Last week I attended COSBOA in Melbourne.

I distinctly remember having a conversation 12 months earlier with a wonderful lady at a conference in Sydney who said she worked at COSBOA and I, not only had to ask what COSBOA was, but also had to do some googling afterwards – because I still didn’t know!

COSBOA is the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (just in case you also don’t know either!).  Side note, if you are in small business, they are well worth a follow on their socials to keep up to date with what’s happening in the world of Small Business.

I have to thank my good business friend Tracy Sheen for giving me the nudge to go this year – she flew from QLD, so I could hardly say no, it was just a 4 hour car ride for me, after all!

I wanted to share with you the things I learned from attending a 2 day COSBOA conference and perhaps encourage you to put it on your calendar for 2024 to attend.

So, what did I learn? Let’s me share my biggest takeaways as a small business consultant and a business owner myself.

1. Mental Health is an enormous issue when it comes to business. Brett Smith from RFCS talked about a report from the National Farmers Federation, which had just recently come out, about mental health and specifically that of farmers.  45% of farmers have felt depressed and almost two-thirds (64%) experience anxiety.  Farmers aren’t unique, business owners everywhere are struggling.  The Big Small Business Survey that was undertaken in 2022 by myself and Katrina McCarter, Dale Beaumont, Andrew Griffiths and David Jenyns, found that 58% of small business owners had experienced a mental health challenge in the past two years with the key stressors being – not having enough money to provide for themselves or their family (15.78%), having decent boundaries between work and family (10.46%) and dealing with the increased cost of living (8.58%). And although Mental Health was a big topic at COSBOA 2023, there wasn’t a lot of solutions focussed chat going on.  It was more about having open conversations about the epidemic it is.  It will be interesting to see in the Federal Budget and subsequent State by State budgets in 2023, how much focus is put on finding solutions to the mental health crisis gripping 1 in every 2 small business owners.

2. Robert Tedesco from American Express talked about their experience and knowledge in marketing to Millennials and Gen Z customers and how their strategy has been significantly different. Millennials and Gen Zs are definitely shopping with more heart and are more likely to support brands that are making a positive impact, than those who are not.  And their definition of wealth seems to be very different to past generations.  Millennials and Gen Zs are after experiences.  That’s how they are measuring wealth. Robert gave a great example of thinking differently with marketing. It went something like this – take holiday planning for instance.  Everyone needs a holiday!  So, as a marketer, your marketing can start at the point at which your prospect has decided to go to Hawaii for their holiday OR you can show up before they know where to go, BUT they come across Hawaii as an option to holiday in, because of your marketing strategies.  The difference is subtle but significant. When you think about all the touch points your business has in relation to your ideal client or prospects, how many are “cold audience” touch points (haven’t heard of you or what you have for sale) and how many are “warm/hot audience” touch points (they know they need to buy x, it’s just whether they buy it from you or your competition).  Take the Hawaii example and examine your own marketing strategy.

3. On day 2 there was a great panel discussion around Industrial Relations for Small Businesses and all the laws that govern us. Tony Ingpen from IGA Mt Evelyn, was the small business voice on the panel voicing how difficult it is to keep up with the ever-changing laws for small business owners – not only from a paperwork side of things but from an employer’s perspective.  What’s best for your business, when looking to employ someone, is becoming a question that’s not as easy to answer as it should be with all the laws. I did feel a little sorry for Sandra Parker, who was the Fair Work Ombudsman representative, as questions and comments were coming in thick and fast at times (but with great respect). The laws that govern small businesses are always changing. In fact, for many small business owners, changing all too rapidly to keep up.  It was discussed by the panel about the fact that, with Easter coming up, all employees working on public holidays, had to be asked if they wanted to work, even if it was their normal rostered day, and if the answer was no, that was the result and if they weren’t asked at all and just rostered on, then that was a breach of the Industrial Relations laws.  Mind-blowing, yes?  I’ll leave this here, I think!  Tony, from IGA, made the point that some IR laws are impacting the way he runs his business and can see that some compliance is ensuring that there are fewer employable hours available for staff, which, of course, has the “less money” butterfly effect on the circular economy. Someone did make a great point, and I didn’t write down who said it, so apologies for that, but the person basically said, “If you make the law too hard to follow and compliance too hard to manage, then Ai (robots) become the solution”.  We are a long way from robots packing our groceries, but there are many other jobs that Ai is already serving, and they aren’t governed by IR Laws.  Something for lawmakers to consider. Are lawmakers futurists?  Future thinking enough? The quote of the day did come from Stuart Clues, TAS Business Advocate, who said that “Government needs to get out of the way of Small Business and take barriers to business away.  Government should be there to protect People, Place and Products, the rest they should leave alone”.

4. Cyber Security was another big topic covered at COSBOA. A great panel was put together to talk about all things cyber security.  The conversation was big and broad and, in my mind, and I voiced my concerns, as a small business consultant, it was too broad – too big.  I find it hard enough to convince some small business owners to enable their two-factor authentication on their social media channels, to keep them safe, never alone some of the conversations that were happening here on this panel. Some interesting, although scary, facts shared with us were:

• The average hacker spends 15 weeks in your emails to learn your behaviours and patterns before gaining access to all your information – yep 15 weeks.
• We, as potential victims of a hacker, have to get our security right 100% of the time, but the hacker just needs to get lucky once.
• Hackers are no longer targeting the “weakest link” in your security or team or systems, they now have the funds to target everyone.

The panel asked the audience, “If you were locked out of your systems/computers etc, because of hackers, how long could you continue to operate your business? 1 hour, 1 day, 1 month?”.  When thinking about cyber security we also need a focus on recovery. If we are hacked, what systems and processes do we have in place for recovery?  Either recovery from the hack or just recovery to operate our businesses again.  Something every small business, no matter how big or small, needs to consider and make a plan for.  Narelle from Telstra encouraged us to make the investment in what matters most when it comes to cyber security. The panel discussed the need for incentives for small businesses to invest in R&D when it comes to their tech and security. We need to create more conversations around cyber security.

Lastly, I want to quote Narelle Devine from Telstra, who had an excellent, very tongue-in-cheek point about customer service.  If you want to know what good customer service and experience looks like, we can learn a lot from hackers!

Another interesting conversation that I was involved in several times during the two days, was a comment by Lynda McAlary-Smith, Victoria’s Small Business Commissioner, who said that schools don’t embrace entrepreneurship enough.  This is definitely my experience with the school systems.  Senior students are talked to about 3 options when leaving or finishing school – University, TAFE or Apprenticeships.  Encouraging entrepreneurship is rarely a discussion.  I think this will change with more universities and colleges offering entrepreneur programs and courses, but considering that over 97% of businesses in Australia are small businesses, there’s a lot of entrepreneurship happening out there without the encouragement of the school systems. And the schools do need to push it more. 

Bruce Billson, Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman told a hairy tale of small business in Australia in his final address to COSBOA on Day 2.  Some stats he shared were:

• Over 50% of small business owners are over 50 years of age.
• Only 8% are under 30.
• Female small business owners make up 35% of the landscape – and this number is growing – YAY us!
• 61% of small business owners earn less than $78,000 per annum.
• 1 in 5 small business owners work multiple jobs to pay the bills
• 48% of small businesses in the previous tax year failed to make a profit.
• Small Business makes up one-third of Australia’s GDP.
• 43% of all apprentices are employed by a small business.

Everyone talks about the fact that small business is the backbone of our economy, and yet, governments and stakeholders continue to mine our natural resources and invest in other sectors, when perhaps if Small Businesses already make up one-third of GDP, with investment and government resources tailored to this sector, small business would have a bigger impact on the future stability of our economy with fewer fluctuations perhaps?

Our economy, our future, and the future of small business will be run by emerging thought leaders and pathfinders for small business and the world will always reward those who turn up (Bruce-ism).

Here’s to fanning the flames of small business innovation and having more events like COSBOA where the future of small business is the focus.

Join me in 2024 for COSBOA, where, along with Tracy Sheen, Renae Hanvin and myself hope to put Rural, Regional, and Remote small businesses more on the agenda – watch this space!

Love to hear your comments and thoughts about my round-up on the 2-day conference at COSBOA – reach out and let’s chat SB!

Connect with Jenn:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenndonovan_

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenndonovan.au

Private Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/LikeMindedBusinessOwners

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenn-donovan/