October Business Month

October is my favourite time of the year in the Northern Territory simply because of October Business Month. There are so many fantastic events and networking opportunities that all business owners go crazy learning whatever they can about improving their business and maximising their business connections through solid networking.

Last week I attended a few events and there was so much inspiration that I’ve probably picked all my blog topics for the rest of the year. I’ll briefly give you an overview about each one of the events I attended and I might put up additional postings during the month as they occur.

Monday, 1st October 2007 - Massage Anyone? A good family friend of ours recently retired from government and plunged head first into the wonderful world of small business ownership. Sincere congratulations go out to Chandra, as he is the proud new owner of the Jade Therapeutic Centre on 3/44 Cavenagh Street. The Centre contains individual Migun Thermal Massage Beds that provide you with automatic massages in all the right spots. You pay for whatever amount of time you like and lay down on one of the heated massage beds and let the machines do their work. The business has been operating for the past two years, so they’re definitely doing something right! If you’re feeling tired or stressed out, I highly recommend visiting the centre and getting one of these amazing massages. A few minutes on one of those beds can relieve a week’s worth of tension and have you fully relaxed and ready to take on the world again!

Tuesday, 2nd October 2007 - October Business Month Launch I attended the launch of October Business Month at Sky City Casino. It was great seeing a few old faces that I’ve met along the way since I’ve been in business and the guest speaker - Mr Peter Switzer was quite entertaining and interesting. I had a chance to catch up with him afterwards and he very kindly accepted an invitation to be interviewed for Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead! so stay tuned for the interview.

Wednesday, 3rd October - The Secret I didn’t attend any seminars today but I did watch a dvd called “The Secret” given to me by Nathaniel Peek from Pixel Harvester . He’d originally borrowed it out thinking it was a thriller movie but instead it was actually a motivational documentary. The main idea in the documentary is that it explains the “Universal Law of Attraction” , which is something I find fascinating as it appears so simple but not many people do it. This is going to be a separate post in itself so stay tuned for that also!

Hang on… I just remembered that I did attend a seminar today! It was “Success Beyond Tomorrow” and it was basically a bunch of presentations by various Government, business, and industry experts presenting topics on how they could all assist small business. It was an interesting session and I made some good contacts. There was one guy there from the Australian Taxation Office that I think deserves a medal because its a VERY hard task to present the ATO in a positive light and state that they actually want to assist small businesses with compliance instead of auditing them out of business. Mick did a great job and certainly put my mind at ease…although the rest of the room gave him quite a hard time!

Thursday, 4th October - Speed Networking I attended the Young Professional Network’s Speed Networking Session at Lewinskys Restaurant and it was a grand success. I met some really fantastic people whom I’ve never met before - and also saw a few familiar faces from around the place. Darwin is like that, sometimes you’ll meet people you know and other times you’ll meet complete strangers that have lived in Darwin for a long time but you’ve never seen them. If you’re not a member of YPN, I highly recommend getting on board as they’re a fantastic bunch of people who are passionate about fostering social and business connections amongst Young Territorians.

Also, a special hello to the travelling Youth Worker that I met after the event. Thank you for your thoughts on how to inspire and motivate the Youth of the NT, and good luck with your dreams!

Friday, 5th October - Thinking Big Thank god it was the end of the week because I was feeling quite worn down by all the networking I’d been doing throughout the week. But I still wanted to check out Rob Hartnett’s presentation on how to grow your business by thinking big. I must admit that it wasn’t as good as I thought it would be and I didn’t really learn anything revolutionary, but it was still great food for thought and I know that every person who attended got excellent value out of it.

So there we have it, quite a week indeed! Please check out the DBERD Calendar of Events and attend at least one of the events. You’ll thank me later!

One final thing I’d like to mention is that whenever I travel outside of Darwin people often ask me why I still live there. My usual response is “it’s the place to be for business”. During the opening of October Business Month, the Minister for Tourism - The Honourable Paul Henderson mentioned in his speech that the Territory is the “Land of Opportunity” and having spent the week in seminars and networking events I realised that sums up the Territory entirely. While I’m not familiar with how things work for other states and territories around australia,one thing is for sure - in the Territory, all you need is one good idea and there are heaps of people up here to assist you to turn your idea into reality.

Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!

AJ~

Author: AJ Kulatunga

Category:

october business month, motivation, inspiration, networking