020, just before COVID hit and dropped by almost a third (32,7 percent) to 652,000 in May 2020, when most of the country was in lockdown one. As at November 2021, the number had recovered to 852,700 but this is still 8.1 percent below the peak.

I advocate that businesses should review their workforce each year and for many businesses, not located in tourist hubs, January is a good quiet month to take stock. If you are in a tourist hub and therefore experiencing your peak season, or if you take the opportunity to go on leave in January because you are quiet, then February, when schools are back and trade is still slow, with people paying off holiday debt, is the next best option.

Optimising staff

As we have discussed a few times in the past twelve months, COVID has disrupted our businesses like never before. So, we should utilise the opportunity to rigorously review our operations and our workforce, especially as the artificial shortage is creating problems for our businesses to have enough staff to open the doors.

What sort of checklist would you use to review staffing? Here are a few tips:

X When are our peak trading hours?

X How many staff do we really need per shift?

X What is the mix of permanent, part time and casual staff available?

X What are the current skills of our staff and are they all cross trained?

X What training can we provide to upskill our staff to improve their versatility and efficiency?

X How effective is our rostering in keeping a lid on wages?

X When did you last sit down with your staff and review their roles and career path options?

X How engaged and committed to our organisation and community are our staff?

X What can we do to improve their engagement and commitment?

You also need to address any changes in your clients’ needs as a result of the revised trading conditions brought about by the pandemic. Do they still want all the products and services you used to provide, or have somethings fallen by the wayside?

Many food outlets have moved to reduced menu options as a result of reduced trade, to minimise wastage, so has this had any impact on how you make and deliver the food? Do you need as many kitchen hands due to lower prep requirements? Can they be re-allocated to front of house in lieu of kitchen hours?

Alternately review how you deliver your food – is it run to the tables by wait staff or do you provide buzzers for the client to collect their own food at the pass or front counter? Is this an area where you might restructure to reduce the labour load or reallocate staff to another area of the business?

Whilst rostering is one of the least favourite jobs to do in any establishment, getting the planning of rosters right can dramatically reduce the payroll, especially by eliminating overtime, when poor rostering results in excess hours for some of the staff.

Replacing Staff

Many venues have lost staff over the past twelve months, particularly those with additional skills or qualifications in areas not related to hospitality. With the uncertainty of when the next lockdown might shut their venue indefinitely, many workers have voted with their feet and changed industries, to ones less at risk of sudden shut downs, exacerbating the existing staff shortage in our industry.

This is eminently understandable, as everyone has bills to pay and mouths to feed, regardless of a COVID driven lockdown. Right now, anyone with any level of skill in hospitality, let’s face it, anyone with a pulse can get a job in hospitality, we are so desperate for bodies to do the work. So the key here is how to provide effective induction training and get even non-hospitality staff up to some standard of efficiency, so we can continue to trade.

Just in the past few months, when attending a club, pub or restaurant, my critical eye picks out the ‘newbies’ who can’t do a simple three plate carry, or don’t know how to stack plates properly to clear a table efficiently, without dropping them as they walk through the kitchen door…

So when replacing staff, it is critically essential to have a proper induction program to bring these new workers up to speed. They need to have an experienced mentor work with them and a structured program of the skills they need to gain, to be as effective as possible in the shortest possible time. Often a basic trial period of a couple of hours will help identify those who have the natural skills to do hospitality well and those who are just hopeless and will be a burden to the business.

You need to establish a firm culture for your venue – the whole “this is how we do things here” approach, which should cover off -

X The physical skills – pouring drinks, carrying plates etc.

X The personal attitude and approach to customers

X The technology training – POS systems and gaming where appropriate

X The venue ‘Code of Conduct’ - as it impacts staff and customers alike

That way, you can inculcate the way you want things done to new, raw staff and can set down the parameters of change for more experienced staff who may want to do things differently. If you’re paying their wages, they need to operate your way and represent your business the way you prefer!

When will the shortage end?

If I had a crystal ball, I could answer that one for you. Without the additional workers that traveling foreigners and overseas students provide, we will struggle for a while yet. Even the old ability to bring in workers on Temporary Skills Shortage 482 or 457 Visas is still very much up in the air, from both the COVID and Government policy perspectives.

The announcement from the Minister for Immigration the Hon Alex Hawke (25 Nov 2021) has provided some hope “…the Government’s recent announcement that fully vaccinated eligible temporary and provisional visa holders may enter Australia without a travel exemption from 1 December 2021.”

Suggestions have been made in the media about bringing mature age workers out of retirement, which is a band aid not a panacea, but anything will help right now. Crash tackle school aged kids and get them on the path to a hospitality career at the front or back of house. Ensure anyone you do employ gets the best possible working conditions you can provide, gets the right pay, super and penalty rates and is made to feel an integral part of your business. These are all steps that will endear workers to you as an ‘ employer of choice’ and help them stay in your employ and alleviate your worker shortage at least.

Many clubs with the right approach and the financial means to keep staff on board through the shutdowns, have fared quite well and have a reasonably full complement of staff. But even some of those have left since the re-opening, due to relocations or finishing their university studies and are now planning for their long term corporate future which means they have left the industry.

We have a great industry to work in, especially if you are a people person, or passionate about food, fun and entertainment, so take a good hard look at where you are today and how you can maximise the efficient deployment of the staff you have, how you can improve their efficiency and keep the doors open and profitable.

For more information contact Ron Browne at ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au or 0414 633 423

Compliant or Non-Compliant?

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 00:24:57 GMT

Who the heck thinks about compliance when we are struggling in a COVID-19 impacted world?

Hospitality like many other sectors is swamped with compliance issues. Depending on your sector, you will have more compliance pressures than others. And who the heck thinks about compliance when we are struggling to find staff, keep staff and even trade at all with changing requirements in a COVID-19 impacted world?

Cafes and restaurants probably have the lightest load, as they don’t usually have gaming or wagering as part of their offering. So, if you have a liquor licence then on top of any Food Safety Supervisor requirement, HACCP ( Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points ) is an option whilst Liquor Licensing requirements will be mandatory on a state by state basis.

If you are a club or pub, depending on the state you operate in, you will have gaming and/or wagering and that brings additional compliance requirements, over and above the food safety side of things mentioned above for cafes and restaurants.

Each state has it’s own requirements for a heck of a lot of other legislation that you need to comply with, whether or not you are aware of them, and this is where some businesses get caught out. Just simple pay rates are a minefield, as Coles discovered for a second time in early December 2021 when it was discovered that they had ‘underpaid 7,800 employees more than $115 million’ as alleged by the Fair Work Ombudsman. (Source - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-02/coles-underpays-7800-employees-more-than-115-million-allegedly/100669200)

This following revelations in February 2020 that ‘Coles says it has underpaid staff in its supermarket and liquor stores and has set aside $20 million to pay back employees’. (Source - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-18/coles-underpays-employess-20-million-review-reveals/11974984)

And this blew out a few months later to ‘Coles workers have launched a class action that claims the supermarket giant allegedly underpaid staff over $150 million - more than six times the amount the company announced to the stock exchange earlier this year’. (Source - https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/coles-workers-claim-they-were-underpaid-150-million-in-new-class-action-20200514-p54suw.html)

And Coles is one of but a few of the big guys (including Woolworths, the ABC and Flight Centre) caught out with non-compliant pay rates for staff across the country, so what hope does a small café, restaurant, club or pub have in ensuring they do everything right?

Compliance Audit

A great starting point is for any business to appoint someone as their Compliance Officer, delegated the responsibility to review and address all their compliance requirements. For most small businesses, this will either be the owner or the owner’s family member (partner, son, daughter…) and they may not have the knowledge to do the job either. And will they allocate sufficient time to check everything out?

If you want to take it on yourself, then start by having a conversation with your accountant and lawyer, then chat to any industry body (ClubsNSW [or other state body], Club Managers Association, Restaurant & Catering Institute Australia, Australian Hotels Association etc.) and gather whatever industry specific information they can provide. They may have an audit checklist you can use to ensure you comprehensively cover all aspects you need to, to be fully compliant.

If all that sounds like too much hard work, or you don’t have the time or resources to do it for yourself, you can go to consultants (like me of course) and we can tackle it on your behalf. Because when you start to look at compliance, there are so many elements to it, including but not limited to:

Governance

X Business structure – company, sole trader etc.

X Policies and procedures – Constitution, Strategic Plan, Work Health & Safety, Procurement, Anti-Bullying and Harassment (to name but a few)

X Fiduciary compliance – Award rates, Business Activity Statement (BAS), Superannuation

X Crisis Management – Emergency, Business Continuity and/or Recovery plan, Cybersecurity, Armed Robbery Prevention

Risk Management

X Policy establishment with appetite and capacity parameters set

X Range of risks including Reputational, Environmental, Financial, Human Resources

X Insurances – yours and any contractors or lessees

Legislative Compliance

X State laws e.g. Food and Liquor Acts, Workers Compensation, Privacy etc.

X Commonwealth laws e.g. Food Standards, Work Health and Safety, Corporations Act and Anti Money Laundering/Counter Terrorism financing (AML/CTF – if applicable)

So it is not a quick and easy fix, just ensuring all this is in place and actually complies with all the legislation, will take some time. And PLEASE, do not re-invent the wheel! Don’t try and write your own policies and procedures etc., cause someone has already done it and an industry association, or a friendly competitor, can be asked to share a template, which you then contextualise to your own requirements.

Coal Face Compliance

This is the critical and often vitally essential next step in compliance. The easiest example for all to understand is around Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA). Everyone who sells or supplies alcohol must have their RSA certification (I always keep mine current because you never when someone is going to ask you to jump behind a bar) to work in any hospitality venue (or retail outlet) that supplies alcohol. You can learn it face to face in a training session with a registered training organisation (RTO) or do it online via an accredited RTO providing the same information live, online, anytime.

And in NSW the State Government provides the Online re-accreditation course, which must be refreshed every five (5) years, to maintain ‘currency’. But that is the easy bit, as once you have your accreditation, it is about applying it at the coal face.

Once you have your RSA and you start working in a venue that sells alcohol, the attention to not serving minors, ensuring patrons never ‘approach intoxication on the premises’ and sending anyone who is ‘off tap’ (cut off due to approaching intoxication) gets sent home, in a responsible and safe manner.

Here is where compliance can fall off a cliff! Here are some quotes I have personally experienced in venues I have worked in over the past 46 years of involvement in hospitality –

X Oh don’t worry about Joe*, he just lives around the corner and drives himself home every night…. (when he has been let get absolutely smashed)

X Sally* only comes in Friday and Saturday night and has a really stressful job, so she lets her hair down. Yeah, she’s fine

X I’m a director of this club, so you just pour me another beer love, and we’ll forget you said anything about going home…….

* Names changed

Regardless of all the rules and regulations, trained staff or house policies in place, unless the management enforce, or indeed re-enforce the compliance of RSA, you can get a strike against you, or your venue more specifically.

Compliance knows no friends – there can be no exceptions, variations or blindness – when the penalties for breaches can be so massive. AML/CTF particularly has huge penalties if you breach the rules and are caught doing so. For example, the maximum penalty for an individual who breaches the AML/CTF legislation can be 20,000 penalty units (units range in value from $110 - $222 depending on when the offence happened) so between $2.2 and 4.44 million dollars. A corporation can be liable for up to a maximum of 100,000 penalty units ($11 – 22.2 million).

For clubs and pubs requiring AML/CTF programs and regular compliance reports, due in March each year, providing false or misleading information attracts a penalty of Imprisonment for 10 years or 10,000 penalty units ($1.1 – 2.2 million), or both. It is easy to see therefore, that compliance is indeed the cheaper option.

Compliance is often seen as a costly and irksome burden, however the cost of non-compliance will be far greater and far more irksome.

Extrapreneur Services can provide a simple and cost effective desk top Governance, Risk and Compliance Audit for hospitality businesses across the country, by simply contacting Ron Browne on 0414 633 423 or info@extrapreneurservices.com.au

What if your business is disrupted?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Sat, 13 Nov 2021 05:16:22 GMT

Pre-2020 disruption referred mainly to business being done differently...

Who's up next...and when?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 06:56:12 GMT

Succession planning is one of those things some organisations think about, but few do anything concrete to address

Succession planning is one of those things some organisations think about, but few do anything concrete to address it. Succession planning is critically important for both your board and your organisation’s staff and should be a topic of discussion regularly at board level.

I believe there are three (3) key elements of succession planning –

X Tenure

X Talent

X Transition

Let’s examine each one of these elements separately and then look at how they interact to create a sound succession planning process.

Tenure

When discussing tenure, I refer to the amount of time someone has been on the board, or in a workplace role, and how much they are contributing to their role. In the governance space, there was a massive push a few years ago to limit board tenure (the amount of time someone could spend on a board) to around eight (8) to ten (10) years, at any one time. This forced many companies to push some long standing directors off their board, purely based on the amount of time they had been on the board, not looking at their contribution and input as a key indicator.

The result was that many highly effective and productive directors left their company boards and, in many cases, took much of the ‘corporate memory’ with them. Thereafter, the boards struggled with new directors not understanding the history of the organisation and then often stumbling to poor decisions and corporate decline.

In my opinion, tenure for directors needs to be measured by ‘ effective input ’. As long as a director is active, contributes to robust discussions and works in a collegial manner to achieve the best outcomes for the organisation, then they can stay on board. Individuals often have their own timeframe and will decide that when they have served a suitable amount of time on the board, they will step down and move on, to allow ‘fresh blood’ to be injected into that board.

I remember a few years ago meeting a foundation director of a club that was 58 years old. That foundation director was still serving, continuously since the club was formed, and was a spritely 90 odd year old, who served for a total of 60 years in the end. An amazing effort, but one might question if that was perhaps a little too long?

The same issue is important to understand with staff and management. Recently the story of the CEO of Sony Music Australia Denis Handlin, was brought to public attention for some staff management issues. What struck me was his tenure of 51 years as an employee, including 37 years at the helm as Managing Director and CEO. Succession planning was probably never, if ever, discussed in regard to board or management transition. This can pose problems that only surface when the long standing director or employee finally leaves, for whatever reason – sadly including death with many directors in the club industry.

News Corp faced this possibility in 2018 when Rupert Murdoch slipped and fell, hurting his back, which laid him up for about four (4) months. Speculation ran wild as to who would take over, had Rupert’s fall been fatal. No-one knew the answer and little succession planning has happened since, on the basis that “Rupert will never die”. Only this year has there been some serious discussion relating to succession with Rupert now over 90 years of age, and his children jostling for position.

There gave been many examples of very long tenure for some managers of clubs and whilst some have the energy and foresight to change and adapt their clubs to the evolving markets, some have stagnated for 90 percent of their time at the helm. This has been detrimental to the organisation and often only the final change of management offers the opportunity to refresh and revive a flagging enterprise.

Regular discussions, say every six (6) months, should be held in the board room asking directors ‘who is planning to step down at the next election, or at the end of their current term?’ The Board should be asking the CEO, as managers should also be asking long term employees ‘when are you going to move on or retire?' where CEOs have been there for a while and employees are near the end of their working life.

The answers to these questions should inform the succession planning of future directors and employee career path plans. Succession from within is one option and seeking external talent is a second option, both of which should be explored in exercising due diligence for governance and management.

Planning this sort of process improves the state of preparedness for sudden departures – resignations or deaths – with a talent pool already identified as potential future directors or managers.

Talent

This is the greatest challenge of all. Ensuring diverse talent on your board, and in your management team, is critical for both governance and operational success. Management guru Charles Handy pointed out in 1990, that a cricket team would not be comprised of 11 bowlers, because the best teams are ‘a collection of differences’. The point of a team is that each individual in the team brings a range of skills, knowledge, attitudes, aptitudes, personalities and priorities to the team. And you should select those who have the best attributes for certain roles in the team.

A Diversity or Skills Matrix is the best starting point to identify the talent already existing on the Board or in management. That way should someone leave, you are aware of what talent(s) has/have been lost and probably need replacing. In addition, a Diversity matrix can identify if the team is short of any particular (usually) essential skills, so that your recruitment of a new director, or staff member, can be informed by that knowledge, to target the best, and requisite, talent available.

The best time to look for talent is when you least need it. Building a pool of talent is an important part of effective succession planning. Identifying the next potential director(s) before you need them, means they can start learning some of the important knowledge to effectively fulfil their role as a director, when they are finally appointed or elected. Fill the pipeline before you need to turn on the talent tap.

Observership programs can be really useful in developing future directors – they are invited to observe the board in operation, during non-commercially sensitive discussions – so that they are aware of what lies ahead for them in their duties and responsibilities. Selecting members in clubs to be part of sub-committees providing advice to the board can also be a great way of developing future directors for your club or organisation. In management, providing new projects or seconding staff to responsibilities they may inherit when they progress in their careers, is also a solid way of future proofing your succession planning.

When employees have career path planning discussions with senior management, they are usually filled with enthusiasm that manifests itself in higher quality performance, when they know that the organisation is prepared to invest in them and develop them for future promotion. Again, in management using a diversity matrix to identify the talents and skills of employees is important, so that employees are developed along lines that suit their talents and potentially their interests.

With directors you should be looking at people in your community, who may have the skills and talents you are looking for, to broaden the diversity on your board. Diversity has many elements, amongst them gender, age, education, socio-economic status and industry experience , all of which create diverse perspectives and viewpoints which enhance discussions at board level. In the club industry, you must be a member of your club to be on the board, so when recruiting outside of the club membership, it is important to understand that a potential director must join the club in order to join the board.

Talent manifests itself in many different ways and the benefits of youth, in other words young people, are their limitless thinking, their familiarity with technology and their boundless enthusiasm to try to do things with the organisation that may have been tried before, or conversely, may have never been thought of. Whilst young people may have limited governance experience, they will learn the tenets of governance from the existing board directors whilst bringing the benefits of their talent to the board, to help develop the organisation for the future.

Education and training are important parts of both governance by a board and operational management by staff in an organisation. Every organisation should have a learning and development budget, for both the director's on the board for governance education and for the staff for skills and management education. The better the quality of talent on your board, or in your organisation, the more likely your organisation is to be hugely successful and sustainable on an ongoing basis. Effective succession planning is the key to success for ensuring the long term viability of your organisation.

Transition

One of the most complex elements of succession planning is transition. Transition relates to the ‘ passing of the baton ’, as it were, from one generation to the next, be it your long standing directors on the board, or your senior management, handing over control of the business to younger staff, who are graduating up the ranks to positions of senior management.

From the board perspective, transition is most challenging when you have entrenched directors who believe they still have more to offer, after a long term of service. Whether or not they are productive and contributing is something the chair should monitor and manage and if they are no longer productive directors, then conversations should be had to ensure smooth transition with those directors stepping off the board, to allow fresh directors to join the board.

One of the key elements, as we've discussed in succession planning, is diversity. Transition to improve diversity has been a major roadblock on many boards, particularly in the club industry. Long held as a male domain, many directors verbally endorse and support diversity, particularly gender diversity, however are reticent to step down to make way for the new directors who can address gender, age and education diversity for the board.

Unlike private and public companies, clubs, being member based organisations, can only appoint or elect members to their boards, so if external recruitment for talent is exercised, membership must be confirmed before that person can accept the director’s role.

As discussed earlier, a vital element of transition is the passing of corporate history from the older generations of directors to the new ones. Organisational amnesia can lead to mis-steps being made, or worse still repeated, due to that knowledge having left the board. Whilst sometimes things that didn’t work in the past may have actually arrived at ‘ their time ’ and can succeed, other things will never succeed, regardless of the timing.

So utilising programs, like Observership and membership of sub-committees, can facilitate the transition of candidates onto the organisation board, with the relevant corporate knowledge/history passed onto the individuals, before they start their first term.

For management, it is about learning the corporate knowledge during their employment and then learning specific skills, through training and development of skills and knowledge relating to the next step up the ladder. Transition training can be achieved by seconding individuals to their next role, when the incumbent goes on leave, so that they learn the ropes before stepping up to the role full time.

Good governance and operational management are exemplified by great planning for the future, which must include effective succession planning. By applying the Three Ts – Tenure, Talent and Transition – your organisation will be prepared for complication free succession of the board and senior management roles, in a planned and structured manner, but also will be well positioned to respond immediately to the unexpected transitions that occur from time to time.

For more information or assistance with your succession planning, contact Ron Browne , Managing Consultant on 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Training - what is your plan?

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 01:23:00 GMT

Every business should have both an L&D plan and budget

Training – what is your plan?

Learning is a lifelong process, for those who are open to it. Developing new skills, refining old ones and adapting to the ever-present changes in the workplace, are essential for everyone in your team.

By training your staff, and even your directors, in the skills appropriate to their input to your organisation, you lift the standard of performance and therefore the results the business can achieve.

Every business should have both an L&D (learning/training and development) plan and budget, to guide the development of staff and the board. Neither has to be complex or too extensive, but to have one is the first step on the journey to improving organisational performance.

Staff Training

Many businesses complain that ‘I train my staff…and then they leave’. I have often repeated Sir Richard Branson’s mantra – ‘Train your staff well enough so they can leave you, then treat them well enough so they don’t want to’. The other response the I learned in my time at Action Business Coaching was – ‘The alternative is you don’t train them…and they stay!’

One of our responsibilities as employers, and boards, is to offer our employees an opportunity to excel – be the best they can be – and to achieve that result, training and developing them is critical. You will take the odd hit, with an employee you have invested in moving on anyway, but sometimes you have to let the chick fly the coop to set their own path.

Usually, when you invest in developing people, they feel more valued and will want to both contribute more and remain more loyal. And better trained staff perform better, invariably lifting the results for your organisation, from a profit and productivity point of view.

To establish a learning and development plan, you first need to do a simple training needs analysis, that starts with all employees filling out a skills matrix (as a self-assessment and available from me) which will identify where their strengths and weaknesses lie. Once you see where the team and individual gaps are, you can start to design the plan for both the individuals and the team (if needed).

The simple approach is to focus on the ‘task critical’ skills and see how they fit with an individual’s career path plan. Giving the individual team member some input into their own personal L&D plan is critical to ensure buy-in and commitment. Where the proposed skills training aligns with both the company’s goals and the individual’s career path, then there will be great synergy and greater compliance with the learning goals.

The plan can be for an individual to gain a qualification in a particular period of time, be it a single Unit of Competence (UoC), a Skill Set (a combination of UoCs), micro credentials (short courses) or full qualifications which can range from a certificate to a diploma or degree.

Whatever is the most appropriate form of training, including non-accredited training courses, will provide the most benefit to the learner who is consulted and agrees their plan.

L&D Budget

This is the point where many micro and small clubs enter a state of panic! We can’t afford to train our staff!! I counsel you to calm down and understand that you DO NOT need to train every staff member every year.

Start small and as the results lift the organisation’s performance, your budget can grow. Some companies work on a percentage of turnover or payroll as a budget (remember the Training Guarantee Levy in the 90’s – 1.5 percent of your payroll allocated to training) and so you can start with as little as $1,000.00.

That can pay for one course worth $1,000.00 or two courses for $500.00 or five courses for $200.00. so even the smallest of businesses can make a start with a realistic budget and some research. Bringing in an outside trainer on a daily rate can often result in even more bang for your buck.

Over time, with the results of ongoing training, you will be able to plan and afford to train most staff on a regular basis to help them achieve their personal development and career path aspirations, whilst providing payback to the company in the form of improved results.

Director training

Where appropriate, if you have a board of directors, you should allocate budget for some professional development training for them too, to improve their knowledge and application of good governance principles. Conduct a skills assessment, similar to that for your staff, however the focus should lean more towards governance topics than operational, although naturally there will be some overlap.

Most often the key areas to invest in professional development for directors these days include, but are not limited to financial literacy, risk management, digital technology, cybersecurity and social media.

Remember that director training is aimed at improving the directors’ knowledge of areas that they need to oversee, as opposed to areas you want them to get involved in (operationally). A director cannot successfully oversee operations that they have no knowledge of, and whilst they do not need to become subject matter experts, they need to understand how operations look when executed properly.

Business Planning

In the Workforce Review article in January 2021, I mentioned part of your business planning – specifically strategic planning – entails reviewing what your workforce needs to look like, now and into the future, to meet the needs of your customers. This means you may identify new skills and knowledge that have not been required in the past, but will definitely be needed in the future if your business is to survive.

As I mentioned in the March article about strategic planning – the benefit of the plan is in the planning – and so it is with the L&D Plan. In creating the plan, you are required to establish the current skills and knowledge of your team, to identify where you may need to provide support training. The side benefit is you may discover hidden talents in your team through the skills assessment process, where you can redeploy someone to the greater benefit of the organisation, as well as identifying the best training plan for that individual.

If you need assistance to conduct a skills assessment/training needs analysis to start an L&D plan for your organisation, talk to Ron Browne , Managing Partner, Extrapreneur Services on 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

Check out those facilities!

ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au (Ron Browne) — Fri, 13 Aug 2021 03:03:06 GMT

As Sir Winston Churchill famously said

Check out those facilities!

As I write this article, most of NSW is in COVID lockdown. Greater Sydney, Central Coast, Illawarra and the Blue Mountains are in their seventh week and projections currently are for another eleven weeks. If that comes true, hospitality – the first to be shut down every time – will have been in lockdown and unable to trade for 18 weeks!

Some venues can do a small amount of takeaway business, and some have offered their venues to the health services for either COVID testing or vaccination centres, or both. Elsewhere, portions of the rest of the state are either in shorter lockdowns or in reduced operating mode – where you can only have one person per four square metres on premise, staff have to wear masks and room capacities need to be observed. Who’d be in hospitality right now – right?

So, for those boards and senior executives of clubs and owners of pubs, restaurants and cafes, now is actually a fantastic opportunity to review your facilities. There are two modes of review you should be thinking about –

the standard of your existing facilities and going forward,
what facilities will you need to service your customers in a COVID ravaged marketplace and survive as a business?

Current facilities

Many hospitality businesses were just starting to recover from the first round of COVID and we had some reasonable trade from the start of the year till 25th June, when whammo, let’s go back into lockdown. Did you accrue funds to do anything other than pay off debt incurred during 2020, trying to survive and meet rent and wages commitments? Probably not, but if you were able to, you’re probably draining those resources now. So, what I am about to suggest will probably raise the ire of some, however this is a review and execution process that can be implemented when finances and trading conditions allow.

What condition are your current facilities in?

X Are your bar fridge(s), glycol system(s) and cool room(s) fully functional and not breaking down constantly?

X Is your kitchen, including stoves, ovens, exhaust fans, grease traps, deep fryers or salamanders, clean and well maintained?

X How old is your air conditioning (Heating Ventilation and Cooling HVAC) system(s) and what maintenance or repairs do they require?

X What state are your premises in – carpet, paint, furniture, toilets, roof, carpark (if you have one) and disabled access and amenities?

X For sporting clubs, how are the bowling green(s), football field(s), tennis court(s), golf course and marinas for boat clubs?

X Any club or pub with a gaming room – how many machines do you have/need on the floor, how old are they and are they popular games?

X What is the status of your in-house IT systems – hardware and software – for point of sale (POS), membership, gaming and rewards?

X If you have a courtesy bus, is it new or used and abused, and on its last legs?

This is more about utilising the enforced down time to do a full audit of the premises and facilities you offer, to consider where they are in their lifecycle and what your next step might be in a maintenance or replacement cycle.

How many of you have an Asset Register which lists all your assets, records when an item was purchased, its purchase price, its estimated useful lifespan, identifies the depreciation rate and allows you to plan for replacement? I feel like the larger more sophisticated organisations will have these and the smaller ones may not have thought about it. Your accountants might have a de facto asset register for you on big ticket items, through your depreciation schedule, but you need to cover off the other things that may not have ever been listed.

If you do this now, whilst you have the time, you have the benefit of not being distracted by trading and can assess all assets critically. Make the list of everything and then add in four additional columns:

X Current condition – New / Good / Fair / Poor / Unserviceable

X Options – Maintain / Repair / Replace

X Cost – analyse what the option will cost

X Timing – for any of the three options above, you can prioritise what needs to be done more urgently and what can wait and trade that off against the cost involved, to decide the timing

Obviously ‘ mission critical ’ buildings, facilities, plant and equipment should have the highest priority and those things that are not critical to trading when we re-open, can go further down the priority list. But don’t forget them! Put them in the plan and set some targets, as to when you have to deal with them by, and start accruing funds to deal with them when the time comes.

Be ruthless in the assessment of things like the number of gaming machines you need on the floor (where this is part of your operation), because if COVID has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that smarter management of our electronic gaming machines (EGMs/pokies) yield the same or better turnover and returns than we were doing pre-COVID. Not to mention analysing and projecting use levels of things like the courtesy bus, the number of bowling greens and the kids play area (if you have one).

Going forward, you may not need the amount of facilities you used to need pre-COVID, so selling surplus assets and reducing the number of EGMs on your gaming floor (but retaining the entitlement for possible future re-use) and selling the physical machine, can start your accrual fund for other later repairs or purchases.

Future facilities

Polish up your crystal balls ladies and gentlemen…

If you have done a strategic planning session recently, to create a new plan or review an existing one, you will have considered whether your client base is growing, static or shrinking. You have probably considered the changing needs and wants in the community too, in terms of what they want at their local club, pub or restaurant.

A classic example for many clubs is the full-sized snooker table(s). Are these being used – regularly? Do the users contribute to the revenue of the club? Do you still need these in the club or would a pool table be a better investment and use of space? I know it can be heresy to say so, but if less than 20 people are using the table(s) at least once per week, why have you still got it/them?

For some clubs, the review of the local demographics is important too – is your client base aging, getting younger or staying the same? Depending on the answer to that question, what facilities do you need to provide or which ones can you do away with (no longer relevant or needed)?

You need to be innovative in your assessment of future facilities too. If you are in a growth area, is it growing with retirees or young families? What will the growing population really want for their entertainment and well-being. What will be the most pressing need –

X Aged Care facilities

X Child Care facilities

X Gymnasium

X Medical Centre

X Shopping centre

X Bowling alley

X In house cinema

X Supermarket

X Service Station

X Motel or other form of accommodation

X Taxi service

X Financial services (especially in regional towns that no longer have a bank)

X Home maintenance service for the elderly and infirm

The list could be limitless, but now is a great time to be thinking about the future needs of your community. Perhaps set up a questionnaire in Survey Monkey (contact me for assistance) to put out into your community and amongst your members, to fill in and get up to date feedback on what they really need you to provide – now and into the future.

Then apply the same planning rationale in terms of need, cost and timings to the things identified to see how you can plan toward providing those new or additional facilities.

As Sir Winston Churchill said “Never let a good crisis go to waste”, so utilise the opportunity to rigorously review -

X What do we have now?

X What do we need now?

X What will we need in the future?

Make the decisions and set the path for a secure future, by working towards maximising the return on investment of your facilities.

For more information contact Ron Browne , Managing Consultant 0414 633 423 or ron@extrapreneurservices.com.au

As Sir Winston Churchill famously said

Check out those facilities!

the standard of your existing facilities and going forward,
what facilities will you need to service your customers in a COVID ravaged marketplace and survive as a business?